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It was hard to believe that a day later, the debris from New Amsterdam is still falling from the sky. The climactic and destructive end brought on by the Apsalus II concluded the battle between the Duchy of Zeon and the Earth Federal Ground Forces. Exhausted by the high stakes battle in the middle of a snowstorm, the aftermath of the conflict found both sides collecting their breath. High above the clouds over the West Arctic, the 77th Brigade flew in formation. The three Medea-type transports are followed by a combat air patrol of Tin Cods and their supervising Dish aircraft. Despite the tensions of the day before, the atmosphere above is relaxed. Cold, but relaxed. A bulkhead door squeaks open and shut on the Mississipi. A Federal crewman looked up to see a mechanic handing him a warm cup of coffee. "Heh, thanks Henry," said the soldier as he took a slow sip. "Don't worry about it," mused the mechanic," I still don't know why the cabin heater's not working." "Thank god for these winter jackets," noted the soldier between sips. "Yeah. Crew says that the Medea should be okay despite the damage. How are the wounded?" "Doing fine I guess, medics just finished bedding down Master Sergeant Irwin." "Oh, the Tin Cod pilot? That's good. Here's hoping things stay quiet." The mechanic unwittingly jinxed himself and the rest of the 77th Brigade. High above them in the Zanzibar-class Shooting Star, Captain Vina Sealander watched Master Sergeant Rhett Paruta stumble towards the still damaged Zaku II K. "Are you sure you want to do another aerial combat this quickly?" she asked," especially after taking so many motion sickness pills?" "Ugh, I'll be fine Captain," reassured Paruta," besides, I'm letting Cora do the driving..." "So long as you can aim that antiaircraft gun of yours without hitting one of us. For your information, Dino's already in his Gouf." "Great, good for him. How long do I have?" "Two minutes. Bathroom's that way." The loud klaxxons calling everyone to battlestations woke everyone onboard the 77th Brigade. The captain of the Mississipi burst onto the bridge to find a very excited bridge crew. "Status!" he barked. "One massive target followed by ten smaller contacts coming down on us from above!" "Another orbital drop?" said the captain as he voiced everyone's worst fears," quick! Did you spot a mobile armor?" "Negative captain, I don't see anything that massive." The captain of the Mississipi weighed his options. "Break off from the fleet! Perform evasive manuevers! That mobile armor is probably out there trying to get us in one blast! Move, damnit, move!" High above them, the five Tin Cods of the 77th Brigade were forming up to meet the descending Zeon first. When they saw the Medea peel away from the Splizun and the Prince Philip, three of their number chased after the lone Medea. The two remaining astonished Tin Cods were quickly blown apart by the ten Dopps. The Shooting Star at this point locked on to the Prince Philip and after a moment discharged its mega particle cannons. The beams lanced through the weak airframe and the Prince Philip collapsed like an exploding balloon. Paruta squinted his eyes as he watched the crosshairs on his screen. Then like the drum of death, the 40mm anti-aircraft gattling gun tore through the Splizun. The Dopps joined in and very quickly, the Medea began to explode. "Cora!" shouted Paruta as he watched the dying Medea grow larger on his screen," we need to pull out of this dive!" "I'm trying!" she claimed. At the last second, the Dodai turned just as the Medea Revised erupted in a giant fireball. The blast baffled the Zaku II K, threatening to toss the already damaged mobile suit off the Dodai. But by sheer luck, Paruta's mobile suit stayed on. "Hey? Where's the third Medea?" asked the Zaku II K pilot. "A Dopp saw it go south-southwest," came Vina Sealander's voice over the radio," but the Tin Cods took it out before we got a proper reading." "Shouldn't we chase it?" "Negative, it pretty much ran off when we came down on top of them. It's probably out of our range right now. Return to the Shooting Star instead." "Roger that... ugh." "... Do those motion sickness pills even work?" wondered Cora in the Dodai below. Rhett Paruta - 6/2 VP gained, Repairing +2 Jim Irvin - 1 VP gained, No Damage Blink. Blink. Blink. A star stuttered on and off, every now and then becoming a blurry pinprick of light against a miniscule canvas of starless space. It was a regular, mechanical pulsation, like a photon heartbeat pumping light into the void. In reality, it was mechanical, but it was no more a heartbeat than the trio of Mobile Suits watching it were flesh and blood. The signal from the Lucifer's Fury was visible to only them. Minovsky particles danced invisibly beyond the theater of human sight, deflecting radio waves, infrared, visible light as they blanketed the machine producing them, Nadia Adelaide's Zaku MPSET, and its companions-- Florian Cuyler's Schnee Weiss, the experimental Newtype-use mobile weapon, and the Zaku Flipper piloted by Laredo Veil. Nadia was the first to break the silence, something about the MPSET's usual array of subaural sounds was slightly disquieting while watching the blinking light; it was almost hypnotizing. She rotated her MS, a series of nearly unnoticable readjustments of the machine's limbs saving her fuel, and with a light tap of the throttle, she let herself drift over to the augmented Dom. She reached out a robotic arm and touched the Schnee Weiss's shoulder, hoping to open a visual communications link in conjunction with the physical audio link. "How are you, Florian? Are you ready?" She asked, hands firmly wrapped around her controls Florian looked over to his communications display, integrated camera aligning itself with his face. Instead of signing out a response, he felt more comfortable just nodding a few times, apprehension in his stomach tightening his muscles as he tried not to think about the headaches. Nadia backed away from the Schnee Weiss and gave her systems a cursory glance, distracted by the visceral anticipation of combat occurring not as far away as she'd like, circumstances allowing. "Wait," a voice joined in, "the Fury stopped signaling." Laredo's camera arrays adapted their focus, trying to gather as much visual data as possible. He opened a data link directly to Florian's systems, feeding him the information. "Get ready," he said, "the missiles have launched." Florian cringed and the bits were set free. The Blex Fleet collectively heaved, missiles raining from out of the ether like lances to a batallion. Steel shuddered and screamed as hulls bent inward and tore. The bridge of every ship was abuzz with compromised hull alerts and defense system alarms. Blex himself was shaken in his chair, but began making orders before most crewmen had recovered from the impact. "I want targeting data-- I want TARGETS, now!" His orders were relayed through the whole fleet, the twin Salamis bringing weapons to bear against their lateral axis, seeking broadside targets. Little phantoms dashed between the ships, bypassing their defenses, searching for the defenseless transport crafts, the Columbus classes. They found their target in the STS-99, and nearby, its sister ship, the STS-14 began unloading Mobile Suits. The STS-99, though, had nothing in the way of defenses, internal or external, and bright lances pierced its hull, fuel detonating and superheated gases rapidly expanding from the dying ship. Finally, the ghosts disappeared, leaving behind a dessicated corpse. Blex watched from the bridge of the Manticore and slammed a fist on his chair's arm. "That cargo's going to be coming out of my pension, I just know it! Find the enemy and make sure they don't do that to any more ships, or I'm making each of you responsible for my liquor tab!" "Kaptain!" "Da, Komrade Kommander?" "Federation ship dancing is amusing, but all weapons are ready for assault on your kommand." "Need I tell all the crew how to do their job? If they are supposed to be firing now, then they should be firing." "Of course, Kaptain. It seems they have remembered their duties now. You! You there, no playtime on this bridge! Back to work!" "A-aye, commander!" The lone remaining Columbus was torn apart by the Schnee Weiss's bits. Its cargo of Mobile Suits had nearly finished launching, but a few that had yet to launch from the hangar bays were caught in the ship's death throes, adding to the death toll the bits took from the ship. The remaining Federation Mobile Suits were desperately fighting a mass of Zeon mobile weapons. The green, purple, and red MS rushed through the Federation's ranks, surging towards the flagship, the Manticore. The Lucifer's Fury and Azrael concentrated their fire on the Swiftsure, making the hull look like Swiss cheese at a gun range. They repositioned themselves again, attempting to avoid the strikes of beams and lasers spewing from the Blex fleet, but they were unable to avoid shots that came too close. The Val Varo, piloted by Felix Mendalshon introduced the ship to his mega particle cannon, wrecking the remains of the crippled Salamis. The Blex fleet continued its barrage of beams and lasers, cannons constantly readjusting to try and catch the Zeon ships. Suddenly, two missiles burst near the remaining Salamis. They were anti-beam missiles launched by the Zeon Expedition Force's lone Jicco. The Salamis's beams dissipated into the Minovsky fog, rendering its only remaining weapon ineffective, dooming it to a meeting with the Val Varo. The Val Varo aligned the monstrous weapon with the Monarch's bridge and fired, annihilating the ship's innards. "Dammit! They're not going to get out of here without a scratch." Blex bashed his fist against his chair's arm again, but quickly shook it after noticing he hit a little too hard. "All weapons! Target one of their ships, I don't care which, just blow one of them up!" The weapon operators all took a deep breath and tried their best to not panic as they tried targeting one of the Zeon ships. The Manticore's weapons turned in concert and... ...the Azrael didn't so much as twitch as its skin was shredded by lasers and mega particle beams, as if it were in shock. Only after a few moments did catastrophe begin, mangled bulkheads giving way and hunks of the hull peeling away from the ship's body. The Zeon Mobile Suits fought their way through the few remaining GMs, only losing two of their own in the struggle, and at last the Manticore lay before them, unguarded. A group of MS in particular began their assault: Emil Myberg, Yoritomo Naizen, Caleb DeGrau, and Richard Banks. Emil felt terrible today, he knew he wasn't going to make it out of this today, he would probably get shot down by a ship, or maybe an enemy Mobile Suit would use a beam saber, or maybe he'd get caught in an explosion... He did his best to shake off his fear, but in the end, his fear was shaking him, and he had a hard time keeping himself from jerking the controls around. He looked around, convinced he was about to see a very bright light, and maybe some dead people who would tell him that being dead wasn't so bad. Instead, he just saw the Manticore's bridge, gulped, and tried radioing Richard and Yoritomo. "I... I, uh, I'm uh... I'm ready! I'm in position!" "You okay, Emil?" Richard sounded slightly concerned, Emil was sounding especially jittery right now. Richard had carved his way through a swath of Mobile Suits, gunned down with a bullet hail, but now he was wondering if Emil was facing something more threatening-- at least to himself. "Get ready to take out the boosters, then. We need to disable the ship. There aren't any ships left to shoot at us, so we should be relatively unimpeded." He was confident the ship could be in Zeon hands within the hour. "Naizen here. No Federation suits remaining, Balls are being engaged by all remaining assault MS. Let's take out the boosters." "DeGrau, everything's looking good on my end, too." Caleb stretched his neck as he found a moment of respite along the Manticore's belly along with the others. He wondered momentarily how Florian was doing, hoping no stray shots would somehow find their way to him. The four Mobile Suits boosted along the Magellan's underside, making their way to the ship's aft and the vulnerable rocket engines. Yoritomo opened fire first, having jumped ahead of the other two, used to high speed combat. The ship's rocket nacelle's tore apart and collapsed under the combined firepower of the three Zeon machines, and explosions soon rocked the Manticore's rear. Gaps in the wrecked booster array spat gases and steam into space, a sign of their death. "Alright, Myberg, Naizen, DeGrau, you've got to make it to the bridge now." No sooner had Richard finished talking than pink beams screamed past the ship, towards the Zeon craft. "Reinforcements. I think we're going to have to pull out now. Anyone who can hear me, do not, I repeat, do not attempt to engage any Federal forces." Zeon's Mobile Suits needn't have heard his broadcast, they could see for themselves the mega particle cannon fire that was coming from somewhere that certainly was not the crippled Manticore. Captain Beria saw it too, and the bridge knew it; at this point, they were far more afraid of Captain Beria than they would ever be of any Federation force. "Launch a flare, transmit a retreat order, do whatever it takes to get our forces back. We will leave any stragglers behind." She rested her chin on her hand, cold fury emanating from her, steeling the crew's nerves in a paranoid way. "Bosque. I wish you came a little earlier, but I'm not complaining. How'd you get here so quickly anyway?" "I smelled it. Nadia Adelaide: 9 VP gained, Fatigued 2, Promoted to Petty Officer 3rd Class Richard Banks: 9 VP gained, Repairing 4, Promoted to Lieutenant Jr. Grade Yoritomo Naizen: 9 VP gained, Repairing 4, Promoted to Private Caleb DeGrau: 9 VP gained, Repairing 3, Promoted to Petty Officer 3rd Class Emil Myberg: 9 VP gained, Repairing 3, Promoted to Petty Officer 3rd Class Florian Cuyler: 9 VP gained, Repairing 2 Injured 1, Promoted to Specialist E1 Laredo Veil: 9 VP gained, Fatigued 2, Promoted to Scharfuhrer Felix Mendalshon: 9 VP gained, Repairing 2, Promoted to Corporal |