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

Chapter 197 Before the Attack

"Sir, there's a phone call for you, on line three!"

In the comfortable office at the Gabro base, Gop, who was writing furiously on a document, suddenly stopped. He glanced at the time; it had been less than ten hours since their last communication, and now there was a reply.

"Looks like the old man can't sleep either!"

With a smile, Gop grabbed the phone and gave instructions to his secretary.

"Give me a cup of hot tea, and some dessert, something sweet!"

"understand!"

Then, Gop picked up the microphone, put it to his ear, and as the conversation continued, the smile on his face grew even wider.

After hanging up, he immediately dialed another number.

"Get me to the headquarters on Golden Island, find Rebil!"

"Damn it, couldn't you have called me during the day? I just took my medicine and went to bed!"

Soon, Santa Claus's complaints came through the phone, filled with helplessness and frustration. Clearly, many elderly people suffer from sleep problems, and Rebil was no exception.

Despite his complaints, Rebil quickly shut up, knowing that unless it was urgent, Gop wouldn't bother him at midnight.

"They replied!"

"Well, what should I say?"

"Dejin agreed to all our conditions!"

"That old codger won't shed a tear until he sees the coffin!"

Reibill breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing this. With Dejin captured, at least one-third of the Zeon could be considered to have surrendered. Although this one-third of the Zeon had nothing, at least it was a good start.

"Then, the rest of the work is yours!"

The remaining work Rebil was referring to was the specific details of the negotiations, which could only be handled by Gop. He would remotely control the Federation agents operating in the lunar city from Gabro and reach an agreement with the Zeon on the follow-up details.

Then, the results are presented to Rebil!
"Then I won't bother you any longer. Good luck tomorrow!"

Then, Gop hung up the phone. Tomorrow was the day the Federation fleet would set sail to begin the attack on Abaoa Fortress. Although Rebil, as the commander of the army, would not be sailing with the First Fleet, he would still be on Kimmy Island, keeping a close watch on the fleet. Naturally, he needed to be well-rested.

The old man had been worried about not being able to sleep and had taken two sleeping pills. But now, after seeing Dejin bow his head, he immediately felt sleepy and then fell into a deep sleep with a satisfied smile.

Like Reibir, the First Fleet, responsible for the first wave of attacks, was currently fast asleep. They would depart precisely at 5:00 AM the next morning, so they needed to get some rest.

While they were sleeping, the logistics and maintenance department was working overtime through the night. Large numbers of maintenance personnel were meticulously inspecting every detail of the warships and mobile suits to ensure that these war machines would be in optimal operating condition the next day.

After inspecting and maintaining the equipment, the officers and men of the First Fleet would get up around the same time. But the maintenance crew couldn't rest yet. They still had to work with the officers and men of the First Fleet to refuel the warships and check the fire control system. Only after the entire fleet, from the people to the ships, was in perfect working order could they put down their work and rest for a while.

That was the moment the First Fleet set sail!
Because Reibill himself was based on Kingmy Island to command, his flagship, the Phoebe, was commanded by Green Wyatt. This Federation general, who was originally an admiral, was full of confidence. After all, he was commanding the Federation's most powerful fleet at the moment. When the hundreds of warships slowly ignited their engines and set sail, the stars seemed to tremble.

The massive scale of the Federation forces was naturally not hidden from the Zeon forces. Although the Zeon forces had completely abandoned attacks on Federation forces entering and leaving Kinmi Island after Macarius beat Char, in order to prevent that terrible Federation ace from using a sting operation again and turning them into insignificant cosmic dust.

However, the Zeon forces never gave up monitoring Kinmi Island. Lacking long-range reconnaissance aircraft, the Zeon could only resort to old methods: deploying a few reconnaissance Zaku and using their electronic equipment for observation.

Then, as the First Fleet slowly set sail from Kinmi Island, the Zeon pilots who were reconnaissance Zaku were horrified to discover that their sensors seemed to be malfunctioning. After all, what kind of radar doesn't show the specific number of enemies, but instead circles such a large group around them?

But then, as the telephoto lens was activated, a scene appeared before the Zeon pilot that made him feel the urge to urinate.

One after another, Federation warships appeared before him, their navigation lights flashing. All the warships had their gun covers removed and their gun ports opened. In the empty areas of the Salamis and Magellan-class ships, there were mobile suits fixed to them.

Those Jims stood atop the mast like boarding crews during the Age of Exploration, weapons in hand.

Federation commanders, who previously struggled with a shortage of mobile suits, are still struggling now. However, this time their problem is a lack of space to carry the massive number of mobile suits, and mooring them on the deck is the best solution they can think of at present.

The Salamis alone had twelve GMs crammed into its four sections: front, rear, top, and bottom. There would be even more on the Magellan, not to mention the iron balls arranged in dense formations around the warship.

"Issue the alarm immediately!"

Faced with this massive fleet, the Zaku scouts lurking in the shadows could only tremble like rats in a gutter. Their last shred of reason spurred the Zeon pilot to transmit intelligence about the Federation fleet's departure via optical signals towards Abaoa Sky. Then, he shut down all equipment, including the mobile suit's heating system, attempting to disguise his machine as a harmless meteorite to avoid detection by the Federation forces. Lieutenant General Landrov, the Zeon commander of the Abaoa Sky fortress, felt a bitter taste in his mouth upon receiving the warning signal from the front.

As the last fighting fortress of the Zeon army, Abaoa should theoretically be defended with all of the Zeon army's combat forces. However, unfortunately, at this time, Kycilia's fleet still had more than half of its forces in Grenada, and Gihren had also deployed more than two-thirds of his personal guard on Zeon's homeland.

Of course, aside from those troops, the garrison at Abaoa Fortress was still quite formidable. In terms of the fleet, the Zeon forces still possessed three Gwakin-class and two Dolos-class ships. Adding the Chebe-class, Musai-class, and Zanzibar-class cruisers, they could still muster nearly thirty warships. As for mobile suits, the Zeon forces still had nearly three thousand mobile suits of various types, although their quality was hard to say.

Although the number of Richard Domos, which was a rare commodity during the defense of Solomon Fortress, has exceeded one thousand, it is much better than the Dozle Fleet, which only has two hundred or so. However, the quality of the pilots is incomparable. The Dozle Fleet can still maintain a ratio of veteran to new pilots of one to two, but in the Abaoa Sky at this moment, this ratio has been reduced to one to five.

In fact, the unit with the most veterans in the entire Zeon army is the Capital Defense Division, which is currently based in Zeon. With other Zeon units either being disbanded or rebuilt, only this division retains its pre-war personnel structure.

However, mobilizing the Capital Defense Division is clearly unlikely. Assassinations are rampant in Zum City, and the Capital Division must remain under martial law. Zeon currently has no troops left to fight!

"Immediately notify the Commander-in-Chief! Sound the alarm throughout the fortress!"

Bitter as it may be, preparations still need to be made. With the battle having progressed to this point, the Zeon people were already mentally prepared, and subsequently, the defense of the entire fortress began to operate in an orderly manner.

Fort Abaoa is very similar to Luna II and Solomon. It was originally brought there by an asteroid for resource extraction, but was captured by the Zeon forces and converted into a military base. The entire fortress is actually a combination of two asteroids, shaped like a disc and weights, forming an umbrella. It is about 33.75 km high and 22.5 km in diameter, much smaller than Luna II, but still a behemoth.

On the body of this behemoth, the Zeon people installed countless weapons, including various artillery emplacements and missile launchers, just like Solomon, only with an even denser firepower.

The Zeon forces divided the fortress's firepower into four zones, oriented in four directions. Zone N, or the North Zone, overlooks the Principality of Zeon's Side 3 homeland. This area is considered a blind spot for the fortress's firepower, since no one would deploy too many cannons pointing towards their own home from a fortress right on their doorstep. Therefore, the Zeon garrison deployed a Dolos-class ship here, along with nearly seven hundred mobile suits!
Area W, or the west, is the deployment area for the remaining Zeon fleet. The defending warships, with their backs to the fortress as support points and supported by dense defensive firepower, can weave a deadly fire net with the fortress's firepower.

As for Area E, where the moon can be seen, the Zeon forces have deployed a combat group composed entirely of fanatical student soldiers. Their main equipment is the Org that appeared in Solomon. It's not that the Zeon forces don't have enough mobile suits, but rather that these fanatical recruits who responded to Gihren's call only know how to operate Orgs.

In addition to the battle group, Zeon's 603rd Experimental Unit was also deployed here. This unit was the same Zeon Crab that attacked the Federation's launch fleet on Earth. Its mothership was quite unique, being a large warship equipped with an experimental plasma cannon. It also made an appearance during the Battle of Loum, but the plasma cannon failed to fire. Afterward, this unit was treated as a dumping ground by the higher-ups.

As for the final S sector, the last remaining Dolos-class aircraft carrier of the Zeon forces is deployed there.

Judging solely from the troop deployment, the Zeon army had clearly put a lot of effort into its defenses, but Lieutenant General Landrov had no idea whether such defenses could withstand the Federation army's offensive.

However, he soon received the reinforcements he had been waiting for. After receiving the report on the movements of the Federation forces, both Kirian, who was in Zum City, and Kycilia, who was still in Grenada, rushed to Abaoa Sky Fortress as quickly as possible.

The first to arrive was naturally Giren from Zum City. However, what puzzled Landlov was that Giren did not bring all of his personal guards stationed in Zum City back to Abaoa. If the latter could have committed all of his troops to the fortress defense, he could have added at least nearly a hundred more mobile suits to the fortress.

Although Landrov didn't understand what important things Zum City could have that would make Gihren deploy such a large force at this critical juncture, he didn't dare question Gihren and could only vaguely suggest that the fortress forces should be strengthened as much as possible.

You will get it!

Inside the command tower atop the Abaoa Sky Fortress, Kilian, seated on his throne-like command chair, appeared confident. Soon, Commander Landrov learned the origins of the reinforcements Kilian had mentioned.

"Kycilia, I need your fleet!"

"?"

Seeing Gihren's arrogant demeanor even when asking others for things, Kycilia, who had rushed to the scene, felt that she should have a big question mark on her head.

However, Kirian quickly gave his own answer.

“We have indeed had many unpleasant experiences and conflicts in the past, but I think there is absolutely no need for us to bring them up here. Now, we have reached a critical moment, and we should put aside our differences and cooperate closely. What do you think?”

Kycilia remained silent. She had just arrived at Abaoakong Fortress and had no idea what Gihren was up to. After a moment's thought, Kycilia nodded and handed her fleet over to Landrov's command.

Just as Kiraine said, she and the other party did have many conflicts, and she even wished she could kill the other party. But at this moment, it was no longer the time for internal strife. The Federation fleet was coming in with great force, and if they did not unite, they would all become victims of the Federation's guns.

For some reason, Kycilia, sitting in the command seat, suddenly thought of Char, who had also followed her to Abaoa.

"So, what would you choose to do now?"

Kycilia thought to herself that if she wanted to take revenge on her enemies, she would naturally want to find a time when she could wipe them all out. And now, with her and Kylian together, it was the perfect moment for revenge.

While Kycilia was thinking this, Gihren, who was standing beside her, issued several more orders, including preparing communication equipment.

"What do you want, Gihren!"

"I want to give a speech at Abawa Fortress to once again boost the morale of our troops and call on our people to fight to the end!"

That's how Kira answered!
(End of this chapter)