-Table of Contents-

-Prelude-

-Prelude-

An ethereal glow seemed to surround her angelic face. She rested her chin upon her crossed arms and let out a faint smile.

“I’m glad I met you. No matter where we end up, I’ll never forget this. Don’t forget me.”

Central Columbia, August 15^th 2011

He lay on his back in a ditch half way filled with mud and rain. He wasn’t alone, along the ditch to either side hid another fifteen men. They were all filthy and freezing. The continuous rain shower wasn’t helping. Each of them clutched an anti-armor missile tube in their numb hands. He was the only one shivering just from the cold, not from the terror that they awaited.

The arrival of the enemy became apparent in the same fashion as every other battle. A hollow, dark thud from the south would reverberate across the landscape and into the bones of the men. The sound would grow in volume, the vibrations in intensity. It was the footsteps of a monster. Before long individual steps of individual behemoths could be discerned.

He counted. Three units, always three units. One leader and two support units. Soon they were close enough that the sound of metal machinery working could be heard. The noise became deafening. He estimated they were four hundred yards away now.

At one hundred yards a staccato of artillery fire broke across the ditch as a swarm of shells whistled across the men’s heads. The units approaching from the south slowed and responded in kind. The thunderous noise of approaching giants now mixed with the terrible cries of war. The next moment the monsters appeared above them.

They stood at forty feet tall, humanoid in form, they moved with the agility of a trained soldier. Holding massive shields in their left hands, 120mm auto-loading cannons in their right, they slowly advanced while firing. Known as Mobile Suits, they were the new rulers of the battlefields of mankind.

He screamed above the noise, “Now!” They rose from their hiding place as the mobile suits stepped overhead. They aimed their missiles at the weak undersides of the groin area and fired. The leader and one support unit collapsed to the ground, their main leg drive mechanisms shattered by the armor piercing warheads. One support unit remained standing.

“Run, run, run!” The foot soldiers took off down the trench, leaving the empty missile tubes in the mud. Friendly lines were two hundred yards away. Behind them the last MS engaged with its twin Gatling guns mounted on either side of its head before being driven back by artillery and tank fire. It helped pull its comrades to the safety of their own lines.

Of the sixteen men who had traveled into no-man’s land to lie in the mud filled ditch, nine returned alive. The friendly lines they returned to were nearly shattered by the mobile suit attack. Three mobile suits had destroyed eight tanks and four artillery pieces in a matter of minutes. If not for the ambush, the lines would have been broken.

A week later the mobile suits broke through, but he wasn’t there. He was sent back to the replenishment depot to pick up new soldiers and equipment. He hadn’t always been the highest ranking member of his unit, all the others had died. They suffered a five hundred percent loss rate. It was the nature of their specialty, to ambush and wound or slow down mobile units. At the U.N. force’s depot everything was in chaos. The breakthrough had cut off the U.S. 2^nd Armored and a counterattack was being prepared. His own division, the U.S. 101^st Airborne, was preparing to move out. They’d given him a day to get his replenishments.

He handed his papers to a desk clerk and waited for them to be returned signed by an officer of some sort. After ten minutes it was apparent all was not right. The clerk returned, along with four MP’s and a lieutenant colonel.

“It took us a long time to find you, Sergeant. Please come with us, your abilities are better suited elsewhere on the battlefield, Jake Archer.”

Bogotá, Columbia, October 20^th 2011

The command headquarters of the 3^rd Mobile Army of the Unification Forces was deceptively peaceful considering the scale of the war raging one hundred and fifty miles away. Inside the headquarters’ planning room though, an air of worry could be sensed around the gathered commanders. Not even two months ago they had watched with pride-filled hearts as their divisions smashed through the U.N. lines and cut off their 2^nd Armored Division. However, three weeks later things changed.

As they made their final plans to secure the southern continent a breakthrough occurred in their lines. The U.N. forces, led by the famed U.S. 3^rd Army had launched an offensive. Mobile suits were deployed to cut off the advance and it began to look like the tide would turn in their favor. However, on the second night of the U.N. offensive, radar observed an airdrop occur just behind the U.F. lines. At first they thought the 101^st Airborne had returned, that was until mobile suit units began to disappear. Of the thirty eight mobile suits holding the northern line, twelve were destroyed by the end of the first week. 3^rd Army, lead by a mystery unit that destroyed any mobile suit that crossed their path, had advanced eighty five miles to the outskirts of Medellína. It was becoming a serious concern that U.N. forces would reach Bogotá. That was the reason most of 3^rd Mobile Army’s commanders had gathered here today.

Commanding officer of 3^rd Mobile, Major General Vasily Volkov stood and spoke.

“Gentlemen, U.N. forces will reach the Medellína defenses tomorrow morning, if not in the middle of the night. As usual, we can expect heavy losses among our mobile suit forces if we do not react properly to their new tactics. You know as well as I that our forces cannot stand against Patton’s Own without the advantage of mobile suits,” he said, alluding to the nickname of America’s 3^rd Army.

General Malloy, commander of VII Infantry Division spoke, “Sir, have we even figured out what this “ghost” unit that’s been spearheading the advance is composed of?” This caused a low murmur in the room. Generals usually avoided the rumors and myths that enlisted men were well known for concocting, but nothing else seem to explain the phenomenon that was smashing through their forces.

“Quiet, now,” General Volkov raised both his hands to help him quiet the room. “As a matter of fact Malloy, our boys down in intel actually produced some results for us for once.” He nodded to a steward in the back who dimmed the lights in the room and turned on a projector that displayed an image on the wall behind Volkov.

General Volkov stepped out of the way of the projection and waved his hand at the image, “This is our ghost.”

Now the room was filled with more then just a quiet murmur. There was outrage expressed, particularly from the commanders of the mobile suit divisions.

“This is impossible!” General Dryden shouted, “It’s just a damn Spartan!”

Dryden was only partially correct. The grainy image at the front of the room did depict three mobile suits all of which bore remarkable resemblance to the U.N. force’s first and only combat mobile suit, the Spartan GM-100. However, although the picture was blurry and obviously hastily taken, there were notable differences. The armor was configured differently, the joints enlargened. The face armor on the center mobile suit was modified into a much more menacing look. Most obvious though, was that the center mobile suit was almost completely black in color and bore skull and crossbones upon its shoulder armor.

“Black mobile suit? That’s just creepy,” someone muttered.

General Volkov continued on, ignoring the muttered comment, “Intel believes what we have here is some sort of Super Spartan. It’s even possible that it’s a whole new generation of mobile suit in the prototype stage. Whatever the case, these three units are responsible for the destruction of our mobile forces. They must be annihilated.”

“But how?” General Vladimir, commander of XII Tank Division asked. “They’ve destroyed every mobile suit unit we’ve sent against them.”

Before General Volkov could reply a young woman’s voice spoke from the very back of the room.

“I’ll handle it.”

All the gathered commanders turned and found themselves gazing upon a young woman, about 5’5” with almost pure white hair that came down to her shoulders. Her uniform was hardly military code, for she wore no uniform jacket, instead a red hooded sweatshirt. Her pants were not neatly tucked into her boots but untucked and ripped in the back where she had walked on them and at the knees. The unit patch on her shoulder though, made up for any disregard for military conduct. The Red Guard, the elite mobile unit that served directly under the leading families’ of U.F.’s parent nation, the Earth Union.

General Volkov smiled, “We have been loaned the White Wolf and her unit from the European front to dispose of our problem. This ghost will stand no chance against our best aces.”

The girl merely nodded and then left the room. The only thing she hated more then the head families she protected was the pompous generals they commanded. She would destroy this pathetic “problem” and return to the European front before the week was done. 3^rd Mobile Army was weak in her eyes; it wouldn’t be hard for the U.N. to find someone that could beat them back. She would hunt this pest down and destroy him. No mobile suit had ever survived an encounter with the White Wolf.