Guilder Credit - Department of Marketing and Freethinking Advisory Briefing for Director - PRIVATE
Director,
I am delighted to announce that we have achieved excellent results, trebling the proportional percentages of improval since last report. Our previous recordings of internal desire for more concentration on innovation over expansion have begun to become obsolete, and this situation is predicted to accelerate to the continued benefit of Guilder Credit.
However, as the responsibilities of the membership of this department has increased, the need for increases has too. With the policies we have championed improving the business climate beyond all records, the graphs attached show that investment would only increase this tendency. Elsewise, a careful reorganization of the office would result in a leaner and fitter department. There would be more pressure, but efficiency would only increase, as mobility would be more possible for employees. These are the two advisory paths laid out, in the opinion of this manager, for the pertinent department,
The Republic's capture of Argaeum marks the final turning point in the War of Martian Independence. Having secured Argaeum, the Republic must now secure the Solar Flare; having lost Argaeum, the Consortium must now reclaim it. This indisputable reality, the necessity to possess the war-winning superweapon, distills all other tactical and strategic concerns, as well as a world-spanning conflict, down to a single point: the Dread Moon, Deimos.
For both sides, Deimos represents a colossal throw of the dice, a fulcrum on which the entire war effort rests. While both the Republic and the Consortium retain some ground-side forces to defend their cities, virtually all of the front-line mobile weapons in their arsenals are present above Mars.
Rather than contest the space around Deimos, the Consortium elects to take up a defensive posture, forcing the Republican forces to come to them to start the battle. Therefore, the Republic's battlegroup makes orbit around Deimos in the face of withering anti-ship fire from the two dozen Century Mobile Armors below. Four Gundams and one golden Mobile Armor drop alongside the combined might of the Republic Mobile Suit Corps.
It quickly becomes apparent as the RMSC makes landfall on Deimos' surface that the Consortium has heavily industrialized the Martian moon, as the three-mile satellite is densely packed with automated factories, and directed their output toward the production of many more Mobile Suits than previously anticipated. Rather than the even fight predicted by the Joint Action Directorate, the Republican forces find themselves outnumbered two to one.
The immense tide of Legion Mobile Suits crashes into the Republic's defensive line, mowed down in droves by carefully coordinated volley fire on the part of the RMSC's veteran Zeadorsa II pilots. While the Consortium's elite Praetor squads execute brilliant maneuvers and the Myrmidon Defenders provide substantial fire support, it is the well-rounded Republican mainstay, produced in great numbers and familiar to the veteran pilot corps, that performs most notably on this chaotic battlefield.
Only Paesam's APDA performs with similar elan and proficiency, but much of their participation is constrained by conservative tactics on the part of their commander. Mindful of his reliance on a limited pool of skilled manpower, the Invisible Hand's captain has left absorbing the enemy fire to the Consortium's unmanned units and instead set forth a policy of limited hit-and-run strikes, never entirely committing their troops.
This strategy comes to an abrupt end when Antara Desike, leading Paesam's Praetor squads, leaps headlong into the fray. The Slasher Superior rips into the Republican left flank, accompanied by bursts of fire from the Praetors' beam assault rifles. When the towering Goliath Gundam erases an incoming brigade of reinforcements with its giga beam cannon and sprays the Zeadorsas on either side with blasts from its beam finger guns, the small wound inflicted by Antara quickly widens into a life-threatening gash.
The Slasher Superior's frenzied forward momentum is checked by the sudden appearance of the infamous Blue Devil further within the enemy formation, seemingly and infuriatingly alone, as though taunting her. Goaded beyond reason, Antara pounces on Chathur's Chandika Gundam, unsheathing her entire arsenal of whirling blades to put an end to that smug bastard's obnoxious emotional presence once and for all. The two aces engage in a heated melee duel.
Chathur, no fool despite his impenetrable aura of self-confidence, has not come alone. Four squads of cutting-edge Garand Orions de-cloak around Slasher Superior, automatic rifles levelled, while Chathur's Imperial-built Bombards open up with a devastating artillery barrage. Antara quickly finds herself isolated, but her surprise shifts to molten outrage as she realizes that Chathur's reinforcements are dedicated to keeping their duel private rather than attempting to tear her apart. She sees red.
Ultimately, two things cut through the crimson haze veiling her vision. One is the mounting sense of raw, platonic anger rising from her opponent, a second emotional presence entirely at odds with the infuriating calm of his usual pressure. This anger is something more than the desire to hurt, instead representing a primordial well of bottomless, vengeful fury. Antara feels something in response, an emotion unfamiliar to her on the battlefield: fear.
The second is the attempted intervention by Maryka Paesam.
Noticing that the Wolfpack Gundam is incoming with Freedom Watch reinforcements, the Goliath Gundam's primary pilot ignores the protests from her co-pilots and lurches her behemoth of a Mobile Suit into action, weathering the incoming fire with aplomb. With the Goliath's giga cannon still recharging, she's forced to rely on the Gundam's wire-guided forearms, armed with beam guns in each fingertip. These, along with her machine's sheer bulk, propel her through the enemy lines and into the Gundam duel.
Antara yells for her to get back. Maryka retorts that she can't handle this alone. Antara screams at her again, her exclamation cut off as Chathur's blade sweeps through her machine's left arm and both legs. Maryka levels the Goliath's right fist at the Chandika and fires her rocket-propelled forelimb at the blue Gundam. Chathur... leaps towards it.
The rocket fist is intercepted, not by Chathur, but by the Wolfpack's supersonic railguns, which blast the remote appendage apart in a rapidly expanding cloud of metal fragments. The debris cloud disrupts the Goliath's sensors, causing her to lose sight of the Chandika. Seemingly from nowhere, Chathur comes level with the massive Gundam's head, draws a beam saber in one smooth motion, thrusts upward beneath its chin, twists, and then jets backwards. Maryka Paesam dies in one merciful instant, disintegrated by the saber's plasma stream. The Goliath does not explode, does not combust, but rather topples over like a felled tree, coming to rest on its knees with ruined head tilted back.
Antara's shock and grief can be felt by every Advanced on Deimos, both emotions heightened by a tidal wave of raw guilt. Chandika seems ready to follow up on its first victory with another, particularly as Wolfpack's railguns rip through a pair of Praetors and are joined by a barrage of gravitic missiles from the Freedom Watch's Zeadorsas.
Rather than throw good money after bad, the Invisible Hand's captain orders a full barrage on the Republican position, aghast at having lost the CEO's granddaughter. The captain orders the Slasher Superior recovered as the Paesam forces begin to gradually disengage from the battle proper.
Elsewhere on Deimos, the main Republican advance has bogged down in the face of a determined Consortium counterattack. While the Starlight Crusaders and Oryza Avengers fight like demons, fueled by raw anger at the corporate invaders for taking their homes away, the Consortium's quantity has a quality all its own and losses quickly mount.
Despite having the knowledge that Ashe died to secure, knowing that Sinclair is located in his machine's head, Yuliy Volkov finds pinning down the Motive to be easier in theory than in practice. The detached parts move independently of each other with a degree of coordination and sheer maneuverability that's almost impossible to credit to one man. Despite himself, Yuliy finds his battlefield serenity disrupted by Sinclair's constant stream of taunts, and is soon drawn in to the man's increasingly megalomaniacal rant.
As beams fly and the Motive's limbs whirl in a dizzying dance of death, Sinclair explains to the 'knight-errant' that human beings are base, simple creatures with crude motivations that they hardly bother to understand. Their only real use is as fodder for the dreams and goals of the few great individuals who rise above the herd. Yuliy finds himself uncomfortably reminded of his former Imperial Guard commander, and takes a moment to reflect on how every asshole would-be dictator has one of these speeches in his back pocket.
Consumed by his vision of a world where great men steer and their lessers obey, Sinclair briefly drops his guard, allowing the Selene to pounce. Unerringly guided by its predictive computer, the Selene's arm-mounted beam cleaver rips through the Motive's head in one smooth, perfect cut. The transmission stops. The Motive's parts stop moving.
Yuliy barely makes it out of the Motive's combined beam barrage with his life. Springing back into motion, Sinclair laughs grandly, as the Selene picks up his transmission signal not from the destroyed head, or even the chest, but from every single part of the Motive. Sinclair is only too happy to elaborate on how he has transcended mortal existence and will live forever in the perfect, unchanging clarity of the N-DAM's cerebral matrix.
Each part of the Motive is equipped with an N-DAM imprinted with Sinclair's consciousness -- and if Yuliy wants to beat him for good, he's going to have to destroy them all.
The frantic tempo of combat pauses as the light on Deimos dims and then goes out, the battlefield lit only by explosions and beam flashes. The Solar Flare, deployed above the Consortium lunar headquarters, has taken the light of the sun into itself, and now it fires. A thin, concentrated lance of solar plasma rips across the sky above the Dread Moon, piercing the Republic flagship Jeanne d'Arc. The super-heavy battleship lists to one side, begins to fall, and then explodes.
The Solar Flare, far from being offline, is fully operational, and it's already recharging for a second shot.
As the battle for Deimos escalates and losses mount, the emotional aura engulfing the moon roils and thickens, engulfing all present in a haze of bloody determination.
Confronted with the specter of an operational Solar Flare, the Republican forces redouble their efforts, throwing themselves into a desperate attack in spite of their numerical disadvantage. Their target: the main Consortium base, from which a high-intensity gravitic signal emerges. According to sensor analysis, it's some kind of immense gravity reactor, and that reactor is the only logical source of the Solar Flare's power.
Above the surface of Deimos, Selene and Motive clash with increasing fury. Sinclair indicates that he is the original founder of CEC, a two-century existence kept alive through cutting-edge science and raw determination. No rebellious little boy, Sinclair asserts, can end such a glorious thing. Yuliy, for his part, is busy staying on the move, unable to regroup for a counterattack so long as the Motive is whirling around him in pieces.
A short distance away, the corporate forces launch a flank attack spearheaded by the Revenant and Mausoleum, the former's pilot somehow restored to life and back on the field. With Wolfpack and Chandika pushing toward the main Deimos base and Selene held up indefinitely by Motive, the Republic commits its last mobile reserve to opposing the Consortium offensive: the Mobile Armor Helios and the recently upgraded Tornado Vortex. The former's pilot is still viewed with some trepidation by the Joint Action Directive, while the latter is considered fairly green for what has become a war of hardened veterans, but they're all they've got left.
Revenant's initial barrage of bomb-drones thrown at the RMSC is abruptly curtailed by the deployment of Helios' DIAGRAM system, which puts out a truly staggering weight of pinpoint beam fire from multiple directions, rendering the Revenant's terror weapon entirely defanged. Denied a cheap victory, Revenant and Mausoleum boost into melee range at tremendous acceleration, made easier because there are no physical pilots within them. The two Gundams are piloted by N-DAM ghosts, having died and been resurrected several times, and the raw chaotic anger and despair of their presences is offputting in the extreme to the two Republic pilots.
Despite this oppressive aura, Eva is more than familiar with such pressure and rallies quickly. Her own reassuring presence brings Nora back around, and the two manage to rejoin the fight. Vortex veers deftly to one side to avoid an incoming crusher claw from Mausoleum, but is thrown off-course by the second's impact against her reinforced Mobile Armor unit. She replies with a barrage of beam cannon blasts, which dissipate against the two Gundams' combined G-Field.
The corporate Gundams circle around the Vortex like hyenas around a wounded lion, with the Revenant and Mausoleum using their heavy firepower to batter the hastily-upgraded Vortex little by little. Sensing an opening, the Mausoleum charges in, as the Revenant prepares to bisect the Republican Gundam with its beam scythe.
The two mercenaries barely have time to be surprised as they're suddenly engulfed in a cloud of sparkling high-density particles, thoroughly fouling up their gravitic sensors and cameras. The Vortex slams into them, entangling itself with the two Gundams, and Jando Monahan notes with dismay that the Mobile Armor's Gundam has already departed. The revived mercenaries' unlives come to an abrupt, merciful end as the Helios' wave-motion cannon obliterates them down to the molecular level, erasing the two dreadful Gundams and their ghostly pilots.
Yuliy cuts off a savage cry of joy as his cleaver bisects the Motive's forearm, leaving only a half-dozen remaining parts for him to deal with. Unfortunately for the elite former knight, fatigue is starting to set in, and Sinclair seems not at all troubled by either the loss of his limb or the length of the fight.
The young man glances up in startlement, as his opponent's mockery seems to have tapered off, only to notice that the sky has gone dark again. The Solar Flare is almost ready to fire, and the Republican strike team is nowhere near the gravity reactor. His spirits dim along with the sky.
Across the vast gulf of space, Moss Geryon stands on the bridge of the Austerlitz, next to Captain Smythe and Dr. Dzerzhinsky, as the Agincourt hovers just off to one side in front of the bridge. The three figures, an unlikely leadership cadre for the Red Revolutionaries, glance at each other briefly, then nod. Dr. Dzerzhinsky gives a short, clipped order to the space station below.
On Deimos, the Republican formation begins to scatter. The Solar Flare's radiance reaches its peak. And an impossibly thin, impossibly bright lance of pure light lances out from Mars and hits the corporate superweapon.
What follows is a tremendous, burning, nuclear-white explosion of untrammelled radiance, engulfing the Solar Flare and the Deimos base. Hundreds of lives are snuffed out in an instant as the solar ray misfires. The ground trembles once, then twice, and doesn't stop.
As the dust settles, a transmission from one of the Herakles pilots on AWACS duty over the battlefield cuts into the open channel, his voice harsh and panicky.
"I can't believe it! Deimos! Deimos! I-It's... It's breaking up!"
This hour will be enshrined in human history forever, a tale written in metal and stone. Countless historians will spend thousands upon thousands of man-hours endlessly debating the exact series of events, the chains of causality, who was where and did what when. Not even after painstaking review of the surviving battle footage will there be certainty.
This is what is known for certain.
Deimos tears itself apart in slow motion, massive fissures spreading out from where the Solar Flare's groundside base used to be. Evacuation signals blare out over all channels. A few particularly pitched battles briefly continue, but soon everyone is running for their ships. The Consortium's mechanical army, or what's left of it, is abandoned on the dying moon.
The Invisible Hand lifts off from the Deimos research facility, towing with it a cargo vessel full of priceless research. Corporate executives rage impotently as their escape route leaves without them, cursing Paesam's name.
Motive Gundam attempts to break off from its heated duel with Selene, which has continued unabated despite the carnage, only to watch in horror as the Wealth of Nations is shot down by the Helios' wave-motion cannon. Grimly, Sinclair turns back to Yuliy, knowing that his survival is now contingent on fighting through and winning.
The critically damaged Jeanne d'Arc, thought destroyed by the Solar Flare, is coaxed off Deimos' surface just ahead of the moonquake that rips apart the ground beneath it. Having exerted heroic effort to save the ship, its crew now refuses to head back to Mars. Not without their Captain.
The Motive finds itself thoroughly on the back foot against Yuliy and Selene, who are in full sync and increasingly able to see through its seemingly erratic maneuvers. Not even Sinclair's taunts can reach the Starlight Knight, whose eyes shine with celestial light. He can see... everything.
As the last combatants break free of Deimos, one last gravitic explosion from the Wealth of Nations triggers the final collapse, as massive chunks of lunar regolith go flying. Not in all directions, as one might suspect, but instead pulled by the lingering strength of an incredibly powerful gravity tether -- the one that came from Argaeum.
Republic and Consortium forces alike watch in horror as the dead moon hurtles towards the orbital elevator. They all know that Olympus City is the focal point of refugee activity on Mars; once nearly deserted, it is now filled to bursting with those who have fled the mechanical Legions. Tens of millions will die when Deimos hits Argaeum, and that will only be the beginning.
The battleships, and one pair of furiously fighting Gundams, flee ahead of Deimos' inevitable trajectory. They're in no position to do anything about the coming apocalypse, but they can at least make it safely to the surface with their human cargoes. The falling moon does little more than serve as a background for Motive and Selene, who seem indifferent to what is to come.
And then things get really confusing.
From within the depths of the coming storm, a single green light glows brighter than the Sun. A warm, welcoming presence, tinged with sadness at what it knows is about to happen. The presence of Ercia Jomon, from within the Black Box.
And from Argaeum, an answering radiance, equal in hue and intensity. The Agincourt, floating protectively in front of the rapidly evacuating station, refusing to abandon Mars in its time of need. Refusing to acknowledge that nothing can be done.
The two lights reach out to each other, only to recoil as a sinister miasma of hatred and loathing spreads throughout the orbital space. The Motive, its pilot realizing that it has no way out, no chance of survival, instead welcomes the annihilation of the planet that has condemned him to death. The connection remains incomplete.
Gundam Selene blurs into motion for one final charge as the Motive comes together, its multiple N-DAMs synchronizing to produce a wave of apprehension and nihilism. Selene bisects the Motive's remaining forearm, then activates its G-Field at full force with the Motive inside its radius. Trapped, the pieces fling themselves at the spherical gravity bubble, but Yuliy has rendered it entirely impassable.
With one final look backwards at the Helios, as it docks with the Jeanne d'Arc, Yuliy Volkov offers a silent prayer before the two rival Gundams crash at incredible speed into the largest of the Deimos fragments, silencing both of their presences for good.
Having been freed of the interference, Hanaa Kamis and Ercia Jomon achieve a full melding of their collective powers, using them to reach out to the surviving Advanced and unite them, even the most selfish and angry, in a chorus singing for the survival of Mars and its people.
The advancing moon Phobos is pulled by incalculable gravitic force into the path of its smaller, falling brother using the power of Argaeum's gravity tether, guided by the two synchronized Advanced. The station, now evacuated, shakes itself apart under the strain, ruining the elevator -- but the presence of the Republican battleships and their G-Fields deflects most of the falling debris, minimizing casualties.
Phobos and Deimos explode under the twin strains of velocity and gravity, shredding the orbital ring in the process. Olympus City goes dark as its supporting necklace of solar panels is torn asunder, the wreckage carried along in the emerald glow.
When the light fades, both moons are gone, as is the orbital ring... and Hanaa Kamis, who gave up her life for the people of Mars. In their place is a thick debris field surrounding the whole of the planet, a monument to the carnage of war and the power of understanding -- a Graveyard.
Epilogue
The woman takes care to adjust her husband's helmet, ensuring that his normal suit seals are secure, then moves on to their two children. She herself is wearing her construction-grade suit from her former job, a position lost when the Gravestorm took out Pickering City's entire industrial complex and the city with it. Now she's just one more refugee, taking her skills to where they're needed. Even if that means braving the terrible, constant storms.
The four civilians board their long-haul land freighter, bought with the last of their savings, and set course due northwest. The heart of the former Republic might be in shambles, but there's still work in the big cities as long as you're willing to risk the overland travel to get there.
Days go by, the woman using every ounce of her skill to keep the hover-hauler up and running despite its best efforts to crap out on her. On the fourth day, though, she sees the ship.
A converted Acquisitor-class carrier, one of the couple dozen left behind by the corps, bristling with stolen firepower and salvaged armor plate. The streaks of black told the family everything they needed to know: marauders.
A warning shot brings their land freighter to a halt. The woman frets about her daughters, about her husband, about their cargo. Even if they live through this, how will they be able to make a new beginning? The thought paralyzes her.
The carrier's shadow steadily grows and grows... then stops, as another warning shot rings out. Not a rail cannon like the Acquisitor's, but a beam cannon -- military-grade firepower.
The second, much larger battleship deploys Mobile Suits, but the marauders have no stomach for a real fight and turn tail immediately. The gleaming ship comes to a hovering stop as a Garand-model Mobile Suit descends from it, notable for its massive shoulder-thrusters, commander's antenna, and deep blue trim.
The woman climbs down from her hover-hauler and is met by the Garand's pilot, a tall, impressive figure with military-straight bearing. The storms calm temporarily, allowing both the mechanic and her savior to remove their helmets.
The pilot is wearing a gleaming silver mask, covering everything from his forehead to his nose, revealing oddly delicate features below. He smiles and offers her safe passage. She gratefully accepts, offering her cargo in exchange. She throws back the tarp on the hauler's bed to reveal row after row of faintly glowing cylinders -- G-Cells.
Sir Kesh Chathur, commander of the Knights of Olympus, allows himself a slightly broader smile. He starts walking back to her hauler's cockpit, indicating that she'll find a fair price for her cargo, and that anyone who can keep this thing running may even have a job waiting for her aboard...
"General, we've cleared Deimos battlespace. We don't seem to have been spotted."
"Good, good. Let Paesam haul off his plunder. Let the rebels think they've won. We'll be safely back home while they fight over that cursed planet's carcass."
"What about the men downside, General?"
"They'll be taken care of, I assure you. That jackdaw won't let a shiny object escape his grasp so easily. We'll just have to carry on without th--"
"Contact detected, approaching fast! I-It's... It's the Chandika!"
"Ah, General Fitzgerald. A pleasure to see you again. I thought you might have left without saying goodbye."
"Chathur, what the hell are you playing at? I have important business back on Terra. Or have you completely taken leave of your loyalties along with your good sense?"
"I assure you, General, I am as fixed as ever on my purpose. In fact, I come bearing a message from His Majesty."
"Oh? Good, then. I have much to report. What is the message? Out with it, Chathur!"
"..."
"General! Weapons lock!"
"Chathur? Chathur, you ungrateful dog, you can't do this! I'm too valuable to the Imperium! To the Emperor! Chathur? Damn you, Chathur, answer m--"
-- SIGNAL LOST --
"So long, General. Be sure to take your crimes with you, all the way down to Hell."
"Space station Argaeum, this is the Jupiter Energy Fleet bulk transport Zephyrus. We're about to set our final entry course but we have yet to receive a reply. Please respond, Argaeum."
"What do you think's going on with those guys?"
"Who knows? Mars is such a backwater... Maybe they're all asleep. Hold on... Wait, what the hell is that? Radar's lighting up."
"Dozens... Hundreds... Thousands of contacts? I'm seeing metal debris, chunks of rock, energy discharges..."
"Bring up visual sensors... Oh. Oh, holy shit."
"The orbital ring! It's gone! It's fucking gone! They didn't respond because it's fucking gone!"
"Some kind of catastrophe? Okay. Okay. This is fine. This is fine, this is okay, we have drills for this. Set course for the secondary location."
"Setting course for the Phobos lunar ba--..."
"..."
"Where are the moons?"
"I don't know! They should be right there!"
"Johannes, where are the fucking moons?!"
"I said I don't know! Are they... Are they those rock chunks? Did they blow up the goddamn moons?!"
"Oh no. No no no. Screw this. Screw all of this. We're headed back to the Fleet. Log a Class 1 orbital catastrophe and alter course immediately."
"Captain, we've got an entire year's supply of reaction mass aboard. If we miss this delivery..."
"Hey, if you want to run that debris field, be my guest."
