Matrix Dragon Presents.... Gundam Sorceress Part Three All characters belong to their owners and/or creators. If that person isn't me, I'm using them without permission and apologize if you are offended. There, how's that for a copyright? *** Tracking the Mobile Suit Carrier aircraft stolen by Gundam 06 was rather easy. The Alliance knew that it had been stolen from a certain hanger on the Echuca base, and it only took a few seconds to look up the stolen carriers transponder number. From there, the aircraft was detected by satellites in less then a minute. The hard part was deciding what to do. After all, there was a Gundam on that plane, one that had already destroyed two different bases and withstood everything those bases defenders could throw at it. Anything sent to shoot down that Carrier wouldn't stand a chance against the Mobile Suit inside. It was after almost three hours of debate that the answer was finally made. Several squadrons of Aries Suits would shoot down the aircraft from maximum range, then retreat as fast as they could, avoiding the Gundam at all costs. It wasn't foolproof by any measure of the word, and more then one pilot launched thinking of it as a suicide mission. After about half an hour of flight, the Aries suits spotted the Carrier. As expected, it was continuing on it's path towards the western coast of Australia, seemingly ignoring the Aries. That wasn't surprising, as the Carrier was an older model used by the Alliance's conventional army, and as such, lacked a powerful radar. Quickly and cleanly, several Aries armed the missiles mounted on their maneuvering wings, locked onto the carrier and launched. The bulky aircraft made no efforts to dodge, and the missiles plowed into the cockpit and engines, detonating in a spectacular fireball. As the carrier plunged to the ground far below, the Aries pulled away with their turbines pushed to the redlines. They had no intention of picking a fight with 06. "Maybe we got lucky and the Gundam pilot was in the carriers cockpit," one of the Aries pilots commented. "I doubt we'd be so lucky," another one replied. "That Gundam will probably tear its way out of that wreck any second now." "Which is why we're getting the hell out of here," the commander replied. "Keep your throttles at the limit people, I don't want that beast to even have a chance to catch us." "Look!" the first pilot screamed. "There it is!" Sure enough, a giant sword cut through the Carriers hull, followed by a pair of hands reaching through the gash and pulling the metal apart like paper. Several of the Aries zoomed their cameras in, just in time to see a pair of bright green eyes begin glowing dangerously. "Ohhh shit," one of the pilots muttered. Thrusters firing, the Sorceress leapt from the dying aircraft and chased after the fleeing Aries. In the cockpit, Lina Diggers was swearing softly. She'd been halfway through her coffee when the Suits sensors had detected the airborne Mobile Suits, and she wanted payback. "IFF codes.... confirmed as Specials units," she said with a feral grin. "At least I get some Oz goons to waste." Arming her Head Vulcans, she began targeting. "It's locking on, evasive maneuvers!" the commander ordered as alarms began wailing around him. Almost instantly, the Aries broke formation and scattered. One was too slow and took several hits as Lina opened fire. Two turbines destroyed, it fell towards the ground helplessly. Lina ignored it, powering up her arm cannons and firing. Laser pulses flew in two directions, punching through the armor of several more Aries and causing them to detonate in midair. While she did this she was still chasing after the largest group. She knew that some of them would escape from her this time, but at least Oz would lose a few soldiers. Besides, this was good practice in midair combat. The Sorceress easily caught up to one of the Aries and rammed its sword through one of the turbines. Out of control, it slammed into the desert sands below at high speed while Lina fired on another with her Head Vulcans. *** Captain James Ritter stepped out of the communications tent, looking over the campsite where the survivors of the Echuca battle were regrouping. The Specials officer made his way through the area, heading towards the temporary command center. Stepping inside, he saw the expected sight of David Talbot, Ritters commanding officer, handling the area of work that he excelled at. Following the almost-total destruction of the Echuca base, Talbot was the highest ranking survivor. As such, he had sent rescue crews into ground zero, complied the death toll, spoken with regional and national commanders, pushing himself beyond his limits. What made things worse was that he did it with a broken arm, three shattered ribs and countless other injuries, without resting from the battle that gave him those injuries. He was quite a sight, in a scorched Alliance Army duty uniform, left arm in a sling (he hadn't given medics time to put the arm in plaster, and a days worth of growth on his face. Despite the news he brought, Ritter had to smile at the sight. He knew, from years of close contact with this man, that Talbot was one of the most determined and loyal soldiers he had ever had the honor of meeting, let alone serving under. It was a shame that he wasn't a member of Oz, but Ritter knew that the Colonel could never imagine betraying the Alliance, even when it betrayed itself. David turned his attention away from the damage reports that were spread out in front of him. "What's up?" he asked. "I just received word from the western coast," Ritter replied. "The Gundams Carrier was shot down just over the Western Australia state line." "Casualties?" Talbot asked. "Only three Aries Suits managed to escape, and they've detected distress beacons from two pilots that managed to eject." David sighed sadly. "Five survivors out of sixteen Suits. What power." "At least they managed to slow that monster down," Ritter said. "Their deaths may buy the Alliance time to gather the forces needed to destroy it." The Colonel closed his eyes for a moment. "I have to wonder if all the Mobile Suits on this continent will stop it. I self-detonated my Suit at point blank range, and it barely scratched the outer armor." He opened his eyes and stared at map of Australia he had recovered. "There has to be some way to determine the pilots mission." "Isn't it obvious? From what I've heard, all the Gundams are targeting Alliance bases randomly. They want to cause as much damage as possible." Talbot shook his head. "No, if it was attacking randomly, then why us? There were plenty of bases where it could have done more damage, but Echuca had more Suit Carriers then any other base in the region. That's why it came here. To get itself transport to the other side of Australia. It's next target is something valuable over there." "But what?" Ritter asked. "No idea. I don't know what we've got over there. But if someone can figure it out, maybe we can find a way to stop it." *** Deep in space, Brianna Diggers was doing was she did best. Wearing old coveralls, she was half buried in Angelus's side, performing modifications on the Gundams motor relays. In the background, an old cd of Live played on the Suits external speakers. "This is not helping me at all, where did we get this plan? That you could give to me what I might already have...." Bri' sang softly, her attention not really on the music, until it cut out without warning. "Hey, what gives?" "I have acquired details of security at all Gundamium production facilities," Ruri declared, her virtual face appearing on a screen in the cockpit of the Angelus. "What took you so long?" Bri' asked, pulling herself up into the cockpit. "And what was so important that you'd interrupt my music?" "As a precautionary measure, I also made copies of production schedules at the factory satellites. While doing so, I came across a number of errors in their logs. Someone else has been stealing Gundamium." As was her way, Ruri stated such important information as though it was nothing whatsoever. "Are you sure?" the woman asked. Ruri simply nodded, and another window sprang into existence, showing production orders, timetables and shipping schedules. Glancing over the data in front of her, Brianna soon saw it. There was Gundamium produced that simply vanished, or shipments of Gundamium that were never actually produced. "Throughout all the Gundamium factories in space, there are very few errors like this. We can assume that there are others that have been completely deleted, but some of them were missed," Ruri said. "For the amount of errors you found, there has to be countless others that were properly erased," Bri' replied. "Whoever did this would have quite a supply of Gundamium. Enough to build a number of Mobile Suits." "The other Gundams," Ruri surmised. Bri simply nodded in reply. "Of the shipments I did locate, they appeared to be to facilities and warehouses owned by the Barton Foundation." Brianna Digger's eyes widened. "Barton? Those bastards?" "Placing your personal opinions to the side," Ruri said, "the Barton Foundation has the facilities to build the other Gundams and send them to Earth. Why they would do so is unknown." "I can guess," Brianna muttered. "I know the head of the Foundation, Deakin Barton. He's a power-hungry monster. If he's behind the Gundams, then we can bet that they're the enemy." "I wasn't aware that you knew Mr. Barton personally." Despite such interesting news, Ruri still looked and sounded bored as she wondered about her creators past. "It was a long time ago," Bri' said softly, "long before I created you. Soon after I arrived in the Colonies. You don't need to know the details." She shook her head, returning her attention to the subject at hand. "See if you can track down where those shipments went. If the Barton Foundation had anything to do with those Gundams, then we have to find a way to deal with them. Download the security files to the main computer. I'll check over them later." "Understood," Ruri replied, closing her window. Bri' stared at the empty space for a moment, then stood up and climbed out of the cockpit, back towards the open panel. As she picked up the laser welder, Bri' stopped and looked up at the Angelus. "I developed the Gundams to fight Oz. If Barton is behind these other Gundams, what's his target?" Whatever the answer was, the Angelus wasn't telling. Her mind occupied by thoughts of the man known as Deakin Barton, Bri' began working on that motor relay again. *** Lina's first target was a rent-a-car shop on the outskirts of the city of Perth. Their ads stated that they also hired out motorcycles, which was perfect for her needs. From there, it was a short trip to the test facility, about sixty kilometers east of Perth. Metallium Base was larger then the Echuca base that Lina had attacked just over a day before. Defenses were much stronger, with a higher percentage of troops made up of Specials units, which was an advantage in Lina's opinion. After all, they were her real target. Studying the countryside from a distance, Lina saw almost instantly just how strong the defenses were. Even in periods of relative calm, it seemed that there was a large number of Mobile Suits patrolling the area, with Leos on the ground and Aries in the sky above. The Gundam pilot didn't doubt that the prototype Suits, the improved Aries and these new Tauros models, would also form part of the defense if needed. Pulling a digital camera out of her backpack, she began taking pictures of important locations around the base. When she got back to the Sorceress, she'd compare them with satellite photos in order to properly plan her attack. Taking a few shots of the hangers, she paused and lowered the camera for a moment. Eyes narrowed, she raised the camera and zoomed in. Sure enough, there were a number of access panels built into the ground.