"It had to be him," Col. Sean Patterson thought as he peered out of the Big Tray's now damaged bridge. Outside, he saw not one, but TWO Dobday class land battleships, escorted by several Zeon MS, that were now hitting his Big Tray hard. He was a little impressed at how quickly they had reacted. Well, HE had to be the one commanding them, and he just loved two-pronged attacks. He picked up his radio and ordered his surviving tanks and guns to fire. They complied, and he could soon see flashes on the Zeon positions as his men scored hits on them. He knew about the coming A-bomb and the charging MS from the west, but regardless of what was happening elsewhere, he still had to hold this hill. Failing to do so would have as severe a consequence as a nuclear warhead detonating over the main group...
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"Sylvie! Snap out of it, what is going on in the other side?" Max said over the radio in an annoyed tone. He had already fired twice at the group that has appeared in the west, killing a Gouf and a Zaku while a few bazooka shots from the hilltop took out four of the supporting Magellas. But the rest had closed towards the hill in a headlong rush, ignoring him and Sylvie, and his laser was just recharging too slowly for him to be able to engange more targets before they got on the hilltop. And there was no way he could fire when they got up there. Luckily, the charge indicator blipped green once again, just before they reached the hilltop, and he fired, this time at a Zaku squadron leader. It was split in half and exploded, but the rest had managed to use their thrusters and had landed on the hilltop, and he had no line of sight on them now, and his heavy rifle kept him from joining the melee going on above. "SYLVIE! I am moving out to the other side, and screw the nuke!" he said in a slightly excited tone.
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Had Sylvie really heard that last statement, she would normally have been terrified since Max was too cool a guy to be excited. Not now though, she was frantically trying to re-establish radio contact with the main group. She had lost them just after the nuke warning came in, and all efforts to get further information had failed. She checked the clock. Five seconds to impact. She peered out of the hatch regardless of the 175mm shells that were now being fired at her Hover truck and looked to the east. She looked on helplessly... knowing only a miracle could stop that nuke. She just looked on, knowing a blinding flash was about to come... now.

But nothing happened. She waited for a few seconds more that seemed like an eternity, but no mushroom cloud appeared. She was so surprised that she hadn't noticed that she had been hit by some shrapnel in her shoulder. She pressed her hand on the wounds as the pain began to assert itself, and she quickly scrambled down the hatch as more shells exploded around her Hover truck. Below, two angry faces were waiting for her.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ABOUT!!!!????" Earl shouted angrily at Sylvie. Pat would have said that also, but he was still busy evading enemy fire. "Are you trying to get killed?!"

"Umm... sorry guys. I sorta freaked out there... what did Max say again?" she asked, embarassed with her performance.

"I said I was just took out those Magellas for you," Max said calmly as his beam destroyed the last two Magellas, "And I'm now transferring to the other side. The hill top's getting messy though."

"Thanks, Max..." Sylvie replied in an weak tone. He had saved her, again. Damn it... not again... "We're following you now..."

"Get yourself patched up first, Sylvie, Rifle out."
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"They did it." General Revil thought somberly. The White Base had performed just as he expected. But he still had a few problems in his hands. "How is Hill 14 doing? Do we have any further reports?"

"Sir, we've lost contact with them, but it could just be..." an aide started.

"Once the 3rd and 4th Bomber groups are done rearming and refueling, send them there. That hilltop must remain ours at all cost."
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Trying to keep the hill top might just be the last thing he'd ever do, Juan thought. The death of Martha was the start of a nightmare, and one he could not wake up from. Fortunately, it was now a fairly even fight thanks to Max, two Zakus and a Gouf against the three surviving GMs, but the GMs had been slightly damaged by both the Magella Attacks and the Dodais, and the Gouf pilot was a definitely an ace. Fred was already down, both of his MS's legs had been chopped off by the Gouf, though he had managed to stab a Zaku that had tried to finish him off. Unfortunately, the dead Zaku was now on top of him and Fred was pretty much out of it. The Captain, however, was going berserk, firing his 100mm machine gun wildly at the evading Gouf. That left him in a one-on-one fight with a Desert Zaku.

The Desert Zaku was inferior to Juan's GM, but the enemy pilot was up to the challenge, and Juan quickly lost an arm from the Zaku's hand rockets, while it had evaded his return volley. Juan was hit by a few bursts of 120mm shells but fortunately, the tough Luna-Titanium armor on his special semi-prototype GM deflected it off. Realizing the 120mm was largely useless, the Zaku produced a heat axe, and stood in a menacing pose as it got ready to charge. And the blade could DEFINITELY penetrate his armor. Juan discarded his machine gun and produced his own beam saber, just in time to block the initial slash. The Zaku swung his axe again, but Juan managed to swing his saber back this time. The Zaku beheaded his GM just as he chopped off one of the Zaku's legs, and it collapsed on the ground while Juan swung his blade wildly until the backup camera came on line, not realizing he had hit the Zaku. He looked on the ground and saw the Zaku sprawled on the ground, disabled, and its pilot already bailing out. Juan considered finishing it off and taking the pilot prisoner for a moment, but looking at the Captain's badly damaged suit, he decided that he had better try to take out the second Gouf instead.

Juan picked up his machine gun and aimed at the still-undamaged Gouf. Still distracted by Juan's Captain, the Gouf was now vulnerable from his fire. He grinned, even ace pilots had their day... He fired a three round burst at its cockpit that finally killed the Gouf, but as it went down, the 75mm finger guns were still firing, hitting the Captain's GM in both knees, right on the joint, and his suit collapsed down on the ground, unable to move.

"Dammit! Juan! Get help! My suit is busted!" the Captain ordered angrily.

Juan looked down towards the base of the hill. One look told him that help was something what they needed a lot of. Now.
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"This is Rifle, I am setting up now just east of the tank forces, anybody left there?" Max asked as he began to set up his laser. The spot he picked wasn't perfect, but at least it was rugged enough to hide his GM Sniper for about two or three shots. And he needed to make them count, big time. There was a total of fifteen enemy suits and two land battleships on the horizon. Four of the MS were blue high-performance types, although one of them and two Zaku IIs were down from the tank fire. Unfortunately, the tanks were faring much worse, he was sure.

"This is Captain Dave Anderson! My company is down to eight working tanks, I think we've lost at least twenty. I need help now! The GMs are still active, but my tanks are going to run out of ammo very... OH ****! They are charging us!!!"

Max immediately turned his attention back towards the line and saw that they were indeed coming. One Zaku II exploded just as it began to charge, but the rest of the tank's volley was deflected by shields or evaded. It meant that whoever trained these guys was one hell of a commander. Nonetheless, he aimed at one of the Dobdays first. They were the command platforms, and they were the key to disrupting the attack. One was already burning from the hits of the Big Tray, but the second was unscathed. Not for long, as a five second long laser burst sliced off its command towers, destroying them all and abruptly causing confusion among the MS force. Seizing this opportunity, he fired again. This time at a squad leader Gouf, right at the cockpit and killing it instantly. Unfortunately, an alert Zaku II leader saw him, and they weren't ingoring him like the first batch. He fired at the squad leader, exploding it, but by then three Zakus had opened fire at him. He dropped his rifle and started to run away, his rifle was useless, and he had to fight like the other GMs now. His decision proved wise, because scarcely three seconds later, Zaku's bazookas reduced his discarded rifle to rubble.

"Need some weapons?" a female voice asked. Max looked at were it came from, it was Sylvie, and her Hover Truck's storage racks were brimming with ammo and spare weapons.

"Thanks, Sylvie, you have some 150mm shells with you?"

"No, the tanker's ammo trucks are being hit by the Dodais right now, and the AA section is dealing with them. The only thing I could get is a pair of MPT Guntanks, but they'll take a while."

Max nodded as he picked up a 100mm. The ten surviving enemy suits had stopped their charge, but he knew that was going to change soon. And it was a good thing his GM Sniper got rid of that rifle, now he could maneuver it is as well as an ordinary GM Ground Type. He started to dash towards the battlefield, Sylvie right behind him.
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Brigadier General Erwin von Bock of the Zeon's 3rd Brigade waited patiently for reports in his Gau command carrier. He wanted to be there, but he knew his place. He made some mistakes, he knew, and the humanoid machines the Feds had were an unruly surprise, but he had the enemy battalion in the ropes now, despite his losses. Mainly due to a number of his mistakes, he shouldn't have told the western attack group to rush up the hill like that, but he didn't dwell on that. If he took the hill, he might be able to outflank the main Federation forces about to breakthrough the main defenses. He looked at his very short tally of reserves. He only had two of them and he wanted to use them later, but he decided that if not, he might be too late.
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The field was now covered with smoke from all the burning vehicles, but the two GMs, Max saw, were still intact and taking shelter behind the Big Tray. One of them quickly stood out of cover for a moment and fired, severing an arm off a Zaku, before heading back. He recognized the suit, it was of his old buddy, George Axel.

"What took you, Rifle?" George asked somberly. They had been holding the line for what seemed to be an awful long time, and only the profligate use of now dwindling ammo had kept the enemy at bay. "Good to see you brought us some spare clips, how about the tanks?"

"Ammo trucks got slaughtered, I don't think..."

"Damn it, Max! We need ammo now!" He screamed angrily as his wingman ducked out of cover and fired. A rocket suddenly streaked towards the second GM and hit it. The GM looked strangely intact, and still upright... until Max saw to his horror that the cockpit was open, and burning. Beside the GM, a parachute floated towards the ground, on fire. It had been ejected automatically, but there was no pilot...

"WHAT THE HELL ARE THOSE!!??" a new voice screamed over the radio. Max recognized it as the tank Captain that he had talked to earlier, Anderson. Max looked back towards the Zeon positions and saw two new MS. A pair of huge, fat MS, each brandishing a huge bazooka mounted on its shoulder.

"Those are the new MS that the Black Trinary used in an earlier encounter," Colonel Patterson announced quietly over the intercom, "Damn Zeon! I thought they were only prototypes!"

Those new MS were in fact, MS-09 Doms. The new Zeon mass-produced ground combat mobile suit. And their capabilities were nothing short of awesome. And they aimed their main weapon, the huge 360mm bazookas, right at the Big Tray.

"Damn it..." the Colonel started. A pair of 360mm rockets then impacted his Big Tray and cut his transmission short. Dave then ordered his tanks to fire madly as the whole Zeon line began to advance. There were, in fact, twenty-two tanks left, but four were out of ammo, and the Goufs proved too maneuverable and well armored for their guns. Not the Zakus though, two Zakus fell victim to their opening volley, but then both Doms rushed pass the rest of the Zeon forces, travelling on a super-heated cushion of air generated by the Dom's leg thrusters, at a mind-boggling 240 kilometers per hour. And far too fast for any of the tanks to react...

George had just started to aim at the first Dom when a blinding light suddenly filled his eyes. It was the Dom's beam spray gun, and though it was incapable of doing real damage, the few seconds distraction it gave was enough to seal his fate. He fired wildly, but to no avail. A point blank bazooka shot from the Dom exploded his suit and reduced it to rubble.

Max saw that, and could hardly contain the rage that he felt. But a second Dom was on him, and he had no time. An opening shot by the Dom missed, but so did his return volley. The Dom stopped for a moment for a better aim, but then a lucky 150mm shell from Dave hit the Dom, wrecking its bazooka. The Dom was dazed, but had immediately produced a heat blade and charged Max. He fired at the oncoming Dom, missing, and missing again, but finally hit the Dom in the arm just as it was about to cut him in half. The arm broke off, along with its melee weapon and Max turned to finish it off, but then a pair of shells exploded the Dom. He looked behind him, two new MPT Guntanks had arrived, smoke rising from the barrels of one of them.

"Captain Karl here, we're ready to..." his transmission was suddenly interrupted by the surviving Dom as it killed Karl's wingman with his last rocket, "Damn it! Get that guy!"

Max was already firing at the Dom as it pulled out its own heat blade. It was a one-on-one fight now. The rest of the tanks and a surviving headless GM on the hilltop were busy keeping the main MS force from breaking through. The Dom evaded, and rushed towards him, again firing the beam spray gun that blinded him. By the time his vision returned, his suit had lost an arm, and the Dom was behind him. He started to turn around... knowing that it would be too late to...

Notice: This story and all related material is copyrighted by Thomas E. "Zinegata" Ting, no part of this story may be taken by any other person. If you wish to use any material, please contact me first. Gundam and all related trademarks are owned by their respective companies.