Mobile Suit Gundam SEED - Soldiers of Old

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Phase 08 - A Time to Kill

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“Cagalli!” Athrun exclaimed, staring in disbelief at the Strike Rouge as it held the Diablo Gundam back. “Get back! This guy’s good!”

“Then let’s fight him together!” Cagalli shot back. The Diablo backed away, beam saber raised, and charged again, this time towards the Rouge. Athrun shouldered Cagalli aside to deflect the blow with his shield— the Rouge charged up towards the Diablo and rammed into it with its own shield, throwing it back. “I can fight too!” Cagalli snapped.

Inside the Diablo, Jack snarled furiously, opening fire with his beam cannons. “There’s two of them now!” he growled. “Well you’ll need more than that!”

The Justice Gundam roared forwards towards the Diablo, saber raised— in the cockpit, Athrun ground his teeth as the two Gundams came together with a crash.

“Cagalli!” Athrun screamed. “Get around him!”

The Strike Rouge took off, arcing around the Justice’s side and leveling its bazooka off— the Diablo surged forward, throwing the Justice back and pausing to hurl both of its beam boomerangs at the Rouge, sawing its bazooka in two.

“Dammit!” Cagalli shouted, hurling the bazooka’s sparking remains aside. The Diablo charged again, pushing the Justice down towards the ocean— and then, with a roar of engines, it somersaulted off the Justice’s shield, catching both of its boomerangs on the rebound, and charged up towards the Strike Rouge.

“Shoot him!” Athrun yelled— the Justice drew its beam rifle and squeezed off a shot up towards the Diablo. The Alliance Gundam spiraled underneath the shot and lunged up into the Rouge’s face, bringing its beam saber down with a crash onto the Rouge’s shield.

Inside the Diablo, Jack grinned animally. “Are you afraid?!” he cackled. “Are you afraid?!” The Diablo kicked the Rouge in the stomach, sending it stumbling back— and with a flash, it hurled both its boomerangs back at the reeling machine.

A pair of beam blasts lanced up into the sky from down below, picking both boomerangs out of the sky. Jack looked down below angrily— and down inside the Justice, Athrun narrowed his dull, lightless eyes.

“Stay away from his front!” Athrun shouted to Cagalli, as the Justice took off, switching to its saber. “I’ll handle him up close! Try to shoot him from behind!”

The Justice brought its saber down on the Diablo with a crash, pounding down onto the Diablo’s own saber. Athrun clenched his teeth— one way or another, he had to protect Cagalli.

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A beam shot went searing by the Duel Gundam’s left shoulder— Yzak responded with a rifle shot of his own, driving back the attacking Strike Dagger. As it stumbled back, Yzak followed it up with a railgun shot that blew off the Dagger’s head and knocked it dead into the water. Another Dagger leveled its beam rifle off to his left, aiming at the Megami’s starboard Gottfried cannon— Yzak squeezed off a shot of his own and blew the Dagger apart before it could fire.

“There’s so many of them,” he grunted. “Are they sending their whole force or what?”

Another Strike Dagger came storming up the beach, beam rifle blazing. Yzak deflected its shots and fired back from behind his shield, knocking its rifle out of its hand. He moved to follow up—

A thunderous explosion sent the Duel stumbling backward, smoke rising from the ground and the Duel’s blackened shield. Yzak growled furiously as he quickly put the Duel back on its feet, looking up ahead. He found three destroyers closer to the shore than the rest of the fleet, and they were shelling the coast.

“Shit!” he shouted. “Megami, three of those ships— ”

“We see them!” Milly cut him off. “But we can’t let up on that Archangel over our heads!”

The Duel leapt aside as another shell pounded into the sand, sending a cloud of dust and smoke billowing up overhead.

“Then I’ll do something about it!” Yzak snapped. “Dearka, do you copy?!”

There was a burst of static, and then an annoyed voice. “What the hell do you want?! I’m busy!”

“We’re going after those ships!” Yzak shot back. “The Murasames can handle defending the ship!”

Another burst of static answered— Yzak glanced across the beach and saw the Buster reeling from a direct hit to its torso. The Phase Shift emerged blackened but otherwise undamaged, as the Buster balanced itself.

“Easier said than done!” Dearka snapped. He paused to duck under a Strike Dagger’s beam shot and blow it away with his gunlauncher. “You go first and I’ll cover you!”

Yzak snorted derisively. “Fine, be a pussy,” he answered. The Duel vaulted up into the air, showering missiles on the Strike Daggers and taking off over their heads. Dearka fired a high-energy rifle blast into the Daggers after them, cutting down three of them as they were distracted by the Duel.

Yzak eyed the three destroyers up ahead as he dodged their shells, and charged towards them.

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The Dark Dagger L shuddered as the Aegis brought a punishing beam saber blow down on its shield. Barbosa narrowed his eyes at his crimson foe as his Dagger rattled. The Desert Tiger was no pushover…but it was no helpless Eurasian tank corps that he was facing, either.

Seizing one of his Stilettos, Barbosa brought it down like a dagger towards the Aegis’s shoulder armor, struggling to embed it in the Phase Shift surface. The Aegis shrugged it off and surged forward— Barbosa somersaulted over the Aegis’s head, jetting away, but a moment later, the red machine hurled Barbosa’s own Stiletto back at him. It exploded in midair, showering the Dagger with shrapnel and forcing it to pull back behind its shield.

“Dammit!” Barbosa growled. The Aegis whirled around, opening fire with its beam rifle— Barbosa ducked aside and released his few remaining missiles, sending them streaking up towards the Aegis. But with practiced ease, his crimson foe darted aside, taking them down with a CIWS burst. “He can’t keep this shit up forever!”

Inside the Aegis, Andy grinned and watched the Dagger charge, beam saber drawn and raised. “Only one of you left!” he laughed. The Dagger attacked with its saber, but Andy easily parried the blow with his own, throwing the Aegis back and pelting the Dagger with CIWS shots. Chips of the Dagger’s armor went flying as it rocketed out of Andy’s line of fire. “Don’t go too far, or I’ll have to chase you!”

The Dagger charged again— Andy stabbed forward with his saber, forcing the Dagger to stop its own attack in order to block Andy’s attack. The Aegis ignited the saber on its right foot and sliced a fearsome gash across the Dagger’s torso.

Inside his sparking Dagger, Barbosa cursed and opened fire with his CIWS guns, only to watch the bullets ricochet off the Aegis’s armor.

“Goddammit!” he shouted. “Where the hell are Carlos and Oliver?!”

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Murrue gripped the armrests of her chair as the Megami’s bridge quaked under another near miss by the destroyers in the gulf. They had to do something about them— the Megami’s laminate armor was no use against solid shells.

“The Duel and Buster are going to attack those destroyers,” Milly reported, as the bridge shook again.

“We need to support them somehow,” Murrue answered. “Romero, can we fire the Valiants?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he responded, “but we’ll need to reroute power first.”

Murrue looked back towards the sky, as the Mephistopheles curved around for another attack. It turned again in midair, firing a blast off to the side, as the Strike Gundam pounded a beam shot against the ship’s laminated armor.

Inside the Strike Gundam, Mwu ground his teeth as his shots slammed against the Mephistopheles’ hull and had no effect.

“Now I know how our enemies feel,” he grunted. “This stuff’s a pain in the ass!”

The Mephistopheles opened fire with a salvo of anti-ship missiles. The Strike spiraled up into the air, missiles streaking up after it. Mwu grinned and cut the thrusters, dropping down and destroying the incoming missiles with a CIWS blaze. He plunged through the smoke and opened fire again, pounding more shots against the Mephistopheles’ hull.

“As long as I can distract you guys, that’ll do!” he yelled. “Megami, do something about those destroyers!”

Down below, aboard the Megami, Murrue glanced over at Romero. “Reroute enough energy to the Valiants to get them working!” she ordered. A near miss rattled the bridge. “Hurry!”

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The Daggers were thinning out by now, Dearka noted, to the point where he figured it would be impossible for them to break through the Megami’s CIWS fire. He idly wondered exactly how many rounds they had left as the Buster scanned the gulf. Three destroyers were out there, and Yzak was fighting through mobile suits and missiles to get to them. They would never see him coming— hopefully.

The Buster took off along the coastline, leaping up and activating its engines to skim over the water, guns deployed. The Daggers turned to open fire, but the Megami’s CIWS kept them back behind their shields. Dearka leveled off his energy rifle, but a beam shot from one of the Daggers held him off, and he backed away to fire off a salvo of missiles instead.

“Dammit,” he grunted, turning to fire on the Dagger and force it back behind its shield. “I’ll have to deal with them first!”

The Daggers turned, standing knee-deep in the water, and fired back with their rifles. Dearka skimmed along the surface of the water, dodging their shots, and lunged up into the air, flamboyantly combining his rifles and pounding a high-energy blast into the Daggers’ ranks, destroying three of them.

“You guys will have to do better than that!” Dearka laughed, taking off again and dodging more return fire. The Buster leapt up again, this time switching to its gunlauncher and firing down into the water between the Daggers. As a massive column of seawater rose up around them, Dearka landed in the surf, switched to his high-energy rifle, and fired again— and three more explosions inside the column of water.

Flashing a grin, Dearka took off again towards the destroyers.

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“Lee,” Tapang’s voice growled through the Mephistopheles’ bridge. “The enemy mobile suits are starting to push back my Dagger battalion.”

Lee cast a grim glance down at the Megami, as it fired another near miss with its Gottfrieds towards his ship. He glanced again at the Strike Gundam, as the Mephistopheles’ own Gottfrieds struggled to hold it off. With this, he could hardly afford to fire on the Megami again…and Tapang’s fleet was beginning to take fire.

“Hold them off for as long as you can,” Lee said. “We need to take out the ship above all. The mobile suits will be easy pickings after that.”

“I hesitate to call any of these foes ‘easy pickings,’ Lee,” Tapang answered. “My ships are not well-equipped to fight off mobile suits. If we are attacked— ”

“Then I’ll move in and abandon the attack on the ship,” Lee cut him off. “They can’t move anyway.” He gripped his armrests as the ship rattled from another beam shot pounding against its hull. “Keep your destroyers in place, shelling the coast, until the last moment before you pull them back. We can’t let this opportunity go.”

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Cagalli cursed as the Strike Rouge went into a dizzying nosedive. Behind her, a storm of missiles from the Diablo Gundam came streaking in after her. She pulled up as she approached the ocean’s surface, pulling away as the missiles slammed into the water and exploded, and the Rouge pulled up ahead, back into the air.

Up above, the Justice and Diablo locked sabers again, with both pushing against each other with the help of their engines. Cagalli leveled off her beam rifle and opened fire— the Diablo pushed off the Justice’s shield with its legs, ducking aside as the beam shot tore between the two Gundams.

“Get behind him!” Athrun shouted. Cagalli jetted to the left as the Diablo returned fire with its CIWS. The Justice threw itself back down at the Diablo, beam saber raised, bringing the two machines crashing together again. Cagalli skirted around the Diablo’s back, leveling off her beam rifle— but before she could fire, the Diablo had somersaulted over the Justice’s head, kicking the Justice in the back as it did, and took off again.

Inside the Justice, Athrun scowled as he whirled around, opening fire with his beam cannons. The Diablo dove up through the air with a flashy somersault, hurling both of its beam boomerangs down at the Justice. The Strike Rouge lunged up over the Justice’s head to shoot them down with its beam rifle, taking aim at the Diablo itself next.

Instead, the Diablo opened fire with its own beam cannons, forcing the Justice and Rouge back behind their shields. It charged forward, saber drawn, and kicked the Justice aside, stabbing forward with its saber. Cagalli parried the blow with her shield and squeezed off a shot with her beam rifle, only to watch it land harmlessly against the Diablo’s shield.

“Dammit!” she shouted, taking off over the Diablo’s head before it could follow up. “This guy is unstoppable!”

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The Strike Gundam rattled as a missile exploded a little too close by. Mwu grunted as more CIWS bullets bounced off the Strike’s frame, and he hid his rifle behind his shield, knowing that the CIWS would rip it out of his hands if he left it exposed. The Strike pitched down towards the Mephistopheles again, opening fire with its beam rifle and this time aiming for one of the ship’s exposed Valiant railguns— but the ship edged to the side, and Mwu’s shot went singing by the railgun, just missing.

“Whoever’s at the helm of that thing is pretty good,” Mwu grumbled. Another missile came streaking up towards the Strike— Mwu shot it down with his beam rifle and followed up with another rifle shot down below, towards one of the Gottfrieds. Again, the Mephistopheles made a tiny course adjustment that let it slide by unharmed— again it returned fire, this time with the other Gottfried, forcing Mwu to duck to the side.

He glanced down towards the gulf as the Strike rose into the air, out of the range of the CIWS. Down below, the Duel and Buster were trying to attack a trio of destroyers that had moved forward from the fleet in the gulf, and were shelling the coast. So far, it didn’t appear that they were having any luck. He looked back at the Mephistopheles, as it curved around for another pass at the Megami, only to be stopped by a wall of Gottfried fire. They could handle themselves.

Mwu cut the Strike’s thrusters and turned to plunge down towards the destroyers. The Mephistopheles sent a wave of missiles after him— he fired a beam rifle shot into their ranks to wipe them out, and roared down towards the destroyers.

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“You guys can’t stop me now!” Yzak shouted, as the Duel vaulted into the air from the water’s surface. A trio of Strike Daggers across the bay had rushed in to water up to their shoulders, firing back with their beam rifles, but the Duel darted through the air and fired back with its beam rifle, taking down one of the Daggers and rushing towards the destroyer on the right. The destroyer’s main gun boomed— the shell clipped the Duel’s right shoulder, sending it spiraling down into the water. Yzak cursed as he fired the booster, pushing the Duel out of the water before the engines could be waterlogged. The destroyer opened fire again with its main cannon, but this time Yzak managed to skirt around the shell, letting it land in the sea and throw up a massive column of water.

“I don’t think so!” Yzak snapped, taking off along the water’s surface. More shots came down in the water around him— he snapped his attention towards the rest of the fleet, as it opened fire with another salvo. The Duel rocketed into the air under the second salvo, as it blasted more towers of water into the air. Yzak glanced over his shoulder at the destroyer below him as it fired a swarm of missiles.

“There’s got to be some way through all this!” he growled, taking off again and letting the missiles pass by under his feet. Spiraling in midair, he squeezed off a railgun shell that blew one of the destroyer’s CIWS guns apart— but the main cannon boomed again, nearly hitting the Duel a second time.

Yzak dropped down towards the ship, firing his own CIWS guns and scarring the ship’s hull. He landed with a crash, shoving the destroyer’s bow down into the water and lifting its stern out of the sea. “There!” The Duel snapped its beam rifle into position and fired into the destroyer’s bridge, wiping it out with a blaze. More shots came down around the destroyer from the rest of the fleet, but Yzak ducked under the destroyer’s hull, letting one of the shells slice through the air over his head— and with a crash, he fired a railgun shell into the destroyer’s missile array. With a thunderous blast that sent the Duel reeling off the ship’s deck, the vessel broke in two, and the remains were quick to slip beneath the waves.

Yzak turned back towards the Strike Daggers, as they staggered back towards him, and took off.

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Somersaulting through the air, Dearka grinned wildly as shells and missiles exploded around him, aiming for the destroyer on the left. They couldn’t stop him at this point.

A Strike Dagger rose up from the sea, climbing aboard the destroyer, followed by two more. Dearka narrowed his eyes as they opened fire, and ducked down towards the ocean’s surface, dodging their beams. The destroyer opened fire with missiles, but Dearka took off again, skimming along the water, letting the missiles crash into the sea and explode behind him. He stormed towards the destroyer’s hull, leaping up at the last second to dodge another salvo of beams— and as he passed over the ship, he fired both his high-energy rifle and gunlauncher, destroying the destroyer’s main gun and one of the Daggers.

“Good enough!” he shouted, stopping himself over the water and coming around for a second pass. Explosions along the surface of the water stopped him, throwing the Buster back— cursing, he glared over at the rest of the fleet, as showered his position with cannon fire. “They’re gonna hit their own ship!” he exclaimed, ducking as a shell passed over his shoulder. “Are they mad?!”

CIWS fire from the stricken destroyer pelted the Buster’s armor— Dearka took off again, racing forward and circling around the stern of the ship, as more shells and missiles pounded into the water around him. He took aim with his high-energy rifle again, firing at the destroyer’s hull just above the waterline. A thunderous blast rocked the ship over to its side, ripping the hull open. Seawater poured in as the two remaining Strike Daggers struggled to hold on— just as a misaimed shot from one of the destroyers in the distance slammed into the remaining Dagger on the stern, knocking it into the ocean. Dearka fired off his last set of missiles, pounding them all into either the last Dagger on the ship’s deck or the deck itself. The Dagger vanished in a puff of smoke and fire, while the destroyer disappeared beneath the sea.

Dearka smirked and took off back towards the Megami.

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With his Dark Dagger L throwing sparks, Barbosa brought his saber down on the Aegis’s shield, hoping to drive it down towards the ocean and into the range of the fleet’s guns. The three destroyers that Tapang had moved forward to shell the coast were being torn apart— two of them were already on their way to the bottom of the gulf, and the third probably would not be long in joining them.

Beam shots from the Aegis snapped his attention back to reality— he ducked aside from them and charged back into the Aegis’s face, stabbing forward with his saber, only to see the Aegis parry the attack with his own saber. The Dagger opened fire with its CIWS, kicking the Aegis back, and Barbosa deployed his last Stiletto, hurling it into the Aegis’s chest. The blast sent the Aegis spiraling back down towards the ocean— Barbosa grinned and charged after it.

Inside the Aegis, Andy shook his head— that was what he got for letting his guard down. Explosions rocked the mobile suit’s frame, and Andy cast an anxious glance over his shoulder. The enemy fleet was firing shells— and the Dagger had just forced him into their line of fire.

Andy used his shield to parry the Dagger’s follow-up saber strike. “Whoever you are, you’ve got guts to follow me in here!” Andy said with a grin. “But let’s see how long you last here without Phase Shift!”

Andy took off again, ducking aside to dodge an incoming shell as he did. The Dagger followed, beam saber raised, as shells and missiles exploded around it. Andy whirled around with his saber, blocking its attack, just as he heard one of the guns below boom again.

“Now or never!”

Inside the Dagger, Barbosa ground his teeth as the Aegis rocketed away backwards. He raised his saber to charge after the retreating Gundam, but the Aegis boosted up into the air—

The Dagger rattled as a shell from the fleet below blew off its right arm.

“Dammit!” Barbosa yelled. He glared up at the Aegis as it came back down, sabers ignited, and rocketed backward to dodge its killing blow. Barbosa opened fire with his CIWS, taking off backwards and angling for the Mephistopheles.

He glared over his shoulder at the Aegis. “I’ll look forward to our next fight, Desert Tiger…”

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“YOU BOTH CAN’T BEAT ME!” Jack shrieked, as the Diablo and Justice locked sabers. Behind him, the Strike Rouge opened fire with its beam rifle, but the Diablo again ducked aside and forced the Justice back on its heels. “I can handle you both!”

The Justice came streaking in again, saber raised, and brought it down with a crash on the Diablo’s shield, forcing it back. Jack stared up furiously at the Justice as his vision began to blur— he felt weakness wash through him like ice water, loosening his death grip on the Diablo’s controls.

“Jack!” he heard a voice say. “Your vitals are falling! Return to the ship!”

Darkness enveloped him as he felt his mobile suit take off into the air and curve around towards something, presumably the ship. He glanced back at the Justice and Strike Rouge as they quizzically watched him go, and wondered who they were.

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The Sukarno shook as a missile came down into the water nearby. Tapang clutched the railing, glaring up ahead at the Megami. They had been trapped in the sand, and yet they had still managed to fend off his fleet and the Mephistopheles. He had to admit, they were better fighters than he had given them credit for.

“Admiral, the Hanoi has been sunk!” one of the deckhands shouted.

“They’re better fighters than I thought,” Tapang grunted. “Call back our mobile suits! Fire the retreat flares and contact the Mephistopheles! And send out the Jakarta to pick up survivors!” He glared up at the Mephistopheles as his crew scurried to work, wondering how Lee would take this.

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To be continued…