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

Chapter 239 Broken Wings
"Captain Bergman, I see Federation warships!"

"Damn the Federal Army, today we'll settle all our past grievances!"

"All forces, attack! For Lei Fan Hu Sengzheng! For the restoration of order!"

The Nanyang Alliance's flanking force had slowly crept in from behind the Federation warships. These mobile suits even chose to hide behind the clouds, their senses extremely sharp. Watching the Federation fleet advance below, the Tiger Force's commander, a former Zeon veteran who had now converted to the Order of Order and completed his ordination, issued the attack order without hesitation.

"Attack! For the sake of Monk Lei Fan Hu!"

Then, shouts from men, women, and children filled the communication channel of the religious order. Yes, the monks of the Nanyang Alliance also made extensive use of child soldiers and boy soldiers. Of course, in religious terms, they should be called novice monks! Most of these boy pilots were pilots of the flight pedals, and some pilots were operating Tigers. At this moment, under Bergman's leadership, these boy soldiers took the lead.

Just as the monks of the Nanyang Alliance were piloting their aircraft out of the clouds, their weapons already pointed at the target, waiting to open fire once they entered effective range, suddenly, several Nanyang Alliance pilots noticed that the missile attack warning on their aircraft had suddenly sounded.

"This is?"

Amidst the horrified cries of the Nanyang Alliance pilots, infrared missiles hurtled down from the sky, slamming into their aircraft with devastating force. The explosions tore through the armor, sending shrapnel and flames into the interior, destroying even more internal components.

"We're under attack, Captain! There are enemies overhead!"

Amid the pilots' desperate cries, a red figure roared down and swept past the formation of the South Seas Mobile Suit Force. On either side of its indistinct silhouette were mobile suits burning, falling apart, and plummeting at high speed toward the sea!

"Enemy aircraft, at six o'clock, rapidly descending!"

"Our captain has been shot down, what should we do?"

At this moment, the tigers of the Nanyang Alliance no longer cared about the attacking fleet, because the unidentified high-speed attacking aircraft had already torn apart their attack formation.

"Who is that? Is it Char Aznable?"

"No, how could it be Colonel Char? Don't forget, he's not the only one piloting the red mobile suit!"

Several lucky Zeon veterans survived the first wave of attacks by Macarius thanks to their war experience, but they were all terrified by the brutality of the attack. Their captain, however, was not so lucky; his mobile suit was the first to be destroyed. After the red mobile suit passed through their ranks and descended to a lower altitude, the Zeon pilots finally recognized its identity.

"Flying Tiger, those damn bastards, they're actually piloting our aircraft..."

"Forget about that damn machine, look at its paint scheme, right on both sides of the head!"

Through the monitor, the Zeon pilots finally saw the other side's identity. On the left and right sides of the flying tiger's head, there was a giant red dragon breathing fire. The blood-red dragons were particularly conspicuous against the background of the shield.

At that moment, the hearts of these Zeon pilots were completely dead!

"Red Dragon! It really is him!"

"Run! Run! That's no match for you!"

The Zeon pilot was already in despair. His hands, gripping the control stick, were trembling uncontrollably. Although the cockpit temperature was high enough to make one sweat profusely, he only felt a chill running down his spine, and his hands and feet were numb and unresponsive.

He could only vaguely warn the bewildered monks in a trembling voice over the channel, but they ignored him completely and even charged at the ascending red dragon.

Makarius slammed down the pedals and pulled the thruster throttle valve to its maximum. The immense power propelled the machine straight into the sky like a rocket. Watching the enemy closing in, he felt his blood boil!

"Come on, have a good fight!"

The roaring 60mm Gatling gun spewed out scorching flames, sending Luna titanium alloy armor-piercing rounds into the sky.

A Tiger pilot, using the flight ramp, raised his rocket launcher, preparing to attack Makarius below. But the next second, his ramp snapped in two as if it had been broken in half. The Tiger's pilot didn't even hear the screams of the pilot on the flight ramp; he could only see the cockpit, its windows smeared with blood, slowly plummeting towards the sea from the shattered wreckage.

Just as Tiger's young pilot activated the flight components and stabilized the aircraft's altitude, a barrage of bullets that had torn through the flight pedals once again enveloped his aircraft.

The pilot of the Tiger felt as if his machine had been hit by something. The next second, his machine began to fall apart. The Tiger machine repaired by the South Pacific Alliance was not as strong as the one produced by Zeon. With just a short burst of fire, the Tiger was cleanly and decisively turned into a large ball of burning wreckage and fell into the sea.

After taking down the tiger, Markarius nimbly dodged the falling wreckage with a sway, and then a larger number of enemies appeared before him.

Without hesitation, Makarius continued firing. As the Gatling gun roared, two more flying platforms, along with the mobile suits on them, were destroyed by Makarius. After dodging nimbly and flying out from the wreckage, he came face to face with a Zani riding a flying platform.

Makarius stomped on the cockpit of the aircraft's flight pedal in mid-air, then grabbed Zani by the head and lifted him up. His aircraft then constantly shifted positions, dodging the barrage of bullets fired from above. The pilot of the Zani aircraft he was carrying was pinned to his seat by the overload maneuvering, making it difficult for him to even raise his weapon and fire.

Meanwhile, Markarius drew the heat sword mounted on the Flying Tiger shield and slashed it cleanly, cleaving another flight platform and the mobile suit on it in two.

At that moment, he charged up from below the enemy, once again passing through the ranks of the Nanyang Alliance. Seeing the enemy below already in disarray, Makarius pulled the control stick, and with a sharp twist of the Flying Tiger's right hand, he ripped Zani's head off his torso.

Zani was finally freed from his restraints, but when the pilot regained his vision, all he saw was the ever-expanding blue sea as he continued to fall. When he raised his backup view and looked up at the sky, hoping for friendly forces to come to his rescue, all he saw was the red flying tiger swooping down like a falcon, followed by friendly forces scattering and fleeing.

The appearance of Macarius has become an eternal nightmare for the monk-soldiers' flying units. In just ten minutes of combat, more than half of the aircraft and flight pedals were reduced to fragments and scattered towards the Earth, while the remaining half is also gradually turning into fragments.

With nowhere to escape and nowhere to hide, after the veteran Zeon soldiers were desperately hacked to pieces, the remaining ordinary monk pilots who were new to the battlefield were like helpless children facing a burly boxing champion. They couldn't even put up any effective resistance. Relying on his energy advantage, Makarius could launch attacks from all directions at will.

The monks of the Nanyang Alliance, however, had to rely on the flight pedals beneath their feet. Without the pedals, they were like birds with broken wings, with no choice but to fall.

As two more mechs were forced into freefall due to the destruction of their pedals and damage to their flight components, the young monks, who had initially been filled with fervor, finally broke down. Their fervor for the ideals constructed by Lefan Hu was ultimately crushed by the coldness of death, and Macarius chose the most terrifying way to die.

Because he wouldn't deliberately attack the cockpit of the machine, but rather its power system and controls, forcing the pilot to watch helplessly as their machine freefalls from a thousand meters in the air. At that altitude, these mobile suits, unable to react, are doomed. Their fate will be like an ice cream cone falling onto concrete, reduced to dust.

Crying won't save them; the red flying tiger has blocked all communications, so even if the pilots of the Nanyang Alliance wanted to beg for forgiveness, they had no way to do so.

The desperate monk pilots could only flee towards their allies, while the Flying Tiger followed slowly behind, reaping the remaining mobile suits bit by bit.

Marcarius's pursuit continued all the way to the sea level. Seeing that there were less than a handful of enemy units left, he reluctantly returned to the Spartan.

"What a pity, we're out of ammunition. Next time we should replace this live-fire Gatling gun with a beam gun!"

Markarius, who had stepped off the plane, cracked his neck and then addressed Chief Engineer Sakaki Kiyoshi, who was approaching him.

The latter could only accept the helmet with a wry smile.

"It's better to build a completely new machine than to add extra weapon systems!"

"That's true. To put it bluntly, this machine still moves by using a brick-like motion, so the drag is considerable!"

After leaving the hangar, Makarius took the elevator back to the bridge. The moment he stepped onto the bridge, all the Federation officers and soldiers on the bridge turned their attention to him, and even Jamitov looked at him with a hint of amazement.

Because Makarius directly disrupted the Federation's plans, the Federation fleet, which had intended to deal with the rear surprise attack force first, had even prepared for air defense. However, Makarius alone defeated the enemy in the rear, without even letting them get close to the fleet's effective firing range. At this moment, the Federation officers and soldiers on the ship, who had never witnessed his battle, finally understood how the so-called Federation's number one ace was made!

In fact, the most shocked were not the Federation forces, but the monk commanders of the South Sea Alliance. In the past, the combat power displayed by the more elite Zeon veterans who had fought in the One Year War had already amazed them. But now, the appearance of Makarius made these guys who dreamed of defeating the Federation forces realize what a real mobile suit pilot was like in the One Year War!
After the flanking force was attacked by Makarius, the South Seas Alliance garrison on the front had no choice but to open fire. The old anti-aircraft missiles were destroyed by the guns of the four warships after only one round of attacks. Then, the main force of the South Seas Alliance below became the main target of the four Pegasus-class ships and other aircraft.

Despite the intense artillery fire, the monks of the Nanyang Alliance still attempted to launch a frontal breakthrough, trying to use the flying platform to transport troops close to the federal warships, and even to engage in boarding combat.

But once the Pegasus-class unleashed its full firepower, the commander realized how terribly wrong he had been. The dense particle beams, live ammunition, and various types of missiles wove together a deadly fire net. Under this dense fire net, the monk soldiers' mobile warrior units were wiped out in less than five minutes.

The most important flight pedals were almost all destroyed. Those reckless pilots thought that Raymond Hu's aura could protect them from aerial fire, but as it turned out, the aura's effect was not significant enough.

After completely seeing through the monk commander's deployment, the Federation's offensive became incredibly smooth, especially after the defenders' air combat capabilities were completely destroyed. The remaining mobile warriors could only retreat to their base in disarray under the air attack.

This allowed the federal troops to continue their ground attacks at their own pace, eliminating the defenders' hidden air firepower one by one.

When Makarius crushed the surprise attack force in the rear, the Nanyang Alliance's front-line defenders were also in complete disarray. Only then did Djamitov, realizing that the enemy was utterly incapable of resistance, issue the order to launch an attack.

Subsequently, one after another, the Dedets and the Krobate flying platforms developed by the Federation Forces themselves carried Federation mobile suits and infantry units out of the warships to begin close-range suppression missions.

In order to provide fire support for the ground troops, the other three Pegasus-class ships, except for the Spartan, descended in altitude. The GM SP2 sniper squad assigned to the Grey Ghost then boarded the deck of the warship and began to provide precise sniper cover with their long-range beam rifles.

Under such close air and ground coordination, the remaining monk soldiers on the island were increasingly routed, especially those monk soldiers who had not been severely brainwashed. Many of them had secretly laid down their weapons and chosen to surrender to the approaching Federation infantry.

"Looks like this battle will be easy!"

On the bridge, an air traffic controller couldn't help but mutter to himself.

"After all, we need to make a good start and let the Nanyang Alliance know that we're serious! Especially that guy who doesn't know his own limitations!"

Markarius stood by the porthole on the bridge, holding his water glass and looking down. Then, he suddenly turned and looked at Lieutenant Commander Monica Humphrey, who had been rather unremarkable on the bridge.

"Aren't you right, Ms. Monica from the New Human Research Institute!"

(End of this chapter)