Gundam Fire Still

"But, sir, right now, both the United States of America and Russia are just regions," Roy said softly, at the same slow pace.

"Yeah.

The times have changed," the old man cleared his throat, "but you people are much the same as you were back then, and by the accent, you've been in some other country around here, young man, Beirut or Tripoli?" The speech was still slow, and there was a certain tenacity in it

"I've only been to Baghdad, and here." Roy didn't like being called a young man, but the old man in front of him seemed to have some quality that would allow him to accept that title.

"Oh yes, forgive the old man who is somewhat fond of reminiscing about the past, the little girl from Orb, by agreement with them I cannot tell you anything, but you will soon guess who it is, she knows a lot more than she should."

"Then why don't you ...?"

"Oh, of course not, you'll see why." The old man shook his head slowly but firmly, the shadows imprinted by the candlelight on the stone wall behind him shifting just as violently.

Here, also somewhere in the vast desert, the formerly solid rocky mountains were shaped by the sand into a strange structure of a thousand ravines, which from a distance looked almost like the devil's castle rising from the horizon; and from a certain groove deep beneath the concealment of a naturally formed dome, a few paces later, there were countless caves spread over the rock walls. What did not fit in with this nature's masterpiece were the man-made objects piled up at the entrance of the caves and on both sides of the narrow walkway, wooden crates, silver-white aluminum alloy crates, military green crates containing unknown military supplies, and sentinels carrying rifles and bullet chains. This was clearly one of the bases of the Dawn Desert, and the desert resistance knew how to be cunning, but the electronic equipment, which even with its camouflage was clearly technologically charged, indicated that this must have been one of their key bases. The Archangel had spread its web of camouflage in the shadow of the rocky mountains and had been brought here, a natural sanctuary, when Roy had indicated that he wished to speak with their true leader - not just the commander of the armed forces - and the compact reconnaissance vehicle of the Eurasian Union had been present.

Roy had been brought into the shelter along with his European counterpart, the woman who was also the Intelligence Unity, nothing to worry about, knowing full well that the battleship's main guns would be enough to punch the boulder through, and the guerrilla leader was obviously well aware of that as well. In a few of the larger grottoes they saw silky, not outdated computers and communications gear, the vast majority of which were East Asian production and not much worse than what their military used, and while there were always rumors of poor quality East Asian weapons within the Combined Forces, the fact that they would be here might suggest that they were actually quite durable. Along with those devices were their users, several young men dressed more like college students in Europe or the Americas and decidedly less like Arab resistance fighters were typing away at screens or moving mice, unaware of the strange visitors walking behind them. On one of the screens, the pierced wreckage of a desert Ginn was lying on the desert, being dismembered by a small group of men as if a swarm of ants were dismembering a giant corpse, "That's the waste merchant," the soldier leading the way explained briefly, noting the look in his eyes.

"I don't know how long this shelter has been around, some people have found iron swords and arrows in the depths of the cave, and there are even children's tales of frescoes with animals painted in the depths, but I don't really care about that anymore, I just hope they don't find this place." In a cavern that was narrow and dark compared to the halls that had previously held computer screens, the bearded, robed, turbaned old man slowly closed his book in the candlelight and turned to the two military-suited visitors. The moment he stepped into the cavern, Roy noticed in his sweep that one of the walls of the cavern seemed to have traces of something hanging from it, a cross between two things of some sort.

"Is this your base as well?" Valeria. Bokarpov, the young intelligence officer from the north, asked softly.

"No, you've seen our pit area, some people live there, but here, no, most people still go back to the city, except for the sentries on duty."

"The city?" Roy frowned, "Could it be...."

"No. The tiger may know we're in town, but his eyes can't follow us here, and I recognize every lad here and remember where they all came from." The old man's deep-set eyes glowed with wisdom.

"You're familiar with every town around here?"

With a slight nod from the old man

"Wait, 51 years ago?"

Valeria let out a small, subdued scream, "Alassad's little boy?"

Roy let out a low breath, he thought he recognized the marks on the wall, the cross was by no means a cross, where once hung an Ak47 assault rifle, and an RPG crossed with it, a marker of nearly a hundred years of war and turmoil. Enough blood has been shed on this sea of sand that Europeans and Americans have taken little notice of the people who have died here like insects after their power no longer reaches out here, and one bomb in Paris or London carries far more weight with them than a hundred here, and Alassad, the short-lived ruler of Islam, hopes to make a difference. Something bigger to attract attention from those areas. But he ended up attracting only his death.

"A Middle East that has run out of oil cannot be a powder keg, he should not have made that unrealistic expectation when even East Asia's proud technology of extracting oil from abandoned wells cannot squeeze that black precious liquid, and there is no reason for us to accompany him in setting it on fire." The old man stared at the candlelight before him, and slowly raised his head again, his eyes showing actual memories. "It's still true, actually, that this barren desert is nothing but sand and sun, and Zaft gets nothing here, and so do you, actually."

"........" The young Russian tried to say something.

"Yes, I know, my brain is still clear enough to think," looking at the young man in front of him trying to say something, the old man made a gesture to stop, "I know what you are trying to say, Zaft parachuted in here in order to try and annihilate your army, and you are also out of the Same purpose, that's all. Painting your own colours on a map is just child's play, the seeing-eye politicians sitting in front of the map are thinking about something else. By the way, maybe you haven't heard of this, but about a day ago, Zaft took over the Victoria Cosport."

"Victoria Cosport?"

"That's probably good news," Roy nodded, he knew the old man in front of him must be something more than a simple man, and he could certainly draw the obvious conclusion "It means they won't have much in the way of troops to support the tigers here".

"Yes, the tigers are not stupid, but there are obviously some of them who are not so smart, and they will lose," the old man said slowly, but inarguably, "They don't know the desert, so they can't hold on for long, and they also don't know any place on earth. . But Australia might give some trouble, and like their satellites, it's an island there..."

"That's not what we need to care about."

"Yes, we can't care that far away, only here," the old man laughed, then looked serious again "They don't belong here, even if tigers are powerful animals, tigers don't belong in the desert; but neither do you."

"What about the waste merchants?"

"Oh, they're interesting outsiders, too," the old man's expression softened again suddenly, "There are some interesting young men who have given us good weaponry and access to transportation. But they'll be gone too, when there's no more crap to pick up here. Allah bless them, in the universe they have enough waste for them to pick up."

------. ------. --- Here is the author's dividing line ---. ------. ------. -The character names and place names in the desert part are not like Egypt, or the Middle East in general.... So I just set up my own setting with a guy who looks like a lamp, lol...

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7. past and present

"May Allah bless them." The old man leaned over slightly in prayer.

"What, is it strange?" At the surprised looks of the two young, once fellow foreigners, the old man smiled.

"Indeed, as you might imagine, my journey of faith has not been an easy one, I went to Europe to stay in school, and during that time I studied science and history, and everything I learned and heard seemed to encourage me to doubt the God I believed in, the Muslims had done enough stupid things, even if the words written by those narrow-minded Europeans never did justice to the Treat them as such, but I can't erase the facts that prove their stupidity and barbarism either. In fact, they were doing the same thing in other parts of the planet when I knew about those; back when Alassad was trying to get a nuclear bomb, that represented a part of that era** as well. He wanted to fight against a time when the world was slowly being unified, and here, where there was no oil anymore, there was nothing left for him to do but the Hadith; he didn't have the engineers, the scientists, and all the accoutrements needed for a nuclear bomb. Blindness and fanaticism have led him to try to fight that emerging world order."

The old man shook his head and gave a long sigh "But I too have studied longer history, and we once represented one of the most glorious civilizations; a time when darkness and ignorance belonged to the Christian world. In the Middle Ages, considered dark by Europeans, Arab merchant ships roamed the Mediterranean, mathematicians and scientists were making useful discoveries, and while their crusaders came across the desert, leaving a trail of corpses in their wake, the believers in Allah forgave. Yes, those times are long past, far behind time." The old man paused slightly, as if trying to see that past time through history "Later on, when I was in Alexandria, and Baghdad, I secretly became an enemy of some mullahs, and some Christians thought that he was secretly manipulating me against this religion and Allah, but he was also wrong, and that was only because I saw the true side of those who call themselves believers. What was happening inside those mosques was nothing more than blasphemy against our Prophet. Then, when it was all over, I realized that it was perhaps Allah's will as well, that I had secretly seen all that, the madness and evil that had stolen His name, and pushed me to participate in their destruction. Yes, young man, Muslims have had their moments of prosperity and darkness, but we have never perished, and Allah's will is there, and I believe it is always watching us

."

"It's ...."

"Oh, no, sorry, young man, forgive a somewhat tattle-tale old man. At least I have no intention of cursing the heathen to go to hell in flames."

A few restrained smiles appeared on the faces of the two young men.

"No, sir, then, I don't know that much about religion; rather than learn about God or Allah, I'd rather go and learn more about the enemy I'm facing." Roy felt he had to seize the opportunity to change the subject in a more appropriate direction, "What do you think the tiger will do next?"

"That's probably something you should discuss with your superiors, but they probably won't like the idea of squeezing in here in this narrow little hole, and I'm, like, too old and leggy to want to get out. Yeah, that's a casual conversation. He'd probably take his revenge on us, though he'd be just as hard to catch as a mouse in the desert, and he'd have no way of knowing exactly where we were. But he has a mighty iron fist." The old man balled up his fist and waved it in the air, "I don't know what he'll do, but it's clear that he'll show his force and try to warn the citizens of the nearby town not to cooperate with us, or you."

"Of course, they won't succeed."

"You mean, he might fire on those cities?" Valeria. Bokarpov frowned, Zaft's viciousness in killing POWs was well documented, but as far as she could remember, there seemed to be no record of direct attacks on civilians.

"And what do I know about that? I have no idea what they are planning either. At least I know the tiger isn't stupid enough to, well, kill civilians, which he wouldn't necessarily do. But he knows your supplies are limited, and the avenues to replenish them are in those nearby towns he can't fully control. He obviously doesn't want us, and you, to be well-fed."

--- Meanwhile, outside the hidden base

Looking out from the bridge of the Archangel, the undulating dunes ahead seemed to have no pattern; and that was probably why his opponent was having trouble finding himself in this sea of sand. But then Hoffman thought about it, and that meant that it would certainly be no easy task for the combined Eurasian forces coming from the north to capture the tiger and his excellent mobile main force. He slowly swept his eyes across the horizon of the sandy sea, just as two plumes of smoke sailing out of the side of the giant rock caught his eye.

Not on alert on the bridge, most of the three or two kittens on duty in the CIC were drowsy, Hoffman was well aware that after a tense battle, the personnel needed rest even if they were mentally exhilarated and physically fit, Marius and Natal had been sent back to their cabins to sleep, and sitting in the CIC was a new addition, a young lieutenant; Hoffman confirmed the radar from the terminal he had at hand, and not only was the visitor not the The enemy, and again, friendly forces of the Eurasian Union. When the smoke cleared, he immediately recognized the large turret of the Eurasian Union Leopard tank from the main screen in front of him.

"Friendly contact, sir," the duty officer in the communications slot said lazily.

"Pick it up."

"Hey~, uh, no, sir, may I ask if our intelligence officer is with you?" The soldier with the tank helmet on the screen was stunned, as if he hadn't expected his interlocutor to be a colonel, he saluted haphazardly and reported, "This is the Fourth Army - that is, it has been largely routed. of that, the 473rd Regiment, Sixteenth Mechanized Division...."

"No, Lieutenant, there's no need to go into so much detail," Hoffman interrupted the report of the other, who also looked a little short, "your intelligence officer is communicating with the head of the guerrilla here, and I must thank you for sticking to the fight, and besides, would you like to come up for a cup of coffee? " The round-faced colonel extended a friendly invitation.

He then picked up the talkie and connected to the hangar, "Hello? This is the bridge, get ready to open door C. Yes, have the Marines check their papers, and you guys can check their tanks for them if they want too. Also, call in the Major, any of you. No, it's fine, it has nothing to do with you being a pilot, I just need you to sit on the bridge for a few minutes, just ten minutes, I need to talk to my brother in the Army, let me know if anything happens, yeah, that's it." Once all was said and done, Hoffman dropped the microphone, then jumped in the direction of the hatch with an agility that an overweight officer shouldn't have.

--- Archangel, Hangar.

JETFREED. Lieutenant Dawken breathed a long, satisfied sigh of relief, then sat down on his butt on a bench in the refurbishers' lounge, knowing that he had slept in the tank for several nights and should now be even more scruffy than the refurbishers who crawled up and down the hull, and probably because of that, he declined the invitation to the officers' mess - where the floor was generally It would be polished and shiny, while only taking a seat in the equally less than clean hangar. The Colonel also took a seat on the bench opposite and greeted the ground crew with coffee and food.

"Hell, it's still the most common army coffee, but I'm starting to miss the taste." The lieutenant took a small sip from the steaming mug.

"The Cosmic Army wouldn't leave it behind to come to Earth even if there was good stuff in their warehouses. I hear that tiger from Zaft is into studying coffee?"

"I've heard that too, can't understand the strange hobbies of those adjusters. It's the same here in Eurasia, and the good stuff from Berlin or Paris won't be sent to this godforsaken desert," the lieutenant lifted his face and smiled, "I can guess, but I have to make sure that the counterattack has started?"

"Yes, it was the night of the drop, and Admiral Schwarzkopf was the commander."

"Well, there's nothing wrong with that steady old man except his lack of offensive spirit, so it's no wonder the tiger drew a lot of troops against us."