Why would I join the army if I can’t drive a Gundam!

Chapter 166 Greetings from the Sky

Seeing these ten GMs so cleanly and efficiently destroyed, setting aside the differences in machine performance, the long-range shooting ability displayed by Macarius alone was enough to make even those who considered themselves sharpshooters with perfect accuracy blush with shame.

"Now you know why beam rifles aren't allowed, right?"

Major Cont said this to his men during a meal.

With ballistic weapons, Macarius needs to adjust the trajectory himself and make a lot of predictions. But beam weapons are different. Although the particle beam cannot actually reach the speed of light, the flat trajectory makes no difference to Macarius. If he can't kill the opponent with one shot, he can block their movement with one shot and shoot them in the head with another. It only takes a few seconds anyway.

"If the enemy has a beam rifle, you won't have any chance for close combat at all; you'll just get sniped one by one in long-range firefights!"

"Now I understand how the Zeon pilots who faced him must have felt!"

While facing top aces is certainly hopeless, these European Federation pilots also fare poorly against the pilots of the Red Dragon battle group. After all, in addition to their rich combat experience, the latter also receive private guidance from Macarius, and the logistics and maintenance unit even inputs his data into the combat simulation system, tormenting the pilots who participate in the training every day.

Thus, these European pilots understood how Conte felt when he fought against Macarius. Incidentally, the latter had recently reduced their record to 533 wins and 533 losses. Although he lost badly every time, Conte was clearly enjoying it. He even emptied his salary to buy snacks and invited Macarius to beat him up because he found that he had made significant progress in hand-to-hand combat.

However, this training was halted after all the equipment of the Red Dragon battle group arrived, because the Federation Army was about to launch a local counterattack to open a breakthrough in the battle line and push the overall battle line across the Volga River.

The Red Dragon Battle Group was the main force in this breakthrough!

"Chief Engineer Sakaki Kiyoshi, has the equipment I requested been modified?"

"It's ready, but there aren't many. We didn't capture the complete production line, so we can't replenish them. You'll be careful when using them, right?"

Seeing the eager look in the maintenance officer's eyes, Makarius gave a mysterious smile without saying a word.

"You'll definitely be careful, right?"

Seeing that the chief engineer's eyes were red, Makarius could only nod.

"I try my best!"

On the morning of the following day, as the Zeon soldiers on the east side of the Volga River poked their heads out of their foxholes as usual to prepare for the day's work, their defenses were suddenly attacked from both sides by the Federation's artillery and the Black Sea Fleet. Such fierce bombardment was something that many of the newly recruited Zeon soldiers had never heard of or seen before; only the veterans who were among the first to arrive on Earth had experienced it in the early battles.

At this moment, the earth-shaking shock turned the soldiers' faces ashen.

"Grab your guns, the Federal Army is about to attack!"

"Aren't they attacking every day?"

"I'm talking about the final assault, you idiot!"

The urgent ringing of telephones echoed throughout the Zeon command posts at all levels, eventually causing Lieutenant General Yuri to jump up from his seat.

"Have you confirmed the direction of the Federation forces' attack?"

"What do you mean 'not yet'? Confirm it immediately! I need to know which units the Federation Army has deployed!"

Meanwhile, on the eastern bank of the Volga River, amidst the devastated ruins left by bombing, the remaining Zeon soldiers and mobile suits, under the orders of a few surviving commanders, were rebuilding their fortifications as best they could. All of them aimed their weapons at the wide Volga River, quietly awaiting the arrival of the Federation forces.

But the river was calm and still, and there was not a trace of the enemy.
"Did I kill the illegitimate son of the Federal European Army Commander yesterday? Is that why this guy is trying to scare me?"

Seeing that nothing seemed to be happening, a Zeon recruit made a witty remark, but no one on the position echoed him. The veterans looked serious until someone suddenly pointed to the sky.

"what is that?"

"what?"

At an altitude of only twenty or thirty meters above the ground, a dozen or so dark figures were rapidly approaching. A Zeon pilot immediately adjusted the camera.

"It's our military's flight ramp, and there's also a red fuselage!"

"Ah, but didn't the Crimson Comet arrive in a submarine? And wasn't his machine a Demon Crab?"

"That's a red dragon, you idiot!"

"Tsk tsk, choosing to face me here instead of turning and running away, interesting!"

Although most mobile suits currently lack the ability to fly in the Earth Sphere, the Zeon's D'Dai YS flight platform grants them this capability. It can even carry two mobile suits in flight. If this equipment had been produced earlier and scaled up, the Federation Forces would have been in serious trouble. Unfortunately, it was developed too late and ultimately not put to much use. Many of the platforms have become spoils of war for the Federation Forces.

After leaving behind enough research material, the remaining pedals became the Red Dragon's new toys. At this moment, Makarius truly gained wings, just like a dragon soaring through the sky, and then brought greetings from the heavens to the Zeon army.

"Fire all bombs!"

Once inside Deda's weapon range, Marcarius, who was remotely controlling the flight path from inside the aircraft, immediately activated all the weapons mounted under the path. Then, a ground-attack missile loaded with terminally guided munitions roared out and exploded above the beachhead.

The other flight pedals followed suit, firing them all at once, immediately causing the Zeon troops on the defensive line to flee in panic.

After running out of ammunition, Makarius did not jump off the ramp. Instead, he slightly increased his altitude and re-entered the dive attack route.

But this time, it was the G3 Gundam riding on the pedals that opened fire!

Aim and fire!
The twin-barreled beam rifle glowed purple, then fired a blinding particle beam, hitting a Zaku that was firing into the air. The particle beam cleanly sliced ​​through its body and then disappeared into the scorched ground.

Then came the second one. The G3 Gundam's double-barreled rifle fired in turn, as if keeping time with music, while the Zeon equipment on the ground exploded in response to the rhythm.

In just one round trip on the battlefield, the Zeon army's anti-air firepower was reduced by more than half. At this moment, Makarius was truly like a giant dragon, circling on the battlefield. His light spear was his dragon flame, and his agile movements and solid shield were his dragon scales.

Under his sweeping attacks, the Zeon troops on the ground had no ability to resist. As a result, the various GMs carried on the flight platform behind him also jumped down and landed steadily on the ground after a brief period of airtime.

"Forward, brothers! Today is the day to avenge the blood debt owed by Zeon!"

A squad leader from Loom, piloting his Strike GM, couldn't wait to start his charge. Although he was piloting a special machine, he wasn't picky and attacked whatever he saw along the way. After kicking over several armored vehicles and splitting open a few Magella tanks, he finally spotted a Zaku. But before he could charge up, several beams of light shot out from behind, piercing through the Zaku.

Although each of the dozen or so D'Dai could only carry about twenty GMs (one with two), the quality of the custom-built machines made up for the lack of quantity. These twenty-odd custom-built GMs were like a heavy battle axe, instantly tearing a gap in Zeon's Volga River defenses, and continuously widening the gap in the ensuing battle. At the same time, the D'Dai returned to base to load the second batch of troops, leaving only Makarius still hanging in the sky, raining down devastation upon the Zeon.

"Send them back, send them back!"

The Zeon commander at the front was even trembling as he tried to command his troops to close the breached defenses and push the Red Dragon battle group back to the other side of the riverbank. But at that moment, the not-so-wide battlefield had become a bloody meat grinder, crushing his troops into dust bit by bit.

The only echoes in the front-line troops' communication channels are the desperate cries of pilots before their deaths. At this moment, no one is shouting slogans like "Long live Zeon" anymore. Only a few pitiful cries for their mothers are echoing. Several female communications officers in the command post are sobbing uncontrollably. Even the commander is heartbroken and almost suffocating, but he has to fill all the nearby troops into the communication channels.

However, the location of the Red Dragon seemed to be an insurmountable wall. Despite the Zeon army's best efforts in counterattacking, they could not cross it and instead were constantly smashed to pieces in the process.

As the subsequent Federal Army troops that were officially crossing the river and the second batch of reinforcements arriving on Deda arrived, the insurmountable wall transformed into a merciless road roller, continuing to relentlessly roll forward.

"I thought it was a speed bump!"

"Go talk to my 380mm rocket launcher!"

"I tried so hard, how are you still alive!"

Seeing that the Federation's engineering corps had already begun to build heavy bridges across the river, the Zeon commander knew that his side was doomed. He could only painfully order the follow-up troops to abandon the attack and retreat.

"Sir, let's charge one more time! I promise we'll take the breach this time!"

A Zeon commander, blinded by rage, desperately pleaded for battle, but his voice could not save his slaughtered men. The Federation forces sent hundreds of mobile suits to the breach, leaving even Dejinzabi helpless.

"Retreat, Major!"

"But!"

"There are no buts. Do you see that red dragon soaring through the sky? He's here to settle accounts for all the sins we've committed in the past!"

The Zeon commander's furious outburst calmed down the major on the other side, and then the Zeon commander seemed to realize his own loss of composure.

After calming down, he spoke again.

"Now, let's retreat while we still can!"

"What about you?"

"Me? I kept one mobile suit for myself!"

The commander glanced at his subordinates who were frantically destroying command center documents, then waved his hand.

"I'll cover the rear here!"

Then, Commander Zeon quickly left the chaotic command post. With the defenses breached, he had no face to return to his superiors, so dying here was, in his opinion, the best option.

After gathering more than ten Zaku and twenty or thirty armored vehicles, the Zeon commander led this last force in an attack on the Federation forces.

Perhaps it was the cosmic ghost's blessing, but the direction of the Zeon commander's attack was not controlled by Macarius, which allowed them to reduce their losses on the way. However, when they saw the Federation forces, they found that there was a relatively lightweight Gundam in front of them.

Without much thought, the Zeon commander immediately challenged the Gundam. In just three moves, his Zaku was pierced through the cockpit by a beam dagger.

Meanwhile, the Zeon troops following the commander were quickly defeated in the fierce close combat. Many Zaku were even surrounded by multiple GMs and were humiliatingly hacked to death on the ground before they could even draw their thermal axes.

Soon, news of the fall of the Volga River defense line reached Yuri's command post.

"What's going on? Didn't I send reinforcements? Twenty thousand men. Even if there were twenty thousand pigs, the Federal Army couldn't catch them all in three hours, could they?"

"Sir, we have confirmed the enemy unit's designation. The attacking enemy includes the 4th Armored Corps and the Red Dragon Battalion. The enemy launched their attack from the air first and even deployed three Gundams. Reinforcements simply cannot arrive in time!"

Upon hearing the name Red Dragon, Yuri slapped his forehead in anguish.

"That's not surprising, that's not surprising at all. Why did this damn unlucky thing have to come here?!"

Despite the extreme pain, Lieutenant General Yuri didn't become a desktop cleaner; he simply picked up the map and examined it for a long time.

"Now, it seems our only option is a full retreat!"

Lieutenant General Yuri said this almost through gritted teeth. He had just been happy about the expansion of territory at the front, but in the blink of an eye, tens of thousands of square kilometers of land had been recovered by the enemy.

"Get the air force moving immediately to destroy as many of the bridges they've built as possible. Also, get our troops on the Volga River defense line moving as fast as they can. The Red Dragon won't give them time to pack their bags!"

After his subordinates left the room, Lieutenant General Yuri called his secretary.

"Cynthia, why don't you take the HLV back to the mainland first?"

Has the situation become so unfavorable?

The secretary looked at Yuri's messy hair and couldn't help but feel sorry for him.

"It wasn't like that before, but with the Red Dragon around, these days won't last much longer!"

Lieutenant General Yuri frankly admitted that he really didn't know what he should use to fight the Red Dragon.

"Perhaps Major General Kinias has a solution!"

"Rely on him?"

Yuri was highly suspicious of this, after all, he knew that the other party's test subjects were unstable!

"We have no other choice!"

(End of this chapter)