Project PHAETON 18 (Patreon)

Commissioned by RoyalTwinFang

Project PHAETON

Chapter 18

-VB-

Garma watched as the Zakus disembarked from the transports. With hundreds of transport present here, the Zakus numbered in the thousands. 

And he was in command of them.

Despite the fact that he had just failed his family and people, he had given another chance once more. 

His family was … very understanding of how his failure had come out to be. 

No one could fault him for not anticipating a beam weapon that could outdo anything Zeon had built. There was no beam in existence that could punch straight through a Musai cruiser. At least until the League showed that they did, in fact, have something like that. 

Or the fact that they developed a mobile suit so quickly and made two that could and did outperform anything they had.

Which meant that confronting the Phaeton League directly was not in the cards. 

It might never be in the cards while Zeyus Caelum lived. 

It meant that Garma, despite having been wronged by the Phaekers time and time again, would have to curb his anger and work in other ways for the betterment of the Zabi Family and all of Zeon. 

So he was here as the commander of the 4th Zeon Ground Assault Regiment. With him were 50 Zaku I’s and 200 Zaku II’s, and his mission was to capture the city of Manaus. 

“Commander.”

He looked to his left and saw a major step up.

“Major Kimberly,” he greeted the man. “Do you have something to report?” 

“Yes, sir. Our fighters have spotted what looked like a squadron of mobile suits in Manaus.”

Garma narrowed his eyes. 

“So the federation truly did have mobile suits of their own…”

He had received a report about how the Battle of Loum had gone. It had … 

There was no lying it. 

It was a stalemate. In his eyes, loss of so many hard to replace capital ships and mobile suits compared to the more replaceable warships and inferior mobile suits of the federation was a mistake. 

The manufacturers on Zeon will have to make do with less. Perhaps they will have to focus on converting salvaged federation mobile suits into Zakus… 

He doubted that was possible, though. 

Which was part of the reason why he was here to take over Manaus. 

Manaus was a city in the Amazon River Basin, the same place that Jaburo was at. However, for Jaburo to get their access to materials in any large quantity, they would have to use the Amazon River tributaries. It would be impossible for them to mass manufacture mobile suits otherwise. 

Their spies within the federation had alerted them to that much information about Jaburo; the military headquarter of the Earth Federation military had its own dedicated manufacturing facilities. This, they learned from reports of Jaburo’s progress of mobile suit manufacturing that the federation’s own corrupt politicians sold to the media so that the media can lambest the military for doing what the same corrupt politicians had ordered the military to do. And why did the politicians do this? 

Because the politicians who sold the report were not from the same political party as the politicians who ordered the military build-up.

As if different parties meant that Zeon would not fight against them.

Madness.

Utter madness.

So Jaburo had manufacturing facilities. 

What the report did not say, however, was whether or not Jaburo had a supply chain needed to support that facility.

Obviously, they did. How else would they be able to manufacture mobile suits that they used against Zeon’s navy in the Battle of Loum?

Which meant that Jaburo had a supply chain but that Zeon could not identify from any orbital satellite.

Because, yes, Zeon had access to those long before the war. 

Corruption was a sin, a blight on society. 

It was an ever growing cancer within a society, and that society wanted to burn Zeon in the same way they burned their own people. 

Why else would Zeon fight this war? 

Independence? Yeah, they wanted independence. 

But truthfully? 

Truly truthfully speaking? 

Zeon was afraid to be chopped up and burned in the furnace of corruption like they saw the federation do to their own people. 

His siblings and father may dress it up. 

But it was not some patriotism or ideology that pushed them to action. It was fear.

… But these were not thoughts he would ever share with anyone. 

What he would share was the plan he had to take out a part, if not all, of Jaburo’s supply lines. 

Fact one: Jaburo’s supply lines could not be detected from orbit. 

Fact two: Jaburo was in South America, specifically the Amazon jungle, but there was no concentration of mines and component manufacturers. Scattered, yes, with many imports. 

Fact three: Jaburo was supposed to be underground. 

The answer then was obvious: there were underground routes to Jaburo. 

This was why Manaus was chosen to be taken over. It sat at one of the most important junction of the Amazon River and had manufacturing facilities of its own. Cargo riverboats came to the city and left despite the fact Manaus, a city of three million, had nowhere near the population needed to require electrical components for a population ten times their size. 

So an entrance to Jaburo, at least part of the cave system that Jaburo was supposed to be in, had to be at Manaus. 

And the fact that there were federation mobile suits there proved that Manaus was important to the federation military. 

“Then we attack. Spare the civilians that run but any who take up arms against Zeon’s righteous army will be slain on the spot!” he ordered. 

The major saluted and left to convey Garma’s orders. 

-VB-

Major Zachariah Rannen had his orders. 

From Prime Minister Gihren Zabi, of course. Though he was very much one of the officers of the 4th mobile suit regiment under Prince Garma Zabi, he also had a separate order that he had received from the prime minister. 

The prime minister believed that Garma was … too soft. That he did not have the guts to do what was needed to ensure Zeon’s survival and eventual victory. 

Which was why his company, the 2nd Zaku Company of the 4th Regiment was made up of officers and soldiers more loyal to the prime minister than the Zabi Family as a whole. 

So after he gave out orders to the rest of the regiment, he turned to the radio channel specific to the 2nd company. 

“It’s time to make Zeon proud.” It was a code phrase for orders. 2nd Company soldiers and officers quickly extricated themselves from other company soldiers and waited for his order. Once he got the acknowledgement that all of the 2nd company officers were by themselves and far away from eavesdropping ears, he continued. “I’m sure you have all heard about the Battle of Loum. It’s become clear that we will not be able to prosecute the war for long if we cannot replace our material losses. To that end, Prime Minister Gihren wants Manaus fully under Zeon’s control for its manufacturing capacity. Which means the 2nd Company’s objective in this battle is to capture the factories intact and their workers alive. No doubt there will be federation sympathizers and believers who will try to sabotage the factories. You will not let them. Understood?” 

“Yes, sir!” 

“Then you have your orders. Do Zeon proud.”

-VB-

Garma strode forward on his own Zaku II-Z, a specially reinforced and improved version of the mobile suit made specifically for Zabi family members.

His regiment marched through the Amazon jungle, walking in a straight line so that they wouldn’t create a giant wall of kicked up dust to alert the federation. 

And just ten kilometer outside the city limits… they broke out into a run. 

The federation mobile suits were … weak. 

Garma grunted as his Zaku II ran down the main avenue of Manaus city and ran across the first federation mobile suit… or not? 

It was not a mobile suit like the Zaku or the monsters deployed by the League. 

It had tracks. 

Like a tank.

“What the fuck are these dipshits doing, just putting the body of a mobile suit on top of a tank?!” he roared out in anger. 

He came expecting real resistance. 

He came down to Earth to show that Zeon would rightfully earn its place among the stars! 

Instead, he found … this! 

He aimed his machinegun and opened fire before the tracked mobile thing could turn around. The bullets tore into lower half of the “mobile suit” and ground it to a halt. He pulled his machinegun up along with the recoil and watched as the next dozen shells detonated all along the immobile suit’s body. 

That was enough to cause it to explode as one of his shells struck something deep inside. 

He felt … upset.

Yes, Garma felt cheated. It wasn’t a feeling aimed just at the federation but also at the League. 

If this was the quality of the mobile suits deployed by the federation, then it meant that the federation will fall to Zeon. Sure, Zeon would struggle to replace its losses but victory was oh so clear with this pathetic sight in front of him. 

Which meant that the only reason Zeon will lose would be because of the League. 

That League will stand in Zeon’s path to prosperity. 

He felt anger at that.

And cheated. 

This was what caused so much fear in his people and family? 

This bullshit, this weakness, this nothing?! 

Another one of them showed up, rolling into the main avenue from one of the side streets on its tank treads. 

Angrily, Garma pulled out one of his Zaku II’s axes and threw it with computer guided accuracy.

The axe spun with awkward slowness despite the fact that it moved with blistering speed and slammed into the gun… tank. 

Yes. They weren’t mobile suits. They didn’t deserve the prestigious designation of the latest warmachine. 

These were nothing more than tanks with a big fat gun attached on top with an inefficient human-like torso. 

“Take them all out!” Garma shouted over the command radio channel. 

Over the course of the day, his 4th Regiment scoured through the city, taking out every single federation military force and its guntanks. They were done with their job even before the sun set. 

Manaus city had fallen. 

Zeon was victorious. 

Scenes like these played out all over Earth. The federation military force had not been expecting a full invasion force to land on Earth and watched in horror as their meager last generation defenses fell one by one to the hypermobile mobile suit regiments. 

Worse, these Zeon forces began to capture not only critical infrastructures like spaceports and power plants but also centers of power and utilities like water plants and city halls. Through their occupation, they forced the confused and scared civilian populations to submit themselves.

Through these blitzkrieg assaults, they gained what they initially lost: manufacturers that had been supplying them with parts unknowingly used to make mobile suits. Everything that had been made up to this point were quickly hauled into transports and sent back to Zeon so that more mobile suits could be made. 

And Garma became the face of this assault force. His success and then the near-rant defamation of the federation military that he believed was “obviously” held back by internal corruption managed to somehow garner support among the very people he had come to subjugate. 

Who cared if some Asian countries suffered, the South Americans thought. There was this man showing them all just how bad the federation was, the same federation that had treated them like second class citizens. That, despite the fact that their very headquarters was in South America, the federation had invested so little defense into civilian protection. 

Other commanders were not as passionate or charismatic as Garma. 

More often than not, they alienated their newly occupied populations. 

In occupied Kyushu, one such commander made fun of the people who died in the tsunamis that Zeon caused via the colony drop.

It would be the spark that would cause the Kyushu Uprising within a week of the occupation when a Zeonite officer killed a Japanese student because he “bumped” into him. Other Japanese who had watched it unfold began to protest in the streets. And soon, there were thousands of people in the streets of Fukuoka. 

Overwhelmed and “fearful” of the civilians daring to resist Zeon’s “righteous” “liberation”... Zeon’s 11th Zaku Regiment would open fire on the civilians that dared to refuse orders to disperse.

And Zeon would televise their mobile suits slaughtering the “rebellious” Japanese by the hundreds.

-VB-

Noctis gritted his teeth as he watched televised footage of Zeon war crimes. 

For all of their public talks about righteousness and Zeon supremacy, the Zeonites were behind in war psychology. What mature power would televise their war crimes like what Zeon was doing? 

“General, what do we do?” one of his bridge officers asked him. 

He glanced at her before looking back at the screen. 

Right now, his fleet was on the ground and keeping a low profile while the aid they brought were being distributed among the “Vietnamese” survivors.

“Once all of the aids are distributed, we will liberate Japan.” 

-VB-

Revil closed his eyes as he watched his people die on Earth. 

The League had provided them everything they needed to develop their own mobile suit program, and yet, here they were, having to fight with inferior mobile suits. The best they had right now were the guncannons. 

“Tell Jaburo to focus on prototyping… and to field the RX-79G.”

-VB-

Workers on Ceres found themselves having to split their focus between the war crimes being broadcasted and the launching of House Caelum’s Black Banner Fleet.

It really was a difficult decision. 

Watch innocent people die on screen or watch a hundred ship fleet disembark.