I was only a few minutes into the disembarkation process when the ship began to lurch and shake. This was space, so that meant the Nordhausen must have been taking hits. The thought that the ship I was on had been struck by a nuclear warhead made me want to vomit.
Turning on the radio and flipping it to Donnelly's channel, I shouted, "We need to vent the air! This is an emergency if I've ever seen one!"
The red-haired kid on the other side of the call said, "I'm working on it, but I need authorization from the Captain."
My fingers twitched in fear and anticipation as the entire ship lurched one more time. Just as I began to consider tearing through the outer doors with my Heat Hawk, the doors opened, causing the air to push my Zaku forward half a step.
"Thanks, Donnelly!" I said into the radio a moment before I activated my Zaku's thrusters and pushed myself outward into space.
"Push forward directly northwest!" I shouted to my squadmates using the system we had discussed during training. We agreed to use the directions north, east, south, west, up, and down when fighting in space. North was determined by the current heading of our fleet.
"Okay!" Vultee shouted.
"Roger," Ramos said.
We shot forward into space at a 45 degree angle to the left in an attempt to get out of the enemy fleet's line of fire. Just as we had cleared the firing line, a fusillade of warheads struck Zeon's fleet, causing more than a dozen bright flashes to momentarily blind my Zaku's camera.
I was facing the enemy fleet at the time, so I didn't know if the Nordhausen was hit by a warhead. Either way, that was a problem for me to deal with once I was out of rockets. Looking over at the enemy fleet, I could tell from the bright flashes that they had also been struck by a wave of nuclear warheads. If I hadn't been looking at the blasts through my Zaku's camera, they might have permanently blinded me.
Once we were a few kilometers away from the Zeon fleet, I said, "Alter trajectory to the north."
A few seconds passed, and there was no response from Vultee or Ramos. The radiation must have been interfering with our radio. Ah, Hell. If the radio didn't work over a few meters, it definitely meant I couldn't send a message back to the fleet.
With a few quick movements, I altered my Zaku's path toward the north, gesturing for the others to follow me. We flew through several kilometers of empty space, watching bright flashes of light emanate from the 4th Fleet of the Earth Federation Space Force, the 2nd Fleet of Zeon, and Island Iffish as they were struck by dozens of nuclear warheads. I knew that, before this battle was over, hundreds of thousands would be dead.
Eventually, we got close enough to the 4th EFSF Fleet that the individual ships resolved into clarity. I could see the decimated fleet. It was nearly twice the size of the Zeon fleet, though it was absolutely dwarfed by Island Iffish in the background. Island Iffish had been hit by just as many nuclear warheads than either of the fleets, yet the damage was barely noticeable. How had humanity even managed to build such a huge object in space?
I brought my Zaku to a stop relative to the enemy fleet and aimed my bazooka in its direction. There was no time to stop and wonder how many lives I was about to end. I had a direct shot on a battleship.
My direction and velocity matched the battleship's, so I didn't have to lead my shot. I squeezed the trigger, and a nuclear warhead shot forward at an immense speed. Moments later, Ramos and Vultee fired.
The muted sound of the next rocket slowly being loaded from the magazine into the barrel echoed through my Zaku. After about five seconds, a message appeared on my HUD.
[READY TO FIRE]
I fired again at the battleship, and it flashed with nuclear fire a moment later. Two nearby cruisers burst into flames as Ramos and Vultee's warheads struck their intended targets. Readjusting my sights after the detonations had blinded me a moment before, I spotted one ship in the center of the fleet that was much larger than the others. That must have been Vice Admiral Tianem's flagship, the Titan. The flagship appeared in the crosshairs of my bazooka, and I fired my last nuclear warhead in its direction.
Six seconds later, the Titan was struck by my nuclear warhead, and several of its decks were instantaneously vaporized. Fire began shooting out of its side, but it seemed to me like it was still functional. The fire quickly fizzled after a few seconds as the air in the affected decks was vented into space. What were these ships made out of?
All told, I had sunk a battleship and damaged the flagship while the other two had sunk five cruisers between them. There must have been thousands of men on those ships, and we had killed all of them in less than a minute.
It was them or us.
We could have returned to the Nordhausen at that second, and it would have been a successful mission. They couldn't reasonably ask for more from three Zakus. I wanted to go back, but the limping form of the enemy flagship called out to me like a wounded stag calling out to a hungry wolf.
Vice Admiral Tianem was on that ship. If I could kill him, that would be another step toward the Earth Federation surrendering at the end of the month. I bought myself some time by loading the next magazine into my bazooka.
Staring at the roof of my cockpit, I muttered, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."
It was better to face danger now than to face that danger later.
With a few quick movements, I activated my thrusters and shot toward the 4th Fleet.