2010-12-23 - Heaven's Devils

Katharon Flagship Argama En Route to Jupiter One Hour Ago

Captain Bright stands in the midst of the briefing room, which is a decently-sized gathering place for the pilots of Katharon. Behind him is a big-screen projection of the Jovian moon Callisto and several detailed readings of it.

"There's no easy way to say this," Captain Bright explains to his crack team of pilots -- which is mostly just Camille, Kallen, and Macua, plus a dozen or so non-descript scene-filling pilots who will undoubtably be killed tonight. Well, I take that back. There's at least one guy with a rockin' pompadour and sunglasses. That guy is totally descript and totally awesome. Rock that space fashion, bro. "But Katharon's sponsors want us to recover metatron samp-- ugh, specimens, so they can run more detailed analysis to understand how Crusader Orbital Frames work. The Jovian moon of Callisto, seen here..."

Bright points to the big-screen. "Is the only source of metatron in All Known Space. Unfortunately, it's also crawling with Crusaders who probably have more of a right to it than we have. This is effectively a smash and grab operation, everyone. Smash the Crusaders, grab the metatron, and then we bug out back to Earth Sphere. We know that metatron possesses unique qualities that may have physical and psychological side-effects to you, so your mobile suits and normal suits are being coated in a special layer of material we believe may counter these effects. We'll be approaching Callisto within the hour, so I want everyone ready to launch in thirty." Captain Bright nods affirmatively, "Good hunting."

NOW

The Argama has already sidled into position, making its presence known with a blast of its main guns at a nearby BAHRAM patrol ship. The pre-emptive attack, a specialty of Captain Bright, catches the patrol ship unaware and just about disintegrates it with a second volley.

"Launch mobile suits!" Bright declares.

Alarms go off within the Argama's hold, its ground crew hurriedly waving mobile weapons onto the launch-catapults.

o/~ SEARCHING.. michi shirube wa ukaaaaaaaaaaabu...

 The BAHRAM situation alarm goes off at the Jupiterian moon, Calisto; it appears there are invaders!

EARLIER...

"Hmm... and you say that a ship with an unidentified IFF is passing through in that direction?" Napth Pleminger asks his assistant, a small portable data terminal grasped loosely in his mechanical hand displaying an assortment of information on the approaching ship. There isn't much - whoever was in charge of it had kept well out of the recognized trade routes in BAHRAM territory, and none of the routine patrols had chosen to divert far enough to get too close. The only ship, in fact, that had noticed was that of an independent "space trucker" looking to get an informant's reward.

Tapping boredly at the display to bring up the rest of the information, the red-haired businessman nods without giving his assistant any time to respond. "I'll go out with a ship and investigate this personally. We'll see if it's anything of worth. Signal any Divine Crusader units in the vicinity to follow their course and determine whether or not they are hostiles."

NOW

A re-purposed mining ship hovers over the surface of Callisto. It responds to hails only with an automated message indicating its status, appropriate licensing information for the mining of metatron, and a small variety of other important details. A LEV on auto-pilot can be seen fumbling about below, but prolonged observation would reveal that it isn't really /doing/ anything - just providing an illusion of activity.

Aboard the ship is a BAHRAM crew, and within its modest hangar is Hathor... and a few other machines. None of them have launched as of yet, but Napth Pleminger himself sits in the cockpit of the black-and-white machine and awaits the crew's analysis of the situation to determine whether he is going to need to go out and fight, or if this has simply been an enormous waste of time.

Modest or not, the hanger of the ship is still a tight squeeze for the Valsion Kai, which rests kneeled behind the rest of the machines. Even kneeled though, it still towers over all the Orbital Frames. Within the cockpit of the mass-produced version of Bian's war chariot, Erika Keese quietly works away, bringing systems up to power and double checking to ensure that everything is working fine. With a machine this complex and finely crafted, it never hurts to make sure everything is in tip top condition. Silently though, she feels... somewhat out of place. Martians they all might be, but BAHRAM still makes Erika feel a little uneasy. Maybe it has something to do with how most of them are loopy as hell.

ALSO ONE HOUR AGO

"In other words..." Camille muttered under his breath softly enough that his fellow pilots could here but the Captain could not, "The guys writing the checks want us to outright steal some shit for them." He knew Bright wasn't really in a position to do anything about it, but it didn't make risking life and limbs for some stupid rocks a less bitter pill to swallow, "..fucking suits."

Regardless, he'll pay rapt attention to the briefing for the sake of, you know, not /dying/ on a mission to steal a bunch of stupid rocks, which would be even worse. The vaguely-described material that is apparently supposed to protect them from the horrors of space rocks (Which is also /psychic/ now too, what wasn't these days?!) raises an eyebrow, but he decided he'd rather not know. Wouldn't make a difference, anyhow.

"Alright then." Grabbing his flight helmet off the rack once it was time to go, "Lets kick Divine ass, team."

God, acting all cool and professional was kind of cool. This must be why Captain Quattro did it.

NOW

The Zeta Gundam soared off the Argama's launch deck configured into waverider mode, plumbing the skies with relative ease as it would have anywhere else. /Inside/ was a different story, as the unique effect of an atmosphere this close to Jupiter put significant strain the Zeta's propulsion systems, designed for earth orbit, requiring a good degree of compensation on the pilot's behalf.

"Don't forget.." He'll remind his teammates over the radio. "This close to Jupiter we're dealing with a far stronger gravitic force. Use twice more power than you think you need two when moving around, and don't hesitate. I don't need to say it could make a difference."

The Zeta's 'OH SHIT!' alarm begins flashing as well, prompting the ace to check his various space-age scanners, "Getting metatron readings all over the place... and company too. They're coming in hot."

Macua Huitl is in here Zudah, the Phoebe is under going repairs and she just doesn't use the Amazon on Katharon actions. So here she is also the speed would be quite useful in zipping aroundf the planet.

"You sure on that? True, we got Born in Space to help but even they haven't been too prone to share. But that's becuase they are short on supplies. You got two choices for this stuff. The martian mob or Bahram."

She notes and then heads to her machine.

Now the old mobile suit is just jetting along the sirface of the planet as the other shows up.

"You didn't expect to get jumped Camilie. The Martians are like sane zeeks. Just as rabid but a better head for planning."

She forms up with The Zeta, as her machine should be able to keep up with him.

 Ascian Luddite transmits, "Sir, orders, sir?"

EARLIER

Before Captain Bright had assembled the pilots together, Kallen had stared out one of the windows at Jupiter beneath them. In her own world, that entire planet had gone missing, not to mention its moons... When Bright had assembled them and highlighted metatron as being found only on that /one/ moon of Jupiter's, she'd frowns but said nothing as Camille interpreted (rightfully so, in her opinion) that they're basically being told to steal a bunch of rock by the suits in charge. Otherwise, she also pays attention to the briefing; she's not used to space, and she doesn't know a lot about this metatron rock in particular, so she definitely, like Camille, does not want to end up casually dying in the middle of nowhere!!

"Right," she says at the end. "Let's roll."

NOW

Clad in a spacesuit that nonetheless is conveniently near-skintight for the audience watching at home, Kallen nods at Camille's suggestions for how to handle the gravity field this close to the red-spot planet, the space-proofed Guren Mk. II hitching a ride on the Zeta Gundam. "I can feel it already," she comments. "The Gs are on a completely different level."

Incoming un-allied signals begin to come in as they start trying to search for metatron, and Kallen scowls. "Damn. We can't even get fifteen minutes to get the job done before they show up, huh?" Nonetheless, Kallen still preps for combat.

EARLIER

When Napth sent out the call for BAHRAM units, Ascian had been the first to respond. Good little soldier he is, he wishes for nothing more than to impress his superiors. And what better way to do this than to go along with high ranking people when they request for assistance. What made it that much more appealing to him however, was the person who'd asked for assistance. Napth Pleminger, a man whom he'd had the pleasure of meeting on one occassion, and fighting aside on another - was high on Ascian's list of people he liked. Sure - there weren't many people he really liked, or people he actually /knew/ for that matter. The androids he'd met recently were nice - and with that on his mind, he turned his head towards the present they'd given him for his sister. "Hope I find you one day." He whispered before launching the Amenthes for a position that would take him on a direct path between Mars and Jupiter, so that he could board along the way.

When he'd finally boarded, he'd been rather quiet. In fact, the young man had not left the Amenthes' cockpit, but instead just remained inside. Sure, the cover was open, so had anyone wanted to strike a conversation up, it'd been possible. But the fact that he looked grumpy probably had removed anyone's thoughts of doing that.

NOW

When the alarms finally go off, as a ship on the Calisto side of things just blew up thanks to the crew of Bright Noa's ship's excellent shooting, he opens a single eye. "Status." He demands of his Artificial Intelligence, Duat. "Sir!" The female voice begins its response. "Detecting incoming vessels that do not carry metatron signatures." He looks up at Hathor whilst the thing speaks. "Can you recognize their signatures?" He asks. Duat simply responds; "Not enough data yet. But a twosome of high energy spikes were detected before a patrol ship was destroyed, suggesting a larger vessel of sorts. "Bringing out the big guns huh?" He mutters and taps against the side of the cockpit - to which the unit responds by closing its black energy-hatch. "Let's just see what our commanding officer says, and we'll just follow his orders."

In the meantime, outside, a few LEVs suddenly are deployed from a nearby base in the side of a ravine of the icy moon - wandering out from their cover, each carrying a rather hefty looking beam rifle between their two hands - pushed up against their chests. But as well armed as they may seem, they are nothing but green troops, and almost as if automated shift their aim up into the /very/ general direction of where the blast had come from, up into space.

 Napth Pleminger transmits, "Attack at your own discretion. The LEVs below can provide cover fire, but they're not going to be of any use in actual combat. Their weapons just aren't strong enough."

Then finally, the orders come in. "Attack at my own discretion? Can do!" He places his hands on the controls of the Amenthes and lets his will flow through the unit - which is coming to life with its red glow. The miner's back door begins to slowly open, whilst the Amenthes, kneeled much like the Valsion Kai, floats up and begins to turn towards the opening. "Ascian Luddite! Taking off!" The unit plants its pointy feet momentarily to the metal floor of the hangar and flares its wings outwards - the metatron crystals pursing out from between the folds... then blasts off at high velocity, leaving a slight red and sickly glow in the air.

Outside, he immediately aims his unit's rifle arm - already formed whilst launching, up into the air as he gets a visual of a set of suits coming in, as well as the ship floating far beyond them. "Bright..." His mind is sent reeling for a moment. "SHIT! I thought they'd given up after the deaf of that idiot Bof Terry on board the Argama." A red charging glow quickly becomes apparent at the tip of his unit's weapon, but he does not fire it. Instead, the Amenthes' wings unfurl and seperate from their feathery-like positions and shift their aim upwards, each showing a red dot at the end. Within the cockpit, a series of red markers suddenly show on the vid-windows as Camille and Macua's units get targetted. 'FIRE!' He claims in his mind, and Amenthes responds by sending a series of homing lasers up into the air, targetted at the two incoming units - hoping to blast them before they get too close - not carign about whether they were skilled enough to dodge whilst having to deal with the high Gs.

Aboard the Argama,

Ron Keith shakes his head. "We can't get a fix on -anything-. We could be sitting atop the richest node on the entire moon and not even realize it. It's just so dense with metatron!"

"Hrn," Captain Bright would pause to rub his chin but the bulky normal suit he's wearing prohibits that by a fair bit. So instead, he just fiddles with the fit of the collar instead. "Tell our pilots we'll have to rely on their visuals."

But all of a sudden, the relative calm is disrupted by a bevy of warning lights.

"Enemy unit moving into position!" Caesar calls out.

"What!?" Bright shouts in surprise. "That's a much faster response time than estimated! They must've detected us nearby." He shakes his head, "No matter, we'll have to eliminate them anyway. Coordinate firing pattern alpha with our mobile suits and begin the barrage!"

Katharon is quick to respond. As several Nemos begin drifting toward the surface, they spread out in order to enable the Argama plenty of room for firing. Dummy balloons begin to eject from port and starboard missile batteries, while the guns begin cycling beamfire into the eternal night. Things just got immensely hairy.

EARLIER

Sitting in the hangar of the BAHRAM ship making way toward Callisto, Sovi Reincam has a thoughtful look on her face. Seated amidst the Orbital Frames, the manned and unmanned LEVs, and the Mobile Suits that have come along with their ship, the blue-haired lieutenant holds a bottle of pills in hand while her eyes close and her focus starts coming to her. Taking the drugs has been a little awkward on her; she's able to use the Lambda Driver equipped in the Arm Slave-- but god only knows if the Codarl-m modified to survive all-terrain/all-space conditions will hold true at a time like this.

Her flight suit is a little more customized. While it contains all the hallmarks of the standard BAHRAM flight suit-- obnoxiously tight, armored across the neck/chest/shoulders/arms-- the collar is adjusted to allow for a smaller zero-G helmet, one that will fit much more comfortably inside the confines of the pilot's cradle.

When she's got her helmet on and climbed into the machine, when pilots line up on the deck, Sovi does not bother with the catapult. Literally, the Plan 1059 Codarl-m painted in red, black, and yellow strides to the open bay and /marches/ right out onto the deck, mag-clamps mounted in the feet to keep it steady. She keeps an eye on her monitors; Callisto's .126G surface, check. Jupiter's equitorial 2.528, check. Seals and ammunition, double-check.

Slinging the 40mm machine cannon over the shoulder, her hand bracing the stock while the barrel is slung, the Arm Slave looks with a swish of it's long red and black ponytail toward the Argama crew, toward the AEUG operation below. With the arrangements that she's made in secret, with the plans in place--

"So, Bright Noa. Help us with one hand and steal with the other... is that the Anti Earth-Union Group's way?"

Macua Huitl says "Incoming!" Mac calls out she attempts to dodge, and is partially successful she evades several of the blasts but one of them clips her machine. However the Zudah is infamous for it's speed and agility. She turns at the BAHRAM unit for a moment then prepares to engage, she scans looking for a target - they are here for Metatron after all and she's more prone to smash grab and run. She fires a shot back at Ascian and darts away...

 Ascian Luddite transmits, "Something tells me, they are not here for pleasantries. This is the assault on Mars all over again! And I bet I know what they are here for. Damnit... if I hadn't gotten captured, this would not be happening right now!"

 Sovi Reincam transmits, "Stow the self-pity and protect our assets!"

 Ascian Luddite grumbles, "Yes ma'am! Annihilating the Katharon forces with great prejudice!"

Heat signatures blared in from beneath, Zeta klaxons and newtype senses flashing in perfect synchrony to warn Camille of the impending danger. "Damn, hold on tight Kallen, we're going for a ride!"

Or not quite, as the Waverider comparatively /lurches/ to the side for all the thrust Camille gives to the bank, not escaping without a few searing lines of scorches armor for the trouble. "Damn, was my reaction too slow..?" No, it was that's he'd forgotten to taken into account the increased weight of Guren on Jupiter. It was one thing to carry it on Earth, but on Callisto it was like a lead weight atop the Zeta!

Oh well, Kallen was liable to leap off as soon as he came close enough to the ground anyways. If that was the biggest error he made this mission, the Newtype could live with it (And indeed, he already had).

"Argama, this is Camille!" He'll ignore the initial attacking units, soaring past to seek out the likely elites and keeping them from thrashing the greener forces among them like wheat, "I'm patching you a visual feed from the Zeta's computer, programming an algorithm for determing metatron concentration..." Beep, boop, "..done! Hope this helps, I'm about to get busy."

Okay, so he was a Coordinator now too. Whatever.

The Codarl-m is what gains the Zeta pilot's attention first: Not only because he wonders what one of /those/ arm slaves is doing all the way out here, but the feeling he scries from the pilot inside: Ominous, potent, deadly.

He had to keep that thing away.

"Kallen, I'm going in. If you engage your own target along the way, we'll both likely be faster." Not orders, just suggestions! In the meantime, Sovi can expect to deal with an incoming stream of charged mega particles in response to her (rhetorical?!) question.

"Alright... here we go." Erika quietly says as she grabs the controls of the Valsion Kai and brings it up to full power, then slowly (and carefully) stands the machine up to full height inside of the cramped hanger bay. It's a tight fit, but she just baaaaaarely clears the bay door. "Erika Keese, Valsion Kai, beginning operation!" The Tesla Drive of the Valsion Kai flares brightly as the purple and blue spikey death machine shoots out of the hanger and quickly does a 180 to zero in on it's target, "Engaging!" As it rapidly closes in, the Super Machinery Humanoid straightens up and brings it's autocannons to bear, unleashing a burst of solid rounds towards the Gurren.

As the battle begins outside - spurred onward primarily by Ascian in his Orbital Frame - Hathor drops down out of the opened hangar of the repurposed mining ship. On the whole, it doesn't surprise Napth that Metatron would be considered a desirable acquisition. He himself is rolling in more money than Scrooge McDuck thanks to the monopoly that his own company has an Orbital Frame technology, and keeping a firm grip on that particular resource is vital to any notions of Martian independence.

If you can't completely understand what you're dealing with, it is harder to fight it, after all. If that weren't enough though, he's sure that metatron would be useful in non-Frame designs - it simplifies repairs significantly, if you have a quantity of it on-hand. That alone makes it worth the effort.

In light of that, Napth certainly cannot allow Katharon to get its hands on any significant quantity of metatron.

Assessing the number of surrounding enemy IFFs, Hathor locks onto one in particular. The chosen target is largely random - to Napth, they're all just numbers to be done away with right now. The black-and-white frame vanishes from sight and reappears shortly thereafter to the rear of Macua Huitl's Zudah unit, bioluminscent lines pulsing along its surface ominously as it launches into action.

The first blow that Hathor throws is nothing more than a fierce /punch/, followed up by several more - and capped up with an abrupt transformation of the machine's left arm into a long, double-edged blade that sweeps out in a great flashing arc at the Zudah's back.

The stream of lasers stream down from Ascian's mech towards the Guren Mk. II and friends, and while Kallen responds in kind with a hail of bullets, she's still not used to fighting in space, an area not at all comparable to fighting on Earth: the lasers strike true while her own bullets fly wide. The red mech is blown back, but the strike, however precisely aimed, was not so powerful that it blew up the Knightmare Frame in one hit.

"Ugh! Damn!" she grunts regardless, pushing more power into the Guren's controls to allow it to roll off the Zeta once they've gotten closer enough to Callisto that she can do so. As above them, the Argama launches dummies to throw off the defense force from those here to STEAL THEIR PRECIOUS METATRON, Kallen nods at Camille's suggestion. "Sounds good, Camille! We don't have time to play around here!" she replies, and as the thrusters boost the now space-worthy Guren Mk. II (Mk. II-S?) forward, she moves forward, still trying to adjust to the gravity--and then a shadow falls over her, and bullets shatter down like the hailstorm of the gods.

Ironically, it's BECAUSE of the Valsion Kai's much greater relative size to the Guren Mk. II-S that Kallen's able to outmaneuver Erika's attack even without quite having gotten used to the different atmosphere yet. She's putting her utmost effort into it, though, and responds to the attack with a shot of her Slash Harken to attach onto the behemoth, sort of like that hero from Shadow of the Colossus.

"Hah, you think I haven't fought anything as big as you before? If you're thinking you can just swat me down, think again!" Kallen calls back--and then uses the Slash Harken to angle herself in to bring her mech into appropriate melee range so she can attempt to target some of those weapon systems with a nice little dose of /microwave energy/, courtesy of the silver Fukushahadou arm.

"Sir, incoming fire." Duat warns Ascian as the units that are still dropping from the sky launch their counterattacks in response to the red, physics defying and metal-cutting lasers strike true. It isn't hard, from that distance, to steer the quite maneuverable Orbital Frame along a quick path that leads him away from the hot lead that is falling down at high velocity. However, that doesn't mean those bullets strike nothing. A few unlucky LEV pilots find their units suddenly minus an arm, or a head, or an entire cockpit. Although those unlucky ones really don't 'find' anything. They're quite dead after all.

However, that's when /he/ ends up getting an unlucky moment. As a series of missiles come in, he shifts the Amenthes' other arm into a rifle and sends a quick volley of plasma-bolts up into the air, taking them out one at a time. And when the skies are suddenly filled with explosions, there is a moment where Ascian believes he is in the free. How wrong he was. "INCOMING MISSILE!" Duat warns him with a visual prompt. And it isn't like he cannot steer away. The problem was that at that time, he was close to the ground. The thing was that beneath him also was a LEV. And when the missile crashes into it, it blows up! This explosion rocks his unit - a few of the LEV's metalic pieces lacerate his unit's legs. "Damage report!" - "Sir, no substantial damage - unit's combat abilities are not dimished."

"Good." Ascian was glad to hear that, then turns his attention to one of the units which had tried to fire upon him and notices that she is trying to dart away elsewhere. "Oh no you don't." He calls out through his unit's speakers and races straight after her. Macua was not the only one currently situated in a speedy unit. Heck, if there was one thing Orbital Frames were usually known for. "Keep up the surpression fire, and keep moving! Don't become a sitting target!" He calls out at the LEV forces, which continue their barrage as Nemo units come down - striking down a few, whilst the Nemos manage to fell a few LEVs as well. As much as LEVs are slow - they are incredibly well armored. So at a range, they have the advantage. However - when the Nemos land and bring out any potential beam sabers... that will be when things go badly.

The Amenthes sails along amidst the crossfire of laser-beams and machine-gun violence, continues to race along the ravines to follow Macua's path and flips over, so that its body is paralel towards the ground - cockpit aimed upwards, until he suddenly comes to a full stop - flipping over to a proper position in one go. Why? Napth Pleminger's unit had appeared behind her. And in no way was he going to go and get between a commanding officer and his target. That'd be occupational suicide. So what does that leave him? Camille was going after the Valsion Kai - and the unit that had been on top of the Waverider had looked almost too easy. So his eyes are set on the large ship in orbit. "Bright..." He mutters. The device that is linked to a series of bombs on board that ship itched in his pocket. But that would be too easy. No... he'd do this the hard way.

He raises his unit's hand upwards - as if pointing towards the skies. What is he, He-man? He HAS the power after all! The power of /Metatron/ though, not some silly castle with a skull for a face. That's more Dr. Hell's kinda thing. The rifle arm shifts into that of a normal one - hand at the end, and a ball of energy begins to form. "Have a ball of energy! Ya jerk!" He mutters underbreath and opens a comlink to Bright. Whether he received it or not, he still claims, "You better back off - or I will blow your ship to smitereens! Do you really want another Bof Terry!? Because if you take this stuff, there will be MANY of him to follow!" And as a warning shot of sorts, he sends the ball of red energy towards the Argama - from rather far away - aimed at blasting at a line of Nemos descending.

Jesus christ, Erika had no idea that the machine she was attacking was /so tiny/. It's always a little hard to guage size and distance in the near featureless void when you don't have any frame of reference. Of course, being big has it's own perks. Like namely having a big ass sword almost half as big as you are. With an expert touch, she whips out the Divine Blade and whips it up into a guard position. The teeny tiny little Slash Harken fired at her bounces off the blade with a quiet /clang/ without finding any purchase. "A regular David and Goliath scenario, huh? Alright, as long as I have the size advantage, I might as well use it!" The Valsion Kai surges forth, it's blade sweeping back as she twists her grip, then /swings/ it flat side down. It might not be the intended way to use a sword, but it /does/ give her a better chance to hit and her size advantage will more than make up for it.

"The barrage is thinning out in field S, Captain!" Caesar calls out as he watches the tactical screen. "An enemy unit is breaking through! It's extremely fast!"

Laserfire collides with one of the Argama's mobile-suits, punching a hole through its lunar titanium plating. Once the reactor's hit, the entire thing just explodes in mid-air and it leaves enough room for the Amenthes's shots to continue against the hull.

The shots cause a minor ripple to run through the length of the ship. As he gently rocks in his seat, a puzzled look comes over Captain Bright's face that's quickly replaced by annoyance. "What're our gunners doing?! Increase the barrage!"

The transmission aimed for the Argama comes in with a great burst of static.

Meanwhile, the Argama's offensive deployment continues. Its guns cut great big swaths of energy into the distance.

Macua Huitl pauses something's comming the Zudah It's head turns to see the incomming Orbital frame, she moves quickly as the machine comes in at her and she replies over the comm.

"Your fast? Not bad, this should be different!" The Zudah's engines kick to leive and she now seems to be trying to chase after the back. "Let's see if you can keep up with the Ghost Fighter!"

The machine was cursed, it was said it went so fast it could shake the entire machine apart.

She opens fire with the rifle again and launches it self at the frame, to kick it and then flit away.

She'll leave the other to Ascian. There was something about this BAHRAM pilot that had her interest.

Kallen's reaction, when she sees that sword slamming down flat-first for her tiny mech, is to attempt to use the Fukushahadou to create a microwave shield and damage it before it can connect with her.

Reality does not quite work out that way.

The Divine Blade does not *quite* squash the Guren Mk. II-S underneath it, but it does take a pretty large chunk of damage once it's crunched between the blade and the surface of Callisto. Kallen snarls, trapped beneath it--it's too big for her to even try to get away in one direction or another. "Son of a bitch!!" she hisses, fingers dancing over the controls of her Knightmare Frame before she hits the 'launch' button. If there's this big a size difference, and she's trapped under that weapon--then what better tactic than to try to render it more fragile?

Camille's suspicions were confirmed as the pilot evaded that shot masterfully. He or she knew clearly knew what they were doing, and they were used to the environment... despite the prowess of the Zeta, the Newtype considered himself at a disadvantage on this fight.

Not that that had ever stopped him before...!

Machine cannons blare and the Zeta reactions, thrusters blaring at full output for a manuever that would've required but a fourth around the moon, the blue-hair pilot adjusting quickly to the environments despite that earlier admission of inferiority. Mounter vulcan cannons counter fire as shells and shrapnel so teasingly miss the kiss of Zeta's targeted portions, sailing off for eternity in the grim veil of space.

"Nnngh.." Camille understood perfectly well that philsophical arguments were a longstanding tradition in mobile suit battles, but preferred not to do it for a mission he /didn't really like/. Still, he hated the idea of any Crusader preaching to him.

"I don't want to hear that from you!" The boy will assert, bringing the Zeta out of it's barrel roll and unfolding into it's mobile suit form as it goes, "There's no limit to what you, or the people you call allies, have tried to steal from others. I won't ask for your forgiveness, but don't ask for mine!" He had seen Codarls at Meridia, after all.

One steel arm flexed from the waverider's frame with a beamsaber in it's hand, flashing out sideways at the arm slave's torse as the Gundam passed by. From the corner of his eye, by virtue of the panoramic cockpit, Camille gleaned the image of the Guren tackling a unit thrice it's size like it ain't no thang.

"Damn.." The Newtype sucked in his breath, "That's hot."

Hathor shifts instantly to react to the Zudah's movement, darting in with the arm-blade sparking violently. It misses however, passing over the head of the other machine as it launches its counter-assault. The kick cracks across the fuselage of the orbital frame violently, shaking it and impacting the armor in the affected areas but not seeming to inflict critical amounts of damage. The black-and-white orbital frame darts backwards rather than pursue, and...

Once again it vanishes. A spatial anamoly is detected in that moment, and in the moment after that Hathor re-appears. It is a distance to the rear of the Zudah now, one arm outstretched and the sword-arm held at the ready but otherwise a secondary concern.

Lasers burst out from the tips of the machine's fingertips, arcing out in a wide pattern in different directions before converging on the Katharon machine at one point.

When Duat alerts him to the incoming massive beams of energy, and not a reply from Bright - Ascian becomes somewhat annoyed. He doesn't realize that it simply had not arrived, due to the influence of the Metatron energy. And his A.I. isn't going to point out otherwise either. Within his cockpit, he watches as the gigantic beams flare past his cockpit - lighting up the insides for a short moment with their powerful glow. "That will end up /really/ badly if that hits. Duat, put attention to sensors, I don't want to land in the middle of one of those beams. We both know that Amenthes doesn't like beams.

"Take her up. We're taking this closer in range. That way, we should be capable of staying outside of the range of the big guns by hiding behind the Argama." And so he does. The verniers of the Amenthes burst to life once again and launch itself up into the small moon's 'orbit', straight towards the large white ship on which he'd once had been a 'maid'. "Let's see if we can fool their sensors." He mutters to himself, and lets a second 'orb' of red plasma form, captured within a shell of compressed space, before throwing it straight into the middle of a launching pack of Nemos -- aimed at the launch pad -- before rushing past the ship and the bridge - putting himself on the side of the ship's engines.

Unfortunately, Kallen quite literally shoots a hole in her plan (not to mention her sword). The microwave energy bursts out of the opposite side of the divine Blade, punching a neat little Knightmare Frame sized hole in it that Kallen can escape from... but Erika is not about to let this stand! "Hold still you!" From the chest of the Valsion, a missile rockets forth that quickly explodes into an electrified net to entangle and restrict the Gurren's movements.
 * CRUNCHCRUNCH* goes the Gurren beneath the Divine Blade as Erika merrily grinds it into the surface of Callisto, seeing absolutely noooo reason whatsoever to let up the pressure. After all, an opponent who is pinned is less dangerous than one who is mobile.

Bright Noa shakes his head. "We can't hit something that fast with our guns. We'll have to use our missiles to flush him out until we can get one of our mobile suits to finish him off."

The Amenthes breaks off to try to get behind the Argama, which is a fairly decent idea. One of its runways suddenly has a rather large hole in it, which is immediately reported to the CIC. Chunks of hull drift past the bridge.

"Right!" Caesar nods. "Launching missile now.."

Fwhoosh! A slim, suit-seeking projectile launches cleanly from one of the Argama's many missile batteries.

Elsewhere, several of the Argama's mobile suits touch down on the surface and begin scouring the moon.

The initial barrage is aimed well, but Camille has a good instinct for battle. The Zeta continues to 'ascend.' Vulcans blaze, bullets skimming across the hull, across the torso and hips of the custom-colored Arm Slave, and Sovi is forced to shift the machine's mass to compensate. He's better than she had anticipated-- but such is fitting for the Zeta Gundam, isn't it?

"We've stolen from each other, kid."

Camille's strike is, for all intents and purposes, flawless. But as it moves, the Codarl slings the machine cannons over either shoulder to temporarily mount them to the backpack with a soundless series of clicks and claks that reverberate only inside the pilot's cradle. In the next motion, the Codarl-m assumes a stance better fit to a martial artist, legs spread in perfect position and the left arm swaying upward.

"Have you asked yourself why you're actually on Martian turf?"

Sovi is not a Newtype, nor Psychodriver or other psychically-inclined posthuman. What she does have is training, discipline, and perhaps a little chemically-aided focus... and perhaps eldritch horrors in her mind that will make Camille as confused and angry as he gets when someone calls him a girl. With a stir, the Lambda Driver awakens inside the machine-- and the beam saber strikes a wall of invisible telekinetic force as mind, body, and heart release a hard "HYA!!"

The beam sparks and crackles against the telekinetic barrier, sending a bright flash of light through the cradle's interior and illuminating her face, her displays, just for a moment. The right arm thrusts forward in the next moment, palm extended, and releases a more direct force toward the Mobile Suit. It doesn't hit the way she intended, but a hit is a hit is a...

The Codarl-m twists around in a circle, the footing shifting across the transport ship's deck. When she stops, both arms draw backwards as she draws in a breath, keeping herself steady. When they thrust forward, there's another ripple of energy-- a ripple of a transparent kind, as telekinetic force aims to slam into the Gundam twice at once!

It *is* no thang, Camille. Or rather, it's a very big thang, but damned if Kallen's going to let that keep her down. After all, she pitted herself as the sole ace of a terrorist resistance group against an impossibly huge empire, despite the odds being hopelessly against them--because even in a dark time like that, even when she was just moving wildly out of anger at the loss of her brother and the dignity of the nation she called home, one has to have hope.

Hope...

An electrified net shoots out of that missile just as the crimson mech pulls itself out through that hole it melted through the Divine Blade, and with the scale being what it is, Kallen's not even going to try to dodge--she opens up with gunfire from the Guren's left arm, and it helps to weaken the net before it lands on her. The electricity still crackles onto the damage mech, but--

"There's no way--" she snarls, microwaves crickling as they warp the lack of atmosphere around it, before the Guren's silver arm overloads the net and shears it off. It's not a matter of power: it's a matter of will, and as Kallen drives her Knightmare forward towards the main bulk of the Valsion Kai, she launches it into a cannonball attack, with the intent to grab hold of the cockpit area--or as close as she can manage with these gravitational conditions--and pour metal-melting microwaves onto it.

Look, when you're fighting something three times bigger than you, you don't play nice.

 Ascian Luddite transmits, "Permission to use the Vector Cannon for this operation, sir!"

 Napth Pleminger transmits, "Do it."

When another volley of missiles is launched at him, Ascian doesn't have as much time to get out of the way this time. Again, he tries to blast them to pieces - but he is forced to get out of the Argama's blind spot for a moment to commit to such a defense. A massive chain-explosion soon follows above the Argama, with the Amenthes in its midsts, rocking his unit around left and right, up and down, back and forth - until finally the unit comes to rest again. He can see a small few sections of his unit marked with a slight yellow glow on the overview of the Amenthes' status.

"Dang, the torso took some damage." He mutters and looks down at the energy status to his unit. "Amenthes... are you ready? We're opening up the big cannon in just a bit." No, no more crazy laughing. No maniacle calls for the power of Metatron. Well, at least not yet. "Ready up for the Vector Cannon!" - "Shift to Vector Cannon Mode - Mark Two."

Meanwhile, down on Calisto, the battle between Nemo and LEVs has taken a different turn, as a small squad of Raptors suddenly appear - speeding between the LEVs into the Nemos - charging with their laser swords. Soon, Bright will hear the screams of the more green pilots; "We can't lock them! They're too fast!" - "ARRGGHHH!~!!FZZZZT" - "JOOOHHHN!"

And breaking loose from that chaos, a threesome of Mummyheads come rising from the surface - aiming their large energy cannons up towards the Argama - getting closer and closer, finally firing their yellow beams at the front of the ship. Luckily, they had little intelligence.

In the meanwhile, behind the Argama, the Amenthes is well on her way to prepare the Vector Cannon mode. "Life Ring has started revolving." A large cannon facing the engines of the Argama. But he isn't firing. It is still charging. But the Argama's crew could very likely see on their sensors that a large-magnitude energy signature has formed behind them.

Slowly growing frustrated in the cockpit, Napth directs Hathor to retreat to a safe distance to re-assess the machine about the same time that the Zudah makes its charge maneuver - it pierces through the torso of the Orbital Frame, which activates its thrusters and pulls away from it, the gaping hole where the spike had been rapidly sealing up as metatron from other parts of the frame are redirected to protect more vital components.

This is not going well, and Napth realizes it. Mentally assessing his frame's physical integrity, he decides that he still has sufficient reserves left to go on. Not much longer though... fortunately being where he /is/, if things really do go poorly he will be able to repair in short order and without much of a problem.

Unfortunately, that does him no good just now.

Again, the spatial distortion announces Hathor's movement - and again it is upon the Zudah, though this time it appears in front of the other machine rather than behind it. In one great, energy-charged arc it sweeps its arm-blade towards the dodgy machine, hoping to catch its pilot by surprise by approaching so directly.

 Erika Keese transmits, "Geez! What kind of weapon is this thing using anyway? She's melting armor just by touching it!"

 Sovi Reincam transmits, "We'll analyze the data after the battle."

 Ascian Luddite transmits, "Just... try not to touch her? I'm kinda busy with trying to dismantle this here battleship!"

For the Amenthes pilot to ramp it up may have been his undoing.

"Captain, I'm detecting a large energy output directly behind us!" Ron Keith explains. "It's definitely not one of our mobile suits!"

"..That's where he must be," Bright realizes. "Activate mega-particle cannon! Tell the gunners to target the enemy unit and burn it right out of position!"

Energy cannons pelt the Argama with little to no avail. On the port-side, one of the yellow 'shields' retracts to facilitate the activation of the mega particle cannon. It slides out and extends, its barrel twisting out to enable firing mode. As the Argama's main engines blast, pushing it forward enough to put a bit of distance between it and the Amenthes, the mega-particle cannon swivels 160-degrees on its mount to aim right for it.

In the mega-particle cannon control room, Mondo gives Beecha a poke. "Beecha!" shouts the youth. "It's time to shoot the enemy!"

"Yaawwwwn!" Beecha stretches out in his chair. "Who cares? Let's get the chicken to do it!"

MOMENTS LATER..

"..Bukawwwk?" a chicken stares at the controls of the mega-particle cannon, puzzled beyond belief.

 James Heller transmits, "Microwave claw."

Erika has been on the field of battle to recognize a cockpit shot when she sees one, so when she sees Kallen barreling right towards her block, she takes defensive measures and thrists one of the Valsion's arms up to take the brunt of the attack. "Geez, what kind of weapon is this thing using anyway! It's melting armor just by touching it!" Deciding that staying in melee range of something that can bake your bacon with a wave of it's hand is a bad idea, Erika thrusts her machine back into the space above Callisto and snaps both her arms down. Energy starts to gather at the nozzle sof the weapons mounted on the air, with opposing forces spiraling around one another as they do before two beams leap out and snake their way through space towards Kallen.

 James Heller transmits, "That be the Black Knight's ace pilot."

 James Heller transmits, "Don't let them get your cockpit block or you'll be broiled alive."

 Vindel Mauser transmits, "A foe worthy of respect."

 James Heller transmits, "That they are."

Macua Huitl is trying to keep ahead of Hathor, Orbital frames are living up to their repuation. Macua hits the ground, as tht next attack happens, she sarts rolling along and the blade lands just an inch short of the face of her machine. It was close, this guy is good hehe is keeping up with her. She hopes her comrades are doing all right.

She rises up and opens up point black with her machine gun, ratlting off rounds and spitting shells out intoht jovian moons landscape. Prehaps hundreds of years from now an archologist will find them and wonder what happened here

For now Macua's trying to not die. She tries to jet away but she may be taking too long...

The circular bits continue to circle around the front of the barrel whilst Amenthes is charging up the cannon. "Come on, hurry up." He mutters, whilst the Argama starts shifting. "Shit, they found us." He noticed the large cannon swiveling over towards his direction whilst its gunners try to target him. "Okay. He wants to see you so badly?" The cockpit slowly flushes with a slight red haze as he speaks, his anger growing. "Then let's show him the Amenthes." His grip on the controls firms, and when Duat finally claims "Vector Cannon - Ready to Fire!", he speeds right 'upwards', watching as the gigantic beams fly right underneath him. One milisecond later, and his unit's legs likely would have just melted off. Earlier than that. And... well, he didn't want to think about that.

From that position, it didn't take him long to fly forwards and plant the Amenthes /right/ on top of the Argama's deck. Within his cockpit - which's cover shifts from a black to a transparent gray - shows Ascian... grinning, waving at Bright - as well as the ghostly outline of... some kind of humanoid inside - looking up from behind him. As if something was on fire in his cockpit. "About to fire at your bridge. You better evacuate your ass, or hope you can shake me!" He challenges his opponent over the speakers, as he initiates magnetic claomps that secure his unit to the metal. "TASTE THE POWER OF METATRON!"

The railgun units that lead from the torso-cannon flare up in sparks of purple and red electric sparks, and the red glow from within its chest grows to incredible size - until space itself begins to warp before it. Surely, Bright had seen this attack once, at Mars - when he had engaged Baraq. And he probably knew this could not end up well. Then... the red energy flares!

In the meanwhile, the Mummyheads are faced with the gunners which are taking perfect care of them - shredding the units to pieces, even though they have energy shields to them.

The way this machine fought... Camille knew arm slaves didn't use the mobile trace method of piloting, but you could've fooled him. It was like the pilot was perfectly in tune with their machine to the extent that there was no part of it that could not be a weapon. Mecha Martial arts seemed like a ridiculous concept until they tried it on you.

"I don't have an obligation to explain anything to you." Camille snaps even as her words sting. He'd been asking the question 'why' far too often as of late - he did not need it being prodded again just as he'd begun to overcome with.

"If stealing may be able to to help us bring unnecessary conflicts and oppression to an end, and save more lives, then I'll call myself a thief with pride!" Kallen's own conviction surges through the boy's words as he both hears and feels the fiery-haired rebels resolve, cursing where his saber strikes against an unseen wall.

"So, you've got one of 'those'." Tessa had told him about them, he'd seen them in action, "Fantastic.

When tactics failed, go for brute force. That is what Camille did, borrowing a page from the Judau Ashta play book and countering the the Coderl's movements with a straight, forward punch as the Zeta's feet crashed down atop the deck of the transport with it's increased wait.

It doesn't go over so well. The blasts of force dent, better and twist armor off the Zeta like wrapping paper, tossed into the unforgiving vacuum of space like so much refuse. Camille was okay with that. It was an acceptable loss for the opportunity it gained.

That is, the chance to unload two space napalm-loaded grenades at near point-blank range. What was greater?! The arm slave's lambda drive, or the newtype's will...?!

That's the power of Lakshata's Radiant Microwave Cannon--Kallen's taken apart many a foe with its power, though Erika's got the advantage in a) being used to these kind of Gs and b) knowing when it's a smart move to block an attack. The Valsion's arm gets melted, but it's better than Erika's cockpit, and ergo, her. Kallen makes a low 'tch!' at the sight of it, but she doesn't let that get her down. This pilot's got some skill to be able to pilot something that huge in this environment, so she can't take them lightly. Nor, for that matter, can she take lightly that massive twin beam cannon spiraling out towards her.

With a curse, Kallen decides that at least /trying/ to dodge would be a smart idea and punches the thrusters to move forward, using her Frame's silver arm to lash forward too to add some propulsion *and* try to damage the Valsion Kai at the same time. It's more or less successful; she gets a decent hit in, and manages to get mostly out of the way of that beam. Mostly. It still takes off a leg of the Guren Mk. II-S's, spiraling the Knightmare Frame to one side, but she launches her Slash Harken to attempt to get a purchase on the larger mech and swing back in close.

"If I can get to a vital point, I'll be able to take you down," she mutters, mainly to herself. "Just you wait...!"

"Haha," Beecha just chortles. "The chicken can't aim for shit!"

"Buh-buh-buh--" Mondo stares in disbelief at Beecha. He points at the redheaded boy, his tan features pallid. "..Beecha...??"

Beecha blinks back at Mondo. "Eh??" His eyes follow the indicating finger... aaaall the way to his shoulder, where a blotch of white and black chicken excrement now lay. "..WHAAAA!?!?! HOW!?!?!?!

Meanwhile..

What seemingly served as a clear shot was in fact...

...a dummy balloon!?!?!?!

One of the many Argama-sized balloons that the Katharon flagship had launched alongside it must've drifted into view while Ascian was moving into position.

The balloon is instantly vaporized -- leaving a clear trail of open space behind it.

..and the Argama is just to the immediate left, its forward-mounted weaponry pointed directly for the Orbital Frame.

"Blow it out of the sky," Captain Bright decides.

Suddenly, everything is very bright.

..ha.

The slash harken flies out and slams into the upper chest of the Valsion, at least finding purchase in the machine's frame for Kallen to pull herself up with. Unfortunate for her, Erika isn't braindead enough to just leave what amounts to a /harpoon/ sticking out of her chest, so she reaches up with a free hand and rips the harken loose before tossing the spear/grappling hook away. As for Erika's response to Kallen's claim? "CROSS SMASHER!" That pretty much sums it up.

Really? A dummy balloon? How!? How in the world did that escape him? The Vector Cannon beam continues to fire through space whilst he realizes the big mistake he'd made. "Duat! YOU PIECE OF CRAP!" He whines at the unit. "Sorry - the sensors were temporarily fuzzy due to..." It suddenly displays an error on board: CH1C43N. "What is that supposed to mean?" Ascian just shakes his head... then turns to face the massive beams coming his way. "Shiiiii..."

FWOOOOOOOOOOOM! The beam engulfs the entire Amenthes, which curls up and places a protective shield around it. And it manages to last for quite a while. Ascian bites his lower lip as he tries to steer the unit out of the way slowly, but the beam volley follows him almost perfectly. He then suddenly winces, as the ghostly image behind him screetches. 'THEY'RE HURTING ME! MAKE THEM STOP!' The burning image touches his shoulders - burning his skin. "Stop it Amenthes! I'm trying to fix it! Fuck it. VECTOR CANNON!" he finally turns the beam of his unit towards the incoming attack - breaking the shield.

Immediately, his unit begins to lose pieces of armor, its head begins to melt, and its wings start being undone. The painful shrieks of the 'thing' inside of Ascian's cockpit continues to scream in pain, whilst the young man puts his trust into the power of the Vector Cannon, hoping that the beam will pierce through and destroy the main cannons!

Ascian rages.

Beecha rages.

The chicken darts its head to the side and flutters its wings, "Bawk?"

A stream of energy batters the Argama's fore-facing weapon emplacement, the one between its runways. It just about wrecks the turret, punching a great big hole through its plating and damaging its internal systems. Frayed circuitry sparks and sizzles, letting streams of smoke rise up from the wound.

"Forward gun down," Caesar reports. "Somehow that Orbital Frame is still holding together. Must be down to its wires by now."

Bright simply shakes his head. "We'll just have to finish it off the old-fashioned way. Launch missiles. Saman, what's our ground-crew up to?"

Saman grimly reports, "Most of our Nemo teams have been destroyed, sir. We're still waiting on hearing back from Fa, though."

"../Fa's/ out there!?" Bright's eyes go wide.

Missiles whoosh out of the batteries once more and fly right for the greatly-battered Amenthes.

Hathor is riddled with machine gun fire... and this, combined with the severe damage that was inflicted to it across the rest of the fight, causes it to literally start falling apart. The wings that give it a strange appearance fall off altogether, clattering to the ice below... the torso's armor shatters and falls, becoming so much debris. Brilliant explosions erupt across the entire body of the frame, and it seems as if there's nothing in the whole wide world that could salvage it.

For a short time the black-and-white frame hovers... and then it /falls/, crashing into its own debris and remaining there on the cold, icy surface of Callisto. Within the cockpit, Napth Pleminger stares around him. The power of the frame has gone, only the most subtle traces of bioluminiscent energy flickering through himself and into the control panel. There is something missing here... something direly wrong.

"Dolly."

...

"Dolly! Answer me!"

...

"..."

Napth Pleminger sinks into the pilot's seat and shuts his eyes. There is no Dolores Heyes to answer him, or to comfort him. There is absolutely nothing left in this inert mass of metatron that is - ostensibly - an Orbital Frame. Opening his eyes, the BAHRAM pilot presses himself deep into his seat and begins to will his own metatron into the disabled frame.

The faintest of lines traces itself along the surface of Orbital Frame Hathor. In small concentrations at first, but then again in greater bursts until the machine comes back to life. More like a man crawling to his feet than a machine, it rises from its own wreckage. Half-melded into his own frame, Napth no longer distinguishes the frame from his body.

Communications re-open.

"This. Is. OUR LEGACY! NOT YOURS!" Radium Lavans roars, his voice audibly mechanized.

The frame stretches its arms out and gathers up the heaps of metatron components that fell off of it. An energy field crackles around the machine and it begins to reformat itself on the spot. The elaborate angelic appearance of Hathor warps and retreats as it rises up into the air. The machine that results is not Orbital Frame Hathor. It is something else - something far more terrible.

Above the grey, V-shaped crest of the Orbital Frame are these simple words:

PROTOTYPE SYSTEM Version-00

Orbital Frame Idolo raises one hand. Power surges up through its hand and an enormous burst shot forms above it. It does not take time to grow - it is simply there all at once.

"OUR BLOOD! OUR SWEAT! OUR LIVES! YOU WILL NOT TAKE IT AWAY! IF I HAVE TO CHASE YOU TO THE ENDS OF THE UNIVERSE..."

"YOU WILL NOT TAKE IT AWAY!"

The cataclysmically powerful sphere of energy is RELEASED, and hurtles towards the Zudah like the judgment of an angry god.

"You're right. You don't."

With her forward strike, Sovi didn't expect for Camille or the Zeta to make it through the direct blow. The Arm Slave reels backward, heels screeching hot sparks across the vehicle's surface. The red Codarl's weight shifts forward when it becomes clear that she's going to stop, footing shifting just enough to keep from falling over, or tumbling off the hull and flipping off into space. They may not be close enough for her to be caught up in the gravity well, but space is still space.

It's fucking huge.

"I like your fire, kid, but you move with too much raw emotion."

The Codarl repositions, the arms lifting and fingers fanned out. Closing her eyes, Sovi finds her focus in the middle of the danger and maelstrom that is the battle, and the void ripples around her. The grenade launcher shells slow down before they bend their firing arcs, changing their angles...

"You aren't that much of a soldier."

... and flying straight back at the Zeta Gundam, accelerating back to full speed!

It's certainly not the cleverest of ideas, no. The Guren doesn't make it quite all the way to some kind of weak point in the Valsion Kai's armor, and while still regaining her bearings, Erika attacks, firing the huge mech's cross beam weapon. Once again, Kallen drives forward, using a combination of her Knightmare Frame's remaining leg and the Fukushahadou arm to keep herself balanced, deflecting and reflecting some of the beam weaponry back at the enemy pilot with the power of The Arm.

"If I can't just find a weak point, then I'll *make* one!" she declares, and targets the V-K's knee with a low-grade microwave attack meant to weaken the armor in the area. If she can manage to land that hit, then Erika will have another spot to try to defend--and who's to say while she's doing that, Kallen won't go for one of the parts of the Valsion that aren't so well-covered?

"WARNING, HIGH LEVEL METATRON REACTION DETECTED!" Duat warns Ascian, causing his attention to turn to one of the vid-windows, on which he can, in high detail, see what is happening to Hathor. And the words of Napth do nothing short of inspiring him!

"He's right!" Ascian calls out. "We need this. This is our only weapon against the oppression of the EFA! Without Metatron, we'll all be oppressed by them! /Turned into third-class citizens/! Without the Metatron, we have no hopes of resisting an army that large! I DON'T WANT TO SEE THAT HAPPEN! NOT AGAIN! MARS WILL NOT BE OPPRESSED AGAIN!" This might be close to something Kallen could relate to.

This anger gets fed into his unit, which opens its wings - tattered and hardly still present. The bits stutter as the move away from their former position whilst the unit banks a bit towards the back. "I will take you down Bright! For the future of Mars, we cannot let you have Metatron! WE WILL NOT BE OPPRESSED!" And with that, the bits fire a massive wave of lasers at the different point defenses that the Argama totes, trying to take down any left over missile ports. In fact, the unit flies straight underneath the Argama whilst maintaining the constant source of lasers from the homing beam array. They cut and shift through space, moving like there were countless of little mirrors hiding within the blackness - giving it better angles to come from - cutting through the missiles as they come flying.

A few still manage to impact onto the Amenthes, and the young man within screams in pain as his mental waves start aligning almost perfectly with the Amenthes. "Ahhh!" He screams out, whilst at the same time a female voice could almost be heard in space - calling out in pain. "Ahhh! Stop! Don't hurt me anymore!" Its wings however remain to carry their Metatron-energy-fueled firey shapes, continueing their barrage.

Autocannon rounds spray out in a wide cone as the Gurren Mk-II hurtles up tp meet the Valsion Kai, pelting it's armor with munitions. It's nowhere near enough to stop Kallen though as she rushes right up into melee range and bubbles away a hole in the other torso of the machine, exposing circuitry and machinery. "Shit!" is Erika's response as she realizes her vulnerability... but instead of immediately going on the dfeensive to cover the hole in her armor, she immediately goes on the offensive. And if there's one thing the super robot is ridiculously good at, it's going on the offensive. The damaged Divine Blade comes swinging down once more flat side to the Gurren, aiming to bat Kallen away and launch her right into the ground... but Erika's assault doesn't stop there as the Valsion hurtles in pursuit, flipping the massive blade into a reverse grip as she does so. Then she dives right at Kallen, the tip of the blade aimed straight for the Gurren seeking to impale the tiny machine.

Homing lasers strike the Argama, but seem to do very little additional damage. Hull-plating is scored, but otherwise it holds. Is the Amenthes running out of steam?

"Captain--" Saman calls out, he seems to be wincing from the noise coming in his earpiece. "We're close enough to the pilot that... I'm picking up -screaming-? I think the pilot's screaming at us."

Bright frowns. "Crusaders pick the worst of humanity to make their pilots. We deal with a tortured soul. Sometimes the human mind is eroded by the sheer vastness of space." Pretty cool theory, right?

Not that it stops the Captain from dispensing punishment. "Keep firing those missiles. Without reason, this pilot is a mad-dog that'll lash out at anyone."

Missiles fly.

There's only so far that strategic thinking can take you; Kallen's smart, but she doesn't have Zero's level of brilliance, and even if she damaged the Divine Blade, it's still much, much bigger than she is. When it comes it, she attempts once again to use her Slash Harken to draw herself in close--but she's not quick enough, doesn't hit the thrusters quite hard enough, and even as she manages to score that hit, the enormous blade slices lengthwise into the tiny mech.

There is an overwhelming CRUNCH as the Knightmare Frame is neatly crushed, the cockpit barely avoided. Even so, Kallen screams as she's jolted /hard/ off the motorcycle controls, and the systems of the Guren Mk. II go dead.

Madness, she can't quite grasp it, anger, hate, mouring for someone they love? She can't sense it. It's hard to sense oldtypes but when one is strongly empassed she can feel things. This is one of those times. She's staggering backwards from it. The Zudah stops in it's tracks as it's pilot is mentally falcon punched.

She knows the history of mars. The neo sapians being flat out slaves, the colonists being little betterly treated espically in southern mars. But BAHRAM's gone of the deep end, she's backing. She doesn't dodge, she brings up the shield, it's hit again ands again. The Anti beam coat burns away, the shield is reduced to slag and part of the arm with it. She's forced back and she's just staring at the BAHRAM machine.

The pilot is mad, if she's even feeling anything from him? His madness.

The Zudah reaches back for the anti ship rifle but pauses.

A comrade has gone down, she lines up a shot, but sounds like bright's got it in hand. She aimes the rifle at Hathor and fire a single round.

"Threat eliminated!" Caesar triumphantly indicates.

Yet there are new challengers on the horizon.

Saman cups his hand over his headseat and reports, "Kallen Kouzuki's Guren just suffered debilitating damage! She's stranded in space! Camille is moving in to assist her!"

"Damn.." Bright reaches for his command phone. He points a finger at the blip on the tactical readouts indicating the Valsion, "Target the enemy Valsion with our mega particle cannons. We'll have to burn it out."

With the mega-particle cannon already enabled, there's no reason to waste five seconds of animation showing it moving out. It's been deployed!

This time, while Beecha tries to clean off his sweater, Mondo is at the controls. "Eehh-aahh... do I use this?" he wonders aloud as he tries to center the 8-bit targeting recticle onto the image of the Valsion Kai.

A trigger is squeezed..

..and a sudden loud, screeching sound fills the space between the two points.

"What the /hell/?!" Beamsabers didn't work, now not grenades either?!

The Zeta's own furious, explosive children come racing back at it, but Camille Bidan is having none of that shit. The holier-than-thou words of Sovi, in conjunction with that weird swirling eldritch shit around her, only serve to make Camille angrier. And, contrary to the typical belief, that was not something you want to do.

"So what if I am?!" Maybe he wasn't much a soldier, maybe he had more to learn....but damn it, he wasn't going to let some trumped-up Zabi-associated preach on to him about it!

In a snap decision the Zeta jets forward, crossing the narrow gap between the grenades as the collide and explode behind it, adding to the machine's forward thrust. One heel raised, the AEUG's flagship mobile suit aims to counter with some martial arts of it's own...

And then Kallen's screams fly over the radio in conjunction the the Guren's wrecking and the tortured psychic emanations of the orbital frame pilot.

"KALLEN! ARGH!!!"

Who's to say whether it was frightening instrinct or luck that guided him after that? The vernies turned to one direction and blasted in an instant, carrying the mobile suit clear off the deck and towards the other part of the battlefield, wiring a request to the Argama for emergency munitions.

They were honored in the form of a long, black rifle, launched from the ship's aft.

None of us..." Camille swears, the Gundam's hands clasping about the Hyper Mega Launcher as the unit pirouettes in a deadly arc, ".are dying here!!" Energy condenses and swells at the tip of the ominous weapon, snapping off in two perpendicular shots the would part the sky, were there one to be so violated.

One for the Codarl, can it's Lambda drive oppose the gundam's best?!

Another for the Valsion Kai. Vengeance!!!

With that to cover his escape, Camille moves to grab any sturdy part of the Guren he can, anchoring himself to the Argama with that weird grappling hook thing invented just for such occasions.

There is a loud crash and a crunch as the Valsion lands sword first into the surface of Callisto. For a moment Erika pauses, then leans her machine over ever so slightly to peer down the length of the sword, "Did I get her?" Yep! Got her! The Valsion Kai slowly rises, then wrenches the divine blade from the ground... or tries to anyway. Damaged so badly by the microwave emitter, the weapon instead snaps as she tries to remove it, leaving her with a busted hilt. "Damnit, I liked that sword!" Her mild complaining is stiffled when she sees not one, but two ominous glows coming from opposite directions right at her, "... Aw shit." She quickly glances left towards the Mega Particle Cannons, "Aw shit!" And then she glances right towards the Hyper Mega Launcher, "Aw SHIT!" "SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT!" she yells out as her machine leaps into the air over the blast from the Argama as it roars past only a mobile suit's length away from her Valsion. Immediately following, she twists around and throes her machine sideways as the hyper mega launcher passes her half as close as the last shot, "SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT!" As she continues to shout the word 'SHIT!' over and over again, she quickly whips her arm around and unloads towards the Argama.

The anti-ship round impacts with the transformed Hathor, and a tremendous explosion fills the air in the immediate vicinity... and as it clears...

There the black-and-white orbital sits, its forcefield active. There is no damage evident apart from the damage already inflicted on the frame in the preceeding fight -- although not truly repaired, it does look a whole lot less /maimed/ on account of the fact that it has reallocated the bits of it that were left to form what at least loosely resembles a functional orbital frame... if one dramatically reduced in physical mass.

Within the cockpit, Radium grins madly as the woman seated with him points up - towards the great ship that had carried the enemies here in the first place. Forgetting the foe that had so thoroughly vexed him, he engages the spatial distortion technology that had carried him to and from the Zudah thus far. With that done, he appears before the Argama - one arm forms into a blade yet again.

Then, without ceremony or any further words, Hathor begins to try wailing upon the ship, great surges of energy chasing up and down the bladed arm as it quite literally attempts to shear the hull of the Argama opened.

"What the hell?" Captain Bright blinks as both targets that Camille and Macua were dealing with just split off to attack the Argama. "What are those idiots doing!?"

The ship is attacked -- no surprises here -- with lots of swords.

The bridge crew is jolted hard by the shocks resonating across the length of the ship.

Caesar shakes his head repeatedly, "They're way too fast, Captain! And too close for our guns!"

Bright groans, "Then we'll have to loosen them off the hull with our missiles instead. Fire starboard missile batteries alpha through omega!"

Missiles stream out.

He dodges again-- and much to her surprise, she did as well. Sovi's eyes hood, just the slightest of amounts... but she does not show anger. In fact, she doesn't /read/ as such, either, on the empathic level. Instead, there is an unnatural calm, a steadiness that holds her concentration as well as the glassy, distant sheen in her eyes.

Hot beam death is coming her way-- and she closes her eyes.

Mister Silver smiled. 'It will shape itself to your will. You need only to imagine it,' he said.

As though an I-field were in effect, the Plan 1059 Codarl-m drops down to one knee. The forearms cross, and beam energy splays across the telekinetic field as beams and light bend around it on smooth curves and angles, splaying out into the void before trickling out to nothingness.

"I have no intent of killing anyone today."

Around the Codarl, the deck of the carrier is scarred and scorched in an /absolutely perfect/ hemisphere around her, and surely she's going to have to write an apology to Pleminger later. Rising back to it's feet slowly, the Arm Slave's head tilts to regard the Zeta Gundam while it retrieves the Knightmare Frame.

"If you want to continue with this idiocy after you help your friend, I will be more than happy to oblige you."

Her head turns to regard the Argama...

Sure, Ascian's mind was perhaps not the most sturdy of them all, but to call him the worst of humanity? All he wanted was to find his sister, and to free Mars from the grip of mad politicians - and people who went around yelling 'JOOOOHN CAAARTEEER!' after a man who was actually called James Links. Was that too much to ask? Apparently it was, because the bioluminescent lines on the Amenthes flicker for a moment as it begins running out of power. "Come on, come on!" - "No more! Please... no more." A female voice enters his mind. "Please... no more, Ascian. He freezes. The voice was different from normal. No more insane killy-killy evil bitch. No, this was certainly another side of things.

A red shield goes up as the missile barrage crash into the Amenthes, pushing it down further and further until the grip of Calisto's gravity takes him and begins to bring him down towards the Metatron laden ice planet. The young man however... simply raises his hands from the controls and watches as Duat suddenly freezes up and goes offline. "I trust you." He whispers to his unit - as it falls down faster and faster. Ascian closes his eyes. The unit crashes into the ice - but within the cabin he seems to be safe, only feeling a little of this rocking. He could see it. The Metatron near him reacting, slowly healing the unit. But before him, ice. He was stuck for now. All he could do was watch the sensors as the LEV army, and the tiny squad of Raptors try to do away with the remaining Nemos. Most of the LEVs are down for the count, but the Raptors remain to govern the battlefield quite well - a few down thanks to some lucky shots and a fair amount of GUSTU from some of the Nemo pilots.

Macua Huitl sees that Camille is on the job for rescuing Kallen, but she's got a crazed Martian to deal. It's got a force field, the rounds been stopped. It's also repairing it self. She backs up a little bit and is reloading for another shot, but the frame takes off head for the Argama.

She launches after him, the shield being going mean, she can't use the machie's best melee weapon, so she goes for the heat hawk. The blade lights up and she lunges at the frame.

Well, so much for the sign of zeta.

Camille shook his head in unwavering disbelief at the untouched codarl amidst the sheer devastation of the ship's deck. That was something on par with the bio-sensor at it's strongest, if not more so..

It was good that he'd gotten away from that machine, he thinks, and that the pilot did not seem to want to pursue him. The Newtype couldn't help but feel the unknown pilot could've killed him at any time, had he or she chosen to.

"..hmph" But that still didn't mean he liked her, from the voice he now assumed female, casual arrogance, "My friends are more important to me than some damned rocks. Until then...I accept this as a loss."

Close enough, he gave the Guren a good /push/ towards the launch deck. The engineers would take it from there.

Camille then turns his attention the frames now deadset on destroying the ship an all with it in, including Kallen, Fa and all the others.

"...But that doesn't mean i'll let /you/ do as you want!!!"

Anyone's guess which enemy Camille meant, but as the Zeta flew in circumference around the ship, tethered by it's secured line, the bio-sensor awakened with the scent of Camille's white-hot rage, ensorcelling the mobile suit in violet hue as a beamsaber slid into place and grew, grew, /grew/.

And swung. There was no particular target save whoever was the unluckiest.

"GET THE HELL AWAY FROM THIS SHIP!!!!"

<Radio: D - BAHRAM> Ascian Luddite comes over a bad reception. "Still alive. But unable to continue combat. Amenthes... doesn't want to fight at the moment."

In Radium's mind, it is his wedding day. Someone - he doesn't know who - has arrived and disrupted it. She comes at him with a sword, and skewers him through the middle... but a metatron heart beats in his chest, and his body refuses to give in. He staggers backwards, expression astonished, amazed... and thoroughly drunk on the power of metatron. He grins confidently, even he starts to bleed out through his chest... and turns away, to take his wife by the arm.

Hathor is almost /destroyed/ by the Heat Hawk, its chest torn through only just below its power core. It initiates its thrusters and moves backwards away from the offending machine. It won't last another shot - any idiot can see that. The black-and-white orbital frame is in shambles. Even having been sheared down to a more conservative, C-Type Orbital Frame design there's nearly nothing left of it that isn't heavily damaged somehow.

But like the villain of a bad horror movie, it moves on - darting towards the rear of the ship in an effort to reach the engines. It is /almost/ there when Camille in his Zeta Gundam. He flies at Hathor much faster than the frame can get out of the way... and he is upon it before Radium is completely certain of what is going on. Just when it seems as if the Zeta Gundam will cleave Hathor straight through and end this /now/...

Hathor vanishes, leaving behind naught but spatial distortion and crumbling bits of metatron. It reappears towards the rear of the Argama and comes down on its engine in one, final burst of power. Every ounce of energy left in Orbital Frame Hathor is put into wrecking the Argama's engines beyond a hope of escaping in a timely fashion - not in the expectation that it will stop Katharon immediately...

... But in the hope that it will give the Crusaders and BAHRAM an opportunity to pursue, even if they cannot win this fight.

In the midst of the chaos, the Argama had been moving.

The man at the helm, a young blonde man by the name of Torres (just Torres -- a bit like Cher or Madonna, really), has been hard at work trying to navigate the battered battleship away from danger. Like any ship, it takes quite a bit of thrust for the momentum to build up just enough to move quickly in comparison to a mobile suit. As Napth navigates his Hathor Frame toward the Argama, its main engine is already white-hot and blasting away. He takes a mighty swing -- perhaps even tremendous and definitely terrifying -- but as the Argama begins putting distance between it and the Hathor frame, a chunk of space rock drifts up to obstruct the swing..

..and whoosh!.. it explodes into air that fleets every which way in the great emptiness of space. A single cut nicks the block the main engine is located, doing nothing but superficial damage at best.

Meanwhile, the Captain is entertaining the conditions of Lt. Sovi Reincam. She tells him her story, and he has responded with silence for the time being. Relying on Camille and Macua to clear up the immediate threats has been a mixed bag. Pilots.

But all of a sudden...

"Captain!" Saman shouts, "We're getting a transmission from Fa! She's alive! And she's got the package!"

"What!?" Bright blinks, muffling the receiver of his phone with his hand.

"I've got it, Argama! I've got it!!" Fa cries out over the radio-link. Her Methuss folded up in its waverider mode, blasting away from godforsaken Callisto with so much force. In the hand of the transformed mobile suit is a chunk of it. "Though.. my head feels kind of woozy.."

Biting his lip, Bright considers for a moment. "...launch additional dummy balloons right at the Codarl. We'll just -shove- it out of the way. Torres, get us the hell out of here! Tell Camille and Macua to cover our retreat!"

"Maybe, Lieutenant," Bright says over his command phone. "That's been your problem all along. A soldier's responsibility isn't to just defend his people. It's to also use his head to make sure the decisions he's being given are just and brings about the best possible hope for positive change."

Fwhoom! Fwhoom! Missile batteries that suddenly face Sovi's Codarl launch packets right at her. They rapidly expand as they approach her at high speeds, becoming balloons--- balloons! Enough to knock her off course!?

Fwhoom! Fwhoom! Missile batteries deplete their remaining reserves of dummy balloons. The field suddenly becomes far more cluttered, with numerous shapes in all along the field. Giant white blobs that resemble the Argama, brown blobs that look like asteroids, and red blobs that resemble Zetas. Not the original Zeta, either, but the sexy new red Zeta. Because red goes fast, everyone knows that.

Okay, fine, the sword missed. It's totall normal, it's not a big deal, it happens to a lot of guys.

It is not supposed to happen to Camille Bidan.

"As if that would stop me!!!" Unfettered, the angry and increasingly frustrated Newtype roils at the impunity with which Hathor continues to assault the Argama. Fa was unexpected - he didn't even know she was down there, and that made him angrier!! "Fa!! What are you..?!" Okay, he would get pissed about putting her in that kind of danger anyways, once helps get the Argama out of choppy spacewaters. It is with grim efficiency that the beamsaber slices through the tether, freeing the Gundam to blast full tilt at the hateful orbital frame, still glowing in the darkness with freaky newtype power.

But instead of a sword, all the teenage ire and sexual tension was poured into one hella sick flying kick aimed straight at the frame's chest.

"I am /not/ going to shout 'Zeta Kick' or any stupid shit like that." He mutters at the HUD's suggestion-someone must've messed with it- "Do I look like an EFA pilot?!"

With Fa coming in with a chunk of Metatron - one can expect her to come in hot. And she is! A small squad of Raptors are following her, but just barely. They are forced to resort to shooting little bolts of purple laser at her, trying to hit her and stop her from getting away. How well that goes though... well, who knows. But they sure are having trouble getting past the balloons. A few of them go ahead and blast into them whilst a set behind those continues to try and nail Fa's yellow unit - trying their best to get a darn hit in. Luckily, Raptors are not especially known to deal well with high speed units.

Failing to inflict the damage that he had hoped on the Argama, Hathor...

... Turns around just in time to get /kicked in the everything/ by the Zeta Gundam. It loses power immediately, and falls to the surface of Callisto unceremoniously, a mangled mass of metatron that will most likely rise from the ices of Callisto like Jason from Crystal Lake.

For now however, Hathor - and Napth Pleminger - remain inert on the surface of the moon, unable to pursue, or indeed do anything.

The balloons aren't terribly difficult to get through. They're balloons. They fall apart pretty easily. But they're all in the way and it's pretty difficult to aim at fleeting people while there's balloons obstructing your view. It's a silly thing that you think wouldn't work, yet totally works.

"Hang on, Fa!" Lt. Apolly shouts. His Rick Dias hangs out the side of the ship, pointing its beam pistol at the Raptors and picking at them one by one.

"I can't wait to show Camille how I managed to get what the Captain wanted!" Fa mentions as she flies her Methuss toward the fleeting Argama. "..That'll show that damn Eleven he keeps hanging out with," she squints her eyes and wrings her hands together.