Relevant Notes Will Be At The End Of The Chapter

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Mobile Suit/Mass Effect

Episode 18

Gundam Rising

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"Lieutenant Bullow, Megastorm Mistral is about half an hour out and Commodore Pike's Flotilla has just exited the AO..." Kessler reported, the worry in his voice palpable. "I know we can't leave our pilots, but at this rate we'll-"

"I know, Kessler." Bullow interjected, though she was straining to keep her composure. "Just give them a few more minutes."

That was the fifth time she'd told Kessler to give the pilots a few more minutes. He must've been chafing at the constant delays by this point. Bullow was holding out hope, but even she was starting to waver. The temptation for the Acting Captain to cut their losses and simply leave was uncomfortably tempting. The resupply operation was finished, Squadron 13 was already stocked up, magazines filled with munitions and spare parts delivered to the ship's hangars. The loading crew and personnel from Platform 2 had also boarded Risima, as part of the terms Bullow had agreed to. Moreover, the last of Atlas' Super Garudas evacuating the floating facility's personnel. It really did just fall down to waiting on the three pilots.

It could even be argued that it would've been the strategically sound decision to leave. Irena, Verns, and Rosen had been gone for too long. Given the enemy had already breached Platform 2, there was no guarantee that those three were even still alive.

Moments turned into minutes as time ticked by. It took everything Bullow had to quash that urge to leave Atlas Point there and then. Her ability to restrain herself had been on the verge of snapping when the situation finally changed.

The snap-hiss of mechanical doors sliding open caught the Acting Captain's attention, causing her to turn in her seat to see who had just entered the ship's bridge. To her surprise it wasn't anybody from the ship's crew, but instead Director Eilling herself.

"All preparations on our end are complete." The Director said. "Thank you for agreeing to take us in, Lieutenant. Your faith in us will soon be rewarded."

The Lieutenant balled her fists and held the urge to snap back. Even now, Eilling was keeping her in the dark.

Not knowing what the hell was going on was becoming unbearable.

"You're most welcome, Director." Bullow said, as diplomatically as her she could force herself to be. "But where are my pilots?"

"Watch the skies, Lieutenant..." Eilling answered cryptically, pointing towards the large viewports at the front of Risima's bridge. "A miracle is about to unfold."

A sly smirk was on the aging director's face, a mischievous twinkle in her eye.

Bullow gritted her teeth as she realized that the elder woman was enjoying playing like this.

"Ma'am," The Acting Captain all but snapped. "Could you please, for the love of God, speak-"

Before Bullow could finish, Kessler suddenly interrupted.

"Three unknown contacts detected, launching from Atlas Point!" The Warrant Officer hurriedly spoke. "Energy and RADAR signatures don't match anything on record!"

"Tch," Bullow clicked her tongue at the disruption. She turned away from the Director so that she could focus on commanding the ship. "Track and analyze! I want to know if it's a threat!"

"Stand by..." Kessler said as the ship's combat computers scanned the three unknowns.

On the large holographic projector at the center of the bridge, an image of the offending flying objects were rendered, revealing...

"My God..." The Warrant Officer's words trailed off. "T-they're..."

Three mobile suits, clad in a red, white, and blue tricolor, hovered midair. The battlefield seemed to come to a standstill, awed by the sudden appearance of the machine. Ally and enemy alike watched as the three new mobile suits stood above everyone.

Bullow had been stunned as well, but she quickly shook off her stupor and took control of the situation.

"That's our miracle!" She declared. "Helm, launch Risima ASAP and have the Monty and Darrian follow quick!"

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"Whoa, E-War is detecting a surge in enemy transmissions!" A Turian Junior Officer reported to his superior. "Naval Intelligence trying to tap in right now."

The ship at the head of the Turian attack force, the cruiser Tarsus had weathered the battle so far. As one of five cruisers in the formation, its bridge and flag officer doubled as the command nexus for the entire effort to attack the Human's -because that's what Naval Intelligence said the 314 Aliens called themselves- floating fortress. This fortress in the middle of this 'Aster Sea' was a major obstacle standing between the Expeditionary Forces from attacking Continent 2. To ensure the success of the operation, the Navy was committing a significant portion of their SNLF reserves for the assault.

Suffice to say, the continued progress of the pacification campaign rested on the shoulders of this operation.

"Good!" The Tarsus' flag officer, one Captain Avitus, said. "If the rats have something under their sleeves, we have to be ready to counter it!"

The good Captain couldn't begin to explain how much of an advantage deciphering the enemy's communications had given the Expeditionary Fleet. The enemy's weapons may still be superior, but being able to listen to parts of the enemy's communications have helped high command formulate tactics and strategies to counter the enemy's own maneuvers. It was no miracle solution, but Avitus still considered it a game changer.

"Stand by... Naval Intelligence's translation VIs are having hangups." The junior officer reported. "There appears to be a recurring word that they can't translate properly."

"What?! How is that possible?" Avitus demanded.

The Translation VI was certainly not perfect, but the data that the Asari linguists provided was more than enough to get a good grasp on the Human language. Gaps in the program were quickly filled in by the VI's machine learning algorithms, creating as good a translation suite as they could possibly get given the circumstances. Sure, it wasn't perfect, but it's never failed to this degree before.

"I-it's just this one word, sir!" The Junior officer stammered out, caught off guars by Avitus' outburst. "The Human chatter are all referring to this one word, but we can't decipher what it means!"

That was... ominous. If the VI couldn't translate the Human word, then that usually means that there was no direct translation to Palavish. The Humans had something out there that didn't exist in the Turian lexicon, and that worried the Captain.

"That word, what were the Humans saying?" Avitus asked.

It was a long shot, but maybe if he heard the word himself, he'd figure out just what in Spirits' name was causing the commotion amongst the enemy.

"The word..." The Junior Officer started, reading the translator logs. "The word reads... Gundam!"

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Director Eilling had told us that the Specter Gundam's performance would be beyond anything we've ever seen in our lifetimes, but somehow that felt like an understatement.

Despite being noticeably taller than the Gunstrike, it felt lighter... no, it felt weightless. The Mass Effect field generators, working in tandem with the built in Minovsky Flight System, made moving through the air effortless. Launching at max thrust from Atlas Point's hangars was surreal. None of the usual crushing Gs that normally accompanied catapult launch remotely affected my body, courtesy of the inertial dampening field surrounding the cockpit unit. Not even the raging winds of the incoming storm forced our machines to budge. It well and truly felt that we had been unshackled from the tethers of gravity.

"Mass Effect field is holding..." I carefully read out the holographic display in the panoramic cockpit around me. "Reactor output steady... Verns, I'm having trouble syncing to Risima's battle network. Can you?"

"I'm keying in right now, hang on."

After a few short seconds, the entire battlefield lit up in my screen almost at once. Markers denoting friend and foe, ally identification codes, and much, much more.

"Risima, this is Kreusgluck, can you read me?" I spoke into the network.

"Good God, you three! The hell took you so long?" Bullow practically yelled at us, her cold professional demeanour all but gone. "Squadron 13 is launching as we speak. Commodore Pike's Flotilla's left ahead of us and I've already charted an egress course. Rendezvous ASAP before we get caught in the storm!"

Before I or anyone else could voice an affirmative, the enemy finally regained their wits and began to open fire at us. Enemy ships and fighters began attacking, but their targeting was noticeably worse compared to before.

"Whoa, the Director wasn't kidding when she said the Specter's RAM Coating was a game changer!" Rosen remarked, effortlessly dodging shot after shot thanks to the increased manoeuvrability and stealth capabilities the Specter Gundam had.

The engineers over at Cydonia Mechanics were right to call this machine 'Specter'. Between the Radar Absorbing Material coating covering almost every external surface, the sensors interference coming from Minovsky Particle pollution, and the insane amount of mobility provided by the Mass Effect gravity neutralizers, we were effectively untouchable. I weaved my Gundam left to right in speeds that normally would've crushed the Human body, dodging just I spot the muzzle flash of the enemy's guns. With damn near instantaneous acceleration and without the limitations of gravity weighing me down, evading anti-air fire from a dozen enemy ships was damn near child's play. Flak shells whizzed by, missing me sometimes by inches, sometimes my meters.

Closing in on one of the enemy cruisers, I raised my Specter's beam rifle, then fired...

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"A-allied Frigate has been hit!" The Turian Junior Officer reported, the distress in his voice bubbling up. "It's the Imelda Juno!"

Captain Avitus had been torn on whether he should be filled with fear or anger at the moment. These new models of bipeds that the Humans had just deployed caught the flotilla off guard. Was this what the sailors who made first contact with the Humans felt? Overwhelmed by an enemy seemingly so alien that the laws of physics simply didn't apply, that the usual rules of the game had to be discarded. That oppressive feeling of helplessness, watching the enemy ignore your best effort like it meant nothing to them.

It must've been, Avitus was sure of it.

Three machines. Just three machines, and yet they were able to throw an entire flotilla into disarray.

"Why can't we shoot those things down?" The captain bellowed at his crew. "They're in plain sight!"

"W-we... we can't get a good lock on the target, sir!" One of the anti-air directors answered, having shrunken in the face of his commanding officer's fury. "We can track the new models, but we can't get a proper targeting solutions be-"

"What are you? Stupid?" Avitus cut off. "Initiate manual targeting correction!"

"A-at once!"

The results were almost immediate, though still disheartening. Flak shells now flew much closer to the enemy machine, close enough that its proximity fuse could trigger. However, the gap in performance was still significant enough that the enemy could simply evade that too.

The Captain's frustration and rage boiled yet further, exploding as he lashed out at his subordinates.

"How did you idiots graduate from the naval academy? Recalibrate the targeting systems and compensate for the enemy's mobility!" He yelled at the anti-air directors.

"W-we can't, sir!" One of them stammered out, having gathered enough courage to speak up for his subordinates. "T-the enemy is too fast for our flak guns to physically keep up... normally a target moving this quickly would be handled by the GARDIAN Lasers, but we can't get a targeting solution for it!"

It was at that point that the Tarsus' XO stepped up to the command podium and spoke to Avitus quietly.

"Sir, it may be wise for us to withdraw for now." The XO said in a hushed tone.

"Withdraw all because of three enemy machines?" Avitus responded, incredulous and offended at the proposal. "We'll be the laughing stock of the whole expedition!"

"Listen to me, Avitus!" The XO grabbed the Captain by the shoulder and spoke in a grim voice. "As both your subordinate and as your friend, I'm begging you to give us the withdrawal order. The enemy can attack us with total impunity, we need to step back and form a proper res-"

"Have you lost your mind?!" Avitus very nearly yelled. "The enemy is on the run, their fleet has withdrawn from the field, and you want me to retreat because three machines are giving us trouble? Inconceivable! Get yourself together, Kuril!"

Just as the were going to argue further, the Tarsus' sensors officer cut in, yelling in a panic stricken voice.

"Enemy biped is closing in! It's coming right for us!"

Shock filled both Avitus and Kuril's face, and before either of them could do anything the enemy mobile weapon landed right on the Tarsus' top. The giant Turioid machine looked straight through the bridge's forward facing windows, green eyes staring right into the two officer's souls. As it pointed its rifle at the bridge, the crew were able to see right down the barrel. Instinct took over for Avitus as he grabbed his long time friend, quickly throwing him to the side and off of the command podium.

The last thing Captain Avitus saw was the panicked face of his long time friend, how he laid on his back but tried to reach out to the podium, his mouth curling out to shout something. An intense flash washed over Avitus before he could hear what Kuril had to say. The Captain only felt the heat for but a split second before he was reduced to nothing.

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"One down... one down..." I muttered, sweat starting to trickle off my brow. With a few inputs into the controls, my Specter Gundam leapt off of the doomed battleship.

The extreme mobility and stealth factor of the Specter Gundam was opening up tactics I would never dare to pull off with a Gunstrike. Rushing at an enemy battleship's bridge normally would've been a death sentence, but with the Specter it was possible.

This was the power of a Gundam.

A quick glance to either side of my panoramic cockpit showed both Verns and Rosen putting their own machines through its own paces, claiming ships sunk for their own tally. Given enough time, we probably could tear the enemy battlegroup on our own...

But time never was on our side.

Warning alarms started frantically beeping around the cockpit, bringing my attention to the approaching storm. 7 minutes until Megastorm Mistral made swept over the area... after which point, all bets are off.

"Verns!" I called out. "We're running out of time!"

"I know," He grunted out while in the middle of evasive maneuvers of his own.. "But if we disengage now, there's nothing stopping the enemy from catching up with the Squadron!"

"So we're just going to stay here and keep fighting?"

"It's not ideal, and it's going to be difficult... but we can do it!" He said back, voice filled with determination. "We're the only ones who can! Us, and our Gundams!"

The storm was only getting worse out there, connection to Risima's battle network was starting to get patchy, and the winds were getting strong enough that even the Mass Effect flight systems were starting to waver.

My throat dried, a pit formed in my gut accompanied by a tightness in my chest, and I could feel my hands tremble ever so slightly.

Three machines against an entire alien battlegroup, with the weather working against us. Even with the capabilities of our Gundams, it would be a steep uphill fight.

But still...

Verns was right. We were the only ones who could stand a chance.

"Right..." I finally answered, steeling myself for what was to come. "If nobody else can, then let's do it!"

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"What do you mean they're not withdrawing?!" Bullow nearly yelled at Kessler. "The storm is right on top of us!"

"Lieutenant Hedder said if they don't hold the line, then there's nothing stopping the enemy from chasing us down."

"Three mobile suits against an enemy battle group? Has he gone insane?"

Hedder had gone insane. That was the only explanation Bullow could think up. Three pilots, no matter how good they were, could never take on a battle group of cruisers and battleships all on their own.

"Tell the pilots that I am ordering them to withdraw at once!" The acting captain demanded. "We can't afford to lose them, not when we're this close getting away!"

"R-right away, ma'am!" Kessler nodded, putting his headset back on and immediately trying to hail the three pilots who had chosen to stay behind.

Bullow watched on the bridge's main monitor as the blips that indicated the three Gundams blinked in and out of sensors. Megastorm Mistral was just about on top of them by this point, interfering with communications and long range sensors. They were on the edge now. If Verns and his team didn't RTB now, then they wouldn't be able to at all.

"Kessler, what's the update on those three?" She demanded again.

"Th-they're not responding, ma'am." He stammered, the pressure starting to get to him. "I-I don't know if they're ignoring us or if the storm is interfering with our comms... o-or if they've been..."

Bullow balled her fists after hearing the Warrant Officer's report.

Could they have been shot down? The thought was inconceivable to her, especially after everything they've survived until now... but that was an entire battle group that they were fighting. The rational part of her brain was screaming that they were gone. She had specialized in fleet intelligence, after all. She new unwinnable odds when she saw it...

And yet, a small part of her mind held firm. They were alive it quietly said, and despite how much Bullow doubted that little voice, she couldn't bring herself to dismiss it either. She wanted to believe, even though she knew it just wasn't possible.

"Verns... Irena... Rosen... I'm sorry." She whispered with a heavy heart, before bracing herself to make one of the hardest decisions she'd ever have to make. "Fold up the flight deck. Activate flight systems and engage main thrusters."

"M-ma'am?" Risima's helmsman asked, taken aback.

"Don't make me repeat myself." Bullow said, her voice cracking. "Take us out of here."

A silence filled the bridge, the only noise heard the sound of the storm washing upon the ship's hull.

"You three... please... don't die."

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"The ships just blinked out of my RADAR!" Were the words I've been waiting to hear to come out of Rosen's mouth. That she could manage to keep an eye on her RADAR window as she evaded yet another barrage of flak shells and the strafing run of an alien fighter was downright amazing.

"Then we've done our part." Verns said. "Rosen, do you remember their heading?"

"Yeah they were hightailing it bearing... whoa!" A volley of airburst shells interrupted the young pilot as she was reading her instrumentation. She ducked behind her Gundam's shield, who's golden yellow diamond shape crest in the middle extended to emit a beam shield over the physical shield. The airburst shrapnel all burned out as it slammed onto the beam shield, leaving Rosen's Gundam undamaged.

"Rosen, are you alright?" I quickly asked as I shot at the flak guns that had fired at the young pilot.

"I-I uhhh..." She trailed off, causing me to worry. "I'm fine! I'm fine, just caught off guard is all."

I sighed in relief, and I'm sure Verns did too.

"Thank God." I said. "Alright then, let's get out of here before our luck runs out! What was Squadron 13's bearing?"

"Right, the ships were flying away bearing 76 degrees north west!"

"Then that's where we're going too." Verns declared. "Alright Rosen, lead the way!"

Our three mobile suits sped ahead, using our superior mobility to get away from the enemy battle group. Their much larger and heavier ships were having trouble keeping up and it wasn't long until they lost track of us. As we flew further and further away, the enemy's ships were obscured by the stormclouds, with glimpses of their silhouette occasionally visible when a lightning would arc by.

It wasn't until maybe four or five minutes of flying against Megastorm Mistral that it happened.

A bright flash burned far behind us. It was massive, large enough that it felt like a star had just ignited, obscured into a softer glow by the raging wall of stormclouds surrounding us.

"W-what was that?!" Rosen asked, damn near panicking at the sight.

"It looks like an explosion... could it be?!"

"Skyfall Protocol... so this was what Saff was talking about earlier." Verns spoke. "The measures needed to ensure we kept our technological edge over our enemies..."

The self-destruction of Atlas Point. I never thought it would ever come to this.

"B-but... why?! There were still people fighting on the platforms!"

Rosen was far more distressed than I thought she would be... which was rather unusual.

I had to brush off my concern for the young pilot for now, because we had bigger and more immediate problems to deal with.

"Damnit, we're really at the worst of it now!" Verns gritted out.

The further we flew, the stronger the storm got. The winds blew harder and the rain pelted at us like a barrage of fire. It had gotten to the point that even the Mass Effect field generators keeping our Gundams in the air were starting to get overwhelmed. The three of us were starting to get blown about, struggling to maintain a straight flight trajectory. If the storm blew us apart, separating us and sending us in any which direction... well, that might as well be the end of us. The three of us were strong together... but alone?

We might as well be dead.

I couldn't let that happen. Dying like this, after all we've done to get out of this mess... it simply wasn't an option. To ensure our survival, I took things to my own hands.

In the most literal sense.

Struggling against the constantly rising turbulence, I reached out to Rosen's machine and grabbed it by the hand. I held on to her Gundam, making sure it wouldn't slip out of my own machine's grip.

"Rosen, hold on tight!" I told her. "On my mark, we'll try to reach for Verns. You got that?"

"Y-yeah!"

I waited now, watched as Verns' Gundam wobbled from side to side from the turbulence. The moment that his machine drifted close to us, we would grab hold of him. The opportunity arose when he suddenly jerked closer to the two of us.

"Now!"

The two of us boosted towards Verns Gundam, but just as we were closing the gap turbulence flared up and pushed him away. I had tried to grab hold of his machine's hand, but his trajectory had been shifted just enough that he slipped out of my grasp by mere inches.

"Damnit!" I cursed. "Verns!"

"Irena!"

Try as I might, I just couldn't reach out to Verns. The turbulence just kept getting worse, pushing us apart. My breathing was starting to get heavy, palms sweating, heartrate increasing. Panic was starting to grip my mind as I repeatedly failed to grab onto Verns and his machine.

"No, no, no!"

"Lieutenant Kreusgluck, heads up!"

Desperation and despair were just about to take hold of me, when Rosen suddenly stepped in. Using her thrusters, she swung me around to generate momentum, before using that momentum to push me towards our flailing comrade. It proved to be enough, as both Verns and I were able to link together, grabbing onto each other by the tips of our fingers.

"I got you!"

With this little grip, I was able to pull Verns and his Gundam towards us. We huddled together, holding on to each other as we continued our flight eastwards, towards the Deguo continent.

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A/N: And this about wraps up the current arc! A lot of the initial buildup in the first 2 arcs were specifically written to get us here, even if I wasn't entirely sure about the details that would fill in the gap. I just knew that it had to reach this point. That being said, I'm not entirely satisfied with how this turned out. There's a lot more I wanted to do but couldn't fit in because of pacing issues and the fact that I just couldn't turn my ideas into text all that well.

At any rate, we've officially crossed the halfway point now, with the next arc basically the start of the 3rd act of the story. I'm still iffy on whether I want to wrap it up in 2 more arcs or 3. There's a few plot threads I want to expand on but they're not major enough to warrant extended the story by an extra 6 chapters. If I don't do it right it's going to drag the pacing to a crawl which I'm hesitant to do since everything's starting to pick up moving forward. We'll have to see, I guess.

As always with the conclusion to every arc, the next update will be a CODEX chapter, this time focusing on stuff used by Turian and Congressional ground forces. If I find the time and/or motivation, I'll touch more on the Citadel Coalition's history and how they differed in this AU compared to game canon.

Edit 10 Oct 2024: Spotted a minot continuity error. Accidentally wrote the Gleiswick as Squadron 13's second Curran when it should have been the Darrian. This has been amended.

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THIS WORK IS CROSSPOSTED IN FFNET AND AO3