"Damn it..." Sylvie Greisser thought as she began to run towards the nearest MS hangar containing her own personal GM Custom. She had to stop him. She had to stop that b******. By her own hands and none other. If not, she'd just keep regretting it for...

"Mam! Wait up!!!" one of the MP screamed as he dodged some of the flying debris now flying all over the town caused by all the explosions, wondering how the hell could that Captain run through all of it without getting scratched, "We've got plenty of troops in this area. Some of them could probably..."

"That IS what I'm worried about!" Sylvie shouted back as she coolly, almost lazily, jumped over a pile of debris that had just landed right in front of her. She then ducked down as another piece flew right over her head, before recovering and running once again. A distant part of herself told her that she wasn't really thinking anymore, that she really wasn't herself anymore. All she was now was a cold, calculating machine, running only on instinct and her own will. And her will right now, was telling her to kill Ming Chow.
-----------------------------

"Oh ****!" Jin Lee exclaimed as a fifth GM Kai exploded from the renegade mobile suit's fire. The lone mobile suit had quickly chopped through two entire squads and achieved single mission ace status in less than three minutes. Who... who could...

"****! Why aren't be ordered to get out there and get that guy yet?" one of Jin's wingmen complained as he tried to give some covering fire to the surviving GM Kai. Jin's squad had been ordered to guard one of the MS hangars still waiting for their pilots to strap in, but those pilots, all of them belonging to Gen. Nicolo's fleet, were still nowhere to be found.

"So many people dying..." Jin thought as he saw more explosions well up in the town center as the enemy mobile suit hunted down the last GM Kai and ripped it apart with a controlled volley of shells. The hulking wreck of the GM Kai collapsed on the ground, crushing several buildings as it did so. Jin wasn't sure if anybody was on those buildings that just went down, or if anymore were caught in the blast as the GM's ammunition cooked off.

"I'm just a useless runt..." Jin thought to himself. I didn't stop that crazed officer yesterday, and now so many children are dead. I didn't... I didn't...

"****! INCOMING!!!" Jin's wingman screamed as the renegade GM Quell pointed its machinegun at them and fired off a volley. He tried to aim his gun at it, but before he could fire, Ming's shells struck true exploding the GM Kai's head and toppling it to the ground, "I'm down!" the wingman managed to scream before his communications were knocked out and was replaced by static.

"Useless..." Jin thought as Ming's GM Quell began to aim its gun at him. "I'm just a useless..."

"For God's sake, Lieutenant!" a female voice suddenly screamed into the microphone, "Don't just ****ing stand there! Shoot!" It was Maj. Natalie Dolvich.

"Shoot?" Jin thought. He couldn't. Not with his sort of weapons. His cannons would blow holes in the colony, while his machinegun could...

"Fool..." Ming muttered in contempt as he aimed his gun right at the GM Cannon II staying still right in front of him. Unlike the other, pitiful pilots he had faced who at the very least tried to fight for their lives, this one was staying still and begging to die. He fired.

Jin saw the tracers coming and knew that it was it, and immediately felt several explosions rock his mobile suit a second afterwards. His mobile suit then began to fall back, trailing smoke, before smashing into a massive heap on the ground.
-----------------------------

"Oh GREAT!" Natalie thought as Jin's GM Cannon II smashed into the ground. The eighth and last manned mobile suit they had in the vicinity of the town. They hadn't stood a chance against the rebel pilot on the GM Quell, who was clearly showing off his skills as a Zeon ace. She might have had a chance against him... But with her GM on the other side of the town and their need for sound leadership...

"This is General Nicolo!" a new voice suddenly screamed from the radio, "My men are not responding! What have you..."

"Cut it off and say it's Minovsky interference," Natalie ordered immediately before she could hear Nicolo rant some more. Of the eight burning GMs out there, six had come from his fleet, and there was no question who was responsible for their insufficient training.

"Major, I know about that old Minovsky interference trick, what the hell is really happening out there?" another voice suddenly asked over a more secure radio. It was her father, General Alexander Dolvich.

Natalie grimaced at that. Despite everything, he was still her biological father and a good soldier. Too good a soldier. One who knew almost all of her old tricks and excuses. She hesitated before answering, "One of the rebels managed to steal Nicolo's brand new toy and it just chopped through the Warspite's and the Moltke's MS teams like they were nothing. I no longer have any active mobile suits still in the area as most of General Nicolo's pilots are... engaged in some sort of "tactical maneuvering". I need help, NOW."

"I'm sending the Yamashiro's mobile suit Team to your area right now, though they will take a while," the elder Dolvich quickly replied, "So you'd all better be careful... and Major, good euphemism. Dolvich out."

Natalie took a deep breath after she had finished hearing him sign off. Thanks... she thought, Dad...
-----------------------------

Ming stood astride the now smoking GM Cannon II as he began to survey the hangar they had been guarding. Three mobile suits along with their accompanying weaponry had been stored in it, all of them regular GM Kais. A few Federal foot soldiers initially tried to fight back, but they ran as soon as Ming began to motion his machine gun towards them. Hopefully, if Jake and the others had any sense...

"Hey Ming! Thanks for the ride!" a familiar voice suddenly declared over the radio as one of the GM Kais began to stand up on its own. It was Jake Stark.

"What's you status, Lieutenant?" Ming asked coolly as he tried to tie up some cloth on his shoulder wound. It had hurt and bled a lot while he had been fighting, but only now did he feel its full effects.

"Pretty okay," Jake replied, "Horton's taking Picton on the second GM Kai, while Yun's going to try his hand with the third. With these suits, we might really have a chance now..."

"I know," Ming replied as he finished tying up his wound and reduced the bleeding considerably, "But they'll all be hunting us by now. We need to get to the docks, fast."
-----------------------------

Sylvie wasted no time climbing up the ladder to her GM Custom's cockpit as soon as she arrived at the hangar. She was going to get him... She was going to...

"Mam! For pity's sake don't go out there alone!" one of the MP warned as he staggered into the hangar, panting as he did so, "They've stolen another three GMs and..."

"Where are they headed?" Sylvie asked coolly as she strapped herself into the cockpit and slammed the door shut. All systems were green.

"They're heading for the docks!" the MP shouted loud enough for Sylvie to hear, "Mam! You don't need to go! They've already got several squads ready to..."

"This is GM Custom 01, 44th Company. Captain Sylvie Greissier. I'm going!"
-----------------------------

"She's doing WHAT?!" Natalie asked as she began to listen to the frenzied reports of Federal troops shadowing the rebel force now heading for the docks.

"The Captain's gone out on her own!" the man on the other end of the radio reported, "I think she's going to try to kill'em all by herself!"

Oh ****... Natalie thought. This wasn't good. If she was misidentified by those GMs now guarding the docks...

But no... Natalie thought. She trusted Sylvie. She wouldn't get herself killed. In fact, she was probably the only match for whoever it was who was piloting that damn GM Quell. Even aces couldn't beat everybody they faced. Especially when the opponent was no ordinary pilot. A type of pilot that was called freaks by many but held in awe by many others, including herself. And Sylvie was definitely one of them.
-----------------------------

"Damn it! What do you mean we're restricted to the dock area?!" Estella Madrigal screamed into the face of a young Federal private trying to explain the situation to her, and failing. She was pissed off. She had arrived in Bunch 7 to cover a story that could prove to be of the greatest importance for her people, only to be stopped by a snibbling, Federal private who wasn't even sure of what was happening...

"Estella, stop it," Arnold Jefferson warned.

"But Arnie!" Estella complained on.

"There are other ways," Jefferson whispered as he dragged her away from the now relieved Federal private, "I wasn't a dock worker at Von Braun for nothing you know."

"What do you mean Arnie?" Estella asked as she took another look at the Federal private that had stopped them, grimacing as she did so.

Jefferson grinned as he produced a keycard, before saying, "There are many ways out of the docks Estella, and THIS is a master keycard."
-----------------------------

"Another flash traffic..." General Heinrich Pluskat reported as he handed Captain Eaton Hawkins another datapad, visibly annoyed once again as he did so.

"Oh, thank you sir," Hawkins replied politely as he punched in his access code, careful to make sure that Pluskat hadn't seen it. He grinned as he read the message. It seemed the Nevada's skipper was proving to be quite useful, after all...

"Captain, there's also a report of fighting on Bunch 7..." Pluskat warned.

"Oh yes, Sir, I'm very well aware of that. Thank you very much," Hawkins replied quickly and pleasantly, "That is why we are going there, after all."
-----------------------------

"They're moving pretty quickly..." a lookout reported over the radio, "They might get to the dockyards in a few minutes. My team's going to try to take them down with anti-tank rockets but..."

Suddenly, there was a loud explosion over the radio, and the transmission was replaced by static.

"Crap..." Captain Vaclav Unger thought as he realized that the lookout teams trailing the Zeon troops had been spotted and wiped out. But he'd avenge them. He and his three mobile suit pilots from the Yamashiro would make sure of that. They were only a short distance from the docks now, but his squad of four had now prepared a devilish little ambush for those Delaz rebels...

"I see one of them!" one of his men suddenly reported, "A GM Kai with markings from the cruiser Phoenix. Those are the ones those rebels stole."

"Just one?" Unger inquired. That was bad. Had those rebels split up?

"Should I take him down, Sir?" another pilot asked.

"Keep calm and don't shoot him yet," the Captain replied, "Remember, there are four of them out there..."
-----------------------------

"I don't see anything..." Yun reported nervously as inched his way slowly towards the docks, "I think it's probably safe for us to..."

"Yun... I think you'd better duck..." Jake suddenly ordered as calmly as he could as he tightened his grip on the trigger, waiting for the right moment...

"Duck?" Yun thought. What did he mean by...

Suddenly, a stream of tracers streaked out from behind Yun and struck several low hills in front of him. At first, Yun though that somebody in his group had just wasted some ammunition...

...but then suddenly, a second, much larger explosion followed the first, sending metallic debris flying all over the air. And then, three giant figures began to rise from the ground...

"OPEN FIRE!" Captain Unger ordered angrily as he aimed his machine gun at the sole exposed rebel GM Kai. They had been spotted now, and there was nothing to be gained by hiding.

Yun's eyes went wide as he realized that he was now facing three enemy mobile suits, and immediately felt himself beginning to wet his pants. With little else to do, he tried to duck as he was told, but it was too late. Three shells smashed into the knee joint of his Mobile Suit and immobilized the giant machine completely, while another three shells ripped off his arm. And Yun could only scream.

But by then another two sets of shells were heading right towards the Federal mobile suits, fired by both Ming and Jake. Ming's shells hit their target, but the shots were deflected by the GM's shield. Jake's shots however, struck true, exploding a second Federal GM.

By then, Cpt. Unger had spotted the rest of the Delaz rebels, and had begun to shift his fire to them. His first volley lopped an arm off one of the GM Kais, while a second nearly smashed into a second one's head. But then the enemy suits fired again, exploding his last surviving wingman, and ripping his own suit's knee apart, collapsing his mobile suit towards the ground...

Jake saw this, and held his fire at the now crippled GM. But then, the GM began to raise its gun once again and fired, the shots just being barely deflected by Ming's shield. Both Ming and Jake fired at the still defiant GM Kai, and their combined shots ripped the pitifully crippled GM apart, killing its pilot and adding more carnage to the killing field that was now Bunch 7.

"Alright, let's move on," Ming ordered as he took a look at the damage they had suffered. Horton's GM had lost an arm, while Yun's seemed to be beyond repair. He'd have to assign somebody to pick him up... "Yun, if you can't fix your mobile suit get off it and transfer to Jake's unit. We don't have time to..."

"You won't..." a new voice suddenly creeped into their radios. A cold, almost possessed voice. A voice that was a mixture of outmost sadness and unquenchable hate. One that seemed to have come from the dead rather than the living. And it was the voice of a woman.

Suddenly, a volley of shells streaked down towards Ming's position. Ming seemed surprised, but at the last moment he side stepped out of the way. The rest of his men were soon frantically searching around, trying to find where...

"First to die... Who will it be?" the possessed voice continued on, as another volley of shells streaked towards Ming's group from an entirely different direction. This time, the shots struck true, punching several holes into Jake's GM Kai, damaging a few non-vital systems.

"****! Who the hell is this?!" Horton shouted as he tried frantically to search for the source of the fire once again, only to find himself the target of the next volley. A volley that took off his GM's head.

"A ghost..." the female voice continued on, "A ghost from the war three years past."

"Damn it! She's toying with us!" Ming growled angrily as he took a look at the GM's internal clock. They were wasting time, and their ticket out of here might just slip by, "All of you! Get out of here now! I'll handle her!"

"But Ming, the rendezvous point!" Jake reminded, not wanting to leave Ming out of the whole point of their escape, "And what about Yun?! He's not in the GM anymore and I can't find him on the ground!

"I'll get there in time, AND I'll bring Yun with me. Trust me," Ming promised. And with that, Jake and Horton began to head towards the dock, entrusting their fate to Ming.

"Oh? Showing your tails off to me now?" the voice taunted on, "I guess you're all cowards, after all?"

"I am no coward! I am a Captain of the Principality of Zeon and a proud member of the Delaz Fleet!" Ming shouted back defiantly as he evaded the next stream of bullet heading towards him and firing a quick volley in return, "If you want to get them, you'll have to get through ME!"

"Oh... then thank you, Captain," the voice replied in a playful, almost mocking tone, "It seems we have been thinking of the same thing today..."

Damn it... Ming thought. Whoever you are, I'm not going to let you kill any of my men, he thought to himself. I'm not going to be the one going to an early grave, you crazy Federal b****. In fact, many Sons of Delaz may have died because of her presence here, and killing her would avenge many of them. So much the better.

"Finally... my chance..." the last, sane part of Sylvie thought on as she aimed at Ming's GM. At last, I'll be able to avenge him. To be able to redeem myself to him, even if it was just a little. She didn't care anymore if she had just lost any part of her soul she still had left. Her life had now just boiled down to either killing Ming and finally setting herself free, or as free as her tormented spirit would ever allow, or to die trying. Either way, it was better than living on as a rotting corpse. Living on as a ghost, just as her voice had been taunting Ming a few moments ago. A voice, she knew, that would never be hers again...

And with that, Sylvie tightened her grip on the trigger, focusing everything to the task at hand. For Max. For Shang. For all those pilots who had died, including Jin. And for the person that I was...

At the same time, Ming also tightened his grip on the trigger, with only one thing in his mind: The death of his enemy. He quickly scanned his monitors left and right, waiting for any sign...

But Sylvie already had Ming dialed in her sights. And now her finger was ever slowly increasing the pressure on the trigger...

And then, Ming saw her, crouching right behind him. And he began to turn...

Notice: This story and all related material is copyrighted by Thomas E. "Zinegata" Ting, no part of this story may be taken by any other person. If you wish to use any material, please contact me first. Gundam and all related trademarks are owned by their respective companies.