Gundam Fire Still

The golden and white shadow passed through the rain of bullets and swept over the side of the ship at high speed, intersecting at the same time as this staggering and accurate shot muted all the close defense turrets on this side of the ship, leaving a series of large, charred or molten holes in the armor belt. Then it appeared behind the ship, out of range of the main guns and most of the firepower, and he knew the ship's bridge screen was tracking him, and was now probably projecting his own shadow on the large screen, he stopped the maneuver, switched out the beam gun behind him with ease, aimed at the array of engine nozzles below, and pulled the trigger.

=====Aftermath===================

Aslan . Sara pressed the code on that keypad, he knew well the cost of doing that, but he shuddered as he saw the ship destroy the ms from the union and orb without warning, he pressed the first digit, then he saw the damned emblem on the side of the ship that appeared from time to time in his nightmares, his hand became firm and he pressed the rest of the digits quickly and accurately.

A countdown appeared on the screen, he may have stepped into this conspiracy too deep so he couldn't escape, but he could at least break the last link in the plan, leaving them with nothing, whether it was him as a person, or this airframe, or the secrets in this airframe.

That was the final confirmation step of the body's self-destruct, and he knew exactly what would happen next.

If there hadn't been that red airframe that had taken the liberty of leaning in.

It was an ORB airframe, presumably a special suit type, and it never occurred to him that his entertainment for the last few minutes of his life would be to not rely on the computer identification system but on the naked eye to identify the airframe on the optical image. The specials, while protected by a heretic, seemed to be all novice pilots, and they flew fast and steady at the same time, obviously with enough piloting training - not combat training - to have the nimbleness of a skilled pilot.

They were getting closer and closer, and damn it, there was no reason for the neutral guys to get buried with them.

But the radio channel had been kidnapped by that viral code, and whatever he tried to send out would be covered by that fixed code broadcast. The proximity pressure communications from organism-only contact worked on their own, but damn, they wouldn't be crazy enough to get that close.

There was an orb's body firing at that ship, and he was hitting beautifully, accurate shots with a nice ion trailing. Surely himself was no worse than him, and yes, there was no reason for a zaft redcoat to be any worse than a neutral elite, if he was a match for him....

Wait, he realized he recognized the trajectory, the shot pattern that had gone through and apparently become more efficient, but he still recognized it, he had shot against that guy once, back when he had first piloted the Combine's ms, and that guy was... An old friend.

As it turned out, that Kira guy wasn't going to die easily, and that was probably the last of his good news.

"Hey, is anyone in there? The pilot in there, can you hear me?" He heard someone shouting on the approaching communications channel.

Hell, the red one had grabbed hold of his own plane, which was another unexpected matter, at least he was able to rely on the contact comm channel to say something outwardly.

"We're neutral and about to take you in, we..."

"Hell, get the hell out of here." The teenager looked at the screen at the countdown that was getting smaller and smaller, "The body's about to self-destruct."

"Sure enough, someone's in there." The other's tone became first joyful, then suddenly urgent, "What? Self-destruct."

A female voice that seemed a little offline? His brain came to the conclusion that he was clearly not a soldier.

"So leave me alone and get out of here."

He thought it was a miracle the crazy woman was still alive on the battlefield, but if his old friend - and he was pretty sure it was him - hadn't held the Perestroika's firepower, a random shot from whatever weapon would have taken out the two - no, three planes together.

"How can you, how can you leave it alone!" The female voice seemed to take on a hint of a cry.

There was a little time left in the countdown, enough time for this neutral to flee to safety, and he looked at the screen again, then he saw the red orbms pull out the solid knife at his waist.

The guy, if he wasn't mistaken, was going to force or cut his own cockpit door open.

"Oh no, you're holding your knife too high, you'll stab me you crazy bastard!"

25. The end of the farce

Earth, North America, Atlantic Commonwealth, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Underground

........

There was a low cheer from a group of officers who were staring at the screen as the large fireball slowly expanded and engulfed the bow of the blue-gray battleship.

A head boot landed on the ground, it was a nuclear explosion, and before any evidence of radiation or spectral data came to light, just looking at the expanding fireball, the officers present whose faces were glowing with the screen's reflections were already showing their faces.

The quantum computing system had been correct in its predictions, and they'd almost gotten it right.

Thank God they hadn't.

With the exploding fireball gone, all that remained of the formerly dazzling battleship's bow was a melted and twisted piece of metal, as if some monster had chewed it in its mouth and then spat it out again.

The data they saw and heard began with that broadcast from inside the satellite from Borgman, a staff officer who had been the ship's commander, assigning key data from Cortana's transmission to the ground to the various computers present, radio, optical imagery, fire control radar, search radar.... Then in this deep underground staff, the group of officers in charge of L4 directional surveillance witnessed the Perestroika's ship, which they had long anticipated, emerge from the void, crashing four MS in one salvo, then being patiently and precisely destroyed by one MS like a surgical operation, destroying every exposed weapon and every nozzle it had, before ending in this final explosion; joined minutes later by the The Marines' reports from inside the satellite also told of the firefight and the intelligence they had acquired while there.

"Let them take control of that ship and don't let anyone slip away." A staff officer shouted thus.

"We'll have to contact Fleet Command if we want to do that." Someone warned.

"And also contact Washington, because the ORB's are there, and they're also organically destroyed, and this is a diplomatic incident."

This corner of the underground facility was starting to get busy and it would be turned into a temporary command center in a matter of minutes to handle this battle that involved multiple forces.

"Let's see what we know."

Admiral Bliss's voice interrupted Fred. Young was in the middle of an attempt to estimate the approximate nuke equivalent of that explosion, which ended up failing because he'd forgotten a few diffusion parameters; he remembered how easily the scientist who'd gone down in history as Fermi had estimated the equivalent of Earth's first nuke test explosion, and Young realized that he'd lost his knowledge of physics for far too long.

"That was clearly a nuclear explosion, and it should have been the Zaft pilot who chose to blow himself up to prevent it from falling into the hands of the Blue Perestroika."

"Yes, but we can see the ORB-owned MS in close proximity to that fuselage, and although we can't see what happened, we can assume that the ORB sheltered the Zaft pilot. If our MS had been nearby, we might have been able to catch him." Someone was obviously a little sorry, and it was clear that a nuclear pilot must know some information that the general public didn't.

"But you also run the risk of being involved in an explosion, don't you? I think Lieutenant Black was correct in his judgement in choosing not to let his men get close, Third Squadron has already lost two MS and their pilots."

"In fact the only forces he has left on hand are a pilot who has just finished alert duty and is on shift rest, two Socius whose psychological condition is unknown and deemed unfit for combat, and the Major himself has just gone through a high intensity MS battle."

"Yes, Archangel's MS squadron clearly needs to rest and recuperate, we can't expect them to do the impossible." The Admiral exchanged a glance with the head of Aviation from Moonface Base on the screen and came to his conclusion.

"Wait, actually the Major's current status is, on strike." The junior officer in charge of staring at the computer pointed out a surprising fact, "The airframe is his spare, Short Sword E (early type), and the location is... The location is inside the satellite."

"What's he doing?"

"The air traffic control center at Archangel is being questioned and their response is.... The wreckage is being recovered."

"Wreckage?"

"Another one of Zaft's nuclear energy planes was hit on the outer wall of the satellite and dropped into it." Fred spoke up after a glance at the screen, there were very few conclusions that could be drawn from the two nearly synchronized moving dots of light representing MS on the screen, and from what he knew of the two old guys, they were probably doing just that.

After all, one of them was the one who had brought Ginn's actual plane to the joint, while the other had pioneered the idea of recovering water resources from the U7 wreckage cluster.

"Old Ka and Mu should be trying to move it back, before the ORB's or Zaft do the same."

Another nuclear machine... Some people's eyes started to sparkle.

"Where are those three ships from Zaft?"

"Still on the satellite's periphery, no movement."

"If there's any movement, let Remiret hold them off, hell, there's no other force to cover them."

"What's next, inside the satellite?"

"Mendel is leaking air, after being hit by MS many times, the colonial satellites are losing pressure and the Marines are retreating. zaft's assault team has withdrawn."

"If I'm not mistaken, they found some very... . surprising information?" The Washington side of the line raised questions.

"Yes, the Marines who went inside the satellite obtained some amazing facts about the final forbidden results of Dr. Ring's lab and the source of its funding, skimming the surface for now. All evidence points to that high-ranking Zaft intelligence leaker being one of the Zaft commanders in the battle, Rau. LU. Kruse, the white lunatic," the officer who spoke projected on the long table the standard photograph of this famous commander and ace pilot of the enemy in his mask, and the remains of him who had fallen in a pool of blood at the Institute a few minutes before.