Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam or any other Anime whose characters and/or mecha (or anything else) get mentioned in this fic.

1: Invasion:

Colonel Ian Marcella ignored the incessant thundering of the 150mm cannons stationed directly behind his command center. Despite the thick concrete walls of the bunker, the pressure waves caused by the muzzle blasts managed to shake dust from the beams and on top of equipment cabinets. The Zeonic Marines' beachhead was growing rapidly, too rapidly, for his already battered force to handle. The Zeeks had tried an air-drop on him earlier in the week that he managed to beat off, but it had cost him dearly. Of his assigned force of eight companies, he had three whole ones left, and the remnants of the support elements -infantry artillery and armour. He had set off for a rescue force, and had been promised the closest friendly forces.

He ordered Third Company's 1st team to deploy from the reserve area and hammer the invading Zeon fleet's beach head from the left, and then he ordered the team of his third company to hit their right, and the 3rd of the 3rd to hang back and unleash their rockets on the still soft rear of the beach head where landing craft were emptying more Zaku island invader types. If the small force of mobile suits could survive through the Zeon outriders -something he was not prepared to wager on- they would be able to tie up the Zeeks staging area and mow down mobile suits before their pilots were ready.

Sergeant Mike Horn checked the drum shaped ammo cassette mounted on top of his 120mm machine gun for what must have been 50th time. He watched as three GM defenders popped up from the hill to his left and unleashed a massive spread of rockets, each one striking beached landing craft, sending chunks of Zaku and landing craft flying through the air. He whispered a curse under his breath as his threat receiver squealed away uselessly. Aboard any transport, including –stupidly in Hawk's opinion- assault transports headed for a hostile LZ, all Zeon mobile suits automatically locked their weapons suites down until they actually entered combat. A chunk that looked like the engine of a LSMS slammed into the deck of his ship; which was waiting for a clear spot to land.

Lieutenant Kai Vale sat in his RX-180G Assault Type Gundam, running through the pre-drop check sequences. His reactor was already powered up, so he flipped the master power switch for his cockpit and watched the four data screens in front of him blinked to life, followed by the rest of the cockpit's various gauges. The four main displays of his mobile suit were clustered in two banks of two displays each, above either of his knees. The top screen of the left bank showed the Joint Tactical Information Display or JTIDS. The JTIDS system combined the sensor suites from each of the mobile suits in the squad to give each pilot in the squad an up to the second update of all friendly and hostile contacts. The top right display blinked on and waited for Vale to select the sensor outputs he wanted displayed on it. While he was configuring his sensor suite display to his liking, the lower left screen blinked into life and switched to the weapons status and selection screen. The lower right screen blinked into life and the mobile suit's graphic damage indicators and system status indication –all a friendly green at the moment- came online. The Gundam's holographic HUD generator flickered into life and Lieutenant Vale adjusted the HUD to display to meet his needs.

Colonel Marcella ordered a sniper to attempt to hit their command ship, but the sniper was struck down by a team of Zakus before it could reach its firing position. Marcella desperately wracked his brain for options as his last forward deployed mobile suit fell to hostile fire. There really weren't any good ones for him to choose from, only a list of progressively worse ones as far as he could see. He had two companies of GM Defender types left, an infantry battalion, some armored vehicles and two attack helicopters left with which to run his defenses. Based on previous operations, Marcella knew that the Zeeks would be gunning for his command center first, even though it was going to be very costly to do it that way.

No matter, Marcella thought, the bastards want to throw away so many lives by gunning for my command center first? Let'em! I might not have much left in the way of hardware, but if they want this command center alive, they're going to have to take it from my cold dead hands. I doubt they've much in the way of operational intelligence on what I've got left here so let's see if we can't give the bastards a nasty surprise!

Sergeant Hawk winced as the loud slamming of a heavy 500mm high explosive shell slamming into his landing craft's forward hull reached his ears. A second 500mm HE shell slipped through the rent torn through Hawk's landing craft by its predecessor. The shell plowed into the torso of a Zaku and detonated. Hawk could only guess at what was going on around him as his Zaku's optical sensor systems had shut themselves down to protect themselves. When the static cleared up, he realized he was under water, and out of the line of fire. Hawk heaved a sigh of relief, simply glad to be alive for the moment, and let his heart rate slow somewhat before trying to get on with his mission. Hawke forced the older Zaku to move in the direction of the beach; silently thanking the designers for including water seals around all of the joints. He watched as a new Zaku slowly sank as its body filled with water from every joint in the mobile suit's body.

Lieutenant Vale watched as both of his Gundam Cannons docked their shoulder mounted 137mm cannons and 90mm forearm mounted chain guns. Both units reached to their right in unison, grabbing on to their 90mm tri-barrel vulcan guns. His own unit was automatically loading its weapons too, the twin 90mm machine guns mounted on the left forearm beneath the shield turned green on the status panel, followed by the 110mm assault rifle, standard beam rifle, which docked to the skirt armor and 90mm shotgun, which mounted to his left hip. The backpack for his unit lowered onto his back, locking with a loud clank. The pack was not the same as the pack used on the original ground type Gundam, for it did far more than carry extra ammo and weapons into battle.

The extra weapons for the new RX series Gundams were actually mounted externally on the outside of the pack on sliding deployment frames. This allowed the pilots to switch between all of their available weapons without having to drop and re-mount the pack. The extra magazines were even mounted in a special feed queue system that allowed them to be accessed without dropping the packets at all. This allowed the ammunition and weapons carrying portion of the pack to be much slimmer than in the mobile suit's original iteration. To take advantage of the smaller pack, the engineers at Anaheim Electronics designed a parachute pack that would mount over –instead of replacing- the support pack, which allowed the Gundams to be deployed on combat and recon patrols of previously impossible durations. Despite all of these massive refinements, The pilots –some at least- had one massive complaint about the new ground combat type Gundam. It still lacked a CWIS weapon in its head.

The Mobile Suit's engineers left the periscope system was mounted where, at least in one Lieutenant Kai Vale's opinion, a 60mm CWIS gun should have been mounted. The chest machine gun and multi- launcher were still the same, and so was the rest of the unit except for the left arm and upgraded systems. His fourth team member was in a unit similar to his, except his lacked both the shot gun and 100mm assault rifle; they were replaced by a 120mm sniper rifle.

Marcella looked at his computer as a series of new messages popped up. The first informed him that satellite reconnaissance had detected that a second wave of Zeon assault troops was en route to his beleaguered command. The second one was a terse report from the XO of his 2nd mobile suit company, reporting that his command was for all intents and purposes combat ineffective, having long since reached their combat loss grouping.

Marcella was pulling up the next message in his queue when his air defense officer –whom up until that moment had almost nothing to concern himself with, jerked upright in his chair and began shouting commands to his staff. He tried to return his attention to the messages in his message queue, hoping that one would provide him with news of the reinforcements he had requested, but the banshee scream of rapid-fire counter-air missiles being launched jerked his head around. Marcella waited semi-patiently for the scream from the missiles' engines to die down so he could concentrate, but a new sound joined the cacophony of racket filling the command center, the evil baritone roar of his base's assorted twenty and sixty millimeter air defense Gatling guns roared into life.

The water around Sergeant Hawk's mobile suit served as an amplifier for the explosions up on the island. As the shock waves slammed into his mobile suit, the mobile suit's master caution alarm, and damage alarms began squealing. When Hawk looked over at his status panel, he saw that every joint on his mobile suit's left side was leaking. Hawk screamed in rage as his team status panel showed that his close friend, Stephen Sevens was blown to pieces by a GM. He mashed the pedals, activating all of the thrusters. His mobile suit lifted out of the water, but not for long, as the partially flooded left side unbalanced his mobile suit and sent him back into the water. Vale tried to catch his Zaku before it slammed into the water, but his efforts were all in vain as the water sloshing around inside his mobile suit shorted out part of his control network. In the time it took for the backup systems to activate, Hawk's mobile suit was already under water.
Captain Harry Cleaver had long since given up all hope of surviving the Zeon assault on Avian Bend. Cleaver had been torn between putting up a fight until the bloody end and breaking off to lie low until reinforcements arrived. The unnecessarily brutal way the Zeeks destroyed the command center finalized his decision. He had pulled back from the front lines to devise plans for both eventualities. With his decision made, Cleaver switched his radio over to the battalion tactical net and began issuing his orders.

Cleaver's Third Company's first team was to hit the left front flank; team 3.2 was to hit the left rear flank. Teams 3.3 and 2.2 -2nd company's team of heavy assault GMs- were to drop down off the cliff to the left, landing in the center of the beach head, and cut down the fragile landing craft as they landed. The remnants of team 2.1, the sniper team was to dig in atop the hill next to the one where the command center and artillery guns were, and snipe at the landing craft, command MS's and if any were in range the support ships that were launching the LSMS units. His first company's second and third teams along with the remaining artillery units would wreak havoc on the front flank. His unit, the detachment's strike team would launch hit and run strikes along the right flank.

LT. Vale watched as the time to target counter above the drop hatch clicked down to 5 minutes left. As the timer ticked down adrenaline flooded his system, causing time to slow to a seeming crawl for him. It was a common occurrence for all pilots, especially leading up to a high-stress airdrop like this one. For Vale it wasn't fear, but excitement, and the knowledge that he had a job that needed doing that drove him. With almost agonizing slowness the amber 1 minute light ticked on, and Vale flipped the safety cover off of his ejection switch. Vale knew full well that if he were forced to eject anywhere on their drop profile the chances that he would survive were for all practical intents nonexistant. But as his instructors had told him time and again, some chance was more than no chance, and no chance was just a reason to try harder.

Sergeant Hawk watched as two full teams of GM's landed on the beach, and started blowing away landing craft to his left and right. Cursing he mashed the trigger for his Zaku's 120mm machine gun, watching as streams of yellow tracers reached out and caressed one of the GM's. The GM spotted him, and returned fire, a pink lance of light pierced the night, but exploded into the sea just behind him, sending up a plume of spray and creating a massive shock wave through the water. He cursed as the shock wave caused the seal around his left ankle to fail, flooding the leg with seawater and shorting out the foot's controlling equipment. He adjusted his aim slightly and pulled the trigger, but without positive control of his mobile suit's footing, his mobile suit's accuracy was abysmal to say the least. Most of the first shells in his burst landed in the sand around the targeted GM, obscuring his view which caused him to waste most of that burst on the sand to the right of the GM. The GM's pilot replied in kind, but Hawk's initial burst had damaged the GM's targeting sensors.

Commander Kino March watched in horror as the pink lance of Minovsky particles pierced his ship's forward hanger. The soft composite structure of the hull warped and melted from the beam's intense heat. The shot carved a channel of absolute destruction from the landing ship's clam-shell deployment hatches of the lower deployment deck clear through to the amidships fire containment bulkhead. The beam's superheated Minovsky particles didn't quite reach the 'midships fire containment bulkhead, but they did reach a Zaku stationed just in front it. The Minovsky particle's remaining energy poured into the Zaku, heating the Zaku's armor to the melting point and beyond. As the armor heated, the heat radiating off of it started to boil . The vapor concentration climbed as the pressurized fuel continued to spray out of the leak and onto the hot surfaces within the mobile suit's torso. With its low flash point and high concentration, the Zaku's thruster fuel cooked off in a massive blast. The blast front demolished the Zaku and sprayed the area around it with flaming chunks of wreckage. The overpressure from the explosion caused the pressure inside of the landing ship's deck to climb explosively.
The overpressure from the explosion reached a pallet of loose 360mm bazooka shells. The loose rockets had been down-checked by a Dom's fire control system during the pilot's pre-mission checks. Prior to the explosion, the ship's armorer and his staff had been removing the bad rockets from their magazines and swapping them out with good ones. While the armorer's primary team had been handling this, a secondary team of armorers had been separating the warhead and guidance packages from the down-checked missiles and the missile's rocket motors from one another so they could begin diagnosing the problems. Contrary to regulations, this work was being done on the mobile suit deck, instead of in the much safer armory. Separating the warhead and propulsion units of the missiles left the sensitive crush-switch triggers for the warheads exposed. Because the accelerometer safety switch that armed the crush switch were disconnected, leaving the sensitive crush-switch detonators exposed, where a good hard kick would have set one off. The overpressure caused by the explosion was more than enough to set off several of the warheads, which started an unstoppable string of sympathetic detonations that raced along the hanger deck.
Back on the beach, Sergeant Valerie Icarus cursed at the Zaku she was shooting at, she just could not get a shot to connect with the accursed Zaku and that was beginning to irritate her. The damn thing had blown off her shoulder armor on her left arm, and had gouged out some nasty furrows through the chest and waist armor of her mobile suit. In a move of desperation, she disabled the night vision, and activated the advanced targeting system, which deactivated the night vision system, but it allowed for the use of the 10X scope mounted on her beam rifle, and it allowed the new advanced imaging systems to activate, which made up for the night vision's loss. She brought the rifle up, and aimed for its cockpit, depressed the trigger, and waited.

Lieutenant Vale heard the loud crackling of his mobile suit's parachutes opening above him. For a few seconds, all he heard was his parachutes ruffling and the sound of wind blowing by his mobile suit, but he soon felt the reassuring press of his parachutes biting into the air and slowing his mobile suit.

"Sergeant Maxwell, 'chute check." Vale said, after checking that his own parachutes had deployed correctly

"Maxwell here boss, all 'chutes deployed successfully." Maxwell replied after she checked her own parachutes.

"Good; Shatters, how's that beast of yours holding up?" Vale asked one of his two Gundam Cannons.

"All three 'chutes deployed correctly, headed right for the Landing Zone." Shatters replied

"Don't crush anybody when ya hit the ground." Satsuma, the team's Sniper quipped.

"I take it your chutes are fine too?" Vale asked.

"They are; all three are open and clear." Satsuma replied.

"And before ya ask Vale, yes my parachutes are fine. I've got all three deployed successfully."
Blackthorn, Vale's second Gundam Cannon pilot replied..

"Good stuff. When we hit the ground, we're going to be about three or four klicks from the base, so keep your eyes peeled. The objective of tonight's little party is to keep Avian Bend from getting overrun. Of course, if we can't do that, we need to save as many Feddies as we can and get the hell out of here."

"Boring," Maxwell said with an exaggerated sigh as her mobile suit released its parachutes and hit the ground.

"Boring eh?" Vale asked.

"Maybe, but I doubt you saw what I saw on the way down." Satsuma replied.

"And pray tell binoculars what did you see?" Blackthorn asked as his mobile suit landed.

"I saw some thirty odd LSMS ships out there."

"So, do you still think it's going to be boring Max?" Vale asked

"No… but we can dispense with the whole getting over run part and skip right to the getting the Feddies out of here part right?" Maxwell replied

"Yeah, I'm not in the mood to even bother attempting to reenact the last stand."
"I don't think the rest of us are either." Shatters opined

"Alright, here's the plan. Satsuma head over to this set of cliffs here and start picking off team leaders and your usual fodder. Shatters and Blackthorn set yourselves up here in the wreckage of the command center. I want one of you to lay down suppressing fire on the beach and I want the other one of you two to put some lead into the ships along the beach. Once you've suppressed them, switch to your cannons and fire on the dropships. Keep your eyes open though, because they took out the command center with about thirty Dragon bunker buster missiles and I don't want to find out what that'll do to your mobile suits." Vale said, marking their respective destinations out on his commander's navigation panel and transmitting them to his mobile suits.

"In all honesty Vale, neither do we" Shatters said as he called up his navigation display on one of his MFDs. Because Vale preferred to send them only nav points and let them sort out their own routes, Shatters and the rest of the pilots would have to plot out their own routes to their destinations but none of them minded.

"Hey Vale… what exactly are we going to do? Sit back and watch the fireworks?" Maxwell asked as she worked on her own route

"No, you're going to move in with Satsuma and guard the left flank. I'll come in on the opposite side and guard the right flank. " Vale commanded as he brought his mobile suit up to speed and started heading off to the position he had assigned for himself.

Captain Tallia Momoto felt her vessel's drag brakes begin to work as it settled down on one of Jaburo's massive hidden runways. The new high speed cruiser resembled a Salamis Kai class cruiser of the first succession war era. The bridge was brought down, and the lower flag bridge was moved towards the nose, and the main bridge was placed on above and abaft of the flag bridge, streamlining the vessel. The weapons were all installed in retractable bays, to allow them to survive atmospheric entry. Two large delta wings and three banks of air breathing turbine engines were installed to allow the Kremlin class ships to operate from the Earth Federation Space Force's planetside bases.

"Coms call Jaburo control and let them know that we're down and stopped." Tallia ordered as her flight status repeater showed their speed reaching zero

"Yes ma'am." The coms officer said, switching to the correct channel on his headset, "Jaburo
ground, this is FSS Kremlin down and stopped on runway 7."

"Roger that Kremlin, stand by for ground control vehicle. Tugs are standing by if you need them"
"Kremlin copies, standing by for GCV," The coms officer replied, "Ma'am, ground control reports GCV on the way and tugs standing by if necessary."

"Understood; coms switch to the squadron coms net and check in with HQ." Tallia replied, as she scanned the information repeaters arrayed around the captain's chair.
"Squadron HQ is on the net for you ma'am." The coms officer said

"Patch'em through," Tallia replied

"Kremlin Actual, this is Squadron 112 coms."

"Squadron 112, Kremlin Actual on the net, go ahead."

"Captain, once your command has cycled through the load-out pier, return to berth 112 bravo three. Once your command is there, report to Squadron Central for return to orbit."

"Squad-com, Kremlin Actual copies five by." Tallia replied with a tired sigh. This was the fourth time she had repeated this circuit, and she was becoming sick and tired of being a glorified delivery driver for the EFSF.

"Mr. Pascal, you have the deck and the con. Bring us to the loadout pier and then to berth 112 bravo three. If you need me I'll be in my quarters."

"Understood ma'am," The duty officer of the deck replied as Tallia turned to leave the bridge, "This is Lieutenant Pascal, I have the deck and the con,"

"Nicely done boys, shift fire to the landing ships, Satsuma gun for any command elements you can see," Vale commanded as Blackthorn ripped the last Zaku on the beach to shreds with his chain gun
"Switching fire to drop ships," Blackthorn replied, adjusting his mobile suit's stance slightly and firing his cannons.

"You got it boss." Shatters replied as he fitted a new ammunition canister into his chain gun and began chopping out short well aimed bursts that ripped into the ships.

"Sir, I see a couple heavy destroyers out there, and it looks like... "Satsuma began

"Fuckin" A we've got incoming shells! Clear the beach!" Maxwell shouted over the guard channel that the pilots used to warn other pilots of incoming hostile fire

"Shit... Blackthorn and Satsuma clear out now!" Vale commanded as the first shells from the heavy destroyers escorting the landing ships began to explode around their positions. Because the cliffs leading up to the beach head itself were made of particularly soft rocks the shells from the destroyers penetrated deeply before detonating, throwing tons of debris into the air and showering all of the 16th MSAT's mobile suits.

"Christ..." Vale mumbled, just loud enough for his coms headset's microphone to pick up "You think they used enough firepower?"

"Dunno boss, but I sure as hell don't have a reply for that." Blackthorn replied with a nervous laugh as he surveyed the damage done to the cliff side he had just been standing on.
"Satsuma?" Vale asked

"Not enough concealment to do it safely, they've blown that all to hell,"

"Damn, we'll have to hope that they decide not to fire on the Feddies as they pull out then. Alright, I'm going to pass the word for the Feddies to evacuate." Vale said switching to the federation's guard frequency, "All stations on this net, this is Black Knight 16, fall back to point delta four, we'll cover your evacuation from here.

"Sending unit this is Captain Cleaver, surviving officer in charge here. Who the hell are you?"
"Cleaver, Black Knight six here," Vale hissed, "If you don't want to die get your ass in gear and follow fucking orders!"

"That'll never work Vale," Maxwell said

"Seems to have convinced everyone else to move,"

"Bah," Vale muttered, "Useless, the lot of 'em. Blackthorn, Shatters lay down cover fire."

The twelve hour process of rearming, refueling and loading mobile suits aboard a Kremlin class vessel was going to make Tallia Momoto insane. Her own usual ship, a Switchblade class cruiser would have been reloaded and into its proper berth hours ago. She knew that once it was finally complete, her orders were to head back to space, where she would repeat the delivery cycle again.

On the one hand, She mused, I suppose I should be grateful for the damn twelve hour cycle time. After all, if this were a properly designed and crewed ship, I'd be back into space again. Not that I mind being up there, but this is getting to be insane. Just because my ship is in refit at the moment is absolutely no reason for me to be playing delivery girl! I should be supervising my ship's refit damn it all! Oh well… they never said that my orders would make any sense, did they now Tally?

As a Captain of Imperial Europe's Brigade Air Arm, the Imperial Brigade's air mobility and support unit, she would much rather be back at her home base of AE-Luna, but circumstances denied her that. Because Imperial Europe was a vassal state to the Federation, they could 'request' things of the Imperial European Government and by extension Imperial Brigade. Still licking wounds inflicted years earlier in a massive fight to the death with the Zeon, Imperial Europe still relied on Federation support to keep the Zeon at bay, hence the continual requests for the Imperial Europe's better trained –and equipped- staff to handle their riskiest missions.

On a purely intellectual level, Tallia knew that she should have been honored to be given the command of the Federation's newest class of ship. However, she regarded it as an insult of sorts that the Federation regarded her as a mere delivery driver. Added to the way they continually disparaged the Imperial Navy, it all seemed like a calculated insult to one tired, overworked Captain Tallia Momoto.

The frustration of being stuck in port combined with the absurdly long wait for her current -albeit temporary- command to be ready was being to drag Tallia down. She was already frustrated at having been dragged away from her ship and shuffled through the twelve ships of the Kremlin Class, and the Federation's fleet support crews weren't helping her mood any. To work off her frustration Tallia wandered down the port main passageway way, which was just above one of the ship's ammunition lockers. As she walked down the passageway, she paused at several places to examine the work the ship fitters had done in their hurried rush to get the Kremlin out of her building slip on time. Unsurprisingly -to Tallia at least- welds were suboptimal, nothing quite fit right. And even more damning there were skin panels on bulkheads and even on the outer hull that were so poorly installed that they were obviously warped.

"Everything Alright captain?" One of the engineering department's supervisors asked

"Is this panel here being taken care of Petty Officer?" Tallia asked

"We'll have to take a look at it ma'am," THe petty officer replied as he thumped the bubble in the bulkhead, "Looks like the stupid thing expanded too much during the re-entry phase."

"Make sure it is seen to before we get onto the launch ramps. If even one of these bulkheads fails at the wrong time the whole side of the hull will collapse."

"Yes ma'am," The petty officer replied as he sketched the bulkhead's location into his wheel book
"Very well then, carry on." Tallia replied, wondering if they would even bother with repairing it.
Vale shook his head in an effort to wake himself up, but the exhaustion was starting to get to him. All of the pilots had been on the run for eight hours, and the pilots from Avian Bend were starting to come apart on him. Vale glanced at his clock realized that he and his team had been working at combat pace for nearly a week and a half, with minimal rest. For the special forces pilots, eight hour stints were nothing new. Vale pulled his coms headset off and hung it on the side of his chair with a tired sigh. For whatever reason, the normally light weight headset was beginning to feel like it weighed tons. For a while, it felt good, until his coms headset began its obnoxious chirping.

"Yeah, what is it?" Vale muttered as soon as he got his headset back on

"Nothing sir..." Icarus replied

"Out with is Sergeant!" Vale snapped, his tone letting the 16th know exactly how tired he was.

"Hey um lieutenant, could we stop to take a rest?" Sergeant Icarus asked softly, hoping that she wouldn't upset the person commanding the force that had just rescued her.

"Sir, this is Staff Sarg Matthews in sniper two from Avian Bend; I think it's about time for a rest too."
"Sir, um I'm Corporal Edison, I would appreciate a rest, please sir?"

"Vale," Shatters said, "These Feddies from Avian Bend are going to be dog tired. If we don't get a couple hours of good rest into'em we might as well have left'em back at Avian for all the good rescuing them will've done."

"All points, Vale here, we're stopping in 10 minutes. We'll hold until daybreak and then get a move on."

Tallia reclined in her bunk and twirled a pen between her fingers. For whatever reason, the time to resupply her ship had jumped from twelve to eighteen hours, and then again to twenty four hours. Because she had been expecting to have been long gone by now, all of her personal belongings were packed away, denying her even the officer's time honoured time wasting activity of packing their belongings. She could easily have unpacked them again, but that would mean she'd have to pack again, and she really didn't want to do that again, even with her minimal belongings. Out of some absurd hope that the time to completion had been moved forwards, Tallia picked up her coms unit and switched it to the CIC's channel.

"Do we have anything on an updated timeline control?" Tallia asked after one of the phone talkers in the CIC picked up

"No ma'am, they say the feed ramps are still jammed, they're waiting on the parts to be shipped in apparently."

"Fantastic," Tallia grumped as she switched off the intercom and pulled her book reader out of its pouch in her day pack. But before she could even settle in to read her book, a massive explosion literally threw her from her bunk. Instinctively, she rolled into a ball and waited for the shock waves to stop before pulling herself back to her feet.

Unsurprisingly, the lights and ventilation were shut down -standard procedure in the event of battle damage- but none of the emergency lights were lit, and the alarms weren't sounding. She punched the button on her desk's computer terminal, but even the emergency coms system was out entirely.

"Shoddy fucking feddies," Tallia said as she ran for the CIC.

"What's going on Skipper?" One of the sensor techs in the CIC asked

"That's my question Sailor! Status report!"

"Explosion in the number three forward mag, trim-tanks twelve, thirteen and fourteen are breached internally and externally. Main and secondary power is down forward of frame eighty five. Ventilation is secured at frame eighty, primary and secondary fire bulkheads aft of frame eighty secured. Status of ventilation and fire bulkheads forward of frame eighty unknown. Damage control teams one, two and three are moving to control the fires. Damage control five and six are moving to secure the magazine." The CIC phone talker reported

"What's the status of the fuel leaks?"

"We're attempting to pump down the tanks ma'am, but the power failure has left lots of valves stuck in unknown positions. DC-7 is moving through the fuel flow system trying to open the cross transfer valves to transfer fuel out of the damaged trim tanks."

"Do we have people dealing with the fuel leaking externally?"

"Damage Control Eight is on the boarding ramps trying to put it out with foam spray. We have also engaged the dock's suppression nozzles and are foam-soaking the hanger."

"Very well then," Tallia said as another explosion shook the ship. Like the previous explosion, this one caused the ship to lurch. But this time the lurch was different, and instead of settling back down, the ship began to take on a list.

"What the hell was that?" Tallia asked, as the ship's list continued to grow, before settling with a nearly thirty degree forward pitch on it. The pitch forced Tallia -and everyone else in the ship's CIC to grab for a handhold.

"Engineering reports that the forward landing gear has failed,"

"How bad is it?"

"Pooling fuel caught fire, destroyed the tires and put us down on the main strut. Fire also destroyed the shock absorber seals, putting us down hard on the struts."

"Damn it all, what's the status of the forward struts?"

"Unknown, nobody on scene ma'am,"

"Get someone forward to inspect the struts, I need to know if we're going to wind up on our faces here people."

"Chief Engineer Brown and three of his petty officers are moving forwards with some extra hands from DC eight to inspect and reinforce the struts."

"Abandon ship alarm refuses to sound ma'am!"

"Then pass the word by mouth!" Tallia hissed, "Get me port control on the line and get extra damage control personnel headed our way now."

"Yes ma'am,"

Vale whispered a sullen curse as his mobile suit's radar picked up something that it couldn't identify. He wasn't surprised that it was picking up things that he couldn't detect, because they were operating in close proximity to a Zeon patrol base that had been established on the edge of Colonel Marcella's operating territory. Origionally, they had been called in to knoock the base off, and relieve the pressure on Marcella. On the way, they had recieved word that the Zeeks had finally deided that it was time to do something about Marcella and dispatched an invasion force against them. Ruminating on the subject would do him little good so Vale decided that he was going to do something about it. Vale tapped the icon representing the unknown contact on his JTIDS and sent out a quick alert message to the rest of his team and a second saying that it was hid bird.

As Vale separated from the column he switched off all of his active electronic system and swapped over to his mobile suit's 90mm shotgun. With his mobile suit's 90mm chain gun, the tradeoff in range he was forced to accept by switching to his shotgun was all but negated. Not knowing what he was walking into, sheer firepower was more important to him than absolute range. After all, he could pull back to a safe distance and switch weapons or call up fire support from the rest of his team. Who, even though he hadn't ordered them to, would be moving ever so slowly to surround the contact.

As he approached the target's forecasted location, Vale changed his main display from visual to thermal to give himself one more advantage. Unless he was sneaking up on a lost Federation unit that was well out of position, the odds were that he was more than likely tracking down Zeeks. With his thermal vision engaged, he would be able to pick up on the Zeon mobile suit's poor thermal dissipation. For whatever reason the Zeon insisted on a series of small heat sinks throughout the mobile suit's body instead of a single large heat sink like the empire and its Federation derived designs preferred. This gave most Zeon mobile suits a much more obvious radiated thermal signature. The mobile suits themselves tended to run cooler, therefore making the mobile suit itself harder to spot, but they broadcast much larger thermal blooms that were far easier to pick up. Which was exactly what Vale was counting on as he hunted for the telltale signs of Zeon mobile suits. Unsurprisingly, as he played with the settings for his mobile suit's thermal settings a broad thermal source quickly shaped itself into the well familiar outline of a type F2 Zaku.

A quick flick of the cover over his master-arm switch, which had managed to put itself in the off position, brought up his mobile suit's fire control system and painted a pair of targeting reticles on his HUD. A small square with elevation and leading hashes passing through it for the gatling, and a simple circle with broader spaced leading hashes along either side for the shotgun. The range was marginal for his shotgun so Vale brought up his gatling gun and centered the gatling's cross hair on the Zaku's torso and triggered a ten round burst into the machine's torso.

Private John Blakney shouted a surprised curse as the booming slam of rounds impacting his mobile suit. A glance down at his status display told him everything he needed to know about what had happened to his mobile suit. Wherever the shells had come from, they had tore open the left side of his mobile suit, all the way through to the inner splash guard. His left arm was a shattered wreck and his coolant, hydraulic and thruster fuel lines were all leaking. Before another burst could tear his machine apart Blakney pulled his ejection handle.

Satisfied with an ejection instead of an outright kill, Vale switched to another target and ripped off another ten round burst into its chest. Working with thermal modes had its downsides, and Vale managed to miscalculate his target's position and only winged it. Fresh, bright thermal blooms form the damage Vale had inflicted gave Vale a new point of aim, which he took full advantage of. A double tap from his shotgun shredded the Zaku's torso, splaying the area with razor sharp shrapnel and white hot internals which shredded the surrounding foliage and ignited multiple small fires.

Corporal Matt Edison was sweating profusely. It wasn't the heat in his cockpit that was making him sweat, he had the climate control system set to its lowest temperature after all, it was fear that was making him sweat. Despite his rank, this was his first taste of true combat at night, and he was absolutely terrified. His GM's thermal cameras had been knocked out, and their orders not to use active systems like LIDAR imaging or spot lights left him with only visual light and light amplification modes to rely on. And with the moon having been hidden behind a rapidly approaching squall line, there was precious little light for either regular visual or light amplification displays to work with.

A two meter muzzle flash from a Zaku's 120mm machine gun, not even aimed at him, spooked Edison badly. He snapped his shoulder mounted air defence 90mm gatling gun down into firing position and mashed the trigger. In the space of his thirty second burst, 2500 rounds tore through the night, in the direction of the muzzle burst. High velocity, light weight shells tore through the trees and branches, and found the torso of a Zaku. The lightweight shells carved chunks of armor off of the Zaku's torso but failed to breach it or do any significant damage. But they did manage to startle the pilot into completely missing his return burst. Edison nearly pissed himself as the massive 120mm shells tore through the trees next to him, but instinct took over and he dropped his mobile suit into a stabilizing crouch before ripping off another salvo of 90mm shells. Once again, the majority of the lightweight shells simply skated off the armor. However several of the shells bit into the trenches carved by the previous shells. The trenches carved by the previous shells allowed the few shells that didn't simply skate off to transfer all of their force into the armor and create fissures through it.

"Fucking hell Edison, kill the bastard!" Maxwell shouted as she slammed a three round burst from her assault rifle into the chest of Edison's target

"Yes ma'am!" Edison replied nervously

"Eyes out, rockets inbound!" Vale called over the guard channel

"Eyes on source?" Blackthorn replied on the tactical channel

"On the JTIDS,"

"Clocked it," Blacthorn replied, selecting the point source marker Vale had thrown on the JTIDS and slaved the fire control system for his dual 137mm cannons to it. He set his shells to fire in air-burst mode and launched a ten round salvo. The Gundam's automated fire control took care of the salvo, leaving Blackthorn free to tag another hostile with his massive -and somewhat unwieldy- 90mm vulcan gun to plaster a charging Gouf.

"Help!" Icarus yelped as a pair of Goufs set on her and her damaged GM

"Come on Icarus, you've been through the Perisher!" Vale hissed in reply, "Bugger off and crack down!"

"Fuck you too Lieutenant!" Icarus hissed as she emptied the majority of a 90mm clip in the general direction of the two charging Goufs while. Warning horns were blaring in her cockpit as she hot-reloaded her 90mm machine gun and drew her beam saber. Using her GM's thruster pack, she skidded to the side of the charging GMs and ripped off a series of well aimed bursts into the relatively unprotected sides of the two mobile suits.
"So you do remember then," Vale replied with a chuckle as he ripped the guts out of a Zaku with a close range shot with his shotgun.

"Couldn't forget it," Icarus replied

"Nice to see you haven't forgotten how to fight during your trips through purgatory," Vale replied, "How're you holding up?"

"Leaking coolant and hydro, but I think I've got it under control. I've secured the leaks as best as I can but I'm still losing a gallon or two every minutes."

"When we find a quiet place we'll pop a few panels and see what the hell you're leaking from."

"Sounds good to me,"

"Hot damn! Artillery types at seven o'clock," Satsuma reported over the guard channel, "They're still setting up stabilizers,"

"Do something about them then for fuck's sake!"

"I am, I am!" Satsuma replied over the crack of his rifle, "Heads up, muzzle flashes from the arties!"

"Counter battery!" Vale demanded

"We're working on it Gaffer!" Shatters replied

"SHACK! Good hits, lots of secondaries!" Satsuma called, "Good shooting boys!"

"Who's idea was this path anyhow hey? Right through a patrol pattern, what a fucking fantastic idea eh?" Maxwell quipped

"How the hell was I supposed to know that we were walking through a fucking FOB's back garden?"

"Wasn't that the brief?" Shatters asked, "I thought we were supposed to save the useless Feddies and then take out the FOB."

"It was supposed to be," Maxwell asked
"Knock it off and kill Zeeks hey?" Vale ordered

Cleaver couldn't believe his ears as he heard the almost conversational tone of the Imperial pilots that had come to rescue them. They sent critical information as if it were nothing more important than the scores of last night's premiership match. Fortunately for him, his mobile suit had hardly been scratched.

Just as he thought that, a Zaku caught sight of him through the thick copse of trees he was using for cover and opened fire with its 120mm machine gun. The 120mm shells waisted much of their energy tearing through the trees and retained comparatively little energy as they impacted the right arm and torso of Cleaver's torso. With little remaining velocity, the soft tip 120mm shells hardly did any damage to his mobile suit. But in his present state of mind, that didn't register in Cleaver's mind at all, Cleaver outright panicked and broke from his cover position without even bothering to return fire.

Icarus wasn't sure what Cleaver's problem was as he broke from cover and sprinted away from their line of advance. Nor did Icarus particularly care what he was up to, as the Zaku switched targets to her. She managed to jink hard enough to cause the pilot to miss his first salvo, but her own 90mm machine gun jammed, and refused to clear itself. For want of something to at least distract the pilot, Icarus hurled the 90mm machine gun at the Zaku. The Zaku's pilot managed to dodge the machine gun, but Icarus had expected that. The Zaku's maneuver to avoid the machine gun had given Icarus just enough time to switch back to her beam rifle. She centered the beam rifle's cross-hairs over the Zaku's cockpit and pulled the trigger. A super-heated lance of Minovsky particles tore a massive hole through the torso of the Zaku. Icarus' shot hit the core of the Zaku's Minovsky Reactor, causing it to explode in spectacular fashion.

"Cleaver you disgusting coward! Get the hell back over here!" Vale demanded as he realized what Cleaver was doing

"I'm under no obligation to take orders from you Lieutenant!"

"If you want to live you'll rejoin the battle at once!" Vale hissed in reply

"I'm putting you on report Lieutenant! Learn to respect your superior officer in this theater! All points disengage and fall back to Delta Eight immediately!."

"Have it your way then coward." Vale muttered as he disabled his mobile suit's IFF.

"Vale, are you sure about this?" Maxwell asked

"He's been given the opportunity to come with us, and he's choosing not to. He has also displayed cowardice in the face of the enemy. There can only be one response to cowardice in the face of the enemy."

"I'll support that claim," Icarus replied

"So be it. Captain Harry Cleaver of the Federation, you are an accused and confirmed coward in the face of the enemy. As such, you are hereby sentenced to death at the earliest time practical. Which just so happens to be now." Vale replied as he centered his own beam rifle on Cleaver's cockpit and pulled the trigger.

Tallia surveyed the wreckage of the Kremlin from one of the hanger's observation galleries. For all intents and purposes the Kremlin was a hull loss. Only a few minutes after the initial failure of the landing gear, the landing gear's main strut tore free from its mounting frame inside the hull, sending the hull crashing down onto the hangar floor. The lower hull of the ship, from the flag-bridge forward was crushed, and bent ten degrees off true horizontally and 30 degrees off true on the vertical. The keel frame itself was so badly damaged that any reasonable person would have considered the ship a total write off. At the rate they were building the things, there were many parts -including the entire engine plant, which took almost a year and a half to build itself- that they could recycle into new-build construction to bring four or five new ships much closer to completion.

But the Feddies, in what Tallia considered a very stupid way, were planning on salvaging the Kremlin, her professional opinion and that of the yard surveyors to the contrary. In the last three hours they had managed to stand the hull back up and braced it so that they could cut the forward part of the hull off. And while they were working on removing the forward hull, the SNRI shipyards at Calcutta had stopped construction of a newer Kremlin class and were packing it for shipment to Jaburo immediately.

"Are you alright Captain?" one of the yard surveyors asked

"I'm fine Mr. Markson," Tallia replied, "What's the status of her?"

"They're loading the forward hull in Calcutta Yards as we speak, supposed to be here in a month or so, then maybe 6 to reattach it and finish the job. Call it a year by the time flight-certs and tests are done."

"How bad is it actually?"

"It's pretty bad ma'am. After we get the forward hull cut away, we'll probably have to cut back to the wing box or even a bit further aft to find a good bit of keel to start working forward with. The way it looks right now, the wing box itself won't be strong enough to take the load. Even if we manage to pull it back together and then weld brace beams in to keep it in shape I have my doubts as to how well it'll hold together."

"I really don't understand why you're bothering, from my own survey, the keel is split all the way to the wing box and the wing box itself is warped rather badly."

"Our own survey once the ship was up in the air indicates otherwise." A second engineer reported

"If you say so,"

"Pardon me ma'am," a young ensign interrupted, "Your flight has landed, and will be departing in fifteen minutes."

"Very well then. Good luck with the Kremlin Mr. Markson, You'll bloody well need it."

"We'll make our own luck Ma'am," Markson replied, "But I wish you fair winds for the next delivery run.

"Thanks," Tallia muttered in reply as she slipped her day pack onto her shoulders. "Let's get going I suppose.

Vale pulled an old, creased paper tactical map out of the map pouch behind his ejection seat and jumped onto the lip of his cockpit coaming. After a quick survey to make sure his mobile suit was properly locked down, he slid down the sloped glacis plate of his cockpit and snagged the hand hold and pressed the activation switch. Because Vale was holding the activation switch for the hoist line, the hoist winch's brakes disengaged and allowed vale to effectively free-fall from his mobile suit's cockpit to the ground.

"Playing at repelling again Vale?" Maxwell asked with a slightly disapproving look as Vale's barely controlled plummet terminated in him sprawling across the ground in front of his mobile suit

"No, just having fun,"

"More like showing off," Icarus chimed in as she snatched the map from Vale's hip pocket.

"Whatever," Vale muttered as he gathered up some stones and snatched his map back and spread it out across the ground. "This is the area around the FOB we're supposed to be hitting."

"Christ," Edison remarked, "The thing's nearly as old as I am!"

"Blame it on your superiors," Vale replied, "Apparently, this is the most up-to-date map the Federation could provide us."

"Didn't you check the Imperial Cartographer's Office?" Blackthorn asked, "Surely we've got better stuff than this shit?"

"Couldn't check with ICO before the launch deadline," Vale replied, "So this is the shit we're stuck with. Like I said, blame it on the Feddies if you'd like, but it's the best we can do at the moment. I tried to run off the geo-layer of the JTIDS display, but that was a no-go, couldn't find a good enough printer for the job. In any case, the FOB is set in the bottom of a bowl-like area, but its very gradual, so it won't provide us with much of a tactical advantage, nor will it provide them with any major disadvantages Unless the met-office is talking out their ass again -which is possible I suppose- we'll have a wonderful storm system moving through the area right on time for our assault. Therefore, we'll hit them right with the storm."

"Going to have to mind our footings," Maxwell observed, "By the time we cross the D line It'll be a mud bowl."

"Take it slow, take it easy," Shatters shrugged, " you'll be all right."

"All well and good for you guys," Icarus replied, "In your fancy smancy gundams. At least you've got a mobile suits designed and built by people with a clue. SNRI's clowns at their Calcutta plants couldn't put a decent mobile suit together to save their sorry asses."

"We know the limitations of your mobile suit," Vale replied, "And I'll put you in a position accordingly.

"There's a nice rise just here," Satsuma replied, "I could park myself right there and keep eyes on things for a while. My machine is lighter than all of yours -save Icarus' of course- and I could get up there in the next two hours."

"The front won't be passing through for another twelve or so." Shatters pointed out, "Leave your ass hanging out in the wind big-time. Not that you've ever complained about it before."

"I'll be fine," Satsuma replied, "It's only a ten hour layup, and we'll get all kinds of valuable info that's not in this shitty map. Or in the briefing package that we never received, fucking feddies."

"Do it," Vale replied, "Icarus, go with Satsuma and cover him. Stay off the top of the rise, down the back of the slope and keep his six covered."

"Roger," Both replied as they headed back towards their respective mobile suits.

"Shatters, you and Breakers take it nice and slow over to this point here. Should give the both of you good positions to sweep fire down the hanger rows and runways. If anything tries to make it out once we start hitting the place your job is to blow the fuckers to hell and gone before they become a problem. Ellison, your job is to line up on the other end of the runway and blow the ever living hell out of anything that tries to get airborne. First and foremost, helicopters and fighter-bombers."

"Understood. Move slow and keep it careful. Understood?"

"Got it sir," Ellison replied as he headed for his own mobile suit.

"Good lad," Maxwell replied, "With any luck luck the poor bastard will get it quick."

"Hopefully," Vale replied, "But with some real luck we'll be able to pull him out."

"Yeah..."

"What about the two of us then?" Maxwell replied

"We'll go down in singletons. I'll come in through the north gate, you come in through the south gate. I'll pass objectives and secondaries after I get Satsuma's data back."

"Right. Should I move up?"

"Move forward, but hang three or four klicks back from the D line."

"Roger, on the way." Maxwell replied.

"Here we go," Vale muttered to himself as he hooked his harness into the lift line and made for his cockpit. "Keep me safe Kate... or not, and I'll see you soon."