Throwing a Particle Annihilation Bomb into the barrel of the Requiem cannon was like playing with fire next to a methane tank—it was all about going out with a bang.
Reid had guessed correctly. The Daedalus Base Commander, seeing the Mobile Suit piloted by Reid Isaac heading straight for the main body of the Requiem, decided to set a trap.
Firing the Requiem in an emergency, even with low energy charge, wasn't a problem. It didn't need to cross hundreds of thousands of kilometers to hit other Colony Satellites or Earth. Even at its lowest power output, no Mobile Suit could survive a direct hit at the cannon's mouth.
Of course, the idea that no Mobile Suit could withstand a direct hit from the Requiem was based on the Daedalus Base Commander's narrow understanding. For instance, Orb's Akatsuki in the original theatrical version blocked a full-power Requiem blast. (That shot was originally intended for Orb.)
However, the Akatsuki was a special case, specifically designed to counter beam weapons and capable of reflecting beams, which caused the Requiem to halt its own fired beam.
A normal Mobile Suit indeed had no business trying to block the Requiem head-on. Even if the Joyeuse Gundam activated its Trans-Am System and swung its sword, it would likely only last a few seconds. The energy disparity between the two was too vast. Reid would need to activate the Star Inheritor and pull off a miracle to confront it directly.
But Reid, being the sly old fox he was, didn't give the Daedalus Base Commander a chance to trap him. His Mobile Suit never approached the cannon's mouth. Instead, from several kilometers away, he had his flying sword hurl the bombs.
On radar, the GN Buster Sword appeared extremely small and was mistaken by Daedalus Base for a micro-drone sent to scout the situation. After reporting it, the Daedalus Base Commander paid it little mind.
By the time the Positron Reflection Shield was breached, it was already too late for Daedalus Base to react.
Three bombs, each equivalent to a Tactical Nuclear Bomb, detonated at the fully charged barrel of the Requiem. The resulting power was enough to shake heaven and earth.
In an instant, the Requiem's cannon emitted a blinding white light, which rapidly expanded, engulfing almost half the crater where the Requiem was located in mere seconds.
Fortunately, Reid had turned his Mobile Suit around and fled immediately after throwing the Particle Annihilation Bombs, or he would have been caught in the blast.
Due to the Moon's exceptionally thin atmosphere, the shockwave only propagated along the ground as seismic waves, with almost no impact on low-altitude areas.
However, the explosion ejected massive amounts of material from the Requiem's cannon into the air, sending dust, rubble, and metal fragments flying in all directions. For units in the air, as long as they were outside the blast radius, the worst they faced was getting their Mobile Suits covered in dust—so long as they weren't unlucky enough to be pierced by flying metal debris.
The explosion at the Requiem's cannon naturally hit Daedalus Base the hardest. Although safety measures had been considered during its construction, including placing the main cannon outside the safe zone and installing numerous blast and impact-resistant structures to account for the possibility of an explosion during energy charging, Reid's "extra ingredients" had exceeded the design limits of these protective structures.
As a result, Daedalus Base experienced what felt like a magnitude-12 earthquake, throwing everyone inside into chaos within moments.
Moreover, it was unclear whether the Atlantic Federation had skimped on construction materials for this base, as the walls were now riddled with large cracks from the tremors, and numerous facilities within the base were damaged or malfunctioning. It could be declared that the base was half-paralyzed, with communications, just restored, cutting out again.
This time, even optical signals couldn't transmit commands, as the personnel at the control console had been thrown off by the violent shaking—no one knew where they'd landed—and the console itself was sparking with arcs of electricity, most likely broken.
To make matters worse, the defensive forces outside at Daedalus Base were being slaughtered.
While Reid was dealing with the two Peggrandes, the Xia sisters, operating with their Psycho-link system activated, had begun massacring Daedalus Base's defenders.
Whether it was a Mobile Suit or a Mobile Armor, pilots would typically hear their Mobile Suit's alarm go off, see a flash of green or magenta on their screens, and then—nothing.
In their Psycho-linked state, the Xia sisters struck with precision and ruthlessness. The Blade Angel Gundam was relatively restrained, as it had fewer long-range options; its primary methods were closing in for a single slash or deploying its Funnel Blades to eliminate foes.
Yet, at this moment, the Blade Angel Gundam moved as if tracing a continuous line, explosions linking together wherever it passed.
If the Blade Angel Gundam erased enemies like an eraser, wiping them out along its path, then the NT-X2 Gundam was like selecting all and deleting. Its killing speed now depended solely on how fast its computer could lock onto targets—basically, as soon as the computer acquired a lock, the enemy would be pierced by a beam.
Crucially, the NT-X2 Gundam was executing these maneuvers while dashing at high speeds.
From the perspective of the New Misurugi Kingdom's radar, enemy red dots were vanishing in large clusters every few seconds. Within a minute, the remaining Mobile Suits of Daedalus Base's 3rd, 4th, 7th, 8th, and 9th Mobile Brigades were estimated to be only a third of their original numbers.
The commander of the 7th Brigade, who was serving as overall commander, had died in Reid's subsequent attack on the warships.
However, Daedalus Base could still continuously deploy other units from within the base for defense, so the battle had to go on.
What followed went without saying. Although the Psycho-link system had been deactivated, the one-minute connection time hadn't left the Xia sisters mentally exhausted to the point of losing combat effectiveness.
They merely felt a slight mental fatigue, akin to having just finished a grueling math exam in the college entrance exams.
This level of fatigue was no issue for the two sisters, who had been trained by Kowloon—it didn't affect their fighting capability at all.
Moreover, it wasn't long before Silver Lightning arrived for support. Against Silver Lightning's firepower, the Mobile Suits and Mobile Armors of Daedalus Base were utterly outmatched, quickly forcing the defenders to retreat into the base's shelters, relying on dense arrays of high-energy beam defense cannons to cling on.
The problem was, Daedalus Base's high-energy beam defense cannons were on par with large naval guns. They might work against ordinary Mobile Suits—even a Mass-Produced GM Astray with Electromagnetic Armor would be crippled by a direct hit.
But when these sporadic shots hit the wall-like GN Field of Silver Lightning, they were utterly meaningless.
In contrast, Silver Lightning could obliterate entire areas with a single shot. Compounding this, without the numerous Zamza-zahs to act as shields, the Gran Chaos's Shipboard Buster Beam Cannon would fire into densely packed enemy zones as soon as it finished charging, wiping out foes and clearing all surface structures in the area simultaneously.
At this point, Daedalus Base had effectively already lost. At best, they could only hole up inside the base and engage in a defensive battle against the New Misurugi Kingdom.
However, Reid had no intention of occupying the base. With his current limited forces, forcibly taking the base risked the Atlantic Federation resorting to self-destruction.
After the Requiem was destroyed, Reid flew to the original cannon position, satisfied as he observed a massive crater-within-a-crater in the meteorite basin.
Rebuilding the Requiem would now be impossible for several months—unlike in the original timeline, where ZAFT managed to repair it within days and resume firing.
Though occupying the base was unnecessary, certain targets still had to be destroyed. Reid directly issued an order over the squad comms:
"Everyone, begin destroying all protruding structures on the surface of Daedalus Base. Leave nothing standing."
This command was intended to drastically increase the Atlantic Federation's cost of repairing the base.
Although the main body of Daedalus Base was underground, the surface structures still housed vast quantities of supplies. Large systems like water recycling and air purification were inevitably placed on the surface to preserve precious underground space.
If these were destroyed, even with small or medium backup equipment underground, it would be insufficient to support such a large base. Mass personnel evacuation before repairs would be inevitable.
Reid, however, aimed to be particularly troublesome. Knowing that Daedalus Base would evacuate most personnel during subsequent repairs, he focused his attacks on various ports.
With ample time before the Earth Alliance's lunar base forces arrived for a second round to thoroughly punish them, Reid had his troops level the surface of Daedalus Base. Using the layout of all gates and elevator platforms obtained earlier by Hoshino Ruri from hacking the system, they employed high-powered beam cannons to collapse every exit.
Even several secret escape ports were targeted—Reid dispatched units to detour and destroy them, creating the impression that he intended to bury the remaining forces alive.
Of course, complete burial was impossible. With numerous Mobile Suits and Mobile Armors underground, they could eventually dig new passages. However, this process would be lengthy, ensuring that Reid wouldn't have to worry about Daedalus Base's remnants attacking his rear while he dealt with the lunar base forces.
Reid and his troops had nearly flattened and compacted the surface of Daedalus Base by the time the Earth Alliance's lunar fleet belatedly arrived.
The delay was unavoidable. When Daedalus Base initially called for help, the New Misurugi Kingdom's lunar rear base hadn't mobilized.
Although the Earth Alliance's lunar base began assembling a rescue fleet as requested by the Daedalus Base Commander, gathering three fleets took time. Moreover, underestimating the New Misurugi Kingdom's lunar rear base, they dispatched the three weakest fleets currently available.
From the lunar base's perspective, Daedalus Base was full of elites. If the New Misurugi Kingdom's lunar rear base forces dared to emerge, these three fleets would be sufficient to annihilate them while providing combat experience for the many rookies in the fleet.
The Earth Alliance's lunar base also detected the Silver Lightning in the space zone above the far side of the Moon. However, many staff officers at the Earth Alliance lunar base expressed disbelief that the commander of Daedalus Base would request support from three fleets just for one Large Mobile Armor and several Mobile Suits—questioning how he could be so timid.
Of course, the Earth Alliance lunar base didn't actually neglect their duties; they simply didn't rush to urge the forces with great urgency.
Then, Daedalus Base lost contact with the Earth Alliance lunar base.
When Hoshino Ruri attacked Daedalus Base, she naturally didn't forget the monitors placed by the Earth Alliance lunar base around the New Misurugi Kingdom's lunar far side base, so she took care of them all in passing.
From this point on, the Earth Alliance lunar base had no knowledge of the battle situation at Daedalus Base. Although three fleets had been dispatched, sending Mobile Suits back and forth would undoubtedly take longer than the one-way journey of the three fleets. Moreover, the Mobile Suits weren't equipped with large signal receivers, making real-time communication impossible.
Thus, the communication blackout persisted until Daedalus Base was defeated, without any restoration.
After all, Hoshino Ruri wouldn't overlook battlefield communication jamming. Seeing that she could no longer infiltrate Daedalus Base's network, she directly activated the Neutron Jammer on the Gran Chaos. Even if Daedalus Base restored communications, it couldn't contact the Earth Alliance lunar base on the other side of the Moon.
However, the shockwave from the Requiem's explosion was still detected by the Earth Alliance lunar base.
It was only then that the Earth Alliance lunar base realized Daedalus Base might truly be in serious trouble. They hurriedly urged the three dispatched fleets to provide support quickly and subsequently sent an additional elite fleet.
Yet, when the three Earth Alliance fleets arrived at Daedalus Base and witnessed its devastating state, they were utterly bewildered.
In their eyes, the New Misurugi Kingdom's fleet wasn't large, and their Mobile Suits were below standard (with over half of the Mobile Dolls lost in previous battles). How could Daedalus Base have been completely overrun?
But they had no time to ponder further. Reid remarked that these three Earth Alliance fleets had arrived rather late—he was even getting a bit hungry.
So, the moment the three Earth Alliance fleets appeared, Reid immediately led his forces in a charge.
And then Reid discovered just how weak these three fleets were.
As Reid led the frontal assault, he had prepared to activate the Trans-Am System to breach the enemy's defenses, decapitate the flagship, throw the enemy forces into chaos, and then dismantle and annihilate them.
However, although the three Earth Alliance fleets formed decent formations and fired with discipline, their ranks visibly panicked when they saw all their Mobile Suits' Beam attacks being blocked by the Silver Lightning.
It's important to note that these three reinforcement fleets didn't have Mobile Armors like the Zamza-zah.
Even if mass-produced, the Zamza-zah was a highly precious asset, reserved only for elite fleets. Second-rate fleets, relegated to providing cover on the battlefield's fringes and cleaning up after battles, weren't qualified to be equipped with such Mobile Suits.
Thus, the Mobile Suits of these three fleets were all Dagger Ls and Windams, essentially lacking heavy firepower. Against the Silver Lightning, they couldn't even penetrate its defenses.
Moreover, Flay wasn't about to stand still and let the enemy hit her. She wouldn't take battleship cannon fire head-on with the Silver Lightning—after all, any Mobile Suit that could be hit by such cannon fire was either incompetent or purely unlucky, and no one on the battlefield could save such individuals.
Thus, Reid witnessed how Silver Lightning's charge into the enemy formation immediately caused widespread chaos among the Earth Alliance's Mobile Suits. This purely amateurish performance made Reid feel that the Trans-Am System could be reserved for later use—these three fleets might not be difficult to handle.
Just as Reid had anticipated, Silver Lightning effortlessly tore through the Earth Alliance Forces' defensive line, with Joyeuse Gundam, Blade Angel Gundam, and NT-X2 Gundam smoothly breaking through directly to the front of the warship formation.
What followed was a massacre. The elite Eighth Fleet from the previous war had already demonstrated the consequences of non-specialized warships being breached by elite Mobile Suits like Gundams at point-blank range.
These three fleets merely had a numerical advantage in ships, allowing Silver Lightning to blast through three or four vessels with a single shot, wreaking havoc.
When the command flagship was shot down, Reid was astonished to discover that the Mobile Suits from these three fleets actually began to flee. He then sighed helplessly, realizing he might have been bullying novices—these were likely second-line troops of the Earth Alliance, or possibly even second-line forces of the Eurasian Federation.
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