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A new day in Equatorial Africa. The local wildlife cautiously wander around. The last few days have not be safe at all. Death came from high up and with no warning. It is also the start of a new day for the busy artillery crews. During the night, fresh loads of shells have been taken out of the armored storehouses. The four Artillery Howitzers are ready to do today's business. It is the same for the EFGF's 2nd Indian Ocean Patrol Fleet. The now familiar trails of missiles can be seen approaching Kimberlite from over the horizon. The first barrage of shells are thrown into their breech chambers. It is time to make some noise. Fury and violence are lobbed at each other over and over again like old news. The usual assortment of luckless fellows take the bitter ends of the conflict. But something is different today. Suddenly, the Earth Federal Forces' side of the artillery duel ended abruptly. The crews servicing the Kimberlite batteries do not pause but whispers went through the ranks. What is the EFGF doing? They couldn't have wiped out the fleet. Why aren't they attacking? "Why aren't we attacking?!" demanded Colonel Belanie Reece. The admiral in charge of the 2nd Indian Ocean Patrol Fleet clenches his teeth. "Colonel," he replies," one of your men took a Medea with him. With only two Medeas, we cannot - I repeat - cannot continue our siege of a landlocked installation. Without the coordination of the three Medeas, we cannot reliably hit the enemy base." Reece grabs her forehead as the admiral continues talking. "I am withdrawing the fleet before-." Suddenly, a salvo of shells straddles the Himalaya. The naval fleet was in the middle of a withdrawal manuever which left the carrier vulnerable. Multiple shells struck the Argus, punching holes in the flight deck and narrowly missing the 350mm cannons. The ship kept a ten degree list to port but manages to retreat with the rest of the naval fleet. Damage control teams scramble to fix the deck and get flight operations back. Behind the fleet, the shells from the Kimberlite batteries fall short for another minute before ending. It was only at sunset did the Zeon command at Kimberlite finally realized that the EFGF had withdrawn. The siege has ended. For now.  Siege of Kimberlite Ends
• Belanie Reece: 1 VP gained, No Damage 
 Anaheim Electronics Victory
• Jeremiah Black: 1VP gained, No Damage Despite the oversight of the Federal Occupation Authority, the region of space known as Side 3 still shows signs of the Duchy of Zeon. Technology and styles from those days still prevail, rather by necessity than by choice. The One Year War had depleted much of the Earth Sphere's resources and so governments will have to make due with what they have. The Side 3 Defense Fleet, vigilant despite its small size, maintains security in Side 3 as if the Duchy of Zeon still existed. So no one quite notices the very Zeonic mobile armor docking with the very Zeonic Zanzibar Interplanetary cruiser. The airlock cycles and pressurizes. The captain of the Zanzibar Interplanetary Type stood up straight, as did the rest of the crew assembled with him. The airlock door opens and out steps a slender form. "Attention on deck!" Long, silky, perfect white hair falls free as Petty Officer Sieglinde Merica removes her helmet. She dutifully returns the crew's salute. Mercia feels... comfortable here. In fact, a little eager. "Officer Mercia?" asks the captain," welcome aboard." She can feel that the captain is hiding something from her... something good though. "Thank you Captain," replies Merica," it is good to see friends from Axis." "Friends indeed," smiles the captain at Mercia's unblinking blue eyes," we brought along a gift as a sign of good will from Axis. Would you care to see it?" "Why of course." "This way." Mercia follows the captain into the depths of the Zanzibar. Slowly, the newtype pilot overtakes the captain. This is amusing to the older man. He kept quiet, as Mercia began to lead the captain towards their destination. She can feel it, as if she is attracted to it. Mercia enters the hangar of a ship she's never been on, through cooridors she never passed through before. The captain follows in silent wonder as the platnium white hair girl leads him to the surprise he was rehearsing during the long trip from Axis. Finally, Mercia stops. Her hands grip the railing in front of her as she leans forward. It was huge, towering above her like a mountain. Her Bigro is no slouch but this puts it to shame. There is an elegance to this machine, as if technology has taken to an artform. The captain is smiling as he walks up next to Mercia. "Do you like it?" He doesn't need an answer. "It is called the Neue Ziel," he said to the speechless girl. "It is a gift from the spacenoids of Axis... to you." Sieglinde Mercia gets Neue Ziel
• Sieglinde Merca: 1 VP gained, No Damage Side 1. Although its turbulant void had calmed immensly in the years following the war, there was still quite a lot of debris out here. The CMC and EFSF were, in joint cooperation, working on slowly but surely cleaning things up, with huge tug ships and repair crews salvaging colonies and moving them. Currently almost the entire population of Side 1 had been temporarily relocated to the moon, side 3 and side 6 while the operation was in progress. The hopeful end result was to transfer all of the working and salvageable colonies from sides 1, 2, 4 and 5 to side 4, while moving all of the larger debris to side 5. Sides 4 and 6 would become fully habitable, while Side 5 would remain humanities junkyard, an ever present shoal zone. Although A Bao A Qu was close by, just a couple hours away by ship, patrols in the area were extremely light, as most of the EFSF was currently attending the naval review. It was in this dark and quiet hour, and in this unpopulated sea, that the Cima fleet, under orders from Delaz, began to make their move. "The Colonies are in sight ma'am." The Cleopatras comm officer stated flatly, the twin targets of the operation visible as somewhat large stars on a black horizon. The two colonies had been evacuated and were just beginning transfer to Side 4. "Excellent. Send a coded message to admiral Delaz. Tell him the operation has begun." Orin Caine responded. He and Cima were at it again. "You forget who is in command, herr Schutzstaffel." Cima smirked, while nodding at the comm officer to follow the instruction anyway. "Ma'am, we are picking up a small Federal patrol making its way towards us. Just a handful of GMs." "Ah. Would you be a dear and go dispose of them Mr. Caine?" Cima grinned. She wanted the SS dog off her bridge. Orin responded by walking over to the comm himself, hitting a button that opened a link to the mobile suit pilots. "Mr. Faust, Mr. Chapmann, we have a group of bogies en route. Destroy them." Orin was not about to leave Cima alone for one minute during an operation this important. Faust and Chapman were quick to act, both eagerly awaiting their next sortie following mixed results in orbit. While the operation had been a success, the two of them had performed poorly. The ultra fast Gelgoog Jeager and Kampfer blasted ahead of the other escort MS, engaging the squadron of GMs headed for them quickly and painlessly. Superior machines, superior skills and the element of surprise was enough to make short work of the Federation mobile suits, with barely a scratch suffered between the two ace pilots. "Targets destroyed sir." Faust responded, looking towards the distant A Bao A Qu. "Do you think they got a message to their superiors?" Orin looked at the comm officer, who shrugged his shoulders. It was too hard to tell. "We should speed up the timetable. His excellency does not want any mistakes." Orin said, looking at Cima. She laughed. "Don't worry so much. You'll get wrinkles." Slowly and carefully the battleships of Cima's squadron slinked up alongside the two space colonies, striking down escort aircraft and CMC shuttles one by one. Shackles carrying squadrons of marines and technicians made their way inside the two gigantic spheres, where they would override security lockouts and adjust the two colonies headings. All was going according to plan. After a few minutes, another group of bogies showed up on long range radar. "Ma'am, a wing of Saberfish fighters approaching from A Bao A Qu. Two of them are breaking off, probably to ensure communication." "Ugh, blasted Federation. Why are they always everywhere at once!" Cima grimaced, while Orin let out a smirk. A group of Gelgoogs went after them, led by Valeria in her commander type. The escorting Saberfish let out a heavy volley of missiles, one Gelgoog being destroyed by the heavy rockets, but the rest of the mobile suits dodged effortlessly out of the way. Machinecannon and beam machinegun fire cut down the lot of the fighters, Valeria dashing forwards between the explosions and heading after the two retreating Saberfish. "Not gonna make it..." She said to herself, pushing the Gelgoog to its limit and expending fuel wildly. Even so, her mobile suit was just not as fast as the lighter EFSF fighters. She aimed her beam machinegun at the pair, but she would only have time for one shot, there was no way she could destroy both spacecraft. After aiming for a few seconds, she decided it was not worth it, and turned around to return to the fleet. The Federation would be aware of their theft, but with their forces congregated at the review they would be powerless to stop it. Delaz Fleet Victory
• Orin Caine: 3 VP gained, No Damage • Valeria Lanzo berger: 6 VP gained, Repairing 1 • Gabriel Faust: 6 VP gained, No Damage • Hugo Chapmann: 6 VP gained, No Damage The Solomon Sea was a desolate place, filled with the flotsam and jetsam of previous battles, large and small. Though the star shaped asteroid had been renamed, the ghosts of Zeons past still lingered here, crying silent wails to warn off enemies and welcome the chaos of war. Multiple EFSF autonomous divisions had been tasked with patrolling Konpei Island this day. For today marked the largest EFSF maneuver since the war, a Naval Review of awe inspiring magnitude. Over a hundred ships were stationed here, the majority taking part of the review, packed in neat little lines on one side of Konpei. The remainder of the ships slowly patrolled the inner perimeter of the shoal zone, jointly led by officers Dolvich, Burton, and Melendez. It was aboard one such ship that a crewmate had finally managed to lasso a key off a sleeping guard with a rope made from his shoestrings. Link Rocz was especially proud of himself, although he tripped over his own untied shoes when he tried to walk out of the cell. "Right, shoes." He quickly undid the rope and tied them again, sneaking past the sleeping guard like a cartoon character before careening down the hallway. There were three orders of business. 1, get his guitar, so he'd have something to do in his cell. 2, shit on the bed of the guard who had locked him up. 3, lock himself back in his cell so that nobody would know he had broken free. A flawless strategy, to be sure. He ducked into an empty hallway as Dolvich and Melendez floated by, going towards the bridge with mission reports in hand. There was all this logistics going on, something about a big attack being possible. Rocz had been told he would probably sortie. But he probably good not poop on anybodies bed while he was out there in his mobile suit. It was not that Rocz didn't want to do his duty for the federation, but he had certain priorities. He would definitely do his duty. The Federations battle strategy was fairly simple. They did not know exactly where the Delaz Fleet was planning on attacking, so Balls and Saberfish had already been sent out in a wide search grid. Once the enemy was sighted, mobile suit teams would be sent to intercept. While all of this was going on, the crew of the Hippomedon was hurriedly trying to clean up the ship. Carmichael and his men were taking part in the Review, much to the dismay of Burton and Melendez, who had repeatedly requested the Hippomedons assistance after meeting them on their way to Konpei. "I didn't KNOW they were going to be inspecting the inside of the ship. Ship lines up, crew gets out on spacesuits, we salute, business is over with." A deckhand was trying to assuage Quentins fears as they walked past a cleaning crew trying to scrub what appeared to be brandy and raspberries off a bulkhead. "I swear, when I signed up for this commission I did not realize I would have to do so much bloody work." Quentin grumbled. He stopped as he saw Carl rushing down the hallway. "Head boy! Do tell me why this is all so troublesome. I have a headache and I thought the ship would be cleaned up by now." "Don't now captain busy captain sorry!" Carl zipped past his commanding officer. Out of the corner of his eye Quentin caught Frost (a naked Frost, but this was not particularly unsurprising) chasing what appeared to be an Anaheim Electronics representitive into the officers mess. Carmichael rubbed his head in agony. "I swear. First we get called to do a deep space recon and now this. Life was so much simpler when the Federation was still lazy. Why can't they still be lazy?" The Hippomedon was but one of the Magellan II's lined up for inspection, not far from the illustrious Birmingham. The second of her class, the first Birmingham had been Revils flagship in Operation Star One, destroyed by Zeons Solar Ray at the battle of A Bao A Qu. The second Birmingham, commanded by admiral Tianem, was the central feature of the review, surrounded by a massive number of ships and their crews. "Admiral, we're ready to start the inspection process." An aide told the white haired officer, who sat in his darkened quarters, sipping ever so daintily on a cup of Earl Grey tea. Tianem stood up and put on his hat. "Thank you petty officer. A gentleman must be on time." He adjusted his hat, reviewed his dress uniform in the mirror, and then went out to inspect the troops. Today would be an honorable day for the Federation, he thought to himself. Just outside the Solomon Sea, the Delaz Fleet had finally assembled. Only about a dozen battleworthy ships, they were doing today what would have three years ago been deemed impossible. Silently and carefully, Musais and Chivvays lined up, mobile suits floating out of the launch decks so that they could all press forwards at once, using the rock of Konpei to hide their approach from the Naval Review. "It feels good to be on the move again." Delaz said, surveying his troops from the bridge of his flagship. He only hoped that Cima would come through and do her part. Now they were committed. They would either win the day here, or throw away their lives for nothing. "Admiral, the MS forces are ready." Richard banks voice echoed through the bridge. The Gerbera Tetra and Gundam Physalis were at the head of an enormous cluster of mobile suits, Zakus, Gelgoogs and Doms split up into small three man units. Zeons plan was fairly simple. The majority of their mobile suit forces would distract the Federation, while a small elite group would escort Gato through the Solomon Sea and around Konpei. Their battleships would not engage, being there primarily to secure MS and retreat after the battle. Gato's escort squadron consisted of the GP02, the Gerbera Tetra, and Jay Tanner, William Haulk and Jason Papadopolous's mobile suits, all using Shackles to increase their outbound speed, with the exception of the Gerbera Tetra which needed no support of that kind. While they were the best soldiers in the Delaz Fleet, at least Haulk and Tanner were having more than a few second thoughts about the mission. Haulks bravery was not in question, though he didn't know if they were doing the right thing. While Tanner knew they were doing the right thing, his ability to follow through was perhaps in question. Still, led by Anaval Gato and Richard Banks, two of the greatest surviving Zeon pilots in brand new, state of the art mobile weapons, they would not falter. "Gato, you may begin the attack." Delaz said, giving operational command over to his subordinate. This was the nightmare of Solomons mission after all. "Thank you sir. Lili Marleen, launch the signal flare to commence the attack." Gato responded. His eyes were fixed on Konpei, for he had returned home. "But sir, this operation requires surprise. A flare will let the Federation know we're coming." The captain of the Zanzibar II protested. "We will not be defeated, for God is on our side. Launch the flare, so that honor will be with us as well." Gato responded. The Delaz Forces were delighted to see a single green flare launch behind them, filling them with a vigor they had not felt for years past. With that, the forces of the Delaz Fleet rushed forwards into the Solomon Sea, intent on completing Operation Stardust and striking a decisive blow to the Earth Federation. "Admiral, the Venerable on your right." Tianem nodded, saluting Henkens crew as the Birmingham slowly passed through the lines of ships. CMC and Anaheim TV crews floated through the crowd, showing footage of the dozens of pristine Federation battleships lined up in neat little rows. In some cases less than twenty meters lied between one ship and the next, pressed outwards into a great grid pattern. The crews were all in space suits on the decks of the ships, saluting the Birmingham and the Admiral as it went by. "The Bellerophon on your left sir." "These improved Salamis are really remarkable ships." Tianem said, saluting another crew. The might of the EFSF would truly be made clear today. The Birmingham inched towards its position in the very center of the grid, where the Admiral would make a prepared speech that would be broadcasted out as far as the Jupiter Sphere. The great white flagship slid its way in between two Magellans, dwarfing them in both size and majesty. The music that had been playing inside the Birminghams bridge stopped as Tianem prepared his speech. "Universal Century 0079. The last great war was the darkest year in human history." Tianem paused before continuing. "But we overcame that tragedy. And now I'm pleased that, three years later, this naval review, the largest pageant in space, shall become the embodiment of the peace and stability of the Earth sphere. The naval review dates back to the year 1341 of the old Earth calendar. It began when King Edward III of England personally inspected his fleet before they were sent out in their war with the French." "To allow a misguided few to spoil the glorious gift of the vast cosmos we all share-" It was at this point that Gato turned off his radio. "Pathetic! I can't believe we allow the Federation to speak such trash!" He grumbled, shaking his head. "It is giving us a good homing beacon to sight the fleet from though." Banks added, always the practical officer. Zakus, Doms, Gelgoogs and Dra C's began to breach the Federations defensive lines, finding and eliminating Balls and automated defense Satellites where they could. Word got back to the fleet quickly, officers aboard the Albion and Polaris trying to figure out where the main assault would come from. Federation Balls were out of date in 0079, and much moreso in 0083, but even still they outnumbered the Zeon MS by an extreme margin, and without the support of Gato's group or their warships Delaz's forces were slowly being whittled down in number. "Sir, we've found their fleet. I've got reports of a signal flare sighting just outside S Field." Melendez grumbled as he heard the news. "Did you get that Burton?" He asked over the comm. "Yeah. No sign of the Gundam yet. Hopefully we can cut off their escape route at least." Burton was nervous, he didn't much like this plan. Melendez was always one to go on the offense, while he preferred a defensive posture. "Don't worry Burton. Dolvich and his team will maintain vigilance, and find that blasted Gundam. All ships, prepare for battle!" Melendez replied. With that, the Invincible 7th fleet prepared to cut off the Delaz Forces escape route by striking straight into their warships. The report quickly made its way to Tianem, who had finished his speech and was preparing to review the insides of the fleet, much to the dismay of Quentin Carmichael and his men. "Sir, we've sighted multiple groups of Duchy mobile suits. Delaz's target is definitely the Naval Review." Tianem laughed aloud. "Then they are finished. There is no way they'll be able to break through our defense grid. It's like he's giving himself to us on a platter during our own birthday." He laughed again. However, while the Delaz MS were slowly losing ground in the face of more numerous Federal forces, and while the Zeon fleet had been sighted, so far the operation was going well within the terrorists plans. The small elite group of MS spearheaded by Gato were making their way through the thickest part of the shoal zone, completely undetected. 
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