Well, in the end I didn't manage to reach the target this year.
Still, here's what I did manage to get written:
The Astray-series mobile suits were his personal projects and he'd selected the Gold Frame for this particular run, not least because it had been the first to be refitted with the equipment he'd had duplicated once it was designed for the Gundams. Lighter than it's cousin the Freedom, it's thrusters had correspondingly more effect and it caught up to Kira's suit just as they entered extreme range of the Justice.
"We're picking up two mobile suits over the base," the lieutenant piloting the Komusai reported. "They don't look like DINN's, so I guess those must be our targets."
Max Sterling nodded thoughtfully from the seat he occupied at the back of the compartment. "Let me guess, they aren't powered down and waiting to be loaded?"
The lieutenant nodded. "You're on the money there, hotshot. From the power readings I'd guess that they're going to make a fight of this. Are you up for this?"
"I'd sort of better be," Max pointed out. "There isn't really anyone else." That much was true. The Justice couldn't make it bat to orbit from the surface, although it could manage if it got high enough under someone else's power, and they'd needed to leave space for the other two mobile suits that he was now going to have to - at best - disable, or more probably destroy; so as a result the cavernous hanger that took up most of the Komusai contained no more than his own Calamity and the three squads of jump infantrymen that were assigned to the Sluagh. "All credit to the jump infantry, but their anti-suit tactics aren't going to work as well against a Gundam as they would against a DINN or a ZuOOT."
The pilot grinned. "If I agree, do you promise not to tell them I did?"
Max blinked. "So long as you repay the favour in kind," he said. "They are a little gung ho."
"But seriously. One Gundam against two?"
"Not the best of situations, admittedly," Max agreed. "But neither was a completed Gundam, and they must have had to work fast just to get them operational. There is a reasonable chance that they won't be more dangerous than, say, a squad each."
"And you're comfortable with that?"
Max grinned. "Lieutenant, you would not believe how good a Gundam is."
It would be safe to say, Milia noted, that she was fighting on less than optimal terms - the other mobile suits had a height advantage and there were two of them, even if they weren't displaying any actual teamwork at the moment. The gold suit was overly aggressive, while the black and white suit was far more hesitant.
If she had to choose, she'd probably prefer it that way though, because it was obvious from her sensors that the other suit - Freedom, according to the warbooks - had a much more powerful plasma reactor and was probably better armed to boot. The latter was suddenly proven when it opened fire at long range, two plasma beams forcing her to dodge sharply. Coming out of the dodge Miria came around and returned fire with her backpack's beam cannon. Both shots missed, but the Freedom turned away, apparently content to engage at long range.
The same was not true of the gold suit, which close in, producing a beam saber to attack with. A classic mistake - fighting this close would prevent the Freedom from firing and the Justice was anything but lacking in close quarter capability. Firing her beam rifle, Miria used the Justice's shield to block return fire - the green beams of a mere beam rifle unable to penetrate the thick laminates used to construct the defense. She grinned. "Just a little closer, little bird," she crooned.
The gold suit came a little closer.
In one swift movement, Miria threw her beam rifle up above her. Seizing the two beam boomerangs, she sent them spinning at the gold suit. The other pilot was obviously aware of the Justice's capabilities, for he immediately evaded the attack. However, splitting his attention between the twin boomerangs and the Justice left him stretched a little thin and he gave her just the tiniest opening. Miria caught her beam rifle as gravity dragged it down upon her once more and snapped off a quick shot that caught the other suit on the hip. It spun wildly and she opened up with her beam cannons, taking off the head and one leg. Then the boomerangs returned and slashed through the gold suit's arms, leaving it to tumble helplessly towards Aube, unable to maneuver.
Just like that and the odds were evened.
"I am the greatest," Miria reminded the universe as she stowed her rifle, caught the beam boomerangs and returned them to their stowage. Then she threw more power into her backpack's thrusters and powered up towards the Freedom, igniting a beam saber. Time to deal with the real threat.
"Here it comes," Treize warned in a calm voice as the Komusai came into visual range. "Target the shuttle first."
Cagalli nodded, the gesture visible to Treize on the communications screen. "Let's do this," she said and the Serpent rose from behind the ridge, standing on a GUUL, one of the lifters used to deploy GINNs under atmospheric conditions as (unlike their DINN cousins) their thrusters were not powerful enough to maintain flight in a gravity field. Since the Serpent found itself in a similar position, it had been planned from the beginning to equip it with such a unit - but it would be a critical vulnerability if the attackers had a suit capable of real atmospheric maneuvers. A moment later, the Tallgeese followed under it's own power.
No such mobile suit was in evidence as the Komusai closed in, and Cagalli watched on the targeting scope as it grew. The box around it pulsed as the distance fell and a small red dot went green as the range dropped below maximum range for her weapons. She checked her weapon selection and fired, missiles exploding from the shoulders of her mobile suit, the contrails marking their paths towards the dropship.
Lone missiles would have been little threat, but a volley at ranges as low as this was enough to damage even capital ships and the Komusai was smaller than any real warship. It broke off from the landing pattern, trying to evade the missiles, but in so doing it exposed its belly to Cagalli and Treize and they took ruthless advantage, raking the tough metal with their beam rifles.
There was a metallic roar and a large mass flew out of the rear of the dropship - probably jettisoned from one of the aft hatches. The Komusai was trailing smoke now and Cagalli guessed that it was probably going to be making a forced landing this side of the ridge. She fired again, this time catching one of the engines. There was an explosion of fire and the dropship staggered in mid-air. Figures began to fall from the open rear hatch, some of them on fire. A few managed to deploy parapchutes... but most did not. The Komusai canted slowly to one side and ploughed into the ground. A moment later the reactors exploded.
The force of the explosion sent a shockwave through the air and Cagalli's GUUL was rocked violently. Rather than trying to stay aboard, she followed her training and jumped the Serpent free, landing on both feet. Under remote control, the GUUL stablised and then swung around towards her. It was close enough that she was in mid-leap to reboard it, when two lances of silvery fire lashed out and punched through the metal skin of the flying platform.
"What the - ?" she shouted, kicking off from the wrecked GUUL as it fell and coming down again.
"Watch your back!" Treize snapped and she sent the Serpent running down the slope of the ridge, seeing the fire and smoke of a mobile suit battlefield down below.
The Tallgeese was engaging a blue mobile suit, she saw. The machine seemed no more able to take to the skies than she was, but it was much better armed - two massive beam weapons over the shoulders, a shield with some sort of guns built in and some sort of heavy weapon carried like a bazooka. The latter was reduced to a smoking ruin by Tallgeese as Treize closed in and made a sweeping strike with his beam saber. The other suit - the warbook called it Calamity - blocked with the bazooka, discarding it when the weapon was wrecked and firing some sort of beam weapon from it's chest that Treize barely blocked with his shield, the shield actually deforming under the power of the beam.
Cagalli took a shot with her beam rifle at long range, only to have the Calamity sweep its own shield around, intercepting the shot and then returning fire with the guns built into the shield, forcing her to break aside to avoid being struck.
Damn, she thought. This guy's good!
This was getting a bit difficult, Max decided. Neither of the other two suits was very good compared to the Calamity, but there were two of them and neither pilot was exactly a pushover. He danced the big mobile suit back out of the way of the Serpent's beam rifle fire and burned the ground to cinders beneath the Tallgeese a fraction of a second after it had lifted off the ground. The larger of the two suits was very nearly as agile as the Calamity and he had a nasty feeling that at least a couple of the other Gundams must have been built along those lines.
Fighting them would be fun, but it would also be hellishly destructive.
Not that fighting these two had spared the landscape.
The trail of destruction left by the Komusai crashing - and then exploding, which had almost certainly killed every one of the forty or so people aboard - had just been the beginning. What had been a rather pleasent wooded slope was currently ablaze and cratered as three leviathans hammered at each other with what an uninformed observer might have thought was a disturbing lack of skill.
After all, unlike the landscape, none of them had taken any serious damage yet. Or even much - when the lightest weapons being used are 115mm automatic cannon any damage has the potential to be serious. That was probably the only reason that he was still holding out, he knew. The other two suits couldn't really afford to let him cut loose with the Calamity's full firepower upon them so they were understandably a little tentative in their approach - catching a 125mm beam shot in any of a dozen locations would put them decisively out of the fight, most likely dead. What would happen if he managed to hit one of them with the anti-shipping energy cannon in the chest didn't bear thinking about - several acres of the slope had been reduced to molten glass as a result of missed shots with the 580mm aperture weapon.
"I think my dance card is already full," he said regretfully and glanced along the slope. There really wasn't any chance of punching past the two of them without giving them the opportunity to run in behind him and there wouldn't be any actual point in doing so since they were piloting the technology that the mission's goal was to obtain. Destroying them would meet the secondary objective, but that was looking increasingly unlikely.
With that decided, he turned the Calamity and made a break down the slope. Caught off guard, Cagalli was left behind, unable to do more than pepper his path with beam rifle shots as she tried to keep up. She broke off in disgust as her targeting system pinged to report that the energy clip was discharged. Discarding the disc-shaped power supply, she detached a spare from where it was clipped to her leg and replaced it.
The Tallgeese, unlike the Serpent, was fast enough to keep up with the Calamity and Treize came down from the sky with a roar of thrusters to intercept the fleeing mobile suit. "Now now, Enforcer," he said mildly, the words echoing across the blasted landscape from his external speakers. "Leaving so soon? Don't you enjoy our hospitality?"
"It's a trifle warm," Max replied, using the same method. He fired off the 'Scylla' in his chest and the Tallgeese sideslipped to avoid the blast, letting Calamity gain some ground towards the water.
"But giving up so soon?" Treize asked as Tallgeese lunged with it's beam saber, forcing the other suit back a few steps. "You don't seem as determined as I'd expected."
Ghina patted the head of his pet. He knew that many, perhaps even his sister, thought him strange to keep such a creature as a pet, but he'd always liked reptiles. When he was a child, one of his aunts who shared his enthusiasm had given him a Terran crocodile, naming it Midorigami after the similar creature that she had raised as a child and had laid the egg that Ghina's pet came out of. He still thought that the creature had been magnificent but it had died unexpectedly while he was off-planet and as his aunt was dead and interplanetary trade in animals was strictly limited, he had been unable to replace it.
In the end, he had paid a sizeable sum to obtain the eggs of an Aube River Dragon and a much larger sum to have the embryo modifed. His current pet was the third generation of the little family of the creatures that he kept in a swampy part of a private island. Like most River Dragons, this one was slightly more than three metres long and weighed in at almost half a ton, which made him awkward to transport at times. Not that Ghina cared. If he wanted Snappy to accompany him then then there would be people he could pay for the purpose of ensuring that he could, even if that was the only reason for their being in his employ. Unlike most River Dragons, however, Snappy and the other descendants of the pet he'd called Dogzard were quite safe for him to pet.
They were rather less safe for other people to be around, since they didn't match the scents that had so carefully been impressed upon the River Dragons as their Master. His sister probably smelt close enough, but she didn't like his pets and he rather thought that they could tell. They certainly returned the sentiment.
"So," he said thoughtfully. "The other pilot?"
"In five minutes she'll be facing a firing squad," his aide reported.
"Good," Ghina noted. The little bitch had shot him down, wrecking one of his precious Astrays. Admittedly, he still had the Red and Blue Frame versions, but it was a blow to his ego. Shooting was too good for her, but he would have to bow to international convention on this. Let no one say he couldn't be flexible about minor details. "And the other one?"
The aide smiled. "He's locked away in one of the empty cargo holds."
Ghina nodded. "Excellent." Out of the corner of his eye he saw the aide pale suddenly and claw for his pistol. Turning, the scion of the Sahaku family twitched as he saw a broadshouldered man step into the shuttle's command deck, a cigar that he recognised as coming from his personal stock clamped between his lips. The man produced a lighter, lit the cigar and puffed out a small cloud of aromatic tobacco smoke.
"Ahhh," Ghina said, shooting a withering look at his aide. "'Ace Rimmer - might one enquire how you escaped your bonds?"
"Just had to dislocate both shoulders, pop 'em behind my ears and slip between the ropes. Of course, it's going to take major orthopaedic surgery to put them back, but rest assured: that won't stop me from freeing Captain Fallyna."
"You're insane, Rimmer!" the Sahaku exclaimed. "You're out-manned and outgunned."
Ace raised an incredulous eyebrow. "You expect me to concede?"
"No, Captain Rimmer, I expect you to die." Snappy punctuated the declaration with a throaty roar, causing even Ace's composure to slip slightly and Ghina stroked the reptile's head soothingly. It wouldn't do for Snappy to take action precipitously - he might kill the aide and Ghina wouldn't want to decide just how to discipline the incomptent quite so hastily, although Snappy was quite welcome to whatever was left. "Take him into the cargo hold and then vent it," he ordered the man. "And don't take ten minutes explaining all my plans to him."
The aide nodded his head sharply and probably would have snapped his heels together if it wouldn't have looked so ridiculous. "Out!" he snapped, gesturing at Ace with the pistol.
The gesture was the last mistake that the aide would have a chance to make. In the brief instant that the gun was not trained upon him, Ace smashed a right hook into his jaw and caught the gun before it hit the ground. The pilot, who had remained out of the affair until that moment, turned in his seat, reaching for his own sidearm and Ace promptly fired two shots into the man's chest. He collapsed over the controls and the shuttle shook violently as it veered wildly off course.
Ace had no time to exploit his possession of the gun, however, for Ghina reacted with quicksilver reflex, grasping his pet's head between his hands and turning it to face the lone Enforcer. "Kill," he hissed in the ancient Aube dialect and, unleashed by the being it catagorised in it's primitive mind as it's God, Snappy lunged at Ace, driving him backwards out of the compartment.
The gun went skittering away and Ace barely managed to keep the claws and jaws of the monstrous reptile as he struggled with it. A few moments later, Ghina emerged from the control room himself, a parachute strapped to his back and a smug look on his face as he edged past the wrestling pair.
"Ah, Captain Rimmer," he said, opening the airlock. "Sorry I can't stick around for a chat, but I've got to blow..." He gave Snappy a regretful look but a quick moment's sabotage had ensured that he had the only aprachute, and it's not as if one of them would have fitted onto his pet anyway. "Do me a favour, will you?" he sneered at Ace. "Feed Snappy."
Then the door closed and a moment later, Ace heard the airlock cycle. "What I wouldn't give for a gun," he grumbled. Snappy let rip another roar, this time directly into the daring pilot's face and he wrinkled his nose. "Or a bottle of listerine!"
Some quirk of the airlock's control structure opened the inner door again and Ace took the opportunity. Ripping a length of wiring out from where the flailing claws of the River Dragon had sprung a floor panel loose, he bound its muzzle, grabbed the gun he's lost earlier and ran into the airlock. He'd underestimated Snappy's reflexes and the beast managed to leap inside with him before the door closed. It had made the same mistake however and he managed to sidestep, letting it slam headfirst into the door. River Dragon's are noe easily stunned, but the impact bought Ace the moment he needed to open the door and the motion of the shuttle sent then both hurtling out into the air, high over Aube.
Hundreds of metres below, Ghina laughed bitterly as he heard the explosion of the shuttle. He had taken the precaution of rigging the reactor before leaving the control room. It was an expensive triumph - he'd lost Snappy! - but worth it to ensure the death of someone so much of a threat to him. And with no other survivors, it would be easy to cast himself in a good light and Ace Rimmer as the villain of the piece.
"Goodbye, Ace Rimmer!" he called to wheresoever the spirit of the recently departed pilot might be. "You were a most worthy adversary!" Then he turned and glanced behind him. It wouldn't do to open his parachute only to have it damaged by debris from the shuttle. No, there didn't seem to be anything... His head snapped back around and his face lost much of it's pallor.
Behind and above him, Snappy was falling towards him, collared somehow by the man who stood on his back and was riding him down like a surfboard. Ace Rimmer had survived another brush with the Reaper, without even disturbing his blow-dried hair.
With a shout of fear and anger, Ghina pulled his own sidearm and fired at the Rimmer. The angle was bad however, and much of the pilot was hidden by the mass of Ghinas own pet. The shots did little more than anger the beast to the point that it did not recognise the smell of its master, distorted as they were by the rushing air. It opened its jaws to roar.., and a jerk of its collar brought it around at the perfect moment for Ghinas head to plug its throat.
The Aube nobleman screamed as his pet reflexively close its jaws around him. He felt hands against him as Ace climbed down the precarious structure of falling bodies and unstrapped the parachute, leaping away from the duo with it before refastening it around himself. See you later, alligator! he shouted and turned, spreadeagling and angling his direction of falling back towards the distant military base. He had a lot of distance to cover, and only minutes to do it in.
Milia Fallyna was having a very bad day. Yesterday, being shot down despite flying what was inarguably one of the most powerful mobile suits in the universe had been bad, right up until she discovered that the one doing the shooting down was a teenager who was only even in the cockpit for the third time, at which time it had gone down in history as her worst day ever. She was an elite pilot for Buddha's sake!
Today, although not featuring anything quite so traumatic, had started poorly, in a military prison cell and meandered gently down towards her current circumstances, chained to a wooden post that had been hastily erected in one of the yards of the Aube Militia's local base and facing a file of infantry carrying rifles. She wasn't exactly one of the jump infantry but she was pretty sure that they weren't here to measure her for a prison uniform.
"Ready!" shouted the officer commanding the little squad. "Aim! Fi-" His last word was cut off by a gunshot and Milia stiffened briefly before realising that she wasn't the victim. Instead, it was the officer who keeled over and another shot heralded the death of one of the firing squad. The infantrymen wheeled, raising their rifles to the sky and Milia, looking up, saw a man on a parachute descending from the sky, firing a pistol one handed.
Two more men died before their rifles could bear and then the gunshots from above were masked by the sound of the automatic rifles blazing away. What they did not disguise was the way that the man jerked - presumably the victim of a bullet. For a moment she thought that he was dead, and then an indignant shout echoed across the yard.
"This is my best top, dammit!" shouted Ace Rimmer, picking off three more soldiers with three quick shots. But more soldiers were spilling out of the barracks and raising their weapons. The dashingly handsome man hit the release on his parachute harness and dropped free moments before the 'chute was torn to shreds by the massed firepower. He hit the roof of a wooden storage shed and crashed through it, vanishing from sight.
Another officer had emerged from one of the buildings and he quickly gathered several soldiers. On his command they fired off their rifle's magazines into the side of the shed, splintering the wood and presumably perforating the man inside. The officer had a smug look as the gunfire died away, but Milia saw a confused expression cross his face a moment later. Then she heard what he did, the sound of an engine revving, and the splintered wall disintergrated under the impact of a powerful motorcycle that exploded out of the shed under the guidance of Ace.
The soldiers scattered out of his path as Ace charged through them, firing left and right with his pistol. Then Milia's stomach clenched as she saw him aiming the gun at her. Nerves frayed, she looked away as the gun fired once, then again. To her amazement, once again she was unharmed, but the same could not be said of her chains, which fell away. Seconds later, Ace skidded to a halt beside her.
"Captain Fallyna; Ace Rimmer. There'll be time for explanations later, hop on."
Milia shook her head in disbelief as she hopped up behidn him on the bike. "What a guy!"
Ace zoomed away, the bike jinking from side to side to avoid more gunfire as the soldiers rallied. A few of the soldiers pulled more motorcycles out of the shed and gave chase. Ace fired two shots back, hardly seeming to aim, but two of the motorcycles came to crashing halts as their riders flopped lifelessly off them. That still left two riders, but Ace's pistol clicked dry. With a shrugg, he flung it over his shoulder and it smacked one of the soldiers in the face, knocking him off the bike.
"Hold on, Major!" he shouted.
"Under the circumstances, Ace, call me Milia," she replied, locking her arms around his waist as he steered towards a ramp that looked designed for loading shuttles. The bike rocketed up the ramp and into the air. As they reached the apex of the jump, something huge swept through the air above them and Ace released his hold on the handlebars to seize hold of it, letting them be carried away from the base.
The soldier following them had nothing to jump for and his own jump ended less joyfully, the bike cartwheeling prettily across the tarmac, sending sprays of burning fuel flying in all directions.
"Bet he's glad he wore his helmet," Ace shouted over the wind, nodding to where the dazed looking soldier had wound up, having bounced headfirst off the ground. Milia looked up and realised that they were hanging from the bottom of a GUUL. Standing on top of the GUUL was the familiar aqua-blue shape of the Gundam Calamity, probably being piloted by Max Sterling.
Down below, two soldiers stared after the departing mobile suit. "He got away!" exclaimed the taller of them. "I can't believe that he got away!"
"That was Ace Rimmer!" pointed out his shorter companion. "We're lucky to be alive!"
It was at this point that Snappy made his final landing, still wrapped around the dinner Ace had fed him, which had by now stopped moving. Unfortunately for the soldiers, they were not as lucky as they had believed, the half-tonne River Dragon flattening them where they stood as it slammed down upon them at the approriately large terminal velocity.
A third soldier, having been stood only a few yards behind them, was spared and looked down, then up into the sky where the GUUL was rising higher into the sky and following a somewhat erratic flightpath. For a moment he couldn't make out why and then he saw the smoke trail in the sky.
'Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast'.
The soldier's jaw dropped. "What a guy!" he said in an awed voice.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.
Still, here's what I did manage to get written:
The Astray-series mobile suits were his personal projects and he'd selected the Gold Frame for this particular run, not least because it had been the first to be refitted with the equipment he'd had duplicated once it was designed for the Gundams. Lighter than it's cousin the Freedom, it's thrusters had correspondingly more effect and it caught up to Kira's suit just as they entered extreme range of the Justice.
"We're picking up two mobile suits over the base," the lieutenant piloting the Komusai reported. "They don't look like DINN's, so I guess those must be our targets."
Max Sterling nodded thoughtfully from the seat he occupied at the back of the compartment. "Let me guess, they aren't powered down and waiting to be loaded?"
The lieutenant nodded. "You're on the money there, hotshot. From the power readings I'd guess that they're going to make a fight of this. Are you up for this?"
"I'd sort of better be," Max pointed out. "There isn't really anyone else." That much was true. The Justice couldn't make it bat to orbit from the surface, although it could manage if it got high enough under someone else's power, and they'd needed to leave space for the other two mobile suits that he was now going to have to - at best - disable, or more probably destroy; so as a result the cavernous hanger that took up most of the Komusai contained no more than his own Calamity and the three squads of jump infantrymen that were assigned to the Sluagh. "All credit to the jump infantry, but their anti-suit tactics aren't going to work as well against a Gundam as they would against a DINN or a ZuOOT."
The pilot grinned. "If I agree, do you promise not to tell them I did?"
Max blinked. "So long as you repay the favour in kind," he said. "They are a little gung ho."
"But seriously. One Gundam against two?"
"Not the best of situations, admittedly," Max agreed. "But neither was a completed Gundam, and they must have had to work fast just to get them operational. There is a reasonable chance that they won't be more dangerous than, say, a squad each."
"And you're comfortable with that?"
Max grinned. "Lieutenant, you would not believe how good a Gundam is."
It would be safe to say, Milia noted, that she was fighting on less than optimal terms - the other mobile suits had a height advantage and there were two of them, even if they weren't displaying any actual teamwork at the moment. The gold suit was overly aggressive, while the black and white suit was far more hesitant.
If she had to choose, she'd probably prefer it that way though, because it was obvious from her sensors that the other suit - Freedom, according to the warbooks - had a much more powerful plasma reactor and was probably better armed to boot. The latter was suddenly proven when it opened fire at long range, two plasma beams forcing her to dodge sharply. Coming out of the dodge Miria came around and returned fire with her backpack's beam cannon. Both shots missed, but the Freedom turned away, apparently content to engage at long range.
The same was not true of the gold suit, which close in, producing a beam saber to attack with. A classic mistake - fighting this close would prevent the Freedom from firing and the Justice was anything but lacking in close quarter capability. Firing her beam rifle, Miria used the Justice's shield to block return fire - the green beams of a mere beam rifle unable to penetrate the thick laminates used to construct the defense. She grinned. "Just a little closer, little bird," she crooned.
The gold suit came a little closer.
In one swift movement, Miria threw her beam rifle up above her. Seizing the two beam boomerangs, she sent them spinning at the gold suit. The other pilot was obviously aware of the Justice's capabilities, for he immediately evaded the attack. However, splitting his attention between the twin boomerangs and the Justice left him stretched a little thin and he gave her just the tiniest opening. Miria caught her beam rifle as gravity dragged it down upon her once more and snapped off a quick shot that caught the other suit on the hip. It spun wildly and she opened up with her beam cannons, taking off the head and one leg. Then the boomerangs returned and slashed through the gold suit's arms, leaving it to tumble helplessly towards Aube, unable to maneuver.
Just like that and the odds were evened.
"I am the greatest," Miria reminded the universe as she stowed her rifle, caught the beam boomerangs and returned them to their stowage. Then she threw more power into her backpack's thrusters and powered up towards the Freedom, igniting a beam saber. Time to deal with the real threat.
"Here it comes," Treize warned in a calm voice as the Komusai came into visual range. "Target the shuttle first."
Cagalli nodded, the gesture visible to Treize on the communications screen. "Let's do this," she said and the Serpent rose from behind the ridge, standing on a GUUL, one of the lifters used to deploy GINNs under atmospheric conditions as (unlike their DINN cousins) their thrusters were not powerful enough to maintain flight in a gravity field. Since the Serpent found itself in a similar position, it had been planned from the beginning to equip it with such a unit - but it would be a critical vulnerability if the attackers had a suit capable of real atmospheric maneuvers. A moment later, the Tallgeese followed under it's own power.
No such mobile suit was in evidence as the Komusai closed in, and Cagalli watched on the targeting scope as it grew. The box around it pulsed as the distance fell and a small red dot went green as the range dropped below maximum range for her weapons. She checked her weapon selection and fired, missiles exploding from the shoulders of her mobile suit, the contrails marking their paths towards the dropship.
Lone missiles would have been little threat, but a volley at ranges as low as this was enough to damage even capital ships and the Komusai was smaller than any real warship. It broke off from the landing pattern, trying to evade the missiles, but in so doing it exposed its belly to Cagalli and Treize and they took ruthless advantage, raking the tough metal with their beam rifles.
There was a metallic roar and a large mass flew out of the rear of the dropship - probably jettisoned from one of the aft hatches. The Komusai was trailing smoke now and Cagalli guessed that it was probably going to be making a forced landing this side of the ridge. She fired again, this time catching one of the engines. There was an explosion of fire and the dropship staggered in mid-air. Figures began to fall from the open rear hatch, some of them on fire. A few managed to deploy parapchutes... but most did not. The Komusai canted slowly to one side and ploughed into the ground. A moment later the reactors exploded.
The force of the explosion sent a shockwave through the air and Cagalli's GUUL was rocked violently. Rather than trying to stay aboard, she followed her training and jumped the Serpent free, landing on both feet. Under remote control, the GUUL stablised and then swung around towards her. It was close enough that she was in mid-leap to reboard it, when two lances of silvery fire lashed out and punched through the metal skin of the flying platform.
"What the - ?" she shouted, kicking off from the wrecked GUUL as it fell and coming down again.
"Watch your back!" Treize snapped and she sent the Serpent running down the slope of the ridge, seeing the fire and smoke of a mobile suit battlefield down below.
The Tallgeese was engaging a blue mobile suit, she saw. The machine seemed no more able to take to the skies than she was, but it was much better armed - two massive beam weapons over the shoulders, a shield with some sort of guns built in and some sort of heavy weapon carried like a bazooka. The latter was reduced to a smoking ruin by Tallgeese as Treize closed in and made a sweeping strike with his beam saber. The other suit - the warbook called it Calamity - blocked with the bazooka, discarding it when the weapon was wrecked and firing some sort of beam weapon from it's chest that Treize barely blocked with his shield, the shield actually deforming under the power of the beam.
Cagalli took a shot with her beam rifle at long range, only to have the Calamity sweep its own shield around, intercepting the shot and then returning fire with the guns built into the shield, forcing her to break aside to avoid being struck.
Damn, she thought. This guy's good!
This was getting a bit difficult, Max decided. Neither of the other two suits was very good compared to the Calamity, but there were two of them and neither pilot was exactly a pushover. He danced the big mobile suit back out of the way of the Serpent's beam rifle fire and burned the ground to cinders beneath the Tallgeese a fraction of a second after it had lifted off the ground. The larger of the two suits was very nearly as agile as the Calamity and he had a nasty feeling that at least a couple of the other Gundams must have been built along those lines.
Fighting them would be fun, but it would also be hellishly destructive.
Not that fighting these two had spared the landscape.
The trail of destruction left by the Komusai crashing - and then exploding, which had almost certainly killed every one of the forty or so people aboard - had just been the beginning. What had been a rather pleasent wooded slope was currently ablaze and cratered as three leviathans hammered at each other with what an uninformed observer might have thought was a disturbing lack of skill.
After all, unlike the landscape, none of them had taken any serious damage yet. Or even much - when the lightest weapons being used are 115mm automatic cannon any damage has the potential to be serious. That was probably the only reason that he was still holding out, he knew. The other two suits couldn't really afford to let him cut loose with the Calamity's full firepower upon them so they were understandably a little tentative in their approach - catching a 125mm beam shot in any of a dozen locations would put them decisively out of the fight, most likely dead. What would happen if he managed to hit one of them with the anti-shipping energy cannon in the chest didn't bear thinking about - several acres of the slope had been reduced to molten glass as a result of missed shots with the 580mm aperture weapon.
"I think my dance card is already full," he said regretfully and glanced along the slope. There really wasn't any chance of punching past the two of them without giving them the opportunity to run in behind him and there wouldn't be any actual point in doing so since they were piloting the technology that the mission's goal was to obtain. Destroying them would meet the secondary objective, but that was looking increasingly unlikely.
With that decided, he turned the Calamity and made a break down the slope. Caught off guard, Cagalli was left behind, unable to do more than pepper his path with beam rifle shots as she tried to keep up. She broke off in disgust as her targeting system pinged to report that the energy clip was discharged. Discarding the disc-shaped power supply, she detached a spare from where it was clipped to her leg and replaced it.
The Tallgeese, unlike the Serpent, was fast enough to keep up with the Calamity and Treize came down from the sky with a roar of thrusters to intercept the fleeing mobile suit. "Now now, Enforcer," he said mildly, the words echoing across the blasted landscape from his external speakers. "Leaving so soon? Don't you enjoy our hospitality?"
"It's a trifle warm," Max replied, using the same method. He fired off the 'Scylla' in his chest and the Tallgeese sideslipped to avoid the blast, letting Calamity gain some ground towards the water.
"But giving up so soon?" Treize asked as Tallgeese lunged with it's beam saber, forcing the other suit back a few steps. "You don't seem as determined as I'd expected."
Ghina patted the head of his pet. He knew that many, perhaps even his sister, thought him strange to keep such a creature as a pet, but he'd always liked reptiles. When he was a child, one of his aunts who shared his enthusiasm had given him a Terran crocodile, naming it Midorigami after the similar creature that she had raised as a child and had laid the egg that Ghina's pet came out of. He still thought that the creature had been magnificent but it had died unexpectedly while he was off-planet and as his aunt was dead and interplanetary trade in animals was strictly limited, he had been unable to replace it.
In the end, he had paid a sizeable sum to obtain the eggs of an Aube River Dragon and a much larger sum to have the embryo modifed. His current pet was the third generation of the little family of the creatures that he kept in a swampy part of a private island. Like most River Dragons, this one was slightly more than three metres long and weighed in at almost half a ton, which made him awkward to transport at times. Not that Ghina cared. If he wanted Snappy to accompany him then then there would be people he could pay for the purpose of ensuring that he could, even if that was the only reason for their being in his employ. Unlike most River Dragons, however, Snappy and the other descendants of the pet he'd called Dogzard were quite safe for him to pet.
They were rather less safe for other people to be around, since they didn't match the scents that had so carefully been impressed upon the River Dragons as their Master. His sister probably smelt close enough, but she didn't like his pets and he rather thought that they could tell. They certainly returned the sentiment.
"So," he said thoughtfully. "The other pilot?"
"In five minutes she'll be facing a firing squad," his aide reported.
"Good," Ghina noted. The little bitch had shot him down, wrecking one of his precious Astrays. Admittedly, he still had the Red and Blue Frame versions, but it was a blow to his ego. Shooting was too good for her, but he would have to bow to international convention on this. Let no one say he couldn't be flexible about minor details. "And the other one?"
The aide smiled. "He's locked away in one of the empty cargo holds."
Ghina nodded. "Excellent." Out of the corner of his eye he saw the aide pale suddenly and claw for his pistol. Turning, the scion of the Sahaku family twitched as he saw a broadshouldered man step into the shuttle's command deck, a cigar that he recognised as coming from his personal stock clamped between his lips. The man produced a lighter, lit the cigar and puffed out a small cloud of aromatic tobacco smoke.
"Ahhh," Ghina said, shooting a withering look at his aide. "'Ace Rimmer - might one enquire how you escaped your bonds?"
"Just had to dislocate both shoulders, pop 'em behind my ears and slip between the ropes. Of course, it's going to take major orthopaedic surgery to put them back, but rest assured: that won't stop me from freeing Captain Fallyna."
"You're insane, Rimmer!" the Sahaku exclaimed. "You're out-manned and outgunned."
Ace raised an incredulous eyebrow. "You expect me to concede?"
"No, Captain Rimmer, I expect you to die." Snappy punctuated the declaration with a throaty roar, causing even Ace's composure to slip slightly and Ghina stroked the reptile's head soothingly. It wouldn't do for Snappy to take action precipitously - he might kill the aide and Ghina wouldn't want to decide just how to discipline the incomptent quite so hastily, although Snappy was quite welcome to whatever was left. "Take him into the cargo hold and then vent it," he ordered the man. "And don't take ten minutes explaining all my plans to him."
The aide nodded his head sharply and probably would have snapped his heels together if it wouldn't have looked so ridiculous. "Out!" he snapped, gesturing at Ace with the pistol.
The gesture was the last mistake that the aide would have a chance to make. In the brief instant that the gun was not trained upon him, Ace smashed a right hook into his jaw and caught the gun before it hit the ground. The pilot, who had remained out of the affair until that moment, turned in his seat, reaching for his own sidearm and Ace promptly fired two shots into the man's chest. He collapsed over the controls and the shuttle shook violently as it veered wildly off course.
Ace had no time to exploit his possession of the gun, however, for Ghina reacted with quicksilver reflex, grasping his pet's head between his hands and turning it to face the lone Enforcer. "Kill," he hissed in the ancient Aube dialect and, unleashed by the being it catagorised in it's primitive mind as it's God, Snappy lunged at Ace, driving him backwards out of the compartment.
The gun went skittering away and Ace barely managed to keep the claws and jaws of the monstrous reptile as he struggled with it. A few moments later, Ghina emerged from the control room himself, a parachute strapped to his back and a smug look on his face as he edged past the wrestling pair.
"Ah, Captain Rimmer," he said, opening the airlock. "Sorry I can't stick around for a chat, but I've got to blow..." He gave Snappy a regretful look but a quick moment's sabotage had ensured that he had the only aprachute, and it's not as if one of them would have fitted onto his pet anyway. "Do me a favour, will you?" he sneered at Ace. "Feed Snappy."
Then the door closed and a moment later, Ace heard the airlock cycle. "What I wouldn't give for a gun," he grumbled. Snappy let rip another roar, this time directly into the daring pilot's face and he wrinkled his nose. "Or a bottle of listerine!"
Some quirk of the airlock's control structure opened the inner door again and Ace took the opportunity. Ripping a length of wiring out from where the flailing claws of the River Dragon had sprung a floor panel loose, he bound its muzzle, grabbed the gun he's lost earlier and ran into the airlock. He'd underestimated Snappy's reflexes and the beast managed to leap inside with him before the door closed. It had made the same mistake however and he managed to sidestep, letting it slam headfirst into the door. River Dragon's are noe easily stunned, but the impact bought Ace the moment he needed to open the door and the motion of the shuttle sent then both hurtling out into the air, high over Aube.
Hundreds of metres below, Ghina laughed bitterly as he heard the explosion of the shuttle. He had taken the precaution of rigging the reactor before leaving the control room. It was an expensive triumph - he'd lost Snappy! - but worth it to ensure the death of someone so much of a threat to him. And with no other survivors, it would be easy to cast himself in a good light and Ace Rimmer as the villain of the piece.
"Goodbye, Ace Rimmer!" he called to wheresoever the spirit of the recently departed pilot might be. "You were a most worthy adversary!" Then he turned and glanced behind him. It wouldn't do to open his parachute only to have it damaged by debris from the shuttle. No, there didn't seem to be anything... His head snapped back around and his face lost much of it's pallor.
Behind and above him, Snappy was falling towards him, collared somehow by the man who stood on his back and was riding him down like a surfboard. Ace Rimmer had survived another brush with the Reaper, without even disturbing his blow-dried hair.
With a shout of fear and anger, Ghina pulled his own sidearm and fired at the Rimmer. The angle was bad however, and much of the pilot was hidden by the mass of Ghinas own pet. The shots did little more than anger the beast to the point that it did not recognise the smell of its master, distorted as they were by the rushing air. It opened its jaws to roar.., and a jerk of its collar brought it around at the perfect moment for Ghinas head to plug its throat.
The Aube nobleman screamed as his pet reflexively close its jaws around him. He felt hands against him as Ace climbed down the precarious structure of falling bodies and unstrapped the parachute, leaping away from the duo with it before refastening it around himself. See you later, alligator! he shouted and turned, spreadeagling and angling his direction of falling back towards the distant military base. He had a lot of distance to cover, and only minutes to do it in.
Milia Fallyna was having a very bad day. Yesterday, being shot down despite flying what was inarguably one of the most powerful mobile suits in the universe had been bad, right up until she discovered that the one doing the shooting down was a teenager who was only even in the cockpit for the third time, at which time it had gone down in history as her worst day ever. She was an elite pilot for Buddha's sake!
Today, although not featuring anything quite so traumatic, had started poorly, in a military prison cell and meandered gently down towards her current circumstances, chained to a wooden post that had been hastily erected in one of the yards of the Aube Militia's local base and facing a file of infantry carrying rifles. She wasn't exactly one of the jump infantry but she was pretty sure that they weren't here to measure her for a prison uniform.
"Ready!" shouted the officer commanding the little squad. "Aim! Fi-" His last word was cut off by a gunshot and Milia stiffened briefly before realising that she wasn't the victim. Instead, it was the officer who keeled over and another shot heralded the death of one of the firing squad. The infantrymen wheeled, raising their rifles to the sky and Milia, looking up, saw a man on a parachute descending from the sky, firing a pistol one handed.
Two more men died before their rifles could bear and then the gunshots from above were masked by the sound of the automatic rifles blazing away. What they did not disguise was the way that the man jerked - presumably the victim of a bullet. For a moment she thought that he was dead, and then an indignant shout echoed across the yard.
"This is my best top, dammit!" shouted Ace Rimmer, picking off three more soldiers with three quick shots. But more soldiers were spilling out of the barracks and raising their weapons. The dashingly handsome man hit the release on his parachute harness and dropped free moments before the 'chute was torn to shreds by the massed firepower. He hit the roof of a wooden storage shed and crashed through it, vanishing from sight.
Another officer had emerged from one of the buildings and he quickly gathered several soldiers. On his command they fired off their rifle's magazines into the side of the shed, splintering the wood and presumably perforating the man inside. The officer had a smug look as the gunfire died away, but Milia saw a confused expression cross his face a moment later. Then she heard what he did, the sound of an engine revving, and the splintered wall disintergrated under the impact of a powerful motorcycle that exploded out of the shed under the guidance of Ace.
The soldiers scattered out of his path as Ace charged through them, firing left and right with his pistol. Then Milia's stomach clenched as she saw him aiming the gun at her. Nerves frayed, she looked away as the gun fired once, then again. To her amazement, once again she was unharmed, but the same could not be said of her chains, which fell away. Seconds later, Ace skidded to a halt beside her.
"Captain Fallyna; Ace Rimmer. There'll be time for explanations later, hop on."
Milia shook her head in disbelief as she hopped up behidn him on the bike. "What a guy!"
Ace zoomed away, the bike jinking from side to side to avoid more gunfire as the soldiers rallied. A few of the soldiers pulled more motorcycles out of the shed and gave chase. Ace fired two shots back, hardly seeming to aim, but two of the motorcycles came to crashing halts as their riders flopped lifelessly off them. That still left two riders, but Ace's pistol clicked dry. With a shrugg, he flung it over his shoulder and it smacked one of the soldiers in the face, knocking him off the bike.
"Hold on, Major!" he shouted.
"Under the circumstances, Ace, call me Milia," she replied, locking her arms around his waist as he steered towards a ramp that looked designed for loading shuttles. The bike rocketed up the ramp and into the air. As they reached the apex of the jump, something huge swept through the air above them and Ace released his hold on the handlebars to seize hold of it, letting them be carried away from the base.
The soldier following them had nothing to jump for and his own jump ended less joyfully, the bike cartwheeling prettily across the tarmac, sending sprays of burning fuel flying in all directions.
"Bet he's glad he wore his helmet," Ace shouted over the wind, nodding to where the dazed looking soldier had wound up, having bounced headfirst off the ground. Milia looked up and realised that they were hanging from the bottom of a GUUL. Standing on top of the GUUL was the familiar aqua-blue shape of the Gundam Calamity, probably being piloted by Max Sterling.
Down below, two soldiers stared after the departing mobile suit. "He got away!" exclaimed the taller of them. "I can't believe that he got away!"
"That was Ace Rimmer!" pointed out his shorter companion. "We're lucky to be alive!"
It was at this point that Snappy made his final landing, still wrapped around the dinner Ace had fed him, which had by now stopped moving. Unfortunately for the soldiers, they were not as lucky as they had believed, the half-tonne River Dragon flattening them where they stood as it slammed down upon them at the approriately large terminal velocity.
A third soldier, having been stood only a few yards behind them, was spared and looked down, then up into the sky where the GUUL was rising higher into the sky and following a somewhat erratic flightpath. For a moment he couldn't make out why and then he saw the smoke trail in the sky.
'Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast'.
The soldier's jaw dropped. "What a guy!" he said in an awed voice.
D for Drakensis
You're only young once, but immaturity is forever.