Gundam Fire Still

"Some kind of special particle emitter?" Some technician who was listening blurted out.

"What's that?"

"There's some kind of special particle or radiation stored in it, and then when it's activated everyone around it dies, only those in special protective suits are spared, - don't laugh at me, it was mentioned in some video game." The speaker scratched his head.

"It sounds a bit like some kind of nuclear bomb - a neutron bomb?"

"It could be true, the map is out, the facilities they dropped were dropped in a certain pattern, with almost the same spacing between them, the closest batch to the base core approximated forming a semi-circle around the base, but it's crippled, the anti-aircraft positions knocked out about a quarter of them." The officer manning the data terminal gave additional advice.

"This doesn't look much like a neutron bomb."

The ms's mech uncovered its shell as molten trails traced around it.

"The cipher disk for the ms to operate doesn't appear to have any other timers or triggering mechanisms, which apparently must be activated by the ms, as long as they don't let their ms get close enough." Carl tapped the exposed object with the ms's mechanical finger. "But I obviously don't recognize what it is."

"Where's the image?" Someone immediately grabbed a camera and microphone, "Sync to Command immediately, this is forward investigation team, it has been determined that this unidentified device requires manual activation by enemy ms units, therefore all units are requested to make an effort to prevent the opposing ms from activating this device, use of artillery fire or similar means to destroy this device is also an option, briefing complete."

"I think I know what this is," Major Dranzhalder in HQ sighed quietly, she locked eyes with Director Bloom and both senior technical officers recognized the possible role those coils and structural elements could play, "emP."

"Do as they say," the Major nodded at the questioning glance cast from the Command Staff, then replied, "Keep the enemy away from it, if it doesn't work, just destroy it, if not, retreat as far away as you can. Estimate the kill circle according to where they put it, then if you can't destroy or hold it, have the units within the corresponding kill range retreat as far as possible."

"emP?Our triple defense units can fight against it......."

"That's only theoretical, and only a few fully enclosed vehicles would be able to block it, and probably this command level EMP, but the rest, all over." Director Bloom doubled over.

"And the boys who drive the tanks don't usually, and shouldn't, seal the hatches." The staff officer on the Army side looked grim.

"We're actually lucky, no, incredibly lucky, they currently have to ms to manually activate it, they're probably using the devices ahead of schedule. zaft only has to wait a few more weeks or days to be enough to make a timed activation device, a trigger that automatically activates when forced open, and so on, then we're screwed, it's not nuclear, but scary. The extent of it......."

"And it's not even their last move, you know.... No!" The commander looked up from an encrypted mobile terminal with a heavy face.

12. earth to earth.

"If we hadn't been lucky enough, we'd have been taken out by drill bombs all together," the base commander glared angrily at the ceiling, and the staff officers began to wonder in their minds who the man who needed to bear that wrath was, "How many of our air defenses are still in combat shape? "

"40% of the positions have been destroyed or are temporarily inoperable, 32% of the mobile units are still in transit, and a few have lost contact, the only ones still functioning are the fixed facilities around the base and the close range defense systems scattered around the perimeter, if the enemy emP..."

"Enemy emP activated!"

Completely unreported, anyone with a discerning eye could see the battlefield surveillance screen in the underground command room go black for a split second, and a large area of the situational screen lose its data updates. But the entire base remained operational as the Combine held and destroyed the few emP installations closest to the base headquarters.

"In accordance with the n3 contingency plan,"

"Where is the third sub-drone in stock?"

"Combat engineers are on an emergency deployment."

"No need to bring decontamination equipment, right, not a nuclear strike, the main purpose is to restore communications."

"3rd Armored Company? You and the anti-tank group are temporarily formed into a mobile operations group and move forward to search for emP points in the c8 area."

"MS Squadron? That's great. You can still fight? Very well, search forward to your nearest emP blast site and close in on any possible friendly forces, Major, you can decide your own course and strategy."

The staff officers below began to get busy following the section of the contingency plan that dealt with a nuclear strike, and the electromagnetic explosion that would result from a nuclear strike, and the base commander wiped the sweat from his face as he stood slightly higher than the staff officers.

"If their orbital bombardment smashes down now, we're really screwed."

"But that damn kid in your tech department who tinkers with ballistic missile positions gets the credit, and the damned orbital fleet," the listener could hear that he wasn't actually cursing at all, "but I didn't know that there were some real assholes in our military. "

==============

Underground facilities of the Ministry of Intelligence and Integration

ROBERT. Meyer's face reappeared in the doorway, keeping the quaint face of an intelligence officer, but his presence would tell you something.

"Did he talk?" No one needed to specifically mention who that he was.

"Sure, but it took a while. He kept looking at his watch until then, and then after a certain time he spoke." He sat down at the table and started pouring coffee into his mouth, "You know, the waiting process where he kept looking at his watch was kind of hair-raising, like we were going to get killed together at some point. Luckily we weren't."

"That point in time? If I'm not mistaken, that's what you guys told me earlier, the time Zaft dropped the emP, but it could have been later. Anyway, he has a 'it's that time, I'm dead anyway if I say so or not' look on his face, but of course he's actually alive so far."

"So they actually got Zaft's battle plan?" The expression on someone's face turned ugly, being a member of the Earth Federation's intelligence department but being compared to Blue Perestroika's lackey was not an honor by any means.

"Definitely not exactly a battle plan, but it shouldn't be too far off." He set his coffee cup down on the table, his hand shaking a little, "If they're not mistaken, it should be time for the drill bombs to hit us on the head by now, why didn't I hear anything?"

"Because that - or one of the ships responsible for dropping the drill bombs is about to smash into the earth, though we're not sure if that's going to happen yet." Romanov laughed and handed over a couple of freshly printed pictures.

"In fact there are still lads betting on whether the ship will smash down or fall somewhere. At least they're no longer a threat now."

=======

That was a few minutes ago, and the orbiting Zaft fleet wasn't expecting a counterattack from the ground.

During the long time it took for missiles from the ground to crawl through the atmosphere and drop their first-stage engines they did almost nothing except activate the cIws located on their ventral surface. however, the first to kill them were direct torpedoes from the gravel belt, torpedoes fired by some phantom raider deep in the gravel belt that turned on their guidance systems and for maneuvering and acceleration after a long (of course, actually not very long) drift. of the second stage thrusters, a sudden rise in tail flame temperature exposing them to the radar screens of the Zaft ships, but by now the launchers were long gone, and meanwhile the torpedoes were close enough for radar to see their targets. If anyone had been able to see their radar screens, it would have been a dream sight for the Combine's radar men, neatly orbiting targets in dense formation, each one incredibly obvious and almost stationary as they were resisting the Earth's gravity in low orbit.

The swarm of torpedoes locked onto their targets individually, then made a set of set evasive interceptions at the end of their voyage. The dense line of cIws managed to intercept two-thirds of the torpedoes, but it did not stop the warheads, loaded with explosives, from slamming into the heavily armored sides of the ships, and in a matter of seconds two of the ships were in flames, before Commander Zaft had finished considering the need to continue the mission, and the missile warheads from the ground-based anti-orbital positions finally struggled to pass through the atmosphere.

Once again, the hardened cIws managed to intercept some of them, but there were some warheads that were different. The anti-orbital warheads that had been modified from anti-ship ballistic missiles followed the original radar and kinetic warheads, and they would not explode in the rain of cIws, but instead righteously accelerated all the way until they hit their targets.

The missile coming from below slammed straight into the belly of the Loraxia class, penetrating the heavy outer armor and a layer of decks before the warhead finally came to a halt in the power department, the entire ship losing power for a split second, and seconds later the bridge screen, which was back on emergency power and lit up, showed the worse fact that the underpowered jets could no longer sustainably fight the gravity in low orbit, and worse, the struggling orbiting ship was drifting sideways under the momentum from the missile hit, and not far to the side was another ship in a dense formation.

======

"I would have thought those adjusters would be civilized." Someone on the comm channel said faintly.

The frantically firing Ginn was knocked to the ground by several particle beams at once, the machine falling heavily between a pile of 76mm shell casings.

Everyone in the ms squad could see the scorched wreckage in front of them, the infantry vehicles densely riddled with bullet holes, the masses of disembodied bodies, tanks beaten and shot to the point of losing their prototype spread across the open field, it was by no means a result of the battle itself, but rather a cathartic slaughter of the incapacitated enemy.

Carl had the body put away the beam saber, and there was still visible blood on the butt of Ginn's machine gun, sliced in half before his eyes.

"Which means they're no different from 'stupid naturals' either. We can't learn from them and get blinded by unnecessary emotions, so don't do anything unnecessary," he spoke up to stop his fellow officers who were planning to flog Ginn's wreckage as well, "Keep moving, we still have friendly forces that need support, fire another flare, the Marines and Army scouts aren't going to be so easily Dry off."

13. Frontal assault

No data updates, no voice guidance, no moving dots of light on the screen, just eyes, optical sensors, proximity radar that is closer than visual distance, that's the battlefield environment that a weapon like ms was designed to deal with.

This is the Alaskan wilderness, a battlefield that has just been swept away by an emP electromagnetic storm.

Four United Standard blue and white painted ms were running forward, followed a little later by a group of tracked vehicles, and a black column of smoke could be seen straight upward on the skyline to the northeast ahead.

Carl's squadron was now down to squad size, one damaged airframe had been towed back to the repair shop, while the other was completely hopeless. The three slightly damaged msD's had been put together with a few self-propelled guns into a makeshift support group, and now following Carr's search forward was a mixed squad of a few infantry fighting vehicles and tanks.

"Hell, or they got there first." The commander of the armored detachment cursed over the channel, "That's Kata, no mistake."

The column came to a slow halt and a compact reconnaissance vehicle began to drive further along the bush track.

"Visible ms, at least two One-Eyes plus a Dog exposed on the runway, and shifting shadows further out." A few minutes later, a channel laced with zippy murmurs carried the information ahead.