I sat in the common room, and the feeling of the soldiers there was a far cry from the celebration a few days before. Very few people aboard the Gidoru knew the extent of the destruction that Operation British would deliver to the Earth. Admiral Schneider and I were the only officers who knew what we were getting into.
A map of Earth was taped to a clipboard on my lap, and I looked at it closely with a pencil in my hand. I marked an X where I had seen the first fragment of Island Iffish crash into China. According to the map, the fragment had struck right next to the city of Lanzhou. The other fragment had struck just west of the Azores in the north Atlantic Ocean. I wrote a question mark over the Amazon area in Brazil where Jaburo was supposed to be.
The circle of destruction for the fragment that struck China ran from South Korea to northern India longitudinally and from Siberia to northern Vietnam latitudinally. Looking at the map, I realized this was somehow worse than it was in the original timeline. In terms of population density, the fragment had struck the absolute worst place in the world. At least 20% of the Earth's population must have been wiped out instantly.
Operation British had already taken more than a billion lives, and I was its poster boy. The people of Earth would try with all of their might to have me killed, and I really couldn't hold it against them.
Diego Ramos floated into the common room as I looked closely at the map. The bravado that had been straightening his posture and relaxing his expression ever since the last battle was completely gone. Even in the freedom of zero gravity, I could tell that a powerful guilt was weighing down his shoulders.
"Yo," I said, casually waving at him with two fingers.
"Dogwood… did you see the Earth? Did you see what we did?" Ramos asked shakily.
"Yeah," I said. For the past six days, I knew that Operation British would end in something like this. The extent of the destruction was slightly worse than I expected, but it was on the same magnitude of tragedy for which I had already prepared.
"South America and China are just… gone," Ramos said. "Eastern Europe was mostly destroyed, and they're already reporting massive flooding in every city on the Atlantic Ocean."
"Thanks for the update," I said, drawing a big X over the entirety of South America.
I made a realization, and it made me want to laugh. Australia was one of the only countries that walked away from the initial effects of the colony drop unscathed. You're welcome, Sydney.
"How are you so calm about this, Hero of Operation British? We just killed BILLIONS of people!"
"Hey, it was just me and Vultee aboard Island Iffish. You weren't an active pilot yet," I said, deep in thought about the future. My mind had been racing ever since I witnessed the colony drop, and I had spent every minute since then thinking about how this would change everything.
"Answer me!" Ramos said, floating toward me with his fists clenched.
"Okay," I said coolly as I rose to my feet. "I'm calm because I knew this would happen six days ago."
"You knew!?"
"Yes, I knew that Island Iffish would split into three parts and rain onto the Earth at random. The colony wasn't made for reentry. It was inevitable that it would split up in the upper atmosphere."
"Why didn't you tell us!?"
I wondered the same thing myself. In truth, it was because I didn't trust him and Vultee to keep their mouths shut. My mission to limit this war to less than a month would need to be subtle and precise. My squadmates had shown themselves to be excellent soldiers, but they were not precise instruments.
"The only people who knew were me and Admiral Schneider!" I said, my voice rising in volume. "When you're in the military, information is shared on a need-to-know basis, and you didn't need to know!"
Unable to control himself any longer, Ensign Diego Ramos pushed off the ground and charged head-first into my chest. He grabbed the front of my uniform, and I took a jab to the jaw. The pain shot through me, and I was filled with anger. I had always been the kind of person who leaned into the "fight" part of the fight-or-flight response.
With all the force I could manage in a zero gravity environment, I punched Diego Ramos in the face. We grappled in the air, trading heavy blows. It really wasn't pretty, but no unarmed combat in zero gravity looked good.
It quickly became apparent that I held the advantage. I was five centimeters taller and ten kilograms heavier than Ramos. With our relatively even athleticism, my blows were much heavier than his. I landed a heavy strike on Ramos, and our grapple was broken. He was bleeding from his nose and a cut on his eyebrow whereas I could feel bruises from where Ramos had hit me.
Ramos tried to move toward me again, but he was restrained by half a dozen nearby soldiers. At the same time, my arms were lightly grabbed by two other soldiers.
Enraged and bruised, I shouted, "Do you really think you have the right to be sad about this!? How do you think I feel? I knew all this time, and I still did what I had to do. What you're feeling right now isn't one percent of the despair I felt when I activated the gas on Island Iffish!"
"Why?" Diego Ramos said, straining against the men holding him back. "Why did you do it?"
Self-preservation was what I wanted to say, but a platoon of men was watching me at that moment. The Hero of Operation British wouldn't be motivated by such base desires.
"It was a necessary evil," I spat. "Take him to the brig."
I turned to shake off the two men restraining me and saw that one of them was Ensign Vultee. As the soldiers carried Ramos away, Vultee watched them leave with sorrow clouding his expression.
"What's going to…?" Vultee said, but he interrupted himself. He cleared his throat and started over. "What will his punishment be, sir?"
"I won't press charges, naturally. I'd prefer for him to just stay in the brig for a few hours so that he can cool his head," I said, gingerly poking the bruises on my cheeks as they slowly turned purple.
"He could be court martialled for that," Vultee muttered.
"And that would be a great loss to the war effort," I said with a shrug.
"It would," Vultee said, nodding his head.
"So," I said, stretching my aching neck, "are you gonna take a swing at me next?"
"What? Why would I do that?"
"You have even more reason to attack me than Ramos did, since you were actually there with me at Island Iffish," I said, keeping my eyes on Vultee. I could definitely handle the little guy if we came to blows. He couldn't have weighed more than 65 kilograms.
"As far as I'm concerned, the Earthlings had it coming," Vultee said, a deep anger bubbling just beneath the surface.
I wasn't keeping track, but these sudden deranged statements by Vultee were starting to concern me. He really bought into the Zeon propaganda.
Diego Ramos's anger toward me was totally understandable, as far as I was concerned. I would probably act the same way if I were in his shoes. Vultee, however, was a man I didn't understand.
It was a topic I would have to broach subtly. After pausing for a beat, I said, "Did you have a run-in with the Federation at some point?"
Vultee vocalized a wordless sound, and his expression darkened. Quietly, he said, "My father was one of Zeon Zum Deikun's earliest followers. When Deikun died… no… when he was assassinated, there was a protest, and the Federation gunned the protesters down. My father, Friedrich Vultee, was just one of thirty-three people killed that day. I was sent to the military academy at Side 3. Ever since then, I was looking for my revenge against the people that killed my father, and Garma Zabi gave me that chance two years ago."
"The Dawn Rebellion," I said as things started to become clearer.
"Yes. When the call came, I was the first to pick up arms and strike at the Federation. We took them by surprise and forced the remnants of Federation forces out of Side 3."
"I see. Thanks for sharing," I said.
"I'm not unique, you know," Vultee muttered. "Everyone here has their own reason to hate the Earth Federation. I'm sure you had your own reason for pressing forward even when you knew Operation British would end like this."
"Something like that," I said noncommittally as a man in a suit entered the common area.
I spoke to the Judge Advocate (basically a military lawyer) for a few minutes, and we agreed to sweep the whole thing under the rug. He stressed the point, however, that the military would not be this lenient next time this happened. Next time, they would press charges even if I wanted them dropped.
The next 24 hours passed by uneventfully as the Gidoru fell into a dour mood. The mood was increased somewhat by news that no one in the Federation had been able to contact Jaburo ever since the colony drop. According to reports, General Revil was in Jaburo when it was struck by the largest fragment of Island Iffish. This put a smile on my face.
All I had to do now was survive the Battle of Loum, and the Principality of Zeon would be able to sign an agreeable treaty with the Earth Federation. Perhaps I would find some way to kill Vice Admiral Tianem to make sure that he didn't take General Revil's place and convince the Earth Federation to keep fighting. Either way, I had plenty of time to plan.
January 11th, 0079
I stepped into the brig the next day, and I was put into an interrogation room with Diego Ramos. The room was decorated only with two chairs and a table all bolted to the ground.
As I floated in and took a seat opposite Ramos's jumpsuit-wearing body, he didn't look me in the eyes. His wounds were bandaged, at least.
"What's going to happen to me?" Ramos asked.
"That depends," I said. "You and I are in the exact same position. Either we can work for Zeon and maybe walk out the other side of this war with our lives, or we can rebel and die."
"Wha-?" Ramos began to say, but I cut him off.
"You asked me 'why' I carried out Operation British even when I knew how it would end. The truth is that we're in the deep end now, and this is our only path forward. Working for Zeon and winning this war is our only chance at survival. Otherwise, the Federation will execute us in some black site and dump our ashes in the ocean. Which path will you take, Diego Ramos? Will you stay with me, or will you die?"
As I spoke, I stared at Ramos with the intensity of total conviction. I was confident in my words, since I knew they were true.
Quietly, Diego Ramos said, "I-I want to live."
"Come on, then," I said with a smile. "Let's go back to the crew quarters."
"You're not going to press charges?"
With a grin on my face, I said, "Why would I do that? I won the fight."
"I hadn't given up yet," Ramos muttered quietly.
"Well, there's not going to be a rematch. If you attack me again, they actually will court martial you," I said as one of the guards handed Ramos his uniform.
"It won't happen again. That was… I was just angry. I needed to blame someone, and you were the only person within reach that I could reasonably blame. It was obvious, in hindsight. You didn't give the order, you just carried it out," Ramos said.
"As history shows, that argument doesn't hold water in a war crimes tribunal," I said.
"What do you mean?" Ramos said, clearly not understanding my reference.
"Nothing."
With my squad unified once more, I went right back to the strict training regimen we had been following ever since Ramos joined the team. For some reason, they were holding on to my battered and crumpled Zaku (the point defense turrets did more damage to my mobile suit than I originally thought), so I had to practice with another MS-06C Zaku II.
When we practiced, one person always carried a ZMP-47D 105mm Machine Gun while the other two brought bazookas. The idea was that the squad member armed with the MG would deal with the fighters while the two with the bazookas would attack the warships.
During this time period, I was also able to convince my wing commander to let Oracle Squad engage in melee training. The only stipulation was that we would not be allowed to activate our Heat Hawks during training. Inevitably, our Zakus returned to the Gidoru with deep scratches every time, but the wing commander was willing to look the other way for the Hero of Operation British.
January 13th, 0079
Solomon Base was built into a large, misshapen asteroid. It resided at the L5 point, so it trailed far behind the Earth in its orbit around the sun. We had traveled about 1.5 million kilometers in three days, which explained why we had to accelerate so hard for both halves of the trip.
I sat in one of the many crash harnesses scattered around the Gidoru as we docked on Solomon Base. The warship accelerated erratically in different directions as the helmsman made the necessary corrections to bring such a large battleship into port. The ship shook one last time as some unseen mechanical arms finally clamped us in place.
From there, things became a lot more hectic. A flag officer came down from the bridge and brought my squad our new uniforms. When I saw my new uniform, I wanted to groan at its absurdity. The damn thing had a cape! Was I really supposed to wear a black cape everywhere I went?
Despite my internal protestations, I dressed in my new Lieutenant Commander uniform as Vultee and Ramos donned their Ensign uniforms. Compared to the cape and golden epaulettes of my uniform, their uniforms had hardly changed at all. Evidently, the uniforms only became absurd when you reached Lieutenant or higher.
"Looking sharp, Commander," Vultee said with a thumbs up as I fastened the black cloak around my shoulders.
"I look like a James Bond villain," I muttered.
"What?" Ramos asked.
"Nevermind."
Following a request from the flag officer, we floated to the hangar. The Gidoru had landed in the center of Solomon Base, so we were not yet under the effects of its artificial gravity.
A small team of civilian photographers were already waiting for us in the hangar. They cheered and applauded as we floated in, and I could tell that their adoration made Ramos want to vomit.
The photographers took a bunch of pictures of us floating in space with our banged-up Zakus in the background. I was sure that Ramos's bandaged face and my fading bruises only added to the effect.
One of the reporters, a woman in a tight skirt, said, "Excuse me, Ensign Heinrich Vultee, how did you escape from the battle uninjured?"
"Uh," Vultee said, his cheeks reddening. "You see, I… uh…"
I cut in, saying, "He just got lucky. The Zaku took all the hits."
In truth, it was incredibly rare for a mobile suit pilot to take damage during a fight. Any damage strong enough to breach the cockpit is usually more than enough to kill the pilot. In this circumstance, the lie was much easier to believe than the truth. It would ruin the pleasing illusions in their heads if they knew that two heroes of Zeon had brawled in the common room.
"Do you have anything you want to tell the people of Zeon, LCDR Dogwood?" another reporter asked.
Note: LCDR means Lieutenant Commander. This is just written short-hand. Assume that the speaker is saying "Lieutenant Commander" every time LCDR is written.
The reporters wanted something quick and pithy, something they could put as a headline in tomorrow's newspaper. I delivered the canned response that I had prepared five days ago.
"Any pilot would have done the same thing in my shoes."
We moved on from the hangar soon after, and the flag officer led us off the Gidoru and into Solomon Base. We descended down a flight of stairs until the force of the base's spin was strong enough that we had to occasionally push off the stairs to prevent ourselves from falling.
"Since we're going to be around each other for a while, what's your name?" I asked the flag officer.
Splitting his focus between the stairs and me, the officer said, "I'm Lt. Shao Wei. It is an honor to guide a squad of ace pilots like yourselves."
My lips tightened slightly. "Wei? That's a Chinese name, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir. Is that a problem?" Wei asked.
"You don't hate us? China was destroyed in Operation British," I said, stopping my descent downward and fixing my eyes on Shao Wei.
"My family left China a hundred years ago, Lieutenant Commander. I have the same connection to China that you have to France or Britain. My only loyalty is to Zeon," Wei said.
"You make a good point there," I said. That one was on me. I made a few assumptions based on my expectations from the 21st century. China hadn't existed as a political entity for 79 years before it was destroyed. "Sorry about that. Lead on."
By the time gravity was strong enough that we had to put a foot on every step, we reached a large elevator. We stepped into the elevator and began to descend. Gravity rapidly increased, and I untied my hair as we reached the bottom. Now that there was enough downward force to keep my hair from floating everywhere, I didn't have to control it as much.
We stepped out into a large room filled with Zeon soldiers, and there was an echoing round of applause as we entered. Vultee, Ramos, and I waved at the applauding soldiers, though I could tell we were more happy to finally have a regular source of gravity once again.
As we walked through the sea of gold insignias and black capes, I felt a strange sensation shoot through the back of my mind. It felt like someone unseen was watching me, but the sensation was much more intense. I turned toward the source of the feeling and spotted a single officer who stood out from all the rest. He wore a red uniform and a white helmet with lenses that covered his eyes.
Standing in the crowd was the unmistakable form of Char Aznable.