"Oh man, I hope we get there soon..." Private Robbie Hunter remarked, hands folded behind his head. He was gazing aimlessly at the ceiling of the Gaw's pilots' lounge, reclining on a couch and painfully eager to get at the controls of the shiny new Doms that had so recently been brought down from Side 3.

"That eager to get shot at, eh, Rob?" the swarthy Specialist Petrovich mentioned, eyes popping up from an adult periodical.

"Shot at? No way, I want to fly that new Em-Es-Zero-Nine!" Robbie exclaimed. "The way they slalom along the ground is so cool..."

"...what?" Petrovich asked.

"He means the Doms, Vladimir," Private Okajima commented.

"Yeah, don't you know the model numbers of our new machines?" Robbie chided. "Can't pilot a state-of-the-art Zimmad Company mobile weapon without-"

"Oh, shut up already," Petrovich grumbled.

"Jeez. What crawled up your-" Robbie shot back, abruptly cut off as the door open. Okajima whistled at the two female officers who had appeared, then quickly drained of color after he realized he'd just made a catcall at his commanding officer.

"Ma'am!!" he exclaimed, abruptly coming to his feet and saluting sharply. Robbie practically fell over extricating himself from the couch to do the same, Petrovich taking a little longer to bookmark the page he was on before rising.

Obersturmführer Jennifer Morales and her adjutant Victoria Torrington looked on the scene. Victoria offered a stifled laugh, Jennifer significantly less amused by that.

"Well, boys, I have good news for you," she said.

"Are we there yet, ma'am?!" Robbie exclaimed, beaming.

"No, you're fired," she flatly remarked.

"...what?" Okajima asked, somewhat dumbfounded.

"Yep," Victoria chimed in. "Major Vereschagin was kind enough to bring down some real pilots. Isn't that great of him?" She pointed over her shoulder with a thumb at the three brawny men in Mobile Assault Force uniforms behind them.

"...aw, damn..." Robbie muttered.

Colonel Kojima poured himself another glass of lemonade, returning to the rattan chair that was something of his office in the open-air "command center" of the rather over-glorified Southeast Asia HQ. A desk fan was blowing at him, helping to offset the miserable heat and humidity; the droning provided a background to some out-of-place luau music on an old radio nearby. He took a long swig of the cool beverage, setting it down as an orange-on-brown GM Ground Type walked by some dozens of yards away, returning from a patrol into the jungle.

"What's so significant about this place, anyway..." he muttered. The heat was bad enough - at least in Hawaii they had a constant trade wind blowing - but with his aversion to air conditioning it was impossible to keep comfortable. So what if Zeon wanted these steamy jungles? It'd always struck him as being absolutely bizarre that they had such emphasis on taking territory in out-of-the-way places; had they forgotten about Earth's ecology and where the resources were?

The luau music was interrupted by a chime announcing an incoming transmission. Kojima grumbled again, picking up the handset.

"Kojima here," he said, returning the glass to his lips.

"Sir, the 08th Team has returned from perimeter duty," the officer on the other end reported.

"Well, send them on over, then," he replied lackadaisically, returning the handset to its cradle. "That poor Ensign... he takes his job too seriously."

Major Anton Vereschagin wasn't "out of his element" insomuch as viewing this arrangement as a learning experience. He was no stranger to combat in gravity conditions - his service to the EF Army before the war was indicative enough of that - but with mobile suits on the other hand...

"Major, we're getting close to the deployment point," Jennifer's voice came over the intercom of his customized Dom.

"Ja ja, Herr Morales," he said, rather sarcastically characterizing a certain SS officer that he was more than glad to be rid of. "I vill crush ze enemies."

"Major..." Jennifer began, growing more irritated by the moment. She still hadn't totally forgiven herself for "that business" in Seattle, and Anton's upbeat attitude really wasn't helping. "Try to be serious for once, will you? Are your mobile suits ready to go?"

"I kid, ma'am," he replied. "But yes, we're ready to stick it to them whenever." Anton finished his pre-launch checklist, powering up the monitors of his mobile suit before he'd even closed the cockpit hatch. Other portly Doms were crammed into the Gaw's hangar; the thing was designed to hold Zakus and it showed.

"Right. We just got a tracker from Private Zuhr, take the Doms and meet up with him," she stated, looking over a few charts scattered around the Gaw's bridge, one of them partially covering the monitor showing video feeds from the hangar. "I'll leave the rest to you, sir."

"Of course, ma'am," Anton gave a mock salute. He was the superior officer, but this was Morales' operation, and he felt like he should at least show the proper respect. Usually.

"Good. Now then, there's al- damn!" Jennifer exclaimed, grabbing her radio. "Can you repeat that, over?!"

"What's wrong?" Anton posited; obviously something on the other end of that channel got her attention.

"No, that's fine, pull back, I'm sending out the Dopps now. Over and out," Morales finished. "Feddie early warning aircraft, the Luggun just spotted it which means it just spotted us, probably. Get moving, Major! That base will be live pretty quick!"

Shit... Private Eric Kyrion thought. This thing is haunted... The Efreet's final launch checklist had been completed three times over. Eric kept running it to keep his mind off the thought that someone was watching him. The EXAM system's control helmet was also somewhat claustrophobic - the MAF goons at California Base had insisted he needed to wear it for optimal performance to be achieved.

"Private Kyrion, hello?" a voice came over his intercom again. Had they been asking for him before?

"Uhh... Kyrion here, yes?" Eric said, a bit shaken.

"Oh good, thought you'd fallen asleep or something," Jennifer said flatly, not at all interested in any more screw-ups. "Is your ship in position yet?"

"...yeah, yeah we're good to go," he noted, checking the Krueger's location on his electronic map.

"Okay. Start the operation, over and out," the SS officer signed off.

Easy for you to say, you haven't got a ghost or something in here... he thought. The remodel to his Efreet had been quite a job: it was faster, more responsive, and more heavily armed to boot. Still, he'd had a feeling kind of like a pile of rocks in the bottom of his stomach ever since he'd heard that voice at Seattle, and it had gotten worse since they'd fixed up his machine.

"I have to punish them..." he said, echoing the voice in his head. "...wait, what?! Gah!! Dammit!" he exclaimed, becoming less and less sure of himself as time went on. With the flick of a knob some extremely loud classical music - Slayer, according to people familiar with old Earth culture had told him - blared through his helmet, drowning out his self-doubt. The Efreet's red mono-eye blared to life, lighting up the Gallop's hangar.

~

"Shit! Shit! The afterburners, use the afterburners!" the Dish's pilot demanded, panicking as a mob of Dopp fighters were rapidly closing in on their position.

"We're already almost out of fuel as it is!" the navigator announced, plotting the arrival of the base's escorts. They were close, but it didn't look like they'd be close enough...

"Damn!!" the pilot smashed his fist into the armrest as he noticed a lock-on indicator buzzing. Moments later the Dish was tumbling out of the air, two missiles having blown off most of its tail.

"FAC, early warning plane has been eliminated, over," the lead of the Dopp squadron reported.

"This is Forward Air Control, copy that," the Gaw's bridge officer returned. "The Luggun's reporting Fed fighters are inbound, spread out and engage at will."

"Roger that, engaging bogeys, out." The Dopps formed into V-shaped formations and charged ahead, eager to meet their opponents. Below, Private Cervantes Zuhr shook a heat saber at the approaching Doms. He couldn't see them too terribly well, but the rooster tails of dust and crushed foliage they were kicking up behind them were obvious enough.

"Private Zuhr?" Anton called out over the radio.

"That's right," Cervantes returned. He briefly pondered adding "amigo" to the response, but the thought died quickly. So much had happened in South America that he would rather not think of right now - the familiar jungles and terrific humidity weren't helping that. It was too similar. He sheathed his heat saber and about-faced the brand new Dom Funf, matching pace with Anton's approaching units.

"I hope you're ready for some action," Anton quipped, checking the charge on his beam bazooka. He'd probably only have one shot before he got into hand-to-hand combat, and he wanted to make sure he was damn ready for it. "Is that a new model?" he posited, looking over the bulkier, more angular Dom Cervantes brought alongside his.

"Brand new," Cervantes said. "All the bugs are worked out now. I think..."

"We'll find out pretty quick, I think," Anton grinned. "Just keep your mind on victory and we'll be there soon enough!"

"Very well then, sir," he replied, reflecting a bit on Anton's brimming optimism and locking the magazine of his Rateken Bazooka. The Doms split into two groups, half going with Cervantes and half going with Anton. They'd break the trees soon and be out in the open; better to be approaching from two different sides when the time came.

~

"All of them are going to die, yes..." Eric said menacingly, tightening his grip on the Efreet's controls. He was really starting to agree with himself now, and... "No! Shut up!" he exclaimed, smacking his hand against the side of his helmet. Am I going crazy? Or is this what EXAM does? Damn spooks! he cursed, jungle streaking by under his Dodai at breakneck speed. He could now see in the distance the Federation facility he was supposed to help sack. More importantly, the base could see him: he could barely make out a few puffs of antiaircraft fire going off in the air - the battle above had already started - but he could more than plainly see the gray smoke trails as a half dozen missiles launched from the base, spiraling towards his position.

"You're going to hit this Efreet with those?" Eric chuckled, ramming his throttle to maximum. He was growing more confident by the minute. He didn't just feel faster, he was faster. The mobile suit, too, but him as well. The whole base was going to be a banquet to christen his new mobile suit, and he was going to enjoy every minute of it.

~

"One land battleship... one of the big black ones..." Eledore muttered, adjusting the Hovertruck's underground sonar frequency. "Mobile suits... moving too fast to be Zakus."

"The blue ones? Oh boy..." Michel groaned, relaying the data the sensor operator was handing him. The Perry would be able to accurately start dropping shells on the forces Eledore pinpointed, but the underground sonar was only effective against units in contact with the ground, and that had him a bit worried. At least they were relatively safe - the piddly Type 74 was parked next to a blockhouse deep within the fortification's compound. Even if the Zeon forces breached the perimeter, they'd see them coming well enough and have time to find somewhere else to spy from.

"Damn it!" Eledore smacked the headset against the console. "I know that noise, the ones with the skirts make it!" Michel knew well enough what that meant: the fast-moving purple-and-black ones were here, but getting an exact bead on their location and numbers was impossible. It wasn't a feeling he liked at all.

"I'm sure the commander will be able to handle things," he said with a bit of uncertainty. His internal monologue was a little less sure of himself. Oh jeez... BB, protect me!

~

"We've got the coordinates, inputting a firing solution now," the Big Tray's communications officer reported.

"Good, start firing and keep firing until you get new targets," Kojima muttered, arms folded across his chest. He didn't much like being stuffed up in the Perry's command center, but it would be near-suicide to stay out in the open like he liked during a mobile suit battle. The Big Tray's triple turrets made a few precise adjustments to their angles and thundered, causing the whole vessel to shake. The half-dozen shells sailed off into the jungle; only the underground sonar would reveal how well they did.

~

"Aw, hell... boss, we have a problem!" the voice of the Dobday's senior officer crackled across Eugene's radio.

"What? What's going on?" he demanded, stalking his specialized Zaku through the jungle along with a pair of Goufs, including Kalila's.

"Someone has really good ears over there, artillery just took out our treads!" the officer replied.

"What?!" Eugene demanded. "How?!"

"I don't know, maybe it was just a lucky shot..." the response came. "The hull's fine but we're totally stuck here!"

"God DAMN it," Eugene growled. "Well just start shooting from there, then! You'll have to hit something."

"Roger that," the officer responded, signing off.

"Well that's just great..." Eugene muttered. "Jennifer, my Resolution lost mobility. Some big guns at the Fed base have got really good spotters or something, over."

"I guess we get to finish things up close, yeah?" Kalila posited, drawing her Gouf's heat sword as a pair of Gunship Helis buzzed overhead.

~

"Team, check in," Shiro ordered, bringing his Gundam's scope in front of his eyes. He kneeled the mobile suit down, steadying a beam rifle on one knee.

"Karen here, nothing to report," Master Sergeant Karen Joshua reported, likewise packing a beam rifle from a location further to the north. The Eledore and Michel had accurately plotted that the Zeon forces would be approaching from the west, so it was just a matter of being in a tactically advantageous position.

"This is Sanders, all clear," Sergeant Terry Sanders confirmed, steadying the 180mm cannon over his Gundam's shield. The Perry had parked itself near the hangars on the airstrip's tarmac, and Sanders had chosen a spot near (though not too near) the fuel bunkers to have a good vantage point.

"Alright, just keep your eyes open," Shiro insisted. "They'll be coming through any minute now..." He scanned the treeline. There were several hundred yards of clear terrain where the jungle had been felled to provide a killing zone before the enemy could get onto the tarmac, and the Zeon forces would have to either cross that directly, or try and flank around their position under constant bombardment from the Big Tray's artillery - Eledore's ears would see to that. A whistling sound announced enemy incoming, and chunks of asphalt flew into the air like confetti as shells struck the base proper. The Big Tray responded in kind.

"Shit, it's getting quiet up there..." Sanders muttered, noting that the air-to-air combat above appeared to have petered off. None of their planes had returned yet - not a good sign. He licked his lips and went back to focusing on the expected avenue of enemy approach.

"There they are!!" Karen announced, releasing a shot from her beam rifle. A Gallop burst forth from the treeline, machine guns blazing as a cascade of shredded plant matter scattered about behind the yellow battlewagon. Karen's shot went wide, narrowly scoring off one of the Gallop's jet engine pods. The trailer's upper hatch popped open and a Zaku appeared, adding its own piece to the flurry of tracers flying towards the base. Sanders and Shiro began firing, as did more than a few Type 61 main battle tanks that had rumbled into firing positions. Several hits scored and the Gallop began smoking, but immediately following it came the familiar whop-whop sound of helicopters.

"Gunships," Sanders correctly noted as the green Zeon choppers roared out from the line of demarcation. One was brought down as soon as it appeared by a missile from a SAM battery; the five survivors began releasing their munitions, scoring several direct hits on the hapless tanks as well as one antiaircraft gun emplacement. Karen's Gundam opened fire with the vulcan gun mounted in its chest, tracking one of the choppers as it buzzed overhead - she was rewarded by a puff of smoke, followed by a trail as the gunship began wobbling erratically. Suddenly, the world became extremely bright as the Big Tray's forward mega particle cannons fired. Two massive streaks of light seared across the compound, striking the Gallop dead center and flinging the Zaku out of the back like a doll. The land battleship caught fire and crashed unceremoniously into a blockhouse. Another Zaku emerged from behind the Gallop, attempting to use the burning cruiser as cover while it produced a cracker - Sanders swiftly dispatched it by unloading a shell into its arm. The grenade itself did the rest.

"Nice shot, Sanders!" Shiro announced, searching the sky for the remaining gunships as another volley of enemy artillery scattered about the base.

"That can't have been it..." the more veteran pilot thought, readjusting his cannon and starting to second-guess himself.

"...shit! We have a situation over here!" came the voice of Mike, the leader of the GM-equipped 04th Team. Being less heavily armed, they were responsible for holding the more vulnerable but less likely to be attacked flanks of the facility.

"What? What is it?!" Shiro demanded, trying to get a view.

"...there's one Zeon mobile suit over there!" Eledore confirmed, trying to place the model.

"Just one?" Karen asked incredulously.

"Just one!"

~

"Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck..." Mike repeatedly exclaimed, still yanking the trigger of his jammed machine gun at the blue and red mobile suit that had skewered his team member Rob all the way through.

"It's jammed, clear it already!!" Sally, the other member, yelled as she shouldered a bazooka. The blue and red mobile suit that had used its own bomber as a shield to avoid Rob's wire-guided missiles had totally impaled the GM on a heat sword, letting gravity pull it down onto the handle. Mike had riddled the thing with holes, but obviously didn't hit anything critical. Sally fired the bazooka, and the mysteriously Zeon machine suddenly dropped Rob's disabled GM in front of it, the luna titanium-armored mobile suit absorbing the blast.

"What the hell is that thing?!" he demanded, tossing the spent machine gun aside and drawing a beam saber. As he did, the blue and red mobile suit yanked its sword free and produced to deliver a roundhouse kick to the disabled GM, flinging it into Sally's machine just as she went to fire another round, bowling the both of them over. Its red mono-eye focused on Mike and a brace of thrusters ignited as it boosted towards him.

~

"That's right, all of you get to die!!" Eric laughed maniacally, now fully within the control of the bizarre presence that controlled his cherished Efreet. He ignored the damage indicators that told him he'd sustained several machine gun hits to the torso, and he certainly ignored the dull pain in his arm that suggested he'd pulled a muscle on yanking his throttle back to pull the Dodai in front of an incoming missile. These matters were immaterial: people in front of him were in dire need of justice and he was the adjudicator today. The GM charged towards him, beam saber held high; like it was his own body, Eric raised his arm and a pair of grenades streaked forth, obscuring the heavily armored Federal mobile suit in a blast of flame. Before the smoke had even cleared, Eric rushed ahead, raising both blades over his head and bringing them down as the GM stumbled forth. Both of its arms flew off at the shoulder; before they hit the ground Eric delivered a swift boot to the chest, knocking the disabled mobile suit over like a dummy.

"Who's next?!" he demanded, frantically looking about for another target; the Efreet's mono-eye unsteadily darted about in a mirror image. A rocket was suddenly streaking toward him, launched by the GM he knocked over using its own comrade as a projectile. Eric threw his arms in front of him to protect himself; the rocket was deflected, taking off a chunk of the Efreet's left arm and shoulder. "Ahhh! A survivor!" the Efreet lurched forward, evading another rocket. He emptied his other pair of grenades directly into the GM's face, blasting its head to pieces; not satisfied with that, he raised the Efreet's leg into the air and began vigorously stomping the decapitated mobile suit. "Die! Die! Die! Die!!!" he exclaimed, each demand punctuated by a stomp. A proximity buzzer went off; Eric whipped around behind him, sweat flying off his brow and onto the visor of the EXAM system helmet. A shell from a Type 61 struck him, blasting the already damaged shoulder pauldron off; it clattered to the tarmac some distance away. Three of the vehicles had emerged from a bunker nearby, obviously intent on putting an end to his rampage. The Efreet kneeled under another salvo and released a half-dozen rockets from its leg-mounted missile pods.

"Hmm!? Is that it?! Is that everyone?!" Eric screamed to no-one in particular. Fires burned around him but offered no response.

"Kyrion, hello! Come in!" Jennifer's voice crackled across his radio. He stared at the console with a psychotic grin. "Eric, if you can hear me, there's a Fed sensor vehicle somewhere near you! Go squish it, over!" Eric made an absolutely inhuman vocalization and snapped his teeth down like he was tearing into fresh meat, firing up the Efreet's boosters.

~

Could anything else POSSIBLY go wrong?! Jennifer postulated, grimacing every time a report came in. Her Gouf Custom had made good time closing in on Eugene and Kalila's unit, but she'd lost touch with both Anton and Cervantes, the Dobday was out of action, her Morrigan wasn't responding, and Eric was dead to the world for all intents and purposes. It looked like it would be down to them and the Lillith to finish the job, and she wasn't relishing that idea at all. The ground in front of her suddenly exploded as artillery came down from above.

"Son of a bitch sonar truck!" she exclaimed, performing a jet-assisted dash to evade being struck again. Now it was tracking her specifically! "Does anyone read me?! Over!"

"...-er you, ma'am," Anton returned, barely audible through the static.

"Finally! Where are you?!" she demanded.

"We're in position already, what happened to the attack order?" he asked. Are you absolutely serious? Really? she groaned aloud.

"Just do it already, Major!" she growled, rushing towards the columns of smoke rising into the air that marked the position of the Fed base.

"Well, you heard her," Anton shrugged. He'd brought his Doms to a halt at the north end of the base and took cover near the edge of the jungle, shutting off the Doms' engines when the Big Tray's big guns went off to fool the sonar. He assumed Cervantes had done the same at the other end. "All right, cavalry! Charge!!" he exclaimed, firing off a flare.

~

"Mike?! Rob?! What's going on?!" Shiro exclaimed, now getting genuinely worried at the fires breaking out at the rear of the facility.

"We should investigate," Karen suggested. "It's not like anything is-"

"It's the skirts!" Sanders exclaimed as several Doms crashed through the greenery and charged straight towards him.

"I see them!" Shiro responded, not realizing he was actually spotting a second group led by a significantly blockier model. "08th Team, regroup and stop their advance!"

~

"Colonel, the perimeter's been breached!" the Big Tray's observation officer shouted.

"Damn it, the yellow ship was a decoy... turn the Perry and gun them down!" Kojima ordered, steadying his hands on the tactical map in front of him. He was getting too old for this kind of thing - maybe he should have retired last year... at the very least it would have saved him this kind of stress (and sweat). The Big Tray's air cushion blasted to life and the monstrosity began rotating, bringing its turrets to bear on the small group of Doms that rocketed across the runways. The triple guns thundered again, blasting massive holes in the tarmac but failing to bring down any of the jet-propelled mobile suits. One shell went wide and sailed into woods; to Kojima's surprise a Zaku stumbled out, leg mangled beyond recognition; it fell over unceremoniously.

"Were they just hiding back there...?" he asked aloud. "Why aren't we using the main cannons?!"

~

"Major, the battleship!" one of Anton's pilots announced, pointing at the Big Tray as energy began condensing in front of the two huge ports in its bow.

"Oh, hell..." he muttered, bringing up his beam bazooka. A lance of mega particles emitted from its barrel, striking the Big Tray dead center between the forward-mounted particle cannons. The one fizzled immediately, followed by a massive explosion that erupted out of the ruptured housing. The other cannon discharged in front of them, carving a channel through tarmac but missing their mobile suits. Anton leapt over the smoldering gap, his troops following behind. "Well, that worked!" he exclaimed, then noticed with extreme distaste that his beam bazooka had sagged significantly after being fired - evidently it couldn't sufficiently cool itself in atmosphere. The Big Tray's other turret fired as well, each shot going wide by a considerable margin.

"There, sir! Feddie mobile suits!" another reported, pointing. Anton tossed his destroyed beam bazooka and drew a heat saber.

"Right then, run them over!"

~

"Oh, are you shitting me?" Eugene howled, looking at his Zaku's wrecked leg. Vereschagin's Doms zipped across the tarmac, the Big Tray's antiaircraft guns further wrecking the runway around them, charging forth to engage the Federal mobile suits. Meanwhile, he was out of action due to downright bad luck. "Perfect, just perfect."

"You alright, Eugene?" Kalila asked, covering his position.

"Yes, yes, I'll live," he spat. "Hurry up and get in there and wreck up the place! Those ass-heads busted my ship!"

"Understood," Kalila saluted, motioning for the other Gouf to follow along. They had just stepped out onto the tarmac and prepared to fire their boosters when a burst of tracer fire zipped across, holing Eugene's subordinate and destroying Kalila's Gouf's shield. Eugene spotted the antiaircraft gun that had just appeared from its position beyond the hangars and quickly leveled his bazooka at it.

"Run, dammit!" he exclaimed, firing off a round at it. The gun swiftly turned towards him and blared again, destroying the missile mid-flight. Kalila took the hint and took off into the base proper as Eugene fired again; immediately thereafter shells ran across his Zaku, shearing off its right arm. He was rewarded with an explosion a moment later as bits of turret flew into the air. "...just my luck."

"Sir, are you okay?" another of his men, this one in a Zaku Cannon, exclaimed upon breaching the treeline. "It looks like-"

"I know, goddammit! Attack the base!!"

~

"Shit, they're breaking through..." Eledore grunted. The base's defenses were rapidly becoming vaporous, and he was picking up Zeon mobile suit footsteps all over the perimeter.

"E- E- Eledore!!" Michel exclaimed.

"What? I'm very- ...oh," Eledore said, realization dawning on his face. A battered blue and red mobile suit landed directly behind their truck, swiftly punting it like a toy. The truck flipped over and rolled several times, coming to a rest upside down in a maintenance trench.

The now quite-maddened Eric glared about, desperately trying to find something else that moved. The first thing that caught his eye was the Big Tray; he tightly gripped his heat sword with the Efreet's remaining arm.

"....fresh... meat...!!" he exclaimed.

~

"There's a fire on the third deck!"

"Gunnery control isn't responding, the mega particle cannons can't be fired again."

"Now dispatching damage control teams to decks three and four."

"Another Zeon land battleship has breached the perimeter!"

Kojima's shoulders had sunken rather significantly, head hanging low in defeat. There were simply too many Zeon mobile suits and support vessels to fend off with his limited resources. He doubted even the much-vaunted 08th Team and their mass-produced Gundams would be able to hold out for long.

"Colonel! There's a Gaw approaching from 11 o'clock!" Kojima's brows began twitching. He reached forward and depressed a button on the console in front of him, opening up a PA to the entire ship.

"Gentlemen, you have all fought to the best of your ability," he began, voice shaky. "Punishing you for further attempts to hold that which cannot be held would violate my principles. Therefore, all of you are to make preparations to surrender."

"Sir?!" the Big Tray's superior officer exclaimed, bewildered.

"This vessel will attempt to hold off the enemy while the wounded are evacuated onboard the Medea," Kojima sighed. "Engineering, you are to sabotage the drive systems and powerplant. Gunnery, make preparations to destroy the main artillery. Everyone else blank whatever computers you can. It's been an honor serving with all of you. Thank you."

~

"Damn it! There's too many of them..." Karen swore, trying to train a machine gun on the Doms circling about her mobile suit.

"Keep your eyes open! They're waiting for an opening!" Shiro responded, both hands on his beam rifle. The bulbous black and purple machines, lead by two gaudily-colored red models, had all produced heat sabers and were rapidly dancing about them, creating an almost dizzying pattern. Sanders had trouble of his own; two Zaku Cannons had pinned him down while a pair of Goufs were stalking towards his position, blades drawn. There was a thunderous roar as the burning Perry, now rolling across the pitted tarmac, fired the last operational of the two forward turrets, trying to offer cover for the 08th Team. It worked.

"There!" Karen exclaimed, lighting up a Dom with her machine gun. The angular and blocky nearly lost control of itself as its head fragmented, crashing into a warehouse like an out-of-control novice ice skater and tumbling over. The remaining Doms surged towards her.

"Look out!" Shiro exclaimed, unable to do anything as a heat saber penetrated her Gundam's stomach and another went through the mobile suit's shoulder; the force exerted by the two bulky Doms slammed it backwards into a blockhouse and pinned it in place. The scene had only taken a moment to occur but before Shiro knew it the other group was lunging towards him. Shiro screamed an oath and fired his beam rifle at the hideous red leader, putting a hole straight through the center of its pelvic area.

~

"What a bag of..." Cervantes growled, rubbing his head and feeling a substantial bruise coming up. His backup cameras powered on, providing him with a perfect view though the Dom Funf-shaped hole in the warehouse he'd collided with as Anton took down the remaining horned mobile suit. Crippled at the waist, the Dom stumbled forward, colliding with the Gundam's center of gravity. Anton wrapped his mobile suit's arms around the Federal machine's body.

"Take him out! Hurry!" he exclaimed. His Mobile Assault Force goons followed swiftly, lopping the Gundam's head off and sending it careening through the air like a rotten fruit at a political rally. Two more heat sabers skewered through the Gundam's midsection, the Doms effectively immobilizing it permanently. Cervantes' Dom wobbled significantly as it stood up; the thing had obviously sustained serious internal damages when the Gundam opened fire on him, and the fall hadn't helped.

"Anton?" he posited. Cervantes was rewarded with seeing the Dom's cockpit hatch burst open and the MAF Major emerging, appearing to be relatively intact. Then he started scaling the Gundam's torso...

~

"That's enough!! Stop fighting!" Kojima exclaimed, yelling into the radio handset in front of him. The McCain had been strafed to pieces by two Zeon gunships, but the Maque far on the other side of the base might still escape. But even if they would end up as Zeon POWs, he wasn't about to allow anyone else under his command to die if he could help it.

"...Colonel, sir, we've lost outbound communications..." a technician begrudged, looking ashamed. Kojima tossed the handset aside in disgust.

"Signal them somehow, dammit!" he demanded. "Shoot a flare or-"

"Sir! A mobile suit has landed on us!!"

~

"What's this?! Oh you can't shoot me back here, can you?!" Eric gleefully yelled, jamming his heat sword into the back of the Big Tray's hull and leaving it there like a flag. Reaching behind the Efreet's crumpled torso, he produced a shotgun and shouldered the weapon, unloading a shell into the top of the Big Tray's engine intakes. Huge gouts of smoke erupted from both sides as the jets responsible for inflating the air cushions sputtered and died. Eric tossed the shotgun into the air, grabbed the pump, racked it by gravity, and then grabbed the butt again, unloading a second and then a third shot in this fashion. The mighty land battleship finally fell to the ground and screeched to a halt, throwing up massive showers of sparks on either side. Eric cackled maniacally.

"Who else?! Who else?! Isn't there anyone else to kill?!" he roared. The Efreet's monoeye caught a medical truck rolling by on the pitted roads behind the battleship, making for... a mobile suit!! Eric howled with joy and leapt off the ship, charging towards the base's last GM. It was standing sentinel over a transport aircraft upon which a mass of vehicles were crowding in to. To Eric it simply looked like a Christmas present with his name on the tag. He bounded down the road, fuel exhausted, drawing closer and closer to the white-marked vehicle, reaching down to crush it like a toy.

A pink beam erupted from the GM's rifle, penetrating directly through the Efreet's torso and out its back; Eric cringed as the edge of his cockpit melted, spattering his pilot suit with bits of hot metal. The mobile suit stumbled, then fell flat on its face, power systems totally destroyed. As the EXAM system lost power and shut off to preserve its data, Eric groggily came to.

"...what in the... where am I...?" he asked aloud, feeling hoarse from yelling, sore from yanking the controls and feeling like his left side had sustained a few minor burns. He was overcome with fatigue and lost consciousness a moment later. The pilot of the GM breathed a sight of relief and ducked into the already overly-laden Medea, unknowing - and likely forever to be as such - that he'd just survived an encounter with a Federal secret weapon...

~

"So... I'm the last one, am I..." Sanders grunted. The blockhouse he'd been hiding behind, formerly housing a missile battery, had been blasted to pieces by the two artillery-model Zakus. He had a perfect view of seeing the Big Tray skid to a halt some distance away and belch smoke, and the drone of the Gaw's engines, growing louder by the minute, let him knew his time was roughly up. A gunship buzzed overhead, trying to find a vector where it could shoot at him without exposing itself to return fire. More importantly, he knew two of those blue bastards were close by. Well, one of them was blue, anyway...

"Alright... one chance..." he said, taking a deep breath and holding it for a moment. His cannon had been mangled earlier, forcing him to fall back on the trusty machine gun. He ejected the magazine from it, holding it in the Gundam's hand. He counted to three, then flung the spent magazine straight up into the air. The snap report of a cannon announced itself. He threw the machine gun to the left of the blockhouse and rolled to the right, coming face to face with a blue Gouf. "Gotcha!!" Sanders exclaimed, smashing the mobile suit's machine gun-hand into the wall and ramming the pronged tip of his shield into the gap between its shoulder and torso, pinning the arm entirely.

~

"Damn...!" Kalila cursed herself for falling for such a juvenile ploy. It wasn't that she hadn't seen it before in the course of events; using a spent weapon as a decoy was a time honored tradition. But in a mobile suit? The Fed pilot was good. She deployed the Gouf's heat rod and reared her arm back to strike the white mobile suit; the flash of a beam saber blinded her briefly, and the Gouf's arm landed some distance back. ...I'm going to die, she realized. The white mobile suit flipped its beam saber over and... froze. A black plug of some kind trailing a cable slammed into its face, discharging a massive electrical short into its body. The Gundam went limp and started falling over backwards

"Amateur..." Jennifer said with more than a hint of distaste. "That's what you get for assuming I'd be on the other side."

But you SHOULD have been on the other side... Kalila thought.

~

"Damn it!" Shiro exclaimed, beating his fists against the arm rests of the Gundam's cockpit chair. He didn't need to see the sea of warning indicators to know even his state-of-the-art mobile suit was KIA. Luna titanium or not, there was no repairing that kind of mangling of the internal framework, reactor and control systems. What he didn't expect, however, was for his own cockpit hatch to suddenly burst open, briefly blinding him as the sun shone in. "What the-!" he demanded, reaching for his sidearm.

"Ah! Touch that and you're dead!" a voice came; he recognized the sound of a handgun's safety catch being released. He raised his hands, eyes still growing adjusted to the bright light.

"...Zeon? Who are you?" he half-asked/half-demanded.

Anton smirked prominently. Who the hell do you think I am...

~

Some time later, the Lillith had finally been able to set down on the battered runway; there was just barely enough clear tarmac for it to safely put down, the ruined Big Tray occupying a good portion of the safety overlap. Jennifer overlooked the process of detaining the EF Army prisoners, simultaneously negotiating with the Gaw's captain via radio. One transport had escaped, along with some smaller craft. Jennifer had given thought to pursuit, but had already lost much of her air contingent - she didn't much fancy losing any more Dopps in the name of tracking down what was probably just some upper-echelon officers and wounded soldiers.

"Colonel... Kojima, is it?" she asked of the haggard old man in front of her. He nodded.

"That's right," he said, looking exceptionally sullen. "To think I was thinking about retirement six hours ago..." Jennifer scoffed a bit - were all Federation higher-ups as antiquated as this fellow?

"Well, war makes fools of all of us, you know?" Anton remarked, giving another salute to Jennifer as he arrived. "Did we recover everyone?"

"Eric looks like he's been hit by a train; that mobile suit might have been too much for him," she remarked. "Kalila and Eugene are inspecting that Federal battleship, but it doesn't look very promising. Apparently someone totally blew out the powerplant, not to mention drained the recoil rods on the guns and fired them with a double powder charge..." Kojima coughed a bit at that, covering up a chuckle. "I'm not sure where-"

"Cervantes? He's chatting with the pilot of one of those horned mobile suits," Anton said. "I guess both of them had some interesting encounters in the past or something. I dunno."

"...horned mobile suit, you say?" Kojima said, his countenance brightening somewhat.

"...um... that's right," Anton replied. "Are you the commander here or something?"

"Is that to say you didn't... do them in?" he asked.

"What? Well, no," Anton responded, a bit knocked off kilter. Kojima heaved a sigh of relief.

"Maybe Revil was wrong. It seems there might still be some soldiers in Zeon who have honor."