Civil War

by Lord of Flies

Chapter Four: Fangs of Wolves

Before Dawn, March 11, U.C. 0079

Terra, outskirts of an Equestrian Federation airbase

I frowned. Glancing down at my pilot’s console, I tapped my finger against it. Today was my first day as an official Mobile Suit Pilot. Heh, I thought, kinda funny. I’m a Lieutenant Junior Grade, and this is my first battle.

The team, as in Master Chief Petty Officer Lucky Clover and I, had been “selected” to run a spec-ops mission prior to the first drop of Republic troops on Terra.

“Reactor,” I murmured to myself, flipping a few switches, “online.”

“Sensors… online.”

“Mono-eye… online.”

“Black box and mission recorder… online.”

My MS-06F Zaku II, the latest Zaku II designed for space combat, rose from its kneeling position. “Hey, kid.”

Lucky’s voice crackled over my radio, slightly distorting due to the nine-percent Minovsky Particle density. “You ready?”

I snorted, shaking my head. “Yes. I am.”

“Good.”

His MS-05B Zaku I came into view in front of me. He hefted up the suppressed ZMP-47D that his suit had been issued. “Can’t believe that they actually fitted a suppressor to these things and gave me one.”

He preferred the H&L-SB21K Bazooka over a ZMP. I nodded in understanding, then hefted up my ZMP-50D, also suppressed. “I’ve got more spare ammo than you, ‘cause I didn’t bring a bazooka.”

“Yeah. True. But I’ll be able to take out any land battleships that show themselves.”

“Yep.”

I pointed toward the airbase. “Let’s go. The Lieutenant General wants this place under our control by the time she brings in the cavalry.”

He walked off, heading for his objective. This was a “stealth” mission. Yeah, no. Mobile Suits are far from stealthy. You’d have to be deaf and blind to not hear one of these things coming. I began walking, toward the airbase itself.

Taking care to not knock over any trees, I scanned around. Nothing on thermal.

Wait.

A M61 tank sat three meters from my Zaku’s foot. I looked at it. No heat radiating from the engine. Smiling, I brought the massive metal foot of my Zaku down upon the M61, crushing it. “Caught them napping,” I reported to Lucky, “they’re idiots.”

“Yeah,” Lucky responded, “I agree with you.”

I advanced, keeping an eye out for any dormant M61s, crushing the ones I found. A rippling detonation off in the distance drew my attention. The airbase’s fuel depot had been hit. By something big. Lucky snarled, “Dammit!”

“What?”

“There’s a land battleship,” Lucky reported, “Big Tray-class, it spotted me.”

“They know we’re here now.”

“Yeah. Get ready for a fight, and I’m ditching this ZMP!”

“Very well! Engaging!”

Removing the suppressor on my ZMP, I fired a burst at the guard tower closest to me, shredding the structure. “Lucky, get as close as you can to that Big Tray.”

“Why? Do you want me to die?”

“No. You’re the one with artillery markers.”

“Oh. Oh! Right! Got it!”

I laughed. For a veteran pilot, Lucky sure acted dense sometimes.

Shells glanced off of my suit, drawing my attention to a previously dormant M61. It retreated as fast as it could, firing its twin cannons at me. Dodging its shots, I aimed at the tank. Haphazardly firing a burst of four rounds, I advanced on the tank. I could only imagine the sheer terror that a Zaku instilled in the Federal Ground Forces.

I put a pair of rounds into the topside of the tank, ripping it apart from the inside as its ammunition load detonated. I smiled.
“Hey, Lucky,” I quipped, “planted the markers yet?”

“No,” his response was immediate, “I’d have to throw them. I’ll get nailed if I get close.”

I frowned. “Alright,” I commanded, “find cover and wait for me there. We’ll find a way to deal with it.”

“Right.”

Running down the tree maze, I scanned for any other M61s. If they got a shot into the thinner rear armor of my Zaku, I’d be done for. There weren’t any that I saw, at least not any near me.

In my way there was a standard chain-link fence barring my way into the airbase. If I were on foot, this would have been a problem. Not so for my nearly sixty ton death mech.

I simply moved the control sticks forward, and the fence was crushed beneath the armored feet of my mobile suit.

************

Directing my MS-05B Zaku I to hide behind a hangar, I scanned around for the Lieutenant. The air traffic control tower, a tower extending from the top of a building. Four explosions appeared on the tower’s exterior. After six minutes, the cause of the explosions came into my field of view. A pea green MS-06F Zaku II, with a dark olive torso, and a commander’s spike antenna coming off its head, turned its pink mono-eye toward my suit. “Ah,” The Lieutenant said, “there you are.”

“Hey, sir.”

“You find that Big Tray?”

“Yeah,” I responded, “it’s sitting on the end of the runway over there.”

“I see.”

The Lieutenant fell silent, thinking about what to do.

“Alright,” he said, finally, “a Big Tray has a trio of triple-barreled secondary gun turrets to support the main cannon, which has a fixed-forward firing arc.

“If we destroy the turret that’s closest to us, that will leave that side undefended and allow us to cripple the warship.”

“Think that’ll work?”

“I’m not sure,” The Lieutenant replied, “but it’s the only chance we got. There won’t be any flights leaving the airbase, but the Commander wants that Big Tray destroyed or crippled, as he hopes that doing so will show the worth of the Midnight Fenrir Corps.”

I smiled, slyly, and said, “Commander Blade wants to impress the Lieutenant General? Ambitious.”

“Yeah. Yeah. I know. I don’t much care for politics in the upper echelons, so let’s get going.”

“Yep.”

The Lieutenant’s Zaku II pointed toward the edge of the hangar. “We’ll go around the edge of the hangar, and attack that turret.”

Letting The Lieutenant take the lead, I went around the corner of the hangar. The Big Tray, painted tan and gray-green in a crude attempt at camouflage, was unaware of us. “Alright. Now!”

The Lieutenant’s ZMP let loose bursts of five rounds with a pause between them. Aiming my bazooka, I frowned. “Lieutenant, conserve your ammo. Let me destroy the turret. You take the bridge.”

“Aye!”

Emptying the entirety of my bazooka’s magazine into the turret, I noticed The Lieutenant holster his ZMP on the hip armor of his Zaku, and draw his heat hawk. Once the turret was torn apart by the rockets, The Lieutenant rushed the land battleship, heat hawk blade glowing red-hot. Igniting his suit’s thrusters, The Lieutenant leapt at the bridge of the land battleship. He yelled, driving the heat hawk into the bridge, “For the New Lunar Republic!”

I merely shook my head, and reloaded my bazooka.

************

5 hours later…

An orange earth pony mare walked toward the soldiers assembled around a table in the mess hall.

As she came nearer to the assembled soldiers, she heard one of them, likely one of the Midnight Fenrir say, “And that’s when Lieutenant Breeze leapt at the Big Tray, and slashed his Zaku’s heat hawk into the bridge, yelling ‘For the New Lunar Republic!’”

“What did you do, Chief?”

“I shook my head and reloaded my bazooka,” the pilot replied, “I’d have just shot it. Lieutenant Breeze here has enough ham to cover for both of us, when he wants to be hammy, anyway.”

“Shut up! You’re hammy, too!”

“Not as much as you are, sir.”

“I am not that- Lieutenant General Applejack!”

Breeze snapped to attention, bringing his hand up into a salute. Applejack proceeded to laugh, amused by the pegasus’ reaction. “At ease, Lieutenant. You don’t need ta salute me if we’re in the mess hall.”

“Of course!”

Breeze dropped his arm to his side. He asked, “So why are you here, ma’am?”

“Ah just wanna congratulate the soldiers under mah command that allowed us ta capture this airbase.”

“Oh! Thank you!”

Breeze’s blue eyes shone with pride. A do-rag covered his pink hair, presumably to prevent the “helmet hair” that mobile suit pilots ended up sporting after battle. Other than the scar on his left cheek, there was nothing of note about his dark green fur.

“Well,” the other pilot, Master Chief Petty Officer Luck Clover, if Applejack remembered correctly, said, “thanks, I guess. I just wish we had more mobile suits for this mission. Probably would’ve been easier.”

“You know,” another voice, tired and in pain, mused, smugly, “this was to prove the worth of our unit to the Lieutenant General. I knew you could do it with a full six mobile suit force. I sent out only you two because I knew you two could do it.”

Clover stood, and saluted. “Commander Blade, sir!”

The white unicorn smiled, waving his left arm in a dismissive manner. Clover dropped his arm to his side.

Applejack looked at the unicorn, raising an eyebrow.

His left arm, hidden by his uniform sleeve and glove, had been replaced by an automail prosthesis. Similarly, both of his legs from upper shin down had also been replaced by automail. The only visible prosthesis was his right eye, which seemed tired somehow. His horn, marred by deep gouges from his injuries, shined slightly in the light. “Commander,” Applejack said, “how are you walking? Ah thought the recovery time was six months at the least.”

Blade chuckled lightly. “Can’t keep me down.”

Clover agreed, “Indeed!”

Applejack cleared her throat. “Anyway, we’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. Y’all go get some rest.”

Author's Note:

End of Act One.

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