Episode 15 - Roman Defeat [4th]

The last RPG was "Zeta Gundam: Tales from the Frontlines - The AEUG" which ran from 2006-14.
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Cybaster
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Irish-class Dervish, Launch Bay

Julian himself was not happy. He was not happy to be called to the main ship after such a seeming defeat, and he was not happy that the Chuikov pilots were going to only receive more bad news from the looks of things. He was also not happy about Caroline's reaction to him earlier. As the launch floated and approached the Dervish with Julian merely sitting to himself in one corner (as far away from Jonas and Caroline as possible) with his arms crossed, Julian had become thoroughly convinced that Caroline was turning out to be a hopeless case; At that rate, she was going to be little more than a threat to Julian's survival, and Julian couldn't have that.

Not that the people around her were any better, either. If anything, most of the people on the Chuikov were worse than Caroline, anyway.

Prior to setting off, in fact, he noticed such during a small exchange between the Chuikov's captain, Nathan Dombrowski, and the hapless Caroline Tucker, and seeing this only reminded him why he was even here to begin with; What he saw, although Julian would never admit it, angered him --- Dombrowski's reaction to Caroline bumping into him was to grab Caroline by the collar, almost throttle her, and threaten her with disciplinary action for something so trivial as bumping accidentally into her CO while in a hurry for a meeting that the AEUG themselves called. What was that man's problem? Granted, it was Caroline, but that overreacting was unwarranted. It reminded Julian of the early days of Degwin and Gihren's rule when spymasters and counterintel officers ran rampant with every single fault made and every insinuation about the Zabis' role in Zeon Daikun's death. He had thought things had changed much in space since those dark days...

Julian shook his head, otherwise keeping his thoughts his own, following Jonas further into the Dervish with an apathetic, impassive gleam in his eyes. The AEUG really were no better than the Titans, and their victory would only replace one tyrant with another or, worse, return the Earth Federation to their status quo. People back in Axis would never act like this. The AEUG, perhaps, were indeed not true Spacenoids and cared less about Spacenoid freedoms than they did about power...

And Julian, inwardly and where nobody else would know until perhaps it was too late, sincerely hoped that he wouldn't have to put up with Nathan Dombrowski's martial rule --- and Jonas, and Caroline --- any longer than necessary. Once he got back to Amman...
Last edited by Cybaster on Fri Feb 22, 2008 3:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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wonton bob
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- The Dervish -
- Meeting Room -


Bernard looked around at the pilots in the room. Finding it odd that he didn't know any of their names, Bernard leans back folding his arms.

I wonder how many of us will..

Suddenly his eyes are drawn to the doorway where he sees a familiar face which brings him out of the gloom and doom haze. It's as if a long lost relative has appeared. As Al takes a seat Bernard sits up.

"Bernard..what..happend?"

"We got licked, kid. I tried to lead them away from the Gela and I couldn't even get close to the Thunderchild..I'm afraid Norman and Traubel are dead. " Bernard shakes his head not wanting to go back to his sour mood. With a smile Bernard pats Al on the shoulder.

"I'm sure glad you made it kid. It would have been hard to go on without a friendly face around."
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Fritz Ashlyn
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- Outside L4 -

- The Dervish -
- Meeting Room 2 -

Pan Heyden smiled, something he didn’t often genuinely do. Actually, Mello and the others had never really seen him smile. "I wouldn't of left, you guys if i wasn't completely confident in your abilities,” he explained, giving the unusually motionless Sumitani a nudge, “You shoulda seen me! I bagged three Zekes and a musai,”. It seemed that everyone’s behavior following the battle was a bit different. Heyden stepped forward and slapped Mello on the shoulder. "I'm impressed that you brought the rest of the team back in shape. Good job. I'll buy you a beer."

“Uh, yeah... Sure thing,” Lt. Mello replied, unsure of how to react. Heyden’s mood and Mello’s response garnered a thoughtful raised eyebrow from Guanche and vigorous laughter from Ramon. “Say, say, say!” Sumitani yelped, his stance returning to one more ‘normal’ for his usual antics. “Team experience gained, hooo~!”

- Fritz’ Quarters -

“Are you coming to the meeting? ...What was that about?”

Fritz shook his head and chuckled mirthlessly. “No... I’m not going,” he mumbled, letting himself fall back to lay on his bed. Michiko took a step forward in surprise. Fritz rubbed his eyes and gave another humorless chuckle; “I told Abbey everything about the Ritters and Te’Litha,” he offered bluntly. Michiko’s eyes widened and she crossed the small room to sit next to Fritz. “You did? What are you going to do now?” she asked, tentatively setting her hand on Fritz’ arm.

“Gott, I don’t know...” Fritz lamented, rising back up to a sitting position, “I don’t know,”. He started to consider what he’d have to tell Celeine and Celeste... for that matter Celeste was still unconscious for all he knew... and he realized Michiko’s hand was resting on his arm. His eyes darted down to his ring. The poor girl had nobody to turn to and had been following him around like a puppy since she had settled in with the AEUG. But Fritz was married, and... Christ, he thought of her as a little sister type first and a soldier second. There wasn’t really a ‘third’ to his train of thought. It hadn’t crossed his mind that she might feel different...

He didn’t want to just kick her out of his room, even if she probably would understand (or at least pretend to). He had enough people angry or at odds with him as it was. Hell, maybe she just wanted to talk to someone that was obviously a mental wreck and he was seeing something that wasn’t there at all. “Damn it,” Fritz grumbled, his head falling down to rest on his hands again. Michiko folded her hands in her lap and offered, “Well, at least we’re alive... And you have someone to go home to,”.

So it was just one of Fritz’ delusions. Her voice sounded sincere if a bit sad. “Yes, I have that,” Fritz sighed, finally finding something that calmed his mind. He straightened up when he realized what she meant, and said, “You probably feel like you don’t have anyone or anything. But that’s not true. As long as you’re with us we’re your family. Like I told MacAlpin,”. Michiko nodded weakly and her vision fell. “I mean...” Fritz added after a moment, “You can count on me. Not just now but after this, whatever happens to the Titans and the AEUG. It’s what Liese wants... and what I want,”.

He stood up, feeling awkward around a woman for the first time in years. Michiko’s cheeks were a little flushed, but it was obvious she understood what Fritz meant and was happier. Something in Fritz’ jacket rustled as he stepped away towards his desk, and he realized it was the envelope his wife had passed to him in the hangar when they were still on Luna. He was embarrassed to admit it was forgotten since it was hidden away and shuffled to the back of his mind...

He reached into his jacket and pulled it out, thinking about what Liese had said when she gave it to him. “Save it for later,” Fritz said, barely audibly. Michiko stood up from the bed and looked the sealed envelope over. “What is it?” she asked, her voice back to a normal tone. Fritz turned it over and used his thumb to open it. “It’s from my wife,” he answered quietly. “Well, it certainly is later. I could use some good news,” he thought as he pulled out a single folded paper. It was covered mostly with splotchy black shapes like it was made on a bad copy machine.

“What...?” Fritz muttered, turning the picture upside down as he tried to make heads or tails of it. He noticed writing at the same Michiko did. “Look,” she said, rising up on her toes to point at the message written across the bottom. Underneath some sparse medical details typed out by a computer, his wife’s handwriting read “our son”. Fritz’ breath caught in his throat and he leaned against his desk for support. “It’s a sonogram!” Michiko peeped in delight, hugging Fritz as he slid down slowly into his chair.
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Ascension
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-Jim MacAlpin

Jim wanted to emphasize the fact that his decision to remain in the fleet should not be taken as indicative of any great eagerness to associate with the majority of his comrades. What better way to prove that the status quo was still intact than to show up habitually late to a briefing? It was only at the last possible moment that he sauntered into the room and slumped into a seat at the back.

-Caroline Tucker

The stale air in the small shuttle seemed unusually tense. The team's silence spoke volumes about their internal turmoil. Caroline felt like she should say something, anything, but every time she opened her mouth to speak and that recycled air poured past her parted lips the tension paralyzed her tongue. So, she waited, inarticulate, silent like the rest.

The short trip aboard the flagship from hangar to briefing room passed in similar silence, and soon the group had reached its destination. ...on second thought, let's not go there. It's a silly place.
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Jacob shrugged when Clute dismissed his query and the statement that brought it on in the first place. Although Team 3 had come out of the battle relatively unscathed, that didn't mean that its members weren't feeling the stress of the losses the fleet took. He wasn't going to harass his superior officer or pry into his personal thoughts if he didn't want to share them.

At Clute's return question, Markado lowered his head to the nondescript, slightly dirty floor. A shudder racked his body as he thought of all the people back in sick bay still fighting for their lives and of the ones who had lost the fight already. The last thing he remembered from that room was the sight of his one-eyed teammate lying unconscious and helpless surrounded by beeping, flashing machines that monitored her life.

"Still unconscious," he answered quietly, the words even more difficult to understand since they're aimed at the floor. "But they said she should be okay."

The young Ltjg. barely noticed as the briefing room filled up around him and the silence that reigned when he entered was slowly buried under a rising tide of conversation from the other teams gathered in the room.

His eyes snapped up when he heard Abbey's voice, though and he straightened in his chair, coming to a sort of attention, even though he didn't rise.
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Heyden glanced back and noticed Abbey lingering near the podium. The Room was filling up quickly now. Instead of continuing on with his bragging spree the pilot just turned to the front of the room. Crossed his arms and stood there his smile slowly forming back into his half smirk half scowl.

He figured if he approached his team all sentimental about seeing them again. They'd go easy on him for leaving them stranded. Seems like it worked too.
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The Big Zabowski
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Location: In the cockpit..

Al let out a small sigh, sliding down in the chair a bit as he laid his hands in his lap. He and Bernard, along with the Lieutenant; were indeed the last pilots left of the Gela, and it was a quite disheartening thought. He thought back to that last battle, back to the defense of the Gela at it's start..

He remembered that bright flash, and the destruction of Norman's Nemo at the hands of some Titans assailant. It was a little foggy, mostly due to the adrenalin induced low that affected his body, but the image was still there.

"Norman.."

Then his mind wandered to that fight, the one on one battle with the Sniper Hi-Zack. It had been one hell of an encounter, and still he did not know how he made it out alive, let alone bag the Titan pilot. He looked down to his hands, before looking forward toward the front of the room. He stared out at the seemingly emptier room before breathing deeply and turning to Bernard.

'So, what happened to that pod that I brought back? Was the guy still alive?"
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wonton bob
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- The Dervish -
- Meeting Room -


'So, what happened to that pod that I brought back? Was the guy still alive?"

"Pod? mmm I'm afraid I was out cold when it was brought in." Bernard does a double take when he realizes..

"You! It was you who bagged a OYW ace. Damn kid, maybe you should be giving me a few pointers." Bernard's grin disappears when he took another look at Al. Something wasn't right with the kid.

"From what I've heard they escorted the prisoner to the brig not the morgue so I guess he's alive..don't worry about him Al. I doubt he's thinking about your well-being. Just focus on what's going on here and now and not the things out of our control." Bernard also sits back and hopes this meeting starts soon.

hopefully we get some R&R...this kid needs to take a break
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- Outside L4 -

- The Dervish -
- Meeting Room 2 -

Abbey allowed the assembled men to continue talking amongst themselves for a few minutes as he waited for the rest of the summoned personnel to arrive. Once MacAlpin and the group from the Chuikov entered, the captain checked his watch and tiredly shrugged off the few missing pilots. He stepped out to a more cental point at the head of the room and cleared his throat, calling for quiet. Silence quickly fell on the men and women in the small audience.

He looked out into the group as he formulated what he was going to say. The captain removed his hat and ran a hand through his graying hair before setting it on the table behind him. “I’m not going to talk down to you,” he began after a pregnant pause, “And I’m going to do my best to not sugar-coat what we’ve just survived. And survived is definitely the word, because I flew us right into a vicious ambush,”. He let that sink in for a moment. “I haven’t brought you all here to assign blame. We can all shoulder the burden of defeat, yes, but this is my command and I ultimately have to answer for what this fleet does.

“And I will, once we’re back at Luna. I’m sure Mr. Lee and Mr. Gates and Chairman Carbine and all of our dear friends who finance us will have a lot of questions, and I’m going to have to answer them,”. The names of the sponsors were spoken with the usual mix of grudging respect and a soldier’s carefully hidden contempt for war profiteers. He turned to the table behind him and picked up a sheaf of papers. “This isn’t really a debriefing, because we were all there and we can analyze and ponder for hours when the time comes. What I want to do now is talk to you, give you an idea of our condition, and deliver a message relayed to us from the AEUG,”.

He flipped open the report and began to read some of the more relevant hard data in a clipped tone. Numbers of confirmed deaths from the crew of the lost ships and casualty information from the rest of the fleet. Lost mobile suits and pilots killed in action. Severe damage to the remaining ships and their projected travel time. He stopped reading and shook his head. He let the papers drop to the table and sighed, “That’s the statistics of it, people. The abstract is just as painful to hear. The Gela and Thunderchild volunteered to enter the shoal ahead of the fleet and encountered some sort of minefield the Titans had set up.”

“That was Taskforce Echo that just busted us in the chops, gentlemen. The same fleet we’ve been dealing with since before our reassignment. Their skipper is a clever son of a b*tch called Trent. Trent counted on me making a mistake, and then when I did his boys tore into us. We organized our pursuit from Luna too slow, and Echo was too far ahead of us; they must have stopped in the shoal to set up that attack while we were still following them to Hatte.”

His frown turned into a scowl. “The Gela and Thunderchild were lost, and the New Yark was almost separated from the rest of us. I want to commend Capt. Guanche for his sharp command during the battle. Without him on their bridge I think we might be mourning the loss of three ships,” he continued, nodding in the direction of the New Yark team. “I tried to wheel us around to get out of the debris and prevent a crossfire, and we nearly ran right into the teeth of a Republic of Zeon unit. Thanks to the efforts of a few of our pilots,” he said, deliberately not saying Fritz’ name to avoid calling attention to his absence, “that turned out to not be the killing blow it could have been.

“So we escaped. Bruised and bloodied. In summary we’re damned lucky,” he grumbled, quickly adding, “But I don’t want you to feel sorry for yourselves. All of you performed above and beyond the call to help us crawl out of that, and I want to thank you. We’re lucky to have pulled through that, but more specifically I’m lucky I have you men and women piloting our mobile suits and commanding our ships. I don’t want to make it sound like lady luck herself is the only reason we’re all still here. It was luck, yes, but it was also pure toughness and hard fighting.”

Abbey turned to Wade and nodded, and the flagship’s helmsman stepped forward and adjusted his sunglasses. “Mr. Wilson,” Abbey gestured, giving up the floor. Wade picked up another piece of paper and scanned it for a moment before he began to speak. “According to the numbers Chief Polk and the other crews are reporting in, and our projected travel speed...” he did some mental math before continuing, “Total time to finish necessary field repairs combined with travel time back to the moon seems to be about a week. We’ve tried to move priorities around and a week seems to be the minimum.”

The captain stepped forward again, this time with the message printout from the Argama. “Before I read this,” he said, his voice suddenly taking on a much more somber tone, “Please hold questions and comments until I’ve read the entire message,”. He shook his head as he looked the paper over. What perfect timing. It seemed like the universe was suddenly conspiring against the AEUG. He cleared his throat to take another moment to compose himself.

“This message is from the Argama,” he said, which garnered a few whispers from the assembled pilots. “To the Dervish, Priority One. Attention. Titans operation to capture Von Braun City ultimately unsuccessful; Von Braun liberated by Argama on the 18th,” he had to stop for a moment there. Not only had the 4th taken such a horrible beating, but they had been utterly fooled by a diversionary action on Luna. He took a deep breath and continued reading, knowing the rest wouldn’t be any easier to get through. “Commodore Blex Forer has been confirmed as killed on Earth. His death is being investigated by our agents as an assassination.”

He paused again, this time just skipping a beat before he read the last part of the message. “An attempted colony drop on Luna was foiled by friendly forces; we suspect the Titans used the missing colony 27th Bunch from Side 4,”. The silence in the room was deafening. He suddenly found himself very thankful Michiko Sato wasn’t in the room.

END ARC 2
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