第七章「クレヴェナールの影」1
CHAPTER.07 – SHADOW OF KURWENAL (1)

Wrapped in the darkness of space, the scream of the colossus rung out, a wing torn from its body.

The Byarlant Isolde had already lost one of its mega particle guns, yet it drew its beam saber and charged back at the R-Jarja once again.

“What!?”

The R-Jarja took the blow with its own beam saber.

The mobile suits continued to push, and the battle raged on.

“It seems like you’re a fan of swordplay too!”

Walter laughed fearlessly and pushed down on the throttle.

His rear thrusters roared to life and he charged forward as if trying to smash the R-Jarja onto the surface of Axis.

“Gah!”

A normal pilot would have tried to push back, but Danton didn’t fight the flow. Their bodies entangled, the two mobile suits hurled towards the surface. In a flash, Danton swung up his variable shield and smashed it into the side of the Isolde’s belly.

“What!?”

The entangled suits began to rotate, dragging the Isolde underneath, ready to be smashed onto the surface.

“Gaaargh!”

“Take this!!”

Danton quickly re-gripped his beam saber and brought it down on the Isolde’s head. But the Isolde’s boosters came online just in time. It slid parallel to the ground, ripping away the rocky surface, narrowly escaping the R-Jarja’s saber.

Missing its mark, the saber struck deep into the ground.

“…Aaargh….”

Resting on one knee within sight of the R-Jarja’s line of sight, the Isolde slowly raised itself.

“Haha… Pretty impressive movements there…”

From within the Isolde’s cockpit, Walter murmured in a low voice.

“Fun… this is so much fun, white one! No wonder you gave my brother such a hard time!”

It had been a long time since he had such a worthwhile prey to hunt… No, this could perhaps be his very first such prey. Walter couldn’t believe his luck on what he thought would be a boring mission; his face, a mirror image of his brother’s, broke into a wicked smile.

×　×　×

Meanwhile, Arlette was trying to access the main body of the Sazabi left on the surface of Axis. Normally, the avionics of a mobile suit was contained in the cockpit block, doubling as an escape pod. The electronics on the main body were purely auxiliary.

Thus, there was little chance there would be any data left.

But the Sazabi was an extremely special case.

Designed to be an exclusive craft for the Neo Zeon Supreme Leader Char Aznable, all of Char’s combat data since the One Year War had been fed back into its development. Plus, the area around the cockpit contained psycho-frame technology. The psycho-frame had tiny computer chips embedded at the molecular level inside the metal; the unit could retain memory.

Most of it had been lost along with the cockpit block, but the parts where the cockpit block connected with the body, though limited, did make use of psycho-frame parts.

Thus, there was a notable chance that some information about Char could be found there.

That was what Arlette was here for.

“Captain…”

Arlette continued to hit the button, like striking a bell in prayer.

Suddenly, the terminal lit up, displaying a number of files.

“!!”

As predicted, the psycho-frame in the Sazabi had retained some of the data. But there was no time to look at them carefully. Arlette continued to copy whatever she found onto her device.

“I’ve got to bring back as much data as I can…”

Arlette watched impatiently as the bar showing how much data had been transferred slowly grew longer, bit by bit.

Then, it happened.

A large shadow passed over Arlette’s head.

“!?”

An enemy attack!?

If the enemy was after information about the psycho-frame, there was a high chance that they would have their eyes on the wreckage of the Sazabi. If she was attacked now, Arlette would have no way to defend herself.

But for her, her biggest concern wasn’t her safety, it was ensuring that the Sazabi wouldn’t fall into anyone else’s hands. This suit was the only memento that Char had left in this world.

If it came to it, she would have to defend it.

In the kit that came along with her normal suit, there should be a small gun meant for self-defense…

Arlette steeled herself, but her bravery wasn’t going to be needed.

“What…?”

Arlette looked up at the sky in disbelief. Reflected in her eyes, she could see a large hunk of metal floating casually across the sky. Its silhouette was asymmetric, twisted, with long gun barrels stretching out from its body, with countless containers dotting its surface.

Initially, she thought it was a battleship.

She thought that the enemy was attempting to escape from Axis on that ship. But she immediately put that thought aside.

She was an engineer; she knew better.

It was a mobile armor.

Such size, and such a shape… There was no doubt about it.

She had heard rumors of a craft like it while she was in the AEUG. A mythical craft, secretly developed by Anaheim Electronics. With a Gundam-type mobile suit at its core, a fortress type mobile armor that would complete once connected to an Armed Base.

Its registration was deleted, but the concept lived on, influencing a countless number of projects. And its descendant was now in front of her. From her situation, it was clearly an enemy craft, just like that Byarlant and Gundam type.

Wait — it was probably that Gundam Type was at its core.

Who could have thought that they’d come up with something like that…

Arlette braced herself, but it didn’t seem like the massive mobile armor was coming down.

It passed overhead, and slowly headed towards…

“!!”

In a moment of panic, Arlette turned the transmitter in her normal suit, that had been disconnected the entire time, back on.

×　×　×

The massive mobile armor drifted past the Sazabi.

In its cockpit was indeed the pilot of that Gundam-type, the Tristan, Quentin Fermo himself.

“Who knew we’d actually use this in combat…”

The armed base “Kurwenal” was Tristan’s own exclusive reinforced armament unit. This mission was a trial run of the Tristan, the Isolde, and this Kurwenal, but its use in combat wasn’t something that had been anticipated.

The Birnam’s mission was, firstly, to obtain information about the psycho-frame left on Axis. The Tristan and Isolde were there just in case Axis’ automated defense system would come online.

Their other mission was to ensure that the same information wouldn’t make its way into the hands of others, that is, destroy everything that was left of the research facilities.

That was what the Kurwenal was for.

One-sided destruction of a stationary lab wasn’t his idea of fun. But Quentin’s prayers would be answered by an unexpected prey. The pilot of that Zaku III Custom… surely he would put up a good fight.

He could destroy the lab later, at his leisure.

He’ll probably have his hands full with Walter now…

“Don’t you die before I let you!”

His usually calm visage distorted with excitement, the very image of his younger brother, Quentin rammed the throttle.

The rear thrusters roared to life, and the gigantic steel body of the Kurwenal picked up speed.