Silent Requiem, a fanfic by Nightmaresama, chapter 19

The Blue Destiny unit slammed into the side of the Mobile Armour and caused a terrific explosion.

Hilde's Guncannon was flung forward from the shockwave, and her mass-balancer was throw totally off. Had Leon not been there to catch her, she might have tumbled through space forever.

"Gene! Oh my God, no! Don't leave me Gene; I love you too! I'm sorry! I take it all back, every word of it! God, I'm so, so sorry!" She slammed her fist down on the control panel again and again with each word.

"Hilde, you've got to calm down!" Leon was shouting at her. "Calm down! Going hysterical is not going to bring him back. He made his choice and all we can do is see to it that his sacrifice isn't in vain."

"I don't understand?" He asked in enraged disbelief. "Who the hell are you to tell me what I don't understand? Who marched with Gene across the mother-fucking tundra into Canada? Who fought side-by-side with him at California? Who sat and listened to him yammer on and on about how great a person you were even though you went out of your way to rub his face in the dirt every chance you got? Who, Hilde? Because it sure as fuck wasn't you!"

'Squall is taking this as hard as I am,' she realised. 'They really must have been good friends,' she realised.

A trio of energy beams ended the conversation very quickly. The Val Varo, scarred and battered, but still very much alive was firing up its engines for another pass at them.

"Damn!" Leon raged, firing his machine gun at the gaping hole in the Mobile Armour's side. "What the fuck does it take to kill this thing?"

"It can't still be going," Hilde murmured, her face going deathly pale, "Gene, sacrificed himself to kill that beast. It couldn't have survived."

Other Zeon troopers had been attracted to the area by the explosion and had begun taking cheap shots at the GM and Guncannon fighting pathetically against the mighty Armour.

"He gave his life to save me, and for what? That damn thing didn't just took his kamekazi in stride, like it was nothing!" Her hands felt detatched from her body as they fired round after round at the enemy. "What a waste!" She screamed, tears blurring her vision as she instinctively kept firing. "What a fucking waste!"

"Hilde!" Leon's voice cut through her trance, "It's no good! We've got to pull back."

She dodged flack from a Dom, but kept her lock on the Armour. "I won't! If Gene was willing to die here than so am I!"

"Listen to yourself!" He grabbed the Guncannon and began tugging it to safety. "Do you have any idea what you're saying? You'd throw away that which Gene died to protect?"

She gritted her teeth. "And why not, Squall? I don't deserve what he gave me, you even said so yourself! Not me, not after all the shit I put him through. Now, let me go!"

Expending vital propellant dragging his struggling comrade was a definite way to get both of them killed anyway, but Leon perservered. They both had to make it out alive.

"You alright, sir?" A pilot of a friendly suit asked as he came over to inspect the damage to the MA.

Inside the cockpit, Kelley winced in agony. The impact of the Gundam with the Val Varo's hull had caved in the side of it and had broken loose a thin pice of sheet metal which had neatly cleaved off his right arm at the shoulder. Fortunately, the cockpit hadn't been compromised; otherwise, the lack of pressure would have caused the blood in his exposed wound to boil and he probably would have died in short order.

How was he supposed to pilot effectively with only one limb? Damn that Feddie for having the balls to pull off a kamekazi! All the propaganda reels had shown the Feds to be sniveling cowards, having no ethics and totally incapable of understanding honour. But leave one to start getting ideas about valor and shit like this happened!

"I'm pulling back," he said into the com line. "I've got to see if they can fix this up."

"We'll tow you, sir," the friendly pilot said. "You won't be going anywhere fast like that."

'How long have I been here?' the words echoed in Trowa Barton's skull. He had lost consciousness after the second round of fighting with the mobile armour right after the battered Guncannon had opened fire on it. He knew he was fortunate to have woken up at all; with all hell breaking loose all around him he could have been killed at any moment while he drifted lifelessly.

He glanced down at his lifesupport meter on his forearm. Since he hadn't been moving around much, and his biorythem had slowed way down since he lost consciousness, he still had an hour's worth of oxygen.

What made it worse was that he hadn't seen what had happened to Sam and his CO. Had they been killed in the blast? That did't seem likely, their suits showed no sign of being hit by a particle cannon. Then they must have escaped, but where would they have gone? Had they left the GMs they would have been hoplessly stranded in the void like he was.

That would make sense. If the Guncannon and those blue Gundams had been trying to fight off the Mobile Armour, it would only be logical that they would both have been picked up afterwards.

Hooray for them then. That didn't change the fact that he was stuck out here with no hope of being rescued. He was going to die.

His vision came back into focus and he looked around, hoping to catch sight of a nearby Mobile Suit or battle cuirser. His frantic, darting glances were to no avail, there was nothing within a good ten kilometres of his location.

Trowa tried to force himself to be calm. Should he let his panic consume him, his ragged breathing would deplete his air supply even faster.

'At least this will be a painless death' he thought, 'nothing like bleeding to death from shrapnel wounds in an MS.'

That did little to console him though. He didn't want to die at all, painless or otherwise. He was still a young man; he'd still had a lot to look forward to. Would he have joined the circus as he'd planned? Or would he have stayed in the army? Would he have settled down? What would he have done if he had?

It wasn't fair! He didn't want to die; he had so damn much to live for! Add to that, the fact that he had to watch death come to him, minute by agonizing minute, and it really was more than he could stand.

What would the letter to his parents say? 'We regret to inform you that your son has died while serving with the undeniable zeal of a Federal Forces soldier'? Could they classify him as MIA? Obviously he wouldn't be alive to be missing for long; they might just skip the formality and put his name directly under the KIA list.

Damn this was cruel! What had he done to deserve this? He had been a good enough guy, with the exceptions of occasional practical jokes, and pranks.

He glanced down at the life-support meter. Forty-five minutes to go. The culmination of twenty-five years of existence was a snuffing out in a little more than half an hour.

Oddly enough, he found his thoughts drifting towards the doctor he'd met on the Valkyrie. Michelle, that was her name. He wondered how she was getting along, the last time he'd seen her, she'd been a drunken wreck. Had she come around? Had she seen what a waste it was to get so hung up on one individual so as to be pushed to such extremes?

Trowa knew now that none of that really mattered to his present predicament. He wasn't going to see Michelle again, not on this plane of existence. Silently, he wished her the best.

Thinking about Michelle got him thinking about all of the people that he'd met since he'd been in the service, all of his comrades whom he would also never see again. Duo, Sam, Hilde, Amy, Karen, his CO, Kiyone, Leon…

Damn, this wasn't fair at all! Why did he have to die? Why did he have to die alone, with no one to mourn him? Why couldn't he see everybody one more time? He wasn't even going to be able to say good-bye!

"Damn it, damn it, damn it!" he shouted aloud, the force of his own words startling him. He didn't even care if he was wasting his air by shouting, he was going to die anyway, wasn't he? What difference did it make now?

Then, quite without warning, a wave of exhaustion washed over his entire being. "Fuck," he said, his eylids drooping slightly, "life support won't last much longer. My body…my body's starting to shut down to save air…"

Trowa violently shook his head. If he went under now, he wasn't going to wake up again. He had to do something while he still had some energy left in him. There had to be something nearby! A ship, a MS…hell, at this point he'd even be glad to see that damn asteroid at least somewhere nearby. Anyplace where he could get some air!

'Hell no, dammit!' he thought. 'I've got to make it out alive! I've got to get back to Cathy and…and to Michelle!'

He felt the sleep creep up on him again, and he knew that this time he would not be able to hold it back. This was it. He was really going to die.

Trowa Barton lapsed out of consciousness moments before an immense shadow settled over his body…

Yu and Nimbus' duel continued across the void. It had been almost half an hour now, but neither was willing to conceede defeat, even though they wer both at the point of exhaustion.

Nimbus lashed out with a bayonet catching Blue right at the knee. The metal of the Feddie suit's joint groaned against the blade, but was stuck fast. It then reacted by slamming the blade of its energy sabre deep into the internal structure of the Xero's upper torso. The metal around the puncture wound glowed a molten orange.

It was a deadlock. Neither had the energy to continue fighting and they allowed their suits to remain in that positon for several moments on end. They glared intently at one another over the monitor each panting heavily.

"I'd be lying if I said that this wasn't the most fun I've ever had, dead or alive. Yet, like all good things, it must come to an end." Nimbus flicked up the cover on the missile launcher and prepared to depress it.

"Did I say that?" a wicked smile spread across his haggard face. "If I go down, I'm taking you and everybody else with me!"

"But what about all the innocents? You'll be killing other Zeon troops as well!"

Time seemed to slow as the Xero lowered its mighty cannon to directly before Blue's face. The gaping maw of the weapon totally filled Yu's visual monitors, sending him into total darkness.

Yu wrenched Blue free, tearing the leg apart in the process. He withdrew his blade from the chest of his enemy as the cannon began to brighten when the missile's thrusters ignited. With incredible speed, he brought the blade down, splitting the Nimbus' suit from crown to nave.

The Xero was rended asunder by a blinding explosion. "Take that, you sorry son of a bitch," Yu snarled. "And this time, you sure as fuck better stay dead."

"Michelle, get in here quick!" one of the other MedOffs was shouting, "We've got another live one."

"I'm coming," Michelle downed the coffee she had just made in a single gulp. She'd wanted something harder, but regulations would have frowned upon that.

She was in the middle of washing her hands when she felt a light tap on her shoulder. She turned away from the still-running water and headed towards the door. "I'm sorry," she said to whoever had been trying to get her attention, "You'll have to wait until I'm finished."

"The fuck I will," now Michelle did look up and her eyes landed on a woman several years her senior dressed in compelling military garb. "You are Dr. Michelle Bannock are you not? The same Michelle Bannock who was foolish enough to place a phone call to an enemy vessel yesterday?"

'Lie!' her subconscious screamed at her. 'You don't know this woman, and she sure as hell doesn't seem friendly.' Yet she knew lying would only get her in deeper, whatever it was she was in. This woman plainly already knew who she was.

"Yes, I am," Michelle said at last, "but at present, I am needed in the ER so whatever it is you need will have to wait."

"You don't seem to understand the predicament you are in, doctor, but let me spell it out for you: I'm Alice Miller, and in the name of the Federated Union of Earth, I am placing you under arrest for crimes of treason and espionage."

The analytical part of her, the part that had attended all the finest schools and medical training facilities in the Earth Sphere, knew that any attempt at escape would only further enmesh her in what was already a hopeless situation. Nevertheless, no matter how hard she tried to stay reasonable, the conflicting maelstrom of emotions that raged inside of her blotted out all forms of rational thought.

"No Federal Forces soldier needs the help of your treasonous hands," Miller said, a predatory smile slowly spreading across her face as she drew her sidearm. "I'll have to insist that you come with me."

"If you go through that door, I'll take it as a sign of resisting arrest and I will open fire." To emphasise that point, she cocked the weapon and trained it on the target.

"Shut up, doctor!" Miller raged. "If you don't come now, I swear to God I'll shoot you right where you stand!"

Michelle reflected on the past hour of her existence, on the past month, on her life as a whole. What did she have to look back on? What was there to make any of it seem worthwhile? What had she to be happy about in retrospect? Try as hard as she could, all she could think of was a long series of missed opportunities and wasted chances. Even the one bright spot in her mundane life, Alex Kincaid, had turned out to be nothing more than a liar; one more dissappointment in a long string of them.

Now, though, she really had lost everything. Family, the few friends she had accrued, happiness…even her life, now. She knew that even if she did decide to go along peacefully with this Miller woman, she would still end up in a prison somewhere. It would all be, hell, it all was for nothing.

Michelle expected to see stars. She expected everything to go black. She expected Pearly Gates. She was not expecting the stab of pain that ripped through her upper calf. She collapsedon the floor, blood spilling from the puncture wound.

"Damn you!" Michelle gasped. The pain was incredible; she was almost totally paralyzed by it.

"Doctor, is everything all right?" The orderly asked as she poked her head out from the ER. "I thought I heard…Oh my God!"

"Get this traitor some medical attention," Miller said coolly. 'I don't want her dying before her trial."

"Ma'am," the orderly nodded and helped Michelle to her feet, leadingher into the ER.

'Still got it,' Alice Miller was thinking, the predatory grin returning to her pretty face, 'I've still fucking got it.'

"Dammit!" Duo was starting to get really worried now. It had been almost two hours since the blast that robbed him of his sight, and the reality that he might never see again was finally starting to sink in.

"Calm down, kid," he heard Karen say from the next bed. "It's going to be okay. Really, it's not like in the old days when something like this was permanent. They can do surgery and fix your retinas in about an hour. Hell, they can even give you a whole new pair of eyes if you want them to. So quit your bitchin' and just sit tight."

"But…but…you don't know how this feels chief! This is some deep psychological damage type shit, man! I can't fucking see for God's sake!"

"Yeah, and I can't move my arm, but you don't see me whining like a little girl." He heard the covers on Karen's bed rustle slightly as she shrugged her mobile shoulder.

Duo sat silently for a moment and clutched his knees to his chest. "I just want to fucking see again!" he hissed under his breath. "I want to be able to look at Hilde when I finally get up the balls to ask her!"

How could he bring himself to divulge his biggest secret to Karen of all people? She'd mock him from now until he finally did Buy It if he let that slip.

"That's me," he looked up in the direction the voice had come from. Not that it would do him any good, it was just a reflex.

"If you'd be so kind as to follow me, I'll lead you to the OR. We'll see if we can't get your visual sensors working again." She giggled at her wit, comparing herself to an MS mechanic, but he didn't find it funny at all.

"You do undersand why he takes precidence over you, correct, Lieutenant Joshua?" The nurse asked Karen.

"Sure I do; you all have orders to get as many people flight-ready again as possible. I know it's a helluva lot easier to do retinal reconstruction than to reattach muscle fibers, so it only makes sense that youse would want to patch him up first."

"Thank you for understanding; you seem rather familiar with S.O.P. her on sickbay, have you had any medical training?"

"You might say that," Duo heard Karen nod and shrug again. "Anyway, go on ahead and fix his sorry ass so he can get back out ther into the fray! Every moment wasted gives the Zeeks another moment to reconsolidate their forces!"

"Yes, ma'am, right away. Ensign Maxwell, if you'll take my hand, I'll lead you to the OR."

Gato saw that the tide of the battle was turning against the soldiers of the Duchy. Federation dropships had long ago crossed the final defensive line and were now assaulting the base itself. Through maximum magnification of his visual scanners, he saw that they even had human infantry breaking in through the docks.

"I'll be damned if I sit and watch it end this way!" He fired the Gelgoogs thrusters and again began laying into the reems of Fed MS that pushed onwards toward the fortress.

Again and again, his sabre fell. Two GMs, three, five, eight; explosions from the wreakage set the vacuum ablaze in his wake. At a farther awy target, he fired two blasts from his beam cannon, though it was largely destroyed after the first.

He would not let the battle be lost this way! But as only one soldier, it was only a matter of time before a swarm of Feddies overwhelmed and killed him.

Gato set his teeth, throwing all concerns but his own single-mided dedication to the Rebellion, and charged again. By this time, a cohort of Zakus and Doms had begun to trail him, offering what assistance they could, and providing him covering fire. Gato found that odd, had his reckless zeal rallied them? By being so determined in raging against the overwhelming numerical might of the Feddies, had he added to the legend of the Nightmare of Solomon?

All of that flashed through his mind in a fraction of an instant, he could not be concerned with reasons, the only thing that mattered was the overarching importance of the Revolution.

Three shots from his cannon, when coupled with support fire from Dom bazookas was enough to immolate a capital ship, but his blood-lust was still not quenched. In a spectacular controlled thrust maneuver, Gato vaulted to the command tower of the downed capital ship's frigate escort. He unsheathed his blade and, looking the captain dead in the eye unde high-powered magnification, neatly sliced off the upper section of the tower. Without turning around, he leapt backwards from the deck while firing off two more rounds to finsih the kill.

The sensation of watching the vessel brew up in a perfect sphereical ball of flames was electrifying. Gato remained in place for a moment, basking in the fading glow of what his hands had wrought.

'The Feds may take the day,' he thought, 'but they'll sure as fuck know that they've been in a fight.'

He lit his thrusters again and tried to return to the fortress itself. As he did so, he became aware of a steady chant building over the broadband raido network. It satrted from one soldier, then spread through the entire cohort: "Seig Zeon! Seig Solomon! Seig Gato!!"

The three part refrain grew louder as they touched down on A Baoa Qu's surface. The man who had become the Nightmare, turned to face his troops.

"Comrades!" he thundered over the radio back at them. "We stand on the last bastion of Colonial Independence. The battle we face is a daunting one, but we shall not shy away in fear! We will fight to the last, A Baoa Qu will not fall!"

That was met by still more cheers. Gato had no idea where the words were coming from; they seemed to leap forth from his lips without conscious effort. Nevertheless, as the cheering died down again, he continued his speech: "I may be the Nightmare of Solomon, but I cannot win this fight alone; we must all pull together as one to cast of the mailed hand of reactionary Federation imperialism and to attain our rightful freedom! God will see us through the day, and victory shall be ours! Seig Zeon!"

'Oh yes,' he thought, still heady from the power of his own words, 'the Feddies will know they've been through one hell of a fight.'

"How long before the GMs are up and running again, sir?" Sam asked. He his commander and Amy had all made it saftely back to the EFF Lexington. The trio was recouperating in the pilot's lounge awaiting confirmation from the mechanics that their suits were in fighting condition again.

"It's starting to look doubtful that they will be back up again before the battle is over." Sanders replied, looking at the telescreen was flashing on the wall opposite them. "We've already cracked their final lines and the fight has been taken to the surface of the asteroid. I don't think they'll be able to hold out much longer."

"Unless they have some sort of secret weapon like they did at Solomon," Sam pointed out.

"That's doubtful here. If they did, they would have used it long before now." Sanders watched as a squad of GMs laid down a barrage that cut through a platoon of Zakus defending one of the hangar bays on A Baoa Qu's surface. "It couldn't really do anything to turn the tide at this point. I'm just worried that they might try and escape to their capitol or Granada. Fighting might get really ugly if that happened."

"No, I don't think they'd pull out now," Amy spoke up. "That's not like them. Plus, from that speech their Sovereign gave as the battle opened…Well, I really think they're going to want to finish it here and now."

"Yeah, but what if some of them do flee, and start up a geurrilla war against us?" Sam asked, "they could do that even if their leaders ask for quarter, and it would take a long time to root them all out."

Amy shook her head. "It would, but I don't see that as being a problem. What can a few Zeek stragglers do against the might of the victorious Federation? Besides, with all the stipulations and reparations they're going to have once we beat them, they won't be able to finance any sort of organised resistance."

"Reparations?" Sanders said, questioningly. "You really think they're going to impose that strict of a treaty on them?"

"Why shouldn't they?" Amy asked, sounding genuinely perplexed, "It was the Zeeks that started this war, so they should have to pay for it, right?"

"Yeah, sir. We need to take a hard line with them if we don't want them to come back and haunt us later." Sam chimed in.

"But if the treaty is too stringent, then thy'll only rebel again! It's happened befor in history and it can certainly happen again."

"Oh, you're talking about that Versailles bullshit after World War I of the Last Era." Amy shrugged. "I'm certain that nothing like that will happen again. Those request were made by bitter nationalists to squelch a rival power. The Zeeks are hardly our rival as they lack the necessary materiÃ©l to stage another strong a campagin the way the Germans did way back then."

Sam and Sanders were both stunned by her comprehension of those facts. "You know, you've got a really good understanding of military history and policy," Sanders complimented her, "much more than average soldiers. Maybe you should think about going into politics after the war, instead of barnstorming?"

"Nah," Amy said, blushing slightly. "That's just a hobby; Flying is my passion."

At that moment, two MedOffs pushing a gurney rushed through the lounge in front of the three jockies, stealing their attention away from their discussion of politics. The watched as the Medical Officers crossed the room at what seemed a dangerous pace for the injured soldier.

"Damn," Sanders whistled. "Lot more casualties this time around than at Solomon."

Sanders wondered the same thing and cursed himself inside. That damned jinx was still following him after all! Why in the hell had he not been more responsible in keeping track of his man? Now Trowa had paid the ultimate price because of his carelessness.

Sam nodded gravely. "After you were captured by that Blue Zeek, we were cornered by this mobile armour. We fought bravelyâ"€God knows we didâ"€but Trowa…"

"He Bought It? Trowa?" Amy's eyes went wide. "My God," she said in a low whisper. Just when she was finally starting to think that she had found some semblance of belonging in the unit, some sense that she was not just a replacement, but maybe she was also a friend, something like this had to happen!

Silence reigned among them for a moment as they relfected on their time with their fallen comrade.

"That's enough of that doom and gloom shit!" Sanders exploded. "Dammit, we don't know if he's dead or not. He may very well still be alive out there!" He would notâ"€perhaps he could notâ"€believe that his subordinate had died. That would mean that everything he had believed about Shiro, about Cirrus, and about himself was all a lie. That he had not broken the curse of the 'Grim Reaper' in Southeast Asia after all.

"Sir, calm down." Sam tried to assuage him. "You and I both saw what happened to his Suit; nobody could've survived that. And even if he somehow had miraculously managed to, he's been out there in the vacuum for over two hours. Life support can't function after one!"

"Are you saying that you've given up on him?" his CO demanded, "after you nearly committed suicide trying to take down that MA, you would throw in the towel and give him up for lost? Trowa was more than just a good soldier; he was our friend, dammit! To just let go like that…"

"Sir, I am not throwing in anything!" Sam stood up and faced Sanders. "I'm simply being a realist about this! Look at the facts! Face reality! He's gone, and he isn't coming back!"

Sam's face had gone red from shouting but he continued anyway. "He was my friend too, and I wish to God that things were different. But reality is reality!"

Sanders was ready to say something hot, but he let it go. Arguing wasn't going to bring Trowa back. Nothing was at this point; nothing shy of a miracle. He put his face in his palm and resigned himself.

Alex let loose a wordless battlecry as he plunged into battle again on the surface of A Baoa Qu. The Zeeks weren't pulling any punches in the final defense of the asteroid stronghold; they were throwing everything they had at the Federal onslaught.

Alex's suit took several direct hits. Warning klaxons warbled and the cockpit was suddenly bathed in a reddish light. He hardly coticed though, ash he aimed his assault rifel and fired a barrage that ripped the enemy Zaku apart.

"How're you doing, Kiyone?" he asked as the Zaku exploded and he wnet on to challenge the next.

"Just fine, thanks," she growled caustically. She had locked blades with a Gelgoog and was fighting desperately to keep her footing on the rocky surface.

Alex shoved a random zeek out of the way with his shield, and fired a rapid blast from his rifle and his vulcans to try and take some heat off his comrade.

The Gelgoog's eye-camera swivvled in his direction for half a moment, but that was more than enough time to allow Kiyone to pull back a half step and rend his suit with a slash from her sabre and a barrage from her own vulcans.

"We have to find the leader," he said as he scythed down another Zeek with a blast from the rifel. "We take him out, and they all fall down."

The two GMs leapt from the encircling Zeeks and bounded across the surface towards a rocky precipice. The Zakus and Doms turned and bagain to unleash hell behind them. As the first bullets and bazooka rounds ripped past, first Alex and then Kiyone jumped off.

The fall seemed to last forever, even though the cliff was barely three hundred feet high. Because of the much-reduced gravitational forces, both GMs drifted to the rocky valley floor as gently as cherry blossoms. There was still a big cloud of dust that was kicked up by their impact, though. But as the debris dissapated, they caught sight of another platoon of Zeon MS.

They tried to scramble for cover, but it was too late; one of the Zakus turned a mono-eye their way and began firing. A fraction of a second later, the entire platoon was opening up on them.

Kiyone moved quickly behind an outcropping, and was able to return fire. Alex, was not quite as lucky; three consecutive rounds hit him in the shoulder as he was ducking for cover. The blasts sent his suit sprawling backwards against the cliff wall. The GM barely managed to crawl behind the boulders before it was hit further.

Alex forced the suit upright and began firing from the position. His aim was fairly accurate, albeit slightly offâ"€he hit three enemies but was unable to fully ghost them. He hit a Zaku on the shoulder armour, grazed another's head, and shot a Dom's hand off.

The enemies returned fire, chiselling away the rocks he and Kiyone hid behind with each successive shot. Explosive shells from Dom and Zaku bazookas flashed dangerously close to their position, each closer than the last.

"Damn," Alex muttered, his radio turned off. Then almost without consciously realizing it, a smile spread across his face. To Kiyone, he replied, "Yeah, I got one,"

The GM moved incredibly fast, and in one fluid motion, pulled the rocket-propelled grenade, flung it over the boulder and hit the ground. The blast would have been deafening, had there been any air molecules for the shockwaves to vibrate; as the dust began to clear, Alex could plainly see that he had taken out four of the frontline Zakus.

"Fuckin-a!" Kiyone whooped as she caught on and began spraying crimson death from the barrel of her beam cannon. Two more Zeeks went down. "Now for the leader," she now imitated the predatory grin Alex had displayed moments before, "back me up Kincaid!"

"But of course," his GM was on its feet again and firing again in moments. The fire it lay down parted the grunts ahead like the Red Sea.

Kiyone, still charging ahead, unsheathed her energy sabre and met the Gelgoog head on. It parried the initial strike easily, and struck back, batting the GM with its exceptionally large shield. Kiyone skidded backwards but didn't fall. Her thrusters kicked in and she fired a volley from her vulcans.

"Kiyo, check your six!" Alex's voice cut her concentration, but if it hadn't she surely would have died. The Zaku's heat axe just missed her right leg as it swung from behind her.

Alex blasted the enemy in the side though and sent it careening to the otherside and into the dust. He came up and stabbed it with his own sabre as Kiyone leapt back into the fray against the Gelgoog.

Gato fought back against the onslaught of the GM. That two of them could have despatched of most of his force in several seconds was not only appalling, it was frightning.

He would not be intimidated though. He parried and dodged everything the Feddie threw at him. It was a tough bastard, but it was no Newtype, of that he was damn sure.

Again he hit the offending suit with his shield, this time hard enough to crack the armour of the outer carapace. As it staggered, he did a very tight maneuver and kicked it in the head. The blow was enough to knock it off its feet, but it was able to roll away as he slammed down one of the edges of the dual beam sabre into the rock where moments before the cockpit had been.

As he returned to his feet, he was hit from behind by covering fire from the second GM. He pulled out his rifle and fired at it, striking it in the left hip. The Feddie, seemingly slightly incapacitated, reached behind its back.

"Grenade!" he roared over the line to his men, but even as he said it, the GM was flinging the small rocket propelled device towards them. He fired his thrusters quicker than most, but the force of the blast was enough to wreck the stabilizers and propulsion system in the left leg.

And he was the lucky one. Only two other suits of the unit escaped, and it was doubtful that either of them would make it very far.

The Feddies would know he wasn't dead very soon. He had to act or he would certainly be killed. But what could he do? With his stabilizers out, he would be a sitting duck for them. He needed more firepower! But from wence could he procure it?

The Gwaden. The though of Aguille Delaz's mighty battleship formed in his head and he quickly made the SOS on its frequencey.

Silent Requiem This fanfic is complete.

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Silent Requiem

Chapter 19: A Baoa Qu: Adagio