Chapter 4: "A Little Bit of Hell This Time…"

It had been two hours since the team’s mobile suits had left the vicinity of the base. They had gotten out with little trouble. But Sireck knew, just like everyone else knew…they were still in trouble.

Nighttime had fallen on Mars. The red sands of Mars had been covered by darkness. No light shone, and every pilot had his sensors on night vision.

"There she is…almost home…" Rilen sighed.

"We should send out a call to any Moonrace vessel. Hopefully they can make an emergency journey to here to get us out," muttered Asan.

"I know Asan, I know. We’ll do that as soon as we reach the base," Ulen spoke.

Sireck sat back. After what had happened earlier, it was nice to see some peace…some time to sort out one’s thoughts…and what to do. Of course, most of the crew was already horrified by the machines…

Sireck dazed out, returning his view to the landscape. For some odd reason, he had felt something move. As he surveyed the landscape, he saw what he had always seen: dust, rock, and dirt. But now…he saw something new…

Moving the SUMO over to the site, the suit kneeled down. The object shone green under the night vision, but Sireck turned it off and put on regular lights. Now he saw the object better…it was small, smaller than a human, and he could crush it easily…it’s green stalk stemmed out of the red ground, and its white petals spread outwards around yellow core.

The SUMO scooped up the dirt around it, and lifted it up to its head to examine it. Sireck had seen it…in books, and in the gardens inside the Moon cities. Sireck examined the daisy carefully…it was the same as any daisy he had seen…except it was growing…here.

"Whatever’s going on…it’s changing this world…"

"Hold it." Ikal’s voice woke up Sireck. "I’ve got contacts…uh…they’re…underground?"

There was silence for a few seconds…Sireck’s SUMO drew its beam gun, and looked around. Nothing…no tremors, no mounds…nothing he could see or sense…

"SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!"

Suddenly, the ground around the mobile suits exploded. Quisail’s SUMO fell down. Two stalks sprouted from the ground, at the top, screaming mechanical heads, with jaws open, gaping.

"SCREEEEEEE!!!!"

Sireck gripped his helmet, and immediately turned down the external microphones. He looked up at the screens, and saw one of the heads lunge at him.

Frightened, Sireck jerks the controls funny, and the SUMO falls over, as the teeth of the head passes over his mobile suit. Pointing his beam gun up at the stalk, he discharged a shot, and the beam sliced into the armor.

The stalk screeched, and righted out itself, and lunged down on Sireck. But at the last second, Vidd’s SUMO jetted forward, and severed the head with his heat fan.

Ikal’s and Rilen’s Gozzos stepped away from another one of the heads, and fired their railguns at one of the heads. The railguns tear holes in the necks of the stalk, but the head continues to lunge. It closes around Ikal’s mobile suit, crushing the suit and Ikal. Rilen’s mobile suit scrambled back, launching the micromissiles destroying the stalk.

"Dammit…"

Suddenly, Sireck’s sensors flared up. From the tops of a cliff, multiple suits appeared. All were designs they had seen at the base, morphed into the hideous form.

"Good job, boys…good job…"

Sireck turned his head suddenly, to look at Ulen’s WaDom walking towards the morphed mobile suits, and hearing Ulen laugh over the coms.

"Ulen…what the hell are you doing, sir?" Asan asked, nervous.

Suddenly, the WaDom turned, and its head opened, revealing the beam cannon, and fired a shot at Asan’s SUMO. The shot struck the SUMO directly in the cockpit, and the SUMO fell to the ground.

"You fools…you don’t realize how many years I’ve spent seeing this place…my master beckoned me from the beginning, and now…I’m here. And now I shall fulfill his destiny."

Sireck was cautious. Ulen was obviously mad. "Sir…please sir…calm down."

"No, Sireck. I don’t think you understand. The human race is a pest, I’ve seen that. This whole dispute over the Earth…like dogs over food. You apparently don’t understand…the power of the Devil Gundam!!!"

Vidd stammered. "D…Devil Gundam?"

"That’s right, Vidd. I’m sorry you don’t share the views with me. Don’t worry about Lostan, he’s in a good place now…I assure you…but you…you must all die…"

Suddenly, the WaDom stood to full height, and begun a horrible transformation. The black color of the WaDom was replaced by the same blood red and dark gold sceme as the mobile suits. The wrists on the hands sprouted spikes, sharp and steely. The dome on top spiked, and finally, from its chest, suddenly began to poke out a head, like those on the morphed suits. The head looked up, and glared at the remaining mobile suits.

In a disembodied voice, like two voices, a machine's and his, Ulen raged, "Now you shall feel pain, weaklings!!!"

Sireck gritted his teeth, and looked up. The mobile suits above point their weapons down at the mobile suits.

"Guys, up! Now!"

The mobile suits jetted upward, away from the weapon fire. Gripping the beam gun, the SUMO fired two shots, nailing two of the mobile suits. Vidd nailed another suit, and Rilen let a flight of micromissiles go into the group of them. However, one of the transformed suits, lept into the air, and slashed through Quisail's machine with a heat rod, killing Quisail before Solak nailed the morphed machine with his railgun.

But just then, Ulen began his assault. Compartments on the head popped open, and two of the four missile launchers in the head unleashed their missiles. The fourty-eight missiles corkscrewed into the air at the four mobile suits, and lashed at Solak’s machine, which exploded.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

The modified WaDom then turned to the next machines, and fired the beam cannon. "No, watch it!" Vidd’s SUMO deployed its IF generator, which reflected the shot. Sireck turned around, and blasted the remaining mobile suits with the beam gun.

Now it was just the three of them against a possesed Ulen. Still not good chances.

The morphed WaDom suddenly leaped up into the air, launching six missiles at the group. The missiles missed wide, striking the cliff wall. The WaDom then landed down close, and thrust its fist at Rilen’s Gozzo. The Gozzo, due to its low size, only was punched in the railgun. The railgun fired, and smashed through part of the torso of the WaDom, but did no reasonable damage.

Sireck’s SUMO took out its heat fan, and tried to stab at the WaDom. The WaDom grabbed his arm, and with the spikes on the other arm, smashed the arm to pieces. The SUMO fell to the ground.

The WaDom opened up its head, and was about to fire its beam cannon at Sireck, when Vidd’s SUMO used its thrusters to "jump" up and grab the dome and push it up, away from Sireck.

Sireck got back up, just as Ulen’s WaDom turned, and launched the other missiles at Rilen. Rilen could not dodge the attack, and the explosions covered his Gozzo, and the machine danced under the explosions, until it fell over, with a gaping hole in its cockpit area.

Sireck’s SUMO fired another shot from its beam gun at the WaDom. The shot slashed across the dome, but only took out one of the machine’s anti-air vulcan guns and the empty missile pod, instead of his target of the beam cannon, the only main weapon the WaDom had left. dangit, why the hell did Ulen have to take the super-armored machine?

Suddenly, the WaDom turned towards Sireck’s SUMO, and the headpiece opened again. "No…" The beam cannon discharged, its lethal energy smashing into the silver armor of the SUMO, tearing right through its chest, and the proud machine finally toppled to the ground.

Sireck opened his eyes as soon as the SUMO had landed. He quickly unstrapped, and cracked the cockpit…to see the WaDom starring down at him. From the headset still on him, Sireck heard Ulen’s disembodied words.

"You fight well…but you are human…and you shall die…" The cannon opened up again, and prepared to fire again. Sireck closed his eyes.

Suddenly, a beam shot smashed into the side of the WaDom’s chest. Sireck scrambled away, and looked…to see Vidd’s SUMO, standing in the darkness, beam gun in hand, pointed at the morphed WaDom, not moving.

"You’ve killed too many people, whatever the hell you are. And now you shall die."

Ulen (or whatever the hell he was now) laughed. "Foolish…another flaw of humans…"

The SUMO fired another shot from its beam gun, and it smashed into the dome, and the shot was true: Sireck saw the smoldering ruins of the beam cannon.

"That was my last shot, Ulen. And I lost my heat fan a while back, and my IF generator is damaged. It’s just down to brute force then…"

Ulen laughed. "Then you’ve already lost."

"Maybe…maybe not…"

The SUMO approached the morphed WaDom, and the head on the WaDom moved, its hellish eye watching every movement Vidd was making. All Sireck could do was watch as the two mobile suits prepared to…wrestle…like ancient giants, in a contest of strength.

Suddenly, the SUMO lunged, and, like its namesake, grappled the WaDom. The WaDom stepped back a step, and tried to shove the SUMO away, but Vidd held on firm. The WaDom shifted its footing, and pushed the SUMO away.

Vidd wasn’t so placated. The boosters on SUMO ignited, and the massive mobile suit lunged at the WaDom, and tried to punch it. The punch smashed straight into the head of the machine, and the eye was broken.

The WaDom lurched back, apparently uncontrolable without the head. However, on the verge of its death, it brought both its spiked wrists down, onto the SUMO’s pelvis, where the cockpit was, and crushed it. Finally, both machines toppled.

Sireck froze…and looked at the crushed cockpit of the SUMO…where Vidd was. He quickly ran up to it, hoping to find his friend all right…he just thought that, somehow, Vidd had survived…

Jumping up onto the leg of the SUMO, Sireck raced towards the crushed cockpit. Prying it opened, he looked inside.

Inside, layed Vidd. He did not move…and there were no wounds…except for the large piece of glass jutting out of his chest, like a rock out of water.

Sireck picked up his friend’s lifeless body, and held it for a second. This whole trip to Mars…they had expected so little…they had expected nothing, except to have fun…how naïve they had been…how careless, how they had laughed at the new frontier…

Sireck screamed out in the night, into the lonely darkness of Mars, alone. He was the one who buried Vidd’s body, alone, in the cold sands of the planet of war. It was the only body he buried: he could not find the others.

Somehow, he managed to drag himself from the sands of Mars back to base, where he cried himself to sleep. Mars was now cold to him now…