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

Chapter 186 The Suppressed Hope

"Sir, there are signals of mobile soldiers approaching from the rear!"

"Only one?"

Colonel Burroughs couldn't help but feel puzzled as he watched the approaching signal on the radar.

Based on the images of our destroyed units, there should be a large number of enemies, but they have only deployed one unit so far. Are they here to scout?

"Sir, we've confirmed the other party's image!"

"This is... a Gundam?"

Colonel Burroughs looked at the machine that was charging forward at breakneck speed and then realized why the other side dared to charge forward so recklessly.

"Release mines, launch missiles, and hold him off!"

It's impossible to fight back. The mobile suit squad of the Undead Force has been completely wiped out. Although there are still a few pilots left, all the usable mobile suits have been used up. Now, in the mothership's hangar, the only ones that can fly are the two Kator ships.

These two Kator ships were disarmed and were used for transporting personnel. Even if someone took one out, how would they fight against a Gundam? By ramming it?

Captain Burroughs could only have the fleet passively engage in battle. In the ruins, the warships could never reach their maximum speed. However, once they got out of the ruins, not only would their speed increase, but they would also have more room for maneuver in tactical maneuvers.

"Don't even think about running, you bastard!"

With heavy metal music blasting from the cockpit, Io piloted his fully armored Gundam, raised his right hand to his twin beam rifle, and pulled the trigger on a missile flying towards him.

After firing several shots, he successfully destroyed the missile. The aftershocks of the explosion scattered the surrounding debris, and many pieces of debris flew towards Io's aircraft.

After using his shield to deflect the drifting debris, Io accelerated again, continuously firing his light gun. The mines and missiles deployed by the Zeon army were constantly being detonated, sending flames soaring into the sky, making Burroughs' heart tighten.

"This guy is really persistent!"

"Keep firing, it doesn't matter if we run out of missiles!"

One of the important functions of the Papua-class destroyers in the past was to launch missiles, so there are still a lot of them in stock. However, there are too few rear-facing launch hatches, which makes it impossible to organize a strong firepower density.

The main guns of the Musai-class ships are all positioned facing forward, making it impossible to fire backward. Therefore, if there were any usable particle cannons, Io wouldn't be so arrogant. Unfortunately, the Zeon fleet doesn't have any.

After a few minutes of pursuit, the Zeon mothership's missile launch suddenly encountered a firepower gap. This was because the missiles in the ammunition racks had been used up. Although there were still missiles in other positions, they had to be transferred by transport aircraft. Without interference, Io finally found a good firing window and then pulled the trigger towards the Zeon mothership.

"Our starboard deck has been hit!"

After being hit by the beam, the Zeon mothership experienced a small explosion. Io's attack struck a storage room in Papua, killing more than a dozen crew members inside. Their bodies were then sucked into space through a hole in the deck.

Although the Zeon bridge immediately sealed off the hit area and emptied it to extinguish the flames after the attack, thick smoke still billowed from the bombarded area, making the ship look quite devastated.

"Are the missiles not fully loaded yet? What is the artillery department doing? The barrage on the port side is too thin!"

Meanwhile, Io's second shot came flying, striking the mothership directly from behind, leaving a deep bullet hole in the deck, tearing through the armor, and destroying the equipment below.

"If we get shot from the same spot again, we're done for!"

Seeing the flickering lights overhead, and with Burroughs's roar, the Papua-class finally fired missiles at the Gundam again, successfully buying itself some time. But just one minute later, Io's mobile suit opened fire on the mothership once more.

Seeing that several more compartments had been breached, and that the crew members who had miraculously survived inside had to be sealed off, Captain Burroughs then looked out the porthole at the Musai-class cruiser right next to the mothership.

"Shusui, I need you to cover the fleet's rear!"

Burroughs took off his military cap and spoke with difficulty in a dry throat.

After a few seconds of silence, the captain of the Shusui immediately responded.

"Received, best of luck!"

"Activate the retro-rockets!"

The attitude nozzles of the forward section of the Musai-class ship, which was in flight, immediately emitted flames, and the speed of the entire ship began to decrease immediately, leaving the Zeon fleet far behind.

"Hard to port! Main gun charging!"

Then, the warship smashed through countless tiny ruins floating in space, turned around, and charged towards Io's fully armored Gundam like a raging bull.

"Fire! Fire at full power!"

The main guns and dense secondary guns of the Musai-class immediately spewed out a dense barrage of bullets, and green particle beams and close-in weapon fire that were almost in a continuous line instantly filled Io's entire field of vision.

Under the main gun fire of the Musai-class destroyers, any debris in its path, whether satellite ruins or warship wreckage, was instantly vaporized.

"That's right, the grander the better!"

Although he couldn't dance around the aftershocks of the particle beam like Macarius, Io's fully armored Gundam had formidable mobility. Therefore, he quickly began to climb upwards, leaving the Musai-class's firepower behind, while he himself quickly used the larger wreckage to try and get closer to the Musai-class.

Those Side 4 residents who died from the collapse of the colony probably never expected that their bodies, frozen for so long, would suffer a second disaster. Since the Musai-class could not reach Io's fully armored Gundam, they vented all their anger on the unsightly wreckage.

Under intense artillery fire, pieces of debris disintegrated and deformed. The massive bodies of water that had been frozen in the vacuum of the colony also melted, shattered, and broke into brilliant ice crystals that spread throughout space.

Under the towering particle cannon fire, the ice crystals refracted countless drops of light from afar, creating a magnificent spectacle.

However, neither the Zeon nor Io had the mind to appreciate this strange sight. Amidst the exploding wreckage, Io's Gundam, along with the spreading debris, gradually approached the Zeon ship.

"Fall down!"

Amidst the shouts of the young pilots, the cluster missiles carried by the Full Armor Gundam and the particle beams fired from its twin beam rifles relentlessly bombarded the Musai-class hull. Although this was Io's first independent anti-ship operation, he had learned quite a bit from his previous experience. He prioritized attacking the Musai's main guns with his beam rifles, then destroyed the close-in weaponry from blind spots, and finally shot at the bridge. However, the young pilots hadn't studied the enemy ship's vitals in detail enough that after destroying the Musai-class's bridge, Io didn't know where to hit to cause the ship to explode, and could only try each point one by one with his beam rifles.

After being relentlessly whipped for more than ten minutes, the Musai-class, whose exterior was already in ruins, finally exploded when Io hit the ammunition depot.

Despite having lost sight of the Zeon fleet, Io was not worried about them escaping, because the Thirteenth Independent Fleet was right in front of the Zeon.

"Finally escaped!"

Colonel Burroughs finally breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that the area outside the bridge was no longer the terrifying ruins, but the vast expanse of outer space.

Next, the fleet only needed to advance at full speed and escape back to the Solomon Islands. But just as a bright smile was about to appear on the colonel's face, a shrill alarm sounded once again throughout the entire warship.

"Multiple signals detected, sir, we're surrounded!"

The radar operator shouted in panic, as countless red dots suddenly appeared from all directions, completely sealing off the Zeon fleet within an encirclement.

"Confirmed: 60 mobile suits, 11 Salamis, 1 Magellan-class, and 1 unidentified warship, suspected to be a Magellan-class modified!"

"I've already seen it!"

Captain Burroughs slowly stood up, his tone quite sorrowful.

But bad news didn't stop there; it kept coming one after another.

"Enemy mobile suit models confirmed: GM GS, GM C, and two Gundam-type mobile suits!"

"Gundam? What the hell did I kill, the grandson of some high-ranking Federation official? How could I run into three Gundams in this place?"

Colonel Burroughs was a bit hysterical.

"Two Gundams, can you confirm their identities?"

"One of the confirmed signals is Rx-78-2, which is the White Devil. The other one is uncertain, but it should be a new model!"

Although he didn't say it aloud, Colonel Burroughs already had a general idea of ​​the identity of the unidentified Gundam model. After all, the infamous White Devil was obediently following behind that Gundam, so its identity was obvious.

Subsequently, the Zeon flagship received a communication from the Federation forces.

"Surrender, or die here!"

There was no reasoned persuasion, no coercion or enticement, only a cold, hard choice.

As if worried that the Zeon people might actually surrender, the communication lasted only a dozen seconds before being abruptly and decisively ended.

Then, the two Magellan-class ships launched their attack decisively.

"Immediately get all the wounded onto the lifeboats, everyone else to your fighting positions!"

Before Burroughs could finish speaking, Magellan's bombardment struck the Musai-class ship at the very front of the fleet with a resounding thud. The attack pierced the Musai-class from top to bottom, crippling the ship before it could even retaliate. Then, several large-caliber anti-ship missiles launched from Magellan-class ships cleanly dismembered the Musai-class.

The remaining Musai-class ship, disregarding the safety of its mothership, immediately launched an attack on the Federation fleet ahead. However, it was quickly overwhelmed by Salamis's barrage of fire. No miracle occurred, and the Federation's mobile suits didn't even join the battle. The Zeon fleet was swiftly and decisively turned into space debris by the Federation fleet.

As for the Dolores-class, which served as the mothership, the Federation Forces did not immediately consider it as a target, because Macarius was still thinking of capturing the ship. It wasn't that the Dolores was that important, but that it was carrying an experimental Zeon mobile suit.

An experimental mobile suit developed based on the High Mobility Zaku, equipped with a sophisticated mental control system. Although its use is very demanding, requiring the pilot to sever the limbs and then directly connect the neural interface to the mobile suit's limbs before it can be used.

Although it may seem cruel, its concept is quite forward-thinking. If its mature products were applied elsewhere, or if it were miniaturized, that would be good too.

While the fleet attacked Musai, several GM squads also provided cover for the assault teams to begin boarding operations. The GM GS first destroyed all of Dolos's close-in weaponry and power systems, and then, outside Dolos's hangar, tore open a huge gap with beam spears.

Subsequently, assault teams dressed in rigid spacesuits and carrying thrusters filed in, launching a swift assault on the Zeon forces inside the ship with P900 submachine guns and M299 machine guns.

The Zeon crew was thrown into chaos by the boarding of the Federation commandos. Although many drew their weapons to fight back, the Federation commandos' hard spacesuits were enough to withstand direct fire from their weapons.

In less than twenty minutes, the entire Dolos was under the control of the Federal Army. More than two-thirds of the crew were killed in the battle, and the remaining crew had no choice but to lay down their weapons and surrender after all hope of resistance was lost.

Colonel Burroughs was among the captured personnel. He had intended to fight to the end, but the Federation forces did not give him that chance. A GM delivered a straight punch to the bridge, crushing half of the personnel into mincemeat. The remaining half were sent flying by the impact and were eventually sucked out by the vacuum. The colonel was lucky; he was impaled by flying steel bars and pinned to the wall, unable to move, until the arrival of the Federation commandos.

However, the Federation forces did not treat him. Instead, the colonel was thrown into a closed cabin with his injuries, along with Corporal Daryl, who was dragged from the medical bay, other Zeon crew members, and the technicians of the Zeon experimental machine.

Marcarius did not order the prisoners to be killed, but he also did not intend to save them. After counting the number of prisoners, the Federation troops abandoned half of the food and oxygen and then withdrew from the wreckage of Dolores.

Before leaving, he did not forget to cheer on the Zeon prisoners.

"I know you really like this so-called Thunderous Universe, so I'll let you settle down here. I hope you can live happily here!"

Then, the half-damaged Dolos had all its communication equipment and power system destroyed, and finally, it was dragged into the ruins by two Salamis.

"ciao!"

He waved politely to the other party, and then Markarius returned to the Enterprise.

"Send a message to Luna II: Our forces have completely cleared the Side 4 space region!"

Soon, they received a reply from Luna 2.

"Received. Your unit, stand by. Operation Star One has commenced!"

(End of this chapter)