Project PHAETON 14 (Patreon)

Commissioned by RoyalTwinFangs

Project PHAETON

Chapter 14

-VB-

Noctis frowned when he saw the Zeonite reinforcement. 

It was a naval squadron exactly the same size as the one led by Garma. 

He thought about the battlefield as it was. 

One, he was far away enough that Zeonite gunners and commanders didn’t even consider firing their ship-mounted beam cannon at him. His ship’s visual rangefinders were recording somewhere around a hundred fifty clicks when he knew for a fact that Zeonite optimal range was just fifteen clicks because of their own need to rely on visual confirmation (because of the Minovsky interference). 

Two, his two most effective combatants were out there keeping Garma’s squadron at bay.

Three, he still had all of the automated void fighters with him.

Four, he also had the new upgrades Father put on his flagship. 

He narrowed his eyes.

During his last engagement with Garma’s forces, the biggest problem he had was two fold: the obvious small arc of the energy shield and his inability to strike back from his ships at Garma’s ships. 

Both deficiencies had been addressed not to his specification but his Father’s satisfaction once.

“General, they are in range.”

“Let them come a little bit closer,” he replied. 

Hitting them at their new maximum range would be giving away a crucial advantage, and he was not green enough to do that. Besides, it would only get easier for his ship to hit them when they got closer. 

He turned his focus back onto the two suits currently decimating Garma’s fighters and Zakus. 

And from the debris around them, it was definitely clear who was superior to whom. 

He activated the subspace comms. “Lieutenant, sergeant. This is General Caelum. Retreat to the squadron.”

“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant acknowledged from his mobile weapon.

The sergeant hesitated but she was quick enough in her reply. “Yes, general.”

He nodded in satisfaction and looked at the kill count for them. 

Thirty-seven. 

Without taking fatal or crippling hits themselves, those two took out thirty seven of Garma’s void fighters and Zakus. 

It was, as far as Noctis was concerned, another victory for the League. The sheer technological superiority they flexed there would be enough to make the Zeonites hesitate whenever they encountered the League’s forces. 

But this force didn’t understand it. 

Not yet. 

He intended to make sure they learned the same lesson Garma did. 

-VB-

Even though a second squadron had arrived to assist him, Garma felt uneasy about the entire situation.

The Leaguers should have detected the second squadron now, which meant they should be preparing themselves in a hurry. Even if they had beaten him before in an one-to-one ratio battle before, this was now a two-to-one fight. 

They couldn’t be so confident as to think that the Principality didn’t advance, not after seeing their suits in action! 

‘Admittedly, they advanced as well,’ he thought as he looked at the screen showing more than half of his Zakus and void fighters downed or outright destroyed while the rest struggled with the two Leaguer suits. 

“My lord, they are retreating!” 

He snapped his head up from where he’d been looking down at a display toward the zoom enhanced view of the mobile suit battle. 

And the two Leaguer mobile suits really were retreating! 

He narrowed his eyes. 

‘Those two could have continued to fight, but they didn’t. Instead, they retreated,’ he thought furiously to try to determine what the Leaguer’s next step was. ‘These two can’t be the only mobile suits they have. Leaguers have consistently shown a technological superiority over us,’ he thought, even though the admission made him angry. ‘It can’t be that they can’t fight us. So why are they -?’

His eyes widened. 

“Establish communication with the other squadron immediately!” he shouted desperately. “Tell them to fall back! Tell them to fall back right now!” 

The officers on his bridge looked shocked by his demands. 

“My lord?!” the political officer standing next to him hissed out. “What are you doing, sir?!” 

“The fucking Leaguers! They have something up their sleeves and they don’t want their suits getting hit! Look how far away we are from them compared to how close our second squadron is! The Leaguers haven’t fired because they want to be sure to wipe out the second squadron but we are also in the goddamn range! There is no other reason for them to withdraw their mobile suits when they are kicking our ass as is! Contact the second squadron now!”

His words must have made some sense to the officers around him because they immediately began to carry out his orders. 

Garma hated himself for how desperate he sounded. 

Years of education studying all manners of void and wet water naval battles. Years spent trying to outplay the Leaguers in his head. 

And the best decision he could make was to call a tactical retreat. 

On a hunch.

That the Leaguers had a weapon like the beam cannon.

But how? They showed no signs of developing it. If they did, the experimentation alone would have produced at least some evidence visible across the entire solar system.

He gritted his teeth.

It had to be him.

Zeyus Caelum. 

“We have to put them on the defense,” he muttered to himself before making a decision. “Gunnery officers, lock onto the League’s flagship! Ignore the convoys!” 

They acknowledged loudly and followed. 

On the bridge’s biggest screen, he watched as not only his ship but the other ships of his squadron lock on with their target painters. 

“B1 has locked on!”

“Z1 has locked on!”

“C1 has locked on!” 

“C2 has locked on!”

“C3 has locked on!”

“Fire on my command! In 3… 2… 1… FIRE!” 

---

Beam cannons silently roared out from Garma’s squadron. The yellow beams shined across the empty void, creating streaks of light that converged upon the Saloren.

Unfortunately, having been shot at a target far outside their optimal range, the strength of each beam cannon’s attack had weakened. Not enough that a mobile suit would not have vaporized but enough that anyone who looked at the situation could feel a sort of desperation from the attack.

Everyone held their breath as the attacks landed… and the infamous energy barrier that had haunted all of Principality of Zeon’s scientists sprung to light. 

This time, it was bigger. Instead of just covering the front, there was something almost like a shield that covered the entirety of the ship. Or at least the side facing the Zeonites.

---

“Shield integrity holding,” the dedicated shield officer reported. “The energy draw from Battery 1 remains stable. Eight minutes until Battery 1 hits low levels.”

Noctis grinned. 

“Ready the lance.”

The ship trembled lightly as a capital weapon big as some of shuttles rose up from the top side of the Saloren’s hull. Though he couldn’t see it, he could imagine what it must look like from the other ships next to his flagship. 

It must look like some kind of an alien landscape jutting out from the top of the ship totally unlike anything else House Caelum had fielded. 

But according to his father, the design had been the minimal “core” of the weapon necessary for the function of the weapon. 

He waited for the Zeonites’ attacks to die down. 

And it did. 

The piercing beam cannons died down.

“Lance, are you ready?”

The gunnery officer on the bridge looked up. “All systems green, general!” 

“... fire the Tachyon Lance.”

---

The sharp crab-claw-like weapon atop the Saloren crackled with energy. Then it lit up.

And a single purple beam crackled across the void and slammed into one of Garma’s Musai cruisers. 

The point of contact on the Musai, the port side bow, immediately heated up to glowing orange on contact. From the point of contact, blue and purple crackles of electrical arcs spasmed across the ship. Lights flickered on and off before shutting off completely across vast sections of the cruiser, and it began to drift toward Earth as one of its main thrusters turned off. 

The second Zeonite squadron chose to intervene at that moment. 

And unlike Garma’s squadron, they were within optimal range of their beam cannons. 

Yellow beams burst from that squadron and streaked across the void. 

They slammed into the Saloren and her escorts. 

And, again, those shields showed up and protected them. 

Then the Saloren turned its Tachyon Lance upon them. And fired.

The purple beam - more like a lightning than a beam - crackled across the void and slammed into the lead Musai cruiser of the second squadron. Unlike the first attack that crippled the Musai from Garma’s squadron, this one punched through the closer Musai cruiser. Seconds later, the ship’s cored ammunition storage detonated, ripping the rest of the ship apart. 

Horrified by the one-hit-kill, the second squadron tried to pull back. 

But they were bound by the laws of physics, and no matter how much power they put into their thrusters, they were only slowing down, not reversing course. 

Seeing no choice, they put more power into their maneuvering thrusters to at least steer their ships out of the way.

The Leaguers didn’t give a shit about their attempts. 

While the Tachyon Lance remained smoking and silent, other cannons from the Saloren and its escorts roared out their disapproval.

Bullets, beams, and visually guided visuals shot out from the League’s squadron and slammed into the second Zeonite squadron. 

Unfortunately for the Zeonites, just as being closer had brought them into their optimal range, so too did it bring them into the optimal range of the League squadron’s other weapons.

Smaller ships were, ironically enough, the ones that were able to reverse course first. Their smaller size yet larger thruster-to-weight ratio helped them complete their deceleration faster than the larger ships, and their smaller profile helped them dodge more attacks. 

Compared to those smaller ships (corvettes, shuttles, and the like), destroyers, frigates, and cruisers were not spared. 

Shells, beams, and missiles tore into their hulls. 

It was a visual cacophony of explosions, tears, holes, and flickering lights. Thrusters died and the ships began to drift. 

---

Garma looked at the carnage and knew what choice he had to make.

The same choice he made before. 

He screamed. 

In rage. 

In humiliation. 

In tears. 

Years of practice, studying, blood, sweat, and tears was rendered useless before the Leaguers, again. 

“Retreat,” he hissed out after what felt like an hour of screaming but was only just a single minute. His throat felt hoarse but still serviceable. “Call a retreat. Save as many of our people as possible. We cannot lose more to the Leaguers, not when we haven’t even completed the first operation of the war.”

“Yes, sir,” someone muttered as the calls went out. 

Garma glared hatefully at the Leaguers. At the ship that supposedly held General Noctis Caelum. 

He gritted his teeth even as he told himself that the retreat was the correct choice. The logical choice, even if it would cost him politically and personally. 

Would his family ever trust him again with a role this big when he failed them twice? 

He hoped they would understand. There was only so much he could prepare when faced with Phaeker Bullshit.

-VB-

The Battle of Russian Polar Orbit (79 UC) ironically became the first major engagement in the One Year War, and it was not between the Earth Federation but the Phaeton League’s interventionist fleet disguised as a humanitarian aid convoy against two of Zeon’s naval squadrons. It began with a probing insult and ended with half of the engaging Zeon ships in ruin, and showed the entire solar system that for all of the war drums the Zeonites beat about their superiority, the true technological dominance belonged solely to the Phaeton League. 

The battle confirmed a few facts as well. Ground-based satellite confirmed for the Earth Federation that the Phaeton League, or at least House Caelum, had access to energy barriers that could protect ships from attacks. It also showed that House Caelum had better mobile suits, or at least better elite mobile suits as they did not display an ability to mass deploy mobile suits. 

The Earth Federation saw the League’s intervention as a godsend, especially in light of the massacre that took place in Island Iffish. This urged them to take more aggressive actions against Zeonite attackers, but were ultimately hamstrung by their own peace time delays to stockpile up war materials. 

The Principality of Zeon, on the other hand, felt compelled to act faster. They saw the intervention fleet as a prelude to a massive armada headed their way, and thus needed the fleet to protect Zeon itself. To that end, they hastened Operation British, cutting as many corners as they felt was necessary to ensure Island Iffish colony arrived in orbit of Earth ahead of schedule. 

The Phaeton League, post-Iffish massacre, expressed a sort of casual confidence in their victory. While House Caelum was definitely the first among equals in everything that happened within the League, it still meant that even past generation ships used by the rest of the League could hold their ground against Zeon, mostly because they possessed technological upgrades provided to them by House Caelum. Because of this, Phaeton League’s full involvement in the war came later than what House Caelum had expected after the Massacre of Island Iffish.

They would come to regret this sluggish response.