Gundam Fire Still

But the battlefield was moving, and the two planes exchanging fire with each other were moving slowly off course, guided by Carl's not-so-obvious guidance. Karl never spoke on the public channel, he could see the public channel light on, his opponent trying to say something, as if he was agitated? But it didn't matter, he wasn't going to listen, he could feel the obvious murderous aura of his opponent radiating in order to kill himself.

Carl was used to imparting a peaceful combat mentality to his team, the goal was not to kill, there was no hatred with the opponent, downing the target was merely a necessary means to complete the mission, what he possessed as a pilot was the will to complete the mission at any cost, the cost included downing his own enemy, but that wasn't the goal itself. The guy who was attacking in front of him was clearly the opposite, manipulated by some kind of emotion of having to kill some guy. Such emotions could make one react faster and step on the pedal with more determination, but at the same time in such an agitated state, one could make mistakes, even if one was an adjuster.

Beams of red and green particles shone once more around the fuselage, the surroundings were becoming progressively emptier, they were approaching the end of the debris belt, and some sort of massive construct continued to occupy the edges of the vision, a colossus far larger in size than the debris, the colonial satellite itself here.

A dazzling, burly beam of particles came from an unpredictable angle, forcibly interrupting the smooth evasive trajectory of the blue-white body, followed by an additional attack from the tapping shield that kept solid rounds hammering against its shields. The support barrage came from the battleship's main gun class, and Carl quickly identified the recognition, and incidentally saw on the side screen out of the corner of his eye an unfamiliar red battleship slowly approaching, the style of the ship clearly belonging to PLAnt, but that was beyond his concern for the moment.

A progress bar with new information loading popped up at the bottom of the main screen, and a moment later, the ZGmF-x10AFreedom's hull code was marked on the hull that was moving around the main screen. Carl didn't have time to wonder where he'd gotten such accurate information, and depressing the fuselage down and flashing two mag-rail shells, he fired the last reserve round in his bazooka, budgeting for his opponent's evasive trajectory as he cut away from the now useless rocket launcher, stepped on the pedal, and approached his target fast. Then came the oncoming, new high-energy alert, the opponent's high-energy beam cannon folded from back to shoulder was once again in action, but once again the red particle beam was diluted by a blooming green cloud of particles before it reached its target, Carl's pre-placed anti-beam blast accurately stopped the blow, and then the airframe flashed away from the spilled particles and a line of fire from the beam rifle in a short 3G fold , while stepping heavily on a meteorite at the corner of the crease, instantly changing the vector of the plane's movement while barely slowing down. At the same time, his twin live cannons located on the shield were pointing forward firing continuously, but not expecting to hit. Karl knew this was that old opponent, one that could not be crashed by ordinary fire.

The distance was closing, and his opponent clearly saw what he was doing, as he put away his beam rifle, which was not seeing action, and drew his beam saber from his waist. Carl deflected the joystick slightly again, stepping sideways onto a fresh piece of meteorite to allow the plane to shift its stance, flashing a direct decapitation path while revealing the 580mm beam cannon in firing condition in his chest towards his light saber-bearing opponent.

The high energy state of the heavy metal particles radiated photons of different wavelengths due to the phase modulation caused by the magnetic field, and the heavy particles that were constantly emitting photons would brutally release the high energy it was attached to onto anything that made contact with it.

The opponent's propulsion wing on the opponent's side was fully open, spraying back with all its might, but the beam of particles spreading at close range wasn't a straight line attack that could be easily dodged but a ranged effect, spilling high-energy particles that made flecks of molten marks on the clean white fuselage shoulders and propulsion wing, and slowly spreading. One might say that the propulsion wings made the body look like an angel, hell, the nature of a weapon loaded with armaments would not be obscured by a little cosmetic embellishment, melting down the wings to give the opponent the reduced maneuvering effect he expected.

Then Karl slammed the pedal to the floor, the distance between the two machines was short enough for melee combat, his own machine was too late to draw its beam saber before contact, in fact it didn't have one either, but it didn't need one either; the first thing to make contact with the target was the tip of the shield, the harsh teeth-crunching grinding sound of the dull, heavy impact entering the cockpit, he could see the glittering traces of sparks from the sharp shield tip on the Ps armor of his opponent's machine, meanwhile the two guns on the shield were still firing at close to zero range, sparks were flying all over his opponent's main armor.

But Karl could see that the other hand of the opponent was not idle, it was swinging a chopping blow at its own cockpit with its beam saber, the trajectory that was about to cut itself along with the airframe waist down, swinging away the vestigial feeling that surfaced in his brain, before the arrival of the lightsaber he advanced to hit the kick of the MS foot, the huge iron block of 80 tons or more transmitting its own kinetic energy together with the full blast of energy from the thrusters behind it to the opponent! The blue and white body and transformed into a huge reaction force. The blue-white body then moved away from the rear distance, the otherwise inevitable lightsaber cutting a chaotic path through the void, and the powerful G-force apparently slowing the opponent's reaction momentarily. Seizing the opportunity of this delay, Karzai shot the charging line cannon at his shoulder, the green particle beam chipping a piece of propulsion wing, then the folded beam cannon at its shoulder, and finally a molten scorch mark on the right arm of the habitual rifle. The blue and white body drifted backwards like it was out of control under the impact, slamming straight into the giant object reflecting the sunlight behind it, the outer wall of the colonial satellite, the outer wall shattering in pieces under the impact of the ms, the blue and white body drowning in a mass of reflective debris, but still shooting back out the mag-beam cannon.

"But don't let this one go!" Mu's shout rang out over the channel, followed by the black and red variables streaking across the eye, firing intense lightning bolts at the blue and white silhouettes in the reflective debris, then following suit, ramming into the hole where the colonial satellite had been knocked out. This was followed by the red silhouette labeled Justice, which also followed close behind, burrowing into the interior of the colonial satellite.

There was silence on the radar screen, the numerous, marked wreckage heat sources were floating around, and some of Carl's gasps could be heard in the cockpit.

"That was close." Carl said to himself, the cockpit warnings already sounding loud and clear, and the lower panel, the power of the plane had bottomed out.

"This is Broadsword 01, prepare to return to the ship; visual confirmation of two enemy aircraft, one friendly aircraft has entered the interior of the satellite, please alert ground forces, over."

16.Bullet Symphony.

There was a slight, faint explosion on the far side of the tunnel, and George . Captain Mathis turned and gave a confirming nod to the one-eyed PLAnt woman.

"They're coming in."

The other made the same response.

A blinking yellow dot had turned red on a map on the screen on the table showing the satellite part of the channel, some moving red dots were marked, but soon disappeared again due to loss of signal.

Then the Captain grabbed his comm.

"Sergeant Wu, keep your eyes peeled, their men are coming in, block their backup. Also, remember to notify the mothership."

Those forward yellow dots weren't their own crew, they were dead things, the latest descendants of the broadsword anti-infantry directional mines, the m73c 'tracker' mines. Unlike its oldest mine predecessors that needed to wait for a man to step on them, this rounded sphere, slightly larger than a grenade, could spread three stabilizing wings and a small thruster behind it and then pounce on its target autonomously.

It would be activated when an infrared sensor located in the front sensed the target, the technology was derived from the sensor chip in the air-to-air missile guidance head used by the aircraft that could even tell if the target was armed or not, and if the armed man didn't have a device on him that could answer an enemy identification signal, it would feed a red signal to the receiver in the rear, then ignite the thrusters and dash towards the target, then detonate itself when it was in kill range - or when it was intercepted by a shot - and sprinkle the explosive blast and the 1,000 prefabricated fragments interspersed with it forward.

The captain had placed the tracker mines he'd brought with him around multiple corners and under the cover of obstacles in front of the tunnel, where they could minimize the reaction time of their opponents; perhaps the Adjuster would be able to dodge the shots aimed at them, but he didn't trust the Adjuster to dodge the bursts of shrapnel that would explode at close range.

Then another indicator light came on on the screen, and with it came the sound of daunting gunfire from the stereo, this time from the automatic machine gun the Marines had placed in the corridor, a rectangular body with three supporting feet below and a barrel sticking out forward secured to the bulkhead by hooked claws on three feet, and then relying on the same infrared sensors to dump 5.56mm NATO small-caliber rounds forward. It was clear that the adversary was advancing fast and the tracker mines weren't slowing them down, but the captain hoped that they would deplete some of the opponent's forces before the final man-to-man skirmish.

His strategy was working.

Hundreds of meters away, Itzhak . Joule, the commander of the assault squad had been furious, and as an adjuster he wasn't too easily controlled by such vulnerability, but the anger did show up, starting with the blast that killed the member of his squad who had hit the head.

They had spotted the strange orb, but merely treated it as part of the wreckage, and by the time he noticed a red dot light up in the center of the orb, then the thrusters ejected from the back end of the orb, it was too late. The shockwave of the blast lifted the young soldier from December City, armed with an assault rifle, like a rag against the wall of the corridor, and then he was sprawled out in a ball in the corner, no longer moving, only his arm stretched out to the side twitching slightly in nerve reaction. Blood slowly crawled out of the hole that had been punched in his spacesuit.

"Damn it,"

"Damn it, damn it, damn it!"

Itzhak punched the steel wall, remembering the situation they'd discussed together hours ago about what they might encounter in a war with the JMS, but now he hadn't run into any of the situations they'd discussed before a vile bomb had left him here, in the corner of this gray, crumbling satellite corridor.

"Keep moving!" He changed formation, placing himself at the head of the assault team, and he would like to see what else the Combine had in store for him.

At the next corridor entrance, he was keenly aware of a vaguely red light sweeping past, and he stirred to jump up, climbing on a pipe at the top of the corridor and peering into the darkness from the air.

Not what he expected, the moment he drew his head back and dropped to the ground at the same time, the sound of tearing light machine gunfire rang out in the corridor ahead of him, and the high corners of the corridor he had been in were hit with a shower of sparks and bullet holes.

"Cut." The white-haired teen thought for a split second, then came up with his plan, an assault rifle was angled out of the corner of the corridor and fired blindly in the direction of the machine gun and visibly drawing fire from it, and then in the other corner, Itzhak peered out and visually confirmed the position of the automatic machine gun tower before striking out, a fighting dagger flying out of his hand.

The machine gun fire that had been distracted by the blind rifle shot came to an abrupt halt with a clank, replaced by the hissing spinning sound of a servomotor being jammed.

In the same second that the Zaft soldier stepped into the corridor, the automatic machine gun was completely ripped to shreds by the built-in explosive device, followed by another Zaft commando's sealed astronaut suit being pierced by flying debris.

The white-haired teenager remained cold and silent, only gesturing to move on.

"That won't delay us much." A few hundred meters away from the makeshift command point, the PLAnt lady with the eye patch shook her head at the situation of the Zaft soldiers advancing on the screen.

"It's not a problem." One of the Union's sergeants at the controls of a remote-controlled reconnaissance vehicle peered into every corridor for movement until the image showed a dagger stuck in the center of the screen at the end, then the screen turned into a snowflake.

"Corridor 13, they're coming."

The gunfire rose suddenly.

Meanwhile, on the outer wall of the satellite, a camouflaged infantry fighting vehicle rested quietly, relying on suction cups below to anchor itself to the outer wall below. Here behind a thin sheet of armor was an endless universe, dark, cold, and devoid of sound. But within the armor, radio communications sounded from time to time.

The pilot, Sergeant Wu, could hear his teammates engaged in a firefight, or perhaps occasionally the command tone of an MS unit, just a few minutes before he had heard orders to himself. A cylinder rose slowly from beneath a camouflage net of dotted gray gravel and metallic paint, and without this extra outstretched photoelectric periscope, the entire infantry fighting vehicle would have looked like a small piece of beetle lying on the outer wall of the satellite, piled up of metal and stone.

The optoelectronic device scanned a few circles into the universe, and after filtering out the heat from a few pieces of feverish debris, the system provided him with a suspected target.

It was a small, inconspicuous piece of jet tail, moving slowly and stealthily through the wreckage and closing in on the satellite. At one angle, the light reflecting off the wreckage of a flying piece of solar panel illuminated against the dark background, it was a full-body black Zaft personnel assault craft, his target.

A 40mm chain gun protruded silently from a low turret, slowly turning at several angles before locking onto the target.

Target confirmed, enemy identification, no answer, permission to fire.

Orange tracer rounds pulled out of the chain of fire, sucked in by the black void - and equally black armor, the thin armor easily penetrated by buried rounds, then flames and smoke at the center of the shot. The dinghy drifted to a halt, seemingly losing power, yet the chain gun still fired until the black dinghy was lifted from within by an explosion and completely reduced to cosmic debris. Now the opposing assault force would not be replenished for some time.

Just then, violent shocks came from beneath their feet, and both the soldiers firing at the satellite from within and the infantry fighting vehicles on the outer wall could easily feel the tremors propagated by the solids. The fire from the forward counterfire seemed to thin out at this instant, but in the next second it then became denser again.

"What's going on?" The Captain sent a question to the Joint Forces Communications channel.

"It's ms, one of the enemy ms crashed into the satellite, and another ms from our side and one from the enemy followed it in."

"Damn." The captain cursed quietly, "We don't have anti-MS missiles."

"Can you tell who's on that ms?"

"I don't know."

"It's okay, I know." The sound of footsteps and a loud reply reached the ear drums of the interlocutor at the same time, and it was a tall man with a tanned face who approached this makeshift joint command center with his head held high.

"Captain Baltfelut!" There were PLAnt soldiers in the audience who screamed out.

17. Crossing the line

"New mission, boys" as the PLAnt on the sidelines gave the salute to their captain, a new order was received on the Captain's terminal, "We're going to support the ms pilot we forced down in the satellite."

Behind him was Borgman, who had arrived in a hurry from the ship, the intelligence officer who had come to investigate the Mendel Institute, finally getting what he wanted after a series of events he couldn't intervene in, albeit in an unfriendly environment. The sound of gunfire and explosions continued to ring in his ears, but for Borgman, it was more the strange unspoken conversation that hovered in his ears, and it was clear that the Zaft pilot knew something.