Gundam, but from the Ground Alliance to the Human Alliance to the out-of-control servitor

"Is this why we are suddenly required to work overtime to deliver supplies and troops..."

Rear Admiral Kongsikang could not help but stand at the porthole of the bridge, looking at this huge ground offensive unprecedented in human history.

"Report, we encountered the enemy and found the federal warship Shadow 4, suspected to be the mobile suit Shadow 14, approaching our fleet!"

Chapter 72: Multiple paths ahead (End)

"Well done-"

Major General Kongsikang turned his head and shouted to the communications officer beside him:

"——Let the MS team attack, launch anti-ship missiles, block the interception orbit of the enemy fleet, force them to turn, and don't let the federal fleet interfere with our airdrop orbit!"

In Zeon's transport fleet this time, the two Papua-class transport ships are full of supplies to be delivered to the ground. Only three Musai-class light cruisers can release MS and participate in the battle. However, they are concerned that this is only the Federation Army. One of three attack fleets departing from Luna 3;

Major General Kongsikang did not dare to send out all the Zakus he carried, and left three aircraft as guards around the fleet to guard against unexpected situations.

After all, judging from the intelligence updates from the Zeon Army, the 'Primus' fleet has fought dozens of times with the MSs of the Federation Space Force in the space surrounding Luna 2. Although according to performance analysis, the enemy's codename is 'Jim's' MS has some statistics that are indeed stronger than Zaku's;

However, the Zeon army still has the upper hand in terms of exchange ratio, which is enough to show that Zeon's driver proficiency and actual combat experience should far exceed the hastily formed MS troops of the Federation. From this point of view, Major General Kong Sikan laid out a 12 vs. 14 The matchup cannot be considered as underestimating the enemy.

What's more, at least in Major General Kongsikang's fleet, more than half of the MS pilots are elites who participated in the Hart Battle. The newcomers have also trained with the army for more than three months, and their level is enough to keep up with the veterans. Actions.

"Yes! Major General, we are still 8 minutes away from the scheduled airdrop node. Now we should..."

In the distance, the Federation Army's cruise fleet also made the same move as Major General Kongskan. They were not in a hurry to close to a distance where they could effectively fire their Mega particle main guns. Instead, they faced Zeon from a distance. Missiles were launched in the direction of the transport fleet's advance.

Major General Kongsikang glanced at the surveillance screen and thought to himself:

'The number is not large, the enemy fleet did not launch all their bombs...'

This is correct. Unless the federal army's attack fleet wants to return to Luna 2 for supplies after a battle, it will never dare to go all out on this first battlefield.

"Continue to move forward according to the plan, pay attention to air defense, and call the escort aircraft to prepare to intercept enemy missiles."

The direction of the Zeon Army's transport fleet remained unchanged and continued to move towards the planned target. However, the Federation Army's cruise fleet in the distance changed its course slightly and avoided the coverage area of ​​the Zeon Army's missiles.

However, the two armies combined a total of 26 mobile suits, and they were facing each other head on, rapidly closing the distance between them.

"Lieutenant Sandas, confirm the enemy target MS image, number 11, identification number MS-06F, number 1, MS-06 S; 8 of them carry machine guns, and 4 carry anti-ship rocket launchers."

"Hmm...have the enemy's mobile suits taken the initiative to meet them? Got it, use the triangular pyramid formation, and the combat goal is to prioritize the destruction of the enemy fleet's attached mobile suit units, with low combat intensity to avoid damage."

Lieutenant Sandass's fingers quickly clicked a few times on the 'Loyal Wingman' command panel inside the cockpit of Squadron Leader Jim's command plane, and the combat mode was preset;

'Drone squadron?'I didn't expect to end up being teammates with a machine...'

To be fair, Lieutenant Sandath's understanding of MS piloting is not bad, and he has already shot down 5 Zakus. He can be regarded as one of the few ACE pilots of the Federal Space Force on Luna 2;

However, his bad reputation is that while he scored 5 kills, he also happened to lose 5 teammates who also piloted Jim. Therefore, there were many negative rumors about him among his colleagues. , he was also recommended to the "Loyal Wingman" actual combat test unit by mistake.

But the 'Loyal Wingman' naturally didn't care about such unfounded rumors. The moment Lieutenant Sandas confirmed that the order was issued, all twelve drones immediately started moving in sync, completing the formation changes smoothly. ;

At the same time, he adjusted the orientation of the body in the most standard posture, using an angle similar to that of a lying position to reduce the projected area of ​​the body. At the same time, he raised the shield high and only exposed part of the head for viewing on the main monitor, and set up the gun on the shield.

Although the change in the Federation's assault formation was completed in just a few seconds, the commander-type Zaku (MS-06 S), the leader of the Zeon MS squadron on the opposite side, still sensed something bad;

"This is too... clean and neat. There is no trace of deformation due to nervousness in the maneuvers. Even if the people from the technical and tactical training group came to demonstrate the movements, they would not be able to do this without being 120 points serious. Hey, That’s not right, please be careful!”

In Zaku's field of vision, the small white dots in the distance that were originally just illuminated by the faint light of the propeller tail flame suddenly lit up with continuous flashing fire. The two sides had entered each other's range, and then there was tension and excitement. rival link.

"Fire!"

The white and red Jim swayed irregularly and randomly along the direction of advancement, avoiding the Zaku rockets that could not be resisted. Instead, he put up a shield with a slope and steadily blocked or bounced away the opponent. The Zaku machine gun bullets were fired.

Rains of bullets crisscrossed the air and flew into the opponent's fleet, triggering brilliant fireworks.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

In the voice channel of the Zeon Army, the unwilling wailing of teammates who had been together day and night at the last moments of their lives was heard. In a confrontation, 2 Zeon Army aircraft were immediately destroyed and 3 aircraft were shot and injured;

The "Loyal Wingman" squadron that fought with it only suffered the loss of 3 shields.

"Damn it, what's going on?! We must be more experienced in close combat. Charge with me!"

The commander-type Zaku with an obviously different paint job was naturally the target of Jim's fire just now. However, the captain of the Zeon Army was very good at assessing the situation. The moment he realized something was wrong, he immediately pulled the operating lever sharply. Head straight towards the Federation Army MS;

After twisting several arcs in opposite directions in the void, he zigzagged towards Jim of the Federal Army.

"Identify high-risk targets and respond to precautions..."

"Don't get entangled with him. Prioritize the ordinary Zaku and let me hold him back!"

Lieutenant Sandath interrupted the synthesized sound ringing in his ears while pushing the throttle; although the MS R&D department on Luna 2 had completed the mapping work on the Gundam beam rifle and beam saber;

However, this kind of miniaturized Mega particle weapon is indeed different from any equipment of the Federation Space Force in the past. It cannot be produced using existing production lines. Only a small amount has been 'hand-made' by Federation technicians relying on technology similar to 3D printing. The beam sabers that came out were equipped with ACE machines like Lieutenant Sandath.

The 'loyal wingman' squadron responded immediately;

In the head-to-head shooting just now, some of the MS troops of the Zeon Army chose to pull the lever to dodge, some had their heads blown up by the focused fire of Jim E's machine gun, and some were lucky enough not to be targeted immediately and were still keeping The ground rushed over, and the formation seemed to have dispersed.

The intelligent and controlled Jim E strictly followed the formation of mutual protection within the team, separated the remaining Zaku from the Zeon army the moment they passed by, and efficiently and quickly strangled the Zaku who were fighting on their own.

"Tsk, it's too flexible. Damn it, how much more powerful is the Federal Army's mobile suit than Zaku..."

The edge of Zaku's pilot's vision dimmed. He was facing the huge and constantly changing direction of the instantaneous G-force, trying to twist in the rain of Jim's bullets while trying to bite the enemy plane in front;

But Zaku couldn't catch up at all. It was also a fully equipped attack. Jim E was more than 10 tons lighter than Zaku F. The thrust of the rocket thruster was greater than Jim. And the unmanned version of Jim E was even more reliable. A model that utilizes all the maneuverability of the machine body.

On Zaku's fire control command screen, the Jim could maintain uniform linear motion for almost no second. It had been circling the forward axis like Parkinson's, flying out of an irregular spring-like spiral. track--

At the same time, under the nose of the Zaku pilot, who thought he was experienced, he opened fire and destroyed another Zaku.

The target he was shooting at crazily didn't even bother to look at himself, but still had time to attack his teammates. This almost insulting disregard for the truth made the veteran driving the Zaku a little anxious;

However, the good habits developed during long-term training still pulled him back on the edge of the cliff. Zaku's pilot regularly glanced at the side monitor with his peripheral vision to observe the situation on the battlefield and around him.

'Where are my teammates?Here's my captain! ? '

Taking advantage of Jim's faster acceleration ability and the loose formation of the Zeon army among the opponents, the Federation Space Force's Unmanned Jim quickly inserted itself into the Zaku in small groups——

Jim, who already had a slight numerical advantage, constantly created opportunities within the window of just a few seconds to amplify the numerical advantage, creating a two-on-one situation in the small divided battlefield.

As for the Commander-type Zaku leading the Zeon Army, after passing by the vanguard Unmanned GIM body, he immediately noticed that there were two more machines following the Federation MS assault wave, one with a significantly longer communication antenna. Jim.

Sitting in the Commander-type Zaku, which also had an extra antenna installed on its head and had horns on its head, the Zeon Army's mobile suit captain suddenly felt a rush of blood rush into his skull, 'Force against war, against war against war'. General, let me take your head among all my troops...'

However, Lieutenant Sandas's driving skills are still solid. In addition, the Commander Zaku is still modified from the ordinary Zaku F type, and its performance still cannot catch up with the Jim E. Sandas also has a teammate on the escort plane. In support shooting, the commanders of the two armies can be said to have fought back and forth;

However, the other Zakus of the Zeon army have completely collapsed. Even the commander of the Zeon fleet, Major General Kongsikang, felt bad when he saw the messages of damage to friendly MSs that kept popping up. He also sent three Zakus as reserves. Came over, but it was too late.

At the beginning, it was just a two-plane Jim formation. Against the firepower of other Zakus that could not catch up or hit them, they forcibly attacked and strangled the Zakus who appeared to be the most advanced ones on the target identification list, and then the numerical advantage snowballed. magnify -

What is even more desperate is that due to the difference in acceleration, Zaku cannot run away even if he wants to;

In the end, several Zakus piloted by veterans, including the commander-type Zaku captain plane, were under crossfire from three to four unmanned GMs, and they could only scold the federal army's mobile suits on the spot. Talking about martial arts, why are so many people walking shoulder to shoulder and crying in anger at the sound of resentment?

Lieutenant Sandas drove his Jim, accelerated violently, raised his beam sword and thrust, directly piercing the chest of the commander-type Zaku whose attitude adjustment system had been partially malfunctioned due to continuous bullets. For this encounter, The battle is drawn with a comma;

At the same time, the AI-controlled drone body was used to avoid the opportunity of accidentally shooting friendly forces that were too close to the target and stopped fire, and snatched the head of the enemy's leader.

Although he does not have to do this, the number of downed drones will be counted towards the squadron as a whole, and he will certainly not be short of honor as the commander;

But perhaps due to a little stubbornness in his heart, Lieutenant Sandas was still somewhat proud of his driving skills, and was unwilling to become a communication command aircraft that was completely at the edge of the battlefield and did not participate in direct combat.

"Where are the enemy's reinforcements? Where are they? Reorganize your formation and report your losses!"

"Lieutenant, the rearguard composed of three enemy MSs has turned back and reentered the air defense circle of the enemy warships. One of our squadron's aircraft was seriously injured, two were moderately damaged, and two were slightly injured. The combat effectiveness is assessed to be 3% of the intact state, and the battle can continue. .”

Judging from the damage indicators of MS, serious injury means that the mobile suit has basically lost its ability to maneuver or has been paralyzed, while moderate injury means that the combat ability has been significantly damaged.

"The damaged aircraft returned with the seriously injured aircraft, and the remaining aircraft will continue to attack the enemy fleet with me. Send a signal flare to the mother fleet, and the threat of enemy MS has been eliminated. Request fire support."

Lieutenant Sandath decisively issued the order; although the design indicators of the Federal Army when developing mobile suits were mainly to counterattack enemy mobile suits, the GM E's strong versatility and maneuverability beyond Zaku still made it possible Has good anti-ship capabilities.

The anti-ship weapons equipped for Jim on Luna 2 are also quite simple and practical. Even the barrel of the Zaku rocket launcher is omitted. The missiles carried on the battleship are directly used to greatly shorten the fuel tank to achieve lightweight, and then Three on each side are installed in the launch box module on the shoulder of Jim E.

Among the 12 "loyal wingmen" that flew out this time, 4 were equipped with such anti-ship weapons, but this also affected their maneuverability. The aircraft that just returned home after being seriously injured was one of them.

……

Major General Kongsikang was panicking now. It wasn't that he couldn't adapt to the situation, but that the world was changing too fast.

The Zeon Army's MS technology has been accumulated since five or six years ago. However, the Federation had never used MS on a large scale until the war began. How come it has suddenly overtaken it now?

He glanced around the bridge. After the MS team was defeated, the officers on the Zeon warship were already panicking;

In the Zeon Army's internal exercises, the confrontation between the two sides basically depends on the performance of the ship-based MS units. If one side's MS units are beaten to a pulp, then the remaining motherships can basically be thrown directly. Obviously, there is no Count on the battleship's anti-air capabilities to block the opponent's MS.

"No matter what, release the airdrop pod in advance. The time is almost up anyway. Hurry up and get out of orbit! Move closer to the armed space station where our troops are stationed!"

Chapter 73: Iron Storm (1)

A slight miss is a thousand miles difference; although the gap may not be as big as a thousand miles, but the timing of releasing the airdrop pod in orbit is advanced by such a minute or two, the final impact point will be in the zone controlled by the Zeon Army or the head of the Federation Army. It’s hard to say——

Especially considering that now, the Federation Army is already on the Eurasian continent below, advancing towards the Zeon Army across the board.

But Major General Kongsikang did so without hesitation. After all, in his eyes, the short-term victory or defeat of the Earth Attack Forces who were fighting bloody battles on the ground at this time did not matter at all, as long as the Zeon Army fleet could still maintain its close proximity to the Earth. If the control of the orbit ensures the safety of Zeon itself, then the Principality of Zeon will be invincible.

Immediately, each ship in the Zeon transport fleet loosened the locks that fixed the airdrop pods. Like cubs, hundreds of airdrop pods that were approximately rounded and conical were dropped, adjusting the deceleration of the rockets in one-time postures. Falling downward into the atmosphere below.

What appeared on Lieutenant Sandath's situational awareness screen was the dozen or so big red dots representing the ships of the Zeon army's transport fleet, which were suddenly released by hundreds of smaller ones. Hostile target identification mark.

"Lieutenant Sandas, the movement of the enemy fleet has been confirmed, and the airdrop pod is being dropped. At the same time, the enemy fleet is accelerating, and it is suspected that it intends to retreat."

"Isn't the enemy's mobile suit ambushing me? That's good..."

Lieutenant Sandas secretly breathed a sigh of relief. The sudden increase in hostile targets still shocked him, but fortunately it was just an airdrop pod, but——

"...Deploy the airframes carrying anti-ship equipment to follow me in pursuit of the Zeon fleet. The rest will attack freely, targeting the airdrop pods released by the enemy, and try to destroy them as much as possible before entering the atmosphere."

"Command confirmed."

The 11 Jim-E formations that continued to fly forward in formation split into two and rushed towards the target. The three cruisers of the Federal Space Force behind saw the friendly MS formation approaching and began to bombard them. While accelerating towards the direction of the Zeon fleet.

"Tsk, are there four more MSs from the Federation Army rushing over? Damn it, tell the remaining Zaku to cooperate with our fleet in air defense operations, and at the same time break away at maximum speed. The Federation fleet should not dare to go deep in low-Earth orbit. Chase!"

Major General Kongsikang gritted his teeth and looked at the surveillance screen. The four federal mobile suits that had separated from the main force were heading towards his fleet; three of them had what looked like missile launch boxes hanging on their shoulders.

'I've deliberately thrown out hundreds of 'baits' that are powerless to fight back, and you still want to eat me too greedily? Damn it! '

"Rear Admiral, if we use the maximum combat speed of our warships, the requisitioned civilian ships may not be able to keep up!"

"Stop talking nonsense and execute orders!"

Major General Kongsikang yelled at the ignorant first mate.

The remaining three Zaku fearfully surrounded several Musei-class and Papua-class transport ships and sped away together; while the remaining few commando transport ships with Zeon Army logos were left behind. to the back.

"Are you completely ignoring friendly forces? Hmm, use machine guns to shoot the propellers of the transport ships to paralyze them, then hand them over to our fleet, and leave the missiles to the Zeon warships!"

Lieutenant Sandath frowned as he looked at the Zeon transport fleet that was escaping hastily and being disjointed; it seemed that the defeat in the mobile suit battle had a huge impact on the morale of the Zeon army;

However, the abandoned civilian transport ships in front of us have also undergone some military modifications. Some have been equipped with one or two close-in defense turrets, and some were so frightened that they threw out a series of unexplained interference decoy bombs. .

Although it poses no threat to either the 'Loyal Wingman' or Lieutenant Sandath's command plane, the five warships that want to go directly through it to pursue the Zeon Army will still be deemed risky by the intelligent control system.

The four federal mobile suits spread out, drew two arcs left and right in the air, passed by both sides of the abandoned transport fleet, and used their 90mm GMM machine guns to target the transport ship's close-defense turret and thrusters. Wait for key positions to fire a string of bullets.

These transport ships look huge, but most of their length is used for mounting supports and cargo holds for containers. The main body only has a small member living area connected to the propeller. It was quickly paralyzed by the fire of the Jim machine gun. , maintaining the current speed and trajectory and flying forward.

On the other side, Jim, who was chasing after the airdrop pod dropped by the Zeon transport fleet, was completely one-sided massacre——

In order to destroy as many of the Zeon army's airdrop pods as possible in the short attack window before being pulled into the earth's gravity well, the intelligent control system adopted the most appropriate measures based on this preset target:

The scattered unmanned Jim-Es flew quickly from the orbit above, constantly firing short bursts of three-round bursts from their machine guns, hitting the thick outer wall of the Zeon army's airdrop pod;

Occasionally, bullets will bounce off the arc-shaped shell of the airdrop cabin, but three consecutive rounds are enough to knock a hole in the insulation material of the shell of the airdrop cabin, and the rest can be left to the atmosphere during re-entry. Friction generates heat to solve it.

Some of the airdrop pods only had supplies and ammunition, but others carried Zeon reinforcements sent to the Earth front, and they could only spend the last and most painful days of their lives in despair. few minutes.

"Damn it, don't even think about doing anything arrogant!"

At this time, suddenly the door of an airdrop cabin was forcibly opened. A machine body that was different in appearance from Zaku and appeared to be thicker carried a rocket launcher. It kicked hard on the bulkhead of the airdrop cabin and rushed away. come out;

The other two MSs of the same model in the same airdrop cabin behind them also emerged from the broken hatch, but their movements were obviously much clumsy, as if they were completely unsuited to fighting in a weightless state.

It was the big demon (MS-09 Dom) that the Zeon Army was originally scheduled to release to the ground for use. Unable to bear being killed without the ability to resist in the airdrop pod, it forcibly rushed out;

Although it is a new aircraft that is far stronger than the Zaku (MS-06J) and better than the Tiger (MS-07) in ground tests, in space, air is needed as the propulsion medium, and the operating system has not been adapted. The big demon is just a sturdier target at best.

"Warning, it is discovered that the enemy's new aircraft is dispatched, the task weight is adjusted, and the performance test mission of the enemy's new aircraft is given priority."