Mobile
Suit Gundam 0087: Warriors in the Shadows
The
year is UC 0087. It has been four years since the reign of terror had begun on
the colonies. A reign of terror imposed by a brutal organization known as the
Titans. The last, terrible legacy of Aguille Delaz, the Titans were supposed to
be the guardians of justice and Earth, but its leadership had shown that this
was merely a front for its own, self-serving goals. Millions had already been
ruthlessly executed just for raising a voice against their brutal authority,
and with each passing day their power over the feeble Federal Council grows,
threatening the lives of millions more...
But
still, there was hope. Though fear had been the Titan's greatest weapon, there
were those who were prepared to face this fear with their courage. United by
one man, General Brex Forra, after the brutal massacre at Bunch 30, this small
group of men and women had vowed to oppose the Titans and all they stood for. A
group whose members would become legends for generations to come. The
Anti-Earth Union Group. The AEUG.
And so,
this group began their campaign to bring an end to the malevolent organization
the Titans had become by stealing several prototype Mobile Suits and
infiltrating their main base at the Gryps. Then, in a spectacular fashion, they
had captured a small fleet of Federal warships and began an ambitious operation
to capture the former Federal Headquarters of Jaburo...
... And
unfortunately, this is where it all went wrong.
The
drop operation, which had been opposed by veteran Captain Quattro Bagina, had
immediately found itself facing disaster. The Titans had set a massive trap,
and the AEUG forces had simply fallen headlong for it. Placing a nuclear time
bomb at the base itself, the Titans were able to annihilate much of AEUG's
manpower and equipment. Only the desperate efforts of a few individuals and
their Kalaba allies allowed a number of troops to escape on the giant transport
plane Audhumla. But the situation had now become desperate. With only the tiny
force on the Audhumla on Earth and a small fleet lead by the Aghama in space,
AEUG simply found itself outnumbered and outgunned by their hated enemies. The
rebellion, now largely on the run, had begun to enter its darkest days...
Chapter
1: Sunset
June
29, UC 0087
Headquarters,
16th Mobile Battalion, somewhere north of Saigon
I hate
my job... Titans Lieutenant Colonel Natalie Dolvich thought sourly as she saw
another pile of paperwork arrive at her desk. She'd been doing nothing but damn
paperwork since she had "taken command" of the 16th Mobile Battalion
two months ago. A battalion in name only that is. Except for her and her two
veteran Titans pilots, the base was overrun with slovenly Federal troops who
were practically on a six month paid vacation. Not that she really cared
anymore anyway. For all practical purposes she had been sidelined. Sidelined
just as a war that everybody knew was brewing since that 30 Bunch fiasco had
started in earnest at the old Federal Headquarters of Jaburo a few weeks ago...
Natalie
moaned at her fate. Three years ago she had been a rising star among the
Titans, looked up to as a model officer by the rest of the organization. Until
they started acting like thugs that is. Unlike most other Titans officers who
resorted to taking hostages and demolishing every bit of colonial
infrastructure in sight, she had often taken measures to ensure the safety of
innocent civilians and had never taken any unsavory measures to root out those
rebels. And THAT was why she was damn ****ing fired by those idiots at high
command. They didn't seem to want anything but racist ***holes in the Titans
nowadays... "Fear factor is needed" they say...
Natalie
then sighed as she shook her head. She shouldn't be thinking like this, she
thought. She was still an officer, and a couple of generation's worth of
military service in her family had just made her devotion to duty all the
worse. Damn genetics. She had wished she wouldn't become like her now missing
father, whose devotion to duty had cost her mother and her three brothers, but
she was ending up just like him. But at least she didn't have a real family to
worry about.
A knock
on the door abruptly ended Natalie's train of thoughts, which was followed by a
brisk, accented voice saying, "Major Hawkins here, requesting permission
to enter your office, mam."
Hawkins...
Natalie thought. Oh great, why the hell did he just show up when I was thinking
about...
CRAP!
she thought angrily at herself. Now was neither the time nor place to...
"Mam...
if it is a bad time..." Hawkins started with a touch of concern in his
voice.
"Come
on in..." Natalie replied tiredly, as she rubbed her eyes. Maybe she was
just drowsy, she thought, and she needed to get rid of it or he might notice
and...
"Thank
you mam," Hawkins replied as he entered her office, "I was just about
to report the safe arrival of a pair of Midea transports. It seems your request
for replacements have been granted."
"Oh?"
Natalie asked as Hawkins handed her a form. Great... replacements, she thought.
Another reason to remember her. For the past three years her best pilot... and
her best friend, had been Captain Sylvie Gressiere. Though never a Titan
herself, Natalie had made sure that Sylvie's squad had almost always been
attached to her unit during any major combat operation, and for good reason.
Sylvie had been called the "Valkyrie of Revo" for her astounding piloting
skills and for saving many of her men from certain death. Natalie herself had
found herself being saved by her friend on four separate occasions during their
time together. However...
"Mam,
pardon me," Hawkins started politely, "But are you still thinking of
our fallen companion?"
Natalie
shook her head. She lied. Sylvie WAS the reason of the frown now growing on her
face. Sylvie had always saved others, but could never find a way to save
herself. Sylvie had already been an emotional wreck when she had first met her,
but after that serious battle at Bunch 7 Sylvie had never been the same. In
fact, she had almost gone from an emotional wreck to a SUICIDAL wreck. Natalie
had tried to help her, but to no real avail, and now Natalie regretted that.
Sylvie had taken her own life just three months ago after she was transferred
under the command of a rather notorious Titans commander. Somebody who had
probably hounded her to insanity and forced her to kill herself for being a
spacenoid... Damn racist b******...
God...
she thought to herself as she recovered slightly, with all the evil thoughts I'm
conjuring up maybe I SHOULD just get out of the ****ing military and settle
down somewhere... Her eyes suddenly met Hawkin's face.
"Ummm...
Colonel, are you absolutely certain that you are alright?" Hawkins asked
nervously as he saw his commander's face oscillate from depression to rage to
surprise. But he understood her frustrations rather well. Probably too well. He
HAD elected to stay with her even though it was evident that her career was
going down the toilet after all... Along with that loyal Captain Ivan.
"I'm
fine Hawkins..." Natalie grumbled in reply, her angry thoughts still fresh
in her mind, "Replacements eh? Fresh from Nijmegen?"
"Where
else would they get fresh meat mam?" Hawkins shrugged.
"Well...
time to give them the standard welcome..." Natalie replied as she snapped
her knuckles. A "standard welcome" to her meant an immediate combat
training exercise. It was just the thing she needed to let off all that
steam...
---------------
June
29, UC 0087 -1800 hours Zulu-
Subic
Bay Military Base, The Philippine Islands
The sun
had nearly set on the Subic Bay base, yet only now did the base really seem to
come to life. Once an outpost that had been built by Zeon to service its
Pacific submarine fleet, the base now served as a Marine Mobile Suit testing
facility for the Federation. Security was normally tight on research
facilities, even more so now after that drop operation at Jaburo. Two platoons of
GM IIs now guarded the outside perimeter of the facility, supported by a trio
of Guntank IIs. Also in the base were several emplacements carrying the upper
chassis of a mass-production type Guntank. Though no longer mobile, these units
still carried a considerable punch, and were more accurate than the tracked
version. But all of these defenses had one major defect: None of them pointed
towards the sea.
And it
was something Kalaba Lieutenant Richard Honour was very pleased about.
Commander of the tiny converted Prober class midget submarine he had named the
X-7, he never thought that he would actually command a midget submarine as one
of his ancestors had done at Normandy on D-day*.
Midget
submarines, Honour knew, had fought a long and glorious campaign during that
war, first being pioneered by the Italians and the Japanese who had used them
to damage the battleships Queen Elizabeth, Valiant, Ramillies and West
Virginia**. But it was really the British who had shown what these
"Underwater Special Operation Groups" could do to change the course
of the war. Though previous midget sub attacks had caused serious damage, there
was often little strategic advantage gained from these attacks. It was not so,
however, of the British midget submarine attack on the Tirpitz in 1943. Sister
ship of the Bismarck, one of the most dreaded adversaries pf the Royal Navy
during the war, the Tirpitz had bottled up every convoy attempting to get to
Murmansk to bring needed supplies to the hard-pressed Russians. Bombers and
conventional submarines had proven useless against her, yet it only took the
well-placed demolition charges of a single midget submarine, the X-7, to
cripple her, and the results were spectacular. Within a short time convoys were
back on schedule and re-supplying the Russians just in time for the great tank
battle at Battle of Kursk, and equally importantly, the Royal Navy was now free
to roam the Barents Sea to hunt down and sink the battle cruiser Scharnhorst
and end the reign of terror Hitler's warships had been waging over the North
Sea. Rarely had so much been owed to one single military operation, and Honour
was truly hoping he could have the chance to be part of something like that
soon, hence his name for his own midget submarine.
And he
certainly did feel that he was getting his chance right now. The Titans had
outnumbered them in almost all respects, especially after that idiotic
Anaheim-sponsored attack on May 5, but for all their firepower the Titans
seemed to lack a proper naval contingent capable of policing the world's
oceans. Of course, there was hardly any sea borne threats after the war and the
Delaz rebellion, but it was part of Honour's job to change that little fact.
Just as long as a certain Captain could do the job as she had promised...
---------------
"Pretty,
ain't she sir?" mechanic Scott Gusman observed as a Titans pilot entered
his hangar to take hold of the new Mobile Suit. A Mobile Suit that had once
been the MIP company's finest aquatic creation, and now seen as the key to
Federal naval superiority. The brand new Zugock E2.
"Hmphh...
No Zeon designed weapon could ever be pretty," the Titans pilot grumbled
in reply. Unlike the mechanic, who was an employee for Anaheim Electronics, the
Titans pilot found cannibalizing ancient Zeon designs disgusting. He hated how
the Federation had been using Zeon-based Hizakus and improved Gelgoogs for
their own use, and now even the Earth's no pure oceans would be polluted once
again by this colonial made monstrosity. Damn politicians...
Yeah
right... Up yours you racist b******... Scott thought to himself but did not
say outloud. The Titan would get what he deserved soon for insulting his
creation soon enough. The Zugock had been unmatched in underwater combat during
the One Year War in addition to being an excellent ground combat suit, but only
now had the Federation saw fit to re-use this design from the old MIP archives.
The E2, for the most part, was essentially a close copy of the limited
production but extremely powerful Zugock Es built during the One Year War, but
it was built with newer materials, a better reactor, more and deadlier weapons,
a more streamlined hull, and at last, a shield. And he had NO intention of
giving all those neat goodies for THIS particular Titan...
"Well,
is the damn thing ready yet?" the pilot asked impatiently as he noticed
nobody else was in the hangar other than Scott, "Because if it is..."
Suddenly,
in less than a blink of an eye, he was down on the ground, a small, neat hole
now implanted right on the center of his forehead. From the shadows, a female
figure stepped forward into view, carrying with her a silenced pistol, smoke
now rising from its barrel.
"Jeez...
that was quick," Scott observed as he began to drag the body towards a
crate that he had already prepared for this purpose. The woman merely shrugged
before helping Scott carry the body to its new hiding place.
"Time?"
the woman suddenly asked as she started heading for the Zugock E2.
"1815
hours and 23 seconds," Scott replied, "Looks like I have under five
minutes to hightail out of here..."
"Yeah,
I know..." the woman responded as she began to climb up towards the
Zugock's cockpit, "Be careful now. Just leave the rest to me."
"Yeah,
I know..." Scott replied, already on his way out of the hangar, not
bothering to take another look at the Captain. He's been an infiltrator before,
and previous experience had taught him it was best to be out of the way as soon
as possible... His job, as far as everybody was concerned, was already done...
But to
Captain Yoko Nagato however, the job was only beginning. But to her, it felt
great to be back. Captured years ago in the same Philippine Islands while
leading a failed assault against a Federal amphibious landing, she had thought
that she would immediately find herself facing a firing squad, or worse. But
she hadn't, thanks to a kind word sent in by that damn Gundam pilot who had
beaten AND saved her, and had found herself being released from the camps after
the war. And though her efforts hadn't been enough to win the last war, she
thought, she certainly wasn't going to lose this one. She checked the time. It
was now exactly 1816 hours...
---------------
Hehe, I
decided to add up some midget sub history in ths chapter. I love those li'l
subs. Though not as famous as the Wahoo or Skate, they did more than their fair
share during the Second World War. The crippling of the Tirpitz had indeed been
their "biggest catch", and the strategic advantages gained by the
Allies were the same as Honour had described. However I did fail to mention
that there were in fact three X-craft(the standard British Midget sub) that
attacked the Tirpitz, of which X-5 was sunk, and X-6 and X-7 had their crews
captured. Of the three, only X-7's charges actually caused damage, but it
wrecked the battleship's engine room and allowed the Tirpitz to be eventually
finished off by a bunch of three ton bombs courtesy of RAF Bomber command:D
*One of
the X-craft midget submarines guiding the assault on D-day was commanded by a
Commander Honour, whose part in the invasion has been written in Cornelius
Ryan's The Longest Day, which is also the basis for some of the names in this
fic.
**
Queen Elizabeth and Valiant were both damaged in the most famous human torpedo
attack of the war launched by the Italians against Malta, while the Ramillies
was damaged by the Japanese Ha-boats as a diversionary tactic just before the
battle of Midway. The attack on the West Virginia was more controversial
though. Though many still maintain that no midget submarines actually
penetrated Pearl Harbor during the infamous December 7 attack, some
evidence(including a rather convincing photograph) suggests that one midget sub
did manage to enter the harbor, and had fired and hit both of her torpedoes at
the West Virginia. See the recent National Geographic feature on Pearl Harbor
for more details:-).
---------------
Notice:
This fic and all its contents are copyrighted by Thomas E. "Zinegata"
Ting. No part of this work may be taken by any other person without permission
from the author. Gundam and all related trademarks are owned by Bandai and
their respective companies.