The Freedom Gundam weaved in and out of the shots fired by the Starscream like an annoying housefly before firing its weapons to destroy the Starscream's last high-energy cannon. 'That's the last of their major offensive weapons. Now I can head back to the Eternal and disable those four mobile suits bothering it,' thought Kira. He gave a small satisfied sigh before heading back.
As he headed back, his sensors detected incoming weapons fire from the Gargoyle Gundam. He quickly dodged it and returned fire to the other mobile suit with his beam rifle. As Akira blocked the shot, Leo came in from a different angle and attempted to slice the Freedom into pieces with his beam weapons. Kira whipped out his own beam saber, parried Leo's attack and then kicked the Eden back before firing a shot from his beam rifle. Leo activated the CIWS in his suit's head to safely block Kira's shot.
"You're going down, Freedom! Just like that GuAIZ squad we wasted earlier!!" shouted Hugo before unleashing the firepower from the Schlag cannons built into the shoulders of the Juggernaut Gundam. The Freedom desperately moved in and out of the shots as the pilot tried to get back to the Eternal.
"Why won't you leave us alone?!?" shouted Kira before firing his weapons in the directions of the Juggernaut, the Gargoyle and the Eden. While Hugo and Leo were forced back, Akira drew his beam saber and directed his suit to fly towards the Freedom. Since the Gargoyle's mobility was on par with the Freedom's, Akira got in close enough to make an attack. Kira gasped before he quickly reacted to have his beam saber clash against Akira's.
On board the Starscream, the intercom came to life. "All hands. This is the Captain. I'll be setting a direct ramming course to the Eternal as well as the self-destruct sequence. All personnel please evacuate to the escape pods and make your way to the Pegasus." Crew members quickly headed to the pods with some members grabbing a few items from their quarters.
Meanwhile, the Eternal continued to fire her missiles at the mobile suits swarming it and at the incoming shots from the Pegasus to prevent direct hits. Under Andrew Waltfeld's tactics, they were able to nail the last two GINNs who attempted to get close to engineering. But the CGUEs were another matter, being highly maneuverable machines. Lacus gasped as both of them got into a suitable position and prepared to open fire on the bridge. Before they could do anything, an explosion from Armory 01 distracted the CGUE from firing. 'What the hell was that?!?' thought Todd.
Both Todd and Dean gasped when they saw the Justice Gundam emerge from the smoke with the METEOR unit attached. Athrun quickly targeted the CGUEs and fired one of his high-energy beam cannons, destroying both units quickly. "This is Athrun Zala hailing the Eternal. Are you alright?"
Andy gave a sigh of relief before speaking. "You have great timing, Mr. Zala. Now how about helping Kira deal with the enemy mobile suits? And then you can have fun blasting the enemy ships."
"Acknowledged!" He then noticed the Starscream has started up its engines and broke out of its original position. 'The hell? Why would it be coming towards...shit!! It's going on a suicide run to try and destroy the Eternal!!'
Inside his cockpit, Leo was baffled at the actions of the captain of the Starscream. "What?!? Why the hell would they destroy a perfectly good ship?!? So what if we don't get the Eternal today? There's always another time!!" He gave another swing with his beam lance on the Freedom. The other suit barely dodged it, as the pilot had been busy dealing with Hugo and Akira, and lost one of its "Xiphias" rail cannons as a result.
Richards calmly replied through the communications unit of the Pegasus to the pilot. "Captain Piker believed that there would not be another opportunity as good as this to destroy the ship. If the Eternal did escape us today, they could have serious reinforcements from both the Three Ship Alliance and from ZAFT in the future. All the crew members have safely made it to the Pegasus and the Starscream's course is being auto-navigated. The explosion radius could be quite large so I suggest the three of you fall back."
"Copy! Team, fall back!!" shouted Leo over his radio. There was no argument from Hugo and Akira as they had heard what Richards had said.
As the Eden, Gargoyle and Juggernaut made their retreat, Kira wondered what was going on until he noticed the Starscream on a direct collision course with the Eternal. By its current speed, there was no way the Eternal could move in time to avoid the other ship completely. 'Lacus!!' He desperately checked his suit's status, hoping that he had enough firepower to stop the ship but the trio had effectively disabled his "Xiphias" rail cannons and his "Baleena" plasma beam cannons.
Then he saw Athrun emerging from behind the Eternal with his suit equipped with the METEOR unit. Richards noticed this as well and gave out new orders. "Target our weapons at the other suit and fire!!"
"We can't! Our beam cannons need to recharge from our last attack on the Eternal and the enemy is out of the weapons reach of our railguns!"
Richards quickly checked on the status of the pilots. Akira and Leo had already docked into the ship but the Juggernaut was still in space. "Pilot Namora!! Stop the other suit before it gets a chance to stop the Starscream's suicide run!" Hugo saw the suit on his sensors, made an about face and fired his double-barreled hyper beam rifles along with his Schlag cannons. Athrun saw this and let loose with some missiles to prevent the shots from getting too close to him. Before Hugo could fire again, Kira came in and used his beam rifle to force the Juggernaut back to the Pegasus.
'Not too much time left!' Athrun quickly moved into a good position from behind the Starscream and then activated the METEOR's beam swords. Then he plowed through the ship and made sure to stop the engines, causing the ship to slow down. As soon as he got to the other side and put a great deal of space between him and the ship, he let loose with all of his high-energy beam cannons to destroy the Starscream, creating a massive explosion.
Kira sighed in relief when he saw the Starscream explode at a safe distance from Athrun and the Eternal. It appeared the danger has passed for now as the enemy decided to withdraw since they weren't in a good condition to deal with a Gundam equipped with a METEOR unit.
See other episodes by Yasanagi
(Posted Thu, 15 Jun 2006 18:00)
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