Gundam Fire Still

"Prophet, this is Watchtower, GReenDeLtA150, heat source found. Watchtower repeat, heat source found, location GReenDeLtA, distance 150." (Note: Prophet, Watchtower, are both radio call signs, not squad code names; here Prophet is the Fleet Air Command Center and Watchtower is the AWACS call sign, regardless of who is flying it and which squadron it belongs to.)

"This is Prophet, coordinates received, GReenDeLtA, heat source confirmed."

The controller's repetition resounded across the bridge, and the radar crew widened their eyes at the screen from their battle stations.

7. neutral forces

The line of fire from the solid rounds was slicing through cosmic space, and a little farther away, an orange ms was performing a dizzying set of evasive maneuvers, the fuselage dancing through the screen, but the flying debris and the leaking liquid that drifted through cosmic space like a fog showed that the shooter was no panacea either.

This was the first thing Carl saw on the screen, but of course, neither his eyes nor his radar could ignore the larger target behind the blue-white fuselage that was emitting an obvious heat source, a similarly blue-white painted ship belonging to the oRB, whose identification had popped up on the side of the screen and then synced to the approaching ship a few kilometers away. Being a fighter pilot, he placed the MS in the crossfire in the center of the screen, adjusted the control system of the airframe to combat mode, and then stopped the engines, quietly observing the evasive action and the firing bounces.

He tapped a few times on the screen, zooming in on the image, then narrowed his eyes, he could see from the screen that the shooter wasn't firing entirely solid rounds, but a compound strike mixed with rapid-fire particle beams and live rounds, clearly designed to target Ps armor or anti-beam shields, and the ability to integrate two weapons with different ballistic characteristics into one system showed that there was no weak technical force behind the airframe. Seemingly after being hit enough times, the fired upon turned around and disappeared into the distance, while the blue and white shooter was turning around.

The two planes locked on to each other at long range, and then Karl turned on the International Common Radio channel.

"Don't stay close, Combine."

"Hello again, mercenary. I take it I'm not on your mission list?" Carl recognized the blue heretic he had dealt with, and it was clear that the airframe had undergone many upgrades and modifications since the last time he had seen it.

"If you're going to fire on this Kusanagi, like that ms just did, you will, Combine. Also, Carl, your airframe this time and that guy's just now seem to be in the same series, so I'm hoping it's just a coincidence."

"As a matter of fact, Impeachment, I'm curious about that too, that airframe obviously doesn't belong to the Combine, do you know where it came from?"

"If you're planning on making a business deal, then I know the answer." The words with a bit of sarcasm came from the other side of the communication.

"You know very well I'm not in charge of business deals, but if you'll wait a bit, someone will talk to you." Carl reported to the ship behind him on an encrypted channel, and a few minutes later the shadow of the Archangel trailing jet trails came into view.

"What about the oRB mission?"

"It's done, and they've paid the bill." The mercenary cherished the words, "I don't need to keep following them."

The approaching Union small fleet sent a flashing signal to the oRB's ships, who responded by activating their thrusters as they began to change course towards a lower orbit around the planet, clearly not wanting anything to do with the Unions.

Receiving the homeward signal, Carl piloted back to the ship, and then the Union fleet also began its reorbit towards the gravel belt, and in between homeward trips, Carl still saw a well-hidden heat source on the sensor screen, the mothership of the mercenary hiding in the direction of the gravel belt.

"How are they talking?" After returning to the ship, Carl found Hoffman in the officers' mess, "If I have enough secrecy ratings, where to?"

"Go to 'Snail', you've heard of it, the largest wanderer colony on the edge of that gravel belt, a small colonial satellite maintained by waste merchants, mercenaries and smugglers alike. It can be reached with a slight change of course. According to that old man, if you can't get information there too, you really can't."

"I think it's more likely that they won't give it to us, and the people who run these places don't like the Combine."

"Sure, but that's only one aspect, they also don't want to mess with the Combine. It just so happens that the mercenaries here need credit, and Snake Tail is one of the biggest patrons and protectors of the 'Snails', so they'll sell them on it. We, for the time being, also apparently have more important missions."

A few hours later

The small fleet moved along the edge of the gravel belt, guided by the mercenaries, until they signaled to stop. The small nozzle on the bow of the ship reduced the ship's speed to zero with an intermittent jet of tail flame, and although this was only the edge of the debris belt, from the bridge it looked like the ship was already surrounded almost entirely by drifting debris and wreckage. Large amounts of glowing metallic debris existed in every corner of the field of view, but these metal objects obscured by debris were actually hard to tell if they were pieces of abandoned satellites or the place they were looking for, the satellite settlement that was actually being used.

This was probably the plan of these cosmic wanderers, they didn't want the Combine to know where they were, let alone be driven into their port by the Combine, it was a good idea to blend in among the wreckage.

"What are they dragging?" As the mercenary shuttle flew into the gravel belt, but didn't come out for a long time, the duty officer on the bridge was confused, "Shall I call in the captain?"

"No need, it's normal, their people will take deliberate detours in the gravel belt, not wanting us to see where they came from."

Carl had just finished a break and appeared on the bridge in faith, "Maybe it'll take some time to find an intelligence peddler willing to trade with the Combine."

"Sneaky bastard."

Carl didn't answer, he found an idle terminal and began to amble over to the bow telescope view of the ship. He could make out the faint jets of light around the manmade structures in the distance, they obviously belonged to the small engineering craft commonly used by junk dealers, the ones with crude mechanical arms were fairly affordable wreckage retrievers, but one of their major weaknesses was their very limited range, which prevented them from operating away from motherships or settlements. The piece of wreckage surrounded by the flight paths of these engineering aircraft was apparently the location of the satellite settlement 'Snail'.

After a few minutes, he framed a general area on the screen, "If you're interested, Fleet Staff, it should be in that area."

"To place a beacon here?" Hoffman's adjutant, Garcia, so questioned, "to facilitate finding them next time."

"Useless," Hoffman appeared on the bridge, "The snail, if I'm not mistaken, is moving. Like its name says, it's powered and will move slowly through the gravel belt, and I'm afraid we won't find anything next time even if we get back here."

"These cosmic wanderers who lack a sense of home often have no home to return to, so they call their settlements 'snails', the shells of snails, but also mobile homes, or so those guys think."

The Combine had to wait a while longer again, the bridge watchman went through a new shift, something new finally appeared on the radar screen, a waste merchant shuttle from deep in the gravel belt appeared near the Combine, and the Montgomery likewise sent a transport boat to dock with the former.

"They're finally starting to talk business." In the lounge area of the battleship, some of the off-duty officers began to talk over each other.

"You think they'll tell us what those PLAnt guys want?"

"They obviously will." The answer came from the military intelligence officer who appeared to be slightly more familiar with politics than these people in charge of operations, "The PLAnt people are going to meet with that councilman sir obviously to make contact with us, and since it's a contact and not a kidnapping, they're going to tell us something, and the best way to do that is through a neutral country."

"Hell, do these waste merchants count as neutral countries?"

"At least it's a neutral force, and if our information is correct, most of the organized waste merchants have the backing of the oRB behind them,, and you all saw the mercenaries protecting the oRB princelings' ships. And the oRB, apparently, is the neutral country that threads the needle."

"I think I know where that hurried oRB warship went." Hoffman's other intelligence staff officer snapped, "That ship is on its way to their place of engagement, and these damned mercenaries and waste merchants are helping them stall so the oRB can get a head start on us."

"Why would they do that?"

"Of course because..." The answerer didn't finish, and new information appeared on the situational screen.

But only a few minutes later, the two boats disengaged from the docking, no unusual signals being sent, as if this had been a very brief conversation.

"So soon?"

Over the command chain's encrypted communications, Captain Lamias was asking the same question to the approaching craft, "So soon? It's already settled?"

"No need to talk, just a few words." Rick. Eisenhorn shook his head across the screen, the senior advisor to the federal government knowing full well that the other side would only need to confirm a very few things and then the location of the meeting and the plate. Because these waste merchants, as the military intelligence officer realized, were the very forces that had given the covert encounter the go-ahead, and their goal was not to ruin the encounter - at most, they would sell another copy of this information to someone else, if they were brave enough. They just need to make sure that these tracked-in coalition forces aren't Perestroika elements, but normal soldiers who are acceptable to negotiate with the Adjuster.

As he'd discussed with the officers when he'd been appointed at Moonface, it was clear that this wasn't just one or two snitches and defectors seeking asylum or selling information, but a much more complicated affair than that.The PLAnt moderates were a complex political force of composition, and their people, whether Klein's or other Sara opponents, had different agendas, so what they were able to synthesize The only purpose is to make contact with the Earth Army for that one thing. They could be united enough to try to get through the neutrals and then through Jim. Rahel to communicate their wishes, but while they were giving themselves a way to think of a way out, the Combined Forces had their own plans.

As the transport boat slowly descended into the hangar, the outbound announcement sounded over the ship's radio, and the heading was what many had expected, the L4 satellite cluster.

"Cheer up lads, we won't be the only ones who know they're there."

8. Back of the Moon

Time, unknown, lunar orbit - backside of the moon

The former ZAFt-owned ms carrier, Eternity, is drifting with engines and radar off, relying on inertia and gravitational cover.

The officer on the electronic systems console looked back slightly, scanning the woman seated in the captain's chair before burying his head once more in the screens and charts before him; he had known long ago that it was the captain's woman, but only a few hours ago had he truly recognized that there was power and strength beyond the ordinary in the tiny body of the woman in white civilian clothing. She was the first to subdue the acting captain, who had clearly let his guard down because of her outstanding looks, with a single blow, and then took over the entire ship with herself and her companions - worthy of Captain Baltferut, and such a powerful woman to find, the young officer thought. It was the captain himself whom he admired who appeared next on the bridge, the latter's eyes appearing a little weary, but giving the order to fire and sail in a still firm tone.

Then the dazzling green particle beam struck the closed naval port gate in front of him, the gate he'd passed through so many times was twisted, melted, and dispersed into cosmic space in an instant. Then the emergency acceleration of the battleship's overloaded engines to 130% and the twisting sensation to his body from the emergency steering of the also overloaded side posture adjustment jets, the battleship quickly left the PLAnt satellite cluster behind, but a new target appeared on the radar in front of him, a familiar radar signature and engine heat pattern belonging to the NASCAR class, but he knew that from now on, these familiar to himself, perhaps once The ships that had been on board were no longer friendly.

As the ship was about to sail out of PLAnt's radio range, the ship received a forced insertion from all PLAnt channels, everyone familiar with Siegel . Old man Klein was appealing in firm tones not to continue this endless, quagmire of a war, and then the communications were gradually replaced by electronic noise, either because of the distance or because the trailing ships had turned on neutron jamming, but it didn't matter anymore.

He probably knew what was going on in PLAnt, the captain had warned long ago that this could happen, and when the war weariness of the PLAnt populace began to erupt with the defeats on the front lines, the Zaft leader was sure to do something to keep the war going, and what he might do was something that an honest man-adjuster, would not want. Some low-level Zaft officers had been secretly stringing together after the North African fiasco, until today, when they received the worst possible signal, and bloodshed began within the PLAnt.

After the initial emergency reorbiting into a lunar orbit around the back of the Moon, the battleship was kept in a concealed navigation mode, without starting its engines, shutting down its generators and keeping its power consumption to a minimum, and without turning on its radar, which transmits electromagnetic waves to the surroundings. Because of its position on the back side of the Moon, the Earth and Moon blocked the sunlight, and in the Moon's shadow it was difficult to detect the lights and control ships even by optical means. The heat streaks of the three NASCARs in pursuit also quickly disappeared from the detector screens, and they seemed to have been thrown off by the rapid acceleration the Eternals had traded for their initial overload thrusters.

Although the radar system, which actively emits electromagnetic waves, has been turned off, the ship's electronic systems are still collecting electromagnetic waves in all wavelengths, from microwaves to gamma rays, which may contain cosmic background radiation, or signals from ancient satellites still emitting, or scans from a radar, which would indicate that it has probably been detected; of course, the ship is not being scanned. , but that didn't mean that everything was safe, he didn't like what he saw on the screen, behind those cluttered waveforms he saw a trace of the presence of a neutron interference source. The neutron interference itself was not easy to detect, but its weakening of the electromagnetic waves in a particular curve could be analyzed and calculated, the effect of neutron interference cut with the square of the distance, so a distant neutron interference source could be ignored, and on the sorted, background electromagnetic radiation graphics, he could clearly see the trace of the presence of this source of interference at close range.

Worse, it wasn't a stationary neutron interference source, the kind Zaft had unleashed earlier in the war; this one hadn't changed position significantly relative to the ship since it had appeared ten minutes ago, until now. Maintaining speed in orbit around the moon would allow the ship to easily overtake a stationary interference source; he would be able to read that the distance was decreasing, then increasing again, but for now, the source was there, unchanged. The universe around him was quiet, no heat patterns, no radar waves sweeping across it, but he realized the ship was in trouble.