Gundam Fire Still

As with this silly mock battle, this exuberant statement was indeed the Consortium's style, allowing a person under suspicion to enter an even more secret underground facility and even engage in mock battles with a classified airframe, an act of increasing leaks to demonstrate is clearly at odds with the military's principle of secrecy. Normally taboo combat data could be easily deduced from observation and mock battles, especially if the opponent was an observant person, and such an act was almost like handing over combat data. The fact that he was allowed to participate in the search was another indication that the opponent clearly had no intention of making an extreme choice to silence him.

"Note, Major, this entire underground facility is top secret, so you have seen nothing, heard nothing, and have not conducted any simulated battles here, is that understood?" The base security chief's voice came out a little later.

"No shit, he'll understand, that overwhelming difference."

Stupid, Carl labeled the owner of that voice as such in his mind.

The elevator in front of him rumbled to life, and as the steel doors opened, a déjà vu MS face was revealed.

"Series X?"

5. Performance advantages

"You've seen the X-Series?"

"As one of the first people from Earth United to come into contact with the MS batch, I have no reason not to recognize this iconic face."

"Okay, but that doesn't help, the X-series are powerful machines, and this, a whole generation more powerful than the X-series. So by all means use live ammunition, Atlantic Federation guy, you'll understand what desperation is."

Arriving at the same time as the headset's barking was the frontal dash of the airframe in front of it.

The khaki paint job combined with the large and somewhat disproportionate backpack on the back of the ms made the airframe look rather heavy, and the shields on either side of the backpack were clear reminders that trying to snipe the obviously targeted backpack was not a good choice. The huge backpack on both sides and in the middle, apparently a firearms firing port equipment shows that the backpack is not only used to provide mobility, but also to provide a platform for the body to carry long-range firepower. A closer look reveals that the body outside of the backpack is kept quite slim, which means it is flexible and adaptable to close combat.

Of course, the last bit was enough to recognize it by looking at the double-wielded scythe in its hand.

The green alert light on the public channel kept flashing, and it looked like the pilot in the opposite hull must have been saying something, but Carl was well aware that he had no margin to focus on that, and that his opponent's rush attack did have the speed to outpace the X-series he had encountered.

As the nozzle at the front of the fuselage activated and the shortsword recoiled sharply backwards, the 75mm cannon in the head extended its line of fire towards the killing body ahead - however, it was unsurprisingly bounced off the Ps armour. However Karl was able to switch out his beam rifle and fire two bursts of tentative shots at the forward ms.

"You don't need to show mercy, fire all you want, it's no use!" Presumably the Perestroika Observer figure shouted over the command channel again, arriving at the same time as the fact that the shield on the back of the khaki ms had been instantly moved to the front by the robotic arm, and the green particle beam had hit a colorless force field before it made contact with the shield, scattering into the air.

"Beam deflection field? You guys really spent a lot of money." As he spoke, Karl's hand didn't stop, and the retreating ms suddenly turned sharply, moving to the side of his opponent's assault path in a drift-like position with a brief spray of back thrusters. However, the beam rifle's burst of fire was still ineffective, and the mobile shield on the opponent's backpack was able to quickly adjust its angle under the control of the robotic arm.

At the same time, the khaki-colored airframe had turned around, the massive inertia from its heavier fuselage offset by the equally stronger nozzle propulsion, and the heavy fuselage was heavy enough to do significant damage even on impact.

After a few face-to-face circles in the open area of the training ground, the distance between the two machines had grown closer and closer, and Karl stepped on the pedal to turn the airframe around and run.

The underground training ground had limited space and no cover, and the move away from exposing his back brought the risk of being sniped from behind while enabling better use of the thrusters. But Carl was going to trust his own judgment that the other side had no current intention of dropping the scythe for an indiscriminate bombardment. Scythes weren't a convenient weapon, the long-handled weapon was difficult to maneuver due to its length and weight which was universal for both humans and robotic arms, and the huge range of attack also meant the possibility of slashing at friendly troops around him or himself.

It suited the Blue Perestroika's style though, they never cared about friendly troops on the side.

Karl stopped his retreat, the edge of the training ground was not far away, he already had a strategy on how to gain an advantage, but he wasn't going to use it, this was a good opportunity to get combat data on the body, the constant steering and circling had already given him a rough idea of that body's turning and acceleration capabilities, so this test opportunity shouldn't be given up easily.

The Advance Mass Production Short Sword put away his beam rifle, instead pulling out his beam saber from his waist to take a melee stance. Having already confirmed the opponent's excellent reflexes in their previous evasion, whether that was a more advanced auxiliary computer or an enhanced human pilot, one didn't have the capital to compete with their reactions in any case, and all that remained was tactics.

The thin body began to move slowly towards the other side, then stopped at the distance where the blades were about to meet, and turned on the reverse jet. Such a move to maintain distance would have given the longsword user the advantage of being able to take full advantage of the attack range, but the short sword that suddenly turned to retreating just happened to control the distance to a point where it was a hair's breadth away from the scythe's cutting range.

This distance was not maintained for long by the opponent's advance, but it was enough for Karl to throw the shield out of the machine's hands, and the moment the opponent's view was briefly blocked, Karl once again pressed the pedal that indicated the advance. Such an action of switching between forward and backward against inertia seriously threatened the life of the body's propulsion system, but right now he had no margin to worry about the life span.

The short saber pitched downward, the thin fuselage able to slam into the inside of the scythe as it was swinging to its maximum range to knock off the shield in the last instant, the beam saber not exciting the particle beam's bald hilt against the opponent's fuselage at zero range.

The concussion and roar in the training ground ended in a single breath.

Someone's soft applause came over the comm channel.

"Beautiful fight, Major."

"No, you've been kind enough to show mercy, that's a very powerful machine indeed, if it had activated the beam blade on its scythe, I would be dead by now."

"Good eye and skill," the Perestroika observer's tone had taken away the anger and instead made it sound like it was with a smile, "The maintenance of the airframe can be done by the people on your transport, and the base can supply you with ammunition and spare parts."

The gesture struck Carl as a bit ridiculous at such times, but he pressed on to get the airframe towards the elevator to the ground.

"If you succeed in finding that escaped airframe this time and don't screw them up, Major, you'll find you start to have some strong friends, both in the Atlantic Federation and in Eurasia."

"Thank you for your kind offer, this gentleman, but we can talk about that later, this airframe needs maintenance and I, sorry to say, need a little rest as well."

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

"What are your observations?"

"Probably can determine where they're going to hide, that warehouse is significantly more heavily guarded, but we can slip through, there are two questions, when to move, and whether or not killing is allowed."

The location of the two men speaking to each other was on the base's tarmac, the former transport was opening its cargo bay doors wide, revealing a brightly lit interior, while the two men were hiding beneath the huge black shadow created by the latter transport in the light. The airframe belonging to the ms captain was undergoing intense maintenance and loading in the brightly lit area, and the base's monitors were keeping an intense and vigilant eye on it all, desperate not to have anything from the base, outside of their allowed range, taken away, or anything brought in that shouldn't be there. But the fact that they were focused on that whole scene of preparation gave the interlocutor hiding in the shadows the opportunity to disappear from their view.

"Where's your wiretap? Did you pick up any movement?"

"A small amount of close contact calls and pinging battle sounds, it probably went to one of the underground facilities on the base where the signal is terrible and I only heard one sentence of him talking to himself."

"I told you, there's no point in bugging the outside of the fuselage."

"No, no, that self-talk meant the Major was telling us something, you understand, he'd seen the new X-series airframe, one of the things looking for the Chief's attention."

"Well, it seems you've got the right man, so he'll be looking for an opportunity to give us some valuable information over the ms contact call."

"If he's discreet enough he won't arouse suspicion."

"So the time of the operation is?"

"Tomorrow night, prioritize Plan A. Don't kill anyone."

"That's going to be a bit of a problem."

"You know the principle, I'm sure the spooks aren't too old to infiltrate."

"........"

The speaker wordlessly disappeared into the shadow of the transport's wheels, while the other man circled halfway around and reappeared in the light of the former transport's aft cabin, the flickering red dot in his hand indicating that he had just ducked away to smoke a cigarette, and beneath the hat belonging to the MS Integral Officer, the face of Captain Christopher was revealed.

======== Time switch to the next morning ============

"We don't have a briefing room at the moment, so I'll just say this," Carl stood on the tarmac, with the big feet of the ms at his side and the three team members in front of him. Two of the base guard soldiers were standing a little further away with their guns, obviously a surveillance, but expectedly so.

"Thomas and I will go help our comrades in Eurasia find the airframe, the remaining two will stay here and help the rest of them with base security, and for the time being in my absence your commanding officer here will be Lt. Vasiu. Lieutenant Colonel Toris. Everything is as ordered, be friendly to them, yesterday's situation was exceptional after all."

"Next is the main point, regarding their missing airframe, please report it to me immediately if you see it, if you can make contact." Carl took out a mobile terminal and rested it on the MS's foot, "Code name Long Blade, new machine in the Short Sword series, features an add-on backpack with a magnetic rail gun, missile launcher and add-on nozzle. Do not fire when you see it, report first, then try to communicate, order the pilot to return to base, keep watch if you can't, don't initiate fire but you can fire back, that's all I can say, I'm sure that's just about enough."

Carl and the monitor a little farther back were in each other's minds, they didn't like being told too much, but there was no point in keeping it hidden from the eyes of those who had already seen the organism, and such a negotiated caliber was as far as the Blue Perestroika observer behind them would tolerate.

"All right, all aboard and ready for battle."

6.佣兵

Finding work had not been too difficult, and in the last part of the call Karl had asked about their destination in the mountains to the northwest, while also confirming the claim of the observer here from the Consortium side that they still obeyed the character of the order. In the rugged mountainous terrain, there were very few roads that allowed the MS to travel. And with a little observation, the footprints and tracks left by the ms could be found.

"Captain, this is suspicious, really suspicious, and if the pilot in that airframe defected, there's no reason for us to get it back, but...."

"That's right, Ensign, that's the problem, do you remember the last call we had with the escaped organism? They have no reason to answer our questions if they are defectors."