Gundam Wing: Destiny's Call

by operation meteor

Sequel to Journey to a New Battlefield. It's been two years since the Bloody Valentine War and tensions are rising. When a shadowy group attacks the colony of Armory One, a certain Gundam pilot takes to the battlefield once again. However, little to his knowledge, some old friends are on a journey to his new world. M for language and violence (again, it's war. What do you expect?)

34. Chapter 34

Author's Notes: Hello there! Despite still suffering from this stupid cough I've had since the start of the month, this has wound up being quite the productive week for my writing. Dropped the latest Eye's of the Soul chapter a few days ago, and now I have this one done. Also pretty far along on the next chapter for The Pirate's Soldier, I'll probably have that one finished and posted sometime next month.

Song list for the chapter, in order of appearance: "Fighter" from Ace Combat: Assault Horizon, "Steel Haze (Rusted Pride) from Armored Core VI: Fires of Rubicon, "Hush" from Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, "Tournament of Aces" by YouTuber Lucas Ricciotti (only the first video, though you should check out the second one as well, the guy does phenomenal medleys!), and "Daredevil" from Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown.

Word of warning, if you haven't been following Titanic X's tie-in story to this one, you're going to be quite confused about a certain ship and mobile suits that are part of the operation in this chapter, so maybe go back and read Gundam Wing: The Phoenix Rising if you haven't already.

Enjoy!

Episode Thirty-Four: Aces United

January 3rd, C.E. 74

When Talia's video call connected, she was treated to the face of a rather surprised Durandal. "Talia, is everything alright? My secretary said that you were most insistent on reaching me."

Talia's eyes narrowed slightly as she studied what little bit of background she could see; from what she could tell, Durandal did not appear to be in his Gibraltar office. "Chairman, where are you, exactly?"

"Oh, I forgot that word wouldn't have reached you yet," Durandal replied, "I'm heading back to the PLANTs as we speak. You'll understand if I can't give exact flight details."

Talia nodded, keeping her face impassive to hide fresh anxiety. "Of course. Does your sudden departure have anything to do with recent developments… in Iceland and otherwise?"

Durandal sighed heavily. "I'm afraid it does. The Supreme Council issued a recall summons as soon as the Heaven's Base operation ended. My colleagues are understandably disturbed, and an accounting is in order."

Talia blinked as her mind rapidly processed what she'd just heard. "A recall summons? Chairman… if I'm out of line here, feel free to tell me so, but does this mean…"

Durandal raised a hand to cut her off, though he still managed a smile. "At such a crucial point in this war, I highly doubt that the Council is going to convene a confidence vote, let alone seek my removal. In light of our defeat, it's imperative to present a united leadership front to the people for the sake of limiting morale damage. I suspect what awaits me and those involved in the operation's planning is simply an inquiry. Not something I look forward to, but nothing extraordinary given the circumstances. After all, the former regime's leader had plenty of defeats under his watch, and the Council never moved to oust him. Besides, even if some members of the Council have soured on my leadership due to what happened at Iceland and elsewhere, I have it on good authority that my detractors lack the numbers to overcome my core support bloc. My position remains secure."

Talia inwardly sighed with relief. Her disagreements with Durandal's recent decisions aside, she wanted him to remain in power, if for no other reason than so the PLANTs could avoid a potentially chaotic and divisive leadership contest. She understood well what sort of ripples would come down the chain, how such political campaigns could impact cohesion amongst even the rank and file. Patrick Zala's eventually successful efforts to unseat Siegel Clyne as Supreme Council Chairman during the First Bloody Valentine War had fostered cracks in ZAFT even as the military was still broadly united in fighting for the cause of Coordinator survival. It was only once the radical faction's true intentions became clear that the fracturing of ZAFT commenced in earnest, but in hindsight it was clear to Talia that the seeds had been sown during the election campaign. Given their recent setbacks and the already battered state of morale, the last thing ZAFT needed in Talia's eyes was for the Supreme Council to kick off a round of high-profile infighting.

"That's good to hear, Chairman," Talia eventually replied, "I hope the inquiry can at least be productive. Given the scale of our defeat, it's clear that an examination of the operation at all stages is needed so we can learn and avoid similar setbacks in the future."

Durandal inclined his head. "Well spoken, Talia. I might not be eager for such an inquest, but I understand the necessity. Fortune willing, my colleagues on the Supreme Council will ensure it gets straight to the heart of the matter and produces valuable solutions for going forward."

"I wish you luck, Chairman," Talia said.

Durandal smiled. "I appreciate that. Just knowing that I have your support will be more than enough to keep my spirits buoyed."

Talia then took a deep breath. "Chairman… you surely know that I'm not reaching out tonight to discuss Council politics, important though that might be. The assault on Paris… you've seen the footage, haven't you?"

Durandal's shoulders slumped as he let slip a heavy exhalation. "I have. The barbarity of LOGOS and their Atlantic Federation puppets truly knows no bounds. I can only offer my deepest condolences to the survivors and take this as further proof of our campaign's necessity. You know just as well as I do that LOGOS will only unleash further horrors upon the world until their hateful flame has been extinguished."

Talia gritted her teeth. "Respectfully, Chairman, we can offer the survivors and victims far more than just our condolences and vows to avenge their suffering. We owe them far more than mere platitudes."

Durandal's eyebrows arched slightly. "I'm afraid that I don't take your meaning, Talia."

Out of the webcam's view range, Talia clenched her fists in frustration; she was not going to let Durandal get away with playing dumb here. "Respectfully, Chairman, I think you do. We brought about this catastrophe, and it's on us to help deal with."

Wisely, Durandal dropped the act. "I can see how you and others would come to that conclusion, and it's not without merit. The Atlantic Federation's savagery in France followed our defeat at Heaven's Base, so it's reasonable to assume that the success they found with their new weapons convinced them that they now possessed the power needed to avenge their earlier setbacks in Europe. However, Talia, you understand just as well as I do that LOGOS and their puppets bear responsibility for their own actions. ZAFT was not the party which decided to unleash a terror campaign against civilians in this war; that is solely the province of our enemies."

"Nevertheless, we had a part to play in this affair," Talia persisted, "The enemy's actions are their own, yes, but even the blind can trace the chain of events that led to them easily enough. How do you think the rest of the world sees things? The Atlantic Federation justifiably deserves the vast outrage they're already on the receiving end of, yet the world would be remiss if it did not consider our failure to account for new weapons such as this dreadnought and her Mobile Dolls when executing our operation. ZAFT failed not only in our attack on Heaven's Base, but to contain the monsters that our failure unleashed. We have an obligation to atone for that, Chairman."

"Need I remind you, Talia, that the Eurasian Federation is not our ally?" Durandal countered, "While their military action has been rightly concentrated on the Atlantic Federation ever since the European invasion began, Moscow's government is still officially in a state of war with the PLANTs. They've even struck against us; their ASAT launches were crucial in allowing the Dominion and that prototype cruiser the Eurasians loaned Terminal to slip through our observation net, and that cost us dearly during Operation: Angel Down."

Talia nodded. "I understand that, Chairman, but when we weigh their actions against those of the Atlantic Federation, I hardly see a real balance. The Atlantic Federation is an overwhelming threat. Not just to us, but the rest of the world. This latest atrocity only emphasizes that point."

"I can't argue with you there," Durandal conceded before his expression hardened, "but that does not change the legal reality. Like it or not, they are still at war with us, and they have rendered aid to another of our enemies. The massive loss of civilian life in Europe is a tragedy, but the resources that the Eurasian Federation will expend in countering LOGOS's assault further depletes their own military, which only serves to help us. Two of our enemies are beating each other to a pulp, Talia, and who are we to interrupt them?"

Talia had to work hard to keep her composure. "Chairman, who do you think the Atlantic Federation will deploy that dreadnought against once they're finished with Europe? That beast and its Mobile Dolls are just as much a threat to ZAFT as they are to the Eurasians; Heaven's Base has already proven that. We know that we can't stop it on our own, and Paris has shown that the Eurasians can't, either. Only a united front has a chance against that thing, and not just one formed by us and Moscow."

Durandal's eyes narrowed. "You would seek out an alliance with Terminal?"

"A truce," Talia corrected, "One just for the sake of taking down Sovereign. It wouldn't be the first time we've entered into an alliance of convenience with them, and I'm confident that they would see the necessity of such action. Sovereign and its Mobile Dolls will be as dangerous to them as they are to us and Moscow. We all have an interest in their destruction."

"That may be true," Durandal admitted, "but Terminal has now shown themselves to be just as much an enemy of ZAFT as the Atlantic Federation. They cannot be trusted in any sort of cooperative venture. We may have worked well with their Gundam pilots in the past, but that period of cooperation is decidedly over."

Talia's head snapped back; was the Chairman just going to dismiss the most sensible solution to this crisis out of hand? "Gilbert…"

Durandal sighed wearily. "Talia, I understand your position, and I truly do appreciate your input and suggestions. I know that you have our best interests at heart. However, at this time, I'm afraid that there's nothing we can do. Our losses at Iceland were grievous, and we now possess barely sufficient strength to defend Gibraltar, let alone engage in any offensive or expeditionary operations. Minerva and the survivors of our fleet must return to base and shore up the defense. I have no doubt that Sovereign will eventually be turned against Gibraltar and Diocuia, and in light of our recent casualties I foresee considerable difficulty in persuading both the Defense and Supreme Councils to authorize the reinforcements required to both further fortify those positions and take on the dreadnought. Until I can ensure those reinforcements will be heading your way, hunkering down and bracing against the coming storm is our only option."

Talia took a deep breath. "Is that your final decision, Chairman?"

Durandal slowly nodded. "I'm afraid it is. I'm sorry, Talia. Truly, I am. Return to base and get some rest. I have no doubt you need it. Farewell."

The video call ended, leaving Talia sitting in numb silence. For all her growing list of disagreements with Durandal's actions in the war thus far, she had still believed that he would understand the gravity of the new threat and recognize the need for quickly countering it, even if that meant reaching out to their other adversaries. She had not foreseen being so decisively shut down.

Is this really how it goes?, she thought, Do we leave Europe to its fate? Do we retreat to our bases or hide up in orbit while millions burn?

Do we let them stand alone?

She sat in silence for a long time, and eventually began running back through the previous conversation in her head with a fine-toothed comb. Durandal had stated the 'Minerva and the survivors of our fleet must return to base and shore up the defense,' but the fleet would've been useless against the dreadnought anyway now that the beast was inland. The Minerva herself would've been of questionable utility given the damages she'd suffered in the last battle, and that was assuming the Eurasians trusted ZAFT enough to let the battleship cross into their territory.

It's not the fleet, she realized, or even the Minerva, that's needed here. It's mobile suits… and only a few. From our ship and one more… and they'll need to cooperate with Terminal and Moscow.

It was a fine needle that Talia sought to thread. She'd be playing her authority as a member of FAITH to the hilt, possibly overstepping it. Even if her scheme succeeded, there could be serious repercussions for her afterwards once word got out. Then again, what was her career when compared to the suffering of millions? If risking possible court martial was the price she had to pay to potentially save countless lives, then she'd happily pay it.

Talia stood up and headed for the office door. She'd normally call Arthur and have him summon the people she needed for briefing, but this wasn't going to be a normal operation. Approaching the pilots in person was necessary, especially if she wanted to underline the point to them that this operation would be proceeding without official sanction. Talia imagined that the young men in question would be quite surprised to find her visiting them in the middle of the night…

…but not nearly as surprised as she was when she opened the door, stepped out into the hallway, and nearly collided with two of the pilots she'd been going to find.

"Athrun, Wufei," she said as she came to an abrupt stop, finding the two of them had just about reached her doorway, "What brings you two here at this hour?"

The two pilots glanced at each other before Wufei nodded, prompting Athrun to take the lead. "It's concerning the dreadnought and what's happening in Europe, Captain. Could we go in your office? It's something that's best discussed behind closed doors."

The focused look in their eyes was all Talia needed to know that, despite the carnival of horrors playing out in Europe and Durandal's refusal to intervene, the heavens hadn't forsaken humanity just yet. There was surely only one reason Athrun and Wufei were here now; they had a plan, and more importantly, they had the will to act where others would not.

So, Talia simply nodded and ushered them inside. Whatever crazy scheme the pilots had come up with, she would do everything in her power to see it enacted, consequences be damned.

….

Pacing back and forth on the dreadnought's bridge, Nazara's irritation was palpable. By rights, he should have been jubilant; Paris had been reduced to a ruined hellscape, a perfect demonstration of Atlantic Federation power and vengeance if ever there was one. Sovereign had played her part splendidly, showing off the fearsome might of her arsenal and her impermeable defenses for all to see. Her Mobile Dolls had been equally successful, with only a single Krähe unit being destroyed as the dreadnought and her escorts had cleared the wider metropolitan area, shot down by a lucky surface-to-air missile whose launcher had been destroyed almost immediately afterwards. Well, there was also that hack they'd suffered courtesy of the resistance, but that was after their work had been completed, and what difference would a single speech make, anyway? The ravaging of Paris had been, in almost every metric possible, an outstanding success, eclipsed only by their decisive victory over ZAFT at Heaven's Base the day prior.

Yet Nazara could not bask in the afterglow of that victory. Almost immediately after Sovereign had left Paris airspace, a fresh series of malfunctions had plagued her engines, and the dreadnought was now proceeding at practically a snail's pace towards her next target. As the crew worked frantically to resolve the issues, her Mobile Dolls were being rotated through the hangars for repairs and maintenance, and Nazara had taken the opportunity to have Nosferatu Dracul checked over as well.

"You might as well get a bit of rest, Colonel," Captain Dixon advised, "No harm in getting a few hours of shuteye. Respectfully, your presence will have zero impact on the repair progression."

Beneath the mask, Nazara's brow twitched in agitation. Dixon was one of the few men who could get away with speaking to him in such a manner, and only because his devotion to the cause of Coordinator annihilation and LOGOS's dominance over the Earth Sphere was as fervent as the Colonel's, not to mention they both had a keen appreciation for the other's twisted personality. In fact, Dixon was in a rare club; one of the very few people in all the world that Nazara counted as an actual friend. Still, the forbearance of that friendship had limits.

"Oh, I don't know about that," the Colonel growled as he cast his gaze around the bridge, "I can always find new ways to incentivize an increase in that progression's pace."

Dixon frowned. "Need I remind you, sir, that you selected this ship's crew in no small part because of their loyalty to our cause? It would be a shame if any of your 'incentives' reduced the numbers of our devoted cadre. The Atlantic Federation has been suffering a dearth of loyalty as it is in recent times."

Nazara clenched his jaw. "You do raise a good point."

Dixon cleared his throat. "Colonel, there's another matter that I'd like to discuss with you in private."

Nazara eyed him in curiosity before nodding. "Very well."

Dixon motioned for his XO to take over before leading the Colonel out of the bridge and into a private communications suite just down the corridor. Once the door slid shut behind them, the dreadnought's Captain folded his arms and fixed Nazara with a grim stare.

"The technicians will get the engine issues sorted out soon enough," Dixon began, "but I have to wonder if it might not be wiser to forgo Vienna as a target, at least for the time being."

Nazara hadn't been expecting that. "Cold feet, Captain? That's not like you, especially not after all the fun we had with Paris. What's really going on here?"

"I'm worried about reprisal," Dixon answered, "and not from the Eurasians. We can take anything they have to offer. My concern is Wing Zero."

"Latest intel reports had it on the other side of the world," Nazara pointed out, "All the way out in the Orb Union, I believe."

"Word of our assault on Paris went out across the Earth Sphere as we were carrying it out," Dixon replied, "A good amount of time's already gone by, and I think you know just as well as I do that your nemesis will not let our actions here go unanswered."

Nazara smiled. "No, he will not. In fact, I expect he's already on his way to meet us. That's why we invested so heavily in the positron reflectors; not even Wing Zero's rifle can pierce them."

"Theoretically," Dixon remarked, his expression darkening, "That hasn't been confirmed yet… and there's only one way to get that confirmation."

"We will have it soon enough," Nazara countered with a smirk, "You saw the firepower we shrugged off back at Heaven's Base, Captain. Heero Yuy's famous weapon will be just as ineffective."

"Assuming nothing goes wrong with the reflectors," Dixon said, "These engine issues have me concerned. We're paying the price now for not taking Sovereign through proper shakedown trials."

"That tradeoff was necessary to preserve the element of surprise in Iceland," Nazara argued, "as you well know. The engine issues plaguing us since that battle are troublesome, true enough, but we've seen no similar problems with any of the other systems. The reflectors performed perfectly during our advance on Paris and in the attack itself. At this point, we can safely say that their operational status is in the green."

Nazara then took a step forward. "How long have we waited for this moment, Captain? In a war dominated by loss after humiliating loss, the momentum has finally shifted our way. ZAFT has been humbled, and the dregs of their surface fleet are scurrying for shelter. The Eurasians? They now know that nothing in their arsenal can stop Sovereign. This is our golden opportunity to push and hammer home the utter futility of standing against us. Vienna's destruction combined with the defeat of Terminal's prized aces by our Mobile Dolls and this ship's defenses will put the crown jewel on this campaign. The world will tremble before us, as it should've been doing all along!"

Dixon nodded. "You're in command of this operation, Colonel. Rest assured, I want it to succeed just as much as you do. I would've been remiss if I did not convey my concerns, though. I've now done so; whatever your orders are now, Colonel, I will follow them."

Nazara grinned. "Your concerns are noted, Captain. My orders remain unchanged. Onwards to Vienna, and to our next triumph!"

….

"Think this has anything to do with the mess in Europe?" Pixy asked as he met his flight lead in the middle of the hangar.

Cipher grunted as he cast a glance towards his mobile suit. "Probably. Can't think of any other reason for her to call us over here in the middle of the night."

Pixy stretched and yawned. "She better have a damn good reason for waking us up and having us transfer ships so damn late... actually, guess I should say early. Gotta be close to dawn by now."

The 'she' in question was Captain Gladys, and Pixy was very curious as to what game she could be playing here. Galm One and Two had been thoroughly bushed following the mess at Iceland, so when they'd finally been allowed to cease patrol and land on their carrier, they'd both promptly retired for some much-needed rest. That rest had been interrupted twice, first by news of the Atlantic Federation's latest atrocity in Europe, and then a little while later by an unusual message from the carrier's Captain; they were to transfer immediately to the Minerva and meet with her Captain for further orders.

Gladys used her FAITH authority to get us over here, Pixy mused as the mercenary duo quickly left the hangar and headed for the Captain's office, which must mean that whatever she wants us to do, it's something big. ZAFT never gives us the boring jobs, after all.

It only took them a few minutes to reach the Captain's office, and the door opened shortly, revealing Gladys herself. "Thank you for coming over so quickly. Please, come in. Time is of the essence."

Following her inside, Galm Team found that they weren't the only ones the Captain had summoned. Athrun, Rey, and Wufei were already there, and their presence was further proof to Pixy that he and his flight lead hadn't been called here for a run-of-the-mill mission.

All five of our machines are nuclear powered, he thought, which means the operation she's got in mind requires heavy firepower and extended flight range. Yeah, definitely something big in the works here.

Cipher had clearly cottoned onto that as well. "You have a high-priority target for us, Captain?"

"The highest one currently available," Gladys confirmed as she went behind her desk, "Sovereign and her Mobile Dolls."

Pixy whistled as he looked around the room. "Just the five of us going after her? I appreciate the vote of confidence in our abilities, Captain, but even Galm Team's not that good."

"Not as long as those shields are in play," Cipher amended, "and you wouldn't be organizing a mission if you didn't have a plan to deal with them."

Gladys took a deep breath. "Strictly speaking, it's not my plan. It's Heero's."

Pixy's eyes widened slightly. "Wait, really?"

Cipher likewise seemed a bit taken aback, though his reaction was to fold his arms. "What exactly is going on here, Captain?"

"This foe isn't one that ZAFT can take on by ourselves," Gladys explained, "Our defeat at Heaven's Base showed as much. Wufei recognized that early, which is why he sent his combat data on the drones and Sovereign to Terminal following the battle. Heero has been in contact with him since, and Terminal has dispatched a strike team to Europe; they're on their way over as we speak. This mission will be a joint operation between them, us, the Eurasian Federation, and other interested parties."

Pixy arched an eyebrow. "The Chairman's signing off on this? After what happened in Operation: Angel Down?"

"No, he's not," Rey grumbled, and Pixy couldn't help but take note of the brief scowl the blond sent towards Gladys.

The Captain cleared her throat. "The Chairman's orders following the Iceland engagement are for the fleet's survivors to return to Gibraltar and assume defensive posture while repairing and rearming. As a whole, the fleet will be obeying those orders. This is an operation that I am organizing under my FAITH authority."

Pixy turned to study his flight lead carefully. Their contract with ZAFT was a fairly open one; strictly speaking, the missions they undertook could be for any commander with proper authority, so they didn't necessarily require the Supreme Council Chairman to personally sign off on an operation. Still, what Gladys was saying definitely put this mission into more of a gray area than any of their previous ones.

Cipher loves a good fight, Pixy mused, but he also cares about maintaining our contract. If the Chairman's expecting us to return with the fleet and instead finds out we've gone off on a mission he wasn't aware of… even if it's payback against the weapon that trashed his forces at Iceland, he might not appreciate us going off script. Would it jeopardize the contract? We'd still be fighting Earth Alliance forces, so it shouldn't be problem. 'Shouldn't' being the key word there.

Your call, buddy.

There was a brief pause before Cipher nodded. "I understand."

Gladys seemed to relax somewhat, but she was still cautious. "You won't have any difficulties fighting alongside a pilot that's been your enemy in the past?"

Cipher shook his head. "Neither of us hold any hard feelings towards Heero or Terminal's other pilots. When we fought against them before, it was just the mission. Fighting alongside them is the mission this time. That's all there is to it."

Pixy smiled. "We're professionals, Captain, and so are they. If the job requires all of us teaming up to take on the enemy, the that's what we'll do. I just want to know what the plan is. If Heero's the one who came up with it, then it's gotta be an interesting one."

Talia sighed in a somewhat exasperated manner a she cast a brief glance towards Wufei. "You wouldn't be wrong there. I know Gundam pilots have a history of audacity, but this strategy he's proposed… well, I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a bolder one."

….

What a damn mess, Hannah Amass thought as she studied the latest status reports on the personal monitor built into the command chair, Paris reduced to ashes, and the bastards who did it are just warming up. Dreadnought's still over Europe, but her pace has slowed… wonder if she's having engine trouble. Good thing we launched when we did… I just hope it wasn't too late. If we can't get ourselves into position in time, then this is all going to get a whole lot worse.

Forty-two years old, she cut a striking figure; toned and well-built, which the dark grey uniform with blue accents that she wore fit quite nicely. Her sharp grey eyes were a marked contrast with her dark brown hair, which she kept tied back in a ponytail. In a departure from the nation that she'd formerly served, her Captain's coat was slightly longer from the waist down. Dark grey pants and black boots made up the lower half of her ensemble, and capping it all off was a patch with the old US flag on one shoulder and her rank on the other.

It was quite fitting that she'd gone to work for the North American resistance. She'd once been a Captain in the Atlantic Federation, one with considerable experience under her belt, but the purge of women in the ranks after such prominent female officer defections such as the commanders of the Archangel and Dominion in the First Bloody Valentine War had seen her shoved out the door along with all the others. Fortunately for Hannah, the resistance recognized the valuable asset that her prior experience and new grudge against her former employers represented, and they'd been quick to recruit her. Granted, she hadn't thrown herself into this new cause for revenge, but Hannah would consider the payback a nice little bonus.

And with the ship she had been given command of, that payback would be sweet indeed.

When Hannah had first been briefed on the existence of the Redemption, let alone the experimental weapon that she'd been set to receive on top of her already-formidable set of armaments, her jaw had damn near hit the floor. Even now, with the vessel now online, launched, and equipped with the weapon that would hopefully help bring the Atlantic Federation's new rampage in Europe to an end, it still felt like the full weight of her responsibilities hadn't quite set in yet. Of course, a seasoned Captain like her wasn't about to let her crew in on such sentiments; while a fair and relatively friendly officer, she was still firm and could very much crack the whip when called to. Not that she would likely have the need to do so today, seeing as her subordinates had been laser-focused on their tasks well before the Redemption had launched. Everyone understood the assignment and the potential price of failure, and they were not about to slack off now.

Still, she was keen to keep on top of things, especially since this was her ship's first real deployment. "Reactor status?"

"Primary's showing green across the board," one of her subordinates readily answered.

"And the secondary?" she asked.

"Cleared all checks and is in standby status," the same subordinate replied.

Hannah let out a small sigh of relief. "Good. We'll need them both firing on all cylinders when the time comes. Alert me at the first sign of potential trouble with either of them."

"Aye, Captain!" the officer acknowledged.

She then turned to her sensor officer. "Anything on the long-range?"

"All clear," the subordinate in question answered.

Hannah nodded before looking at her communications officer. "Transmissions?"

The young man leaned over his console to check the screen before glancing over his shoulder. "Nothing that we're picking up. If there's any hostile patrols tracking us and reporting, they're beyond our detection range."

"I see," said Hannah before shifting once more, "Weapons status?"

"Just finished the backup checks, Captain," the ship's chief gunnery officer reported with a confident grin, "Everything's in working order. If the Earth Alliance or ZAFT decide they want a piece of us, we can take pieces of them right back!"

"Let's hope the only pieces we'll be taking today come from that dreadnought," Hannah quipped.

"If the good Doctor's fancy gizmo works as planned, we should be taking a pretty big chunk out of it," the gunnery officer remarked, "If not, then we'll just be sitting up here watching the show. Not like the rest of our weapons can reach the action from our position."

That much was certainly true; the Redemption was formidably armed, but seeing as she was up in orbit, her conventional arsenal would not come into play this operation unless they were pounced upon by Earth Alliance or ZAFT patrols, and at that point it meant things had gone horribly wrong. Hannah could at least take comfort in her ship being able to hold her own should the worst come to pass, though.

Based on a series of design iterations that had been stolen courtesy of a hack of the Atlantic Federation's systems, the Redemption at first glance appeared to be a stepping-stone between the Archangel-class from the last war and the new Girty Lue-class that had made its unofficial debut as flagship of the black ops force which had attacked Armory One. The ship's dark grey main body was quite boxy when compared to the Girty Lue, while its bridge was a copy of that found on the Archangel and stuck on a more extended neck that sprung up from the center of the vessel. A key design consideration had been expanding mobile suit capacity over that of the Archangel-class, and the Redemption as a result possessed no less than five hangars, each with a corresponding launch catapult. Four catapults were arrayed in front of the ship like legs, set up in pairs with one over the other, all to facilitate rapid launch operations, with the hangars directly behind them. Meanwhile, the fifth was at the rear of the ship where the recovery deck was located, allowing it to facilitate emergency launches should any of the forward catapults be rendered inoperable.

While improving mobile suit carrying and launch capacity had been a major design focus, that did not mean the Redemption was lacking when it came to her own armaments. The vessel's primary means of engaging in ship-to-ship combat came in the form of four dual beam cannon turrets, spread out fore and aft of the bridge and on the underside of the hull to provide wide arcs of fire. A single barrel beam cannon was also mounted on each side of the ship on the outermost corner of the port and starboard catapults to improve the vessel's head-on firepower. Meanwhile, concealed within each side of the ship was a mega particle cannon, serving as a nasty surprise for any vessel that tried attacking from the flanks. However, these cannons could not elevate to track targets coming in from high or low angles, limiting their arcs of fire. In addition to the energy weapons, the vessel possessed three clusters of vertical launch missile systems, twenty-four launch tubes per cluster, with one cluster each set above the port and starboard hangars while the third was positioned behind the bridge. For close-up anti-air work, the Redemption was equipped with twenty-eight dual barrel defensive guns. While capable of incredibly fast firing, that quick rate of fire was actually a double-edged sword; the ship's fire control radar couldn't keep up with it, which limited accuracy and made them very much a 'spray and pray' form of defense.

As impressive as all those armaments might be, though, none of them would be of any use in today's operation, unless the Redemption had to defend herself. Instead, it was the ship's final weapon that Hannah and her crew would be counting on today, and she fervently prayed that it worked. In fact, what the Redemption carried was just the starting point of the weapon, while the endpoint was aboard the ship's Gundam. Going from the ship's secondary reactor was a series of energy relays that culminated in the dish-shaped emission mechanism which was mounted at the bottom of the ship. This was the first half of what had been designated the Judgement Satellite Cannon.

Developed at the resistance's top-secret R orbital facility codenamed Judgement Station, the weapon had a dark origin point; it was an evolution of the Atlantic Federation's notorious Cyclops System. However, while the original Cyclops System had been a massive and indiscriminate microwave bomb, the Judgement Satellite Cannon was designed to focus that monstrous power and turn it into a directed energy weapon. No one in the resistance had been particularly comfortable with developing a weapon that was based off a tool of mass destruction and a truly horrifying manner of death, but the nature of the foe that they were up against meant that all options had to be on the table, and great pains had been taken in the project to ensure that the Judgement Satellite Cannon's beam would be tightly controlled to limit the devastation to just the target in question.

To think that we'll be avenging an Atlantic Federation war crime with a weapon grown from one of their darkest devices, Hannah mused grimly as her fingers tapped the keys of her personal monitor, I guess I can appreciate the irony, even if I'd rather a weapon such as this not exist at all…

The second component of the Judgement Satellite Cannon system appeared on her screen a moment later in the form of a mobile suit. A joint covert development between Anaheim Electronics, Boeing, and Lockheed-Martin, the NAMF-X21X Phoenix Gundam X was the resistance's entry into the nuclear-powered mobile suit arms race. Rather than using Phase Shift Armor or one of its evolutions, the Phoenix Gundam was protected by Lunar Titanium, a new alloy that the resistance's contractors had labored secretly and at great expense to develop. The impetus for this new alloy had come from watching recordings in the last war of Wing Zero in combat, specifically focusing on how the Gundam had endured hits despite lacking the new Phase Shift Armor developed by the Atlantic Federation's G Project. Analysis of the footage had led to the conclusion that Wing Zero's hull utilized an as-of-yet unknown material in its construction. Obviously, the Gundam's pilot and his allies had not released the secrets of this material to the world, so the resistance's researchers couldn't come up with an exact recreation, but the new Lunar Titanium alloy was still a marked improvement over the standard titanium that was utilized by mobile suits across the Cosmic Era.

The armor's paint scheme consisted of a black base, with dark grey joints, hands, and feet soles. The Phoenix possessed two large wings reminiscent of those found on ZAFT's new Destiny Gundam, though these were painted shades of grey rather than red. These wings housed what was called the Feather Emission System, named for the feather-like appearance of the intense heat emissions that were put out when the Phoenix Gundam utilized its portion of the Judgement Satellite Cannon, and had in fact been a design feature necessitated by the requirement to vent the incredible excess energy which would pass through the mobile suit when employing the weapon. In testing, a reddish glow had been observed near the emitters, which would then shift to blue at the edges of the 'feathers'. The machine's helm was modeled after the original Strike Gundam, though it instead possessed a single broader and more angular V-fin. The facial plating was smooth and lacked the traditional slats of most Gundam-type units, and it possessed a red chin guard. In another departure from most observed Gundams, the Phoenix's optical sensors were cyan. Dark grey dominated the chest armor, though the chest vents were edged by cyan lines which made their way up to the shoulders, which were identical to those of the original Strike Gundam in shape. Meanwhile, the upper arms possessed a more angular construction, with the ball joints protected under the shoulders without the bulbous joint armor of the original Strike design. The Phoenix's leg armor shared the angular design, while the skirt armor was extended to protect the hip joints and allow for flexibility. Overall, the armored frame had been shaped with a design emphasis on maximizing mobility.

The project files designated it as a high mobility/heavy firepower mobile suit, Hannah thought, and the firepower portion will be getting a workout today. If the high mobility portion must come into play, then it means something in the operation has gone very wrong.

She could take comfort in the knowledge that the designers had not been exaggerating with the Gundam's 'high mobility' designation. Installed in the mobile suit's wings was an asset that Hannah had never imagined the resistance getting their hands on; the Voiture Lumiere Propulsion System. How the resistance had gotten the schematics was something of a mystery to the Captain, though given the reach of the organization's intelligence division Hannah could hazard at least a few guesses. The variant installed on the Phoenix Gundam was designed to take advantage of the excess heat which the Feather Emission System in those same wings vented, converting it into thrust and coming with the added bonus of preventing the mobile suit from being pushed back by the force of its experimental weapon. Simulations and trials had shown the system capable of propelling the Phoenix Gundam to incredible speeds, though the question still lingered in the back of Hannah's mind; how would it perform under the stresses of actual combat?

The engineers had assured her that all the sensitive components of the Voiture Lumiere were secured to a redundant degree in their mountings, but Hannah had seen enough action to know that anything could happen no matter what precautions were taken. Of course, the enemy would have to actually hit the Gundam first, and given that the Voiture Lumiere was so effective that it could even leave afterimages of the mobile suit which gave off their own heat signatures, any foe who could land a shot on the machine was one worthy of praise for their marksmanship or luck. One notable drawback was that the extreme speed of the system was incredibly difficult for even experienced pilots to handle, and while Hannah had no doubts regarding the skills of the Phoenix Gundam's assigned operator, she still had to wonder just how he'd handle it in battle. Another potential concern was the immense strain that the sheer speed could put on the Gundam's joints and structure, as the machine itself hadn't originally been designed with the Voiture Lumiere in mind; it had been an add-on partway through the project, and therefore something of a gamble.

When it came to conventional armaments, the Phoenix Gundam was well-equipped to defend itself and its mothership. Two Igelstellung 75mm multi-barrel CIWS were mounted in the head, and the mobile suit possessed two MA-M05 Libertas beam sabers. For ranged combat, the mobile suit several main weapons. The first was the M8F-SB1 Beam Rifle Shorty, a more compact version of the typical mobile suit beam rifles, and in fact was more akin to a beam handgun. Two of these were holstered in the Gundam's side skirt armor. Filling in the mid-to-long range slot was the MD-BAR73/S Tungsten Kinetic Assault Rifle, which was stored on the mobile suit's rear waist armor. As the name implied, this weapon was a marked departure from both the wide proliferation of beam weapons since the First Bloody Valentine War and also a deviation from the variety of kinetic rifles that had been used prior. While it possessed a limited magazine, its hardened tungsten-tipped rounds could punch through the armor of most mobile suits. Mounted on the Gundam's left arm was a laminated armor anti-beam shield. All those weapons, though, were taking a backseat today. The star of this operation was the Phoenix Gundam's Twin Judgement Satellite Cannon.

Meant to receive the initial microwave energy burst from the Redemption and then focus that power into a devastating attack, the cannons of the Twin Judgement Satellite Cannon were locked in place on the shoulders of the Phoenix Gundam, with two other barrels unfolding just above the waist and beneath the arms. This allowed the Phoenix Gundam's hands to remain free and thus utilize its various weaponry for defense as needed while the Judgement Satellite Cannon was charged. The beam of microwave energy fired from the Redemption would be aimed at the receiver positioned on the Gundam's back just above its thrusters. As the receiver glowed bright red, the cannon barrels themselves would unfold, following which the energy received from the Redemption would flow along emitters and culminate at the front of the barrels. There, all that power would coalesce into twin cyan spheres of energy before the proper firing, with the beams themselves merging into one along the firing path.

The weapon's name brough to Hannah's mind that of the Twin Buster Rifle utilized by Wing Zero, and she was quite certain that the Twin Judgement Satellite Cannon's creators had been inspired by it. However, while Wing Zero's fearsome signature weapon had demonstrated both versatility and overwhelming power, the resistance's attempt at imitation came with significant downsides. Phoenix Gundam was completely reliant on the Redemption for the initial burst of power, which in turn required its secondary reactor specifically to generate the necessary energy for the device to even work. The Phoenix Gundam had to remain still in order for the energy from the Redemption to even hit the receiver, thus rendering the mobile suit vulnerable in battle. In addition to this, the Twin Judgement Satellite Cannon could only fire once before the firing mechanisms had to be realigned. It would take a minimum of two hours to achieve that realignment at the ship's home base with experienced crews and equipment, while in the field that jumped to a crippling twelve hours. In short, the weapon could only be used once in the impending operation, which placed no small amount of pressure on everyone involved to make sure that one shot counted.

No pressure, Hannah mused bitterly, save for the millions of additional lives that the dreadnought will claim if we screw up the shot.

The Phoenix Gundam's pilot would at least have significant on-board assistance for that shot and general operations. For starters, the pilot actually wore an exoskeleton over their regular flight suit which was part of the Jaeger Control System. The exoskeleton was equipped with sensors which read the pilot's movements, with the intent of that feedback being used to move the mobile suit in mirror image of the pilot themselves. A video feed went to the helmet visor to allow the pilot to see through the Gundam's optical sensors, though the pilot had the option of switching back to a more traditional internal cockpit view and exterior battlefield view if they found that more convenient. There was also a vocal command feature in the system that allowed the weapons to be used via the pilot's voice rather than manual console or trigger inputs.

Augmenting the Jaeger Control System was another experimental interface designated the NWCOMM System. Derived from the mind-scanning technology that had been uncovered during investigations into the Atlantic Federation's Extended Program, it utilized a series of nodes in the helmet to read the pilot's mind and translate mental commands to the machine. Another feature of the NWCOMM System was how it could enable the pilot to 'feel' what their mobile suit felt, giving the pilot an intuitive understanding of their machine and making it easier to diagnose potential problems. That was the idea, at least; how that would play out in the heat of battle had yet to be tested.

So much is riding on experimental technology here, Hannah thought as she exited out of the Phoenix Gundam's files and pulled up a new one, it makes this whole operation a gamble for the ages.

The plan to take out Sovereign was simple in theory but would be fiendishly difficult to execute. Analyzing data from the Heaven's Base engagement sent to them by two of the pilots involved, Terminal had determined that there was only one way to get through the dreadnought's formidable shields; force them to draw so much power towards one side of the ship that it left the barriers on the opposite side weakened and vulnerable to penetration. The Redemption and Phoenix Gundam's part in the plan would be to coordinate firing the Twin Judgement Satellite Cannon's single shot with a full-power blast from the Gundam Albion's Twin Buster Rifle at the dreadnought's topside barrier. Sovereign would have to devote extraordinary amounts of power to the upper positron deflectors in order to withstand the blow, and the moment after those two shots landed, other mobile suits from both Terminal and ZAFT would attack from beneath to punch through the depleted shields.

Despite the incredible distance of their shot, Redemption and Phoenix Gundam had the easiest part of the operation. Targeting data would be relayed from the Gundam Albion through the resistance's satellite network to the warship and mobile suit; all they had to do was adjust position as needed and wait for the signal from their allies below. It was those charged with directly engaging the dreadnought who had the most challenging role, for they would first have to contend with the vessel's Mobile Dolls and escorting mobile armors. Redemption and Phoenix Gundam would be able to do nothing but watch and wait as Terminal, ZAFT, and the Eurasian Federation forces fought to weaken the dreadnought's escort screen enough for the second part of the operation to commence, a fact that irritated Hannah to no end. While she fully understood her part of the operation, she hated that the assets at her command could do nothing to help her allies while they took on what was by far the most dangerous portion of the mission.

Checking the timer on her console, she tapped her fingers as she watched the seconds tick down. The Terminal strike team had been flying non-stop from the Orb Union, traversing half the globe to reach their target. It was only thanks to good fortune that Sovereign had yet to put another city to the torch; her incredibly slow rate of progress since the Paris attack suggested engine troubles, no doubt a consequence of keeping the ship hidden in her construction cradle and thus receiving no opportunities for shakedown cruises. Luck would only go so far in this operation, though.

The rest comes down to skill, Hannah thought, of our allies down below, and our own up here. Especially that of the Phoenix Gundam's pilot. I know he's not lacking in that department, but he's never been involved in an operation like this before. Krane… pull off the shot, and you'll be a legend. Fail…

…and the blood of millions will haunt you for the rest of your days.

….

Only an hour left now, Steven 'Spray' Krane thought as he checked the timer on the Phoenix Gundam X's display, until our friends get on the scene. Hope the Eurasians can hold out until then.

At nearly six feet in height, the resistance's top pilot cut a formidable figure. Thirty-two years old, with short and messy black hair, brown eyes with a scar over the right one, and tan skin, his was an athletic figure crammed into the flight suit and exoskeleton of the Phoenix Gundam's Jaeger Control System. Beneath the flight suit, a rather fitting tattoo of a phoenix dominated his left arm. While generally a kind and caring individual, that warm nature went out the window when it came to dealing with Blue Cosmos, and seeing as today's operation involved taking on the organization's latest nightmare creation, he was quite eager to play his part. Gentleness was set aside, with his mind now dominated by a ruthless and singular focus.

His eyes darted across the cockpit displays as he once again checked over the systems. Spray had lost count of how many times he'd already done this since launching from the Redemption, but he had little else to do while he waited for Terminal and ZAFT's teams to reach the expected engagement zone. Running redundant checks on his machine at least alleviated some of the boredom, though the tedium of repetition was unfortunately starting to set in.

That tedium gave a window for reflection on the strange road he'd taken to reach this point. Even when he'd first joined the Atlantic Federation military years ago, Spray had always been something of an odd one out. Back then, open hatred for Coordinators within the military ranks was still limited, but resentment and suspicion of the genetically-altered humans had been insidiously seeping throughout the organization. Even so, a sizeable minority had maintained open minds about this new branch of humanity's evolution as a species, and Spray was one of them. He'd even had a few Coordinator friends in his early days, and the increasing tide of hatred they'd faced had prompted him to join the Atlantic Federation military so he could climb the ranks and fight that hatred from the inside.

It had been a noble idea, but reality had eventually punched him in the face with a rude awakening. Though he'd risen high enough to become an ace leading his own squadron during the First Bloody Valentine War, Spray had lacked any real means to influence the Atlantic Federation military away from the fanatical Coordinator hatred which was slowly eating it from the top echelons and gnawing away on down the chain of command. Still, he'd kept up his service throughout the war, in no small part because his wife, Wilma Nelson-Krane, had also been serving as an Air Force pilot; neither could forsake their oaths lightly.

His wife being discharged after the war as part of the Atlantic Federation's purge of female officers had been the last straw. So many of the doubts that had been gnawing away at Spray throughout the war now came to the forefront of his mind, and neither he nor his wife could no longer sit idly by. His own exit from the Atlantic Federation had not wound up being a quiet affair; after finding out just how his wife had been treated, Spray had raised protest, and an officer had responded by throwing a punch. The resulting fight had gone Spray's way, but when his superior officer came in to find the scene of a brawl, there had not been much he could do to keep his former subordinate in the fold despite his sympathies.

While Spray had not intended to start a fistfight, the rather noisy nature of his exit from the military had an unexpected benefit; it put both him and his wife on the radar of what was then a small but growing resistance movement. Contact was soon made, and the couple found a new purpose in life. Wilma's skills had earned her a spot as both a pilot and mechanic for the resistance, while Spray's had netted him much more dangerous postings. In particular, his in-depth knowledge of Atlantic Federation fleet operations had made him a candidate for a particularly bold infiltration operation involving one of LOGOS's new formations, the 1776th Battle Group. To make a long story short, that operation had recently concluded with the 1776th's political officers dead and most of the rank-and-file crew defecting, with the entire battle group abandoning the Atlantic Federation and its considerable assets being brought to the resistance's secret orbital base known as Judgement Station, where the Redemption and Phoenix Gundam X had just finished getting equipped with the components of the organization's new microwave cannon.

He'd been expecting a new operation coming off the infiltration mission's success, but playing the role of orbital fire support hadn't exactly been on Spray's Second Bloody Valentine War Bingo card. That such a powerful weapon was being placed under his control, even if it was reliant on power from a separate source, spoke volumes of just how much trust the resistance now placed in his character and abilities. If Spray thought the stakes for his mission with the 1776th Battle Group were high, then the ones involved with this new operation were through the damn roof. In each of his repeated system checks, Spray had taken extra time in making sure the Phoenix Gundam's targeting software was properly calibrated. He'd be damned if the shot that the whole mission hinged upon got screwed up because of a system glitch.

"Just need to make sure that I don't wind up being the glitch," he muttered under his breath, his eyes darting over the display, "Wouldn't mind a mission with less pressure after this one's done… but that's probably too much to ask."

Spray could at least take some comfort in the fact that he would only have to focus on his shot. The Phoenix Gundam X wasn't the only mobile suit that the Redemption carried; a dozen other machines had launched from her hangar and fanned out for combat air patrol, and the vessel had spare space to cram in a few other units if needed.

Those dozen machines were split into two types of six each, with the first type being designated as the MSA-003 NEMO. The acronym stood for New Extension Mobile Operator, and while it bore some vaguely superficial similarities to the Earth Alliance's Strike Dagger, the design was fundamentally a separate developmental series. Intended to be more rugged than the Strike Dagger series, the NEMO design possessed thicker armor, including full covering of the shoulder joint and heavier protection of the torso to improve pilot survivability. The lower segments of the machine's legs had flared-out armor that certainly would've appeared bulkier when compared to that found on the Strike Dagger, though this was balanced out by a series of leg-mounted thrusters for improved maneuverability. A visor covered the unit's optical sensors, while a single communications and sensor antenna sprouted up from the left side of the head. The machine possessed thicker faceplate armor than the Strike Dagger series. The unit's color scheme was primarily light grey, with dark grey-blue chest armor and accents along its ankles and feet, while its chest vents were lined with gold-yellow.

The Nemo, as it was commonly known, could be fitted with a variety of weapons. Since this operation was taking place in outer space and the six Nemos which had launched from the Redemption were tasked with defending both the ship and the Phoenix Gundam X, they were equipped with a basic but flexible loadout. A pair of beam sabers stored in the rear skirt armor covered any potential melee engagements, while basic beam rifles had been selected for mid to long-range combat. Head-mounted CIWS rounded out the current arsenal. Meanwhile, fitted to their backs for this mission was the Orbit Pack, one of several augmentation packages available to the unit. Designed along similar principles as the Blaze Wizard Pack developed by ZAFT for its ZAKU line of mobile suits, the Orbit Pack focused on enhancing the Nemo's mobility and firepower. It possessed two additional thrusters which spread out on two flexible mechanical arms, allowing for considerably improved maneuverability. The Orbit Pack's armaments focused on missiles, and came in two configurations; light and heavy. The former was what the Nemos had been equipped with for this operation, with the missile launchers latched onto the hips of the mobile suits. Within the launchers were Argos-series missiles, designed primarily for high-speed engagements with mobile suits. In addition to their main propulsion, each individual Argos missile possessed a series of mini-thrusters along the sides for enhancing maneuverability and target tracking, making them fiendishly difficult to evade when they were properly locked on. However, the Argos missile's great speed could also be a double-edged sword, as testing had shown it could go errant or overshoot the target if the pilot was careless with their approach vector. Additionally, the Argos missile was on the smaller side as far as ordinance meant, which necessitated a more simplified targeting sensor package that had an increased vulnerability to chaff or other electronic warfare countermeasures.

The other six mobile suits deployed for screening Spray and the Redemption went by a deceptively simple designation: GM, short for General Model. At 18 meters in height, it possessed somewhat broad shoulders, yet the overall build was leaner than either the Nemos or the Atlantic Federation's mainline machines. They'd originally been painted in shades of brown and pinkish red for desert warfare, but they'd hastily been recoated upon being shipped to outer space in a dark grey color scheme. The head possessed a visor over the optical sensors, while two vents were in the front of its chest. Its present armaments followed the simple loadout of the Nemos for this operation, consisting of a pair of head-mounted Vulcans, an ES-01 beam saber, a beam rifle, and a standard shield.

The GM did have an array of attachments similar to the famous Strike Gundam's augmentation packs, but the one that the six which had deployed from the Redemption today had been equipped with were different in that it wasn't meant to provide boosts in firepower or mobility. Instead, the pack that the GMs were presently fitted out with consisted of a large square container which had an antenna array mounted to the side and top. This was the GM Jamming System, given the shorthand label of Jammer Pack by the technicians and pilots. Designed to interfere with communications using Mirage Colloid particles generated within the container, it was a potent tool for disrupting coordination between enemy pilots, making it useful for today's operation as it would allow the screening pilots to cause confusion among any potential attackers. Unfortunately, the jamming effect would only last for a limited time, and the bulky jammer device also made for a rather large target.

The GM and Nemo units combined made for a potent screening force, and Spray had no reason to doubt the effectiveness of the machines or their pilots. So, he kept his focus on his own mobile suit and the timer that was slowly ticking down. Each second seemed to pass at a snail's pace, but Spray knew that showtime would arrive all too quickly.

….

Hunched over the radar display, Eurasian Federation Air Force Warrant Officer Amalie Schulz's brow furrowed in mounting concern as friendly contacts disappeared from the screen at an alarming rate. This was not the first time her Saab 390 AEWCS, a continuation and upgrade of the old Saab 340 line, had observed and helped to coordinate actions with heavy casualties; Amalie had clocked plenty of hours at her radar station ever since the Atlantic Federation's invasion of Europe commenced, so she was no stranger to overseeing high attritional combat. The twenty-four-year-old German had been forced to learn quickly how to emotionally distance herself as her duties had worn on, so while intellectually the green-eyed and short-cropped blonde-haired woman knew that each friendly marker that disappeared corresponded with likely fatalities, including people she knew and cared for, her heart had to remain numb until the mission was over. At least, she had to give the appearance of that.

That was proving to be far easier said than done. Amalie took several deep breaths as she saw another of her friends' radar signatures disappear, and she hoped none of her colleagues aboard the aircraft were looking at her. Assuming the enemy did not eventually target and shoot down her aircraft, Amalie could already imagine the plane landing back at base to a much emptier airfield compared to when the day had started. Walking through barracks where the voices of her friends would never be heard again, once raucous nights now haunted by silence… she was hardly looking forward to it.

Of course, that was if she even survived today.

As an AWACS aircraft, the Saab 390 AEWCS should not have been in any immediate danger. Amalie knew that the plane's topside-mounted angled bar-shaped PS-1170 AESA radar could track aircraft, mobile suits, missiles, and even boats up to a maximum range of 450 kilometers while operating at an altitude of 6,100 meters. As it was a non-rotational radar set, the PS-1170 had a dead zone directly behind and in front of the aircraft, so the Saab 390 would fly in a broad arc that kept one of the two radar sides angled towards the operational zone it was assigned to survey. The effective range of the radar more than made up for that weakness, and in theory it meant that Amalie and the rest of the aircraft's crew were well beyond range of any enemy fire.

That dreadnought's only anti-air missiles are short-ranged Helldarts, she reminded herself, and the Mobile Dolls are all engaged with our Air Force. If the frontline collapses, we'll have ample warning; our plane will be able to pull back and redeploy safely.

That knowledge was not proving as comforting as Amalie would have wished. While she had observed three of the enemy's battery-powered Mobile Dolls and two of the dreadnought's escorting mobile armors go down, the exchange rate between the Atlantic and Eurasian Federation forces ever since Sovereign had gone on its rampage was so lethally lopsided that ever engagement with the enemy's new nightmare weapon could be more accurately described as a slaughter than a battle. The dreadnought herself still appeared to be operating at reduced speed when compared to her advance on Paris, with the rumor mill circulating hopeful speculation that Sovereign was suffering from engine problems, but that was of little reassurance when the Mobile Dolls and mobile armors protecting the airborne leviathan were still outfighting anything that the Eurasian Federation threw at them by ridiculous margins.

Had the dreadnought's escort screen been just the mobile armors and conventional air combat mobile suits, the picture would have been different. The mobile armors were tough, sure, but earlier engagements had already revealed the gaps in their positron reflectors, and Eurasian pilots were more than capable of taking advantage of those weaknesses. The problem came back to the same one that had been experienced ever since Sovereign had first begun her assault on Europe; the damn Mobile Dolls she carried. They were devilishly quick, inhumanly precise with their fire, and absolutely relentless when they locked onto targets. Even the weaker battery-powered machines had proven themselves to be slippery targets, only going down through concentrated fire from multiple angles by overwhelming numbers of Eurasian Federation units, and heaven help anyone who had to go up against the nuclear-powered Mobile Dolls. Despite the best efforts of Eurasian pilots and anti-air units alike, the nuclear-powered Mobile Dolls might as well have been untouchable. The single nuclear-powered mobile suit in the mix, with its array of drones spewing particle beams everywhere, hardly helped matters, but since it lacked the astounding agility of the Mobile Dolls it was seen as a secondary concern.

Amalie could only look on in quiet horror as Eurasian Federation mobile suits fell at a dizzying pace. The great force which had been meant to liberate the rest of continental Europe from the Atlantic Federation's invading army had been hastily redeployed to take on Sovereign, but from what Amalie could see, they were barely even slowing the beast down. Fresh Jet Dagger-Ls and Jet Windams were constantly flying into the fray, only to find themselves outmaneuvered by the Mobile Dolls and picked off one by one. Attempts were being made to keep the Eurasian squadrons together so they could focus on wearing the enemy's numbers down through concentrated fire against units that overextended and isolated themselves, but whatever intelligence was commanding the Mobile Dolls seemed to have anticipated that strategy. The Mobile Dolls would dart out in small groups, getting among the Eurasian squadrons and inflicting losses before pulling back as soon as their foes began converging fire from various sources against them. Again and again, Eurasian mobile suits, fighter jets, and ground-based air defense units tried desperately to encircle enemy detachments and rapidly overwhelm them, but whatever isolated kills they managed to score were vastly outweighed by their losses.

The situation was growing grimmer by the minute. While proceeding slowly since the Paris attack, Sovereign was still inexorably moving across central Europe, her present course roughly following the Danube River. It seemed that the Atlantic Federation was now fixed on avenging their previous defeat at Vienna, for the dreadnought and her escorts had already bypassed other notable cities such as Strasbourg and Stuttgart without firing so much as a shot at them. Amalie supposed she should have counted the enemy's single-minded fixation on Vienna to the exclusion of other targets as a blessing, but that simply meant the dreadnought's munitions and those of her escorts were being saved for use against a particularly large city and all the defenders standing between it and Sovereign.

She watched as a vast spread of tiny contacts appeared on the eastern edge of her display and raced west; the latest barrage of long-range missiles from a mix of SU-63Es and surface-based launchers, all using guidance from AWACS such as Amalie's aircraft. Many of the missiles began disappearing from the display as soon as they drew into firing range of the Mobile Dolls; the unmanned units had proven just as adept at intercepting warheads as they were at slaughtering human pilots. A single Mobile Doll, one of the battery-powered units, was taken down, but whether it was by luck or skill Amalie couldn't say, and it almost didn't matter at this point. The rest of the surviving warheads, which was less than half of the launched total, eventually reached the dreadnought, only to detonate against the behemoth's positron reflectors without achieving any kind of breakthrough.

The situation was utterly hopeless in Amalie's eyes. Her side was barely chipping away at the enemy's numbers, and the losses they suffered in exchange were simply unsustainable. Amalie had heard of a larger plan being in the works to take down the dreadnought, but if simply throwing Eurasian Federation pilots at the beast and its escorts in the hopes of gradually whittling them down was it, then she could only despair.

This is no different than how the Atlantic Federation waged their past campaigns, she thought bitterly, just throwing bodies and munitions at the problem, regardless of costs. Weren't we supposed to be better than this? I guess that was just talk from the top brass and nothing more.

That was when the deep voice of her immediate superior came through Amalie's headset. "We have an update from command. Clear the following firing lanes in the next minute!"

The officer rattled off a series of coordinates, which Amalie dutifully entered into her console and transmitted to the squadrons she was supervising. Leaning forward slightly, Amalie's brow furrowed in confusion as she studied the three firing lanes her commander had designated. They were all coming from a southeastern section of the front where the Eurasian Federation defenses were lighter than the rest. From what Amalia understood, there wasn't anything in her side's arsenal that would necessitate clearing such lanes from that direction, so what was going on?

She leaned over to the right, peering over the shoulder of one of her colleagues whose display was currently showing a visual feed from one of the Jet Windams. By chance, that unit just so happened to be flying along the southeastern front, currently expending the Würger air-to-air missiles mounted beneath the Jet Striker Pack's wings before closing in to optimal rifle range. Having received the data from Amalie and other AWACS overseeing the battlefield, the unit in question adjusted its course to get above and to the right of one of the firing lanes.

Start "Fighter"

And that was when she saw them.

Three massive beams of golden-yellow hellfire ripping through the sky.

The blasts only took down three of the battery-powered Mobile Dolls, with the rest of them having already scattered, but that single salvo changed everything. Chills went down Amalie's spine, and she could see her colleagues in the aircraft collectively gasp, their eyes widening in astonishment and, dare she say, hope. Everyone knew instantly who those beams had been fired from. Frantically checking her console, Amalie traced the firing paths to their source…

…and found new contacts rapidly closing in on the battlefield.

Contacts with Terminal transponder signals.

Hope had arrived.

….

"Crap," Dearka's voice grumbled over Wing Zero Albion's cockpit speakers, "we only got three."

"At this range, we're lucky to have gotten that many," Heero remarked as he rejoined the two halves of the Twin Buster Rifle before drawing one of his beam sabers, "The program behind these Mobile Dolls knows better than to bunch the units up."

"No more easy kills, then," Dearka sighed, "We gotta work for it, now."

Heero nodded before addressing the rest of the team. "You all know the plan. The nuclear-powered units are the top priority targets, so concentrate on them."

As the team acknowledged in unison, Heero slammed his thrusters and rocketed into the fray. He had his sights set on the two deadliest of the nuclear-powered machines, the ones that decrypted communications intercepts forwarded to Terminal by the Eurasian Federation had designated as Huginn and Muninn. They were currently blazing a trail of death and destruction through the Eurasian squadrons, with precise fire from their agile supporting drones proving just as lethal as volleys from the Mobile Dolls' beam rifles. Heero's immediate goal was simple; get the most dangerous targets focused on him so his comrades had breathing room, not to mention take the heat off the Eurasians so they could regroup for a counterattack.

It didn't take much at all for Heero to accomplish that goal. Before he'd even fired a shot at either of them, Huginn and Muninn had already broken off from their slaughter of Eurasian Federation pilots, with both Mobile Dolls and the quartet of seed-like drones supporting the duo coming straight for Heero. Testing the waters, Heero lined up a low-power shot with the Twin Buster Rifle and let fly, only for his targets to evade before the beam had even left the barrels.

Extremely high-quality visual sensors and reactive programming, he thought, just as the performance data from Wufei and Athrun suggested. This is going to be tricky.

Closing rapidly with his targets, Heero thrust out with his emerald beam saber as soon as Huginn was in range. His unmanned foe immediately angled its violet blade for the most efficient possible deflection while deploying its two drones for flanking attacks as Muninn flew above him and sent its drones below. Heero instantly took Wing Zero Albion into a climb to escape the trap, taking a swipe at Muninn with his beam saber as he ascended past the Mobile Doll, only for it to redirect his strike and then give chase, firing with its beam rifle while its drones joined in, while Huginn and its drones were already redeploying for another attempt at surrounding him.

While Heero and the two deadliest Mobile Dolls continued their ascending dance, the rest of Terminal's strike team moved into action. Eighteen Lancer Dart missiles suddenly appeared out of nowhere as the three Wraiths made their presence known, and while most of the warheads were shot down by a rain of particle beams from the Mobile Dolls, three of the battery-powered Krähe units succumbed to the volley. The Valkyrie Team's leader had made a beeline for the other nuclear-powered Mobile Dolls that decrypted communiques had designated 'Guntrams', lashing out with Epyon Revenant's Heat Rod and making a wide swing with her beam sword as her opening moves and drawing two of the machines into what became a rapid-pace close-quarters fight.

The remaining eight Guntrams seemed poised to split up and go for Wing Zero Albion and Epyon Revenant, but the rest of Terminal's strike team put paid to those notions. The sky became filled with bullets and missiles as Heavyarms Arsenal cut loose, and while Trowa's opening barrage did not result in any targets being destroyed, it most certainly got the Guntrams' attention. A blast from Vayeate Kai's heavy beam cannon combined with a salvo from its hip-mounted Xiphias rail cannons likewise did not score any kills, but it further convinced whatever programming guided the eight Guntrams that they had more pressing targets to engage than going after either Heero or Shemei. As they split up to go after the two blue Gundams, they quickly found their paths blocked by Mercurius Kai and Sandrock Saladin, beam saber and Heat Shotels respectively drawn and ready.

That just leaves Azrael's clone for nuclear-powered hostiles, Heero thought as he deflected a beam saber strike from Muninn while trading rifle fire with Huginn and evading opportunistic potshots from the four drones, and he's not going to sit this out.

Staying on the defensive for the moment, Heero took Wing Zero Albion through a dizzying array of evasive maneuvers as he sought to find Colonel Nazara. It didn't take long to spot the purple Nosferatu hovering over Sovereign, flanked by two Krähes as if they were the Colonel's personal guard. As if on cue, the trio suddenly gained altitude, heading straight for Heero's running engagement with Huginn and Muninn.

"Got his attention," Heero muttered as he flew for his life, "He's not wasting any time."

While it was good to have all the primary targets of the operation's first phase drawn away from the Eurasians and engaging Terminal, the concentration of no less than three nuclear-powered machines against Wing Zero Albion, along with the two battery-powered ones in support, presented a considerable problem. Unlike other ace pilots, Heero was not deluded as to his level of skill. He knew what he and Zero could do and what they could not, and given just how formidable Huginn and Muninn were already showing themselves to be, Nazara and two Krähes getting in on the action pushed the fight from 'incredibly difficult, but doable' into 'delaying action and possible last stand' territory.

I was counting on Wufei and ZAFT's contingent showing up by now, Heero thought as he fired off quick bursts with Zero's shoulder rotary cannons at the small support drones while trading rifle fire and beam saber strikes with Huginn and Muninn, I know you're not the type to sit this out, Wufei. Where are you?

Of course, Heero knew that things could always go wrong. Despite the previous messages he'd gotten from Wufei, it was always possible that Captain Gladys had changed her mind about supporting the operation. Heero didn't think that was the case based on his experience with her, though he would admit that he didn't have a perfect understanding of her. Then again, perhaps the person he'd placed the wrong bet on was Wufei himself. While Heero didn't want that to be the case and genuinely believed Wufei would still do the right thing when the chips were down, the fact that he'd stayed with ZAFT as long as he had and even took part in their operation against Terminal casted undeniable shades of doubt. It wouldn't matter how much faith Heero had in his old friend if Wufei had changed more during his time in the Cosmic Era than he'd realized.

All those considerations and doubts passed through Heero's mind in the span of mere seconds as he continued his furious evasive efforts against Huginn and Muninn, all while Nazara and his two supporting Krähes continued chasing after him. No, it was actually worse; Huginn and Muninn had already changed their strategy and were attempting to push Heero towards the Colonel. As Heero tried to reassert control over the engagement, the four supporting drones would cut off his attempts at altering the fight's trajectory with bursts of particle beam fire across key vectors, limiting the Gundam pilot's options. Even the ZERO System was having trouble plotting more than a handful of potential paths through the situation, with each of the possible scenarios it sent through Heero's mind ultimately ending in him being driven into engaging Nazara while still having to fend off the Mobile Dolls. Heero was not about to give up by any means; just because neither he nor the ZERO System could find a viable path now did not mean one could not be discovered, but the situation was certainly dicey.

"Back to the wall," Heero murmured as his Gundam shuddered under hits from the support drones, "What's our move, Zero?"

End "Fighter"

The Gundanium alloy that gave Zero and the other Gundams as the After Colony world defined them their names was perhaps one of the most resilient materials in existence, even able to shrug off particle beam fire without requiring added lamination like alloys and protection utilized in the Cosmic Era. Its ability to take punishment would be more valuable to Heero now than ever before, but he knew that even this remarkable alloy had limits. If the enemy could land concentrated blows in the same spot, then over a long enough period, they would eventually overstress the alloys tolerances and achieve breakthrough. Given how incredibly accurate the fire from both Mobile Dolls and their support drones was already proving to be, Heero could tell that they were perfectly capable of achieving that breakthrough should the fight go on long enough, and the odds of that would go up exponentially should Nazara join in.

It was then that he saw Nazara and the two Krähes suddenly take evasive action, and the reason for that made itself known a second later Heero spotted a swarm of missiles flying at them. Rapid particle beam fire from Nazara's drones and the Mobile Dolls' pistols blew the warheads apart, but follow-up volleys were already inbound. It only took a cursory glance at his sensors for Heero to find the source; a few squadrons of Eurasian Jet Windams and SU-63Es had broken off from the main engagement to provide support.

Despite they atrocious losses they'd suffered throughout the day, the Eurasian Federation forces had rallied at Terminal's arrival and were making the most of the enemy's deadliest Mobile Dolls now being distracted. Battered and reduced squadrons of Jet Dagger-Ls and Jet Windams had reorganized into ad hoc and hodgepodge units as best they could, and they were taking the fight back to the enemy. While SU-63Es and ground-based systems sent forth waves of missiles to keep the Krähes busy, even downing another two of them while the rest either evaded the warheads or blasted them out of the sky, the surviving Eurasian mobile suits made targeting the Atlantic Federation's aerial mobile armors their top priority. Taking the large scallop-shaped units in pincer attacks, the Jet Dagger-Ls and Jet Windams would split the mobile armors' anti-air fire up before concentrating fire along the sides of the hull where the units' positron reflectors could not provide coverage. Soon one mobile armor fell from the sky, and then another followed it, though the Eurasians paid dearly for those kills courtesy of fire from the Krähes, the remaining mobile armors, and swarms of anti-air missiles from Sovereign herself.

Meanwhile, as Heero continued to zigzag across the sky trading fire and saber strikes with Huginn and Muninn while either evading shots from their drones or tanking them with his wing shields or Zero's armor directly, the rest of Terminal's team was fighting tooth and nail against the Guntrams. For her part, Shemei was leading two of the nuclear-powered machines on a merry chase across the battlefield, dancing between particle beam volleys before darting in for quick slashes from her beam sword and Heat Rod. Tellingly, though, even the Valkyrie herself had yet to actually score a kill against her unmanned opponents, and matters were hardly better for the other Gundams. The three Wraiths had linked up with the rest of the team, creating a potent formation where Trowa and Dearka would provide ranged supporting fire while Yzak was tanking shots on Mercurius Kai's Planet Defensors and Quatre intercepted units which attempted to get into saber strike range of either fire support Gundam. Adaline, Lan, and Priscilla played the role of quick response units, the balanced armaments of their Wraiths allowing them to engage at either close or mid to long-range as the situation demanded. The result was a formation that so far had proved capable of fighting the Mobile Dolls to a standstill, but that was not good enough. Without a way to break the deadlock, the entire operation was in jeopardy.

Trowa seemed to concur, at least if his somewhat strained voice crackling over the tactical channel was any indicator. "This isn't good. We're stuck."

"I knew these guys would be tough," Quatre remarked as he blocked a Guntram's beam saber with one of his Heat Shotels, "but they make Romefeller and White Fang's Mobile Dolls seem like target practice."

"I take it that's bad, right?" Dearka asked as he fired off a salvo from his Xiphias railguns and heavy beam cannon, only for the targeted Guntram to smoothly evade the shots.

"Definitely bad," Quatre confirmed as he continued blocking saber strikes, "and those things weren't easy to take on the first time out, either. They were powerful and had shields, but they weren't nearly this agile!"

"Got any tips?" Yzak chimed in as he tanked beam fire on his Planet Defensors while trading beam saber slashes with a Guntram.

"No matter what, don't break formation," Trowa answered as he opened fire with Double Barrel Gatling Gun and Double Assault Beam Cannon, "If they isolate you, you're dead."

"What about Heero and Shemei?" Priscilla pointed out as she unloaded on a Guntram with her Wraith's beam rifles and Xiphias railguns, only for her target to gracefully bob and weave through her shots and return fire without missing a beat.

"Their Gundams have the speed advantage," Adaline countered while intercepting a Guntram which had been going for Trowa, deflecting its beam saber with her own, "They've got this."

"They'll still need help!" Lan insisted as she tanked particle beam fire on her shields before countering in kind.

Heero was not about to deny it. Huginn and Muninn were amongst the fastest opponents he had ever gone up against, and their accuracy was downright frightening. Were it not for the incredible speed provided by Wing Zero Albion's Voiture Lumiere system, Heero wasn't sure if he'd be able to hold out against them. As things stood, he was doing little more than leading the Mobile Dolls and their support drones across the battlefield in a running fight, spending most of his time dodging or blocking particle beam fire and deflecting saber strikes while only occasionally getting the chance to counterattack. Shemei's situation was somewhat better thanks to her opponents lacking support drones, but Epyon Revenant's emphasis on close-quarters-combat posed problems of its own. Her Gundam's Voiture Lumiere gave her the speed she needed to run down either Guntram and engage it with her beam sword and Heat Rod, yet her foes were devilishly agile and had no issues with parrying her blade and evading her whip. The pinpoint fire from their rifles and shoulder cannons forced the Valkyrie to mostly stay on the evasive, with only limited windows for her to attack.

As he parried a slash from Huginn while evading fire from Muninn and the supporting drones, Heero took a second to check the position of Nazara's machine. Much as he'd expected, he found Nosferatu Dracul utterly annihilating the Eurasian pilots who had so bravely diverted his attention, the multitude of drones at his command making mincemeat of the opposition with a storm of emerald particle beams. The two Krähe units operating alongside him seemed almost superfluous, with their contributions to the carnage simply being bursts of fire from their beam pistols while Azrael's clone took the lion's share of kills. In fact, Heero's brief glance was just in time to see the Colonel and his unmanned escorts wipe out the last of the Eurasians who had drawn him off, leaving insane clone free to come flying towards Wing Zero Albion once more. Pushing his Gundam's thrusters and Voiture Lumiere for all they were worth, Heero got out ahead of Huginn and Muninn, bracing himself for the Colonel and the two Krähes to join the fray…

Start "Steel Haze (Rusted Pride)"

…only for a blast of orange-red energy to fly between them, forcing Nosferatu Dracul and the Mobile Dolls to break off.

Following the fading trail of energy back to its source, Heero let slip a small smile as he saw a group of five mobile suits coming in from the west. Four had ZAFT transponder beacons, while the fifth was one from another world entirely.

Then a familiar mercenary's voice came over the tactical channel. "Looks like the guest of honor got here early. Can't have him showing us up now, can we, buddy?"

Another familiar mercenary answered him, and despite the transmission being strictly audio, Heero could easily imagine the speaker cracking a small smile of his own. "Not when we have a reputation to uphold. Let's get the job done."

Heero grunted as he traded fire with Huginn and blocked a saber strike from Muninn while tanking fire from the support drones on his wing shields. "About time you guys showed up."

….

"Galm Team will start with Nosferatu," Cipher's voice crackled over Pixy's cockpit speakers, "We'll gang up on him and remove him quickly."

Pixy nodded, already sighting in on the purple mobile suit with Morgan Sorceress's powerful rifle once more. "Roger that."

"I'll go help Epyon Revenant," Athrun chimed in, "Rey, can you assist the other Gundams?"

"Will do," Rey readily answered.

"I'll join Heero," Wufei declared, "The sooner we get those machines he's got tied up out of the way, the better."

As Destiny, Legend, and Altron Custom split off towards their objectives, Pixy eased up on the throttle slightly and positioned his mobile suit behind and to the right of Ciphers. He let a slight smirk slip when he saw Nosferatu Dracul and its escorting Mobile Dolls already turning to intercept.

Cipher's really gotten under that guy's skin, Galm Two thought with a chuckle, ever since we first kicked his ass up in orbit…

"We'll take out his wingmen first," Cipher said, "Go for the one on the right; I'll feint towards Nosferatu and then hit the one on the left."

Pixy nodded, already adjusting his aim. "Affirmative."

He led with a blast from Morgan Sorceress's powerful rifle. It was a shot that his target easily dodged, but Pixy had been counting on that from the start. Rapidly closing the distance, he popped off a salvo with his Xiphias railguns that the Krähe also evaded, but the Mobile Doll's maneuver took it right into the crosshairs of Pixy's beam pistol, and it was that shot which took the target down. Meanwhile, Cipher had gunned the throttle, Galahad Fencer becoming a streak of crimson light as the Voiture Lumiere system was pushed for all it was worth. Nosferatu Dracul's ten drones filled the sky with particle beams, though they quickly scattered thanks to a salvo from Cipher's back-mounted plasma cannons. While Nosferatu Dracul itself was still tracking Galahad Fencer and firing with its beam rifle, Cipher had already gotten close enough to threaten Colonel Nazara himself, and he took a swing with his Demon Lash Heat Rod. The purple machine easily dodged the whip, but that gave Cipher the opening he needed to go for his real target. Suddenly banking away from Nosferatu Dracul, Galm One pounced on the second Krähe unit and sliced it in half with his beam saber.

Pixy could not help but whistle as he shifted his focus over to Nosferatu Dracul. "You made that look easy."

Cipher did not seem in the mood for praise as Galahad Fencer rapidly climbed to avoid fire from Nosferatu's rifle and drones. "Warm up's over; real fight starts now."

"Got it," Pixy said before firing off a rippled volley of missiles.

The warheads would do no good against Nosferatu Dracul's Phase Shift Armor, but the mobile suit itself was not Pixy's target. While Nosferatu Dracul's drones intercepted his barrage with a pinpoint rain of fire, Pixy began targeting the drones directly with his beam pistol. A quick burst of particle beams took out one of Nosferatu Dracul's two smaller drones, but the rest of the remote guns swiftly reoriented and opened fire on Galm Two, forcing the merc to dive and zigzag to get out of their web.

I was hoping to get more with that attack, he thought as he fired off a blast with his rifle, only for the drones to scatter and avoid the shot, but I should've known it wouldn't be so easy.

As Pixy arced around to get behind Nosferatu Dracul, Cipher suddenly dived and attacked head-on, weaving through drone and rifle fire before getting right in his opponent's face and thrusting forward with his beam saber. While Nosferatu Dracul was able to redirect the strike, Cipher followed up with a swing from his Heat Rod that forced his opponent to quickly climb to avoid getting caught up in the whip. Pixy saw the gun drones split their focus, with four of the larger ones targeting him while the other four and the remaining smaller one were aiming at Cipher. Letting fly with another missile volley to get the drones' attention, Pixy then opened fire with his rifle, railguns, and beam pistol. This time, his efforts bore greater fruit, as two of the larger gun drones fell to his assault. In response, Nosferatu Dracul's remaining drones once again reorganized, this time with all of them targeting Pixy while the mobile suit itself continued engaging Cipher.

A mischievous smirk came to Pixy's face as an idea crossed his mind, and he switched over to an open channel as he tanked particle beam fire from the drones on Morgan Sorceress's Heiliges Schild Lightwave energy shield. "Counting on Mobile Dolls and drones… you'd be dead already without them. Some pilot you are."

The taunting was almost childish, yet it was enough to get a rise out of the target. "Insolent bastard!"

Pixy laughed while unleashing another combined volley from his rifle, railguns, and pistol that destroyed the remaining smaller drone, leaving only six of the larger ones to go. "The Atlantic Federation must've burned through all its good pilots already if they're resorting to this… or anyone competent just refuses to fight for you now! I wonder which one's worse."

Much to Pixy's surprise, Cipher got in on the verbal assault even as he continued his physical one. "Is this all you have to offer now? You put up a better fight at the start of the war."

"Shut up!" Nazara practically screeched over the radio as he counterattacked with a furious series of saber strikes, "You mongrels will burn with the rest of your kind! I will personally see to it!"

Pixy grinned as he evaded fire from the remaining drones. "You wish. There's only a few pilots that can keep up with us, and you aren't one of them."

To emphasize the point, Pixy let fly with another ripple-fire missile barrage. As the six drones focused on shooting down the warheads, Pixy then opened up with his rifle, railguns, and pistol again. Distracted by the missiles, the program controlling the drones was too late to recognize the real threat, and another two were destroyed by Pixy's follow-up volley.

"Only four of your drones left now," Pixy taunted as he climbed to avoid return fire, "How long will you last without them?"

Pixy expected an indignant snarl from Nazara, but instead the next voice he heard was Cipher's coming over the tactical channel, and with a distinct note of alarm. "Galm Two, behind you!"

Pixy dropped the cavalier attitude and dived without hesitation. Even that was too late, and it was only Morgan Sorceress's Heiliges Schild Lightwave energy shield that prevented the incoming particle beams from penetrating the missile containers on the Gundam's back and detonating Pixy's remaining payload. Whirling his mobile suit around, Pixy hip-fired a volley from his beam pistol while snapping off a salvo from the Xiphias railguns, forcing the two Krähe's that had ambushed him to momentarily break off. The pair of black machines regrouped just a second later, and Pixy knew he was about to have his hands full.

"I'll take care of these guys," Galm Two declared, "Show that prick why you're number one, buddy!"

End "Steel Haze (Rusted Pride)"

….

"Glad you could join us!" Athrun heard Shemei say over Destiny's cockpit speakers as he ignited one of his beam boomerangs to use a saber while firing off a volley from his beam rifle at one of the Guntrams facing the Valkyrie.

"Sorry I'm late," he replied as he positioned his machine back-to-back with Epyon Revenant, who had just sent the second Guntram briefly scurrying away courtesy of a broad swing with its Heat Rod.

"Don't sweat it," Shemei said as she gave chase, raining down beam sword strikes upon her foe while Athrun blocked rapid-fire beams from the other Guntram's shoulder cannons on the Destiny's Solidus Fulgor energy shields, "You're here now, and that's what counts. Ready to rip these guys some new assholes?"

Athrun could not help but chuckle as he popped off another volley with his rifle before charging the Guntram and slashing at it with his extended beam boomerang. "Roger that."

While he had never considered himself close with Shemei, or any member of the Valkyrie Team for that matter, Athrun still felt a sense of homecoming now that he was fighting alongside her. After all, she and her team were members of Terminal, former comrades in the Three Ships Alliance who had fought alongside him in ending the First Bloody Valentine War. To be reunited with her and the others, to be on the same side again, felt pretty damn good.

Not that he had time to savor the moment; the Guntram Athrun was up against certainly wouldn't allow it. Even with his experience in fighting them at Heaven's Base fresh in his mind, Athrun still found the Mobile Doll to be a frustrating foe. It could not match Destiny in raw speed or firepower, but its inhuman agility and instantaneous responses to his moves more than made up for those deficiencies. Between deflecting beam saber strikes and evading particle beams or blocking them on Destiny's energy shields, Athrun found that he only had narrow windows to counterattack. To make matters worse, it felt as though his foe was almost one step ahead of him, countering his moves seemingly before he even made them.

It's already adapted from the Iceland fight, Athrun realized as he saw the Guntram deftly parry one his strikes before seamlessly striking back with a thrust that he was only narrowly able to redirect, I bet the machine I destroyed transmitted its combat data at the last second to the others.

Deciding to test that theory, Athrun put away his beam rifle and drew the Destiny's second beam boomerang. He threw the weapon at the Guntram, which the Mobile Doll swiftly evaded. With the right beam boomerang still in the Destiny's hand, Athrun charged forward, forcing the Guntram to lock its blade with his. Just like at Heaven's Base, Athrun then reached out with the Destiny's empty left hand and fired off a blast from its palm-mounted Palma Fiocina cannon. However, unlike at Iceland, this time the Guntram extricated itself and dived the second it saw Destiny's hand extending, and the blast of blue energy went through empty air.

"Damn it," he growled as he caught the second beam boomerang before putting it away and drawing his rifle again, "Should've known the same trick wouldn't work twice."

"They're slippery sons of bitches," Shemei concurred as her beam sword clashed with her opponent's saber again and again, "We'll need to get creative to take these bastards down."

"Got any ideas?" Athrun asked as he fired off a volley at his chosen Guntram while simultaneously blocking incoming fire on the Destiny's energy shield.

Shemei chuckled as she made a sweep with her Heat Rod, only for the target to go above it and counter with a saber thrust that grazed Epyon Revenant's chest as the Valkyrie pulled back. "I was about to ask you that! You're the one with prior experience fighting these things."

"I only took down one in Iceland," Athrun confessed while making a slash with his extended beam boomerang, only for the enemy to deflect and counter with a thrust that he in turn just barely managed to redirect, "and I was in the seed state when I got that kill."

"I see," Shemei remarked, going quiet for a moment as she evaded and blocked particle beam fire from her foe, "Hmmm… we're in a real pickle here."

"No kidding," Athrun muttered as he frantically evaded fire from the Guntram's rifle and shoulder cannons.

There was pause before Shemei spoke again. "I want to try something. On my signal, climb with me. Thirty seconds into the climb, we split; I go right, you go left. I want to see how these things react."

Athrun was not sure what that would accomplish, but seeing as he did not have a plan of his own yet, he was willing to play along. "Okay. On your mark."

"Right," said Shemei as she weaved through a flurry of particle beams, "Three, two, one, mark!"

Destiny and Epyon Revenant shot upwards side by side, twin streaks of scarlet light racing towards the heavens. The pair of Guntrams immediately gave chase, firing as they went, but in a contest of pure speed, the Gundams had them beat even in a climb.

The seconds silently ticked down in Athrun's head, and when they reached zero, he banked the Destiny hard to the left while Shemei went the opposite direction. Checking his sensors, he saw the Guntrams mirror their movements, with one Mobile Doll pursuing each Gundam.

"Interesting," Shemei remarked, "I was wondering if they'd both go for me or split, and it's the latter. We can use that."

Athrun raised an eyebrow as he dodged a spray of beams. "How?"

"Lead yours on for about a minute," Shemei suggested while zigzagging across the sky between shots from her foe, "and then turn back towards me. We're gonna play chicken."

Athrun's head snapped back for a second before he grasped what she really had in mind. "What do you… oh!"

The Valkyrie chuckled. "Looks like you didn't completely lose your wits when you went back to ZAFT. That's good. I'm counting on you!"

The thinnest trace of a smile appeared on Athrun's face as he gunned the throttle for all it was worth. The sheer acceleration felt like a boxer punching him in the chest non-stop, but Athrun knew that he'd only have to endure the pain for a little while. If he had read Shemei's intentions correctly, then this clash would be over quite soon.

When the minute passed, he suddenly flipped the Destiny around and made a beeline for Epyon Revenant. Right on cue, Shemei did the same with her machine, and the two Gundams were now racing across the sky right at each other. Athrun wondered if any of his colleagues were watching, assuming they even had the luxury of a brief glance. They'd surely think that he and Shemei had lost their minds.

"Go low," Shemei ordered as they rapidly closed with each other.

Athrun nodded, counting down the seconds mentally and hoping that his timing was good. "Got it."

Once Destiny and Epyon Revenant reached the last possible break-off point, Athrun dropped his elevation by just a handful of meters. It was enough for Shemei to pass right over him…

…and to give Athrun a clear shot at the Guntram which was still locked on her tail.

All it took was Athrun raising his beam boomerang over Destiny's head to snag the kill, with the violet blade cutting the Mobile Doll in half from the head down. Looking behind him as the machine exploded, Athrun saw that Shemei had scored her kill in a similar manner, simply dipping her beam sword down and letting her target's momentum do the rest.

"Nicely done," she said as the two Gundams slowed down to regroup.

"That trick won't work twice," Athrun noted.

"Figured as much," Shemei replied, "Let's go help the rest of the team."

….

Sweat dripped from Quatre's brow as he found himself falling back under a relentless sequence of saber strikes from one of the Guntrams. He might have had two blades to the Mobile Doll's one, but the Guntram's inhumanly precise and swift swordsmanship more than made up for that disparity. Quatre only gained a precious bit of breathing room when the Mobile Doll was forced to break off due to a pair of particle beams coming in from the right, and he knew it would not be long until the machine reengaged.

Quatre allowed himself a brief exhalation as he found the source of his reprieve on the sensor display. "Thanks, Lan."

"Anytime," she replied while tracking the Guntram and continuing to pepper it with beams and railgun slugs, "Damn it, these things are quick!"

Quatre sighed wearily; he'd been hearing variations of that lament since the engagement had begun, including from himself. Just keeping up with them was proving a grueling exercise, and Quatre was keenly aware that the longer the contest went on, the worse things would get for him and his comrades.

Looking around, Quatre could see his friends struggling just as much as he and Lan were just to maintain the stalemate. Bullets, missiles, and particle beams were flying from Heavyarms Arsenal, but the best Trowa had been able to accomplish so far in this battle was simply to keep the Mobile Dolls at bay. Dearka was faring no better, with blasts from his heavy beam cannon and railgun salvos likewise working to prevent any of the Guntrams from getting too close but failing to actually destroy any of them. Meanwhile, Yzak had his hands full up front, his beam saber constantly fending off sword strikes from the Guntrams while his Planet Defensors were tanking shot after shot. Adaline and Priscilla continued, much like Lan, to rush back and forth across the formation to fill in gaps with either close or long-ranged support as necessary, but they were simply helping to maintain the current formation's cohesion and defense. Even Rey joining them upon the ZAFT team's arrival hadn't been enough to decisively turn the tide, though the Legend's arsenal was at least helping to shore up the formation's defenses. They needed a way to break out of the deadlock…

…and Quatre knew that there was only one way to do it.

There was an ace up his sleeve, one that he was very reluctant to use, but could increasingly see no alternative to. While his first experience with it had been an unmitigated disaster, Quatre had also employed it successfully to guide his friends against White Fang's Mobile Dolls. He'd told Lan way back in Orb at the start of the Second Bloody Valentine War that he'd gotten rid of it since, but that hadn't completely been the truth. He'd removed it, with no small measure of relief, from Sandrock after the victory against the Mobile Dolls being directed by Dorothy Catalonia, yet Quatre had brought it with him for the mission to find Heero, even as he'd hoped that he would never have to utilize it. He knew it was the right tool for the job here, but Quatre had first-hand experience with how badly things could go if he wasn't careful with it.

There's no time for those doubts now, he silently told himself, I know what needs to be done.

Taking a deep breath to steel himself, Quatre then signaled his companion. "Lan, can you cover me? I just need a minute!"

Lan didn't question his request. "Leave it to me!"

Knowing he had to act quickly before the Mobile Dolls could exploit the gap his inactivity would cause, Quatre's fingers flew across the console as he prepared his Gundam and himself for what was about to happen. He'd already inserted the required software package prior to launching from the Dominion as a precaution, so all he had to do now was run through the activation process and synch his helmet's internal sensors to receive signals from the program. The screens of his cockpit display flashed yellow a moment later, and then a single word in white text appeared on the main monitor.

ZERO.

….

They almost feel quicker here than they were back in Iceland, Rey thought as one of the Guntram's appeared to dance through the barrage of emerald death he'd sent its way, I wouldn't be surprised if they were programmed to take prior battles into account and adapt their movements. They've already seen me in action before, so I could be at a disadvantage.

Even though he was freshly arrived to the fight, Rey already felt like his back was to the wall. While the Legend had moved into the center of Terminal's formation to provide maximum covering fire to the pilots operating in front, that didn't mean Rey's position was a safe one. Already, he'd been forced to use the Legend's Solidus Fulgor beam shields to deflect return fire from the Guntrams, and while his shots were helping to keep the Mobile Dolls on their toes and making them reluctant to launch an all-out assault, Rey's lack of success in actually landing hits was frustrating to no end. It felt like the unmanned machines were reading him effortlessly, almost taunting him with their evasive maneuvers.

Having seen Athrun and the Valkyrie dispatch the pair of Guntrams they'd been engaging, Rey was hopeful that the formidable duo of Destiny and Epyon Revenant could turn the tide. However, the surviving Mobile Dolls had reacted quickly to the losses, with several of the battery-powered models breaking off from engaging the Eurasians to intercept Athrun and Shemei. Even if the Krähes were weaker than the Guntrams, they were still devilishly agile; hardly easy foes to destroy. Destiny and Epyon Revenant might destroy them eventually, but their pilots would have to work for those kills, and that would take valuable time.

As Rey was trying to puzzle out a solution to their conundrum, his console chimed before Quatre's voice came over the cockpit speakers. "Rey, I'm sending you targeting coordinates. Wait fifteen seconds, then saturate them."

"What's he playing at?" Rey muttered as he studied the data.

He took aim at the designated coordinates, but Rey only saw empty air. While he might've protested under other circumstances, seeing as he didn't have a plan of his own, Rey would at least play along. After all, Legend was nuclear-powered, so any energy he wasted would be miniscule in the grand scheme of things.

As Rey counted down the last few seconds, he saw the Vayeate Kai let fly with a blast from its powerful beam cannon, along with a salvo from its railguns. The targeted Guntram easily evaded those shots…

…and flew right into the coordinates Quatre had designated as the fifteen second mark was reached.

Rey's eyes widened in shock even as he opened fire with Legend's beam rifle and the backpack-mounted DRAGOONs, utterly floored as what he had assumed would be wasted shots perforated the Guntram and turned it into a fireball.

How the hell had Quatre known where the Mobile Doll would go?

His console chimed again, and Rey saw that Quatre was designating another Guntram as his target. Shoving aside his bewilderment at what had happened mere seconds ago, Rey on instinct fired at the Mobile Doll. The Guntram dodged his fire this time, but wound up flying straight towards Yzak, who was ready with his energy blade. Mercurius Kai's blazing yellow beam saber thrust forward, and while the Guntram was able to redirect the attack, Adaline's Wraith fell upon it from behind and impaled it with one of its violet energy blades.

We couldn't take down any of them earlier, Rey thought as his prior confusion returned to the forefront, and now two get destroyed in a matter of seconds? What's happening? What changed?

As the clash continued, Rey's eyes found the Gundam Sandrock Saladin. Ever since it and the other Gundams had shown themselves at Armory One, Rey had noted them all as formidable machines, and the same had gone for their pilots. Even so, his focus, and that of ZAFT, had naturally been on Heero and the Gundam Albion given the pilot's feats during the last war. Quatre and the other Gundam pilots had certainly demonstrated their prowess on the battlefield, yet Rey had simply considered them as fellow aces like himself; dangerous to be sure, but still on a level he and his comrades could contend with, and not a threat on the same order of magnitude as the likes of Heero Yuy or some of the other top combatants from the last war.

Now, though, that paradigm underwent a drastic revision.

Rey resolved to keep an eye on Quatre for the rest of the engagement. If Sandrock Saladin's pilot demonstrated that the previous feats of coordination and almost-prescient levels of targeting were more than just freak incidents, then the Chairman needed to know about it.

He needed to know that there was another pilot potentially as dangerous as Heero Yuy in his own way.

….

Holy shit, Quatre, Lan thought in amazement as she saw the Guntram Sandrock Saladin's pilot had told her to target evade her particle beam and railgun slugs only to fly right into the waiting arms of Adaline and Priscilla, who proceeded to impale the Mobile Doll on their sabers, I knew you were something special, but this… this is incredible! Also, kind of scary… not that I'm complaining.

When he'd asked her to cover him before, Lan figured that Quatre was cooking up a plan, and she'd been eager to see just what kind of scheme he would hatch. What she hadn't expected was for the kind and gentle Desert Prince to suddenly become a battlefield commander with precognitive abilities, and Lan knew that there was only one way Quatre could do what he was pulling off now.

He was using the ZERO System.

While Lan would happily take any advantage she and her comrades could get right now, she could not deny a sense of unease. She recalled clearly what Quatre had told her regarding his prior experience with the ZERO System, and while Lan trusted him to maintain control, she was still worried for her dear friend. After what he had been through with the ZERO System in the After Colony world, Lan knew that using it here was not a decision that Quatre would have made lightly.

I know you can take care of yourself, Quatre, she thought while evading beam rifle fire from the remaining Guntrams, and you're stronger now than you were back then. Still…

She wanted to reach out to him, to make sure that he was okay, but the last thing Quatre needed now was any form of distraction. All Lan could do was focus on her part of the fight and trust that Quatre knew what he was doing. If he showed signs of losing control, then she would do everything in her power to bring him back to his senses.

….

A chime sounded from Trowa's console as Quatre sent him a fresh set of firing coordinates, along with a ten second timer. Aiming accordingly, Trowa waited the specified time before letting fly with his Double Barrel Gatling Gun and Double Assault Beam Cannon, while also throwing some missiles in for good measure. He was rewarded by the sight of a Guntram which was evading combined fire from Yzak and Dearka flying right into the path of his barrage, and Trowa watched in satisfaction as the Mobile Doll was blown apart.

Only four of those units left now, Trowa thought as he adjusted his aim and laid down covering fire for Quatre, discouraging a Guntram from flanking him as the Desert Prince clashed blades with another one, Heero and Wufei are still tangling with the most advanced units, though, and looks like the Galm Team hasn't eliminated Nosferatu yet. Add in all the Krähes still on the field, not to mention the dreadnought, and we have our work cut out here.

Quatre's voice then came over Trowa's cockpit speakers as Sandrock Saladin sent its current foe running with mighty swings from both Heat Shotels. "Trowa, drop altitude and move to the left flank. Dearka, do the same but go to the right. Once you're there, lay down fire across the Guntrams line of retreat."

Trowa nodded, immediately grasping what Quatre had in mind. "Understood."

"Copy that," Dearka added.

As the two blue Gundams took their respective positions, the team's broader formation shifted into a slight crescent, with Heavyarms Arsenal and Vayeate Kai being the outer tips while everyone else was roughly the main arc. Once Trowa and Dearka were ready, Rey, Adaline, and Priscilla began laying down particle beam fire. The remaining four Guntrams attempted to pull back and regroup, which was when Trowa and Dearka opened fire to cut off the tactical withdrawal. As the Mobile Dolls attempted to adapt, Quatre, Lan, and Yzak moved up while the rest provided covering fire, with all three converging on just one of the Guntrams. Yzak came in from above, Lan below, and Quatre head-on. The result was a Guntram which rapidly ran out of room to maneuver and found itself sliced apart by Sandrock Saladin.

Only three left now, Trowa thought as the pilots who had previously gone forward now moved back to their original positions, but now that they've seen this maneuver, it won't work again. What's your plan this time, Quatre?

That was when Trowa saw two friendly contacts closing in from behind the Guntrams and heard Shemei's voice come over his cockpit speakers. "Sorry for the delay!"

Reorienting himself while working with Dearka and the others to keep the surviving Guntrams distracted by whatever fire they could throw at them, Trowa saw Epyon Revenant and ZAFT's Destiny Gundam rapidly approaching. Debris was falling to the ground behind them, and a quick check of his sensors showed Trowa that the pair had eliminated three Krähes from the equation. Now that they were free to help with the remaining Guntrams, Trowa knew it would just be a matter of time now until the team would have those final three machines dealt with.

Then it's on to taking out the rest of the Mobile Dolls, he reminded himself as he checked his sensors and saw Heero and Wufei engaging the two most advanced of the nuclear-powered unmanned machines in an incredibly fast-paced fight, followed by the dreadnought. Heero, we'll need your firepower for that, so you'd better not lose here.

….

Start "Hush"

High above the clashes between the rest of Terminal's Team and their ZAFT and Eurasian allies against the Guntram and Krähe models, a lightning-paced dance of death was unfolding. Across the skies trailed blue light and thruster-fire like a series of comets constantly crashing into each other, interspersed with brief flashes of green or yellow energy. Crackling emerald energy blades impacted violet ones again and again, with the sparks resulting from those impacts visible even from the ground, as if a miniature and highly-mobile thunderstorm was in progress.

No words had passed between Heero and Wufei since the latter had joined the former in what he recognized was one of the toughest fights of his life. There was no acknowledgement of the battles that the two Gundam pilots had fought against each other not too long ago in this war or the differences that had led them to those duels in the first place. Nor was there any communication regarding tactics or strategy. There was no need for apologies or planning between the two. They understood each other in the way that only Gundam pilots could, intuitively grasping how they fought and what they would do. So, Heero and Wufei had silently chosen their targets; Huginn for the former, Muninn for the latter.

And the duels had begun.

While Wufei taking on Muninn and its support drones was a huge help, Heero would still readily admit that his back was to the wall. Huginn and its drones were no less deadly now than they had been before Wufei joined the fray, and they were matching him move for move. As Heero's beam saber clashed with that of the Mobile Doll, the two support drones came in from the flanks, with the Gundam shuddering as their potshots hit. Heero had already attempted multiple times to dispatch the drones with short bursts from his machine cannons and railgun slug salvos, but the little machines were proving extremely difficult to hit.

Deflecting a saber strike from Huginn, Heero slammed his thrusters in reverse before raising his rifle to pop a shot off at the Mobile Doll. Not only did the target spin to the right and evade the blast, but the two support drones then came in from above and below, their particle beams missing him by mere meters as Heero took Wing Zero Albion through a desperate series of twists and turns. He then took the Gundam into a rapid climb, attempting to catch the drone that was above him by surprise, but the seed-like craft had already accelerated and was diving away from Heero's approach vector. Heero adjusted course and snapped off another shot from his rifle, but the yellow beam only passed through air.

While firing another burst from his shoulder cannons and staggered slugs from his railguns, Heero took a quick moment to check on Wufei. Sure enough, the L5 native was having just as much difficulty as Heero. While Wufei definitely held the edge in close-quarters combat, the AI guiding Muninn was pressing him hard, darting in rapidly to strike with its blade before pulling back and firing off volleys with its beam rifle while its support drones attacked from either the flanks, above, or below. Wufei countered by sending his Dragon Fangs flying, but the support drones reacted instantly to evade the serpent-like weapons, and it did not take long at all for the AI controlling them to calculate the effective range so they could keep just out of reach. Wufei's reaction to that was to send jets of fire spewing forth from the Dragon Fangs' flamethrowers, and while this move extended his reach, the drones proved just as capable of evading the streams of flame as they did the Dragon Fangs themselves. Indeed, the drones soon began moving in just close enough for Wufei to launch the Dragon Fangs before breaking off while Muninn then charged forward to take advantage, making a wide slash with its beam saber. Wufei pulled back at the last moment, but the strike still caught Altron Custom on the torso and left a long black furrow along its chest armor.

As Wufei's clash continued, Heero found himself increasingly on the backfoot. If it was just a one-on-one with him and Huginn itself, then Heero would have been certain of his victory, though it would definitely be a hard-earned one. The two support drones were the real issue. If they were the gun drones used by Nosferatu, it'd be one thing; those never strayed too far from their mother unit, which made them at least manageable, if still a challenge. Huginn and Muninn's drones, however, operated basically as independent aircraft. Yes, they were directed by the Mobile Doll's AI and so were not truly autonomous, but they had such greater range of maneuverability over the types of gun drones that Heero had previously encountered as to render that distinction practically meaningless.

While shifting his wing shields to block fire from the drones, Heero risked diverting his attention from Huginn in an attempt to take out at least one of its deadly little helpers. Bursts of rotary cannon fire flew, along with staggered shots from his Xiphias railguns, but none landed. To make matters worse, Huginn itself immediately exploited the opening, rushing in and making a slash with its beam saber. While Heero narrowly managed to deflect the attack, Huginn suddenly accelerated upwards and flipped around, kicking Wing Zero Albion and actually cracking the Seach Eye in the process, and sending the Gundam backwards.

And it was that move which made Heero realize something.

He'd seen this fighting style before. Hell, he'd been on the receiving end of it, and it hadn't even been particularly long ago.

Mihaly, he thought as he weaved through beam fire from the drones and Huginn's rifle, It's using Mihaly's combat data from the Wyvern. It's even built off the same design principles, just upsized to fit the nuclear reactor and drones.

That was when the Eurasian Federation ace's parting words from their final battle over central Europe echoed in Heero's mind, and the pieces fell into place.

"Well… I'd hoped. Go… Berlin. Look out… drones… foolish legacy. This… due to my ego. Put... end to..."

The 'drones' he was referring to were the new Mobile Dolls, Heero thought as he evaded beam fire from the two support craft while parrying a saber thrust from Huginn, Mihaly must not have known what to call them, so he used the closest term available.

With that, Heero knew what to do. Pulling back from Huginn and the drones, he sent a quick burst transmission over to Wufei. The L5 native might not have fought Mihaly himself, but he had definitely seen at least two of the Eurasian's clashes with Heero from a distance. Heero wanted to kick himself for not having pieced this puzzle together sooner; he should have caught on to the similarities the moment he saw the recordings Wufei and Athrun had passed along from the battle in Iceland. He had simply been too caught up in planning the wider operation for taking down Sovereign to pick up on that key detail. Now he had it, though…

…and that would be the key to victory.

….

So, that's how it is, Wufei thought as he saw the short message Heero had just sent over, Mobile Dolls using a real pilot's combat data… Duo mentioned White Fang pulling that same stunt with Mercurius and Vayeate. That explains a few things.

Heero was rapidly gaining altitude as his foe gave chase, and Wufei did the same. Muninn eagerly gave chase, with its two support drones close behind. As the Mobile Doll swiftly closed in, both support drones went wide, arcing outwards as they set up for what Wufei was certain would be a pincer attack. He feinted towards Muninn before banking and gunning Nataku's thrusters for all that they were worth, heading straight for one of the support drones. Wufei then let fly with both Dragon Fangs, and when they reached their maximum extended length, he then activated the flamethrowers. Wide plumes of flame surged towards the drone, but the closest they got were to lick at the little seed-like machine's belly.

Wufei continued his charge even as the Dragon Fangs were pulled back. Nataku shuddered as a particle beam from Muninn's rifle hit it in the back at the left shoulder, and the other support drone also scored a blow on the Gundam's rear skirt armor, but Wufei refused to alter course. If he wanted to take down Muninn, then the support drones had to fall first, and this was his best chance to target an isolated one.

The drone he was going for fired off a volley of particle beams. Focusing on the charge above all else, Wufei's efforts at evasion were minimal. Several beams flew past Nataku by razor-thin margins, and one hit the Gundam's head just above the right sensor eye. The AI controlling the drone finally seemed to recognize its peril and made the machine dive, but Wufei had already gotten too close. He launched the Dragon Fangs again, this time catching the pesky drone with the left one and crushing it.

Rapidly flipping Nataku around and getting absolutely hammered into his seat from the resulting G-forces, Wufei caught a glimpse of Heero focusing in on one of his foe's support drones, just as the L5 native had done. Unlike Wufei, who had needed to get quite close to score his kill, Heero was able to manipulate his target's flight path through a series of quick bursts from Wing Zero Albion's rotary cannons and single shots from the railguns, before letting fly with a blast from the Twin Buster Rifle that washed over the craft and reduced it to superheated cinders. However, like Wufei, Heero's focus on the single drone had opened him up to attacks from the other drone and Huginn, with several particle beams impacting the Gundam's back armor before the machine could whirl around to defend itself.

"One down," Wufei murmured as he deflected a beam saber strike from Muninn before breaking off and racing towards the remaining support drone, "and one to go."

The AI behind the drone was wise to Wufei's tactics now, and the little aircraft gave him a very wide berth. As Wufei tried to chase it down, the drone looped around its mother unit, intent on using Muninn as a shield. When Wufei's double-ended beam trident clashed with the Mobile Doll's beam saber, the drone suddenly darted out from behind, and only by quickly pulling back was Wufei able to tank its particle beams on the armored face of his left Dragon Fang. Thrusting out his trident to keep Muninn at bay, Wufei then fired off that Dragon Fang at the drone, but it had already darted out of range.

Need to make it think it has an opening on me, he thought, and lure it in.

Wufei smirked as a rather bold scheme came to mind. It was risky in the extreme; one slip up on his part, and he would pay with his life.

The perfect scheme for a Gundam pilot.

Gunning his thrusters, he charged Muninn head-on, positioning the left Dragon Fang in front to act as a shield against incoming fire. The Mobile Doll eagerly took up the challenge, adjusting to match Wufei's altitude and trajectory. Checking for the remaining support drone, Wufei saw it arc wide to the left, setting up for an attack from the flank, likely to be launched as Nataku and Muninn's energy blades met.

That would suit Wufei's purpose just fine.

….

By chance, Heero had Altron Custom on the periphery of his display, and thus he was able to see him rushing headlong towards Muninn. Expecting Wufei to clash with the enemy in a quick exchange of blades, Heero was surprised when his fellow Gundam pilot instead banked his mobile suit hard to the left at the last possible second, with the Mobile Doll's beam saber scraping along Altron Custom's skirt armor and leaving a blackened streak in the process. Wufei's new course took him straight for the support drone, and he immediately let fly with both of his Dragon Fangs. Caught off guard by his quick change of targets, the AI controlling the support drone reacted just a split-second too slow, which lead to the little aircraft getting caught up in the twin plumes that Wufei unleashed from his flamethrowers. The support drone was hit with the full brunt of the attack, and after the fire had washed over it and Heero could see the aircraft again, it was charred up and down while sparks and smoke were sputtering from its thruster. Its mobility now drastically reduced, the support drone was then easily skewered upon Wufei's beam trident.

However, Muninn had followed Wufei and was nearly within saber range, with a perfect shot at Altron Custom's back. Even as Heero was about to call out a warning, he knew that not even a pilot of Wufei's caliber would be able to dodge the incoming blow. That was when Wufei suddenly thrust his beam trident backwards, catching Muninn on the opposite end of the weapon. The greater reach of the double-ended beam trident saved Wufei's life, with the three prongs piercing straight through Muninn's torso as the Mobile Doll's beam saber thrust was halted less than a meter away from Altron Custom.

You played that perfectly, Heero thought as he evaded beam fire from Huginn and the remaining support drone, Wufei, if your timing had been off by as much as a second, that would've been the end of you. Just the kind of gamble I'd expect from you.

Even as the light from Muninn's explosion was still fading, Altron Custom was already on the move, racing towards Heero. While Heero deflected a beam saber strike from Huginn, Wufei aimed his left Dragon Fang at the sole surviving support drone, forcing the little aircraft to break off its attacks on Wing Zero Albion. Wufei gave chase, his strategy clear; he would keep the drone off Heero's back.

Now for Heero and Huginn, it was one-on-one.

Gundam and Mobile Doll climbed ever-higher, green and yellow beams flashing between them before they inevitably closed for exchanges between their respective emerald and violet blades. Speed and power were Heero's; inhuman agility was Huginn's. For every might blow that Heero rained down upon Huginn, the Mobile Doll had a precisely calculated parry. For every blindingly fast charge Heero made, the Mobile Doll had a dragonfly's nimble evasion. Even the predictions of the ZERO System were matched by the formidable databanks at the Mobile Doll's disposal; all the knowledge gained by the Atlantic Federation during Heero's multiple battles against them over the course of two wars now was at Huginn's command.

As the foes closed together once more, dodging each other's rifle fire before their blades clashed, Heero understood that, like Wufei, he would have to gamble for victory. Opening fire with both his railguns and rotary cannons momentarily forced the Mobile Doll back, and Heero made his move. Mirroring Mihaly's actions from their last battle, he feinted low with his saber strike before thrusting upwards at the Mobile Doll's cockpit. Sure enough, Huginn recognized the attack, and it darted upwards before thrusting its saber down. Heero's blade couldn't come up in time to block, and the Mobile Doll's beam saber pierced Wing Zero Albion's right sensor eye.

But Heero hadn't been counting on ending the enemy with his saber this time. While he'd been feinting with the blade, his rifle was at the ready…

…and Huginn was squarely in its sights.

The Mobile Doll rushed to pull its saber out of the Gundam's head, but it was already too late. A blast of golden-yellow hellfire ripped forth, washing over Huginn and obliterating the Mobile Doll. As Heero pulled away from the explosion, he saw the remaining support drone suddenly stall in the air before it fell towards the surface, its guiding intelligence silent forevermore.

"Thanks for the help," Heero said as Altron Custom came up beside him.

"Don't mention it," Wufei replied, "Can you still execute the plan?"

Heero nodded after performing a quick damage check. "Right optical sensor's out, but the left's still good, and so is the Search Eye. I can make the shot."

"Good," Wufei said, "Then let's end this."

"Roger that," Heero concurred.

End "Hush"

….

Start "Tournament of Aces"

"Yzak, go low!" Quatre's voice ordered over Mercurius Kai's cockpit speakers, "Dearka, fire along the lane I'm sending you in ten seconds! Everyone else, provide cover!"

Yzak was already diving, and he could see Vayeate Kai setting up for its shot. As Heavyarms Arsenal, the three Wraiths, Destiny, Legend, and Epyon Revenant pushed the other two Guntrams back, a blast from Dearka's heavy beam cannon sent the third evading downwards, straight into Yzak's flight path. He opened fire with his beam rifle before charging in, yellow saber thrusting forward. The Guntram was able to evade the particle beams and deflect the blade, but in doing so left itself vulnerable to Quatre himself, who had charged in from behind. Recognizing its peril too late, the Guntram attempted to climb out of the trap, but Sandrock Saladin's twin Heat Shotels were already closing like the blades of scissors, and the nuclear-powered Mobile Doll was cut clean in half.

"Nice!" Dearka cheered over the tactical channel.

Yzak heartily concurred. "Just two of the nuclear ones left. Let's do this!"

Strictly speaking, there were actually three hostile nuclear mobile units still on the field. Only two of them were Mobile Dolls, though, with the third being Nosferatu's latest incarnation. Seeing as Galm Team had already stripped Colonel Nazara's personal mobile suit of more than half its gun drones, though, and that Cipher now had the machine completely occupied in a duel as Pixy had his attention turned to making life hell for the Krähe Mobile Dolls that were trying to interfere, Phantom Pain's leader was considered a contained threat. Indeed, between his formidable positron rifle, railguns, missiles, and beam pistol, Galm Two had already taken down four more of the battery-powered Mobile Dolls, leaving just fifteen out of the original forty-five still on the field.

With the Mobile Doll threat now severely reduced, including Heero and Wufei having taken down the two most dangerous of the unmanned units and now diving in to help clear out the rest, the badly-battered Eurasian Federation forces had found their second wind. While SU-63Es provided cover through long-range missile volleys, the surviving Jet Dagger-Ls and Jet Windams had pushed through the now badly-stretched Mobile Doll screen and were concentrating on the last three Proclus aerial mobile armors. The scallop-shaped aircraft poured out anti-air missiles and CIWS fire in response, even attempting to track and engage the mobile suits with their cumbersome beam cannons, but by now the Eurasians simply had too much experience in fighting these new mobile armors and knew exactly how to hit them. Easily exploiting the Proclus's lack of maneuverability, the Eurasian mobile suits were able to set up textbook pincer attacks, concentrating their fire along the sides of the mobile armors where their positron reflectors did not provide cover. It did not take long for one to fall out of the sky, trailing smoke and fire, and the remaining two would not be long for this world.

Perhaps sensing growing vulnerability, the AI that was responsible for directing the Mobile Dolls had begun a defensive redeployment. The Krähes were being pulled back, with most of them forming up to protect Sovereign herself, while a handful remained dedicated to reinforcing Colonel Nazara, or at least attempting to before running headlong into the brick wall that was Galm Two. The final two Proclus mobile armors likewise began moving closer to Sovereign, clearly hoping to shelter themselves in the dreadnought's formidable anti-air umbrella.

It'll be tough to pick them off, Yzak thought as he took potshots at one of the Guntrams with his beam rifle, only for the Mobile Doll to evade them, especially while the dreadnought's flooding local airspace with anti-air missiles. Still, we're making progress.

Quatre's voice came over Yzak's speakers once more. "Everyone, force the last two Guntrams upwards!"

Yzak was curious as to why Quatre wanted that, but he did not give voice to it; the results of Quatre's command thus far in this battle had spoken for themselves, so Yzak would play along and trust that the Gundam pilot had a plan. Spreading out his Planet Defensors to cover both himself and any nearby friendlies who might need their protection, the former ZAFT ace continued sending volleys of particle beams at the Guntram he had targeted previously. Similar volleys went flying from the rest of his comrades with ranged weaponry at their disposal, while Epyon Revenant and Sandrock Saladin got in close to provide the Mobile Dolls with additional encouragement courtesy of their blades. Sure enough, the AI controlling the Guntrams quickly decided that gaining altitude was the wisest course, so the two nuclear-powered Mobile Dolls rapidly ascended…

…straight into the flight paths of Wing Zero Albion and Altron Custom.

An emerald beam saber slash and beam trident thrust later, and the final two Guntrams were falling from the skies as showers of debris.

….

"No…" Nazara muttered under his breath as he parried a beam saber strike from Galm One, all while his dreams of retribution were crumbling to ash around him, "No, no, no… this isn't happening!"

While he still had four of Nosferatu Dracul's gun drones at his disposal and was now fighting Galm One in single combat, the masked Colonel knew that the tide was against him. Not only had Galm Two completely prevented any Mobile Doll reinforcements from joining Nazara's duel with Galm One, but the wider battle was now undeniably going in the enemy's favor. All the losses that had been inflicted upon the Eurasian's throughout the advance across Europe were meaningless in light of the fact that the prized fruits of Project: Iron Legion had been decimated once Terminal and ZAFT's teams had taken the field. The very same pilots that the Mobile Dolls had been designed to counter had ripped them apart. It did not matter that the nuclear-powered machines had made the enemy work for their destruction, that they'd even inflicted damage upon their foes when so many Atlantic Federation pilots had failed to accomplish even that much. All that mattered was where the battle stood now; on the brink of complete catastrophe for LOGOS.

"Same as you ever were," Galm One's voice came over the cockpit speakers as their sabers clashed, his matter-of-fact tone making the taunts cut all the deeper, "Whittle down the drones, keep the Mobile Dolls away, and what's left? A pilot that can't measure up."

An inhuman snarl slipped from Nazara's lips as he furiously attempted to counterattack, thrusting his saber forward while spreading out Nosferatu Dracul's four remaining gun drones, only for Cipher to sudden pull back. Not only did the mercenary cleanly evade Nazara's beam saber, but at the same time he snapped off a salvo with his plasma cannons that destroyed another one of the Colonel's drones, leaving just three at his disposal. A barrage from those remaining three along with his beam rifle forced the mercenary to momentarily fall back, but even as Nazara gave chase, he could feel in his gut a sinking sensation. At the rate this duel was progressing, the odds of the Colonel suffering the same fate as his Mobile Dolls only grew.

That was when another male voice came over the cockpit speakers; that of Captain Dixon. "Colonel, I believe we should withdraw."

Nazara's eyes widened beneath his mask, and while his tone was level when he replied, it was only kept so through every ounce of restraint he possessed. "Captain… could you repeat that? I'm not sure if I heard you right."

There was a very audible deep breath before Dixon spoke again. "You did hear me right, Colonel. I'm advising a retreat."

The Colonel was seething now, his voice cracking while he continued to pour particle beams downrange at Galm One. "Retreat? Captain, have you lost your mind?"

"Far from it, Colonel," Dixon answered, his composure unwavering, "Taking into account our present tactical situation, I would call withdrawal prudent. We've suffered crippling losses to our Mobile Dolls and mobile armor escorts, and the rest are sure to fall soon. Retreating will at least preserve the dreadnought and yourself; the Mobile Dolls are far easier to replace."

"Sovereign is invulnerable," Nazara growled as he was suddenly forced to evade return fire from Cipher's plasma cannons before the mercenary rapidly closed in and made a wide swing with his whip that the Colonel only narrowly managed to avoid, "Nothing has pierced her positron reflectors!"

"So far," Dixon acknowledged, "but who's to say that will continue? We're still dealing with engine issues, and the enemy can put far greater strain on the shields now than before. Respectfully, Colonel, do you really want to push our luck here? We're on thin ice already."

Nazara's first instinct was to dismiss Dixon's concerns outright, but he managed to restrain himself. When he considered the laundry list of malfunctions that had already been recorded over Sovereign's so-far brief service life, the Captain's caution was warranted. Despite the phenomenal success at Iceland, the Paris attack, and the advance across Europe up until Terminal and ZAFT had intervened, the dreadnought still quite clearly had technical issues that needed addressing. While those had mostly been in the form of subpar engine output and had been counterbalanced by the extensive redundancy which had gone into Sovereign's construction, there was always the risk of the positron reflectors being next to suffer a malfunction. With the Mobile Dolls and mobile armors on the verge of being wiped out, the enemy would be able to concentrate all attacks on Sovereign directly; if the shields were to suffer any kind of technical failure, it was most likely to come when they were under sustained pressure.

We repulsed the Iceland attack, Nazara told himself, burned Paris to ashes, and inflicted heavy casualties on both ZAFT and the Eurasian Federation forces. The first target of Operation: Scourge was successfully destroyed… and Vienna isn't going anywhere.

"Very well, Captain," Nazara said eventually as he crossed beam sabers with Cipher once more, "Set course for Heaven's Base. We'll pick up where we left off another time."

"Thank you, Colonel," Dixon replied with audible relief.

Beneath his mask, Nazara spited Galm One's machine with one last hateful glower before he pulled back, with a massed salvo of anti-air missiles from Sovereign serving to cover his withdrawal. The mercenary had gotten lucky again.

The next time they met, Nazara would ensure that his luck did not last.

End "Tournament of Aces"

….

On the bridge of the Redemption, Hannah and her crew had been following ever update from the battle below with bated breath, but the latest report from her communications officer had a markedly increased level of urgency. "Sovereign is changing course, Captain! Turning hard to port; looks like she's coming about."

Hannah's eyes widened slightly at the news. "They're attempting to retreat?"

"That's what Terminal's indicating, ma'am," the communications officer confirmed, "Their strike team reports complete destruction of the nuclear-powered Mobile Dolls, and the battery-powered ones have been severely reduced in number. Almost all the new aerial mobile armors have been destroyed, too."

Hannah nodded as she processed the information. "Has Terminal given the green light for Phase Two of the operation?"

"Yes, ma'am," the officer replied, "Their message requests that we wait until Sovereign has settled on a new course, then to line up the shot. Once we're in alignment, we're to report back and wait for confirmation from the strike team before beginning the firing sequence."

"Send an update to the Phoenix Gundam," Hannah instructed, "We need to get out ahead of the dreadnought and prepare for the shot."

Moment of truth's almost here, she thought, either we make the shot and prove the weapon's viability…

…or Sovereign escapes, free to begin another terror campaign.

….

With all the nuclear-powered Mobile Dolls destroyed and the remaining battery-powered units severely reduced in number, not to mention the aerial mobile armors being down to just two machines now, one might think that attacking the dreadnought herself would be a much easier prospect than before. This was true strictly in the sense that there were far less units available to defend the vessel, but Sovereign herself would not be a demure wallflower at her own party. With Terminal, ZAFT, and Eurasian Federation mobile suits enveloping her even as she came about and attempted to retreat, the dreadnought took to being the center of attention by throwing out a titanic volume of defensive fire. Her two-hundred Helldart anti-air missile launchers may have all been mounted topside, but the individual warheads were quite capable of locking onto targets on the opposite side of the warship and arcing around the vessel to chase them, while her one-hundred 75mm Igelstellung CIWS, split between the upper and lower hull, could provide almost perfect coverage around the dreadnought. The surviving Proclus mobile armors and Krähe Mobile Dolls were almost superfluous in comparison, though they did not hesitate to augment the dreadnought's anti-air defenses with their own armaments.

Start "Daredevil"

This was what Heero and the others had to contend with as they attempted to take up position for the combined attack on Sovereign. In fact, Heero had it significantly harder than several of the others, for the shot he was setting up for would be directed at the dreadnought's upper hull, placing him in clear view for all the vessel's missile launchers, and it became immediately clear that they considered him the top priority target. Between frantic evasive maneuvers, defensive fire with Wing Zero Albion's machine cannons, and tanking the warheads that he could not shoot down on his wing-mounted energy shields, it was all Heero could do to simply weather the storm of anti-air missiles flying forth from the dreadnought.

The others might've had it a little better, but that was in a relative manner. As Vayeate Kai, Morgan Sorceress, and the Destiny Gundam were the only other mobile suits which possessed heavy beam weapons that could be considered 'similar' to the Twin Buster Rifle even if they could not match its raw firepower, their part of the operation would be a combined salvo aimed at the dreadnought's ventral surface. While that meant they only had to directly face forty of the ship's CIWS and whatever Helldart missiles came over and around the warship's upper hull when compared to the blizzard of anti-air fire Heero had to contend with, it also meant that they were within the firing arc's of the dreadnought's heavy guns. The Gottfried and Aufprall Dreizehn turrets may not have been designed to engage high-speed targets such as mobile suits, but Sovereign's crew seemed more than willing to employ them in that capacity out of desperation. So it was that Dearka, Pixy, and Athrun found themselves zigzagging through a barrage of emerald and crimson beams, with the ground below rapidly transforming into an imitation of the Moon's surface as the unintentional bombardment devastated the terrain.

While the heavy firepower of the combined Terminal and ZAFT teams were attempting to maintain their firing positions, the rest of the mobile suits split up to provide cover. Shemei and Wufei were circling Heero, using their Gundams' head-mounted CIWS and Vulcans respectively to destroy what missiles they could, with Altron Custom adding its flamethrowers to the mix. Adaline and Priscilla's Wraiths were also part of Heero's screen, letting fly with almost-constant fire from their beam rifles and railguns as swarms of missiles continued to flow forth from the dreadnought while some of the surviving Mobile Dolls attempted to strike. Below the dreadnought, Rey had dedicated the Legend to covering Athrun, while Yzak was focusing on protecting Dearka with Mercurius Kai's Planet Defensors. Trowa had formed up with Galm Two, employing Heavyarms Arsenal as essentially a mobile anti-air and missile defense battery, while Lan and Quatre were flying further out to intercept any Mobile Dolls that went after the Gundams beneath Sovereign. What surviving Eurasian Federation mobile suits were still on the field added what firepower they could to the anti-missile efforts, while SU-63Es continued to provide long-range support with the missiles they had left.

Even with the dedicated screen, Heero's cockpit speakers were still constantly blaring missile lock warnings. Even as he blew apart incoming warheads with his machine cannons, others slipped through and detonated against Wing Zero Albion's torso and legs. His Gundam shuddered under the impacts, and while they had not caused any critical damage, the near-constant barrage was threatening Heero's aim. Threading the proverbial needle here was shaping up to be one hell of a challenge.

There isn't going to be an ideal window, Heero eventually realized as he dodged and weaved through another swarm of Helldarts, which means all you can do now is throw the dice.

Eyes narrowing, he sent the confirmation signal to the combined strike teams and Terminal's friends up in orbit. A timer pre-set for just this moment suddenly showed up in the top right corner of his main display, and the countdown began.

….

"Confirmation received!" the Redemption's communication officer called out.

Hannah leaned forward. "Has Sovereign completed her turn?"

"She's settled on her new course now," the officer confirmed, "Latest data from Albion verifies it."

"Then lock in our firing solution," Hannah ordered, "and alert the Phoenix Gundam! We're only getting one shot at this, so let's make it count!"

….

Beneath the Redemption, Spray had been constantly adjusting Phoenix Gundam X's position to keep aligned with the warship above and the target far below. Now that he had received confirmation from the Redemption, Spray checked the targeting data one last time before making a final correction in his flight path. Overhead, the emitter dish on the warship's lower hull began to glow white hot as the first stage of the Judgment system's firing sequence was initiated. Ensuring that the Phoenix Gundam X was perfectly lined up with its back to the warship, Spray waited for the next stage to commence.

That came a moment later when the beam of microwave energy flashed between Redemption and the receiver dish on the Phoenix Gundam's back. Though Spray could not see it himself, based on simulations and projections he'd seen prior to the mission he knew that the receiver dish was glowing red, and the Judgement Satellite Cannon's barrels unfolded. The energy from the receiver dish then flowed along emitters and up to the front of the barrels, swiftly coalescing into the twin cyan spheres that Spray had been waiting for.

Spray let out a breath he did not realize he had been holding, then pulled the trigger. The twin cyan spheres became beams of energy zipping out in front of Phoenix Gundam X before joining together in a single firing path. Then that single column of energy was racing down towards Earth, leaving Spray and the Redemption's crew to pray that their shot would make the difference.

….

Despite fighting for his life against Galm One and hanging on by just a thread, Nazara still could not resist a smug smirk as he saw Wing Zero Albion take aim with the Twin Buster Rifle. That infamous weapon had been the bane of the Earth Alliance and ZAFT alike for two wars now, enjoying a justified reputation for its unstoppable firepower. Today, though, that reputation would be decisively broken. Even the Twin Buster Rifle's fearsome might, the envy of every military officer in the Earth Sphere including Nazara himself, would soon be shown as impotent before Sovereign's positron reflectors.

I'm almost tempted to order Dixon to cease targeting him, the Colonel mused as he deflected a beam saber slash from Cipher, just so Heero can fire without distraction and see for himself how his signature weapon has been defeated.

He resisted that urge, instead simply staying on the defensive against Galm One and waiting for the inevitable shot. The Colonel was aware of the other Gundams beneath Sovereign, and he saw three of them aiming their heaviest weapons at the dreadnought's belly. Their strategy was obvious; hit Sovereign from multiple fronts to overwhelm the shields. Unfortunately for them, the sheer power that the dreadnought was channeling to its shields courtesy of the vessel's two nuclear reactors meant that it would take a truly staggering level of energy for such a strategy to work.

Energy that Terminal and ZAFT simply did not have.

So it was that Nazara broke out in a cruel grin as he saw the familiar golden-yellow glow begin to build up at the barrel tips of the Twin Buster Rifle. A quick glance at his sensors confirmed what the Colonel had anticipated; Heero was going for a fully-charged shot. It was almost pitiful, really. His comrades were fighting so hard to keep anything from interfering with his targeting, a valiant effort that others might've seen as inspiration if they didn't know the truth. All that hard work, all that vaunted piloting skill, and all the power at Terminal's disposal would be for nothing here.

His grin grew as he watched the glow at the end of the weapon intensify, becoming a brilliant glare in the instant before firing as Nazara eagerly awaited the inevitable result. The beam ripped forth a second later…

…only to be joined by a second beam lancing down from far above.

Nazara's jaw dropped as he watched that second beam, this one cyan, slam into the dreadnought's dorsal positron reflector at the same time as Wing Zero Albion's shot, and at the exact same impact point; just above the shield's emitter. His sensors went wild as energy far beyond the Colone's expectations hammered the dreadnought's upper shield, and Nazara momentarily feared a breach. Yet Sovereign herself was still standing, though her positron reflector was being pushed to the absolute limit in holding back the fearsome power of those twin shots. The glare of the twin impacts was still brighter than the sun, yet Nazara knew he had triumphed.

And that was when Destiny, Morgan Sorceress, and Vayeate Kai opened fire from below. Three beams, one crimson, one orangish-red, and one yellow spewed forth just a split second after Wing Zero Albion's and the mystery shot had landed above. In unison, they hit the lower positron reflector…

…and punched right through.

Nazara could only look on in utter astonishment and horror as the trio of beams pierced the shields, a small corner of his mind numbly realizing just what had happened. As that tiny bit of brain matter processed just what Terminal, ZAFT, and what was almost certainly the North American resistance had pulled off, the rest of his mind simply watched in paralyzed shock as the trio of beams from below breached Sovereign's hull at the worst possible point.

Directly below one of the reactors.

What had once been the mightiest warship ever constructed and deployed by the Earth Alliance, the pride of LOGOS's war effort, and the hammer which had been destined to beat the world into submission, was suddenly torn in half by a titanic explosion. Great geysers of fire erupted from both the upper and lower hull as the terrifying leviathan which had terrorized Europe was ripped apart, with the two massive, blazing chunks falling to the surface and kicking up veritable fountains of earthen debris when they hit the ground.

Sovereign was gone.

And all Nazara could do was flee in mortal terror.

….

As the remains of Sovereign hit the ground, Heero let out a weary but satisfied exhalation. The entire plan to take down the dreadnought had hinged around incredibly tight timing, with the lower shots having to come just after the blasts from Wing Zero Albion and Redemption had hit the upper shield and taxed the warship's reactors to the brink. That only gave the briefest of windows before the vessel could generate and reroute sufficient power to fend off the salvo from below. With so much as an instant's hesitation or a shot mistimed by anyone involved, the whole operation would have failed.

"It's done," Heero murmured as he checked his display, "All that's left is the cleanup…"

That cleanup would not take long. As Sovereign had gone down, Nazara had sent Nosferatu Dracul's remaining drones directly at Galm One. Dispatching them was a simple task for the mercenary, but the time needed bought the Colonel a sufficient window for withdrawal. Meanwhile, the remaining Mobile Dolls and mobile armors had rapidly succumbed to the combined efforts of Terminal, ZAFT, and the Eurasians. Curiously, Heero noted that the few Mobile Dolls that had still been flying after the dreadnought's destruction suddenly became much more simplistic in their maneuvers; perhaps Sovereign had housed a primary command intelligence or program, and the ship's fall had forced less sophisticated backup programming to take over. He'd have to analyze the data from this engagement with the others once they returned from the mission… and after they'd gotten sufficient rest.

His fingers dancing across the console, Heero sent a quick transmission back to the Archangel, informing them that the mission had been accomplished. He also sent them all the combat data he had recorded since the engagement had begun, along with a request to forward a copy of it to the North American resistance. There was every possibility that the Atlantic Federation would begin deploying their new Mobile Dolls in their homeland against the ongoing uprising, and the resistance would need to quickly develop their own countermeasures.

Leaning back in his chair as he fought exhaustion, Heero was dimly aware of cheering crackling over the tactical and open channels. He did not join in, but he did allow himself a very small smile and basked in the moment. Surveying the area, he found that Altron Custom was still nearby, and Heero established a connection.

"You did well," he said, "It was good to fight alongside you again."

There was a moment's hesitation before Wufei answered. "Yeah… it was."

Heero sensed an opening. "I doubt this'll be the last horror that the Atlantic Federation unleashes before the war's over. We'll stand a better chance against them if we're united, like we were today. Come back with us, Wufei."

A silent pause hung in the air for a few seconds before Wufei replied. "Not just yet…"

Heero noted that it was not an outright refusal. "Soon?"

There was one more pause before Wufei's response. "Soon. I… have a few things to take care of first."

Heero did not press the matter. "Alright."

He was surprised to then hear Wufei chuckle. "You know… I think I finally get it. Why you really stayed, I mean."

Heero smiled as Murrue's face flashed before his mind's eye; it seemed like Wufei's journey to a new battlefield had followed his own in more ways than one. "That so?"

"It is," Wufei confessed as Altron Custom turned away, "Before I come back… I need to make sure she's ready for it."

Strongly suspecting who 'she' was, Heero decided to drop a bit of unsolicited advice. "Be honest with her, Wufei. Don't hold anything back. She deserves to know what she's getting into."

"Speaking from experience?" Wufei prodded.

Heero nodded. "You could say that."

"Right," Wufei said as Altron Custom accelerated, "See you around, Heero… and don't go dying on me. We still need to settle things."

Heero full heartedly concurred. "Roger that."

End "Daredevil"

He watched Wufei rejoin ZAFT's contingent, with their five mobile suits rapidly shrinking as they soared off into the western horizon. His gaze briefly lingered on the Destiny, and Heero was tempted to reach out to Athrun in a similar manner. He thought better of it; unlike Altron Custom, Destiny was a ZAFT machine; there was every possibility of its communications being monitored. For better or worse, Athrun would have to find his own way back, without Heero or anyone else nudging him along. Based on his behavior in the most recent battles, especially at Berlin and during ZAFT's Operation: Angel Down, Heero suspected, or perhaps simply hoped, that Athrun was at least moving in the right direction.

Only time would tell.

With the battle now over and the adrenaline fading, Heero now felt more keenly than every just how exhausted he was. The long flight out to the combat zone alone had been no small task, and the fighting itself had been fierce. Heero was incredibly grateful that, as part of their cooperation in this operation, the Eurasian Federation had readily offered any of their airbases as rest stops for the return flight. One not too far from the battlefield was already being prepared for their arrival, and that was where Terminal's strike team would land. They'd get a few precious hours of sleep, just enough to stave off collapse, before returning to Orb for proper rest. A longer stay in Eurasian territory might've been healthier, but Heero knew that Cagalli was counting on Terminal's Gundams as deterrence against the Earth Alliance and ZAFT; the longer they were away, the more time there was for Orb's enemies to become emboldened.

A brief rest, Heero thought as Terminal's strike team formed up while the surviving Eurasian Federation mobile suits and aircraft gathered around them as a kind of celebratory honor guard, and then home. I'll see you soon, Murrue.

With the wreckage of Sovereign burning below, Terminal's strike team set off, each pilot weary to the bone but buoyed by the satisfaction of a job well done. The enemy's latest weapons had been defeated, their terror and vengeance campaign ended almost as soon as it had started. Hard questions and harsh truths lay before them; the aftermath of this bloody affair would have far-reaching consequences. Those could be addressed when the time came, though. For now, Paris was avenged, and the Earth Alliance once more thrown onto the backfoot.

For now, that was enough.

Preview for next time!

While the Earth Sphere still reels from Sovereign's brief but destructive reign, Chairman Durandal and Meer Campbell return to the PLANTs. Although the troubled imposter songstress is granted a moment's respite, no such reprieve awaits the Chairman as he's called before the Supreme Council to address the Heaven's Base debacle and subsequent events. A contentious session is then followed by a private meeting of Durandal's inner circle, for the Chairman's long-term designs stand upon the brink of a knife, and delicate adjustments are required. Next time, on "Destiny's Call", Episode Thirty-Five: Web of Intrigue.

"Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are."

Niccolo Machiavelli, 'The Prince'

Author's Notes: You know, it's funny; as much as I was looking forward to writing this chapter, the more I thought about how I'd execute the political intrigue one that I mentioned a couple chapter ago, I actually wound up getting even more excited to write that one than this one! Over the years, the dark scheming of politics has become as fascinating to me as any battle, real or fictional. I honestly can't wait to get started on it, so many ideas to bring to life! Plus, it'll be nice to have a bit of a breather after the past three chapters' worth of combat.

As you probably all figured out, the Redemption, Phoenix Gundam X, NEMO and GM units are all from Titanic X's tie-in story, as is the Judgement Satellite Cannon. Again, you really should read that if you haven't already.

Hope you all enjoyed the chapter. Feel free to review, stay safe, and I'll see you all next time!