The bearing of the enemy fleet was beamed to my mobile suit, and I turned to search the designated quadrant. I couldn't see anything at the standard Zaku magnification, so I moved a dial forward a few notches, causing my vision to switch to 10x magnification. With my vision thus enhanced, I was able to spot the flickering drive signature of several hundred approaching warships.
As I looked, all of the Zeon ships turned in unison. They began accelerating toward the enemy fleet as several Zakus were left behind to attach four nuclear pulse engines to Wathort Colony. My eyes briefly brushed over the colony, and I could see that the blast doors to the colony's spaceport had been destroyed completely. A cloud of debris and detritus floated near the kilometer-wide hole in the colony, giving it the appearance of a large beast releasing a cloud of particulates in a sneeze of immense size.
"My God, he was right," Ramos muttered over the commlink.
"That was fifty-eight minutes," Vultee said with awe in his voice. "How did you know, Commander?"
Oh, no. I had to think of a believable lie that didn't involve me telling the truth or saying that I was a Newtype. After pausing for a few seconds, I said, "It was obvious when I actually put some thought into it. They must have deployed from Luna II. I just predicted when they would deploy from the base and did some orbital calculations to figure out when they would reach Wathort Colony."
The intended recipient of my speech was not listening at that moment. My superiors would wonder how I had managed to predict the appearance of the enemy fleet to such a degree, and I had to give them a legitimate justification for my strange knowledge. Those words would give them the most plausible justification. It was Occam's Razor: it was more plausible for a Zaku squad leader to have guessed right than it was for that squad leader to have figured out the truth through magic.
The sound of faint applause came through the commlink, and I realized that Vultee was clapping for me.
"Stop that," I said automatically, cringing at the prospect of receiving applause for such a minor act.
Admiral Yuri Kellerne's face appeared in my HUD. For a moment, I was concerned that this was a live call, but then he began to speak. "All Zaku squads: prepare to ambush the enemy. Set your watches for 1330 hours. Unless you receive an order contradicting this command, do not begin your attack until that time. Attack with nuclear armaments for two minutes, and then attack with conventional weapons."
The Admiral's face disappeared from my HUD, and I leaned back in my harness, deep in thought. 1330 hours was two hours from now, and the Federation fleet would be about 30,000 km from my location. That was several times the diameter of the Earth.
"Vultee, what's the maximum acceleration of your Zaku?" I asked.
"About 2.5 Gs," Vultee said quickly.
I punched that number into the Zaku's built-in orbital mechanics computer, and it immediately recommended a certain approach. If we accelerated for five minutes and decelerated for five minutes just before we reached the enemy fleet, it would take us a bit more than an hour to reach it. I'd probably have to add another ten minutes to account for the time we took to get ourselves out of the fleets' firing lines.
A giant ship-destroying beam zipped overhead at a distance that I frankly was not comfortable with. Into the commlink, I said, "Accelerate directly northwest at 2.5 Gs for one minute."
We burned away from the fleets' firing lines, and it quickly became apparent that holding 2.5 Gs for a minute was really damn uncomfortable. We had the luxury of accelerating at 1 G last time, and I soon began missing that luxury.
According to our superiors, a human could maintain 4 Gs over long periods of time without long term health effects. That may have been true, but it didn't mean it was comfortable.
"So, what's the plan, Commander?" Ramos grunted into the commlink. "How are we going to approach this?"
"Basically, we're going to hide in wait for a bit less than an hour without attacking. We'll pull up about 400 kilometers west of the Federation fleet until 1320 hours, and then we'll close to the approximate visual range of 300 kilometers before we attack," I said.
"Yes, sir," Vultee and Ramos said in unison.
It probably would have been safe to wait at a range of 150 kilometers away from the Federation fleet, since the visual range of a Zaku was significantly less than the visual range of a warship, but I was allergic to potentially dying a pointless death. If some Federation lookout coincidentally zoomed in on just the right quadrant of space, he would spot me. No thank you.
After five minutes of painful acceleration, we reached a velocity of 7,500 m/s or 27,000 km/hr relative to the Zeon fleet. As I once more began floating in space, I was taken aback by the thought that I was traveling at more than 7 kilometers per second. In the grand scheme of space combat, it wasn't that impressive, but my brain that had been bound to Earth just eleven days before was humbled nonetheless.
It was 1244 hours when we finally matched our velocity to the Federation fleet and pulled up 400 kilometers to its starboard side. At that range, I could see the flashes of light as nuclear blasts struck the Federation fleet.
We floated there in silence for more than ten minutes before Ramos sighed and said over the comms, "Hurry up and wait, huh?"
"That's how it is in the military, Oracle-3," I said.
Another minute passed, and Ramos said, "Damn, I really have brought something to read."
Surprisingly, Vultee's voice came through the comms, saying, "Commander, do you really think there will be a ground war on Earth?"
"I can't tell you why, but yeah," I muttered.
"You know, it's funny," Vultee said without laughing. "Everybody keeps telling me that I'm supposed to hate the Earth and want to destroy it. When I look at that big blue ball that controls all of our lives, I can't help but find it beautiful. Deikun was right. We really do have a spiritual connection to the Earth."
"And yet…" Ramos said, but his words were replaced by choked gargling as he forcefully stopped himself from speaking. He was following my advice. Good.
My watch soon ticked over to 1320 hours, and I once more reached forward and began interfacing with the Zaku again.
"It's time. Come on, let's go."