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Despite recent Federal victories in North Africa, life continued as normal for some units. The Iraqi Air Patrol was at full numbers and the survivors better pilots for their recent battles. Air patrols had gotten less effective since the region had been covered in sandstorms however, so most duty had fallen to the Karakals or the Pink Panthers. At the edge of the territory though, air units operated in good condition. All the Feddies were already past the range of this unit's patrol route, so things should be easy for them. A couple kilometers away, a DIsh pilot was picking up the sextet of Gunship Helis on its radar. "Hey, Cameron," alerted Private Sarah. "We've got a patrol ahead. Bunch of choppers, it looks like." Corporal Cameron Sune rubbed his chin. He and his team were in a hurry, but some fighting would be unavoidable. "We're shoving our way past. Take as many shots as necessary, but don't stop to play. There'll be plenty more Zeons for us later." The other GM pilots acknowledge by drawing their Beam Spray Guns, firing a few rounds at the patrol. One gunship got caught in the barrage, but the rest quickly tracked the bright beams. "Incoming GMs! Scatter and attack!" the lead gunship pilot ordered. The formation of helicopters fired their mini-missiles as they maneuvered. Most of the missiles either missed or hit the GMs' shields, but each mobile suit showed small signs of damage. Cameron's team fired back with their head vulcans, causing a gunship to flee from damage, but causing little harm to the rest. "Ignore them! Just go on through!" Cameron ordered. The gunships, not ready for their enemies to just ignore them, fired missiles where they expected the GMs to stop, but Cameron's team had long passed that point when the missiles hit. Cameron briefly stopped to throw a grenade to scatter the helicopter formation and deter pursuit before disappearing into the whirling sands of North Africa, where small aircraft dare not follow at low altitudes. Cameron Sune: 7 VP gained, 1 day damage Even with the deployment of the new Jet Core Boosters, Earth Federal forces on Earth still use the old Tin Cod fighter. The six old interceptors streak across the South American sky. Several hundred miles to their south is the Amazon rain forest where the fortified base of Jaburo lay hidden. They came in at low altitude without the guidance of an orbiting Dish. The pilots watch the ground passes below them at high speeds with nothing significant other than greenery passing them by in a blur. Suddenly their threat sensors began ringing as multiple misses came at them, forcing the Tin Cods to peel away from each other in evasive maneuvers. Out of the trees leaps Eric Kyrion in the prototype MS-08TX[EXAM] Efreet Custom. He swung one of his heat swords at a passing Tin Cod, smashing the fuselage in a great feat of luck and skill. The mobile suit lands and took a full face of 25mm fire and small missiles. But the movement of the Efreet renders the attack ineffective as Kyrion launches his missiles and leaps again. But the Tin Cods are not the amateurs they were long ago. The squadron leader orders the planes to climb up to their maximum ceiling altitude. They circle the Efreet like sparrows over an ambitious housecat. After reporting the position of the Zeon mobile suit to their command tower, the 198th Fighter Wing returns to base flying at high altitude. All Eric Kyrion could do is watch the white lines of jet engines leave and march off into the South American landscape. Eric Kyrion 3 VP gained, no damage "Oh, what's wrong with me? I just want to talk to him..." Susan Steel sat in her Xamel, asking herself the same question over and over again. Her Xamel and the Dom nearby formed one of the points on the triangle that the Zeon forces in the area had set up to hunt and destroy the enemy, but as of yet, no such target presented itself. Instead, Susan found herself in a battle between her own timidity and her curiosity; both very powerful belligerents in the conflict, and she had, on no less than three occasions, tried to strike up a conversation with the famed Andrew Vinsko, only to rip her fingers away from the communications button at the very last moment. Taking a deep breath and holding it, Susan closed her eyes and hovered her finger above the infamous device, ready to press down on the plastic piece. However just as she began to feel the switch begin to trip, a seemingly loud beep blasted into the cabin, startling the young woman to the point where she jerked her body back violently against the seat. With her heart beating at a faster rate than before, Susan opened her eyes to meet the those of the Luggun's radar operator. Slowly exhaling, she tried her best at recomposing herself before addressing the man in a noticeably broken voice, "Um, is there anything to report?" "Yes, we've confirmed that, uh," the soldier stopped, closely examining the panting woman before asking, "uh, corporal, are you okay?" Susan averted her eyes away from the inquiring man while letting out a long sigh, once again trying to remove any suspicions as to what she had to endure, "Yes, I'm fine," she replied, her voice far more confident than before, "did you spot the Federation mobile suits yet?" As she hoped, the sensor operator's attention was averted back to that of the matter at hand, and he confirmed Susan's assumption, "Yes ma'am, we have. They're about seven clicks south south west of your location, so they should reach the target area in about twelve minutes." "Good, I'll tell staff sergeant Vinsko right away." She finally thought she had a legitimate reason to talk to Andrew Vinsko, and she had hoped to engage in some small talk, even if there was only a few minutes for it. But as her thoughts wandered, the Luggun sensor operator added, "But we have some bad news. Shamal winds are coming in from the north, and their arrival is going to coincide with the Federation's. We'll have to ascend to a higher altitude ourselves to escape the winds, but we'll stay on station as long as possible, ma'am" Thanking the men before closing the communications link, Susan immediately contacted the leader of the group, who immediately accepted the query. Taken aback from the sudden appearance of the target of her frustrations, she merely stared into the screen, seemingly ignoring Andrew's questions. "Ms. Steel? Ms. Steel? What is it? Have you got something to tell me?" asked the veteran soldier, confused as to her demeanor. Quickly breaking her state of trance, the Xamel pilot responded, "Oh, sorry, sir. Sorry. Well, the Luggun has reported confirmed contact with the Federation unit coming in from the south. And, um, a sandstorm is coming in from the north, and it will arrive just as the Federation do." She could hear the man curse softly as he looked down and to the left for several seconds. The small computerized tactical computer gave audible feedback as Andrew quickly ran his fingers along the device, revising various time tables and fire grids that had been fed to all the units by the Luggun. The sandstorms were quickly becoming a pain in the rear for the Zeon, and it was even more aggravating given the fact that North Africa was the Duchy's back yard, yet the Earth Federation had seemed to be operating quite well despite the natural occurrences. The Desert Zaku pilot looked up at the forward screen soon after he had finished entering the new variables into the computer and he transmitted the revised data to the other units, "Okay, did you get the data I just sent you?" Susan broke her stare once more to look down and press a flashing red button that indicated a new set of information. The tactical computer screen overlaid the changes, various lines intersecting others, but she paid little attention to them. Looking back up at Vinsko, she replied, "Yes sir, I just got it. Thank you." Sporting a faint smile, Andrew replied, "No problem Ms. Steel. Is there anything else?" "Well, there is something else, but..." she trailed off, wondering if she should use this opportunity to converse with the man, but her train of thought was interrupted by another sound. "Hold on Ms. Steel, Myer is hailing me." "What the heck is this?" asked the Military Surveillance Force officer, looking down at the small computer, "what's with the change in plans?" Letting out sigh, Andrew Vinsko coolly replied, "The Luggun reported some shamal winds coming in from the north, and it'll reach us at the same time the Federation does. It's just a small change." Steve Myer released an almost beastly shout, a result of his pent up anger from the recent loss of valuable Zeon airborne battleships, but he quickly controlled himself, excusing himself in front of the staff sergeant for the recent outburst, "Sorry, just... it's just, the sandstorms and all." Andrew gave an understanding nod, able to relate to the SS operative's frustration at the recent turn of events. But like it or not, they were still going to attack the incoming Federation force, sandstorm or no sandstorm. A few kilometers south of the Zeon's ambush point, three mobile suits and a hover tank lazily sped along the Arabian land, having gotten word that a considerable Zeon presence was in the area. However, that was the extent of the information, and so they were still on their guard for the time being since North Africa was indubitably the Principality's. The visually burdened GM Sniper II made good headway in the area, the sand filtration devices doing their job and the additional cooling systems keeping the mobile suit within its operational temperatures. A few hundred meters away from it, the GM Sniper and Land Combat Type flanked the high performance blue mobile suit. Establishing a link to his commander, Olin Bueler asked him, "Sir, why are we still roaming North Africa? We didn't even egress back to Gibraltar with the rest of the forces." Dino Fiddler thought for a moment, wondering what exactly his reasoning was for staying in North Africa proper, before giving his team mate an answer, "I don't really know, actually. Thought I could hit a few more Zeeks with this thing. We did a number on the Dopps and the Gaws, after all." The GM LCT's pilot responded with a grunt and closed the link, still angry about his recent demotions. What was he to do in the face of overwhelming superiority? Taking a quick look at the land around him, Dino found it once again nice, as a few days of uneventful rest would do him very well following the action packed days a few sunrises prior. The extremely flat area soon revealed a rather ominous sign, however, when the famed shamal winds began to present itself to Federation and Zeon alike. The Federation mobile suits stopped a moment to grasp the awesome sight of an incoming sandstorm, each of its pilots taking the time to appreciate the event. It would make them incredibly hard to catch. Perhaps another Gaw would present itself in the sandstorm, Dino thought to himself, the idea amusing him somewhat. A short time later, the humanoid robots and the single hover tank continued their trek towards the incoming sandstorm, unknowingly walking into a preplanned kill zone. "Sir, I'm picking up a single source of activity to our left!" shouted Haws, his voice seemingly distraught from the discovery. Immediately, Dino ordered the hover tank to halt and deploy its underground sonar to pinpoint the anomaly. Not too long after, the hover tank was injecting a piton into the ground and Scarlette Hartinger went to work to determine the target. But before she could even start beginning to listen to her headphones, a general alert blared in front of her eyes, indicating that there were several more origins of Minovsky activity. "I just picked up seven more sources, sir! And they're all around us!" shouted Hartinger, who was making it even harder for Haws to relay the information to Dino. For that moment in time, Dino's heart sunk and a chill ran down his spine, for he knew what the information meant. "Shit." "FIRE!" Andrew Vinsko's command reverberated throughout everyone's minds just before the Xamel and the Zaku II D's opened up with their respective weapons. The 680mm artillery cannon recoiled back on its hydro pneumatic dampers as it spat out a behemoth round at the Earth Federation's forces. At the same time, four Zaku II desert types fired their bazookas in unison, sending four smaller projectiles at Dino Fiddler and his team. "Don't stop, MOVE!" shouted Dino realizing that his team had stopped, apparently paralyzed at their current predicament. But just as his orders registered in everyone's minds, the tremendous amount of ordinance had arrived and explosions began erupting among the Federation group. The GM Sniper II tried to shield itself from the incoming rounds, but as it did so, its pilot could see the GM LCT being thrown up into the air tens of meters before gravity caused it to come crashing down into the hard packed ground, obviously the victim of a Xamel's near miss. The GM Sniper had kneeled to bring its long range beam rifle into action, but it merely presented a stationary target that allowed a bazooka round to connect to its supporting leg, causing it too to come crashing face first into the ground before firing a shot. Cursing the very unfortunate turn of events, Dino shouted at his teammates to return fire, hoping that they were all still alive. Another salvo of bazooka rounds headed straight for the GM Sniper II, forcing Dino to bring up its arm shield in an attempt to block the shot as the mobile suit simultaneously evaded. But to his surprise, and chagrin, he realized that most of the bazooka rounds weren't for him, but in fact for the Type 74 hover truck. Glancing at his tactical map, he could see a friendly IFF signal disappear, coinciding with an explosion behind him. His heart skipped a beat at the thought of losing so many people in a single moment, but things were occurring with such speed and ferocity that time did not allow for Dino to lament the loss of the Type 74 crew. "We just lost the hover tank! Bueler, Nightlinger, you all still alive?" screamed Dino just as the sandstorm began to engulf the battlefield. Another round from the Xamel landed not too far from the GM Sniper II, sending bits of jagged metal at the sniper suit with enough force to incapacitate the cooling systems and targeting visor, but otherwise leaving it operational. "Bueler here, I'm still alive. Banged up my head and my suit's lost its legs, though," responded the GM LCT pilot, obviously coughing blood out of his lungs. A second later, a female voice resounded throughout Dino's mind, "I'm still alive sir, but I lost my right leg. I can still fight though!" "Oh thank goodness. Okay, they can't see us very well, so let's retaliate!" Unbeknownst to Dino Fiddler or any other Federation soldier, Steve Myer's Zaku Kai was quickly approaching the last known coordinates of the enemy, a Zaku bazooka firmly in its grips. "Always sandstorms. Always. I'm getting sick of this," muttered the Zaku Kai's pilot to himself. Fortunately for Steve, it wouldn't be too long before his computer picked out the multiple Earth Federation IFF signals, meaning he was quite close to the myriad of GMs. No shots had been fired in his direction so far, so he reasoned that his approach had gone largely unnoticed by Dino and his group. "Time to fly!" Grinning like a child, Steve jammed the Zaku Kai's throttles fully open, causing the Zeon suit to quickly gain altitude from within the shamal winds as it began searching for suitable targets for the bazooka. By now, the Xamel had ceased firing as it was unable to correct its fire or tell whether or not friendlies were in the target zone. Susan Steel merely sat in her cockpit, waiting, hoping that both Steve Myer and Andrew Vinsko would come out of the engagement alive and well. The desert Zaku II's fired the remainder of their bazooka's magazines into the general direction of the GMs before retiring the weapons for the more traditional machine guns. But just as they did so, a pink beam erupted from the sandstorm and swept across the natural embankment that the desert Zakus were hiding behind. The beam easily sliced through one of the desert Zakus, and it would have destroyed a second had Martel not been quick enough to boost into the air in time to escape the deadly stream of particles. "Sir, they just got one of the Zaku's. The GM Sniper tagged it!" said Martel, shouting over the natural sounds of war so that Andrew could understand. Andrew let loose another derogatory remark before ordering the remaining Zaku's to retire behind the full cover of the embankment, but again, the Federation was quicker to react than the Zeon. A solid slug shot through the right shoulder of another Zaku II D, and a split second later, a shot from a ballistic rifle caused the same Zaku's head to literally explode from within. Elated at the their recent fortunes, the GM Sniper II's pilot exclaimed, "Hah! We got 'em, Bueler!", to which the GM LCT's pilot returned an enthusiastic reply. But the impromptu celebrations were cut short when several 280mm bazooka rounds slammed into the back of the GM. The resulting explosion threw metal in every direction, while flinging the rail cannon a couple hundred meters down range. Touching the ground for merely a second, the Zaku Kai once again jumped to avoid a shot from the GM Sniper II, which had by then dropped its ballistic rifle for its 90mm machine gun. "Damnit, where are these things coming from?!" cried Dino as he tried to connect his bullets to the airborne Zaku Kai, desperately trying to reason that Bueler made it out alive. Another series of explosions erupted from around the GM Sniper, but they only served to kick up even more dust into the already darkened sky. A few seconds later, the GM Sniper had its 100mm machine gun out shooting at the now falling Zaku Kai, and it managed to score a few hits on Steve Myer before the Federation sniper suit was rendered completely inoperable from a deep gash from its left shoulder and through the cockpit area. By now, Dino had witnessed his entire MS team destroyed by a Zeon task force, and it had rendered him slightly hysterical, though he continued to fight against the lone Zaku Kai. The latter began to sprint at the remaining GM, shooting its MMP-80 machine gun at the GM Sniper II while the latter returned the favor with its own 90mm machine gun. Both mobile suits strafed each other, each scoring an equal amount of hits on the other until they their magazines ran dry. Instead of wasting time to reload, Steve shouted at the top of his lungs while charging straight at the GM Sniper II with his heat hawk in one hand and grasping something else in the other. Dino, seeing this, stopped reloading his 90mm machine gun and maneuvered the GM Sniper II to stoop down and pick up its dropped ballistic sniper rifle, but not nearly in time to aim it straight at the Zaku Kai's cockpit. The Zaku Kai came crashing into the GM Sniper II, swinging its heat hawk down at the Federation mobile suit from overhead, but the blue mobile suit brought up its free hand and grabbed onto the Zaku's hand, preventing Steve from performing the deathly blow. Dino took the opportunity to bring the sniper rifle up as far as it could go and fire at point blank range, causing the absolute destruction of the Zaku Kai's left hip area, seemingly decommissioning the hostile unit. Sweating profusely, Dino's hands now had trouble gripping the controls, but it looked like he had won for the moment. Only a moment later, the Zaku Kai outstretched its other hand and dropped the object it held behind the GM Sniper II. "...Oh no," mumbled the sole surviving Federation pilot, knowing all too well what the Zaku had just done. The grenade exploded in a couple seconds, destroying the rear of the sniper mobile suit, while sending bits of metal into the cockpit, critically injuring Dino Fiddler. Luckily for Steve, the GM had soaked up all the damage, and he was merely tossed backwards with the Federation mobile suit. Badly injured and barely able to move, Dino Fiddler found solace in the fact that the hatch was not jammed shut, allowing him to drag himself outside. Falling a short distance to the ground, he lied under the destroyed GM Sniper II, which offered its body as a shield against the sandstorm. Looking into the cockpit, he could now see exactly how damaged the GM Sniper II was, and he realized that it was a total loss at this point. In fact, he wasn't sure if he could even stay alive, and the thought saddened him. What was worse, however, was the fact that he would die alone, in such a terrible place, having lost all of those he had cared for. Unable to look at the carnage inside the suit, he turned his head to the blackened sky that moved all around him, tears and blood running down his face as he tried desperately to figure out why he had sacrificed so much just to vanish in this land. He could hear the sounds of footsteps coming closer and closer, crunching the ground beneath them, and using what little strength was in him, Dino turned his head upwards to see SS Scharführer Steve Myer stop a meter from him. Peering through his protective goggles, Steve looked down at his dying enemy, seeing the mangled up body continue to hack up blood as its eyes remained fixed upon his. Realizing that the Federation pilot was beyond help, the Zeon soldier reached at his side to unholster his personal side arm and pull back the slide with his other hand. The sight of the pistol didn't exactly surprise Dino, knowing he would die either way. He much preferred to die right now than suffer a death caused by an undetermined amount of damage done to his body. Looking at the Zeon pilot level the barrel at his body, Dino struggled to force himself to smile before Steve Myer delivered the coup de grâce. Dino Fiddler: 5 VP gained, Dead 7 days Steve Myer: 7 VP gained, 3 days damage Andrew Vinsko: 7 VP gained, 1 days damage Susan Steel: 4 VP gained, 0 days damage |