Do You Remember Macross? Part 1

This is the first movie, TV or anime review I've done and I hope it will be the first of many. I hope you find it insightful and will make you want to watch Macross. It's on Hulu, just so you know.

Do You Remember Macross?

Part 1

The 1980’s and 90’s rocked so hard. Having grown up in the 90’s I may be a little biased but think about it just for a second. Ever since 2001, the world has kinda sucked. The point I’m trying to get at is that we had a lot of good stuff that came out in that 20 year period. Just to name a few things: The Empire Strikes Back, MacGyver, Transformers, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, new Gundam shows, Home Improvement, Family Matters, Sonic the Hedgehog, Return of the Jedi, Van Halen, Top Gun, and let’s not forget Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. I say all this because I just finished watching what I believe to be one of the gems of the 1980’s, an anime series from Japan called Super Dimension Fortress Macross, better known here in the States as the first third of the 1985 Saturday morning series Robotech.

Macross was released in 1982 and is usually considered a franchise second only to Gundam in terms of popularity and impact on the pop culture of Japan. It expanded the terms of the real-robot sub-genre of anime that Gundam had pioneered and made it even more ‘realistic’ in that the pilots all fly the same damn mech and the only deciding factor is who’s plot-armor is thickest. If you had to boil down Macross to something that most other people could understand then I would unequivocally say that Macross is Top Gun meets Batttlestar: Galactica meets Transformers with a dash of Star Wars thrown in for flavoring. I don’t want to write out the whole story of Macross so I’ll just go with the basics. It’s a long series after all.

Macross’ story was a little convoluted by the time it got to TV. Most full-length anime series are around 50 episodes or so (unless they’re based on an ongoing manga then who knows how long it could take them. Bleach is up to 310 episodes and counting). Macross was originally scheduled to be 39 episodes but was then cut down to 26. At the eleventh hour it was lengthened to a final 36 episodes. The basic story begins in the year 1999 (remember that it was 1982 when the series premiered) with a massive 1200 meter alien spaceship crash-landing on South Ataria Island in the Pacific Ocean. This ignites a chain of events that leads to the formation of a world government and a massive project to rebuild and restore the alien ship. One of the first things that is noticed about this mysterious ship is that it is built for war. Naturally, the military immediately begins to reverse engineer the technology and is able to produce Macross’ signature transformable fighter planes, the VF-1 Valkyries. These fighters are not only deadly warbirds but they can transform into a humanoid combat form called Battroid Mode and an in-between form called GERWALK Mode. The reason for this is shown later in the series.

Fast forward to 2009. A large city has been built up around the newly christened SDF-1 Macross and the people are celebrating its imminent launch. Here we are introduced to many of the principal cast including stunt pilot Hikaru Ichijyo, Major Roy Focker, Captain Bruno Global, Lts. Misa Hayase and Claudia LaSalle and bridge operators Vanessa, Kim and Shammy. Also we are introduced to civilian girl Lyn Minmei, who will become very important later on. One thing to remember here is that many of the Japanese names were changed to American sounding ones for Robotech (for example Misa Hayase became Lisa Hayes; my family name rocks so hard). Anyway, the launch of the Macross is rudely interrupted when the systems detect alien warships de-folding near the moon. The Macross’ massive main gun opens fire. Now this is one frakkin’ A gun! It shoots across the earth’s surface and then hits the warships which are still thousands of miles from Earth, unintentionally igniting humanity’s first interstellar war. The Macross launches and after some false starts manage to get into the air. But with a massive alien fleet coming to say hi, Captain Global orders that the ship initiate a space fold (Macross’ version of FTL travel). The consequences of using this still misunderstood technology are immediately made apparent. The Macross does lead the aliens away from Earth, but instead of arriving near the moon, they arrive in the orbit of Pluto… along with every bit of South Ataria island and a huge chunk of the ocean surrounding it. Luckily for the civilians they were in shelters when that happened. The civilians are brought on board, all 56,000 of them (it’s a big ship remember) and they reconstruct Macross City inside the ship. The Macross then sets out on its long journey home. Along the way, Hikaru and Minmei are accidentally trapped in the bowels of the ship for 12 days after he saves her, igniting the start of the other thing that Macross is famous for… love triangles. But more on that later.

Now you might expect that a good chunk of the show would be spent with the Macross travelling back to Earth the slow way, but it’s not. There’s some nice exposition here and you have to remember that a lot of events in the series got compressed. You begin to learn about the aliens, which are called the Zentradi. They actually look very human with one not-so-small exception: The average Zentradi is TEN METERS TALL. That’s why the fighters have to transform into humanoid Battroid Mode. The Zentradi are portrayed from the start as a warrior race but only later do we really learn the extent of that. Several Zentradi characters that we are introduced to include one-eyed fleet commander Vriltwhai (pronounced bree-tye), his Archivist Exsedol and the blood-thirsty warrior Quamzin. At one point Hikaru, Misa and one of Hikaru’s pilots, Kakizaki are captured by the Zentradi and taken to their main fleet, which we learn is roughly 5,000,000 ships strong. Further surprises are in store as we begin to learn more about the Zentradi. The Zentradi are all about war. It’s all they do, day in and day out. They have no concepts of ANYTHING else. They can’t even fix their own ships properly because there are no engineers. They have no entertainment, no luxuries, no games and no romance. The very concept is foreign to them as male and female Zentradi are strictly separated and it is a crime punishable by execution for a member of one sex to communicate with a member of the opposite sex without authorization. This leads to a highly amusing scene where one Zentradi demands that the humans demonstrate the concept of romance and then completely freak out when Hikaru and Misa kiss. The Zentradi commander calls the act ‘proto-culture’ which will become important later on. Later, thanks to one of Hikaru’s other pilots Max Jenius, they are able to escape the Zentradi and return to the Macross.

The Macross eventually makes it back to earth but the reception isn’t so warm. The admirals and politicians have thrown them to the wolves so that they can buy time to organize a counter-offensive and be able to fire their Grand Cannon, an energy weapon similar to the Macross’ main gun but on a planetary scale. They completely ignore the reports of Misa and Captain Global and proceed with their plans, which of course don’t work out and just make trouble for everyone else. The Macross tries to find shelter for the civilians on Earth but after an unfortunate incident with their prototype barriers system, they are forced to leave Earth. By now though, Zentradi spies have brought examples of human culture back to the fleet and culture shock slowly permeates its way through the Zentradi soldiers. The effect is comparable to a blind man suddenly being able to see as the Zentradi realize that there is more to life than fighting and dying. It gets to the point where many of them don’t even want to attack the Macross and some even defect to the ship. Unfortunately this just makes the Zentradi main command move humanity to the number one slot on their ZOINKS list and bring in the whole five million ship fleet.

Here’s where things get interesting. The Zentradi fleet commander Vrlitwhai realizes that his fleet is in danger of being destroyed as well because it has been infected with the ‘proto-culture’ and he is starting to become a little enamored with culture himself. In a surprise move, he joins up with the Macross, providing information that can help the beleaguered earth forces fight the Zentradi. Still it’s a five million strong fleet and even the UN Space Forces’ Grand Cannon only reduces that by 1/5. But, against the odds, the Macross manages to break through to the command ship, causing the rest of the Zentradi fleet to scatter. The day is won, but at a terrible price. Before the Macross and Vrlitwhai’s forces were able to engage the main fleet, they were able to fire on Earth, wiping most of the surface and humanity. No exact figure is given, but fro the damage shown in later shows, it seems that somewhere between 90%-95% of the human population was wiped out.

This was supposed to be the end of the series but thanks to extension, the last nine episodes go into a post-war reconstruction arc. We rarely get this sort of thing; not even Gundam showed the immediate aftermath of the One Year War. The story picks up two years later and many of the refugee Zentradi who have been helping their Terran brethren rebuild earth have started to slip back into their old ways. This is good for Quamzin, one of the Zentradi commanders I mentioned earlier who seems to be almost immune to culture, gathers these rebels to fight against the terrans. Meanwhile many of the main characters are resolving their personal issues, including the love triangle between Hikaru, Misa and Minmei (more on that later) and now-Admiral Global realizes that the only way to ensure that humanity never faces extinction again is to spread themselves out among the stars. Quamzin eventually organizes the rebel Zentradi and they fix up a busted Zentradi warship, ironically using the techniques the humans taught them. They attempt to attack the Macross and the ship launches one last time along with Hikaru and the Valkyrie squadrons. Quamzin is defeated along with the bulk of the rebels, the humans initiate their plan to colonize the stars and a lot of personal plots are resolved… mostly.

This is mostly the story of Macross in a nutshell. I’m going to go into a few other things as I talk about the production of the series and the Characters I liked and hated but this is it. If I left anything out, don’t complain, go watch the show or read about on MAHQ.net.

As I mentioned before, it’s easy to get into this show because it has such a great story. There are characters you like, some you hate, the bad guys are classically bad (until they get culture) the good guys don’t spend a lot of time moralizing and oh-woe-is-me-ing and of course there’s dogfights galore and ACTUAL CHARCTER DEVELOPMENT. You don’t get a lot of this in many American TV shows. On American TV, character development will sometimes get spread out over the whole damn show and can be subject to, how do I say, illogic. This is one of the advantages of the way many animes do things. You only have, say 50 episodes for a character to mature, so if he or she is supposed to do that, they better damn well get their rears in gear!

There weren’t many things I actually didn’t like about the show and most of those things are a result of the way the series was compressed and uncompressed which no one has any control over. I would say that there weren’t very many opportunities to hate the villains of the story. Most of the named Zentradi characters end up on the good guys’ side and the ones who don’t aren’t really hate fodder. The ‘Final Boss’ Lord Bodole Zer, isn’t in the series much at all so you don’t care much about him although the fact that he orders the execution of humanity doesn’t exactly endear him to you. Quamzin is charismatic, making him a villain you LIKE to hate, not just outright hate. Then you also learn that the Zentradi were basically engineered to be what they are/were and it throws a sympathetic light onto them. No the one character I truly despise is a human and we’ll get to him in a minute.

Continued in Part 2

Break The World

Episode 2: Shooting Stars

            The White Fang support fleet had slipped under the radars of the Alliance as they had entered the L3 colony cluster. They were here for a very specific mission, the objective of which was moving closer and closer to where they hovered in space. It was a large bell-shaped transport, specially configured for atmospheric re-entry.

On the bridge of one of the mobile suit transports, the White Fang commander observed the incoming ship.

“Open a channel. We shouldn’t keep Mister Barton waiting.”

The communications officer did just that and an image of a man in a normal suit with an opaque helmet visor appeared on the main screen of the bridge above its viewports.

“We are the White Fang support fleet that the Barton Foundation has dispatched to aid you. Operation: Meteor is already underway Mr. Barton, so we should proceed to the rendezvous…” the commander was cut off as the pilot of the transport said, “You’ve got the wrong guy.” Nothing further was said on either side as the transport fired a pair of beam guns mounted on its nose. Within moments, the support fleet had been destroyed and the transport sailed on.

Inside the transport, newly named Trowa Barton grimaced slightly.

Operation: Meteor has already begun has it? Then a colony is being dropped right now.

Trowa quickly checked the course that had been pre-programmed into his computer.

So it’s from L5? That’s not good; by the time I get there it may be too late to stop it. He paused for a moment, considering his actions.

Freedom for the colonies cannot be purchased with the blood of two billion innocents. Even if I can’t stop it, I have to try.

Many thousands of miles away, a large group of MS carriers and support ships broke out of Earth orbit and began to head on a course for the falling colony. One of the carriers had a much sleeker design than the others. Colored in deep blue, this carrier more resembled a space shuttle than the blocky constructions that flew alongside it. Onboard the blue carrier, a man in an ornate red uniform and a very unusual white mask that covered the entire top half of his head, read data from a computer tablet he held in a gloved hand. This man’s name was Lieutenant Colonel Zechs Marquise.

“Hmmm, the satellite surveillance folks are practically blind. By the time they noticed that A0206 was falling we barely had time to scramble a response brigade.”

“The Alliance is scrambling as many MS units as they can from the other LaGrange points though,” pointed out one of the soldiers who were piloting the carrier. Zechs grinned, the only sign, because of his mask, that he was amused.

“You haven’t seen the latest intel reports, the ones that I’m reading. Seems that the White Fang rebels have launched simultaneous assaults in all Lagrange points and even on the moon. We’re obviously dealing with a well-coordinated attack that has been in planning for a very long time. The Alliance is not going to look good after this.”

“Because of the propaganda that the White Fang are a bunch of uncoordinated terrorists?” responded Lieutenant Otto, the other pilot of the carrier-space plane.

“Exactly. It’s one of the reasons that no one on Earth ever takes what’s happening in space seriously. I’m sure that General Septum of the Alliance Space Forces is preparing his ‘I told you so’ speech right now.”

“Won’t be of much use if everyone on Earth is dead,” said the other Lieutenant.

“A little dramatic Lieutenant. One colony won’t utterly destroy the planet but nevertheless we’ll have to fight harder than ever before to bring it down. Is my Leo ready for use?” Both Otto and his fellow Lieutenant looked at Zechs in shock.

“Colonel, you aren’t serious are you? You’re going to lead the expeditionary force from the frontlines?” asked Otto. Zechs merely grinned again.

“You guessed it.”

“If you’re set on doing that Colonel, then you should take one of our Aquarius space mobile suits,” said Otto. Zechs grimaced slightly at that.

“My Leo will be just fine Lieutenant Otto,” he said in a slightly clipped tone. Zechs didn’t particularly care for the OZ-10SMS Aquarius space mobile suit. As the first space MS design that the OZ organization had built for the Alliance, it was a case study in learning what did and didn’t work out in space. The suit was mostly based on the OZ-07AMS Aries Aerial MS, but it eliminated the legs, making it more of a fighter than a mobile suit. With large engines it was fast and highly maneuverable, more so than the OZ-06MS Leo suits that had to have adapter packs installed to function in space. The problem with the Aquarius was that it couldn’t carry much in the way of weaponry, small beam rifles and missile launchers mainly, making it useful only for interception, hit-and-fade and scouting. The White Fang rebels had stolen dozens of them and they, along with the Alliance Space Force took great delight in throwing the Aquarius’ at one another, earning the pilots a reputation as suicidal kamikazes. Zechs much preferred the more balanced aspects of the Leo.

“Sir, we’re receiving a transmission from the other ships on what our orders are,” said the Lieutenant. Zechs grimaced even more.

“Likely looking for an excuse to complain about the command style of an OZ officer. Tell them just to keep heading for the colony.” Zechs turned around and left the cockpit, heading into the inner recesses of the carrier, to the mobile suit hangar. The hangar contained only three MS on this command ship, one Leo and two Aquarius. Zechs gazed up at his personal Leo, styled in his colors of white with red stripes.

This will be the turning point of the Alliance. The people of Earth will unite together to stop the threat from outer space. Even if we manage to stop A0206, the outrage that the White Fang would resort to such measures will be like a forest fire. I wonder how the colonies who aren’t aligned with White Fang will react?

Thanks to the continuing of colony A0206’s rotation, artificial gravity was being maintained. For the majority of the colony’s populace, it was life as usual. Of course everyone knew that the colony was falling to Earth but it just didn’t feel like it, unless one looked out a viewport. Master Long was contemplating a display screen that showed the colony’s approach with detailed readouts of velocity, altitude, attitude, etc. One of the clansmen approached him, bowed and said, “Preparations are complete Master.”

“Do they suspect?” responded the old master.

“No sir.”

“Good. Good. We will live with pride right until the very end. And no one, not the Alliance nor OZ nor these Barton Foundation deceivers will take it from us.” Wufei, I hope that you and Meilan can understand the course of action that we are about to take.

On the colony surface, Wufei waited patiently in the cockpit of the Shenlong. It was highly unlikely that the Alliance space forces would let the colony proceed unopposed so he was on standby for when some of their force showed up. He started slightly when his sensor warning went off but it was just one of the clan’s ‘appropriated’ OZ-06MS Leo suits, painted green with gold stripes. He knew without being told who was piloting it.

“Meilan, what are you doing out here in that suit?”

“I came to keep you company. It’s awfully lonely out here surrounded by the vastness of space, isn’t it?”

“Hmph, and I suppose if a battle starts you’ll just go back inside?”

“Well…”

“No! I forbid it! Take that suit back inside right now.”

“Come on Wufei, it would be just like in the legends. The noble warrior and his lady fighting side-by-side…” Meilan was cut off as she suddenly found the activated end of the Shenlong’s beam trident in her monitor.

“Wufei…”

“Listen woman! I cannot fight a battle and have you out here in a Leo at the same time! Go back.”

For a moment, Meilan was going to fire back an angry, scathing retort, but stopped before she did. Although she and Wufei had been married slightly less than a year, she had learned to read his intentions, especially when he didn’t voice them out loud. She’d found she’d always had a talent for that no matter who it was. She knew what Wufei was really saying was I am in a Gundanium mobile suit and you are not. I cannot worry about your safety and fight at the same time.

“Okay husband, you win.” She turned the Leo around and pulsed her thrusters, soaring away towards the airlock.

“This time,” she added. Wufei couldn’t help but smirk at that.

“Just what I’d expect from the woman brash enough to name herself after Nataku.” His musing was interrupted by an alarm from his sensor board. A display window opened up on his main monitors, showing a cluster of red dots moving towards the colony.

“They’re here.”

Meilan, who was floating gently towards the airlock, spared a final glance towards her husband’s mobile suit.

When the time comes I will fight beside you. I will do what I can to correct this. It’s bigger than clan and family honor Wufei, as much as I can’t believe I’m saying that.

The group of Alliance ships were almost to the point where they could launch their MS towards the colony. Onboard his carrier, Zechs was speaking to the captains and MS team leaders.

“So that is why our objective will be to destroy the colony’s fusion reactor. Hopefully the resulting explosion will cause the colony to break up and much of the damage that would have been done will be mitigated. Of course we will do our best to destroy any large remaining fragments. Prepare to sortie.” Zechs closed the connection and was preparing to leave when Otto called to him from the pilots’ seats at the front of the cockpit.

“Are you sure that you won’t wear a normal suit colonel?”

“Come now Otto. I have a reputation to uphold,” said Zechs with a slight smirk. Zechs Marquise was well known for conducting space ops without wearing a normal suit, what people called the pressurized space suits that all space travelers had worn since the dawn of manned space flight. It was generally considered suicide to fly in space, especially in combat, without one.

Zechs was about to leave for the hangar compartment when an alarm went off.

“What is it?” he asked

“We’re picking up multiple unfriendlies incoming. Looks like White Fang isn’t slow on the uptake. They really want this operation to succeed,” replied the other Lieutenant as he studied the readouts.

“Can they intercept us before we get to the colony?” asked Zechs.

“Unfortunately, yes,” replied the Lieutenant. Zechs smirked again.

“Then we’ll just have to cut our way through. The lives of countless hundreds of millions are riding on this.” Zechs Marquise would not admit that one of those lives was almost more important to him than life itself… and maybe one other. He left the command deck of the carrier, half-walked, half-floated into the hangar and climbed into his custom Leo. Armed with a standard beam rifle and a 250mm cannon (this is what I’m renaming the dober guns as. Dober doesn’t mean anything and I don’t know why they use it.), it would be a lethal opponent with Zechs at the controls. The rear of the carrier’s hangar split open and the three MS slid out and into open space. Without wasting a beat, Zechs fired his thrusters and soared out towards the oncoming battle.

Far away from the colony, Duo Maxwell’s carrier capsule flew towards the falling colony. He couldn’t really help it as that was the course programmed into the guidance computer. He couldn’t deny though, that something seemed to be drawing him towards the colony.

“Ah, what am I thinking? How the heck am I supposed to stop a gigantic thing like that? Well, the God of Death has never backed down from a fight before, why start right now?”

In the distance, he could see streaks and flares of light near the earth-facing side of the colony.

“Well, guess there’s no helping it now. They’ll probably come after me if I try to go past ‘em. Better get Deathscythe warmed up.”

What Duo, Zechs and everyone else was not aware of was that three other capsules were also making their way towards the colony. Aboard his capsule, the newly-named Heero Yuy kept his ship on a straight, unwavering course to his mission objective. Trowa Barton stared at the falling construct with a look of sadness and disappointment on his face. Quatre Raberba Winner couldn’t keep the shock from thrumming through his system at the sight. How could people be so inhuman as to believe that this course of action would bring peace to the colonies? And so it was that one young man already standing sentinel on the precipice of fate and four others who flew towards him drew closer to destiny.

Zechs had just destroyed his fifth suit of the engagement, all the while appearing completely relaxed, when he received a transmission from one of the team leaders.

“Sir, we’ve spotted three reentry transports heading for the colony!”

“Hmmm, reinforcements perhaps?”

“Possibly sir but the transports only look large enough for one or two suits. One of them appears to be some kind of space plane. It’s coming our way!”

Zechs rotated his suit and caught sight of the object. It definitely was shaped like a graceful bird, a perfect shape for a reentry vehicle. Zechs wasn’t sure how this fit into the White Fang’s plans but at this point everything that wasn’t on their side was an enemy.

“Shoot them down! Now!” he ordered. Suiting action to words he aimed his Leo’s beam rifle and fired off three shots. The other suits nearby fired their weapons as well but the plane kept taking the hits and kept coming.

“What the…” Zechs hissed as the plane zoomed past him, smoke trailing from the hits it had taken.

Aboard the transport, actually a shell for a very special mobile suit, pilot Heero Yuy calmly monitored the systems. He frowned as the computer informed him that the reentry shell was now pretty much useless, having been shot up by the enemy mobile suits. Only one option left now.

“Mission objective confirmed. Engaging the enemy to ensure operation success.”

Behind him, Zechs’ Leo took aim with the right arm-mounted 250mm cannon.

“This ought to wake you up a bit,” said Zechs as he pulled the trigger. The cannon belched forth two hypersonic rounds. They struck true, causing a large chunk of the plane to break off and sending it into a spin. Inside the cockpit, Heero grimaced and jabbed the button to eject the plane-shell. The remainder of his reentry shell glowed and then blew apart into a million fragments, revealing the full form of his machine’s flight form.

For his part, Zechs stared at the sight with equal parts fascination and trepidation. Just what was this new weapon that White Fang was fielding?

“All nearby units, be aware that the enemy has a new fighter-type weapon. Be careful.”

The fighter banked around (and don’t think it doesn’t take skill to bank in space!) and barreled straight towards the Leo and Aquarius suits which immediately opened fire on it. Heero tried to get a solid lock on the suits, but they were more maneuverable than him, one of the reasons why MS were so adept at space combat.

“Let’s see how they handle this,” he said grimly and pulled a control handle over his head. The nose of his fighter and the big gun that was attached to it broke off. The remaining body of the fighter broke off and unfolded itself. Arms reached out and grabbed the nose, which now served as a shield and the massive rifle. The plane now bore the form of a white, red, blue and gold mobile suit of familiar design. Zechs just stared at the newly transformed mobile suit, completely floored.

“It transformed into a mobile suit!” he gasped.

“Colonel Zechs, what kind of suit is that?” asked one of the other pilots.

“No idea,” he grunted back. I thought only the Alliance and OZ had the capability to build mobile suits? This is completely beyond anything I thought the White Fang capable of fielding.

“Colonel, it’s coming towards us!”

“Engage it but be careful!” Zechs replied. He would have joined his troops but a blast from an enemy Leo demanded his immediate attention. Turns out it was good that he didn’t try to attack the new suit. In his cockpit, Heero observed the incoming enemies… and smiled.

“Locked on target,” he said and pulled the trigger for his suit’s massive rifle. A gigantic burst of highly energized particles erupted from the gun’s barrel. The Alliance suits, unprepared for this massive assault were consumed. Zechs stared at the carnage in horror.

“He destroyed six suits in one shot? What is this monster?” He was about to engage it when another pilot called him.

“Sir, we’ve engaged an unidentified mobile suit above the colony!” Zechs spared a moment to look and was again shocked at what he saw. A white and blue mobile suit that looked an awful lot like the one now coming straight at him was engaging Alliance suits with some kind of beam saber-like weapon. Zechs didn’t have anymore time to worry about it as the first new suit fired its rifle at him.

A little ways away from the main engagement, Duo’s capsule coasted towards the colony. A group of Alliance MS soared towards it, guns blazing. The capsule took several hits and then exploded as the particle beams found vulnerable fuel tanks. The suits were about to turn about and head back to the main engagement when a dark form emerged from the smoke and vapor of the destroyed transport. A flash of green plasma arced over the suits and then the thing was in among them, slicing the hapless Alliance MS to ribbons. The resulting explosions revealed the form of Duo’s Deathscythe.

“You’ll all die. Anyone who sees me has got a date with his Maker,” said Duo with a grim smile as he took off towards the battling MS forces.

Nearby the same kind of event happened twice more. As Alliance MS approached one of the other capsules, it exploded of its own accord. From within the debris emerged an orange and white mobile suit that bore a very strong resemblance to the other strange mobile suits that had appeared on the battlefield just now. This one raised a massive gattling cannon mounted on its left arm and twin panels on its chest opened up, revealing a quartet of gattling guns mounted in the chest. The new suit opened fire, shredding all nearby MS. Inside the cockpit, Trowa Barton frowned slightly and then thrusted his suit, the Heavyarms, towards the rest of the engagement.

At the same time, a pair of giant blades carved up the front of the last reentry transport and a dark blue and white mobile suit burst out of the bow of the transport.  It raised its curved blades, now glowing with intense heat and sliced through a pair of Leos as if they’d been made out of paper.

“I don’t want to fight you if I can help it! Please get out of my way!” said Quatre grimly as he blasted through the MS formations.

Zechs’ day was steadily getting worse. The strange winged mobile suit had fired another one its giant beam cannon blasts again and had clipped his Leo, forcing him to retreat as several of his comrades moved in to distract the suit. He glanced at his monitors and saw that the colony was rapidly approaching the Point of No Return, the point on its descent where even if they caused its breakup, the pieces would still cause catastrophic damage to the earth.

“All nearby mobile suits, this is Lt. Col. Zechs. Anyone who is not currently engaged with the enemy, follow me into the colony, we are rapidly running out of time!” He suited words to action, forming up with two other Leos and rocketing towards the inner hub of the colony.

Meanwhile Heero Yuy continued to engage the enemy. He had just blasted a pair of Aquarius suits when his threat alert went off, indicating an enemy coming in from his left. He was just about to orient on the suit and open fire on it when a three-pronged beam weapon penetrated it from behind. The suit’s reactor overloaded and the Leo blew itself out of existence. As the explosion faded away, it revealed the form of the Shenlong, which sent a shock of déjà vu thrumming through Heero.

“Who are you?” he asked as the Shenlong hovered beside him. Inside its cockpit, Wufei was having the same reaction.

Above the colony’s main ring, a similar event was occurring with the other three Gundanium mobile suits. After shooting down several enemies, the Deathscythe, Heavyarms and Sandrock came face to face with each other and each of the pilots had the same reaction to seeing the others’ similarly styled suits.

“All right, what the heck is going on here?” said Duo over an open channel, “Who are you guys and why do your suits look like mine? Are you with the White Fang?”

“No I’m not,” responded Quatre, his helmeted face appearing on one of Duo’s monitors. “I was completely shocked when I got underway and found out what the details of Operation: Meteor were. I have no intention of helping to carry it out.”

“Neither do I,” replied Trowa somberly.

“Well then. It seems that the three of us are in a similar boat. And it looks like none of us were told some pretty important details about the operation. I thought my buddy Deathscythe was the only one of its kind.

“I thought the same with the Heavyarms,” said Trowa.

“So if none of us want to have anything to do with Operation: Meteor, then what are we doing here?” asked Quatre.

“Maybe you guys feel like trying to throw another monkey wrench into the White Fang’s plans?” said Duo with a grin.

In his cockpit, Quatre looked at the image of the Earth, now grown to gargantuan size as the colony fell ever closer to Earth.

“How can we stop this? The colony’s getting close to Earth,” said Quatre.

“The best course of action would be to find some way to destroy the colony’s fusion reactor,” replied Trowa

“Geez, this guy doesn’t do things halfway does he?” said Duo. Scratching the back of his helmet in confusion, “Exactly how do we keep ourselves from getting blown up in the process?”

“We’d better figure that out as we go,” said Trowa just as the three pilots’ threat alarms went off. A large group of MS was barreling down towards them, guns blazing.

“Lets break through to the nearest hatch!” cried Quatre as they engaged the enemy suits.

Heero was wondering if he should attack the mobile suit that looked so similar to his own when his comm screen activated, displaying the visage of Doctor J.

“Heero, we’ve received word that Alliance mobile suits have infiltrated the colony. You must stop them at all costs!”

“Roger that,” replied Heero as he turned his mobile suit away from the melee above the colony and rocketed towards one of the spokes that connected the colony’s ring to the central hub. It was a few moments before he saw that the doppelganger of his suit was headed in the same general direction as him. He decided that he would keep an eye on it and as soon as it made a hostile move, he would destroy it.

As Zechs had expected, the White Fang had stationed MS inside the colony as well. However, it seemed to the OZ ace as if these suits seemed to be a little more well equipped than the other enemy suits outside.

“Keep pressing men! We must get to that reactor as soon as possible!” Zechs glanced at the stopwatch display in the corner of his right hand viewscreen. The precious time they had before breaking the colony up was rapidly diminishing. If things had been a little different at that point, Zechs might have paid for his distraction with his life. His threat alarm shrieked and he looked up just in time to see a White Fang Leo rocketing towards him, beam rifle prepped to fire. There was a flash and for one horrible moment Zechs thought that his life was over but the rebel suit was the one that exploded.

“What in the…” he began but cut off as a familiar form soared over his suit and landed in front of him. He thought it was the bird-like mobile suit from before but this one was orange and white and had a HUGE gatling cannon on its left arm. It opened up with the cannon, sowing a line of devastation across the ranks of the White Fang suits.

“Colonel Zechs! It’s more of those strange suits!”

Zechs brought up displays on his monitors that showed the Deathscythe and the Sandrock joining in the fight.

“What do we do sir?”

“Look like some of the rebels’ pilots aren’t in favor of Operation: Meteor. Pay them no mind unless they fire on you! Keep pushing to the reactor!”

Wufei was still a little perplexed by the appearance of a mobile suit that looked so much like his own and seemed to be receiving the same orders as he was. His confusion deepened when he arrived at the battle ground inside the colony’s main ring and saw the Deathscythe, Sandrock and Heavyarms seemingly fighting alongside the Alliance forces.

“Master O are you receiving this? There are more mobiles suits like mine here! And they’re fighting against the White Fang forces!” Master O, the man that built Wufei’s Shenlong didn’t respond. Wufei hesitated and then a mobile suit fired on him. Out of reflex he swooped down and slashed the offender with the Shenlong’s beam trident. It was only after the suit exploded that he realized that the suit was a White Fang suit. He had just killed an ally.

Meanwhile Heero had opened fire on several Alliance MS when he caught sight of the other suits that were like his. He too was momentarily confused that they were firing on White Fang. Where they allies and had received orders that Heero had not? Suddenly his radio crackled to life and the voice of Doctor J said, “Heero it seems that there are other Gundanium mobile suits participating  in this mission. Our superiors have determined that they have gone rogue. You have new orders to stop these rogue suits at once but try to recover them intact if possible.”

“Roger that mission. Engaging.” Heero raised his rifle and fired a monstrous beam of energy right into the middle of the engagement. When the smoke cleared the other three Gundanium suits had turned to face him. Off to the side were Zechs and his Alliance special forces, creating something of a Mexican standoff.

“Sir, what do we do?” asked one of the Alliance pilots.

“These new models are extremely powerful. Make no sudden moves, we’re only going to have one shot at this,” replied Zechs.

Yes, they are incredibly powerful. The cannon of the red, white and blue one probably has a greater output than anything that even OZ has theorized about. There’s only one materiel in the Earthsphere that could allow for such a weapon…

In his cockpit, Wufei was jus beginning to wonder why everyone had stopped shooting when a comm window opened up on his monitor, displaying the helmeted visage of Quatre.

“The two of you seem to possess mobile suits that are much like ours. I have to wonder then, why are you helping the White Fang drop this colony? Don’t you realize what this will do to the Earth? Peace for the colonies cannot be attained through mass murder.”

“That doesn’t matter to me,” replied a cold voice and Wufei guessed it was coming from the suit with the large rifle that he had been following.

“So you just don’t care? Look pal, I may not be the greatest guy around but there’s no way I can take this. It’s gonna cause more problems for the colonies than it will solve!” said Duo.

“You are to surrender and hand over your suits,” stated the cold-voiced pilot.

From his cockpit, Zechs gripped the throttles of his Leo, ready to make a break for the spoke tunnel that led to the colony’s central hub.

“Wait for our chance men.”

In the Hall of Elders, Master Long was observing the battle on a series of monitors with the other Elders of the clan, their retainers and the strange men in suits.

“What the hell is going on here?” asked one of the suits angrily, “Why are the Deathscythe, Heayarms and Sandrock fighting against us?”

For Master Long’s part, he didn’t much care why these other suits were rebelling against the White Fang. It was time for the Long Clan to do a little rebelling of their own. Catching the eye of one of the Elders he then pressed a button on the console in front of him. A panel slid open, revealing a large red button. With a whispered prayer, the venerable Master reached forward and pressed the button.

“Hey! What are you doing?” said one of the suits as he reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun.

“Master, look out!” cried one of the retainers, jumping forward to wrench the gun out of the man’s hand. With a resounding blast, the gun went off.

Heero was getting ready to fire another blast from his buster rifle as it looked like the rogue pilots weren’t going to comply when an alarm began blaring throughout the colony. In a pause created by this new development, a mobile suit suddenly roared over the battlefield, armed with a 250mm cannon and headed straight for the spoke tunnel. Wufei gasped in shock, he’d know that green and gold color scheme anywhere!

“Meilan! What are you doing?!” he yelled.

“I’m sorry Wufei but this is bigger than clan and honor,” she replied. Heero had also noticed the rogue Leo and instantly swung his rifle around to fire on it.

“NO!” roared Wufei as he charged forward. Heero couldn’t bring any weapons to bear in time and was jerked violently in the cockpit as the Shenlong slammed into his Wing.

“Now’s our chance men! Go!” yelled Zechs and shoved his throttles to their stops, launching his Leo into action.

“It’s our chance as well!” said Trowa, “Let’s move.” The Heavyarms, Deathscythe and Sandrock took off in the wake of the Alliance MS, Heavyarms unleashing a hellish barrage of missiles at the remaining White Fang suits. Only a couple of the missiles impacted near Heero and Wufei but their superior MS shrugged off the effects as they continued to grapple. Wufei wrenched the buster rifle out of the Wing’s hands but this left him open to the Wing’s machine cannons. This kind of weapon wouldn’t harm a Gundanium mobile suit but it did cause Wufei to reflexively back off, dropping the rifle to the ground. Heero lunged forward, picked the rifle up and aimed low along the ground at the Shenlong. He fired, tearing an artificial canyon in the colony surface, detonating when it hit a building. This blew Wufei into the side of another building which crumbled around him. Wasting no more time, Heero and the Wing took off after the others.

Wufei was just crawling out of the wreckage when a comm window opened up and the face of Master Long filled it. But something was wrong, there was blood dribbling from the side of the old Master’s mouth and he looked deathly pale.

“Wufei…” he gasped.

“Master? What has happened? What is this alarm I’m hearing?”

“Wufei… remember to live with pride… and integrity… and remember that we too never abandoned our pride… we lived with pride right to the very end.”

“Master Long! What are you saying?”

“Wufei… beware of the White Fang, the Barton Foundation and OZ… and take care of Meilan…” With a groan, the old Master slumped against the console and stirred no more. Wufei was transfixed for a moment and then he remembered Master Long’s last words.

“Meilan!” With that cry he powered up Shenlong’s thrusters and took off after the other mobile suits. As he cleared the buildings, he saw an explosion inside the spoke tunnel.

“Meilan!”

Inside the tunnel, Duo was very bemused to find himself flying alongside the Alliance.

“This has been one strange day, I’ll tell ya that much,” he said. Suddenly a threat alarm rang out.

“Uh oh, looks like the guy with the big gun is back. Hey, other big gun guy! Blast him would ya?”

Trowa smiled, flipped around and opened up with every single gun that the Heavyarms had. The barrage of bullets slammed into the Wing but Heero wouldn’t be deterred so easily. He pulled the trigger and sent a wave of charged particle energy streaming out of the buster rifle. The bullet barrage had knocked his aim off though and the blast struck the tunnel, blowing a huge chunk of it out into space. With the interior now exposed to the vacuum, all pressure began fleeing outside causing an instant gale inside the tunnel.

Wufei, who was soaring up the tunnel behind Heero found the sudden acceleration from the winds a big help as he rocketed past Heero.

“Meilan!” he cried as he saw her suit bounce of two Alliance Leos and head straight for the hole.

Inside his Leo, Zechs was struggling to avoid the same fate.

“This is almost getting ridiculous,” he grumbled. Suddenly an alarm rang out in his cockpit, an alarm that MS pilots very, VERY rarely heard. Zechs could only gaze in wide-eyed astonishment at the words now glowing on his left-hand monitor: RADIOLOGICAL ALERT.

“Forget trying to stay in the tunnel!” he bellowed. “Get out of here!”

Wufei wasn’t paying attention to the alarm as his only thought was his wife’s suit being blown towards him by the escaping atmosphere. But, just as the two approached one another, Meilan spotted the Wing aiming its buster rifle at the Shenlong. She acted without thinking, grabbing hold of Shenlong and using her thrusters to turn herself into the path of the blast. Wufei, unfortunately, realized what was happening too late to stop her. A thinner, more low power beam shot out of the barrel tip and impacted Meilan’s Leo just beneath its ‘head.’ Wufei cried out in horror and then they were both out of the hole and back in space.

As Zechs’ Leo careened out of the hole in the spoke tunnel, he immediately broadcast to all friendly units in the area.

“This is Lt. Colonel Zechs! ALL units are to disengage and move away from the colony! Its reactor is about to blow!”

Duo, Trowa and Quatre took advantage of the confusion speed away from the area as fast as they could. Wufei stared in shock at his wife’s mobile suit. The Wing’s blast, though low power, had still blown a giant chunk of the Leo’s torso away… leaving the cockpit compromised.

“Meilan! If you can hear me, respond…” Wufei tailed off as the Wing swooped down in front of him, buster rifle aimed squarely at Shenlong’s chest.

“Go on then! Finish it!” Wufei snarled. But just before Heero could pull the trigger, a bright flash drew their attention.

The colony reactor blew itself out of existence, consuming the central hub. The spokes that connected the hub to the main ring shattered into so much shrapnel and blew out and away from the force of the shockwave. For one moment the nuclear fireball was visible before it snuffed itself out in the vacuum. Then, the docking boom at the bottom of the hub tumbled away, propelled by the shockwave on a collision course with the atmosphere that would shatter it. The ring, which had still been rotating, buffeted by the powerful shockwave, blew apart into dozens of pieces, wreaking terrible havoc amongst he ships and MS that were all still nearby. Though Duo, Trowa and Quatre had tried to get away, they were caught up amongst the debris.

Wufei could only gaze in horror at the carnage, that is, until the shockwave hit him and Heero, ripping Meilan’s mobile suit out of the Shenlong’s hands.

“No! Meilan!” Wufei screamed just as a large piece of debris hit the Shenlong and he was jerked violently in his seat and then he knew no more.

Roll 'Em out!

3. The Gundam Phoenix (Custom, 2001)

XXXG-01WF-2 Gundam Phoenix

Height: 16.7 meters

Armor: Gundanium alloy

PW: Twin Buster Rifle x1, mounted on right shoulder

SW: 75mm machine cannon x2, mounted on shoulders; beam saber x2, mounted in shoulders

AW: N/A

SA: ZERO System

Pilot(s):  Zack/Sesina Monroe

Notes: This is just the Endless Waltz version of the Phoenix, also known as Custom version and Ver. Ka.

4. The Gundam Talon (2002)

XXXG-01T Gundam Talon

Height: 16.5 meters

Armor: Gundanium alloy

Colors: Green and white with gold trim

PW: Large beam sword x1, mounted on hip

SW: 70mm Vulcan gun x2, mounted in head; 75mm machine cannon x2, mounted on shoulders; shield x1, mounted on left arm; beam saber x2, mounted under shield

AW: N/A

SA: N/A

Pilot(s):  Zack/Sesina Monroe

Notes: The Talon, like the Deathscythe, Sandrock and Shenlong Gundams, focuses on close-range combat with its Large Beam sword. It also mounts an array of Vulcan-type guns for defense and a large shield which conceals two regular beams sabers as backup weapons. It is designed to be highly maneuverable but only on the ground. When the Gundam pilots had to go back to space, the Talon’s pilot knew that his suit wouldn’t be able to function there properly so he self-detonated it. Zack/Sesina would later acquire its replacement…

5.  The Blade Gundam (2001)

XXXG-01T-2 Blade Gundam

Height: 16.5 meters

Armor: Gundanium alloy

Colors: Black and white with red and gold trim

PW: Double heat sword x1

SW:

AW: N/A

SA: N/A

Pilot(s):  Zack/Sesina Monroe

Notes: The Blade Gundam is the replacement unit for the lost Talon Gundam. Interestingly enough, it was actually designed before the Talon was, originally being a successor unit to the White Fang. As I learned more about Gundam and Mobile suit design asthetics, I realized that it made no sense for the long-range combat White Fang to be replaced by a short-range combat model. Things like that just aren’t done, at least not in this universe.

The Blade Gundam upped the ante with a double-bladed heat sword. Though harder to control than a standard sword, it offered greater potential killing power. Add to that its Vulcan guns and the beam blade emitters on its wrists and it was a formidable opponent for the Romefeller Foundation’s Mobile Dolls and the forces of the White Fang colonial rebels.

Alternity Continued

Chapter 1-One Year War

December 31, UC0079

         The void of space near the asteroid known as A Boa Qu was a writhing, pulsing sea of absolute chaos. Earth Federation RGM-79 GM mobile suits and Ball armed space pods clashed violently with Zeon Zakus, Gelgoogs, Rick Doms and others. Battleships exchanged fire, yellow and red energy beams flashing back and forth, either to miss or strike, causing death and destruction wherever they hit. The surface guns of the great asteroid fortress added their own lethal light to the picture.

         In later years this battle would become known as the greatest and most terrible battle of the One Year War. Right now, mobile suit pilot Amuro Ray didn’t care about that. Sitting in the cockpit of the RX-78-2 Gundam, he guided the white, blue, red and gold mobile suit back and forth, protecting the Gundam’s home, the assault carrier White Base. He was also looking for his nemesis, the Zeon ace known as Char Aznable, the dreaded Red Comet. He and Char had a certain score to settle.

         “Amuro,” crackled a voice over his radio, “We’ve spotted a new type of Zeon MS and several Rick Doms headed for the reinforcement fleet. Stop them!”

         “Amuro felt a flash of intuition when he turned Gundam’s cameras towards the indicated spot.

         “Char… that has to be you in that mobile suit. Or is it an armor? Doesn’t matter, you’re going down either way.”

         Amuro was just about to accelerate towards this part of the fight when there was a bright flash of light from behind A Boa Qu and all the systems in Gundam went dark for a moment. When his screens came back on, he was surprised to see that the entire battle, MS and warships all, had ground to a sudden, inexplicable halt.

         “White Base, what was that just now?” asked Amuro. There was a crackle over the radio for a few moments before Fraw Bow’s voice came back.

         “We’re not sure what that was Amuro. Some new Zeon weapon? It’s not very effective if it affects their own troops as well. Better ignore it for right now.”

         “Roger that. Gundam heading out.”

         The pause in the battle allowed Amuro to fly almost unmolested over to where the strange, leg-less MS was resuming its attack on some Federation battleships.

         “Char!!” he roared, aiming Gundam’s beam rifle and opening fire. He wasn’t guessing, he knew the Red Comet was on that suit as clearly as if it had been broadcast in hundred foot high neon letters. Amuro was what were being called Newtypes, humans with extra-ordinary mental powers. It was the opinion of some that the emergence of Newtypes was because of man’s mass migration to the space colonies.

         Drawing closer to the huge Zeon MS, Amuro holstered his rifle in favor of his shield and a beam saber. He was just about to slash at the MS when another incredible burst of light blinded all his monitors and then all the systems in Gundam flickered on and off again. Amuro saw something gold and glittering shoot past him. He twisted in his seat to try and get a better look at it but this was a mistake, a mistake that should have cost the young pilot his life. A Gelgoog MS flew up behind Gundam and was about to stab it with a beam saber but was blasted by a bolt of blue energy. Amuro gazed wide-eyed at the MS that had just saved him from death. He thought he was having some sort of hallucination because he thought it looked like a gold-plated version of his Gundam, sunlight gleaming off it’s mirrored surface. Then it was gone, literally in the blink of an eye. It hadn’t been destroyed it was just gone. A Newtype flash of insight was all that saved Amuro from being impaled by one of the detachable, flying arms of Char’s suit. Ducking out of the way, Amuro powered up his beam saber again. It seemed that Char was quite angry with Amuro. That was aces with him as far as the young Gundam pilot was concerned. Before this day was over Char would pay. Oh yes, he would pay very dearly.

         Aidan cursed softly to herself. Only quick action on her part had saved Amuro Ray from dying much sooner than he was supposed to. It was just lucky that her Alternity was equipped with these stealth systems, or there would have been even more problems. She didn’t need to be fending off Fed and Zeon MS while searching for Eternity. Speaking of that technological terror, where was it hiding? Ducking in and around the perimeter of the massive space battle, Aidan used her scanning systems to try and pin down its location. Thanks to the mental interface in the cockpit of her Gundam, it was as if she were the mobile suit herself. She saw through its eyes and her mental command it moved. Every slight motion, even the movements of her eyeballs were tracked and copied. And hers was perhaps the only system that could detect the AI super weapon, mostly because the same stealth systems that protected her Alternity were also installed in Eternity. Suddenly alarms began going off in her cockpit. Aidan glanced up at the battle before and as she moved, so did her MS copy her every movement. Here, there and everywhere, points of light like miniature suns were sprouting across the battlefield.

         “Oh no… SARA are those what I think they are?” she said,

         “Compiling… yes, they are space/time rifts. I guess those ‘reality mines’ they kept going on about weren’t all just talk hm?”

         “I don’t need hyperbole SARA, I need options!”

         “The ALX-78 Gundam Alternity is equipped with a weapon that can close the rifts, I’m sure Eternity’s aim is to distract you with these so he can go about his business. A clever trick really, you know the Council would have a collective stroke if a MS were to land in, say, Victorian London or…”

         “SARA!”

         “Apologies mistress.”

         Sighing in annoyance, Aidan mentally selected the weapon she needed, seeing its status box pop on the HUD reticle that existed in her mind. She began firing energy bolts at the rifts, praying she wasn’t too late. There was a third bright flash of light, again behind A Boa Qu.

         “Eternity has left this space/time,” reported SARA.

         “New destination?”

         “Processing… February 22, UC0088.”

         “That’s near the end of the Gryps War… by the stars!” cried Aidan. She had been attempting to close the rifts as fast as possible, but the little buggers acted like miniature black holes, sucking in anything near them, including MS. What had horrified Aidan so much was she now saw that a rift had opened hear where Amuro and Char were dueling. She immediately dropped her cloak and poured full power into her Gundam’s propulsion, but even in doing that she could see that it was already too late.

         Amuro had him; he had him and would have finished his rival if that… whatever it was hadn’t opened up near them. From Amuro’s perspective it looked like a wormhole that he had seen in sci-fi movies. When it had appeared it had begun sucking in everything it could, including Gundam and Char’s suit. Although he had Gundam’s engines at the redlines, Amuro wasn’t so lucky. A wailing alarm announced the onboard systems had shut down the engines to prevent them from exploding. With the loss of resistance, Gundam went tumbling directly towards the rift. Light flared across the screens of his cockpit, blinding Amuro. With a thunk and a whine, all the systems in the Gundam shut down completely this time, plunging Amuro into darkness. Without warning his senses were overcome by white light and excruciating pain, like nothing he had ever experienced. Before this assault on his sanity could tear it apart, Amuro slipped into the cold, quiet bliss of unconsciousness and knew no more.

Chapter 2-End of the Line

December 7, UC0079

         The Apsalus III mobile armor rose out of the mountain like a legendary demon. Shaped as it was, like some monstrous underwater creature, it was an easy impression to get. At the center of the massive machine was it’s main cannon, now glowing with gathering power. Instead of a massive blast, it unleashed a thing beam of energy that swept out across the lines of Federation MS. At first it seemed as if the MS teams were about to be destroyed, but when the smoke and fire cleared, the Federation soldiers saw that the beam had drawn a burning line in the rocky ground in front of the Fed ground forces.

From the cockpit of his Gundam Ez8, Shiro Amada gazed up at the massive MA.

         “Everyone, listen up. I’m leaving the service,” he said. Before any of the members of Shiro’s 08^th MS Team could protest, there was a flash of light and a resounding rumble of thunder.

         “Did that thing fire again?” Terry Sanders’ voice crackled over the radio.

         “No, it’s something else!” said Karen Joshua, the third of the team’s MS pilots.

Shiro could see from his cockpit, even through a sudden rush of static across his monitors that the light came from over the jungle.

         “Hey guys,” the voice of the squad’s radar and communications specialist, Eledore Massis, buzzed over the radio, “I’m picking up a really powerful radar signature that I ain’t never seen before headed straight for that monster Mobile Armor!”

         “What?!” Shiro zoomed in his cameras on the Apsalus he saw what looked like a silver mobile suit that had landed on top of the Mobile Armor.

“Aina!” shouted Shiro. He shifted the throttles of his Gundam and the thrusters roared, lifting the Gundam towards the mountain and the Apsalus. Without warning there was another flash of light and a thunder crack. The systems in the Ez8 flickered and the thrusters cut out, crashing the huge mobile suit into a row of abandoned tenements.

         “Oh shit! What the hell is going on?” growled Shiro in frustration.

-MSGC-

         For what seemed like the three dozenth time, Aidan and her Gundam materialized in a new timeline, but also another major event period in the Universal Century timeline. She had been chasing Eternity across timelines for three subjective hours now. SARA had to stretch her computing capacity trying to calculate the potential space/time damage. They had gone from the last battle of the One Year War, to the Gryps War, to the Eve War, to the shattered world of the AW calendar, to the Cosmic Era twice, back to the UC era and a half dozen more.

Powering up her beam rifle, she swore that this was going to be the last time they would play this game. It would end here. Aiming for the silver figure of Eternity atop the Apsalus, she began firing lances of blue energy. And then she was reeling back in pain as her vision swam with red pain and it felt like a hot pike was being jabbed into her skull.

         “nnnnnyahh! Psycommu system? It integrated that already? ARGH!”

Shiro was flying in long ballistic thrust jumps towards the Apsalus when the psychic attack hit him like an entire team of MS. However he was further away and didn’t get the worst of it. Through the haze of pain, Shiro stared up at his monitors as the zoomed in view showed the strange, spindly silver MS fired some sort of large missile from its back. With a snarl, Shiro pulled his triggers and fired everything his Gundam had. A hail of machine gun fire from the Ez8’s head vulcans, chest cannon and 100mm rifle arced towards Eternity and impacted harmlessly against the AI machine. It seemed to be a useless gesture, most of the shots wildly off target due to the distance, but it did serve to distract Eternity for a single moment, as the AI devoted a second to contemplate this insect. At that moment several things happened at once. The missile detonated into a seething miniature sun that began to suck everything and anything in the vicinity into it. With the moment of distraction, Aidan punched two buttons in the holo-cockpit, one to throw up a psy-shield, and the second to activate the Alternity’s special weapon. She was about to fire the weapon when an alarm alerted her to a weapon lock. She dodged to the side just in time to avoid a blast from the Apsalus’ Mega Particle Cannon. Unfortunately, this was exactly what Eternity intended. The Alternity caught a dozen blasts straight in the torso, flipping it over and causing it to crash into the ground. It didn’t stay there long as the undeniable pull of the massive space/time rift.

         “All systems have crashed!” she snarled in annoyance, “ I’m going to kill those idiots for practically ripping of my Alternity’s design. Eternity knows exactly how to retune its weapons to disable me. Dammit it wasn’t supposed to end like this…” she said as her golden Gundam vanished into the rift. The last thing she saw was Eternity and the Apsalus vanished in a flash of light and crackling lightning.

-MSGC-

Shiro was running the Ez8’s thrusters at full throttle but he was still being drawn towards the massive energy fluctuation. Around him he could see Jet Core Boosters, Zeon MS, GM’s and Ground Battle Gundams tumbling through the air. His attention was fixed on the Apsalus. His only goal was to get to the mobile armor.

“Commander!” It was the voice of one of his teammates, Karen.

“AINA!” he screamed as Ez8 vanished into the rift.

The rift shrank down to something the size of a mobile suit’s head and floated there, crackling. Without warning, it detonated into an expanding, ring-shaped shockwave that arced up through the atmosphere and through the ground, ripping a mile-wide, mile-deep gash in the ground. And then all was quiet.

Chapter 3: Spaceship Graveyard

????

         Amuro decided he wasn’t dead. He based this conclusion on the fact that if he was thinking about trying to decide if he was dead or not would be impossible if he was actually dead so he must then, logically, be alive.

         Opening his eyes, which was an effort in and of itself, he found that he was still strapped into the cockpit of Gundam. The systems were down again, the view screens blank. Though his body felt completely drained, as if he had just gotten over a bad case of flu, Amuro reached over his right shoulder and pried open a small cover plate, revealing a single red button. He pressed and held the button until he could hear the familiar sounds of Gundam starting itself back up. One by one the various cockpit displays came back online and Amuro was immensely relieved when the screens came back on and he could look around him.

         He appeared to be floating in the midst of a massive debris field. All around him the gutted hulks of long dead space ships floated amidst the background of stars. Amuro recognized several Federation and Zeon designs but many were only vaguely familiar or outright strange. There was one derelict with what looked like huge wheels attached to it! Directly above him, Amuro could make out a huge, beautiful nebula, much obscured by the floating hulks. Wherever this place was it was in a much denser region of space than where Earth’s solar system was located as the young Newtype could actually distinguish the color of the stars from one another. However, now was not the time to really be worried about where in the universe he was at, Amuro needed to see if he could raise White Base. He was just about to activate his comm when his threat system shrieked a warning. Twisting Gundam around, Amuro saw a green, Zaku-like MS flying straight toward him, beam rifle blazing (it was actually a Geara Doga). Dodging the shots with consummate skill, Amuro waited until the strange suit was right on top of him and then slashed out with a beam saber, cleaving the green MS in half. He had no time to rest as another red-colored MS (Galbaldy this time) came at him from below, Amuro opened up with his beam rifle this time, but had trouble hitting the MS. By the time he actually destroyed it, Gundam’s shield had a few new holes in its Luna Titanium armor. Glancing at his sensors, Amuro was shocked to see a huge cloud of green/friendly dots, red/enemy, and yellow/unknown dots flashing across the screen. Just what the hell was going on here?!

         The debris field known as the Spaceship Graveyard was not so much like a graveyard anymore. As ships and MS across the field woke up, they did what most people would do in the given situation. They started shooting first and would ask questions later. A Gelgoog and a GM III came back online right in front of each other and simultaneously opened fire, killing each other instantly. A group of Virgo II Mobile Dolls formed a shield sphere with there deflectors and fired at anything that was warm and moving, blasting a few Zakus, GMs, Leos and Hizacks into space junk. A Zeon Musai-class cruiser traded broadsides with a Federation Clop-class cruiser. A team of Dra-C MS opened fire to little effect on an Earth Alliance Agamemnon-class battlecruiser. What began as a bunch of scattered skirmishes quickly evolved into an all out war, the most massive furball in history. And through it all, Gundams and mobile suits fought.

-MSGX-

         Heero Yuy had been skirting the edge of the Graveyard, analyzing the situation when he spotted a white MS in the distance. Zooming the Wing ZERO’s cameras in on the suit he noted the strange, fin-shaped apparatus attached to its back and its familiar design aesthetic.

         “Hn… a Gundam. One I don’t recognize.”

         He was in fact looking at the Nu Gundam. Aboard Nu  Gundam, an older Amuro Ray looked back at Wing ZERO, intrigued by the design of its angel-like wings.

         “Wow, look at that. That’s definitely a Gundam, but I’ve never seen any MS with a design like that. Maybe I should contact the pilot and try to figure out just what’s going on here.” He was just about to reach for the comm panel when all hell broke loose. From Heero’s point of view, he saw an unknown MS (actually a ZAFT GuAIZ) was about to ambush the white Gundam from behind. Just like that one time with Duo, Heero aimed his Buster Rifle and opened fire, the massive energy beam flying right past Nu Gundam and annihilating the GuAIZ. Amuro took a slightly different view of the life saving shot, to wit, an attempt on his own life. Amuro responded by firing back with his own beam rifle. Heero dodged out of the way, cursing as he did so.

“Dammit, now he thinks I’m the enemy.”

         To Heero’s surprise, the fins on the back of Nu Gundam separated and folded in on themselves and opened fire!

         “Great, remote weapons. They seem to be something like the Mercurious’ and Virgo’s Deflectors but these shoot back.” In response, Heero leveled the Buster Rifle and fired another massive blast of energy. Nu Gundam’s fin funnels formed a protective I-field in front of the Gundam, shielding it from the worst of the blast.

         “Damn!” cursed Amuro, “That’s one powerful rifle he’s got there. Unreasonably powerful. This is gonna be a difficult fight.”

         The Wing Gundam ZERO and the Nu Gundam continued firing at each other, each attempting to take the other down. And so Amuro Ray, a Newtype pilot with a Psycho-Frame cockpit and Heero Yuy, the Perfect Soldier with the ZERO system cockpit, began to duel.

-MSGX-

         Duo Maxwell decided that this was probably, no DEFINITELY, his most confusing day ever. One minute he and the others are fighting to stop the Libra from crashing into Earth and then all of sudden his Gundam is on the fritz, there’s funny looking MS flying around and then there’s all this white light and excruciating pain and he’s here. Right in the middle of yet another giant light-fight. Literally out of the frying pan and into the fire. Yep, this day was turning out to be a real fun ride.

         Duo was a little mollified when he ducked under a piece of debris that may or may not have been a Core Fighter at one point when he saw a large MS that looked an awful lot like a Gundam swing a massive scythe down at a pair of MS. A Jegan had been trying to guide a crippled GM back to a Federation ship when the Forbidden GUNDAM spotted them and decided to terminate them. Swinging its massive scythe in a downward arc, the Forbidden cleaved through the two MS as if they were made of aluminum and not titanium/ceramic composite. It must have noticed Duo because it turned and shot straight towards him. Duo growled and powered up his Gundam Deathscythe’s Beam Scythe and thrusted towards the Forbidden. Duo’s swing missed as the Forbidden pilot backed off at the last second. As the two Gundams faced each other, Duo grinned.

         “There’s only room for one God of Death in this universe buddy!” he said and then punched the throttles up to full, charging straight at the Forbidden, Beam Scythe raised to strike.

-MSGX-

         Zechs Merquise or rather Milliardo Peacecraft as he was calling himself these days, was just as confused as Duo. He didn’t have a lot of time to stay confused however as he was almost immediately set upon by various MS of both mundane and fantastic descriptions. Even though he didn’t know it himself, he already scored kills against Zakus, GINNs, a Nemo, several Geara Dogas, some Den’an Zons, and 4 Jenice MS. The Beam Sword and Heat Rod of his Gundam Epyon were certainly a force to be reckoned with. He was just about to slice through another Geara Doga when a beam flashed past the Epyon’s head, a little too close for comfort. Zechs turned to face his new challenger and saw a violently red MS headed straight for him, rifle spitting lances of yellow light at him.

Char Aznable, once known as Zeon’s famous ace, the Red Comet, was the pilot of that MS, known as the MSN-04 Sazabi. He didn’t know where the red Gundam had come from (like everyone else, he didn’t what was happening at all) but he sure as hell wasn’t going to let it kill another one of his Neo Zeon pilots. Firing another few blasts from his beam shot rifle caused the red Gundam to dodge up and to the right. Char aimed and fired the Sazabi’s Mega Particle Cannon, tearing a line of hot energy across space which the Epyon almost didn’t dodge if it weren’t for a piece of handy space slag. Char smirked. It seemed this red Gundam was only armed with a beam sword and a heat whip-type weapon and that would make it vulnerable to his long range guns. That view was dispelled a moment later as the Epyon curved around the debris and rocketed straight towards the Sazabi. Char tried to dodge, but Zechs anticipated his move and swung the heat rod up, catching the Sazabi on its right leg. The blow wasn’t serious enough to knock the suit’s leg off but it did dent and scorch the Gundarium armor plating. Char tried to flip forward to blast the Epyon with the Mega Particle Cannon, but Zechs curved around behind him and nearly sliced the Sazabi’s Funnel racks off.

“This pilot is good, perhaps as good as Amuro. All right then, no more games,” said Char. The two pods on the Sazabi’s back opened, realizing the six can-shaped funnels. The remote Newtype weapons immediately oriented on Zechs and opened fire.

-MSGX-

Kamille Bidan in the Zeta Gundam and Emma Sheen in the Gundam mk. II were in the thick of the fighting. They had been fighting with a squad of Marasais but these had then been shot down by a group of Virgos. They had been having a hard time with the Virgos until they had wandered right into a three way melee between a group of ZAFT GINNs and GuAIZ MS, Zeon Zakus, Rick Doms, and Gelgoogs, and Earth Alliance Moebius MA’s and Strike Dagger MS.

“Kamille I think we’re in trouble!” said Emma. The Zeta and the mk. II were flying back-to-back, firing at any MS that dared to come close.

“Really? I hadn’t realized!” Kamille shot back, trying to fire at a fast moving Taurus.

“We need to get out of this, we need to find where the Argama is,” Emma responded, resolving later to have a word with Kamille about snarkiness over the comm. If any of them were still alive by then.

A group of Rick Doms fired their bazookas at some Strike Daggers. The Dagger pilots wisely decided to take cover behind some floating debris. The rounds struck, sending shrapnel flying everywhere. A huge chunk of debris went flying towards Emma and Kamille who were forced to dodge. Emma pulled up, firing her beam rifle at an oncoming ReGelg. The ReGelg dodged to the right, straight into the guns of a Daughtress. Emma’s shots traveled on and nearly struck the MBF-02 Strike Rouge GUNDAM, piloted by Cagalli Yula Athha. Cagalli immediate oriented on the shots and fired her own rifle at Emma. Growling at this new development, Emma attempted to arc around some debris, hoping the pilot would forget her and find easier targets. Cagalli is the tenacious type though, and wasn’t about to let someone who’d just shot at her get away.

Kira, in his Freedom, had been flying alongside Cagalli called to her over the comm.

“Cagalli wait! Don’t get separated!”

“Don’t worry about me Kira. Watch your own back,” shot back Cagalli.

Emma’s threat alarm shrieked as green bolts flashed past her. Twisting around, she saw the Strike Rouge headed straight toward her.

“Tenacious aren’t we?” she rhetorically asked the oncoming MS, aiming her beam rifle and opening fire,

Kira would have followed Cagalli but a Virgo II distracted his attention. Quickly realizing that his beam rifle was useless against its shield, he drew one of his beam sabers and lunged forward, ducking under the Mobile Doll’s beam cannon and stabbing it in the torso. At the exact same time almost directly across, Amuro Ray had been firing at a Hizack. In a strange twist of converging events, a flailing Mahiroo crashed into the Hizack and knocked it out of the way at the same moment that Amuro pulled the trigger. His shots flew through the space where the Hizack had been and grazed the Strike. Kira immediately turned and fired back with his vulcans, Amuro’s Newtype reflexes being the only thing that saved him. Barely dodging Kira’s volley of beam blasts, Amuro flew towards the Strike, dodging up, down, and around to avoid being fatally hit even though a few blasts scarred Gundam’s armor. Closing to beam saber range, Amuro activated one of the beam blade weapons and slashed at Kira who blocked with his own saber. As Amuro Ray and Kira Yamato crossed blades, the Graveyard continued to tear itself apart as people who had been thrown into an unknown situation fought savagely for their very survival.

-MSGX-

Floating inside the hangar of a ruined Irish-class AEUG warship, the golden form of the Gundam Alternity bumped against the wall and began floating in the other direction as dictated by the laws of physics. Within the shell of the advanced, futuristic Gundam, the only person who could stop the battle now raging in these strange doldrums lay unconscious, oblivious to all.