05.07Events– 5/06/09
Reentry had gone perfectly, the gundanium armor the Epyon was constructed of protecting Alex from the three thousand degree heats generated as he dove through the mesosphere. Resembling a two-headed dragon in its mobile armor mode, the Epyon left several sonic booms in its wake as it began decelerating over Australia. Cursing Theresa, his own angel and demon, for making him reenter Earth’s atmosphere in the Epyon alone, Alex began checking the Epyon’s status for the coming engagement. His orders were clear- make a mess of Lemaitre or else.
Sixty kilometers below at the aforementioned base, alarms were going off as the base detected the massive heat signature on a direct trajectory for it.
“ETA is thirty minutes!”
“Scramble those DINNs now!”
“The object is a non-deviating course, it’s going to strike directly in the middle of the base!”
With typical coordinator efficiency information about the attack flew from the base to the soldiers, the air raid sirens alerting the civilian population of Melbourne that something was amiss. The rubber-footed GINNs charged through the streets toward the base, leaping over the cars and civilians that hadn’t already moved out of the way. Far above the base and city, a faint red star slowly grew larger, the Epyon clearing the forty km mark just as half a dozen DINNs flew up from the base to intercept it.
The Epyon had already begun augmenting Alex’s abilities, any doubt he may have had about screaming down from the atmosphere onto an unfriendly base immediately wiped away. With the ZERO System clone feeding information directly into his brain, he could see his objective. He had exited the mesosphere, the insane temperatures outside of the Epyon beginning to subside, but he knew that the coordinators manning the base’s sensors would have picked up on him by now. His cockpit chirped as it picked up the six unfriendlies flying from Lemaitre, but it was no surprise to Alex as he prepared himself to sortie. Epyon told him exactly what he needed to know about the six mobile suits, all of them DINNs, including that two of them were typically designed to be scouts.
“It’s a mobile armor, but I don’t have any information on its make.”
“Anything to identify whose it is?”
“None sir. Permission to engage?”
“Granted. Take it out no matter what. We cannot have civilian lives lost with what we’ve gained here already.”
“Roger that.”
Their orders own orders were clear, defend Melbourne and prevent the PR disaster that having a single mobile suit penetrate Lemaitre’s defenses might bring. After all there would be no chance to win the people of Earth if ZAFT wasn’t able to keep them safe in their own homes…
All six DINNs opened fire on the red mobile armor, their heavy assault rifles plugging away at the rapidly advancing mobile armor. As it closed in, it began moving, the Epyon transforming back to a mobile suit. Diving down on the squadron, Alex ignited his beam saber, intent on cleaving his way through the battle group. The mobile suits didn’t wait for him to attack, all of them breaking away as he dove into the midst of what had been their formation. Even though their rifles were incapable of truly damaging the gundanium armor of the Epyon, the constant impacts from the missiles fired from their multi-launchers were disorienting. Despite all of the distractions, the Epyon System kept Alex focused on his objective; to destroy the base. Somewhere inside his thrall O’Rion grinned, realizing that before he would have just gone after the mobile suits, but he had gotten better at controlling the system if even only marginally.
“The assault rifles are no good, switch to shotguns and follow my lead!”
Though it was capable of flying, the Epyon wasn’t designed around that purpose, the six DINNs easily faster than it was as it moved ever toward the base. The leader swept down on the Epyon, unloading the 190mm shotgun into the Epyon’s back as it passed. Soon all six mobile suits were swarming around the Epyon like angry bees, the red mobile suit’s progress slowing to a crawl as it moved to avoid the different attacks or to swipe at a passing mobile suit.
“Fine. Have it your way, you can all be my enemy.”
The Epyon picked up on Alex’s irritation at the constant attacks, and immediately it began feeding him information on how to go after the mobile suits, how to defeat them. So many options being fed to him at once Alex lost sight of the base attack, the Epyon suddenly beginning to chase after one of the DINNs where it had before flew single mindedly to the base. Even though it was slower, the Zero System told him how to cut them off, intercept them as they moved performed the same maneuvers they had been taught in combat school over and over. Within minutes two of the mobile suits were destroyed, cleaved in half by the massive green beam saber.
“Sir we can’t stop him! What do we do?!”
The commander of the squadron was an old newtype, a veteran of many missions, and his mission was to absolutely prevent the Epyon from making it to Melbourne.
“Son, we do what we are ordered. We will keep him from reaching Lemaitre!”
Flying his DINN at the Epyon, he slammed directly into the red mobile suit. With his afterburners at max, he drove the Epyon toward the ground, Alex fighting to remove the DINN as it flew them both to earthward. On his controls the number denoting how many meters he was in the air quickly dropped, the two mobile suit descending rapidly.
“FOR ZAFT!”
The DINN cratered the Epyon somewhere in the outback, both mobile suits mangled from the impact. Alex, though passed out from the impact, was alive. The gundanium armor that had allowed him to survive reentry had allowed him to also survive the impact.
Outcome: Lemaitre stands, Epyon escapes.
Epyon: 14 VP, 3 days damage.
Lemaitre: 2 DINNs destroyed, 1 Recon DINN destroyed