One Week War:

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam, it is owned by Bandai and Sunrise.

Chapter 1: Ever closer to war.

Zum City, Side 3, late December 0078:

Named after the martyred leader of Zeon, the capital of the Principality of Zeon (formerly Side 3) usually bristled with life despite the presence of the military. Soldiers and civilians mingled with each other as they tried to go about their lives despite the persistent and numerous rumors of war with the hated Earth Federation. Many here did not want a war but they felt that it was the only way to achieve the desire of independence from the hated elites of Earth.

This night however, the city remained deathly quiet and a sense of foreboding hung around the air as convoys headed towards the space ports, berths started to become empty and the factories such as the Zeonic Corporation and Zimmad Company went into overtime in the production of new weapons of war. Most importantly of all, numerous motorcades zoomed through the streets towards the enormous and foreboding White palace that served as the residence of Degwin Sodo Zabi, leader of Zeon, and his children when they arrived in from both Solomon and A Bao Qau.

As each of the VIPs arrived, military police escorted them inside into a large conference room that contained many paintings and several large view screens of space. It had a large table found in rich mansions.

Many politicians and generals were present at the meeting but the most important members were that of Kycilia Zabi (commander of the Mobile Attack Force), and her two brothers Dozle Zabi (commander of the Space Attack Force), and young Garma Zabi, who had been stationed with his older brother Dozle. Though the two elder Zabis did not talk with each other much, they did attempt to strike up a conversation when their younger brother was around.

Suddenly, an aide interrupted with everyone, "Ladies and Gentlemen, if you will please have a seat, the sovereign and the supreme commander will be with us shortly. Everyone hurried to their seats as the large wall with the portrait of Zeon Zum Deikun opened itself to reveal an enormous screen.

A few minutes later, Sovereign Degwin Zabi, looking harried and gaunt as ever entered the room along with Prime Minister Darcia Bakharov. The entire room stood up in salute before the Sovereign ushered them to return to their seats.

Last to arrive was none other than Supreme Commander Gihren Zabi (the oldest out of Degiwn's children) along with Cecilia Irene, his red-haired secretary and perhaps even more than that if the rumors were true. He walked into the room with his usual cold hard look to his eyes while tapping his long silver cane down on the floor in a silent and tensed filled room. As soon as he reached his seat, Cecilia handed him several stacks of large folders to which Gihren began looking through for the next few minutes.

The tension in the room started to thicken even more as the commanders in the room wondered if this was another round of humiliation and perhaps execution by Gihren's secret police. The dictator smiled for a moment at the smell of fear before closing the last of the notes and then turned to his audience.

"Sovereign Degwin, brothers and sisters, and comrades, you've all been reading the intelligence reports about the continuing buildup of the Earth Federation Forces". He paused before continuing, "Despite all our efforts to achieve a compromise, the Federation government continues to build up its forces while making horrendous demands out of us without hearing our case".

He then paused while Cecilia passed out several "trimmed" copies of the reports that he had read for the past few months". As everyone read through them, some of the more hotheaded commanders started to seethe in anger at its contents but they'd dare not speak for being out of line and getting into trouble. Fortunately, Dozle Zabi had no such problems with speaking his mind and he spoke their thoughts exactly when he slammed the table, "This is an outrage of what they demand of us". He then paused for a moment before stating, "I don't know about you brother but the Earth Federation's demands account for nothing less than unconditional surrender and a return to the status of slaves that we've all endured for the past fifty years".

Kycilia then remarked in her icy tone, "Perhaps they truly fear what we are capable of as long as we still exist for all to see". Everyone knew what the Zabi woman meant with her words, for it was common knowledge that many in the Earth Federation government hated the decision its government took many years earlier to grant Deikun's request of Side 3 having some form of autonomy in its day-to-day affairs. Already its existence had sparked the whispers of rebellion in the other sides. Kycilia then turned to her brother with an icy stare and asked, "But we already know about this so why have you gathered us all here tonight".

Gihren paused for a moment to look at everyone in the eye before he said the words most would truly dread, "I feel that it is time to put the plans into action". To everyone in the room, it was a euphemism to "Let's us go to war and eliminate these bastards once and for all".

Prime Minister Bakharov immediately interrupted, "Are you mad sir, and if we go to war, we could very well lose everything and a war is something that Deikun would never go with for it would betray his ideals". He then paused before turning to the sovereign and asked, "Sir, you must give me and the others more time to resolve the situation so as to avoid this catastrophe".

Gihren turned a cold eye to the Prime Minister, who he considered nothing more than pure rubbish and told him in a cold tone, "If we don't do anything then Zeon's ideals are dead either way". He then turned to his father, the sovereign, and told him, "We must proceed or else everyone else will consider us the laughing stock of space and consider us spineless for not resisting any further".

The Sovereign took a heavy breath before turning to Bakharov and asked, "What are the chances of cooling things with the Earth Federation". Bakharov shook his head then replied, "But I would rather try that then consider the opinion you're eldest son is stating".

Gihren then turned to his father and replied, "Father, even you can see that we have no choice but to implement the plan". He paused before continuing, "The Prime Minister's negotiations have already proven fruitless thus far and even he admits here in this room that there's very little chance it will improve". He then spoke to everyone else in the room, "If we wait any longer then if the Earth Federation Forces decide to destroy us, they'll sweep us aside without any resistance".

Degwin Zabi considered all the words spoken in the room and realizing that there was nothing he could to do stop this for he along with Prime Minister Bakharov had virtually no power to influence the political area of their own homeland turned and asked Gihren, "Once we launch, the Earth Federation will retaliate, can you guarantee the protection of Zeon during this crisis".

Gihren replied icily, "With what we're about to unleash on them, I think the Earth Federation will be crawling towards us to beg for peace in a few weeks". That chilled the politicians and some of the generals in the room as they wondered what Gihren truly meant. The Supreme Commander then walked up to his father with a large folder in his hands and told him, "Before we begin, you have to sign this, telling us you have given us your full assent and that you've heard all other options". The Sovereign took a deep breath before he signed the document. After handing this to Cecilia, Gihren walked back to his seat and turned to everyone, "Now the moment we've all waited for many years has arrived", "We must do everything we can in our power to ensure success against our Federation enemies". He then ended with the phrase, "Sieg Zeon". The room followed suit and then started to empty as the occupants left the room, some of them deathly stunned by what they had just heard but fearful to voice their concerns out of fear of being arrested.

As Kycilia was about to leave, Gihren called out to her, "I would like you to stay for a few minutes so that we can discuss the details of the plan". Kycilia took a deep breath and then headed back into the room while Cecilia Irene closed the door behind them so that no one else could overhear what the two oldest Zabi children would speak of.

Jaburo, South America:

The main headquarters of the Earth Federation Forces was hidden deep in the forests of South America to camouflage itself from the prying eyes of any would be future opponent. Above it was the usual large mass of trees, rocks, and rivers common to the continent. It would have been difficult to find that any sense of man had influenced the area with the exception of a regular size airbase which regularly received shipments of supplies and new troops in huge yellow-orange Medea transport planes.

Hidden beneath the ground was a completely different story. Thanks to the efforts of the ingenuity of man, an enormous city sprung up from within the many caverns of the area. Enormous factories littered the area, producing the weapons and ammunition needed for the Federation forces in immense quantities. Huge dockyards housed numerous incomplete Magellan and Salamis class warships that were the mainstay of the Earth Federation Space Force.

Though the base was usually active twenty-fours a day, this time, the base was unusually lively with the troops working literally day and night to finish their individual tasks. Meanwhile, the generals and admiral that lead this enormous force were busy in consultations with the political arm of the government.

In one of the large quarters, a Federation general sat at his desk looking up the latest intelligence reports and he had a grim look on his face and the cigar he was smoking did little to help ease the tension. He had been stuck in a meeting with other generals and the politicians for the last few hours arguing with them over the validity of the reports and though he could see the frightened looks on their faces, their bluster disgusted them that when he headed back to his quarters, he slammed the door shut with a very loud bang.

Now after a few drinks, he looked through the reports again to see if he wasn't missing anything and trying to think of ways to convince his superiors of the gravity of the situation that their foolish decisions were creating.

A knock on the door attracted his attention away from his reading and he walked to see who was at the door. It was his old colleague Vice-Admiral Tianamen, commander of a Federation fleet under his flagship the Magellan class battleship Titan, who winced at the sight of the general, "Seems I caught you at a bad time, perhaps I should come back later".

Revil shook his head and replied, "I guess I could use someone to talk to right now". He ushered Tianem in and gave him a drink while refilling his own. They both made a toast, "To many more years of peace and good health to all men". After taking a huge gulp, Revil turned to his visitor and said, "So what brings you here at this time".

Tianem whistled quietly before stating, "First I wanted to come in and check in on you and plus I wanted to show you something I found out while on patrol". He immediately opened the package in his hands and spread the photos along the table". As soon as Revil looked at them, he turned to the Vice-Admiral who stated, "I already sent this to intelligence but since you know how they handle crisis such as this, I felt that I had to show you these pictures personally".

The grey-haired general took a deep breath before stating, "Thank you but I don't know if these will do any good in convincing the politicians to change their minds on the matter".

Tianem winced and stated, "So they haven't gone to a full alert yet"? Revil shook his head and Tianamen asked, "And about the reports of the new weapons Zeon has been fielding"?

Revil laughed a harsh laugh and replied, "The politicians don't want to create a panic just yet and also the scientists never want to believe that the "spacenoids" can design much better weapons than they can". He then replied, "With all of this, sometimes I have to agree with what they say in space about those that remain on Earth and I wish something could happen to those political bastards since they're making the lives of all humanity much harder to deal with".

Tianem replied, "It really does make you wonder how the hell humanity ever came to this point in time where the possibility of war is very real". He then looked back to his watch and replied, "I better get back to the Titan, I have to oversee some of the repairs and re-supply". They both shook hands before Revil commented, "The Ananke is almost finished with her repairs and fitting out so I should join you shortly".

Once the Vice-Admiral departed, Revil turned to look at his notes for a few more minutes before taking a deep breath before calling it a night.

I decided to start off like this since this is usually how I start off my stories so if there is anything wrong with this chapter then I apologize for not following the canon of either the MSG novel or the television series. Any advice on characters or technology would be appreciated.

You probably will see a mix of characters from both the show and the novels in here since from what I saw the beginnings of the OYW in both mediums looked pretty similar so expect to see some of those events here. Also, I'm wondering if I should ask some of the other authors, especially one by the name of Zinegata, whether I could use their characters in the story.

This has been a project that I thought about doing but put it aside to concentrate on the most recent Gundam shows (SEED and SEED Destiny) (to my horror and shame). After loosing the will to continue going on my former Gundam SEED fanfic: A war of darkness and sadness, I decided to truly begin this project in the hope of finding some answers, and redeeming myself in front of all of you.

Please read and review, I would be very appreciative if you do so. Also if you are going to post a review on please read my profile so as to get a good idea of who you'll be dealing with.

Next chapter: Approaching Zero-hour.