The battle for Side 3 was reaching its end. The Federation was in full retreat, their shattered remnants fleeing toward the moon. All that was left for the victors was to clean up the wreckage and eliminate the desperate survivors.
Meanwhile, at Solomon...
Inside the cockpit of the RX-78GP02A Gundam "Physalis," the cooling systems groaned under immense strain, venting the terrifying thermal backwash of the newly unleashed Atomic Bazooka. Anavel Gato gripped the controls, his intense gaze fixed on the expanding cloud of superheated plasma and vaporized titanium outside his viewport.
"The nightmare of Solomon... is realized once more," Gato murmured, his voice a low, reverent rumble that vibrated through the cockpit. Snapping his primary display back to active combat mode, his eyes hardened. "But the battle is not won. All units, press the advantage! Do not let them recover!"
Deep within the subterranean bunkers of the space fortress Solomon, the atomic blast wave rattled the heavily reinforced bulkheads. Overhead, the primary lights flickered violently, died, and were instantly replaced by the eerie, crimson glow of emergency auxiliary power.
"Status report! *Give me a status report!*" a Federation officer roared, gripping the edges of the command table with white knuckles just to stay upright.
"Sir! The vanguard and the third fleet... they're gone!" a sensor officer cried out, his voice cracking with sheer, unadulterated panic.
The commanding officer's teeth ground together so hard they audibly clicked. "Where are our MS Girls?!" he demanded, spinning around to face his tactical screen.
"We don't have any stationed here, sir!" the officer yelled back over the blaring alarms.
"High Command diverted our MS Girl units to the Jaburo defense grid last week! We only have standard GM C-Types and experimental space-use types left!"
"Then we fight with what we have," the officer said, his eyes darkening with grim determination. "Order the remaining garrison to form a defensive perimeter around the primary dockyard. If we lose the internal hangars, they'll tear this fortress apart from the inside out. Use the anti-ship batteries to create a flak wall!"
But the Zeon forces were already riding the absolute crest of their breakthrough wave. Leading the fierce charge into the breached dockyards wasn't just a horde of standard mass-production mobile suits it was the elite vanguard that Vertin had personally promised.
Among the incoming Zeon forces, a lethal streak of crimson and gold cut cleanly through the drifting debris field. It was a Kämpfer but not just any mere machine. This was an MS Girl, a living weapon beautifully fusing advanced technological armor with a human form, moving with a terrifying, fluid grace that no standard pilot could ever hope to replicate in a cockpit.
"Feds! You're in my way!" she laughed, her mocking voice broadcasting across open emergency frequencies.
With a sudden, violent burst of her thrusters, she danced effortlessly through a hail of incoming Federation machine-gun fire. A squad of three GM C-Types attempted to box her in, but she flipped gracefully in the zero-gravity environment, drawing twin giant bazookas from her back binders in a seamless motion.
Thoom! Thoom!
Two GMs erupted into brilliant, blinding fireballs. The third pilot, utterly terrified, scrambled backward in a panic. "She's too fast! The thruster lead-time doesn't make sense! It's an MS Girl!"
Before he could finish the thought, she closed the distance in a flash. Drawing a beam saber, she sliced through the GM's cockpit in one smooth, sweeping motion.
Behind her, a grizzled Gelgoog pilot Gato's wingman pulled up, his machine's thrusters sputtering slightly from a previous graze. He watched the Kämpfer girl rip through the Federation defenses with a mixture of awe and begrudging respect.
"Heh. Guess Gato was right," the veteran muttered to himself, turning his beam rifle toward a lingering Federation defense turret. "Underestimating those girls really is stupid thinking. Hey, kid! Don't hog all the glory! Leave some Federation scrap for the rest of us!"
"Then hurry up, old man!" she shot back, already boosting at maximum output toward the fortress's primary airlock. "We take Solomon today!"
Outside the burning, breached fortress, Anavel Gato maneuvered the massive Physalis. His atomic payload was spent, and a heavy clash had left the Gundam's left arm visibly damaged. Yet, he was far from finished. Drawing his beam saber a blade of pure plasma significantly larger than standard issue he intercepted a desperate counter-attack from a squad of incoming Federation reinforcements.
A GM rushed him, its beam saber raised in a suicidal charge. Gato didn't even flinch. He parried the strike with his reinforced, nuclear-resistant radiator shield. The heavy impact echoed loudly through the frame of his suit, but Gato instantly counter-attacked with a brutal thrust that pierced the enemy's reactor.
"Your bravery is wasted on a corrupt Federation," Gato said quietly as the suit exploded into ash behind him.
He looked up toward the main hangar doors of Solomon, which were now being violently breached by Zeon assault teams. The distinct green and gray colors of the Neo Delaz Division were flooding the base.
Suddenly, the broadcast channels on his HUD flickered to life. The regal, defiant face of Vertin appeared, her image transmitted directly from the fleet flagship overseeing the annihilation.
"Side 3 has been retaken," Vertin announced, her eyes burning with an intense, revolutionary fervor that captivated everyone watching. "And Solomon burns. The Federation's arrogance has cost them dearly. Press onward, my warriors! Let the universe know that Zeon has returned to claim its birthright!"
"SIEG ZEON!" Gato roared in unison with the thousands of fanatic voices flooding the comm channels.
Pushing his thruster levers completely forward, the GP02A plummeted directly into the smoke-filled maw of the fortress. The Reincarnator was waiting deep within, and the momentum of history was now entirely on Zeon's side.
Just then, a nearby Zaku F2 pilot noticed the state of the commander's mobile suit and patched into Gato's direct line. "Gato! Your mobile suit's left arm is damaged! Return to the ship immediately!"
Gato glanced at his diagnostic monitors. "Mhm... Fine," he conceded.
Turning the Physalis around, he boosted back toward the fleet. After all, his primary mission was accomplished but he would definitely return to the front lines soon.
Meanwhile, on the completely opposite side of the chaotic battlefield, the sister unit of the GP02A was fighting like a demon possessed against the sweeping Zeon forces.
"Sieg Zeon!" a Rick Dom II pilot screamed over the comms, right before his mobile suit was torn apart by the beam rifle of the RX-78GP01 Gundam "Zephyranthes."
Inside the GP01 cockpit, Kou Uraki scanned the radar frantically, his voice strained with desperation. "Where is Gato?!"
Before he could search any further, a hostile Gelgoog lunged from the debris, forcing him back into evasive maneuvers.
The Federation reinforcements were en route to Solomon, but the surviving defenders faced a brutal reality they had to hold out against the Zeon onslaught until those ships arrived, or there would be nothing left to save.
A/n: still alive and won't quit its just... Chapters take too long lol.