Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam or Code Geass, and this work is merely a creative and absolutely non-commercial exercise on my part.

Codes of Liberation

Chapter 2

The Britannian counterattack was advancing in a broad front, Knightmares forming spearheads flanked by tanks and IFVs, while behind them APCs rumbled in their wake, ready to crush whatever the Sutherlands and tanks left behind. One such Sutherland was piloted by Margrave Jeremiah Gottwald. "Has Command given any information about who we're facing?" he asked over the encrypted line.

"Not yet…" Villeta Nu replied. "…apparently we can't break into their communications – yet – and all we've got are images of the enemy insignia from those airships of theirs."

An image of just that appeared on Jeremiah's display, and the Margrave narrowed his eyes at the stylized, golden rose. "Who in the world could they be?" he wondered aloud. "Europeans or Chinese…?"

"If they are, then heads will roll in Intel for missing this." Kewell answered. "Not just this invasion too, but those airships as well…though I don't really buy the reports coming from the front about giant Knightmares…"

"I'm inclined to agree." Villeta said. "Both the EU and the Chinese Federation have Knightmares, but getting ones as big as the reports are saying would require more assets devoted to research and development than we are putting into our Knightmares. And we're putting HUGE amounts of assets into it, more so than either…"

"…a third party…?" Kewell snorted. "That's impossible…I hate to say this but maybe the Europeans or the Chinese managed to pull one or more over us. And more heads will roll for it."

"My thoughts exactly…" Jeremiah began only to break off as he spotted some of their forces opening fire on buildings in their way, either out of suspicion that there might be enemies lurking in ambush, or simply out of lack of fire discipline. "…hold your fire, damn it! Wait until we contact the enemy…!"

Alarms suddenly came to life, and Jeremiah barely had time to glance at it as a purple beam lanced down from the sky and blew his Knightmare apart. "What the hell was that?" he shouted as his ejected cockpit flew off into the distance.

"Incoming…!" Villeta shouted.

"I can see that!" Kewell shouted as more beams lanced down, destroying Knightmares and tanks with terrifying ease. "Concentrate your fire, find the enemy and destroy them!"

Fahnrich zur See Ple Drei fired her assault rifle again and again, taking down Knightmares and armored squads with single shots. "Hey, hey…" she spoke up over the line. "…we're good, but taking out all of these guys seems a bit much to me. We could probably do it, but it's going to drawn-out, you know what I mean?"

"What do we do?" Kapitanleutnant Ple Zwei asked. Korvettenkapitan Elpeo Ple set her face and opened a line to all her sisters.

"We don't need to wipe them out all we need to do is to break their backs. Angel Leader to all Court Guards: Typhoon Formation!"

"Roger!"

Immediately Panther and Storm squadrons formed echelon formations to Angel squadron's left and right while deploying funnels. "Panther Leader to all Panthers…" Oberleutnant zur See Ple Vier began. "…you know what I see?"

"Targets…!"

"Fatalities…!"

Fahnrich zur See Ple Funf and Sechs replied as one with bloodthirsty glee, the Imperial Court Guards opening fire with beam assault rifles and funnels in a storm of purple beams. Knightmares went down with holes burned through them, many pilots ejecting before their units exploded. Most however were killed when their cockpits were vaporized by a beam's passage, or their automatic systems were fried and they were unable to manually eject in time.

The armored forces – tanks and IFV – took the brunt of the losses however, entire squads vanishing as beams rained down on them. As the advance crumpled to a halt, the mechanized infantry to the rear struggled to fall back in an orderly retreat in the face of unexpectedly superior firepower, but the chaos resulting from the enemy counterattack was wreaking havoc with inter-unit coordination and communications.

"Fall back…!" Kewell shouted, opening fire and cursing as the enemy danced clear or his ammunition simply had no effect on their armor. Landspinners roaring, he avoided the return fire deftly, opening fire on the small drones supporting the flying Knightmares.

God…they really are huge…who the hell are these people? Where did they come from?

"Kewell…!" Villeta shouted. "We cannot hold!"

"We outnumber them!" he roared. "All units fall back and setup a defense line! Overwhelm them with concentrated firepower!"

Elpeo Ple narrowed her eyes as she watched the enemy redeploy on her tactical display, a detached part of her mind barely registering instinctively frying a group of armored vehicles with her funnels. "They're trying to beat us with a comprehensive defense…" she said with a smile. "…that might work. Our armor is good, and we're fast, but if they send up enough lead and blanket the sky they might actually punch through."

"What do we do?" Ple Drei asked.

"Angel Leader to all units…" Elpeo ordered. "…let them setup their line…"

"Angel Leader…!" Oberleutnant zur See Ple Sieben protested.

"We'll crush them in one blow…" Elpeo interrupted, flying up and down in a broad arc, flying low and fast over the ground. "…let's do that."

"Seriously…?" Ple Drei said.

"We finally get to do it eh?" Ple Sechs said with glee.

"Fall in Panthers…" Ple Viers ordered. "…standby for assault."

"Let's do this Angels…!" Elpeo said, the nine Court Guards ripping through the intervening space with funnels flying between their squads, beams destroying everything between them and the enemy line. The Britannians opened fire, 120mm and 40mm rounds from tanks and IFVs and from Sutherland assault rifles hitting hard against the advancing Valkyries.

"Scheiss…!" Ple Funf swore. "Toys they might be, but they've got a lot of firepower there! Our armor can't take too much of this!"

"We're close enough!" Elpeo shouted both verbally and telepathically as the Angels, Panthers, and Storms fell into line behind their respective leaders. All nine Newtypes linked their minds with each other, and as one overcharged their fusion drives, speeding up to three times greater than maximum normal speed.

"JETSTREAM ATTACK…!"

Angel, Panther, and Storm Leaders fired on full auto with their funnels and assault beam rifles on pure instinct, the barrage reducing entire sections of the Britannian line to smoking wrecks. The three lead units disengaged at maximum speed, soaring up into the sky as the Britannians tried to shore up their line. Angel, Panther, Storms Two opened up similarly to the first attack, followed up with a missile barrage – guided via psycommu much like their funnels – and cracked the Britannian line open in three areas.

Villeta screamed as flames licked her skin, her Sutherland toppling to the ground as a missile pulverized its front section. Her screams were cut short as short-circuiting electrical systems shocked her into unconsciousness.

"Villeta…!" Kewell shouted, even as many of the Britannians began to break. "Damn you…cowards…!"

There was pain and a feeling of intense heat…and then nothing. The bisected form of Kewell's Sutherland exploded shortly after being torn apart by Storm Three's beam whip, the mobile suit agilely corkscrewing through the air, missiles and funnels firing in multiple directions. The beam whips destroyed everything in melee range, while the missiles and funnels completely splintered the already-broken Britannian line.

The Britannians broke, infantry abandoning their IFVs and APCs and running on foot, while surviving Sutherlands and tanks retreated as fast as they could, ignoring the shouted orders from Command to stand fast and fight. In her Valkyrie, Elpeo watched as the Britannians retreated, and after confirming that all Court Guards had disengaged, she typed in and sent a priority communication to the fleet commander.

"Angel Leader to all units…" she said. "…maintain distance: we'll break open the Tokyo Settlement in one blow!"

"Target coordinates received from Korvettenkapitan Ple." A bridge operator on the Second Fleet Flagship reported.

"Overlay them on the tactical display." Vizeadmiral Iman Avari ordered. "Signal the ships in range, prepare for bombardment."

"Roger…"

The UC 0091 Class featured as her main armament nine mega particle cannons in triple turrets, along with six additional mega particle cannons in twin turrets. Two of the former were positioned on the forward dorsal hull, with the latter positioned on the forward ventral hull. The last triple turret was located on the rear dorsal hull, above the engine. Three UC 0091 Classes were in position to fire on the Britannian rout fleeing back into the Tokyo Settlement…and from their port broadsides.

"Mega Particles compressed to ninety-three percent maximum density…" the gunnery officer of the flagship reported.

"Main guns…" Kapitan zur See Mayumi Okazaki ordered. "…fire."

Forty-five lances of superheated and super-dense particles sheared through the air, the roar drawing the awed and terrified attention of people across the city. Over a thousand Britannian troops perished in the bombardment, and with their other forces in Tokyo scattered and with communications disrupted by the speed of the Imperial attack and Minovsky interference, the Tokyo Settlement was now open to attack.

Sadistic laughter filled the Imperial Court Guards' channel. "That's the way…!" Ple Funf cackled. "So brutal…!"

"Knock it off Number Five!" Elpeo ordered irritably.

"Aww…"

Muttering under her breath, Elpeo opened a closed channel with Elpeo Zwei and Elpeo Vier. "I know that all Panthers have…instability, but you have medication for that." She said. "Vier, is Funf taking her medicine?"

"She better be." Vier said darkly. "Or there'll be hell to pay. I'm not averse to a bit of psychopathy every so often – it's quite useful in battle after all – but not to the point that it gets out of hand. Zwei, I might need your help in this."

"You've got it."

Elpeo nodded as a message arrived from the flagship. She narrowed her eyes, and reopened the main channel. "New orders from Command One…" she said. "…we have a new target: the Viceroy's Palace!"

A/N

Sorry 'bout that…I was going to update the previous chapter, and I didn't notice messing up. It should be fixed now.

No colony drop…

Revan193: they developed new ones in the past ten years, though some of the older models will appear eventually. An explanation will also be provided why the Valkyrie is not the only model in use by the Imperial forces.

Drgyen: I will provide one once things calm down a bit. The empire hasn't had contact with Earth though, and with CG Earth having no real space technology and with Minovsky interference and all that…yeah, no one until now knows about the empire's existence.

Zeon/the Solar Empire has a Germanic theme to it, but they are not ethnically homogenous, spacenoids being what they are. The Second Fleet's commander is Iranian, while the captain of the flagship is Japanese. Ethnically…culturally their spacenoids, so they should be quite cosmopolitan.

Finally, new question: Nina Einstein. Honestly she annoys me, and she's a freaking nuclear scientist. Should I kill her or let Britannia get her? Zeon/the Solar Empire doesn't need her after all, given they already have nukes and nuclear power and all other forms of nuclear technology.

Fahnrich zur See = Midshipman

Kapitanleutnant = Lieutenant-Captain

Oberleutnant zur See = Senior Lieutenant