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"Commence the Siege." An order which carried an urgency not felt in the actions required to fulfill it. The sheer number of firing solutions to acquire, units to take position, vessels to maneuver, was mind boggling. General Revil had done all he could for now, and simply sat and watched his capable crew as they erupted into a frenzy of radio transmissions, errand running, and endless double-checking. On the Zeon front, HLV's were doing thruster tests and soldiers were running the defense lines to get confirmation that each defensive position was prepared for the battle to come. Several of the runners converged, exchanged clipboards, and finally one hopped into a waiting Sauropelta, and turned the long walk to the headquarters building into a short drive. "Commandant, all defensive positions will be prepared within the hour sir." He said, saluting with his right hand, and handing the Commandant the clipboard with his left. "Any sign of the Feddies, Corporal?" The Commandant asked, flipping through the pages as he slipped into his fancy rotating chair and swiveled to face the sea. "Sir, Federal ground forces have been spotted to the west, and a large naval fleet has amassed in the east. It would appear that they are not entirely prepared to attack at this time." "Good, it seems our intelligence report was correct. If things continue to go as planned, we may yet crush the Federation before this year is through." The Commandant said, leaning forward and resting his chin on his hands as he stared out into the evening sea. Alec Irusk: 1 VP Gained, No Damage David Anderson: 1 VP Gained, No Damage Duncan Keystone: 1 VP Gained, No Damage Ferusha Glavadeen: 1 VP Gained, No Damage Marko Dresner: 1 VP Gained, No Damage Ota Naomi: 1 VP Gained, No Damage Persephone Dawn: 1 VP Gained, No Damage Rhett Paruta: 1 VP Gained, No Damage Yuji Takeshi: 1 VP Gained, No Damage "Ever been to Earth, Gaia?" The Zanzibar the Black Tri-Stars rode in was managed by nothing but a skeleton crew. It was filled only with the bare minimum of essential crewmen to operate the re-entry craft and the Black Tri-Stars with their new Mobile Suits. The halls and decks were sterile voids, populated with stale air and the three ace pilots' conversations. The crew seemed to almost never speak. "Nope. I prefarrr the freedom of space, I don't know how anyone could stand living on that there rock. But orders is orders, eh?" "Damn right," Mash agreed, speaking through clenched teeth as he ripped a piece of crumbless bread from the roll. The best part about the crumbless variety was the moistness it seemed to retain. The worst part was the taste. Like chalk and bread dough, but after thinking about it, Mash decided that was probably better than eating paste. He drifted up to Gaia and Ortega and peered over the railing closing off the suspended walkway from the Doms below. One of White Base's hangars was open and a ramp extended from the grounded ship to the tough soil and foliage on the valley's floor. Parts for MS and the ship itself were piled up in no apparent order on both sides of the long, narrow hangar, and the only motions apparent were an occasional bird flittering from tree to tree outside, and a small yellow forklift moving boxes and modules from one spot to another. They were parts for Gundam, and if there was anything going on with Gundam, Amuro made sure he was the first to know. And new parts were definitely something that qualified as "going on." Lieutenant Matilda walked up the ramp and nearly passed by the forklift without Amuro noticing, but it was like he was fucking psychic sometimes, especially when it came to fucking someone's shit up. Matilda was a nice lady, but she would've preferred getting to the bridge by herself, especially with how all the boys on White Base reacted to her. "Hi, Miss Matilda!" There was no escaping from Amuro. Not for Bright, not for Frau, not for Zeon, and this time, not for Lieutenant Adjan. "Good morning! What's all of this?" Amuro lept out of the machine as Matilda gestured to the parts he was moving. "Components of Gundam's upgrade modules. I'm organizing them... Since I'll have to do the repairs myself, it makes it easier." Amuro sounded slightly uncomfortable as he mentioned having to do the repairs himself; even though he considered Gundam his, the recently often-recurring responsibility of repairing Gundam on his own was heavy. "That's QUITE impressive..." Matilda tried walking away while Amuro was off-balance, but she was shit out of luck. "Where are you going?" Amuro cheered up near-instantly. "I'm heading to the bridg-" "I'll show you the way!" "That's okay..." "No, really, I know an awesome shortcut!" Matilda was a sucker for cute boys, and Amuro could be persuasive when he got determined. What was the word Woody used to describe it? She tried to recall a memory as she and Amuro ascended one of White Base's many lift systems. Amuro cast a sidelong glance at her, but Matilda caught it and smiled at him. Muy? Moy? Moe? A beep signaled their stop. Oh well. One of the other children on White Base, a girl - Frau Bow, Matilda recalled - was waiting. She politely greeted Matilda but turned savage as Amuro tried walking away with the Lieutenant. "Amuro! You said you'd fix my air conditioner after you ate breakfast!" She chastised him like a mother; one day, she'd make an excellent wife. "Oh..? Stop hiding pills in it, Frau." Amuro walked away; he made a clean break this time, but Frau knew his weaknesses. She would wait until the time was right. And then she would strike. Like a cobra. Venomous and lithe, but with a feminine touch. "Hmph. I told you, that's not me," she said to Amuro's escaping back. "It's Haro!" "Klonopin! Klonopin!" Haro rolled around Frau's feet and repeated the word in its stupid monotone voice. "Shut up, Haro!" "Matilda, man, Matilda. How 'bout that girl." Kai was slacking, his daily quota of effort was met. He leaned against the AA cannon that one of the other kids on White Base (he didn't try to remember their names, after all, they were probably just going to die, right?) was cleaning. "She's totally my type," Kai continued. "She's so sophisticated, and so nice. And how about that rack, am I right?" Nameless goon #4 (Kai at least numbered them, according to how much they sucked [#1 being the highest]) caught his breath in his throat as Matilda passed by, and he quickly gave a sharp salute. Kai didn't notice. "I'd be so happy if I could have a girlfriend like Matilda." "Let's focus more on White Base and less on your love life." Matilda stopped and smiled as Kai started at her remark. "...AH! GOOD MORNING LIEUTENANT HOW ARE YOU TODAY I AM FINE THANK YOU!" Kai blushed a deep shade of red, and if one were to apply the redshift phenomenon's theory to Kai's face, you could quickly determine that his ego just receded somewhere deep inside his head. With Kai, that place was probably very dense and dark. Possibly moist, too, but it's best not to speculate about what it's moist with. "L-lieutenant..." Kai stumbled over the gun and after Matilda as she and Amuro began making their way once more, and while his normal personality was still locked away while the pretty lady was here, he dared to ask a favor. "Well, uh, now that we've gotten past that (let's just put it behind us and never remember), I'd like to ask permission to take a picture of you and myself..?" His voice raised in pitch as he neared the end of the question, and he tried to make his face look as innocent as possible. The picture came out fine, even though Kai was only just inside the border, having been the one to activate the only functional camera around. Twelve people were in the photo, Nameless Goons #1-9 (they just got so bumped up), Amuro, Matilda, and Kai himself, and the camera made just enough copies for each person to have one. Amuro brought Matilda to Bright's room, where White Base's captain was still recuperating from near-lethal amounts of stress and bullets. They saluted each other, and Amuro nodded to Mirai, who was at Bright's side. Amuro decided whatever they were going to talk about was probably classified and/or boring enough to negate being in Lieutenant Adjan's presence. The Gundam pilot pulled the photograph out of his breast pocket and smiled like a goon while staring at it and running down the hallway. "Well if it ain't Mah Coo Vay! Hey there feller, what's the good word?" Gaia slapped the effeminate vase collector on the back. Their Zanzibar had dropped them off not too far from M'quve's fleet, headed by his Dobday, and they rendevouzed to receive their orders. Oh, how M'quve HATED people like them. "...Yes, very good." He walked away from the hand, and in consequence, away from the Doms and their massive feet. He quickly attempted to brush off the spot Gaia had touched, but he couldn't comfortably reach it without looking like an unsophisticated savage. "Ahem," he cleared his throat, garnering the laughing pilots' attention. "We've received word from our informant-" "Yew mean our MOLE?" Mash interrupted him, looking like he was about to break out laughing. "Feller don't even know what a mole is!" The Tri-Stars laughed even harder. "I said... we've received word that Odessa Day's schedule has been sped up, no doubt due in part to your arrival." M'quve crossed his arms behind his back and glared over his aquiline nose at the dirty ape-men. I wish I could execute you all right now, he thought to himself. "Okey dokey feller, now just point out that Trojan Harse-amajig and we'll go bleed it like a Martian pigcow," Ortega managed to say between gulps from his canteen. Surprisingly, it was actually just water. He liked his blood thick during fights. The Dom Mobile Suit, a purpose-built land combat weapon, was an engineering work of art for the most part, but it was a flawed contraption. Flaws, of course, are inherent to any weapon design, there to be compensated for by the weapon's abilities. The Dom was incapable of walking speeds any greater than that of a literally crawling Zaku IB, it was extremely heavy, and it was not as versatile as the Zaku II. However, it had no counterpart within the Federation forces or even the Zeon military. It employed a thermonuclear ground effect system for unparalleled speed on even terrain, and combined with the newly-improved heat rod weapon and scattering beam gun embedded in the chest, it was the ultimate Zeon Mobile Suit for close-combat fighting; against ships or Federation MS alike. The Black Tri-Stars color scheme was the factory-given coloring for the Dom in honor of the ace pilots. Even now, they were crossing the terrain at high speeds in their new Mobile Suits to the Trojan Horse's location. Thermonuclear jet engines, taking advantage of the ultracompact fusion reactor's exhaust, suspended them a fraction of any measurement above even terrain, and had high enough output to lift them over slightly uneven surfaces. They were equipped with bazookas and machine guns, well armed to handle any force. "Still can't find 'em, Gaia! It's like lookin' fer a greased hogdog, or somethin... right difficult to find!" "Keep lookin, grits-fer-brains, it's a big white pony, it can't be that hard to find!" Gaia landed next to a tree, which, unfortunately for the Tri-Stars, had a sensor mounted on it. That sensor, fortunately for White Base, alerted the Federation fleet to their presence immediately. "What is it?" Bright flipped the monitor in his room to the bridge communication center, finding Sayla at the panel. "The enemy has been spotted," she said. "Three MS approaching at 2 o'clock." Bright's body tensed - it felt like it was finally where it was used to being after being stuck in someone else's skin. "Get ready to counterattack. Mirai, you're in charge." Mirai gave her acknowledgement and dashed out of Bright's room. White Base began closing all hatches and halting all haltable repairs, vehicles and personnel dashing back inside the ship from the external work areas. Guntank rolled out of the hangar, Hayato being the first to make it to his unit. "Oh man, a bunch of new controls. It's still designed for two people?" Hayato grumbled something about slow engineers, but as usual, he gave his job full concentration. Kai's Guncannon was the next out of the hangar, though he wished he was the last. "Hey, Hayato, having fun?" Snarky, as usual. "I'm fine, Kai. If you can do it in your single-pilot MS, I'll be just fine." "What's that supposed to mean?" Kai laughed. On the bridge, Omar and Marker registered the encroaching enemy's movements. "They've passed the second marker," Omar said. "What was that?" Marker asked. "Not you, the marker." "Oh. Why didn't you say so." "I hate you so much sometimes." Mirai rubbed the bridge of her nose. "Is Gundam ready to go yet Sayla- wait, Sayla? Aren't you supposed to be the pilot of G-Armor?" Sayla breathed through in through her teeth. "First part, no, G-Armor still isn't ready, and second part, yeah, but refer to number one. I'll head down in a minute." "Wait, why isn't Job John doing it anyway? He's an actual pilot. And he's proven himself quite capable of fighting the enemy in the past." Mirai respected Job John, as did everyone who knew the brave soldier's name. "I guess they want someone with more experience hijacking Gundam?" Sayla didn't really know the answer, but that was probably closer to the truth than anyone would want to admit. "So, you're saying I can RIDE G-Armor?" Amuro was amazed by the blueprints. They showed the Gundam performing a variety of bizarre combinations with the strange... tankfighterplane, not the least amusing of which was Gundam surfing on top of it as it flew. "Yes, but you needn't worry about the other combinations, the computer will do it for you." One of the bland-looking officers - Colonel Seiki - briefed Amuro on G-Armor's properties. "What if the computer is damaged?" Amuro didn't trust computers to not get damage, backup plans were a necessity when it came to them. "As long as the laser searchers are synchronized, manual docking is possible. As long as you're going 600km per hour. Otherwise you'll stall. And crash. So don't do that." "Oh, crashing and dying if I'm not going 600km/h? That's all? Wow, I expected something like 'No, docking in combat is stupid, don't do it,' but that's all? What a relief." "I hear you've been in the brig before, do you miss it?" Amuro went to respond angrily, but Matilda interrupted and made him completely forget the engineering officer. "Amuro," she began, "where's the G-Armor pilot we requested?" Amuro pointed out Sayla, who was boarding the G-Armor. It looked stupid to her, too. "The engines are still struggling, we can't take off at this rate." Mirai fiddled with White Base's helm, unable to get the discombobulated thruster and engine arrays to operate at normal capacity. "Frau, tell Lieutenant Adjan and Colonel Seiki to come here." "Is there a problem?" Matilda walked up behind Mirai and assessed the situation. "What's preventing you from taking off?" "The main engine output won't increase." "What? Colonel Seiki!" Lieutenant Adjan called out for the engineering officer. "Sayla?" "Yes, Amuro?" "Do you feel really awkward right now, too? I feel like a sardine trapped inside a giant robot sardine trapped inside a sardine can with with guns." "...Let's just disengage and forget this ever happened." "Oh, I was hoping you'd say something like that." The G-Armor began disengaging Gundam from its innards, the rear section began by detaching and deccelerating, coming clear of Gundam's feet and dropping down. The front section, including Sayla's cockpit, released all latches on Gundam's armor and accelerated clear of its head, dropping down to meet and reconnect with the rear section. "Are you okay, Sayla?" The G-Armor sans-Gundam accelerated past the white Mobile Suit, gaining altitude. "Yeah, the computer did everything." "Great," Amuro said, dropping out of the sky. "I guess that's it for foreshadowing, then." The Gundam landed heavily and jumped towards White Base, and hopefully, the Zeon MS. Amuro drew his beam saber and passed a crashing Medea - and a strange fear struck him. "I hope that wasn't Miss Matilda!" Of course, it wasn't, and the only reason he thought it was was because right now, she was the person whose life he feared for most, whether he meant to or not. White Base continued struggling with its engine output, Matilda cooperating with Seiki to find the problem, and finally, a breakthrough appeared. "We've found the problem, Lieutenant," one of the engineers informed over the comm, "give us three minutes to fix it." "Do it in two minutes, please." White Base shook as a giant bazooka round landed near, shaking Matilda's spirit. "Found you!" Amuro arrived at the battleground, excited to finish the fight quickly. Gundam boosted towards the ground from the apogee of its jump, barely dodging a giant bazooka round launched from point blanc. "Daaaang! Feddie-boy done gone and dodged my shot!" Gaia jumped out of the beam saber's arc, missing the heat by mere nanometers. Amuro fired the vulcans to no effect, the Dom's armor was too great. Matilda dashed to her Medea, desperate to save White Base from a violent end. "We're taking off!" She reached the bridge and notified the pilot, ending his dinner break. He thought he'd finally have a chance to grab a bite, even if it meant sitting around during a fight, but noooo, Matilda wanted to save White Base. "Alright boys, let's do a jet-stream attack!" Gaia called out to his squadmates, ready to perform their signature attack to finish off the Feddie MS. The black and purple Doms lined up in a row, Gaia in front, hand on heat saber, Mash second, and Ortega third, both with giant bazookas in hand. "...The hell are they doing?" Amuro was rightfully confused. Gaia's Dom whipped out its heat saber and slashed out, not truly trying to hit Amuro, and the Gundam dodged nonetheless. Gaia's Dom dashed aside as Mash jumped into the air, firing the giant bazooka at Amuro. The white Gundam sidestepped the round, only just avoiding it, only to fire its boosters to dodge the final Dom's giant bazooka attack. "Dagnabbit! He gone and dodged again! Let's do 'nother one, boys!" The Doms lined up again, this time dashing at Amuro at the same time Matilda's Medea climbed above the treetops, giving supporting fire to the Gundam. Ortega's Dom fired its scattering beam gun, blinding Amuro for the brief moment it took to close the distance. "I can't see!" Amuro felt something strange, like he could feel the heat saber passing through the air as if it were his own body, and jumped over the Dom just in time to propel himself off it with a mighty kick and at Mash's Dom, which he speared with a beam saber. Ortega's Dom completed the maneuver by jumping into the approaching Medea, crumpling the bridge and dragging it into the ground with it. The Medea collided with the ground with an explosion, destroying the Dom located at the epicenter. "Matilda... Miss Matilda?!" Amuro knew it this time, he didn't know how, but he knew it. They just killed Matilda. He just watched them kill Matilda. She tried to help people. But they killed her. She was so nice. But they killed her. She was But they killed her. She But they killed her. ShBut they killed her. They killed her. Amuro roared and dragged the beam saber through the Dom's reactor and jumped away as a chain reaction caused it to become a nuclear bomb. The explosion rocked the ground, but Amuro was blind with rage, and dashed after the remaining Dom: Gaia. "Mash! Ortega!" The Gundam fired the last of its fuel as it collided with the Dom, pushing them both back through the forest. They kept going, propelled by the Gundam, and suspended by the GES of the Dom, all the while a beam saber pierced through the scattering beam gun and out the Dom's back. Minovsky particles from the gun's resevoir, and the streams from the reactor's Minovsky particle output added to the dying beam saber's blade, expanding the pink flame as the magnetic field weakened. A bright pink lance temporarily extended from the Dom's back, but burned out as Gundam's fuel reserves ran out, stopping the Dom and Gundam. The heat of the beam saber's expansion melted through Gaia's cockpit, igniting all combustible materials inside, leaving no remains of the pilot, not even ash. The Dom's reactor didn't explode, but instead went critical with the containment field destabilizing. A conventional explosion occured, releasing the small remainder of unused Minvosky particles in a small cloud of plasma. They quickly dispersed in the Earth's atmosphere. |