|
Well... It's blue. Bluer. The tarp was pulled down, the the lifts were raised, and Hirsch Muncheck was relatively impressed. The "Gundam" was a beautiful blue, a shade even prettier than that on Hirsch's old GM, but now it spread across the whole body. The leg hydrojets looked beefed up, and the weapons were more varied. Replacing one of the hand anchors was an explosive harpoon launcher mounted on the left hand, and the back-mounted torpedoes looked more imposing than ever. That'd make a beautiful toy-- No, forget that. Hirsch reprimanded himself and made his way to the overtuned mobile suit. "Corporal Muncheck." A short woman in a tan uniform saluted him sharply, and then she was off to the mobile suit herself, Hirsch following her lead and keeping pace. "We're glad to have you aboard, Corporal. We need someone with aquatic combat experience to use this thing, it's given some engineers quite a ride due to not being able to handle it." They reached a platform and were lifted to up by a crane arm to the mobile suit's cockpit. "Have a look inside, Muncheck. I believe you'll find the accomodations quite familiar." A blue hatch slid out of the way, and Hirsch was greeted by quite a familiar sight indeed: the RAG's cockpit was comfortingly similar to the Aqua GM that it was based on. "It'll do," the pilot confirmed, "I just hope I get the hang of it before I start getting shot at." The woman in the uniform giggled and gave Hirsch a pat on the back as she rode the lift back down, leaving the Gundam alone with its new best friend. Hirsch Muncheck - 1 VP Gained, Upgrading 4 It is nightfall in East Asia and the jungle is still alive with wildlife. Insects in particular made their way in the darkness. Only a sliver of moonlight shines through the trees. A sudden brightness startles the animals of the jungle as a pink monoeye brightens. "There's nothing out here." The Dom pilot lowers the 360mm Bazooka as the pilot stifles a yawn. Half a kilometer away, a second monoeye flashes. "There will be something here don't you worry about it," reassures Unterscharfurher Finus Yamamoto," the orders came straight from Lhasa and they won't let us down." Those proud words of confident brought a few minutes of silence until one of the Dom pilots was startled by a voice on his radio. Fiddling with his headset, he growls back in into the microphone. "What the hell are you trying to do, get us in trouble?" "Don't worry about it man, this is a secure channel. It's just the two of us." "The damn SS will have us shot for this you moron!" "Look, listen. Why do you think we're really out here for?" "Hell if I know, maybe that damn Ghineas wants us to snag a wild boar." "Heh. I'll snag his sister if you know what I mean." "Ha, I hear ya. Still, I saw the Unterscharfurher jump at this mission back at Lhasa." "Oh?" "Yeah, went after it like a kid after a brand-new toy." "Must be important then. I swear those SS folks keep frowning even during intercourse." "Important as it is, I'm glad the Unterscharfurher is the one holding the beacon." "Unit's altitude is holding." Deep under the mountain fortress a hive of activity swarms the Lahasa command center. Technicans shout back readings at scientists and engineers who are flocking around the monitoring equipment. At the back of it all, a blond man stood waiting impatiently. "Telemetry readings within nominal margins." "I'm getting some flucturation in the power levels to secondary systems." Ghinius Sahalin stood there, frowning. The SS officer has alot at stake in his pet project. The Apsalus is his brain child and if it was up to him, his more reliable sister Aina Sahalin would be the test pilot. But there are officers superior even to him and so Ghineas would keep his peace. "Yamamoto Team reported they are standing by." "Unit's ETA to test area?" Ghineas asked. "Two minutes." Oberschutze Yuji Takeshi griped the controls a little tighter. The Apsalus II rocked a little from turbelence. The former street urchin gritted his teeth. The Mobile Armor felt different from before. As the night sky flew past him at high speeds, Takeshi marveled at how life had got him this far without him really trying. He can't forget the people he worked with either. 2nd Lieutenant Ando Shoji's charisma perked his attention, as fake as Takeshi believed it to be. Still, there are worse people in the Zeon military. A jolt brought him back to the present right as a staticy voice spoke into his earpiece. Takeshi's hands flew across the controls as he readied himself. "This is Takeshi, waiting for target coordinates." Back at Lhasa, Ghineas watched the main screen as the tactical readout show where the Apsalus is in relation to their perimeter force. "Have Yamamoto's team start broadcasting," he commanded," tell Takeshi to triangulate our signal with the ground force." The communications officer was about to relay the information when Ghineas hand went past his head. The SS officer worked the controls and the numbers in front of the communications officer changed. The technican's eyes went wide. Ghineas saw the expression on the specialist's face. "Accidents happen." A wind had picked up, Yamamoto can tell. His Gouf Custom held onto the beacon device like a vigilant coastal lighthouse. The SS pilot could hardly ask for more. The men in his MS Team are loyal and he is within protective cover of a major friendly fortress. But above it all, Yamamoto is about to witness the testing of a secret Zeon weapon. Being at Lhasa is probably the best thing to happen to him since setting foot on Earth. Being brought off the front line and into a Zeon research base is his next step into achieving his dream to be a test pilot. Above him, Takeshi aligned the Apsalus II with the two guiding beacons and saw his target area. The computers confirmed his calculations and the SS test pilot lowered his altitude. Yamamoto looked up in awe as he saw a monstrous object descend from the heavens. The mobile armor is several kilometers away and a few hundred meters up but the Gouf Custom pilot can still spy the pink glow of the monoeye. The moment of truth came as Takeshi charged the capacitors feeding the anti-fortress MPC. Just over half a minute later, his readouts chirped their readiness and Takeshi pulled the trigger. Dawn suddenly blinded Yamamoto as the heavy duty mega particle cannon from the Apsalus II shot straight down into the ground. The effect is the equivalent of filling a bathtub with water and then dropping a watermelon into it. A plume of debris, forest wreckage, and whatever wasn't vaporized at ground zero is thrown up into the air. A shockwave builds and started spreading from the epicenter at high speeds. The awestruck Gouf Custom pilot barely noticed the danger until his MS Team broke radio discipline and said: "Son-" "-of a-" "-bitch!" The suddenly andrenaline surge to protect his life broke the spell over Takeshi. He draws his heatsword and with nearly enough strength to break his control stick, slams the length of the blade into the ground. The force of the explosion and the howling winds lifted the Gouf Custom off the ground and Takeshi thought his prized mobile suit is going to be carried away like a small kite. The shaking stopped a few minutes later as the Gouf Custom slumped to the ground, hands still clutched around the handle of the heat sword. From behind, three Zeon mobile suits staggled up to recover their SS commander. Yuji Takeshi - 5 VP gained, Repairing 1-1 Finus Yamamoto - 4 VP gained, Repairing 2-1 |