MSG: In Vain Doth Valour Bleed

Chapter 13 (part 2)

Koblenz, Rheinland-Pfalz, Central Europe
November 10, 0087

The smell reached them first. It was the unmistakable stench of burned flesh, scorched earth, seared rubber, oil, and steel, and cordite from weapons fire. It was a reek that signified only one thing, and that was a lot of war, and a lot of death, and a lot of devastation. It looked worse than it smelled, which was no comfort to either of the new arrivals on the scene.

"Wait here, Dorff," said Camael Balke as he leapt out of the scout car and ran towards the blackened site of the attack. The place was a disaster, littered with the charred remains of staff cars, infantry fighting vehicles, and corpses. He looked around, trying to take it all in. "The sons of bitches," he whispered, fighting the urge to light a cigarette amongst the blazed remains.

Search and Rescue people were everywhere, along with local authorities, also trying to make sense of this slaughter. He glanced at faces until he found one who looked like he was in the know.

"Excuse me," he said to the Lieutenant, "I'm Captain Balke from Bonn HQ. You in charge here?"

The lieutenant was good enough not to bother saluting. "No, sir. The Captain's over there." He pointed up a hill. "You'll wanna talk to him about this."

"Thanks, Lieutenant." Balke stalked up the hill towards a group of people, who looked to be in the depths of quite the meeting. At their center was a skinny, younger man with sand-colored hair and a lot of freckles. Balke recognized him and grinned. "HEY, BRAK!!"

At the shout, the man's head swiveled and locked on Balke instantly. His jaw dropped open. "Sweet Jesus have mercy!" he yelled back, incredulous.

Balke kept walking towards him. "Yeah, He'd better! Someone told me that the caboose on the man train was in charge, and lo and behold, here you are!"

The two men faced each other from a distance of about eight feet. Captain Braxton Bryton stared daggers at Camael Balke, and Balke wasn't entirely sure if Bryton was going to slug him or kiss him. In all honesty, it looked like Bryton wasn't certain which to do, either.

"You evil fiend. How did you manage to slither your way back into that uniform?" hissed Bryton, smile intact despite the vehemence in his voice.

"I sweet-talked Edgrove into giving it me. He never could tell me 'No' over anything."

"You working for Bonn now?" Now they were about two feet from each other.

"Yep." Balke could see the sense of duty warring with the anger in his old friend's eyes. He hoped his own weren't vacillating.

After a moment, Bryton reached out a hand. "Then you're in charge. Welcome back to Hell, Camael."

Balke clasped it in his own, matching Bryton's grip precisely. "Never really left it, Brak."

After a long, silent moment, Bryton dragged Balke into a hug, a painful one. "It's good to see you after so long, Captain Balke, but I haven't forgotten . . . or forgiven yet."

Balke winced as Bryton's fingers dug into his back. "How're those demons you 'put behind you a long time ago'? Bet you were thinking this **** couldn't get any deeper, weren't you?"

Bryton released him, nauseated to admit that Balke had been right. "I hate you."

"I hate you, too, but you're still my bitch, and you know it." 'Smarmy' was the only word to describe Balke's little grin.

"What are you doing here?" No more witty banter for Bryton. He'd had enough.

Aside from their abortive phone conversation several months ago, Braxton Bryton had not spoken to Camael Balke since his trial. Bryton, a very young Second Lieutenant during the War, was one of the few people to survive Bayreuth and the destruction of the 4th Cavalry, and his testimony had helped keep Balke out of jail. Balke had been his mentor and best friend, but their ways had parted after the trial when Bryton had argued for him to keep fighting to stay in the uniform after Balke had given up, and Balke had resigned himself to losing that fight.

"I'm on the von Seydlitz job, old comrade of mine. I'll tell you the rest later, but I'm pretty sure the suits that hit this column were 10th Panzerkaempfer. Any survivors?"

Bryton nodded, all business now. "Yes, about a dozen out of the battalion. Only one of them's come out of shock enough to talk about it. They're just reserves, so go easy on them. They tried to fight back where anyone else would have run for the hills, you and me included."

"****, Brak, you make it sounds like I'm Inquisition or something. I just want to find out if anyone got a look at the markings on those suits. Gelgoogs, right?"

"Seems to be," Bryton led him to the group. "Folks, I've just been nominally relieved of command. This is Captain Camael Balke, come all the way from Bonn to talk to you about what happened. I'm going to go coordinate down there, so tell him what you know, same way you told me."

"Balke?" queried one of the other Federal officers, wearing a SAR badge. He spat. "Guess every chickenshit can score a desk job these days."

Bryton flared up, and his fists clenched. "You son of a---!"

Balke put a hand on his shoulder. That was typical of Bryton. He could hate your guts to the point of insanity, but he would be damned if anyone else cut in on that action without having earned it. "It's okay, Brak. It don't mean nothing. Get your job done, and I'll handle this."

With a warning glare at the man who'd spoken the insult and at Balke, Bryton stalked away and down the hill. Balke made sure he'd gone some distance before speaking. "Okay, I might've deserved that. I'll let it slide this time. Like me or not, it's my word that goes to Edgrove, so unless you want to spend the rest of your careers shining some Titan's boots or bobbing on one's knob, I suggest you stop playing f***-around with me."

Silence was his answer, and so he continued: "Now, you with the snappy threads, start talking. I want to know everything."

"Master Sergeant Rogers, sir. Commander, Type 74 number one-oh-nine, 77th Reserve Infantry Battalion, sir." After a bitter moment, the older NCO, whose uniform was a disaster of mud, water, blood, and black scorch marks and soot smears, nodded at Balke's pocket. His eyes had the thousand-yard stare, and his hands were trembling. "Got a smoke, sir?"

Balke fished a cigarette out, then snagged one for himself. He lit them both, and let the man smoke for a minute. Everyone else figured that if they were smoking, why not? Soon, the top of the hill looked like a powwow. "Tell me what you can, Sergeant. I'm listening."

"We were coming off of three days in the hills near Bad Kissingen, doing live-ammo field maneuvers, heading back to our staging area near Maastricht, Belgium. We'd been on the road for two days, keeping to the back roads so we wouldn't stop up traffic. The company CO thought it was a good idea. We get through Koblenz, no problem, and we're coming up on the crossroad at Ruebenach when one of our point cars stops and cuts his engine. The guy in back's yelling his ass off that he's heard something. We all think he's dicking around with us, and the company CO's screaming at him to get his ass back in the car and get moving again. The guy's going bugf***, okay, like nothing I've ever seen before. He's a f***ing acoustical tile specialist out in 'the world', you know, and the CO's telling him he's f***ing hearing things? I'm in the fourth truck down, and the guy goes running past, still screaming at the CO to get the armor off the road and make a break for it because there's a mobile suit ahead of us. I don't know what to think, except this guy's freaking out and his car's holding up the whole column.

"That's when I look up, and the only thing I see is this . . . eye. Big and red, just like they show you in the training vids. And then there are two more of them, and they just come out of nowhere. I know it's dark out, no moon with the cloud cover, back roads with nothing to see by but our night lights and lowlight viewers, but I'm telling you I never saw or heard a damn thing until they were right in front of us. Bigger than hell and blacker than night. They came out of the treeline, I guess, like f***ing ghosts. I've never been so scared in my whole goddamn life. They draw heat and I start moving. The CO's screaming bloody murder in the radio, and the suits open fire on the column. They had beam weapons. We didn't. You can guess how it turned out."

The hand holding the cigarette was seriously shaking, and the man put the cigarette to his lips to steady it. "My driver's praying to God in the front seat. I smack him on the side of the helmet and he stomps the accelerator. My gunner's leaning on the 20 mike-mike, hosing those suits but not even slowing them down. I'm praying by this point, because the vulc's the only weapon my damn Type 74's got, and it's not doing a damn thing. Jack must've unloaded the whole magazine into them, all couple of thousand rounds. Nothing. My sonar runner's on the radio trying to get ahold of someone, but there's nothing but static because that's what every-f***ing-body's doing. Someone in one of the IFVs caps off a cluster of antitank missiles. They splatter on the armor of the suits, and that's when they get mad, and they're all over us, mixing it in with the rest of the column. They start killing the heavies first, then the troop carriers. Mike crashes our truck into a f***ing IFV that cut in front of us trying to get enough room to use its missiles. I jump off, and the whole world goes white from behind me, and I'm on my ass. Last thing I remember seeing was one of the suits kicking over the command car. The CO's body goes flying out of it like a rag doll, and the car lands on him. After that, I don't know. I don't know how long I was out, but when I woke up, the whole column's burning, my truck and my crew are all fried, and I'm on fire, with a torn knee ligament, shrapnel holes in a dozen places, and a world of hurt. But I'm better off than most of these other sad souls. Painkillers can't do a thing for them now."

The man looked up at Balke. "But I saw 'em. Zeeks. Zeek markings, Zeek suits. Gelgoogs, all three of them. Had a marking on the leg, I saw it in the light of those damn rifles. Three little coins, all triangle-like, with a parachute on them, like it was holding them up, you know? The coins had little black number '5's in them." The man shook his head from side to side slowly, beyond the reach of grief. "I'll never f***ing forget it."

Balke removed the pack of cigarettes from his pocket and tossed them at the shell-shocked reservist. "Here. You need them more than I do."

The reservist clutched the pack gratefully. "Tell me you're going to get those sons of bitches! Tell me that's what you're here for!"

Balke could see desperation in his eyes, and untapped grief as well. He'd seen that look before, in his own eyes, and he did his best not to wince at the memory.

"Yeah, that's the idea. Thanks for the help." Balke turned and left, having gotten what he needed to know. He snagged the stupid little cell phone from his jacket pocket and speed-dialed Edgrove as he walked down the hill. "Colonel? It's Balke. Classify the three Lammersdorf Gelgoogs as 555th Airborne. I've just gotten confirmation."

"How bad is it?" asked Edgrove.

"Bad, sir. Real bad. They tore the reservists apart."

"Find out why?"

"I think it was a mistake. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They caught the Gelgoogs coming off of the Lammersdorf run, and it was just bad luck. Listen, Braxton Bryton's here playing kiss-ass with SAR. I'm kidnapping him for my staff."

"Like hell you are!" snapped Edgrove. "You leave him right where he is! I'm not going to let you walk off with half my f***ing people for your case, Balke! The Federation has other concerns than the 10th Panzerkaempfer, and that's final!"

"Tough, sir. Deal with it," Balke hung up before Edgrove could sputter out another protest. He approached Bryton and grabbed him in a headlock. "Guess what, Brak? You're working for me again."

Bryton struggled free. "Am not! I'm on permanent assignment with the SAR people."

"Not anymore. I just convinced Edgrove to release you to me."

Bryton's look spoke volumes about trust. "I don't believe you. I'm going to confirm it."

"Oh," Balke smirked, "that might be a problem. Lammersdorf's still down, and the phones and comms are a f***ing mess. I couldn't even get through long enough to tell Edgrove what I found out up there, just that he thought it was a good idea for you to stick with me. I'm afraid you're stuck with me for the time being, my young apprentice."

"Fine, whatever. But you and I are gonna have it out real soon, and that's a promise. What's the plan?"

"Well, Brak, how's about you, me, and my personal security ninja mosey on over to Koblenz and get something to eat and drink while I fill you in on what's going down in Krautland with all this 'there isn't a conspiracy' Zeeky goodness? Then we'll go to Bonn and find out if Assclown's got anything spacey for us to assimilate."

Bryton's grin was sly. "I always thought Sajer was funny, too."

Balke punched him on the shoulder, hard. "And you wonder why I always put up with your ****, Brak. You are the Man! Hole in one. Having correctly identified the mysterious Captain Assclown without so much as a visible hint, drinks are on you."

"F*** you, Camael. I've seen you drink."

"See? We're working together well, and you've already become accustomed to my needs. How could you not love this arrangement?"

Bryton sighed and shook his head. "And this is what they call 'career advancement'."

Bonn, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Central Europe
November 10, 0087

Edgrove had no sooner been hung up on by Balke than his phone buzzed again. He mashed the button angrily. "WHAT?" he barked. He glanced across the Rhine river at the snow-whitened Siebengebirge hills near Oberkassel, willing himself calmer.

"Colonel Edgrove?" spoke a silk-smooth voice from the other end. "This is Major Tizard at Lyons. I hope I'm not bothering you, but if so, may I call back later when you're not busy being a fool and an ignoramus?"

"No, no, Major. My apologies. I was on the phone a moment ago with my brand new ulcer aggravator. What can I do for you, Major?"

"Ulcers? You may want to get those looked at. Am I to understand that you have returned Camael Balke to the roster?"

"Umm, that's correct, Major."

"Good idea. Best one you've had yet. I commend you. Were I in your position, I would give him whatever he wanted. He knows his business, and I've always held to the opinion that he was ill-treated by the Federation. It's nice to know that inspiration and justice can go hand-in-hand in Bonn."

"We try, Major," Edgrove did his best to sound sincere and not condescending. He failed, but Tizard ignored it.

"I was calling to inform you that the favor Balke asked of the Titans is complete. The suits came from an Anaheim Electronics storage facility, paid for in gold bullion bars that we have tentatively identified as dating back to World War II. Zurich was holding them, I presume, and von Mellenthin took them when they sacked the city during the War. That is how they have financed Nemesis. The transaction was made almost one year ago."

"Those ****," hissed Edgrove. He suspected Zurich had lied to the Federation after the War, but never had the ability to prove it. And Anaheim was up to its old habits, too.

"The bulk freighter Non Sequitur was indeed registered from Granada, and was leased to a pilot/operator named Rigel fan Waal. We haven't a listing of anyone, Spacenoid or otherwise, with that name, so we presume it's false. We're attempting to trace things further, but frankly, it's not high on the Titans' priority list at this point."

Edgrove got the impression that he was being talked down to. "How did you get this information so fast, Major? It's been less than twenty-four hours."

"We're Titans, Colonel Edgrove," responded Tizard, sounding impatient. "When we need something found out, we have ways of finding those somethings out. Beyond that, you need not concern yourself."


"Initiation of Phase 3 operation, mark! You know what to do, froggies!" spoke La Vesta over the hydrophone. With a gentle push, he shoved the giant draft barge RMS Duisberg forward and slid his Hygogg free from underneath it. Behind him, Taglienti's Z'Gok E dropped its massive legs into the river bottom and began to stand the suit to its full height, RMS Westfalia still clutched in its claws. After a push of his own that sent RMS Ruhrort on its way, Hemphill's Z'Gok E took hold of Westfalia and together, they began to lift it from the water and into the air.


Tizard's voice was almost mellow as he asked, "What about the report of that unit that got hit near Koblenz? Anything new on that end?"

"Balke is already there. He says the same Gelgoogs that hit Lammersdorf were the ones that hit---" Edgrove's voice trailed off as his eyes began to register that the large boat that had been drifting slowly past on the river was beginning to rise from the surface of the water. "That's impossible!"

"What? What's happening, Colonel?" Tizard's voice fell away as Edgrove dropped the phone from his fingers, and it clattered to the ground two flights down from the balcony.

The barge was suspended in the air by the claws of a pair of Zeon amphibious mobile suits. Their red mono-eyes glared at the Federation HQ building. Like the kraken that was embossed on the armor of the mobile suits, next to the vengeful golden eagle of the 10th Panzerkaempfer, a third one surfaced near them, water streaming in waves from broad shoulders and powerful fingers. Its mono-eye swiveled until it, too, rested on the Headquarters building.

Edgrove did not stay stunned for long, as he whirled and ran back inside. With a punch that broke open the skin above his knuckles, he slammed a fist into the alarm button. Klaxons blared forth from speakers throughout the building.

The three Zeon suits began to walk towards the shore. "Federation!" thundered a voice over the loudspeaker of the lead suit. "You have not heeded the warning of Zeon! For this, you shall be destroyed!"

Edgrove raced through the building faster than he thought he was able, bursting into his office and grabbing a pistol from his desk. People were running to and fro throughout the building. Outside, a .50 caliber machine gun chattered its futile resistance to the Zeon amphibious suits.

"Blow the mainframe, then get the hell out of here!! Authorization Delta-Niner-Zero-Zero!!" yelled Edgrove into the phone at the Operations people. Slamming it down, he ran from the office, following the crowd towards the stairs.

Outside, the first of the Zeon suits had stepped on land, the foot smashing to the earth with enough force to make windows rattle several blocks away. In a minimum of hassle and a maximum of response efficiency, Federation infantry raced into action, but their ability to harm mobile suits was limited. One let loose with a light wire-guided antitank rocket, which burst on the Hygogg's lower leg, doing minimal damage. Machine gun bullets whanged off the armored skins of the suits, richocheting to who knew where, the signs of their passing the tiny orange sparks of each rounds' impact and repulsion. Someone yelled for shaped charges and slap mines, but no one heard him. Civilians hampered progress everywhere as they fled the approach of the armored behemoths, their screams not enough to dampen the sound of battle.


"You may do the honors, gentlemen," smiled La Vesta. Their resistance was as weak as von Seydlitz had said it would be. What few garrison forces defended the Headquarters were meant to keep people at bay, not mobile suits. They had machine guns, and that was about the extent of their firepower. One man was even firing a pistol at his suit! A spirited defense, La Vesta admitted, but ultimately useless. It was like trying to use BBs to stop a rhino.

The two Z'Gok Es leaned back slightly, then forward again, then back again, and with a great heave, threw the 1000-ton draft barge into the air like it was a spear. La Vesta watched it sail through the air, in what seemed like slow motion, knowing full well what it was going to do.


The massive ship arced overhead, just as Edgrove fired the last 9mm round from his pistol. He had been aiming for the mono-eye, but the handgun didn't have the power to break the suit's main camera. Mouth open, he watched the 423-ft. long seagoing vessel fly over him, dripping Rhine river water from underneath its surface like a raincloud as it passed him over. The propellors of the ship turned idly as it flew overhead, as if to guide it further on its aerial course as they would a watery one.

Then the world shuddered as it landed directly atop the Federation HQ building and exploded into white. The concussion arrived a moment later, and just before it struck, Edgrove thought of Metz, and despaired.

Then Edgrove flew, but did not know whether or not he landed.


The five metric tons of white phosphorus stored in the IMO-rated cargo hold of RMS Westfalia exploded into incandescent white fire on contact with the atmosphere, vaporizing the ship, most of the building, and flash-searing the skins of everything it came into contact with. Ignited by the air, it burned anything organic in its white smoke-like tendrils. The heat melted the structural supports for the building, which then began to buckle into itself. The floors collapsed, and the whole HQ building, or what was left of it, collapsed into itself. Those trapped inside on the lower floors that were lucky enough to not suffer phosphorus burns died by crushing. A fire began to burn, adding its orange and black colors to the tableau.

The concussion wave from the explosion crumpled surrounding buildings in a three-block radius, and shattered windows even further than that. A white plume of smoke began to rise from the site into the sky, a tower that could be seen from kilometers away. It might as well have been a low-yield tactical nuclear device, and it wasn't over yet.

The two Z'Gok Es strode to the shore, then up it, covering the few blocks in a few steps. Behind them, the Hygogg stalked forward. "Let's make this total, Privates. Let them have it."

The monstrous tri-fingered claws of the Z'Gok Es snapped open, and from the "palms" of their wicked hands, death vomited forth. Spitting blue pulses, the Zeon suits raked particle beams across the building, all its walls, the courtyard, the garage, everything. The Hygogg added its own mega-particle energy weapons into the attack, setting the Federation flag alight with the heat of its hand-mounted beam cannons. As per their instructions, no building on the Federation compound was left untouched, as the intensity of the suits' firepower found even the deepest basement and sub-level out. The whole of the Federation's presence in Bonn was to be razed from its dominion. They were leisurely about it, like the wrath of God, unable to be harmed or even dismayed by the surviving, small humans below them.

A single jeep raced from the depths of the collapsing garage, only to be immolated by a burst from the Hygogg's beam cannon. It was the only motor vehicle that made it out before the garage folded into itself, a gout of flame rushing up from its depths. The fuel depot was the last target, and at the caress of the mega-particle beams, it, too, exploded, finishing igniting what the white phosphorus did not set ablaze.

Within five minutes, Federation Headquarters, Bonn, had ceased to exist except as a smouldering collection of craters and ruined architecture. Bodies were strewn everywhere, hideously burned and blistered by the white phosphorus explosion or the searing heat of the Zeon energy weapons, or their flesh torn from fragments of ship or building, or their bones shattered by the concussion. Fires raged out of control, and the emergency vehicles dared not approach the mobile suits while they stood surveying the fingerprint of chaos they had laid on the face of Bonn.

Their mission completed, the suits returned to the river that had spawned them. The kraken of the 186th 'Deep Dwellers' Amphibious Platoon had fed. The Z'Gok Es each took hold of one of the two remaining barges and continued on their way, the unburdened Hygogg leading, invisible below the waters again.

"That was almost too easy, wasn't it, Sarge?" asked Hemphill, gratified that none of the old city's architecture had been touched in the attack, as von Seydlitz had ordered. The same could not be said for the surrounding real estate.

"'Almost'?" complained Taglienti. "It was too easy!"

"Dunno about you, but I prefer it stay that way. Ten minutes to next contact point with Command. Set speed at fifteen knots, and maintain northward course." La Vesta was gratified, but could not help but wonder if fortune would not favor the foolish before this was all over.

And RMS Ruhrort and RMS Duisberg continued on their way, as though not even noticing the carnage behind them.

Lyons, Rhone-Alpes, Western Europe
November 10, 0087

Major Golan Tizard pressed the OFF button on the desk telephone with the finality of an executioner. Garrett Sajer looked up from the field test report on the new mobile suit they'd received just last week. "Hmm?" asked the Captain as he saw the expression on Tizard's face.

"Be ready to go back to Bonn at the earliest convenience, Captain. I believe von Mellenthin has just upped the ante," spoke the soft basso rumble that was Tizard's voice.

"How so, sir?"

"I was just on the phone with Colonel Edgrove. Then I was not. I believe some disaster has befallen our Federation comrades. A little taste of what's waiting for Cramer, I think."

Sajer was confused. "I-I'm not sure I---"

"I know you're not sure, Captain. Get your gear, find a transport, and get back to Bonn now, before we're all taking orders from Camael Balke. I'll make certain your Barzam comes along when we deploy, now go."

One of the bizarre things about Golan Tizard was that he never had to raise his voice to make someone know he was displeased. Sajer did not stick around to reason why the Major was displeased, he just bolted, instinct piercing even his own arrogance. The paper he had been holding fluttered to the ground.

Tizard stood from his desk and walked over to the paper, picking it up and placing it gingerly into a folder, which then was filed away in a metal cabinet drawer. He then walked over to the window and surveyed the movements of his people below, all neat and tidy in their red and black, and he mulled over what he knew had just happened. Black King's Bishop to White Queen, check. The 10th had struck Bonn, the nerve center for Federal Forces, Europe. The brain had been neutralized, which meant that the limbs had been paralyzed from higher nerve control. Now the limbs would operate under their own nervous systems, flailing about wildly and without guidance. The brain was dead; long live the brain.

What the Zeon did not know was that the game was not chess, but checkers, and while their foe had just lost a big piece, their more dangerous enemy had just been Kinged.

His eyes scanned over the tremendous strength of what he had available. Outside, the black-and-red Hizacks knelt low, cockpit hatches open. They were on standby alert all the time now, ready to be loaded into the Garuda transports at a moment's notice. It was the same for the GM IIs, and Sajer's lone Barzam. And for Tizard's own new toy, that stood shorter than any of the others, gleaming darkly if that were possible, for despite its smaller stature, with the exception of the Barzam it was possibly the deadliest thing the 54th TTAB had ever been able to deploy in its order of battle.

After some of the f***ups his fellow spacefaring Titans had managed to pull off recently, like the infiltration and mobile suit theft from the Gate of Zedan less than a month ago, Tizard was happy with anything he could get from Titans High Command that weren't empty promises. Too many stupid psychological projects as opposed to military ones were occupying the Titans in space, like the Gaukler mobile armor project and the insane notion of constructing and using the Gryps-2 colony laser to inspire fear to make their foes meek. A waste of time, as far as Tizard was concerned, because the more people they used developing these nonsensical delusions, the fewer people they had busy killing AEUG members.

As it was, the Titans hierarchy were already fielding hordes of these things in space. This RMS-108 Marasai, to Tizard's knowledge, was the first one of its kind to find a permanent home on Earth itself, and it was his to use.

He had to marvel at the genius behind Nemesis. This was a truly well-thought out game, complete with gambits and deceptions, surprises and trickery. But unlike the Federation, and Camael Balke, Tizard had the exact number of units the 10th Panzerkaempfer possessed, and their types. According to the report from their field operatives on Granada, the man who'd made the deal gave it up after only one hour's worth of "advanced interrogation". What was loyalty or greed in the face of a testicular clamp and a righteous inquisitor? A scream, nothing more.

Nineteen suits, total. All of them older designs that dated back to 0083, which might as well have been 1883 Old Calendar in regards to what was being fielded today. A Zeon company and a half, not even a battalion's worth of strength, and the Federation itself **** its britches like a frightened child over such a pathetic display of military power. They would be no match for the 54th Titans Tactical Armored Brigade. The lion roared, but Tizard knew how many teeth the old cat had left in that mouth.

"'Proud, art thou met?'," he murmured to the air, quoting a character whose name Tizard could not remember, but that Milton had scored the words in Paradise Lost. "'Thy hope was to have reached; the height of thy aspiring unopposed; The Throne of God unguarded, and His side; Abandoned at the terror of thy power; . . . Fool! . . .'"

Information was power, and with it, Tizard did not fear the 10th Panzerkaempfer or any of von Mellenthin's tricks on the battlefield. Unlike the Federation, he had no qualms about killing those eight NewTypes. After all, unless Sajer was lying through his teeth, they were created and designed to combat the artificial NewTypes that the Titans employed, and Sajer wasn't nearly inventive enough to cook up a story like that without help. Tizard had no compulsions about how he felt about the possibility of the Federation winning that fight and disbanding the Titans. His own sense of honor said to protect innocent life. The eight NewType constructs were not innocent, and as far as Tizard was concerned, not life. Therefore, they were not entitled to chivalric protection.

When the Titans raged, even gods suffered. So too would it be with the twisted Nephilim the Federation sought to bring to power. Tizard knew the legends of the rise of the gods over the Titans, but unlike arrogant Cronus, he would not be content with swallowing the latent gods whole. Instead, he would feed them to fires, and crows would feast on their flesh, and verily they would be devoured. He would take a page from Egypt's tales, and tear Osiris limb from limb and bone from sinew, and scatter him throughout the universes, to never rise again.

But it did not matter. Once this was done, then all would know that in Heaven and on Earth, the Titans were supreme.

Taunus Mountains, Hessen, Central Europe
November 11, 0087

"You still with me back there?" asked de la Somme of his passenger, who kept staring off into space despite the conversation. He glanced behind him around the rims of the tiny, round, mirror-lens sunglasses he was wearing. In the background of the semi-deep discussion, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers told folks to not come around there no more. A plastic Death Star dangled from its suction cup on the monitor above de la Somme's head.

The mother of all thunderstorms raged outside, rain cascading from the sky in a torrent. Its fury lashed impotently at the mobile suits, who strode through its deluge with no more care than if it were a fall of flower blossoms. The ground, turning into a decaying leaf-and-mud sludge, did not hamper the movement of the suits in the slightest. No mudsucking pit could deter one of the great war machines for more than a moment anyway, but visibility was hampered somewhat by the darkness and the running streaks of water from the cameras. As such, von Mellenthin had slowed their march considerably, as this storm would certainly last several days. The Zeon suits crept their way through the mountains with caution now, for while the mud could not trap a suit, a careless pilot could easily have one take a spill down a ridgeline and damage systems in their machine, and that would be a very bad thing at this juncture.

De la Somme, of course, usually took whatever opportunity he could to play in the rain. If they hadn't been on the march, he would have been doing exactly that. But that option having been denied him, he chattered instead. Erik was both a rapt audience and an unusually inquisitive soul.

The boy nodded after a moment, blinking. "Ideas are so important?" It was the response to de la Somme's previous allusion, an astute but naive one about why humans liked war.

"Yeah, ideas are important. Ideas're what give us reasons sometimes. It's like, you have this idea about how to line up a row of colored blocks, and it's a good idea, one that makes all the colors look real good together. Then, someone else sees the blocks that you set up and decides that the color scheme sucks rocks, so they get the idea to change it without asking you first. Is that fair? They were your blocks, and you set them the way you wanted them, so who're other people to be messing around with what's yours?"

"Other people with ideas," answered Erik.

"But did they ask to play with what was yours? Did them moving the blocks around make it right to you, and not just to them? Ideas and ideals are selfish sometimes, you know? So how're you going to make it so that someone else can't mess with your idea?"

"Ask them not to."

"That's one way, and probably the right way, but it don't always work like that. Sometimes you gotta defend your ideas in a way that's not always calm and sensible. Sometimes you gotta lay the beatdown on someone to get them to respect your ideas in the same way you'd respect theirs. It's territory. Tunes bothering you?"

Erik stared blankly ahead, not moving. After a moment, and several vocal attempts to garner attention, the child responded. "No, the music is fine. Uncle Antares, I don't understand using war, a vehicle for taking life, as a means of earning respect. Wouldn't you be killing the person whose idea you are supposed to be changing?"

"War's not a respectable thing sometimes, but a lot of times the people who have to do it are respectable. No, usually war's kept as a last resort, like this one was. People take things too far too often, dig?" The boy had taken to calling him 'Uncle Antares' the previous day, an affectation that de la Somme absolutely did not mind. If he'd had to wait for von Mellenthin and von Seydlitz to progenate, he would be at least as old as they were at the rate they were going for him to earn that blood title, and they were both several years overdue for that particular duty anyway.

"I have a question for you now."

"Speak on it, my brother! Lay it on me!" crowed the pilot, veering the Gouf Custom around a clump of trees, following in the footsteps of Roberts' Gelgoog Marine Commander ahead of him.

"What happens when you defend ideas that you know are wrong, even to the other people who defend those ideas?"

"Hmmm," mused de la Somme, not having expected that one from an eight year-old boy. "Usually whoever has the unpopular idea gets his ass kicked, if you pardon the French, by the people in his camp who decide not to like it. Some folks'd call it treason. Others would call it heroism. How it gets decided is by other people, the ones who aren't involved or the ones on the other side who see it, cause only they can judge, but even that could be wrong."

"People don't make sense," spoke Erik. "They say one thing, then do something else entirely when the time comes."

"Yeah, it's a stinker, ain't it? There are times I wonder if anyone has a really right idea."

The radio cut in: "Lion One, this is Raver One. We've reached the end of the Taunus range." Margul, radioing von Mellenthin.

"Understood, Raver One. We'll cross between Hadamar and Weilberg and move into the Westerwald range. Continue at speed."

"Roger that, Lion One. Raver One out."

De la Somme grimaced, an odd expression of hate on his face. "Then again, some people deserve to have their ideas destroyed, just like themselves."

"You don't like him, do you?"

"What makes you say that?" asked de la Somme, sarcasm oozing from every pore. "It's not that I don't like Vlady, I just hate him. With great violence and energy."

"Why?"

De la Somme winced. "He did something I can't forgive him for. A long time ago." He would have continued, but something in his head told him that he didn't have to go into detail about the incident, and he was comforted by the fact that he wouldn't have to relate it to a child. "Some people so like their ideas that they'll enforce them with every kind of cruelty they can think of, then hide it behind lies to save their own necks when the bill comes due."

"He loves war."

"Yeah," breathed de la Somme quietly. "Another reason war'll never go out of style. Fools like Vlady and me. When we're all gone, maybe it will all be done."

"Will it ever end? Having to enforce an idea?"

De la Somme popped another stick of chewing gum into his mouth, then held the pack out to Erik, who took one. "Yeah, if we win. Deet'll see to that. Anything else'd be uncivilized."

"What are your ideas, Uncle Antares?" asked Erik around his gum.

"That's an easy question. Peace, love, rock 'n roll, junk food, orphans, and family. Those're the only things important to me enough that I'd fight for them. Oh, and fun. Can't forget fun, cause if it's not fun, it's not worth doing."

"Are you doing a job, or just having fun now?"

"The job, but it's fun. Nothing else lets me play with a sweet ride like this mobile suit, even if it is one big ol' weapon. Yeah, people can moralize all they want about killing and all that, but the way I see it is that I've got the same chances as anyone else in one of these things, so it's a fair fight all around, and I'd rather be alive and howling than dead and rotting, you know? If I gotta accept consequences for what I do on the field of battle, then they'll come calling me on their own time."

"Do you fight for those things now?" It was amazing how grown-up this child could sound when he wanted to.

"Yeah. Deet and Reinhardt are my family, 'bout the only ones I got. I fight for what they fight for."

"Even if your idea is better than theirs?"

De la Somme shook his head. "I don't get a lot of better ideas than them. They're . . . different. I let Deet handle the music, I just sing the tune, know what I'm saying? And Reinhardt baby is just Reinhardt baby. He's a tough guy to get along with, and he's brutally stuffy, but he's always stuck up for me, even when the whole world that mattered to him told him not to."

"You love him." Not a question, a statement of fact.

"Yeah, him and Deet both. How couldn't I?"

"You have no family except for them?"

"None like them, no." He paused for a moment to sweep the woods with the main camera, absently fingering something that lay underneath the fabric of his 'Hard Rock Cafe, Solomon' T-shirt. "They're what I got, and I almost didn't even get that. Everything I am and have now was because of them. God was definitely on the stick back then, that's for sure."

"God?" asked Erik after another silent moment.

"Yeah, God. He's the guy who gives us the plan, we just gotta be sure we're following it. Most bad stuff happens when we're not paying attention, but God is."

There was a long silence in the cockpit of the Gouf Custom, pierced only by the hiss-and-whine noise of the actuators and the sound of the mobile suit's footsteps.

"I have a theory," offered Erik. "You have your colored blocks, and these blocks are shared by a group of people, each of whom have a color. One person, the one who likes red, decides that the color purple is ugly and should be removed from the blocks. He gets a lot of other people to agree with him that purple is ugly, and they start getting rid of purple. After purple gets removed, the one who wanted to get rid of purple decides suddenly that blue is ugly, too. After a while, the other colors decide that the person who has red is actually going to just leave the red blocks, and is using the others against each other to serve his own ends, even the people who once held the one with red in love and friendship. What do they do, continue to follow red even if it means the removal of their own colors, or do they kick red out and share the rest of the colors among themselves, even if it will hurt them because red is their friend?"

"Depends on the other colors. If a color being ugly is the only reason to give it the axe, I don't think that's a strong enough reason to get rid of it. I'd let red know that we think his color-killing stinks, and we're not going to do it anymore."

"Even if that idea is God's plan?"

"Hey, if He doesn't like it, He'll let them know in advance. With luck, the other colors'd have someone like me who can interpret God's plan for them, because everyone needs someone like me around. They wouldn't be cool otherwise." He crossed his arms on his chest and nodded emphatically. "Everyone needs a crazy Uncle Antares to keep 'em on the right track. Too much sane gets you colorblind."

After a long moment of glassy-eyed stare, Erik smiled. So, too, did the Commonality.