Episode 12 - Operation Apollo

[Cybaster]

"It's alright, Lieutenant Yamamoto. If anything, I should apologize as well for endangering you both --- for such an unnecessarily long length of time, no less --- and my tone of voice earlier. Don't worry about it." Gilliarme shook his head, and likewise took a look at Samantha's Marasai while drifting slightly further to avoid being caught together in an ambush, if needs be. "Ensign Fulton? How are you doing?"

[wonton bob]

- Salamis Kai-class Gela -
- Hanger -

"Bernie, party's over. I dunno what you're going after..but they're gone. End o' the line. I'm going to go after Rich and Yuri to see what the story is on our situation."

Hearing Al's voice snapped Bernard from focusing on word from the bridge. He did not even realize the squad had all returned from battle. Bernard took off his helmet and slouched in his seat.

So the kid survived ..good. A trip to the bridge does seem like a good place to get some info, after a much needed shower.

[King Monkey]

It is with some relief that Jacob watches the enemy Marasai team finally disengage. The feeling only increases as he glances at his panoramic monitor and quickly spots the other members of his team and the Hamburg and Dervish. He can't be sure about casualties for the rest of the AEUG forces, but the fact that his team, his mothership and the ship he set out to protect in the first place are all intact is enough for the moment.

His hands tense on his controls as he watches one of the Marasais begin an intricate dance and fire several beam shots back at the AEUG suits at it flees. Fortunately, they come rapidly enough that the pilot must not have time to aim properly and the one that comes nearest to him misses his right shoulder by a couple meters.

He bounds towards Clute, the low lunar gravity making the motion look simultaneously easy and ungainly. Keeping an eye on the enemy since faking a retreat just to lull them into a false sense of security would be the least of Titan deceptions, he keys the comm to his team.

"Ltjg. Markado reporting in. Minimal damage, Sir. Should we pursue?"

[Wedge14]

Pan casually let the Titan's shot fly past his suit harmlessly, while Thibault wasted propellant weaving to the left.

There was no way Pan and 'Tibby' could catch up to the escaping mobile suits. So they started heading towards the rest of the AEUG fleet.

"Heyden....they got away...no point in pursuing. Me and the kid are coming back"

[Fritz Ashlyn]

- Fritz and Michiko -

"I don't care what problems or connections you have with my father, rebel," Wolf hissed back as he raised his beam launcher at Fritz.

At that moment, Michiko was rapidly realizing just how far out she and Fritz had ventured before stopping in the enemy’s midst. One of the Hizacks charged her and managed to reach out and maintain touch contact long enough for her to get an eyeful of a teary-eyed Titan pilot screaming "..my family..you murderer!". Michiko was jostled slightly as Jason tried to maintain a grip on her, and it gave her time to react to his pitiful show. “Murderer? We aren’t the ones taking colonies!” she cheeped back, her tiny voice weighed down with hate. Her computer added it’s own mechanical protest to the mix as enemies began to encircle her Rick Dias. In a panic maneuver, she boosted backwards while turning her mobile suit in the direction of the AEUG fleet in an attempt to re-establish visual contact with Fritz. Beams and machinegun fire streamed behind her, none of it finding a solid target as she blindly poured on speed.

Fritz prepared to deal with the soon-to-be-incoming beam launcher blast, and was entirely blind to Nick’s kick aimed at his back. Just before the deadly attacks would have intersected, Michiko’s Rick Dias smacked into Fritz and held on, sending the two interlocked AEUG mobile suits spinning out of control and out of harm’s way. Wolf’s beam passed close enough to damage one of Fritz’ binders, which was promptly ejected to decompress and explode safely on the lunar surface. “Sir!” Michiko yelled as she fired verniers to stop the spin, “We need to get out of here. We’re too far out and they’re trying to withdraw,”.

Fritz cursed and raised the visor of his helmet. “You’re right. Let’s head back to the Dervish,” he reluctantly yielded as the two continued to put distance between themselves and the Titans. “That confirms we’re up against Echo again. I’ll have to deal with those two later...”

- Ltjg. Abendroth -

Just as he was adjusting incoming targeting data for his machinegun, things started to slow down as the Titans finally started to back off. “Not even one round...” he muttered as he turned his Rick Dom back towards the Zeon ships. “Lieutenant, I’m heading back to the ship. Looks like we’re not needed too badly back here,”.

- The Dervish -
- Bridge -

“Do it,” the captain ordered, nodding in Jungst’s direction. “Aye, sir,” came the reply, and seconds later three flares exploded above the Dervish in a specific pattern; the first a duo and then a solitary colored round. To the AEUG members present, it was an easily understood series: ‘MS Teams return to ships. All ships hold position,’. Abbey cleared his throat and added, “Ms. Allman, when Minovsky has thinned enough, please re-send the order to hold position by voice,”.

- The Hamburg -
- Hallway -

Capt. Loweno glided down a hallway near the bridge, one of his engineers tagging along by holding onto his shoulder. Word had already trickled down to the captain that they were to hold position, and that McHale had landed and the others weren’t far behind. “We won’t be able to recover any of Lt. Dixon’s Nemo,” the engineer explained, almost lamenting the loss of parts. Loweno gave him a dirty glance, and the chief added, “Or his remains, of course. A shame,”. Loweno shook his head and let go of the gripper that had pulled them along to a damaged area of the aft section. “I’m more worried about the engines and the sections forward of the mounts. Losing Clay our first time out is bad enough, but I can’t have an engine overload and blow the whole ship,” the captain sighed.

“Of course, sir. We’re splitting into smaller teams so we can start work on all damaged areas simultaneously. First priority is preventing the damage from spreading,” the chief replied, pointing into a darkened area where a three man team was closing a ruptured bulkhead. One of the backup bridge crewmen poked his head through a doorway that was stuck half-open. He waved for the captain’s attention and reported, “Sir, we’ve stopped moving without incident. The engines look okay from the bridge. I’ll, uh... work on repairing the wall phone here so we don’t have to send runners down,”. André nodded and replied, “Fine. Have somebody put together a damage report and send it over to Carl so he has something to read while we’re waiting,”.

[wonton bob]

As the Rick Dias boosts away from Jason an incoming alarm warns him of the friendly fire. Unable to follow Michiko the Hizack veers left to avoid the shot from Picard but fails to see the 3 shots from Alexandra. Jason's in shock to see his Hizack's left arm go flying in front of him. Cut at the elbow it goes spinning.. saber and all. That's the last image he sees from his main cameras as the last shot takes part of the Hizack's head. Jarred by the event, anger is his first emotion.

"What the f***!" Jason yells as systems fail all around him.

Jason's Hizack starts a slow fall back towards the lunar surface.

[Psyden]

Since the shot at Clute is more to drive him away, with some help of his binders and other various thrusters, he is able to boost out of the away, though any attempt to now chase Samantha is out of the question, but since they are running, it is best not to pursue, anyway.

Celeste’s was an easier dodge. She merely turned to the right and raised her weapon above her head with the Marasais retreated, but instead of giving chase, she fires off her last case shot at Shin.

Jack, who is dodging another Marasai, dodges Gilliarme’s shot by accident. When the other Marasai, the one with the hammer and sickle (Stukov), Jack can’t dodge the first shot, but he almost does. The casualty is his left binder, which automatically detaches before exploding. The next shot is a close shave, passing only meters away on his left. Stukov’s final shot takes Jack’s left arm off just below the shoulder. And then the killer Marasai is gone. Jack does what he can and takes aim on the back of the fleeing Titan and fires 3 hastily aimed shots before returning his attention to his original target. He can always track down that other Marasai later. With any luck, he’ll be assigned to Echo, the Titan unit from Hell seemingly destined to hound the 4th. Taking aim at Gilliarme again, he fire thrice, all well aimed at the seemingly invincible mobile suit.

As the distance between Clute and Samantha opens even more, Gilliarme’s final shot at Team 3 is utterly wasted on the Lunar surface.

Ens. Markado bounds up to him and asks if they should pursue.

Clute exhales as the first part of his response.

“No, Ensign, we will not pursue. We will, however, return to ship, where we were suppose to be awaiting orders, is that understood?”

His nasally voice tinged with a slight bit of anger.

[King Monkey]

"Uh...yessir," Jacob answered hesitantly. He was aware of the anger in his commanding officer's voice, but the subtle warning didn't register. It wasn't long ago that he was an Ensign and being referred to by his former rank isn't something he notices.

A different kind of nervousness fills him now. Sure, there wasn't much chance he was going to get shot or blown up anymore, but he suspected there might be corrections in his future.

He just didn't quite know why as he activated the thrusters on his Rick Dias and flew up in a slow, graceful arc to land on the Dervish once more.

[ORegan]

Miller sees Drossel get hit from the beams, and instinctively Grabs his HiZack, and tows him to his old position with the quite guy on their team. He started to slowly tow it though, so he doesn't get hit by friendly fire like Drossel did just now.

[EZero8]

--Wes Curren--

"Dammit... this is taking too long..." Curren thought to himself as he fired shots from his odd position. He didnt want to mess around any longer than he had to... and apparently everyone was beginning to retreat.

Angry that he didnt exactly do much of anything other than be attacked from all sides, Wes stablizes his unit before speeding away and back to the Dervish. Personally, he wondered why the fight was so short...

[Cybaster]

(This is just so nobody has an excuse to 48 me. )

As Gilliarme was already drawing distance away from Clute's Team in general by the time Jack had managed to retaliate --- especially due to Stukov's timely intervention --- dodging Jack's final three shots at him was a likewise easy matter. The first two of three simply miss, passing the rear of the Marasai widely, and the third was avoided as Gilliarme makes a body swing at that moment towards his right, causing the shot to miss his Marasai's left arm.

It was otherwise over. Their distance would not allow any more shots to be traded.

[RGM-79 GM]

As Shin is boosting towards the ship he gets a warning of a attack coming in behind him so he looks back and sees a shot coming at him so he has his Marasai boost down and go under the shot and he wonders why the Titans got orders to retreat so quickly. Then on a private line he sends Gilliarme a message. "Sir do you know why we got orders to retreat so quickly?"

[wonton bob]

As Jason falls horrifying images run through his mind.

So this is my tomb. Everything I've done won't matter..

Jason's fists pound the console. "NO!"

Whether it was his fist or some unknown the secondary cameras come on-line bringing the monitors back to life. It was a static filled view of Miller's Hizack which appeared on screen. It was a beautiful sight to him. His spirits lifted as he realized the he will eventually get another chance at the AEUG. With a loud 'THUD' Jason feels his Hizack being towed by Miller and that other guy.

"Well, looks like we showed them .. flares?.. Miller let's get back to the Hades, it's over." Jason starts to laugh uncontrollably.

[Ascension]

-Caroline Tucker

Caroline was happily surprised by the appearance of flares bursting above the Dervish.

"Ah! Looks like it's over, sir! We survived! Your orders?"

-Jim MacAlpin

Jim saw the retreat flares go up and thought to himself, *Well, that saves me the trouble of trying to explain what I'm doing back here on the ship... I'll just say that I was nearer the ship when the flares went up, so that's why I got here first...*

-Nathan Dombrowski

*'Hold position' flares... Abbey's calling off the pursuit...*

"All stop!" Dombrowski called, "Perkins, ready for reverse thrust on my signal!"

[ORegan]

Drossel order Miller to take him back to base, signifying that the battle was over. "um...roger sir...bee uhh...ready for landing when we get close."

Patrick and the quite guy(wonton's last post said he was helping, so why not?) slowly boosted towards the Hades. Miller wanted to make sure that he wasn't roughing up the XO in the cockpit too much. "Sir is the ride smooth enough for you?"

[Gambit01]

When Nick missed with the kick, he was mad.

When 'friendly' fire was heading right towards him, he was p*****.

"Sonofa-!!"

A barrel roll was the only thing that saved him.

He turned around quickly, searching for enemy mobile suit. His search revealed that it had long since retreated.

"Goddamnit Ritter! I had him, and I could have still had him if you didn't shoot that thing like a lunatic!!!"

This had gone beyond his grudge with Ritter; that f***** had said some very personal things, and it was going to be hell if they met at the later stage of this fight.

[Cardi Doorl]

Main Formation

- Beta Team -

From seemingly nowhere, the other Rick Dias had flown in a barreled its blue counterpart out of harm's way. The two rebel units were soon making good speed away from the combat area.

Wolf's shot streaked dangerously close to Nick's custom Hizack. It wasn't long before the red-eyed Lieutenant shouted "**** Ritter! I had him, and I could have still had him if you didn't shoot that thing like a lunatic!!!"

Wolf ignored him. If that idiot wanted to fight in a melee-only mobile suit on a battlefield where ranged beam weapons were the norm, he'd have to accept the inherent danger of such lunacy. Instead, Wolf signaled to his team to group up. With the ships falling back, all the suit teams would have to stay near. The Kirov wasn't yet fully returned to the main formation, so Wolf headed to the Kalinin. Alexandra followed, bitter that the red Rick Dias had successfully interrupted Wolf's fight. She doesn't much care that she'd scored hits on a Hades Team Hizack.

- Hades Team -

Picard fumed as he landed on the top deck of the Hades, having made it there before the rest of his team because he wasn't towing a Hizack's worth of dead weight.

"Listen up," he barked to his team, intent on preventing Drossel from building up too much authority, "Once we're on deck, I want Miller to assist in getting Drossel's machine back on the elevator to the suit bay. Once that thing's secured, I want Miller back up here on deck until we receive confirmation that we've exited the combat area. Silverwind, stay up here the whole time."

- Ipswich Team -

Gelt and his team danced around the Rick Dias' last spurt of beam shots before the red machine dashed away, it's superior acceleration giving the Ipswich Team Hizacks no chance to catch up. Not that they'd want to; they had orders to fall back to the retreating ships anyway. With a nod, Gelt motioned with his Hizack's left hand, signaling his team to return to the Ipswich.

- Dooparalamoore Tri-Stars and Randarmel Team -

A beam from Wes' rifle burned along Dieguez's suit's shoulder, but caused no major damage. The Zeon pilot tried to track his target to return fire, but found the AEUG mobile suit was in retreat. Seeing no reason wasting a bazooka shell, Dieguez relented.

Abendroth's voice came in through the fuzzy connection: "Lieutenant, I’m heading back to the ship. Looks like we’re not needed too badly back here".

"Yeah, let's head back," yawned Dieguez, "This fight's over. Didn't get to do a damn thing."

[Cardi Doorl]

Hamburg Vicinity

- Stukov -

As Stukov screamed past, his threat indicators wailed about incoming fire from behind. Although hastily aimed, the shooter was a natural with well-placed snap shots. One beam sears through Stukov's right toe, burning away much of the foot's front half. Another shot streaks up just inches away from the shoulder shield, leaving a gout of molten slag up its length. The last caught Stukov in mid-roll, severing a midsection cable.

Stukov swore in his native tongue, but otherwise continued toward the Kirov, having no other choice that wasn't suicide. Delta Team had a head start in returning to the mother ship, so that at least meant Stukov would be the last one back. The Russian liked it that way.

Kirov Vicinity

- Alexandria-class Kirov -
- Combat Bridge -

The enemy warships grew increasingly distant as the Kirov sped away, the Herakles close by.

"Sir, it seems the last of our teams has successfully disengaged the enemy," sang out Sergei, "The AEUG forces have shot up flares; it seems they won't pursue."

"They surely found out what happened to Von Braun, then," mused Trent, "And realized the pointlessness of pursuing a diversion. Our work here is done. Have all teams report in. Any units still in operational condition are to stand guard near their mother ships. Any damaged units are to go in for patchwork."

[Cybaster]

"I'm not entirely sure yet, Lieutenant Yamamoto," Gilliarme answered matter-of-factly, nodding and taking a glance behind him. Other than Stukov making his own way up towards the Kirov, the AEUG weren't pursuing anymore. As Delta Team continued moving, Gilliarme's Marasai reached its right arm out to hand the Beam Rifle back to Shin. "But if Daningan's main group failed," Which was pretty likely, Gilliarme decided not to add. "The AEUG would've pushed their advantage and blitzed the Kirov with more numbers by now, hence my guess is that the operation was successful."

Then the Kirov's order to report in came, and Gilliarme broke the private channel briefly to respond. "Delta Leader here, all members present and accounted for."

As his legless Marasai floated into the Kirov's close vicinity, Gilliarme brought it to a gentle deceleration until it was now moving parallel, at the Kirov's port side, to the ship at the same speed. "Ensign Fulton, Lieutenant Yamamoto, go ahead and land first if you need to."

[wonton bob]

"Sir is the ride smooth enough for you?"

Jason doesn't answer Miller. He is in deep thought with his arms folded.

What the heck just happened? I lost sight of things and damn near got killed. That Marasai pilot didn't help things much either. If I ever meet that guy I got a left hook for him.

-Later-

- Salamis Kai-class Hades-
- Hanger -

Jason removed his helmet and looked up at the tortured Hizack. He grimaced when he saw the amount of damage it sustained.

"Can we really win with this thing?"