Mobile Suit Gundam SEED TWILIGHT

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Phase 49 - Little Girl Soldier

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Grand Admiral James MacIntyre watched with steely eyes as the fleet let loose its first devastating volley. Satisfyingly, four of the Resistance's warships crumpled and split apart under the wall of fire. If they kept up fire like that, then the rest of the plan wouldn't even be necessary.

Up ahead, the admiral could see the long hull and massive guns of a warship of World War II vintage. It was a little sad that such a ship would have to end up on the bottom, but if the Resistance wanted a fight, it was a fight they were going to get.

"Move Rodriguez and Carson's wings forward," he ordered. "Give them another broadside— no misses this time!"

The guns boomed again, and another ship snapped in two and slipped beneath the waves. MacIntyre steeled himself. The enemy fleet was moving forward.

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The flickering and vanishing human lives had grown to such a figurative roar in the back of Shinn Asuka's consciousness that he put them aside as a long, continuous mass of death. He scanned the skies, filled as they were with smoke and fire. A squad of Windams rose up before him, beam rifles raised; Shinn darted over their heads with a cloud of afterimages and rained beam fire down on them, taking down two of their number before they could respond. The surviving two whirled around, opening fire again; the Destiny was gone, blurs and Mirage Colloid particles in its place, and with a crash Shinn tore down the third Windam with his left-hand palm cannon. The fourth Windam brought its rifle to bear— only for Shinn to chop it in half effortlessly with his anti-ship sword.

The familiar white lightning bolt cracked the air in front of him, and Shinn hurled the Destiny aside as a pulsing wave of beams shot by his field of vision. He snapped his attention skyward—

"You three again...!"

The Strike Noir, Blu Duel, and Verde Buster came crashing down upon the Destiny with a blaze of beam shots.

Sven fixed his eyes on the Destiny. "Shams, Mudie, Pattern D!"

The Verde Buster and Blu Duel darted apart laterally and leveled off their rifles, opening up with a withering barrage of beams. The Destiny darted skyward; the two Alliance mobile suits traced its path with their fire, ignoring the glimmering afterimages. Shinn cursed and moved to drop back down into close range—

Instead, the Strike Noir rushed into his face and pounded him with a succession of overhead sword hacks.

"What the— ?!" Shinn threw the Destiny back, as the Verde Buster and Blu Duel opened fire again and the Noir darted out of the way. "He flew through his wingmen's fire!"

"Drive him back up!" Sven barked; Shams and Mudie tightened their fire, forcing the Destiny higher into the air, where Sven struck again. Shinn snarled in frustration, ducked beneath one of the Noir's sword strokes, and slammed the Noir back with a powerful horizontal swing.

"Feeling the pressure yet, bitch?!" Shams cried, and landed a railgun shell on the Destiny's chest, knocking it back as the Noir regained control.

Shinn ground his teeth as the Noir came streaking in for another round.

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Sparks flew as the Infinite Justice Gundam ripped in half another Windam with its beam blade, and Athrun whirled around to face the survivors. Two were left of the squad— and then only one, as the Savior speared one of them on a plasma cannon volley. As the lone survivor jetted upward for the safety of distance, Athrun leveled off his rifle and picked it out of the sky.

"We're never gonna get anywhere like this," Viveka breathed, the Savior alighting next to the Justice. "They must have thousands more where they came from."

Athrun glanced up ahead, and the two Gundams darted apart as another salvo ripped through the air. He turned his eyes over his shoulder, finding a squad of BABIs from Carpentaria rising into the air behind him, returning the new Windam squad's fire.

"Commander Zala, we'll cover you," one of their pilots said. "Admiral Fukube is requesting mobile suit support. He's closing in to engage the enemy at point blank range."

"What?!" Viveka cried. "That's suicide! At that range they'll get torn to shreds!"

"It's better than sitting on the beach, waiting to die," Athrun answered. "We're on our way." He whirled around and fired off another round of beam fire, forcing the Windams aside, and darted through the opening with a blast of engine exhaust, the Savior close behind him. He tuned the feeling out as he felt the Windams turn their fire on the BABIs and tear them out of the sky— no looking back.

"God, what a clusterfuck this all is," groaned Viveka. "Fukube's ships are fucking museum pieces. He's not going to do any good."

Athrun narrowed his eyes at the mass of dark shapes in the water before him. "Then we will."

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"I should have known you'd be here again."

Emily fixed her eyes on the two black mobile suits blazing towards her— the Slaughter Windam and IWSP Windam she remembered well from Volgograd and Novorossiysk. They both darted apart, and the IWSP Windam showered the Twilight with shellfire. Emily ducked beneath it, switching from her rifle to her beam saber as the Slaughter Windam charged at her, and with a single stroke she tore the Windam's beam rifle in two.

The Windam whirled around, ditching its rifle and drawing a saber of its own in one fluid motion, and Emily brought down her own blade to stop the attack. The IWSP Windam dropped in, sword raised— Emily jerked her mobile suit to the side, bringing up the Twilight's knee to slam into the IWSP Windam's chest. She brought down her saber towards its exposed waist—

Instead of a deathblow, it crashed down against the Slaughter Windam's blade, and the IWSP Windam darted to safety. Emily blinked in surprise when her auxiliary screen flickered to life, and she saw the same young face as from Volgograd.

"So," he said with a scowl, "it really is you again."

The Twilight put its strength behind a powerful saber swing to hurl the Slaughter Windam back. It righted itself in an instant, and the pilot fixed Emily with a furious glare.

"Don't think you're getting away this time, little girl," he snapped. "I'm here to finish what we started in Volgograd."

"What, mass murder?" Emily shot back.

"No," the young man said, "I'm here to kill you!"

The two Windams raised their blades and charged.

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"Three Siegfried-class carriers in range," Burt announced on the bridge. "Heat signatures suggest they're getting ready to drop mobile suits."

In the captain's chair, Meyrin glanced over at Chen. "Weapon status?"

"Tristans charged, Isolde loaded, Tannhäuser charge at 68 percent."

Meyrin fixed her sight on the aircraft in the lead. "Then let's draw some blood. Tristans, Isolde, target the Siegfrieds and fire!"

With a great rumble through its decks, the Minerva let loose a blistering volley of firepower. The shells lanced forward and smashed through the first Siegfried plane's prow, knocking it backward as though it had been struck by a fist. As the first plane listed and sank from the clouds, the Tristans opened up next on the two aircraft on the first's flanks, ripping through both with a blaze of fire.

"Oh, kickass!" cried Roxy, pumping her fist in the air. "That's never worked before!"

"Malik, maintain altitude," Meyrin ordered. "Parsifal launchers, stand by; we'll let them come to us."

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The pressure sliced across Rau's consciousness like a knife, and he lit up with an eager grin as he whirled the Legend Gundam around. Mere Windams piloted by regular pilots were an adequate appetizer, but what approached now was the main course. It was only a black Slaughter Windam, with deep maroon instead of blue and the Eastern cross stamped onto its right shoulder, but by the pressure radiating from inside, Rau knew that it could only be Crayt Markav.

"Downgrading to a Windam, are you?" he cackled, and turned to bring his rifle to bear. The Slaughter Windam darted around his blasts with characteristic nimbleness and returned his fire, and Rau eagerly stashed his rifle in favor of a beam javelin. Sword-fighting was far more fun anyway.

The Windam jerked up as Rau tore apart its beam rifle, and retaliated with a saber strike against the Legend's beam shield. "So I've finally found you," Crayt snarled. "I've finally got you cornered!"

"Isn't that what you said about Hormuz?" Rau chuckled, and surged forward, throwing the Windam back. The black mobile suit lashed out with its right leg, kicking the Legend across the face; before Crayt could make good of the opening, Rau stabbed the javelin forward and deflected her killing saber stroke.

"The Resistance will be destroyed here, even if you aren't," Crayt shot back. "And even if you survive, you will be hunted by God Himself!"

Rau grinned. "I've heard that before." Crayt growled in fury and stormed forward.

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"Damn, they've improved," grunted Shinn, the Destiny rattling under the Strike Noir's relentless sword blows. Shinn seized his chance to rush forward, slamming his Gundam's knee into the Noir's torso and knocking it back. With a crash, he brought down his Arondight against the Noir's two blades, punching the mobile suit aside—

His instincts screamed, and he threw the Destiny back just in time to avoid a vicious saber swipe from the Blu Duel. It tore towards him again and the Destiny shook as the Blu Duel hurled a trio of Stilettos into its face. Shinn shook his head and yanked the Destiny downward— just as the Blu Duel stabbed through the smoke with its saber.

"You must think you're clever or something!" Mudie snapped, even as she fell back with a volley of blasts from her right-hand beam gun. Shinn dodged them effortlessly— but the Noir was there a moment later, pounding the Destiny's Arondight with another string of sword strokes. A pulsing column of energy flashed by the Destiny through one of its afterimages, singing the armor; Shinn snapped his attention up towards the Verde Buster, pouring firepower down on him. Then the Noir was upon him again, swords flashing in the morning sun.

"That's it," Shinn snarled, "now you're pissing me off!"

The Noir stormed forward, blades held back for another round, and the seed fell before Shinn's eyes.

A moment later, he slammed the Destiny bodily into the Noir, knocking it wide of its target. The Verde Buster lined up for another shot, but Shinn launched himself over it. The Blu Duel was there instantly, saber held high for a killing blow—

"I don't think so!"

Shinn thrust up the Destiny's left hand, igniting the palm cannon and catching the Blu Duel's beam saber blade on the palm cannon's shining energy. Mudie's eyes went wide in disbelief.

"Wha— he caught it?!" The Blu Duel rattled and her world shook as the Destiny rammed its knee into the machine's torso. "Dammit! How the hell can you even catch a beam saber blade?!" Shinn raised his sword for the deathblow—

"Not so fast, jackass!" screamed Shams, putting a beam cannon blast between the Destiny and Blu Duel. "Sven, wake up already!"

Sven shook his head furiously. "Keep the pressure on him," he ordered. "We'll take him down yet!"

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"Oh, for fuck's sake," groaned Auel. "Not one of those."

Standing on the beach amid a heap of flaming wreckage— most of which, Sting recalled bitterly, was from the Resistance— the Chaos, Gaia, and Abyss turned their sights towards the sea. The ground shook as claws came down and a Gelzuge mobile armor pulled itself out of the surf, glistening with wet metal in the morning sun.

"Okay," Sting said, "no big deal, we'll just get in close— "

A wave of firepower erupted from behind the Gelzuge, and Sting cursed as the three Gundams dove for cover, and a squadron of Ground Windams came streaking over the waves with blazing beam rifles.

"Fucking hell," Auel snarled. "No fair!"

The Gaia stepped forward, eyes flashing, and Sting and Auel turned towards Stella in surprise. "Leave that mobile armor to Stella."

"Wait, Stella, on your own— ?" Sting started, but the Gaia lunged forward, vaulted over the Gelzuge's wave of beam fire, and came down with a crash and a drawn beam saber.

"Uh," started Auel, "Sting? Why is Stella hulking out here?"

The Ground Windams came charging in, beam rifles alight, and Sting lifted off his gunbarrels and jumped into the air. "Oh, whatever, Auel! Let's go!"

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Beam sabers clashed and metal strained as Emily took on Grey and Merau's Windams in a vicious two-on-one swordfight. The IWSP Windam somersaulted over her head, whirling around for a killing slash at the Twilight's exposed back; Emily turned halfway around, punching forward with her beam shield to stop the blade cold. The Slaughter Windam drew back its saber; Emily jammed her own blade into its path, leaving the Twilight struggling against a Windam on each of its arms.

"You've killed enough of our comrades," hissed Grey. "I'm ending this, Angel of Death!"

Emily scowled at the sound of her father's name for her and lunged towards the Slaughter Windam, pushing it backward and pounding it with a downward saber hack. The IWSP Windam charged in from behind, sword held out to stab the Twilight's back; Emily whipped around to smack the sword wide of its target with her saber, and then slam her blade down onto the Windam's shield. The Slaughter Windam rose up again, beam saber ready; the Twilight rocketed skyward as Grey's Windam brought its blade down.

"You must not understand what you've done!" Grey cried. "You're messing up the entire world! So I'll kill you!"

"Try it!" Emily shot back, knocking the Windam back down as it charged for another swordfight. The IWSP Windam rose up behind her and she turned to face it—

Instead, her instinct rippled up through her and she went the Twilight diving to the side— just as a pulsing wave of red energy blew off the Windam's Striker pack and right arm. The smoking, ruined machine went plummeting towards the water.

"Merau!" Grey screamed, and snapped his eyes skyward. Emily darted aside again to dodge another blast, this one clearly aimed at her, and cringed at the hulking shadow of a Zamzazar mobile armor dropping down from the heavens.

The Zamzazar's eyes flashed and it turned its guns towards the Twilight, forcing Emily back on the defensive.

"Julian, what the hell?!" Grey yelled. "Check your fucking fire! You took down Merau!"

Heedless, the Zamzazar barreled forward, beam cannons blazing. Emily scowled down at it as she dodged its blasts.

"I guess I'll have to take care of you, too!"

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Another Resistance mobile suit burst into flames and exploded under the Charlemagne's withering firepower. From the bridge, Danilov watched as Chiao Xu's legions threw themselves against the Charlemagne's jet-black armor, all in vain. A Jet Dagger L came screaming towards the bridge tower; the CIWS emplacements alone shredded it like tissue paper.

"The Minerva is targeting the air carrier fleet," Vera reported. "The Volga, Don, and Columbia have already gone down. The St. Lawrence and Vistula are under attack."

Danilov cracked a grin. "Not anymore they aren't. Find their location and put a full salvo on them. It's time we announced our presence," he paused to scan the skies, "and settle our score."

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Shinn clenched his fists around the Destiny's controls as the Alliance's three machines intensified their fire around him. The Noir stormed forward again, blades drawn, and swiped relentlessly after the Destiny and through its afterimages. The Blu Duel and Verde Buster tightened their fire around the Destiny's flight course, singing its armor with near-misses.

The Verde Buster leveled off its combined rifles for another pulsing blast. Shinn lunged over it, only for the Noir to rush into his face and pound him back with a string of sword strokes. The Blu Duel showered him with beam fire, knocking him even further back and letting the Noir launch another assault.

"Very clever, guys," Shinn snarled, "but you can't keep this up forever!"

With that, the Destiny raised its sword as the Noir charged in for another attack— but then jerked to the side, letting the Noir rush by and slash through nothing but air. Instead, the Destiny charged towards the Verde Buster, slicing past its furious beam fusillade. He brought down his sword onto its desperately-deployed heat bayonets, driving the green mobile suit back. The Blu Duel lunged into the Destiny's path, beam saber out to parry its sword, and Shinn bit back a curse. He sent the Destiny vaulting skyward as the Noir came in from behind with a killing slash.

"Dammit," Shinn grunted, "I just need a mistake..."

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The Gelzuge swiped furiously at the Gaia Gundam with its beam-tipped claws, but Stella had no fear. This thing was easy to beat.

The Gaia somersaulted over a scissoring swing and lunged forward. The Gelzuge brought its beam rifles to bear, but too late as the Gaia brought its saber across through both of its rifles. The Gelzuge stabbed forward with its claws, and the Gaia ducked beneath its attack and darted backwards to relative safety. The Gelzuge let loose a salvo of beam cannon shots from the insides of its claws, forcing the Gaia back further behind its shield, and Stella narrowed her eyes at her creeping adversary.

"I didn't know it could do that," she muttered, "but it won't be enough!"

Stella sprung forward, planting her machine's shield into the sand and pushing up into the sky with her left arm. The Gelzuge followed her with a volley of beam fire, and Stella whirled around for the finishing attack, beam saber raised high—

Instead, the sky filled with beam fire, and Stella darted aside and back to earth, where a trio of Ground Windams pummeled her with relentless firepower. She tried to draw her beam rifle, but the Windams kept up the pressure, forcing her back and paving the way for the Gelzuge to barrel towards her.

"No you don't!"

With a crash, the Abyss Gundam landed behind the three Windams and tore apart two of them with a devastating beam barrage. The third jetted to the side, bringing its rifle to bear— and instead, the Chaos dropped into its sight and cut it in half with a beam blade-assisted kick.

The Gelzuge poured firepower after them, and the two Gundams rocketed down next to the Gaia.

"Having fun, I see," Sting chuckled. "You alright in there, Stella?"

Stella pursed her lips— she totally had things under control. "Stella is fine," she answered, and Auel snickered at her pouting tone of voice.

"Well then," Sting said, turning his eyes towards the Gelzuge, "let's just put that thing to bed and we'll be on our way!"

The three Gundams rocketed apart, just as the Gelzuge opened fire. Stella somersaulted over its blasts, whipping out a beam saber and slicing off the Gelzuge's right arm. She plunged the saber into the mobile armor's hull, tearing off its right-hand wing— just in time for the Abyss to line up on the mobile armor's right side and pound it with firepower. The stricken Gelzuge staggered to the side, belching smoke and fire from its wounds— and just as the Chaos's gunbarrels sprang into action, eviscerating the mobile armor's left side with a torrent of beams. Stella whirled around on the Gelzuge's back and slammed her saber down into the mobile armor's center, and then leapt off and turned to watch the defeated Gelzuge collapse to the ground and explode.

"Man," sighed Auel, "that's always satisfying."

The Chaos stepped forward. "Come on, you two, Fukube is attacking the Alliance fleet directly. Let's go help out."

The trio of Gundams glanced once more at the ruined hulk of the Gelzuge and jumped into the sky.

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"Our troops are in position," the deckhand reported. "Admiral MacIntyre reports that all the conditions are satisfied. Firing window begins in sixty-five seconds."

The commandant of the Daedalus Crater base sat back in his chair in the control room, watching scenes of the battle at Carpentaria flashing across the control room's main monitor. The Requiem cannon was charged and ready; the relay points were in position; the Resistance did not appear to suspect a thing. He stood up and straightened out his black Phantom Pain uniform. This would be the hard part.

"You know, sir," his adjutant said quietly at his side, "there's still a good chance we'll hit our own forces with this thing. Or nothing at all."

"I know," the commandant replied. "But if this works right, there's also a good chance it will end this war in one blow." He cracked a smile. "I think that's worth taking the risk."

His adjutant nodded in agreement, and the commandant took hold of the Requiem cannon's trigger and held it aloft.

"Firing window begins in fifteen seconds!" one of the deckhands exclaimed. The commandant edged his finger over the trigger as the countdown reached zero.

For a peaceful world...

He pulled the trigger, and the Requiem cannon fired.

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Emily groaned in frustration as another swipe from the Zamzazar's claws just missed taking off one of the Twilight's arms. She had been close enough to taking down that Slaughter Windam and getting rid of an obnoxious distraction, but now there was this thing here too.

The Zamzazar snapped its claws viciously at the dodging Twilight and poured a wave of beam fire after it. Emily darted to the side and let her machine's afterimages take the blow. She thought for an instant about switching back to her rifle, but remembered the mobile armor's positron reflector— no way would that work.

Instead, the instinct prompted her to throw her beam shield up, just as a beam saber slammed against it. She glanced up, finding the Slaughter Windam surging forward and pushing her own machine back. On the auxiliary screen, she saw fury flash through its pilot's eyes.

"Don't think I'll let you get away that easy, Angel of Death! We have a fight to finish!"

Emily scowled back and, with a hard shove, sent the Windam staggering back— just in time to dart to the side and dodge a furious swipe from the Zamzazar's claws. The Windam moved to charge over the Zamzazar's body—

...but instead, with a sickening crash, the Zamzazar slammed its left-hand forward claw into the Windam's torso, hurling the mobile suit of the sky. Grey's disbelieving face vanished from the Twilight's auxiliary screen, and Emily turned in shock towards the hulking mobile armor as it swung down upon her.

"You'd even shoot down your own allies?!" she exclaimed. The Zamzazar answered with a volley of beam fire, forcing the Twilight back on the defensive. "Well then I'm almost going to enjoy this!"

The Zamzazar closed in again, claws spread wide—

Fear suddenly shot up Emily's spine, and she launched her Gundam clear over the Zamzazar and roared backward. She shot her eyes up towards the sky— up there, somewhere, something—

Her answer came as a blinding column of golden light came streaking out of the heavens. It landed with a crash, and Emily gasped in horror as hundreds of flickering lives were swallowed up by the blaze. The huge, pulsing column of light began to move— she wracked her brain for an explanation. What was that thing? Where did it come from? It ground its way across the battlefield, east to west, its wake hidden by a thick pall of smoke— but Emily knew what lay underneath it. There was nothing but carnage as far as she could sense.

Not to be forgotten, the Zamzazar came at her again, but she darted to the side and glanced back towards the tower of light. It began to flicker and dissipate, and the smoke parted around it—

Emily stared in horror at the blackened, smoking wreckage that was formerly the center of Carpentaria's first and second defensive lines. Hundreds, if not thousands of lives had gone out in that blinding flash of light. She turned towards the beaches— where the Alliance troops were already on the move, charging into the breach. Nobody on the Resistance's side was yet putting up a fight— and how could they? It seemed as though a god had just torn the Resistance's forces asunder.

The Zamzazar attacked again, and Emily turned her eyes back towards it. They had done this, yes— but she was not dead yet.

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"What the hell was that?!" screamed Abbey, over the warning sirens and the din of battle. In the captain's chair, Meyrin sat transfixed. She had seen that light before. It had sawed the PLANTs out of the sky, destroyed her parents, her home, her people— there was no doubt in her mind. That was the Requiem.

She looked down towards the battlefield, where the Alliance's troops were already smashing their way through the survivors. The Resistance's defenders at Carpentaria had three lines, but two of them had just been torn open in a single blow, by a single weapon. She looked up at the sky; surely they couldn't fire the Requiem again, not so soon. But why would they? Look at the damage they had done. The beaches looked like the very apocalypse itself had torn open the sky and erased so many Resistance soldiers from existence.

"They fired the Requiem," Malik said quietly, as the rest of the bridge crew seemed to piece together what had just happened, "didn't they?"

Meyrin closed her eyes and shut out the image of Lord Djibril destroying her people. So he had done it again. But the Requiem had not destroyed the Minerva in CE 74; it had not done so now; and she would not let this ship fall. Not yet, not with its mission still incomplete, and not—

"Heat signature at twelve o'clock!" Burt cried out from the sensor console. "It's...it's the Charlemagne!"

The Charlemagne. Meyrin snapped her eyes up towards the hulking black hull. Her once and future foe, the enemy that had brought the Minerva closest to extinction, heading straight for her—

Her blood boiled.

Bring it on.

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Lord Djibril's ecstatic laughter filled the control room at Heaven's Base, sending a chill over the soldiers operating the controls. The screens were filled with images of the destruction wrought by the Requiem cannon. Alliance troops were already pouring through the gap and rolling up the remainder of the Resistance's first two defensive lines— and soon, everyone knew, this battle would be over.

Djibril threw out his hands with a flourish. "It worked even better than we expected!" he cackled. "Perfect! Wonderful! They had no way of seeing that coming! You can almost feel the demoralization, even from here!"

The generals behind him looked on nervously as Djibril celebrated the macabre scene, before one of them in the black uniform of the Phantom Pain stepped forward anxiously. "Sir, we should deploy them now, while the enemy is still on his heels."

"Yes, yes," Djibril said, wiping a joyful tear from his eyes. He whirled around to face the control room again. "Admiral MacIntyre!" The admiral's wan face duly appeared on one of the monitors. "The time has come to end this war! I hereby authorize you to launch the Destroy units!" He cracked a vicious grin. "And show no mercy!"

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The Twilight rattled as another claw swipe came a little too close for comfort. Emily hurled her machine over the Zamzazar's body, ducking around a swipe from one of the rear claws and wheeling around towards the mobile armor's exposed back. It fired off another energy cannon blast, forcing the Twilight to dodge again, and followed it up with yet another barrage of beams.

"That's it!" Emily snarled. "Enough of this!"

The Twilight stowed its beam saber and backed away under another volley. The Zamzazar whipped itself around, charging in with its claws spread wide, and Emily clenched her teeth as the seed fell before her—

Faster than her foe could see, Emily threw her Gundam forward, digging the Twilight's sharp fingers into the Zamzazar's right-hand claw. With a hard yank and an ear-piercing shriek of snapping metal, she ripped the entire assembly free from the mobile armor's body, rocketing up with it. The mobile armor shuddered as though in pain, sparks and smoke flowing like blood from the wound. Emily let out a scream, twirling the claw in her mobile suit's hands to face downward, and plunged down, towards the cockpit, towards the three burning flames of panic inside—

...and all three disappeared as she drove the claw down through the Zamzazar's cockpit hatch. The Twilight jetted backward, deployed its long range cannon, and speared the dying mobile armor on a pulsing red blast, blowing it to flaming pieces in a thundering explosion.

Emily let out her breath, watching the smoking wreckage fall towards the earth— only for the world to shake again amid another rumbling crash, and that one had not come from the Zamzazar. She looked around in surprise and found her answer among the Alliance's fleet— where, ascending from the decks of three Spengler aircraft carriers, rose three gleaming and terrifying Destroy Gundams.

"What— three of those things?!" Emily cried. One, she knew, had been bad enough in Murmansk— but three, and with the Resistance's forces in tatters after that enormous blast of light—

Her senses flared up in the base of her consciousness, and she snapped her eyes towards the sky at the source of the feeling— and at a mobile suit, charging out of the heavens.

Inside the Morrigan Gundam, Monique du Prey flashed a wicked grin.

"Fancy seeing you here, Miss Angel of Death!"

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To be concluded...