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One by one, Zakus and Rick Doms launched from the newly rechristened Zeus, John Church leading the mobile suit forces toward their intended target, the Wyatt Fleet, in his black High Manuverability Typet. Beside the battleship, the Oka Nieba drifted along, having no mobile suits of it's own to launch, but using it's superior sensors to keep an eye out on the Federal fleet. With the two Jicco gunboats in the lead, the Zeon forces charged toward the Federal ships. "Sir! Zeon mobile suits approaching, count roughly one dozen. One Musai and one Gwazine type behind them." the sensor operator of the Hood informed the captain behind him. Admiral Green Wyatt nodded, not pleased at the development as the Hyperion had not had the chance to repair since their last skirmish. "Deploy our mobile suits with Ball support in a picket, launch our Saberfish to act as a screen for the Public gunboats. Target that battleship." Wyatt ordered, the old wardog refusing to allow his fleet to be harassed in this manner without proper retribution. As the guns on the Federal ships began to taking their first gauging shots, the two Jicco gunboats fired a spread of ten anti-beam warhead missiles in front of the Federal fleet, giving the mobile suit forces a few more precious seconds to close the distance with the ships. Inside his Zaku, the elder pilot of the ground, Lieutenant John Church aimed his 120mm on a group of Saberfish, preferring to save his heavier weapons for the Federal battleship. The five larger missile boats that followed the Saberfish gained his attention though, the ships rocketing past the mobile suit force and heading for the Gwazine. "Shit.. Church to Zeus, you have incoming." the man radioed back to his ship, hoping the message made it through. Immediately after, AA fire from the Federal fleet and it's remaining escorts forced his mobile suit force to break formation. Inside the Blackguard, Leon Rieger and his young crew finished their round-about journey and began pushing their flanking manuver foward. The four mobile suits that made up Valkyrie Team, led by Valarie Macht, moved in a screen ahead of the Musai Final Type. "ETA to firing range?" the young captain requested, eyes focused ahead where the flashing lines and bursts of lights indicated the main force had made contact with the Wyatt Fleet. Asri Reese, the young woman in charge of the gunnery replied, "Two minutes, we'll be at maximum range." Nodding to himself, Leon resumed his observation of the on-going battle. Today, the souls of the lost would strike back at the Federation, loudly. The AA screens presented by the two functional warships prevented the Zeon attacks from getting anything more than pot shots off, the three GM Es and supporting artillery craft focused mainly on preventing the Zeon forces from harassing the damaged Hyperion, who's own guns were unable to lay down sufficient coverfire to do it themselves. Inside his Zaku, Church gritted his teeth as one of the Zaku IIs exploded after flying into a line of anti-aircraft fire. Two of the rookie Rick Doms had done the same earlier, trying to go for the killing shot instead of waiting for it. To the older soldier, it was a waste, but he'd been able to reel in the rest after they had witnessed their friends deaths. "Focus on that crippled ship. Watch the overlapping fields of fire," the 'Old Man', as he had been called by most of the raw pilots, ordered as he fired at one of the mobile pods, destroying it. The flanking attack should be arriving soon, it should cause enough chaos to give an openning. Almost as soon as he though it, mega particle beams lanced by the Federal fleet, four additional mobile suits closing the distance on the Federal force. As the Hood shifted to account for the new arrivals, John saw his openning and took it. Flying between two distracted GMs, the High Mobility Zaku charged straight for the bridge of the Hyperion, firing two panzer fausted directly at the superstructure as he flew by. The first impacted low, damaging the hull and sending several small figures flailing into the vacuum. The second smashed into the bridge, detonating and destroying all life formerly within. Before he could savor the victory, his radio crackled as one of the new pilot's directed everyone's attention toward the fleet. "It's Zeus! She's launched the withdrawal flares, she's taken damage!" Breaking from the engagement, Church and his mobile suit force, now accompanied by the Blackguard and her own compliment, rushed back toward the Gwazine. Zooming in on several streaks moving away from the Zeon ships, John spotted the remnants of the Federal attack force, 16 Saberfish and two Public gunboats. Looking up in slight shock, John tried to focus in on the cockpit of one of the Saberfish, the image frozen on his screen. The figure was blurry, but he appeared to be looking in his direction. And he was giving the bird. John Church: 8 VP gained, 2 Days Damage Leon Rieger: 10 VP gained, no damage A chuckle resounded throughout the bridge of the HMS Cockblock, the eye patch wielding Nolan being the source of the noise as he stared out of the bridge. The thought of the upcoming operation could only bring a sense of anticipation; striking the Zeon's heartland was, after all, quite the manuever. Still, a presentable target was a valid target, and he was well suited for this operation, as well as one of the only ships in the Earth Federation capable of successfully facilitating the move. Taking a look at his spacesuit's integrated watch, the petty officer turned around just in time to witness the entire bridge imbued in a red light as the entire ship prepared for the orbital drop operation. He walked towards the hangar of the HMS Cockblock, listening to captain Witt issue a call to general quarters following a series of sharp sirens. Meeting his fellow pilots en route to his GM, a series of fist pounds and back pats were exchanged until he finally seated himself comfortably within the confines of the light armored variant. He outstretched his arms and popped his knuckles before sealing his hatch closed. Almost immediately, Nolan began to set up a link between him and the Federation special operations team operating in Central Asia, using the Pegasus ship as a repeater station. "Warchief, come in, this is Pirate 1." Several seconds of silence went by as the pilot sat alone in his mobile suit with his arms crossed, but finally a response came through. "This is Warchief, we hear you loud and clear Pirate 1." "Interrogative, do you have eyes on the mine?" Nolan asked, running through the choreographed events in his head. "Affirmative, Pirate 1, we have eyes on RF-3, break. They have a paltry set of defenses, so you guys should be able to take them easily." "That's good to hear, Warchief. Anything else to note?" Success was guaranteed, and the realization came as a relief, even if a part of him wished the Zeon would be able to put up more of a fight. "Negative P-p-pirate 1, we could p-zzzz-robably ta-zzzz-ke it it ourse---" The transmission sputtered and finally died down, causing the petty officer to sit at attention while he attempted to troubleshoot the problem. However, Karen, who had been monitoring the conversation personally, stepped in to offer a solution to ease Nolan's mind. "Sir, we've just started to enter the earth's atmosphere, so there'll be a communication's blackout for a few minutes. We'll be able to reestablish communications with the spec ops team afterwards." Nolan released a sigh of relief and threw himself back into his chair, a bit embarassed to have forgotten about the consequences of an atmospheric reentry, but he recollected himself in a timely manner and began to go over the orbital drop plans once more in his head. "Sir, I'm picking up a large object that's been reentering the atmosphere. Blackout's preventing us from getting an IFF, but it's coming down fairly quickly." reported the RF-3's Luggun plane. The mine acknowledged and began to scramble its own set of defenses to meet the unidentified craft, but it soon became apparent that their resistance would be futile in the face of the approaching force. A well equipped Pegasus II craft, even by itself was more than a match for the base's defenses; its mobile weapon compliment would only serve to fortify the mine commander's decision to evacuate the installation. Already reports were coming in of a single Depp Rogg downing the Luggun, and the two Dopps had been downed by the HMS Cockblock's impressive anti aircraft array. The command staff began to destroy all confidential data that could not be taken with them, and with that complete they made their way towards an old mineshaft that had been labeled as an escape route in situations such as this. By the time the HMS Cockblock arrived on station, it had knocked out the static anti aircraft batteries and the single cannon in a successful duel; the Pegasus' gunners easily outmatching the computer controlled cannon, while the anti aircraft emplacements just could not compete with the range of a 580mm main cannon. After dropping off its mobile suit contingent, it assumed a defensive location in case Zeon forces had any plans of disrupting the assault, though the Zeon had no plans, since the attack was quite unexpected to the Principality's analysts. The mobile suits pressed deep into the Zeon mining complex, ever mindful of the presence of the Zakus that the special operations force had observed to be part of the mine's defense network. They soon passed under the entrance to the hangar, which had three pristine Zakus ready to be fielded by any trained pilot that would enter its cockpit, but the scene was far too suspicious, even for the more inexperienced pilots in Nolan's team. However, one of the pilots dared to venture forward and was about to enter the hangar proper when he was checked by the outstretched arm of a light armour type GM. "Wait," Nolan ordered, staring intently at the three Zakus and the elevated catwalks leading into their torso area. Suspecting something was afoul, he ordered the other GMs to move back into the corridor while still allowing clear visual contact with the hangar. Waiting a few seconds to make sure about his actions, Nolan then moved the GM Light Armour's arms in such a manner that it ended up almost presenting the three Zakus to the rest of his team. One of the pilots asked the petty officer in a confused manner, but no sooner had he done so did a magnificent explosion rip apart the three Zaku's from their respective torsos, startling a few of the pilots behind him. Simultaneously, a distant explosion could be felt by the group, and moments later Nolan was being hailed by Johnny. "Nolan, I think I just found their headquarters bunker," said the afro wielding pilot in a matter-of-fact tone. Nodding, Nolan replied in a similar tone, "I can see that." Looking around at the various feeds in his cockpit, Johnny remarked, "Yea... it's in flames. I think they're going to demolish this entire place." "Well, they're doing the job for us then. Alright, we're egressing back to the Cockblock." The light armoured GM twirled its mechanical fingers around in a circular fashion to indicate the backtrack out of the mine. While waiting to be recovered by the HMS Cockblock, Nolan turned around to view a few tongues of flame shoot out of various ventilation and maintenance access corridors. "They sure do blow up pretty..." Nolan Harkin: 6 VP gained; 0 Days Damage |