It is Universal Century 0079 and the uncontested ruler of the Earth's sphere by right of conquest, the Britannian Empire knows war once again.

The colonies, massive space installations developed by the efficient military machine nearly one hundred years ago, are more prison than shelter, more noose than a leash. A place where Britannia has banished over seven billion Numbers. The cultures, societies and populations of whole continents; expelled from their conquered lands to live in the cold void of space.

These peoples were scattered, divided up evenly, mixing the populations of India, Russia, Brazil into single colonies, segregating them with a language barrier, making the areas reliant almost entirely on import from the earth to sustain the populations. Food, Raw Materials, Power. All were controlled by Britanian supply, all could be cut off at a single command. Even the Orbits of the installations could be altered by control consoles within the palace of Pendragon.

Beneath the oppressive, domineering Yoke of Britannian Regime the colonies and its people were driven to their knees and kept there for the better part of a century.

Until colony eleven...

It was in U.C. 0075, the colonies that had been driven furthest from the earth's gravity well for the purpose of creating a way station for space faring mining operations, hunting for a pecious newly discovered alloy present on a select few asteroids; was far enough away from Britannian influence as to secretly develop its own military assets. With Britannian sympathisers cooperating within the colony, dissident forces soon ammassed enough battle strength to launch a surprise attack on the Colony closest to the Earth sphere.

Using experimental, space combat designed Knightmare frames built from the alloys mined out of the asteroids their colony was built to process; dubbed by the rebel forces as the "Zaku" and a crude fleet of ships, the quickly denounced Terrorist forces took control of the colony, evacuated the majority of its citizens, loaded it up with nuclear worthy weaponry, and dropped it down on the heads of Britannian people of earth before a counterattack could respond. Hoping to bring it down right over Pendragon, the beating heart of the Empire.

The Pendragon computers, attempting to counter their efforts, succeeded only in altering the target.

It landed in London.

Right in the Heartland of the great Empire.

Nearly twenty million were dead in the initial blast, another six hundred million would be killed by the fallout, and countless more would fall to nuclear winter.

The Britannian military stationed on Luna Base, led by Colonel Kewell, in a rage; set their sights on the other colonies they could feasibly reach, attacking all of the unarmed populations with every warship at their disposal.

Four clusters of colonies, closest to the earth; the so called "Sides", each with a population of roughly One point five billion, were utterly destroyed. In part due to anger, but also to prevent another colony drop onto the Earth's sphere.

Unknowingly though, this was a boon for the terrorist forces of colony Eleven and their cluster of Side three.

With the Atmospheric turbulence of a colony re-entry, and the nuclear destruction wrought by the explosion in the heart of the empire. Most forms of travel from Earth to Space were suddenly, and violently cut off. The logistical disaster meant that no help would be forthcoming for the Britannian forces of Luna Base, and no further supplies could be delivered to the colonies.

With their lifeline suddenly cut, the Terrorist group, now proclaiming itself the United Colonial Republic, (U.C.R.) saw an opportunity to gather more to their side.

Re-purposing entire colonies, the rebels turned what were essentially utterly isolated population bubbles into various hubs. Turning some into burgeoning homes where the vast majority of the non combatants would be allowed to live, freeing other colonies in order to transform them to, to individual self contained, industrial powerhouses, farming communities and battle stations, the U.C.R for an entire year, worked tirelessly to break the Britannian stranglehold on the space installations. Colonel Kewell's actions had not only rallied inflamed masses to join the rebels, given that the Purist Britannian had attacked unarmed civilians, in no way involved or responsible for the original attacks, but had also, inadvertently, made it possible for the U.C.R. To feed the people of space with their extremely limited food supply.

Kewell had also, inadvertently, provided the rebels with the raw materials needed for their own war machine.

For while his people starved inside the Britannian Luna Base, the consolidating U.C.R. forces were able to gather the remains of the shattered colonies. Metal alloys, concrete, wood and other raw materials that could be found in any colony but were unavailable for re purposing, could now be extricated from the wreckage; melted down and reshaped into logistical projects.

Comunication hubs, roads, small arms, vehicles, ships and manufacturing equipment to more efficiently gather the strong alloys needed to build the machine that was rapidly becoming the versatile symbol of the U.C.R military; the Zaku Mobile suit.

Standing at 17.8 meters, with a final tonnage of 78.3, the Zaku Mobile Suits, as the manufacturers dubbed them, dwarfed the much smaller Britannian standards, the Glasgow and the Sutherland both of these standing at roughly five meters. With armor three times as thick, and nearly twice as dense and strong as normal steel; any engagement between a Zaku and a Knightmare was an engagement that could only have one outcome.

Couple that with the fact that Britannia had no need to truly develop the Knightmares for space combat and the forces of the U.C.R had their run of space, virtually unopposed.

To Britannia, the colonies had been a conquered and broken people, divided by language, logistics, with no supplies, ships, no communication means; and if any of them did get seditious views they were a button press away from having their colony flung into the sun.

Now the Rebel forces, after long years of consolidating and cementing their hold on the colonies, and capturing the Britannian Stronghold of Luna Base have uncontested control of the void while the Britannian empire girds itself for the storm all know is coming and prepares itself to wipe these rebels and their colonies from the face of the solar system as they should have done when they were first conquered.

-U.C.0079-

It was snowing.

It snowed almost every day now.

The sun's light on their surface was a fleeting dim thing. His scientists, more than the need to develop more powerful Knightmare Frames, needed first to save them all from dying a miserably cold death.

They'd succeeded, somewhat at any rate.

The nuclear winter was cut down. But only just. Instead of year round snow, they had it instead for six months of the year. With the worst points being of course the natural winter season of November, December and January.

The ecosystem of the planet was in tatters, the vast majority of wildlife that survived did so in special habitats, the food they produced was forged in massive agricultural domes where their climate was carefully maintained by artificial power.

Before war, Britannia was doing everything in its power to simply survive.

Now though...now these upstarts would feel the full might of the empire that had broken the globe once before.

"Your Highness." The voice of his Knight of One brought the Emperor's attention.

"Speak." His voice was like an oak tree, old and strong, carrying across the expanse of the throne room easily.

Bismark bowed. "I am here to report on the progress of the new Knightmare frames. According to reports they should be ready for mass production within three standard months.

"And the prototype?"

"To be delivered as per your instructions sir."

Charles brought his eyes up towards the gray, cloud covered sky.

He missed the Sun...such a strange thing to realize...

Thunder rumbled in the overhead sky and the Emperor closed his eyes a hidden smirk fighting its way onto his lips as he whispered the battle-cry/demand that had felled entire nations.

"All hail Britannia."

-U.C. 0079-

The Black Prince stormed into the command center a deep scowl on his features as he made his way towards the tactical display. "Report!" He barked.

"We have atmospheric breaches in sectors nine, twelve, seventeen and six Your Highness, Now sector four. We're getting incoming reports of landing parties of both ground infantry and armor."

"Zaku Mobile Suits?"

"None sighted yet Your Highness.!"

That would change shortly he knew. Knightmares could hold off their ground forces until the Zaku's made landfall. Once that happened, things would get...problematic.

The entire island was blinking up at him with red warning signs. The Black Prince eyed it with with a grim countenance.

70% of the Earth's Sakuradite, the supply of power for all Knightmare Frames and most modern population habitats was sitting right under his feet. Everyone knew that this spit of dirt would be the hardest hit when the U.C.R. decided to make planetfall.

Already he was getting reports of attacks in North Americas' California coast line, Mexico, Argentina, the Chinese eastern coastline and Australia.

They were being cut off from the rest of the Empire power bases closest to them.

Cornelia was in Africa, the country was too great a gold mine of raw materials and natural resources to lose, Scniezel was in North America, a similar hub, one with easy access to any ocean the Britannian military needed to reach being just a stone's throw away from the former territory of mexico.

The closest sibling he had to aid him, if at all possible, was Clovis in what was once China. But knowing his brother's lack of tactical skill, he couldn't count on reinforcements if he got in a bind, more likely than not, Clovis would be under more dire straights than himself and would soon be asking him for help.

So that left him within the confines of Area Eleven, or the former Japan, sitting on the worlds largest deposit of Sakuradite and the place where the hammer blow would fall like the fist of an angry god. The rebels wanted Knightmare production to cease, and cut off the already existing ones from the fuel needed to keep running.

If Japan fell, all mathematical calculations showed the Empire's military and civilian framework would collapse internally within six months, that's not factoring in the rebels themselves.

This wasn't like running a guerilla campaign, hit and run tactics, here, he had static defenses to hold, emplacements to keep, strategic locations and production sites that couldn't be abandoned. Here, it was the enemy that would choose when and where to attack and he couldn't be everywhere at once for his strategies to ensure victory.

Curse Charles. Assigning him to this deathbed. The old bastard knew this would be the case from day one.

Still...he wouldn't die here...he refused to die here. If nothing less then out of sheer spite to not give that bastard the satisfaction of his death.

"Get me Jeremiah!" He barked, a second before the communications officer turned in his chair to face him.

"Your Highness enemy Zaku armors have been sighted!"

"Mobile?"

The ensign nodded, fear visible in his gaze.

The Black prince growled. So...they did have a way to make those monsters functional in earth's gravity...

"This wasn't anything we didn't expect." He assured. Looking down at the tactical layout the prince's mind began the workings of a plan.

-U.C. 0079-

The cockpit shook and thrummed with turbulence, red safety lights casting dark shadows across the surface of the machine's controls.

A voice came through the comms. Ohgi's voice.

"Kallen."

Excitement tingled the fingertips, blood thundered through her veins. The pilot couldn't contain the smile on her face if it killed her. "Ohgi..."

"Preliminary scans indicate enemy battle strength consists of twenty-seven Knightmare Frames, Sutherlands. There is heavy air traffic being monitored from the air base. We can't let them get those bombers airborne. We have to secure the base before they have a chance to mobilize their bombers and fighters. Zaku's are big enough targets for their missiles, even if they're not guided."

"Understood." She grinned. "Just give me the time limit."

"Seven minutes from the second you touch ground. Remember, the weight of gravity means-"

"Ohgi." She drawled smirking at his face. "Who was it that aced every ground based combat simulation?"

"Don't get cocky!"

"Relax. You just keep us updated on the status of the enemy movements operator and we'll deal with the rest." She smirked and a second later the computerized voice spoke.

Now approaching designated drop-site all forces, prepare for deployment, T-minus sixty seconds.

The sounds filtered in now, the rapid rat-tat-tat of anti air fire that was no doubt, deafening up close sounding like little more than raindrops behind the curtain of steel. Turbulence shook her within the cockpit as they were dropping down past the last cloud cover, hurdling towards the hard packed earth of a planet she'd never set foot on.

Britannia's world.

She grinned, time to burn it down. Give these bastards a taste of their own medicine.

The strange, unnatural feeling of weightlessness ended abruptly, the crash shaking through her mobile suit and up her legs to rattle every bone in her body as the drop pod struck ground with the sound of thunder and the door smashed open to reveal the snowing, gray light of day to her eyes. The red security lighting turning off a second later to reveal the flashing lights of gunfire, the splendor of an old earth battle vid played out right before her eyes.

One she was about to become a part of.

"Don't be nervous." The voice came through the comm link, almost soft spoken despite its strong timbre. A face appeared on the holo-screen. Their squad commander, Matsunaga. A middle aged, bearded man, the silver in his hair now creeping up the sides. He might have been Britannian, or a former American, or had some mixed ancestry despite his Japanese name...like her. "The principles of space combat in a Zaku hold true on the ground as well. Strike near blind spots, don't let the enemy get behind you to hit the engine block. Do these two things, trust your armor, and you'll be fine."

She nodded; smirking. "Its Tamaki you need to worry about."

"Hey!" The third member of their little suit team shouted, evidently having been listening in. "I'll beat every Britannin here before they even scratch the paint job!"

"Enough." Matsunaga demanded, clicking on all machine systems and drives, the Zaku coming alive beneath his feet as he stepped off the drop pod, bringing his weapon to bear. "With me!"

"Death to Britannia!" Tamaki screeched as though he hoped half the Britannian military would hear him through the cacophony of battle.

-U.C.0079-

"Mobile suit units sighted in sectors three, and twelve, preliminary analysis has identified three more transports punching through the atmosphere."

"Analysis will tell us their projected landing zones in thirty seconds."

"First Lance Base has fallen."

"We have Zaku mobile suits closing in on Knightmare fighter groups seven fifteen and twenty four they're requesting reinforcements."

"Battalion three has been wiped out, sixth and eleventh are in full retreat back to Angel base!"

"Aurek forward base is under heavy attack they're asking for permission to fall back!"

"Transports will land near areas two, four and-"

The screeching of all voices faded into the background of his thoughts, the patterns and movements of the enemy across the whole island becoming crystal clear in his eyes as his thoughts settled and spread across the tapestry of war.

He pointed. "Here!"

The gloved finger was pointing right over a patch of territory that was all but empty, now being guarded over by a single team of enemy mobile suits the rest of the fighters and battle strength of the unit advancing across the map to engage the Britannian defensive arms men

"Your Highness?" One of the men at his side questioned.

"Send all our reserve units to this sector immediately! This is where the main force will make groundfall."

"Sir there's nothing the-"

"Do not question me again! Do it now! All reserve forces!"

"Y-yes your highness!"

With a single phone call Five carriers idling off the coast came alive with movement. A slew of fighter jets, bombers and dropship Knightmare carriers, exploding from their decks to fly out towards the Japanese mainland.

His order given, the Black Prince turned his eyes back to the screen, refocusing on the battles at hand.

"Tell battalions six and eleven to change their course. Retreat to sector five to reinforce battle group thirteen. Tell the bombers of Air base Malaik to scramble and drop bombs at coordinates 1612-0589. Order the Aurek Base forces to hold position for fifteen more minutes then they're to retreat to sector nine-"

-U.C.0079-

The heat of the thrusters made the armored skirt of the mobile suit glow red hot. The machine gun's barrel smoked half her magazine spent destroying gun emplacements and the paltry number of Knightmare frames defending the airbase.

She saw at least one squad of bombers and their fighter escorts shoot off the run-way just before they arrived. A second before they began destroying whatever was still on the ground. They let them go, not like they had a choice. The Zaku, like the Knightmare Frame before it was anti-everything but high-speed/high altitude aircraft.

The control tower came down first, three rounds from Tamaki's machine-gun obliterating the glass structure atop, with the Glasglow and Sutherland frames doing their best to hold them off, machine gun fire literally scratching off their armor bit by bit, but unable to pierce the superdense metal of the towering Zaku Mobile-suit.

Now the three of them were on their way towards the Main Airbase Headquarters. A dome like structure sitting pretty at the end of the landing strips. They were spread out in a wide formation to make it harder for the enemy to try and circle behind them unnoticed.

Ohgi's face appeared on their screens. "T minus three minutes before launch. You have to take over that HQ, if you don't we run the risk of the enemy discovering our main landing site before we're ready.

"It will be done." Matsunaga assured.

"You worry too much."

"How are the other fronts?" Kallen asked, her eyes set on the building ahead.

"All is going well. With Zaku's as the spear tip we're pushing back the enemy forces comprised almost entirely of Knightmares. We've had thirteen casualty Zaku suits so far. eight disabled, five destroyed; but we're driving them back." She smirked as she heard Tamaki whoop in celebration.

Then she saw Ohgi's face become alarmed.

"We have incoming contacts, ten, no, twe-fourty! Fifty enemy contacts coming in at high speed!"

"What!?"

"Aircraft" Ohgi was furiously typing on his computer. "Coming from the Northern side of the island, they're bypassing whole battlefields, they're headed straight for you."

"They're headed straight for the landing zone." Matsunaga cursed.

"No way! No one knows about it but us!" She cried.

"The enemy has seen our move." The veteran devicer opened up another channel. "Tohdoh!"

The grim face of the sector commander, leader of this sector Invasion force appeared.

"I know Shin." The man drawled. The enemy command has predicted our movements here, the main force is walking into a trap."

"We have to warn them!"

"Its too late, the atmospheric entry ships can't change course, its a dead drop."

"What are we gonna do!"

"I'm rerouting all battle groups that I can spare to you, the closest one is seven minutes away, the three of you must take that base and hold the landing area until they arrive! If they're allowed to destroy our supplies we'll have no way to maintain this campaign! Japan is the most important target. If you fail this entire invasion might fail."

"No pressure!" Tamaki cursed.

"I will join you personally, my ETA is twenty-two minutes!"

"The battle might be over by then." Matsunaga drawled. "Stay where you are, you'll be more use leading the charge."

Tohdoh looked grim faced before he slowly nodded. "Understood. I'll try to cause enough damage for them to divert some of their reinforcements to my location."

"Understood."

"There they are!" Kallen cried, finding on the northern horizon the multiple glimmers of britannian aircraft closing in fast.

"Proceed to the HQ." Shin Matsunaga barked. "Plant yourself right ontop of that building! Use it as cover!"

"You think these Britannians have enough honor to not fire on their own to take down three Zaku!?" Tamaki barked.

"Just do it!"

"Alright alright fine!" The impertinent Japanese shouted back

"Knightmare frames" Ohgi warned, "Dropship carriers are deploying them now."

"How many dropships."

"Ten!"

"Fourty Knightmares." Kallen breathed.

The Zaku was stronger, better armored, better armed, more powerful. But such held true for the Lion and it could be taken down by a pack of Hyenas' if the beasts ever got the mind for it.

-U.C.0079-

As the sky literally fell down around him and the surface of the globe erupted in fire, Schniezel waited for a guest while he drank his morning tea.

The pale white snow fell over the carriers window panes while clouds, black and violent with atmospheric disturbance roiled with thunder and flashed with lightning as the sun made its daily, valiant effort to pierce them.

"Shouldn't you be leading your men?"

The Britannian prince drawled as he answered. "Unlike the smaller territories, where every square mile is precious, the North Americas are a great expanse. We will lose areas. I've bolstered valuable defensive locations, left token resistance at the rest. The enemy will take ground, it is inevitable. My job begins when it is time to root them out."

Loyd nodded, taking a seat, not waiting for leave. "Yes yes I see. So what'd you call me here for, hmm? I have a lot of work to get to."

The prince sipped his tea, paying no nevermind to Kanon's angry glower at the side of the room, or that of his men, each glaring at the scientist for his impertinence.

"You've had four years." He drawled. "I've thrown a fortune your way, and left you alone. It is time, I believe the phrase goes, to pay the piper Earl."

"Ahh yes." The silver haired scientist seemed to remember. "Your whole 'Make our Knightmares strong enough to take down Zaku's thing; yes? Well I'm sorry to say no progress has been made on that front, can't be done. I transferred all that money to my own personal account and dithered with it what I wanted."

Schniezel felt he had to go so far as to hold up his hand to keep his soldiers from shooting the man dead.

It was no secret that he had thrown nearly half his net worth at the eccentric Knightmare designer, as a start four years ago.

"I hope you plan to elaborate." While his tone never shifted from the placid, calm, measured grace, the warning was made more insidious by the near invisibility of it.

"Well you see." Loyd looked over the perfectly arranged table, beside them and proceded to take the assortment of various forks and laying them across one by one as he spoke. "Technology progression one o one your highness. What we build, we rarely replace, we just build over it." He grinned.

"Imagine if you will-" He laid down a slim oyster fork. "A nineteenth century telegraph yes. Marvelously advanced for its time, dreadfully primitive by our standards today. But the thing is, we're still technically using the telegraph. Just with a different face."

He laid down another, slightly larger, desert fork. "So the Telegraph, evolves, a new face, phone lines and radio cables connect the globe's communications not simple power cables that hold a charge every time you tap, yes."

He lays down a salad fork. "Then from phones we have cable televisions, still the same principle but now breaching into the wireless age with satelites going into space so that people can find their favorite shows from all over the world and communicate with wireless cell phones." He laid down a fish fork.

"Finally." He laid down the last fork, the Dinner fork. "The internet. The world is connected instantly, anywhere, at any time, the principle of the wired telegraph has evolved and held true, now instead of operators connecting people to different or direct lines, we have servers and hubs that do it. Its still the exact same thing, only faster, more advanced."

"And the Zaku's are different...how."

"Well its simple, with the colonies we did something we'd never managed to do before. We showed the savages. 'A Car.'" He held up his own fingers in quotation marks. "And then managed to completely cut them off from it in all manufacturing capacity. The colonies have no Sakuradite to mine, they have no factories or plants to process it even if they did. They don't have the engineering or the knowledge of Yggdrasil drives to make it themselves. So they had the idea of a car in their head, but no means to make it come true and thus, they were just left with the idea and the mother of all technology; innovation and time."

Here, Loyd picked up two spoons, and "branched off" between the fish and salad forks.

Schniezel stared at the display literally laid out before him for a good thirty seconds before he finally spoke.

"I see. So you're saying just as they have no means to recreating our Knightmares, we have no means of recreating their Zaku."

Loyd nodded. "The metal alloy mixture comes from asteroids, they currently have a monopoly, or near enough as to not make a difference. But most importantly, the power core of the machine is covered in particles we simply can't create on earth."

"The Minovzky effect..."

Loyd nodded. "The Minovzky particles are only capable of being quote/unquote 'born' in zero gravity environments. After they're formed they can sustain themselves just fine. But we can't get past the initial hurdle of making them. As for simply making Knightmare frames bigger and shoving in more Sakuradite, that simply won't be practical in any sense of the word."

"Its too dense." The prince said ahead of him, making Loyd nod.

"Exactly. Sakuradite is an immensely heavy mineral, the energy fillers, as you know, are mostly armor rather than tank space. There's a reason the Mordred, a machine with a Yggdrasil drive only thirty percent larger than most machines, is also unbearably slow. Its not slow because of its armor, we just put all the armor on it because we had no means to keep it alive long enough to deliver its payloads and that's just thirty percent. To move a Zaku, a machine over four times the size the height and weight of our Knightmares we would have to shove a Yggdrasil Drive ten times the size of a normal one just to get the bloody thing moving."

"So what have you come up with?"

Loyd grinned impishly. "So glad you asked your highness."

-U.C.0079-

Kallen cursed as flames bathed the Zaku from head to toe, the heat of the Napalm hissing through the thick metal plates enough to make her sweat in the cockpit.

"Are you alright!?"

"I'm fine!" She snapped, shooting at three more Knightmare frames that scrambled to get out of the way.

"Focus on the Knightmares, we can't leave these ground forces here when our landing craft arrive, the carriers will be ripped to shreds." Matsunaga cursed as an overhead missile slammed into the Mobile suits shoulder shield, rattling the hardwired camera violently on its mount.

"Its like trying to swat a swarm of flies!" Tamaki cursed, firing with the machine gun at the quick Sutherlands that weaved and turned in practiced moves on their land spinners.

Kallen cursed. No doubt, in space, the Zaku had mobility to spare, here on the ground though, with land spinners, the Knightmares were doing a fine job of keeping themselves alive through sheer mobility.

One shot from the Zaku standard machine gun though was all they needed, and taking careful aim, Kallen found she was becoming quite the marksman under earth's gravity and the effects of air on the bullet.

She'd taken down seven, Matsunaga had taken down five and Tamaki three by the time the clouds burst open with atmospheric entries. Exploding like an overstuffed bag with trails of fire descending from the sky.

Air to air firepower was leveled on the swarming fighters, with missiles streaming across the sky to smash into fuselages and bulkheads. The fire of the atmosphere exacerbated the flames of ruptured fuel lines. The screams and angry, confused shouts of soldiers and commanders on various bridges exploding through the static of the radio as the Britannian airforce climbed up to meet them in an areal charge, their advanced engines refusing to stall in the near dead climb against gravity.

"This is Landfall team four what the hell is going on down there?"

"The landing zone is hot captain!" Matsunaga shouted back through the radio cursing as he tried to force the thrusters to keep pushing for a few extra seconds to carry him far enough to get the remaining Knightmares infront of him. They couldn't be allowed to shoot the engine. "I repeat, the landing zone is hot!"

"I gathered that!" The man shouted back.

"We have multiple Knightmare contacts and bombers." You have to launch any firepower available to you the second you land. We're still outnumbered almost ten to one down here."

"How did they find out that this was our landing zone!"

"Commander!" Kallen shouted. "North west!"

Shin looked to his sensors, turning to face the seven approaching Knightmare frames, each bearing a standard emblazoned on their chest armor.

"Who is it!?" Tamaki shouted over his own gunfire.

"Ohgi!"

"On it!" The operator responded, fingers flying over the keys on his computer. "Data records indicate that's the heraldry of the Black Prince of Britannia! Prince Lelouch Vi Britannia!"

Kallen grinned. Now they had a face to go with their adversary. "We get to kill a prince today."

"More likely its not the Prince himself, but his Personal Knight, Sir Jeremiah Gottwald!" Ohgi responded. "He's an Ace devicer. He won't go down easy!"

"We'll see about that!" Tamaki shouted, turning the Zaku and charging headlong towards the seven Knightmares.

"Don't!"

The seven Knightmares, turned, on screeching land-spinners they split up with two firing their slash harkens, the one that went left, shooting it towards the right leg of the Zaku, and the one that went right shooting them towards the left leg.

With the forward movement of the machine, the thick cables tangled through the suits legs,

Three of the remaining Knightmares charged forward, while the last pulled up behind the Zaku and let loose its full magazine straight into the engine block.

The machine held up for a whole second before anti armor rounds the size of a car tire punched straight through the thinly armored pannels to hit the engine core, as the Heat-hawk was drawn and powered up to cut the lines. Tamaki shouted in outrage a second before his machine went dead, his angry shout cut off as the suit lost all power and fell flat on its face.

"Tamaki!"

"Kallen, back to back! Don't let them hit the engines."

She did as instructed, jumping back with a quick burst from the thrusters before falling beside Matsunaga.

The Zaku armor rebuffed the Sutherland machine gun fire easily, but there were so many of the machines Kallen was beginning to get nervous as more and more yellow warning signs appeared over the suits diagnostic display; showing the increasing damage as the Knightmares were literally trying to kill her and Matsunaga with bug bites tearing apart the mobile suits bit by bit.

"Brace yourself!"

She did, locking down all systems and mobile suit joints as she and Shin both knelt a second before the landing craft hit the ground in fireballs! Enveloping the whole battlefield in thick clouds of ash and debris.

-U.C.0079-

There were six machines.

The design and aesthetics were more akin to Knightmares than Mobile Suits, but they were of comparable size to the latter.

"So what have you done then?" He questioned from where he stood on the observation deck.

"Well..." Loyd began. "Ever since they first appeared we've had a handful of encounters, skirmishes in space with the Zeon forces. And while, militarily we've been losing, logistically we're still ahead of the rebels. Even after our losses we've been able to recover battle field debris much more efficiently and quickly than the rebel forces, since most of their recovery efforts were centered around the destroyed colonies."

Schniezel waited patiently.

"With the materials gathered we roughly, had the raw stuff needed to make about eighteen Zaku. So with a bit of elbow grease, greased palms and know how, we revamped the design, added our own tech to it and voila. Eight prototypes."

"You don't have a single unit ready for mass production!?" Kanon gasped, horrified. No war could be won with just eight weapons.

Loyd looked insulted. "I wouldn't lower myself to making cheap, reproducible machines. I leave that to the grunts at Pendragon." He sniffed haughtily. "These machines, by every calculation are worth ten Zaku apiece. Easily."

"How'd you make it past the logistical problems we discussed?" The prince questioned.

"Well its simple, we carefully extracted the Minovsky particles from the usable Zaku engines that we could find, something that sucked up most of the money to be honest, put them in a vastly superior engine block, and then juiced it up with a Yggdrasil drive for that extra shot of happy juice.." The mad scientist grinned. "These things have more power in a single arm than a Zaku army has now. The armor is a mixture of the Ultra-steel Zaku compound and my own little mixtures that make it, lighter and stronger than the Zaku."

At that, the prince raised an eyebrow.

"At any rate-" Loyd continued. "Two of the machines use a mixture of Sakuradite and Minovsky reactors for power and motor control and the same mixture for weaponry. Two more use pure Sakuradite for weapons and Minovsky particles for suit power and the other four we just went kinda crazy with. Can't really stick all your eggs in one basket. But all power sources are proven functional and all closed circuit tests have estimates and projections stating that each of these machines can far out perform the rebels Mobile suits in every field. Like comparing a Glasglow to one of the Knights of Round custom machines."

Schniezel stared at the covered silhouettes. "The engine block is still a major weakness of the machine though. Similar to how the cockpit of the Knightmare is the frames greatest fallacy.

Loyd's triumphant smirk, suffered. "Ahh...well that's why these machines will only be headed for the best of the best. Pilots that can handle them and make sure that no stupid mistake like letting the enemy get a clear shot at the engine block occurs."

"Cornelia for certain." The prince commented, more to himself than anyone.

"Well here we are." Loyd nearly danced out of the elevator cart. He marched right to to the first, tarp covered machine and grabbed at it with both hands before pulling it.

It was rather absurd to try really. The Machine was nearly twenty meters tall maybe even a little taller, the tarp alone, as lightweight as it might be, was far more heavy than any one person could pull on their own. It took the Scientist a good moment to realize the futility of his exercise before he released it, cleared his throat and drawled. "Excuse me."

Without further adue, he left. Returning a moment later with a forklift.

Tying off one end, he drove the thing in reverse, using it to pull the tarp down revealing a white, super-sized Knightmare Frame.

"Ta-dah! I present your highness the Lancelot!"

The machine was, quite frankly, a work of art, at least in the aesthetic appeal, especially when compared to the Zaku or the purely militaristic design of the Sutherland

"Its capabilities?"

"We'll get to that in a moment." Loyd waved him off tying another tarp. "We have so much more to show off."

The next was a strange red frame with a distinctive long claw. And the Prince could only imagine the strangeness of the rest of his designs after four years and a near limitless budget could allow.

-U.C.0079-

The dust was so thick, his Knightmare was actually moving sluggishly. The sheer weight of dust and dirt bearing down on him was slowing the machine significantly.

"Lord Jeremiah-"

"I know Villeta!" He growled, the land-spinners skidding on the ground. "All units switch to thermal imaging!"

Bright red outlines came in stark resolution on his screen. Thermal sensors easily picking out the Zaku engines through the blackened haze.

Gunfire erupted from the two and immediately Jeremiah found six more four more Knightmares vanishing from his sensors.

Evidently the Zaku's had thermal cameras too.

"All units, ignore the Zaku's!" He ordered. "Ignore the Zaku mobile suits. Focus all fire on the landing craft! I repeat, ignore Zaku mobile suits and focus all fire on the landing craft before they have a chance to scramble their ground troops. Our orders are to cause as much damage as possible before we're bogged down with enemy fire.

"Yes my Lord!"

On screeching land spinners all Knightmares disengaged from the Zakus, making bee lines for the various landing craft and hoping more didn't land right over their heads, shooting into cargo holds and control bridges, almost with wild desperate abandon as the last of the missiles from the fighters came smashing down from on high, unleashing a rain of burning slag to fall from the towering HLV transports.

Jeremiah sped through the chaos of the battlefield, expertly laying down fire where it would cause the most damage against the HLV's and their cargo. He'd read the specs on the machines extensively before the mission, memorizing them practically down to the most minute detail.

The com screen came alive with a priority message. Picking it up immediately he answered. "Yes Your highness?"

"You have three more minutes to fall back. All Zaku forces in the area are converging on your location. Any longer than three more minutes and you won't be able to break the encirclement without further losses."

"I understand your-" The Knight cursed as he suddenly turned the machine violently to the side to avoid the gunfire, the land spinners nearly getting shorn right off at the abrupt, terribly executed swivel that nearly threw him into an uncontrolled spin.

One of the Zaku's was rushing towards him, its massive feet pounding the ground in intermittent Thruster jumps to try and cover the distance as fast as possible without burning the engine off.

"Jeremiah!"

With a mental plea to forgive his impertinence, Jeremiah cut off the feed, throwing his full attention onto the Zaku, shooting with the Sutherlands machine gun at the armored behemoth.

Land spinners spun to weave between the bullets, in a wild zigzag in an attempt to try and dodge the fire, but the thing was too close and its pilot too accurate.

With a deafening smash that rattled his whole body and rang through his skull in a high pitched ring the Knightmare's leg was blown right off at the knee, its arm exploding a second later as his machine toppled over.

He could see the thermal outline of the Zaku looming over him, his whole life slowing to a crawl as the barrel was leveled down on him, his hand moving as fast as he could for the ejection lever.

"My lord!"

A lunatic pilot, for that's all it could have been, charged into the fray, shooting right at the Zaku's armor plated face and chest, its slash harkens firing up to cut right into the gun, tearing the Zaku's weapon open and pulling it away from its target.

Jeremiah's fingers hesitated over the ejection lever, watching in fascination as the Zaku drew its heat hawk, the heat alone bathing half his screen in red as the unknown Knightmare pilot dodged and weaved, skirting under the swings and using the retracted slash harkens to pull itself at greater speeds in either direction, with force that could snap a normal pilots neck.

"Lord Jeremiah!" Villeta's voice snapped him out of his stupor and he yanked hard on the ejection lever, the cockpit flying free of the frame only to be caught by Villeta!

As soon as he could he opened a channel to the pilot. "Pilot retreat! I am out of my knightmare pull back immediately!"

"Understood sir!"

There was the sound of rent metal through the com link and Jeremiah knew the pilot had been hit. "Pilot."

"Just an arm sir!"

-U.C.0079-

"Damnit!" Kallen snarled slamming her fist against the side monitor. "I almost had him! I almost goddamn had him!" She shouted, a throaty howl that echoed her frustrations through the cockpit.

One goddamn sutherland! One goddamn sutherland had stopped her from killing one of Britannia's Royal Knights!

She'd kept track of Jeremiah's knightmare specifically for this. To hunt him down in the debris field.

She grabbed her Zaku's controls and nearly took off in pursuit before Shin's voice stopped her.

"Kallen that's enough! The enemy is retreating and we've taken too many losses so far. We have to secure the LZ and assess the damage. Do not engage in pursuit!"

She sucked down a breath through her nostrils the heat rolling off the edge of her heat hawk was miniscule in comparison to her temper. "Understood." She bit out.

-U.C.0079-

Lelouch allowed his white knuckled grip on the metal hand rails of the map display to relax as he received confirmation of Jeremiah's survival and extraction. The second his trusted knight's sutherland signal had been lost his heart had dropped into his stomach in worry.

As instructed, the Knightmares proceeded towards the series of coordinates provided, slipping past the tightening noose of Zaku's and ground forces to regroup at the nearest, still intact military base before they would each be transported/transferred to the holdings the Britannian Military still held across the island.

As an afterthought, the prince opened up another comm. link. A few seconds longer than he was used to passed before the person answered, covered in a full body pilot suit with helmet Lelouch stared into the screen. "Soldier, Rank."

"P-private si-err Your Highness!" He answered almost looking as though he was about to snap a formal salute before he realized he had to keep his hands on the controls.

He raised an eyebrow. Still a private? "You saved my Knight back there private. I am hereby promoting you to corporal effective immediately."

"Sir!" This time the devicer did snap off a hasty salute. "Thank you sir."

"Its your Highness corporal!" One of his aides snapped before Lelouch held up his hand.

"Report directly to Jeremiah once you arrive at the rendezvous. I imagine he'd want to meet you himself. You'll receive further instructions from there. Goodbye."

Without waiting for a response he cut off the feed, eyes panning over the map.

-U.C.0079-

Hi everyone. This is my very first fic on this site, though I've been lurking here for a while.

If there are grammatical errors let me apologize in advance for them. English is not my native language.

If there are any questions please feel free to ask I promise to get back to you (as soon as I figure out how).

Also, I will be accepting suggestions for the mobile suits Loyd's developed. They can be from virtually any of the various Gundam universes, and don't necessarily have to be Gundams themselves. The only mobile suits excluded from the "suggestion box" would be Zeon Mobile suits of the One year War Time period and Gundam Wing.

I'm excluding the Gundam Wing Mobile suits specifically, because since I'm accepting suggestions for the Mobile suits I'd like to have a diverse array of mobile suit options if at all possible. And I have an inkling suspicion that if I left the particular "Gundam Wing" series open, out of ten suggestions I might get, eight of them will be for the Death Scythe and the Wing Zero. I'm even kind of leery about Gundam 00 but it might not be so big as to cause that problem yet... _

Well, regardless I hope everyone enjoyed this. If you have any other suggestions or input feel free. I'll try to correct the mistake if I can.

Have a good day.