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

Chapter 181 New Mech

"retreat!"

"Send the signal immediately to tell them to run, run as fast as they can!"

The Zeon fleet commander, stunned by the attacking machine's astonishing long-range shooting ability, didn't even need to determine the attacker's identity. After all, there was no one else in the entire universe who could propel themselves at three times the speed and hit the Musai turret with a rocket launcher at a distance of over 10000 meters.

Most Zeon pilots, when they mention the Red Dragon, will at most say how many mobile suits the enemy shot down, but these Zeon captains who participated in the Battle of Britain and the Battle of Loum also remember the warships that were destroyed by the enemy, especially the Gwajin-class ship that was half blown up. The wreckage of that ship is still floating in space to this day.

"Damn it, this rocket launcher is still too slow!"

As Markarius, who was speeding all the way in his G3, glanced at the countdown timer that was loading ammunition and felt a little sad. Although the caliber of the super rocket launcher equipped on the Gundam was as high as 380 mm, it was still difficult to disable the Musai-class at a long distance. He couldn't help but miss the happy time when he could fire nuclear missile launchers indefinitely.

After the rocket launcher was fully loaded, Makarius lifted it up again. He didn't look at the fire control lock on the machine, but squinted slightly. Relying on his intuition, after locking onto the enemy's movement trajectory, he pulled the trigger again.

Then, four rockets were launched in quick succession, propelled by their rocket engines, leaving inconspicuous white trails in space as they flew toward the Musai-class rockets that were turning around and fleeing.

"What are the anti-aircraft guns doing?"

Seeing the approaching rockets, the Zeon commander could only roar and urge the artillery department on, but Macarius fired from the side and rear, and Musai's anti-aircraft fire could not reach the incoming rockets at all. The Zeon crew on the ship could only watch helplessly as the rockets flew in and bombarded the left and right sides of the warship's engines.

"Energy lines are damaged, coolant is leaking, engine temperature is rising, we have to shut down one reactor!"

"Shutting down the reactor means death!"

"If we don't shut down the reactor, we'll still die in ten minutes!"

Is there no solution for damage control?

"There's no way to save it, Captain. All the pipelines behind the engine have been destroyed. The only way to repair it is to return to the dock!"

The damage control team leader, standing in the damaged compartment in his spacesuit, shouted in grief and indignation.

As if to verify his claim, a nearby energy pipeline burst again, and two damage control personnel were immediately blown away with screams.

At that moment, Makarius's G3 Gundam even bypassed the paralyzed Musai-class. As he passed by, he even took out his beam rifle and destroyed the Musai-class's remaining two main cannons.

"White Base, that ship is yours. If you don't surrender, blow it all up, and destroy the escape pods too!"

"Yes...sorry..."

Standing on the bridge, Bright watched as the G3 Gundam flashed past his starboard side like a streak of light, and then answered weakly.

He was numb. His first time commanding a battle, which he had envisioned, had completely turned out differently. Brad was powerless to resist and could only obediently direct the warship to turn and attack the crippled Musai-class ship like a wronged wife.

As he was directing the warship back to port, he saw a second white flash streak across the starboard side of the warship.

"Lieutenant Amuro, shall we turn back?"

"It's too late, that guy's going to eat all three ships!"

Brad was completely ignored by the other party, which made the helmsman, Milai Bazhou, chuckle.

Brad glanced helplessly at the crew members beside him, then sat back down in his seat.

"Busy, everyone's busy, it's good to be busy!"

Despite Amuro's haste, he was still a step too late, because Makarius had already crippled the second Musai-class ship and was now attacking the third Musai-class ship. That Musai-class ship was now using almost all of its cannons and had even given up on escaping, instead launching a desperate charge towards Makarius.

However, the barrage of particle beams and live bullets could not touch the G3 Gundam in the slightest. In Macarius's mind, an extremely safe path had been constructed. Even though the particle beams grazed him from above, the aftershocks only slightly burned off some of the Gundam's paint.

Having used up all the rockets he carried, Makarius, who had emerged from the barrage of bullets, had already hung the rocket launcher back on the gun rack at his waist and instead drew his beam rifle.

Then, under the horrified gaze of the Zeon crew, the G3 Gundam brandished its spear and slashed horizontally toward the bridge.

Then, the bridge armor on one side was brutally torn apart by the beam lance. The Zeon crew members inside, those who were close were instantly vaporized by the beam, and those who were far away were directly sucked into space. Although most of them were wearing spacesuits, under these circumstances, floating in space was no different from death.

After brutally slicing through the Zeon's bridge armor, Macarius maneuvered his machine to land on top of the three turrets positioned along the warship's central axis, piercing them one by one with his beam spear. The Zeon soldiers inside the turrets were vaporized by the intense heat before they could even scream.

The remaining Zeon crew on the Musai-class battleship were terrified by the brutal attack of the G3 Gundam, and even cried out and used all the remaining means of the battleship to send a surrender signal to the outside world. The second Musai-class battleship, after witnessing the tragic treatment of the third battleship, obediently disarmed itself. On the contrary, the first Musai-class battleship was unwilling to surrender. After a firefight with the White Base and the Federation mobile suits that arrived later, the entire ship was blown to pieces, and even the escape pods did not have time to eject.

"The skill level of these Zeon sailors is no longer what it was before the war!"

After easily and efficiently completing the sortie, on the way back to the Enterprise, Makarius continued to provide his assessment of the level of the Zeon warships he had encountered.

“Yes, and among the Zeon crew members captured by the White Base, there were quite a few child soldiers!” Captain Paul added.

"Then our attack on Fort Solomon might be even easier!"

“How come you see?”

"If these fleets, which are so important to Dozle, are already in this state, one can only imagine the level of Solomon's mobile suit forces!"

"I can't wait to give him a good slap across the face!"

Captain Paul chuckled helplessly after hearing this somewhat childish statement. He didn't doubt the truth of the other party's words. After all, it was this guy who was the first to be captured in Dozru's service career. Presumably, the other party's expression would be quite interesting when they met for the second time!

Indeed, I made the right decision to take this appointment!

Thinking of this, Captain Paul couldn't help but feel excited. After all, he was already halfway to the grave, but he never expected to have such a glorious career at the end of his career. It didn't seem impossible for him to even become a brigadier general before retiring!

When Markarius returned to the Enterprise, the Red Dragon battle group's defensive perimeter had expanded several times over, and the number of Federation fleets gathered there had also increased several times over. Among them was Vice Admiral Tiam's flagship, the Titan.

"Oh, Clini, how was the hunt?"

"Not very good, sir. Three Musai-class ships aren't enough!"

"Haha, don't worry, Solomon has plenty of big fish!"

Tianm grew to like Macarius more and more as he looked at him. As a representative of the young and vigorous Federation Army, he naturally liked Macarius's arrogant and impetuous demeanor.

"I'm really looking forward to seeing how you perform in this Solomon Offensive!"

"Understood. Please take care, Your Excellency. I look forward to seeing you in Solomon after the war!"

Marcarius saluted Tiam, and Tiam returned the salute with utmost solemnity. This salute was not only a formality but also a sign of mutual respect. During the Battle of Britain, the two sides had cooperated closely and left a very good impression on each other. Now, being able to fight side by side again was a matter of fate.

After nearly a day of vigilance, the entire Tiam fleet was finally assembled, and then the two fleets began to head towards their destination, Luna II, the Federation's largest military fortress in space.

At this moment, the fortress has assembled the Federation's Second Fleet, Eleventh Fleet, Thirteenth Fleet, Eleventh Independent Unit, Twelfth Independent Unit, Thirteenth Independent Unit (Red Dragon Battle Group fleet number), Fourteenth Independent Unit, Third Fleet, Fifth Fleet, Ninth Fleet, and other units, possessing nearly forty Magellan-class battleships, more than one hundred and sixty Salamis (Nelson-class) ships, and nearly five hundred and fifty Columbus-class aircraft carriers.

As the target of the Federation's Operation Star One, the Zeon forces' Solomon Fortress had fewer than sixty warships in total. Among them, there was only one Gwakin-class cruiser that could serve as the main force of the fleet's battle line, and only a handful of Chibe-class heavy cruisers. The rest of the warships were all Musai-class.

As for the ratio of mobile suits between the two sides, it is even more exaggerated. In another timeline, the Federation Forces still managed to field 5,200 mobile suits of various models after losing two-thirds of the Earth. Now, the Federation Forces, which suffered much less damage than in the other timeline, have fielded nearly 7,000 mobile suits, including more than 5,000 GM-C models. The rest are various special-purpose mobile suits and iron balls used for filling in the gaps.

The number of mobile suits that the Zeon forces could field was also significantly less than in the other timeline. After losing millions of troops on the ground, Dozle only had a total of about 2,200 mobile suits at his disposal. Moreover, the main force was not the MS-09R Riku Domo. This newly produced cutting-edge mobile suit had been in service for too short a time, and Dozle only had about 200 Riku Domos in his possession. The remaining main force consisted mostly of various models of Zaku I and Zaku II, including about 300 MP-02A Ogres.

This is an emergency product manufactured by Zeon's military production department, made using parts left over from the Zaku II. Just like the Earth Federation's Iron Ball, Orgrimmar can also be called an Iron Bucket because of its shape.

However, there are still differences between the two. The Iron Ball is a military equipment modified by the Federation Forces using a space engineering module, while the Aug is assembled from the remaining parts of mobile suits. Therefore, the Aug's defense and firepower are stronger than the Iron Ball.

However, the numbers on both sides are completely disproportionate. The Federation has as many Iron Balls as it wants. Even if the Federation stops producing mobile suits now, producing just 10,000 Iron Balls would be enough to overwhelm the Zeon army. On the other hand, Ogre is assembling them using leftover parts. Once the parts are used up, there is no possibility of replenishment, because all the Zaku II production lines in Zeon have been converted to manufacture Rico Dom.

Dozle was well aware of the huge troop shortage on both sides, but he was powerless to do anything about it. The location of Solomon Fortress was close to the completely destroyed Side 1. The fortress itself was a modified asteroid with virtually no capacity to produce mobile suits on a large scale. To obtain new mobile suits, he could only wait for reinforcements from the homeland and the moon.

However, as the Federation forces drew ever closer, the Abaoa Fortress on the mainland also needed a large amount of equipment replenishment. A large portion of the newly produced warships and mobile suits were delivered to the Abaoa Fortress. The troops under Dozru's command were the result of his long-term efforts to gather and accumulate them.

Now, every day spent at Fort Solomon is extremely long for Dozru.

Especially when he learned that the last fleet of the Federation forces had also left Earth's orbit and arrived at Luna II base.

"This day has finally come!"

"This day has finally come!"

Unlike the gloomy Dozle, Markarius arrived at Luna II with a beaming smile, because waiting for him there was the Federation's newly developed Gundam, the RX-78NT-1, also known as the Alex Gundam, which was specially developed to unleash the combat power of Newtype pilots.

The biggest difference between this machine and the original Gundam and G3 Gundam is that it uses magnetic coating technology for its entire drive system. The G3 Gundam was only a test machine for magnetic coating technology, so its performance was slightly conservative. But with the NT1, the designers completely let go and created such a monster.

With a reaction speed three times that of the original Gundam, the machine can switch postures in just 0.8 seconds. Even the Federation's test pilots could only utilize less than 30% of the machine's performance. However, the Federation military leadership no longer needs to worry about the machine's performance not being fully utilized.

Because Markarius has arrived at his faithful Luna II and officially taken over NT1.

"I think this guy can now be called Solomon's nightmare!"

Looking at Macarius, who was standing beneath the massive mech and staring directly at it, Timree spoke to Kinias.

(End of this chapter)