Project PHAETON 20 (Patreon)

Commissioned by RoyalTwinFangs

Project PHAETON

Chapter 20

-VB-

Supplying the blueprint alone was not the end of his job. 

Because as much as he wanted it to be, the local manufacturers couldn’t produce everything on their own, especially the most advanced bits like high fidelity control microchips. 

It was because of this that he converted the Saloren’s on-board printer into a makeshift manufacturing center. From its guts, he brought in high quality silicon and rare earth metals and gave back microchips already pre-programmed to be used in the militia weapons.

Over the course of two weeks, the Japanese stockpiled as many mobile workers as they could, working side by side with Noctis’s people, whether they were naturalborn or clones. 

And by the end of those two weeks, they had roughly a hundred mobile workers, just enough of them to match the number of mobile suits Zeon had deployed to the Japanese Archipelago. 

Then that’s when they took off. 

The lighter half of his fleet moved with the Japanese mobile workers army while the heavier half stayed on the ground along with all of the mobile suits he brought with him; he couldn’t leave the Saloren helpless, after all. But he watched through the camera feeds from various ships and soldiers as half of his squadron, a thousand Japanese militiamen armed with infantry weapons and donated anti-armor League weapons, and a hundred seven mobile workers rumbled through the countryside (with his ships flying low to avoid detection). After just two days of traveling, they reached Shimonoseki, the westernmost city on the largest island Honshu and where a bridge stood over a narrow channel between Honshu and Kyushu.

And this city was already under siege. 

-VB-

Oto was a simple man. He lived his life as best as he could without stepping on anyone’s toes. He knew enough about politics to know to stay out of it as much as possible. 

But politics - and war - chose not to stay out of his life. 

Inside the shell of this so-called “mobile worker” named TK-53, he loosely gripped the joysticks like he had been taught to do; gripping them too tightly might jerk the TK-53 around at the slightest of movements he made with his arms, which would then go and cause even more jerking as the jerking mobile worker jerked his arms even harder.

Through the two cameras looking forward, he could see smokes billowing up in columns from the city ahead. 

‘So it’s true. The Leaguers weren’t lying.’

He had been among the few who had been skeptical. 

Yes, he knew that the Kyushu Massacre was happening. 

Yes, he knew that the federation had utterly failed. 

No, he wasn’t sure if the Leaguers were helping for real or for their own benefit. 

He knew that it had to be for their own benefit, but they gave away so much aid and even materials that he’d begun to question it. 

And the smoke and fires ahead put the last of his thoughts about the League’s potential duplicity to rest. 

“This is First Lieutenant Chosakawa. The League will be coordinating our attack, over,” his squadron leader, a retired federation officer, spoke over the radio. “Our squadron and the 4th will take the San-yo Shinkansen line to the town of Asa. Once we establish that the town is safe for camp, we move on through the line and strike at Akinehonmachi. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Oto replied as did others. 

“Then let’s go! 1st and 4th with me!” 

Ten mobile workers rumbled forward ahead of the rest of the volunteer army. 

One of the League ships fired off one of its guns. He didn’t hear anything exploding, though. 

What was that? 

“Oto, you’re lagging behind!” 

He turned back to his screens and quickly caught up to the rest of the squad. 

As they rumbled forward at speeds he would have been uncomfortable inside of a car, they went through tunnels, farmlands, lakes, and hill as the line went around the countryside. 

And finally, after one last tunnel, they came out into a town.

And it was smoking. 

“Holy shit…” someone muttered over the comms, and Oto knew why.

It was one of those damnable Zeon mobile suits. It was firing into the town!

But it also had its back turned to them.

“4th squad, keep moving! 1st squad, aim at that suit! I want it dead in 5… 4… 3.. !” 

Oto hurriedly aimed with trembling hands and arms. 

“2… 1…!” 

The suit finally turned to look at them.

“Fire!” 

Ten machineguns roared out all at once from the 1st squadron’s mobile workers, and Oto grimaced as the sound, however muted, drowned out all other noise.

The machineguns punched into the mobile suit, making it stagger back from the force of a hundred 30mm bullets slamming into it every second. One 30mm machinegun would not have anything. Ten, though, was putting holes in a lot of places. 

“Missile!” 

Oto immediately followed the command and pressed down on the button on top of the joysticks. 

The missile launchers on the back of the mobile workers spat out one missile each for two missiles per mobile worker. Ten such missiles, packing enough explosive power to blow up a house, sparked and spewed forth.

The mobile suit realized it was in danger and tried to run away. 

Too late. 

All ten missiles slammed into the mobile suit and detonated. The explosion was so big that it covered the entire suit, but it was not enough to hide the fact that its central torso had blown apart. 

Oto grinned. 

But his jubilation didn’t even get to start before something struck the 4th squad ahead of them. 

A literal beam of bullets came booming from the south and slammed the mobile workers of the 4th. One of the mobile workers immediately tumbled and fell off the side of the bullet train line.

Oto whirled his mobile worker’s cameras around to look.

There!

“A Zeon suit crouching behind the concert hall!” he shouted. 

“Then we’re going onto the ground! 1st squad, off the shinkansen!” 

Eh? 

Then he watched the First Lieutnant drive his mobile worker off the line. 

He watched with a gawking mouth as the mobile worker flew for a brief moment before falling like a rock. 

Because it basically was. 

And then slammed onto the ground below. 

“Follow the lieutenant!” someone shouted. 

And one by one, they all jumped off, leaving Oto by himself. 

“Fuck it!” he hissed and whirled the mobile worker around and sped off the side of the shinkansen.

For a very brief moment, he didn’t feel anything. 

And then gravity told him “no.”

He clenched everything as the mobile worker fell and then slammed into the ground. 

His vision shook. Everything shook. 

But he snapped out of it quickly enough to catch up to the rest of the squadron while the 4th squadron who was still on the line began to fire back at the Zeon suit. 

They sped forward in a column toward the concert hall.

That’s when the Zeon suit rolled out of cover… with an RPG.

Oto’s eyes widened but it was too late to stop. 

The suit fired the RPG and in an instant, the lieutenant’s mobile worker exploded. 

Someone screamed. 

Oto didn’t know who. 

What he did was do as he had been taught. 

He aimed and fired. 

His bullets soared over the heads of the other mobile workers who were now trying to get behind some kind of cover. The suit took a few hits before diving back behind the concert hall, but there, it was exposed to the 4th squadron who were shooting at it. 

Now caught between the two of them, the suit decided that it was going to take the 1st squadron out first. It dropped the large RPG tube, pulled out its machine gun… and a club? 

It was a club. 

And ran toward them. 

Its thumping run grew louder and louder as it ran toward them.

“Fire! Fire at the suit!” he shouted over the comms.

His squadron hesitated for a moment before they did. 

But it had reached them too quickly for their combined firepower to stop it. 

It reached Tori’s mobile worker while firing its machinegun at Chuso. When it reached Tori, iit struck down with its club, crushing the top of the mobile worker. Then it turned around and continued to strafe-fire at Chuso. 

Oto felt his stomach sink when he realized that he was the target. 

“Kuso kuso kuso -!” he hissed as he quickly jerked his joysticks back, and the mobile worker instantly began to drive backward. 

But the suit was faster! 

“Fuck it!” he fired off the last two missiles he had, and watched as it soared up and then came back down.

The Zeon suit saw it, too, and quickly stopped chasing in favor of trying to dodge the missiles. 

That’s when two more missiles came out of nowhere and slammed into its left knee. 

The joints blew up and the suit fell side ways, crashing into the ground hard enough to shake Oto in his mobile worker. 

And then Oto’s missiles came down on it. 

The missiles exploded on its torso and right shoulder, sending shrapnels everywhere. 

But it was still moving. 

Oto brought his mobile worker to a stop and opened fire. 

He and Chuso kept firing until the suit stopped moving. 

Oto panted like he ran ten kilometers and waited with Chuso. 

Nothing. 

He let out an explosive sigh of relief. 

“... I repeat, is anyone in the 1st squad alive?!” 

He quickly tuned his radio. “This is … Oto of the 1st squad. Who is this?”

“This is Sergeant Matahoma of the 4th. Where’s Lieutenant Chosokawa?” 

“H-He’s head. The Zeon RPG’ed him.”

“... Damn. How many of you are still alive?”

“It’s…” 

Oto looked around. 

Oh. 

Nawari, the last of their squad who was further away from the fight, was dead. 

The Zeon hadn’t been shooting at Chuso; it had been shooting at Nawari. 

“... Just two of us.”

“Just two?” the man sounded angry. “Fuck!”

Before anything else could be said, one of the League ships flew over their heads and fired off its guns again. 

The bone-shaking boom-crack of the warship’s guns echoed out, silencing everything for a moment. Then it rumbled forward. 

“Are there any more Zeonites you can see?”

“N-No, sir.”

“Then you two are joining me in the 4th squad. Move it! We have to reach Akinehonomachi in the next fifteen minutes!” 

Oto and Chuso later found a ramp up to join the 4th, but that took ten minutes by itself. And when they got on the Shinkansen, the radio chatter was already active with reports of active combat within Shimonoseki.

The Battle for Kanmon Bridge had begun.

-VB-

Noctis oversaw the entire battle as his forces and that of the local Japanese slowly moved into Shimonoseki. 

It was to their advantage that the Zeon commander in charge of Kyushu offensive had decided to split his forces to … kill the locals. 

Yes.

They were outright attacking the Japanese who were in their homes, burning the city and the surrounding towns. 

Why? 

Noctis didn’t understand it, but whatever their reason may be, they needed to be put down. 

But as horrible as it was, the atrocity gave them an advantage because the Zeon commander had split his forces, and as weak as they may be, it was enough advantage to give the mobile workers a chance to pick off the Zeonite Zakus without suffering too much casualties. 

They were, however, still losing soldiers and mobile workers alike.

One on one, the mobile workers were not capable of fighting off the Zakus. It was why he had arranged them to be in squads of five workers. They were supposed to fight off the Zakus with a five to one advantage. And this was working, mostly. 

Like all things, he could plan but not every plan went according to his predictions. 

One, there were some Japanese who got too excited by the fighting and went off on their own. That wasn’t a Japanese thing but a normal human thing; untrained people who got adrenaline high did that. 

Two, some Zakus had moved in squads on their own, and had devastated the mobile squads they ran into. 

What had helped were his smaller warships - with the smallest non-point defense guns they had - blowing up those same Zaku squads. This had forced the Zakus to scatter, which made them easier pickings for the TK-53’s. 

As bad as it was to blow up the city to put down more mobile suits, he was going to have to do just that. Hopefully, he could avoid as much civilian casualties as he could by only attacking the largest concentrations of Zeonite mobile suits. 

“General.”

He turned to look at the caller. “What is it?” he asked the comms officer who’d called him.

“Message from space. The Black Banner has reached the Martian Line.”

Noctis blinked before he grinned. 

It took father less than a month to reach the Martian Line, the general line of Mars’ orbit around the sun, from the Asteroid Belt. That was much faster sublight speed than anything Zeon or the federation had to offer. 

“ETA to Earth sphere?” 

“... two months, sir.”

“Good. Good!” 

Two months until father brought down the hammer upon the Zeonites. 

The people of Earth had to hold out for just two more months.