Gundam Fire Still

"I think so, the new machines in the short-sword line are cannonade types, I'm afraid, so what's going on here?"

Carl and Roy were watching an unclear surveillance recording in the cramped communications room as a house disguised as a warehouse was lifted from the inside with a force that revealed a hidden lift structure beneath, and a ms with short sword features but a shoulder-mounted cannon leapt out of it, then raced towards the north wall of the base.

"What time is this?"

"It's the real-time picture right now!"

"What?" Carl wasn't sure if he was surprised at the friendly intelligence capabilities or the low-probability events taking place below, but at least his brain had begun to consider what he should do.

"Sir, we've got a problem." The captain's voice suddenly sounded from the comm panel, "They won't let us land, saying the runway is being repaired or something, but as you know..."

"Regardless of them, what do you think about a forced landing?" The two men looked at each other and seemed to come to the same conclusion.

"I'm going to prep the airframe, ready to go as soon as we hit the ground."

"Remember to bring live ammunition, this opening is kind of interesting."

3. unwelcome visitors

"Strike ready, airframe self examination!" Carl shouted as he jumped into the cockpit, the hibernating onboard learning computer was awakened by the sound, and after the sound pattern was confirmed, the generator in the torso of the airframe began to make a slight noise. Carl buried himself in the anti-G seat, the harness was automatically ejected and the screens above, below and to the side simultaneously began to display the status of the airframe and its surroundings, the self-test progress bar slowly advancing on the main screen.

"Thomas, prepare to strike." He shouted into the comm panel, "Beta Team, you are also ready to strike, but not too fast."

"You rarely call our names, Captain." The young man asked a leisurely question over the approach channel.

"..........................."

"Because this one is rather urgent, and you'll get an explanation as to why, in due time." Carl replied quietly, then he switched the comm channel to another channel, "Attention ground crew, cut away from the warm-up lines and begin ammunition loading for emergency strike preparation."

"Training rounds?"

"Live rounds and training rounds one to one, training rounds for the first mag, and the same for the second."

"Really live rounds?" It was Ensign Thomas who was asking the question, and Carl could see on the screen that everything was fine with the second plane's self-test - except that it wasn't loaded yet.

"Just in case, Ensign."

"Attention all, emergency landing in five minutes, prepare for impact." That was the captain's voice over the in-flight radio, "It might be a little rough." The slight tilt of the fuselage could also be felt in the cockpit, presumably the plane was turning and aligning itself with the runway.

"Captain, there's no time to refill the jet fuel."

"No problem, just have ammunition, we won't run into a situation that requires an emergency maneuver for a while. Do a good job of disengaging the MS mounts immediately after the ammo is replenished, so we can disengage directly along the chute."

"Quick release chute? I'm not sure if that thing will go ms."

"Captain Christopher, this is Captain ms, is it feasible to request that the tailgate be opened immediately after grounding to allow ms to go out via the quick-discharge chute?"

"oK, as long as you're not afraid of rubbing your ms the wrong way."

"Captain, that's no training!" Thomas was horrified.

"Just don't hit your head and get off the transporter, then stand back up and get off the runway."

"Prepare to ground, all hands!" After a few minutes, or seconds, of silence, the captain's voice sounded again.

The lower monitors in the ms cockpit synchronized to show the landing, and just as the body felt the vibration of grounding, the green light that marked the disengagement of the ms mount came on, and then the cargo bay, which had been turned off, began to reveal a bright sky light from the open hatch, from outside.

"Ready, drop!"

The familiar G-force struck the cockpit, followed by the screeching sound of metal against the ground, sparks of friction already visible on the side screens, and the main screen of the ms went from the dark roof of the transport's cabin to a clear, 10,000-mile sky over the Sea of Marmara in a single instant.

Carl pulled up on the joystick as the display program began to urgently adjust the intake light, allowing the airframe to begin to stand up on the runway.

"Quick, quick, stand up, then northwest, see?" Carl marked the running silhouette on the battle map, yet he froze.

There were two of the silhouettes in the distance.

=====

The look on the airport tower controller's face was devastated as he watched the transport he had refused to land, while mouthing understanding, still descending fast, aiming for the runway, then finding a vacant taxiway and hitting the ground hard. Before he could say any words or react in any way, the transport opened its tail pod and flung out two ms that were a shower of sparks on the ground.

He knew there were ms stationed at this base, but they were always kept well hidden and secret. Before today he had only seen one captured Ginn and today first two never before seen ms's emerged from the ground of the base and broke the fence, then a frantic transport dumped two more ms's and the last two were hot on the heels of the first two.

"Tower, Tower what are you flinching at? Stop them now!" A somewhat unfamiliar voice came over the headset, a voice that occasionally came up in the tower's conversations with its superiors, but this was by no means part of the chain of command, this was the most exasperated the voice had ever been, and it was clear that someone was out of control.

"Damn it, who was I supposed to stop? The crazy guy who broke the fence, or the one who now drops two ms on the taxiway? The same guy who's hovering in the sky right now intending to find a place to land?"

"Bastard, whichever one it is, this has to be stopped, has to, immediately." The voice behind the microphone seemed incoherent, "Get your ass in gear."

"Hell, you TM should be telling me how to stop those ms on the tower, and who the hell are you TM, there shouldn't be a loud, noisy, unintelligible lunatic on this channel either." The duty officer on the tower got angry as well, knowing that this whole situation was mostly the work of the guys who were sneaking around down at the base and there was nothing he could do about it.

"Listen, Duty Officer, you've got to vacate the runway and get that plane up there down, then the base guard will go and keep an eye on them," and after a small burst of noise that included the sound of a face being punched and glass being broken, the headset changed back to his familiar superior's voice.

"You don't need to care who it was just now, get in touch with those ms, right now, then call them back."

"But how am I supposed to call them? The first two are already going to run out of range of what the radio can sustain."

"Then stop the last two first, dammit, and tell them our ms has taken control of their transports so they have to come back!"

He didn't need to be told that he could see the open door of a building on the base releasing two Ginn again, the latter running with a 76mm machine gun towards the large transport that had just stopped on the taxiway.

======.

"Forward ms, please advise your affiliation."

"........"

"Please advise of your affiliation and purpose."

Carl wasn't going to chase too far out, and with little fuel for his own airframe, there was no need to take unnecessary risks. While the seemingly gunpack-equipped, short-sword-based airframe in the distance ahead of him was still in communication range, he switched several joint possible communication channels, eventually picking up a vague response on a seldom-used experimental channel.

"Belongs to... Base, no name known, purpose, go and, adjuster, fight."

Although it was a distinctly young male voice, the tone and inflection was somehow different.

"What's your destination?"

"Captain, their base is ordering us back."

"Well, I'll just have one more word with them and then I'll go back."

Carl saw the friendly communications interface keep flashing, but he could expect there must be nothing good to say.

"Atlantic Federation ms listen up, your transports have landed and are under our control, I order you to return to base immediately and to lay down your weapons! Otherwise you must bear all possible consequences."

"That attitude is a little worse than I expected, Captain." Thomas, the wingman, said after communications with the base were cut off.

"That's where you overestimate their qualities, Persians never know how to be polite, especially to people like us who aren't the powers that be."