Editing KSGU:Volume 4 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 9===

Radar weapons had been viewed as useless ever since the discovery of Minovsky particles, but electronic warfare itself had not vanished. Due to the rampant nature of it, Minovsky particles had to be scattered during every single battle, so the particles that were scattered would rarely cause much damage to the electrical equipment. In other words, electronic weapons were effective equipment, and even at this point, military facilities relied on the warning system that relied on electronics. The Minovsky radar that could detect the range and density the particles were spread had been used for a long time, and basically, sentry watches were unchanged on the battlefield ever since the radar era.

“Palau” here was no exception. The Asteroid had multiple radar stations on the surface, and many RMS-119 “Zack” in the watch zones were acting as Early Warning and Control (EWAC). The siren stations, linked with the radar stations, were equipped with interception missiles, and the defense perimeter was overly strict for a civilian mining asteroid. However, the Federation army never viewed this as a problem during its regular checks. The radar stations were derived from the ones the Federation set up during the One Year War, and the missile were cleared under the name of shooting down the space debris. They could not find any reason to hide the mobile suits equipped with EWAC on the head, but they just needed to hide them in the ‘cove’ during the inspections.

April 12, 15.28. A “Zack” on patrol caught sight of a piece of debris that entered the space region they were guarding. That unit’s pilot quickly went to the scene, and reported to the radar station in charge of this area.

“Lorgnette 3 calling Big Eye. There’s an irregular in the Yap region. Should remain cautious. Sending my coordinates here.”

After the war, the “Eye-Zack” was built with the Federation’s RMS-106 “Hi-Zack” as a base, reinforced as an electronic weapon. It had the silhouette of the main fighting force of the Old Zeon Republic, the “Zaku”. It was possible to say that this line of silhouette was suitable for Neo Zeon’s se, but the dome line that was unified with the head was no less than 10m long, and the machine itself looked like someone wearing a really scary hat. The pilot clumsily drove the light grey machine around the debris in question. This block of rock seemed to have floated over from the colony debris, and the largest piece was about 15m. This small block would not cause much damage even if it crashed into “Palau”, but the army was on standby. The pilot let the “Eye-Zack” raise its machine gun and aimed at the surface of the debris. He set the firing mode to single fire, and his finger was placed on the firing trigger on the ball-shaped joystick, but an allied pilot’s voice came from the wireless communication. (Don’t do that. You’ll just waste your bullets.)

“But…!”

(Or you’ll end up writing a reflection again. Since you reported it, leave it to the alert side.)

The “Geara Zulu” pilot who was the same patrol squad did not have any other opinions. The money used to fire a shot would be enough to pay for one month’s worth of food for a person on Palau. This was the catchphrase of their squad leader, and the subordinates were forced not to use simulated projectiles in training. Even so, he had to bear full responsibility if something happened, so there was nothing less worthwhile than working in the army. The pilot of the “Eye-Zack” left the scene as he left the mission of observing the debris to the statio. There was less than a hundred million chance that the debris might hit the asteroid surface. In that case, they would have to use the intercepting missiles or let the mobile suits defending the facilities shoot to change the trajectory.

However, this block of debris was not on course to crash into “Palau”. The debris was moving on the same course, looking like it was moving rather slowly to “Palau”. The debris was taken off alert after it looked like it would float over the top of the main area, the “Calyx” and into another direction, and the radar station got back to normal. The debris then slowed down, and there was no reason for them to know why there was a heat source awakening within it.

There was a mass driver firing rail poking out from the top of the triangle-shaped “Calyx”, the nose tip of the “Palau” that looked like a beast’s skullcap. The array of rocks slipping through the perimeter net could be seen floating around. The debris slipped through the rocks and ignited a fake balloon that mimicked the color of the rocks. Two “Lotos” appeared from it, and as the balloon disappeared, the machines scattered and quickly mixed in amongst the rocks.

A “Loto” equipped with long cannons on both shoulders stuck itself onto the surface of the “Palau”, and another one with 4 Gatling cannons adjusted its position and created another fake balloon from the multi-purpose silo on its arms. That balloon immediately expanded and formed the exact same shape as the one that surrounded the two machines, and moved off towards the tip of “Palau” with unchanging speeds. The two “Lotos” covered for each other and snuck down onto the rock layer of the “Palau”. They then released several men in normal suits from the infantry transport room behind.

The ECOAS members carried the portable verniers they called the landmovers on their backs and gradually floated in the air. It was hard to distinguish their deep brown normal suits with the rocks as they carried the landmovers equipped with fire extinguishers on their back, not letting out any dust-like presence at all as they glided onto “Palau”s surface. These men passed through the bottom of the alert side’s invigilation window and head towards the connecting shafts linking the “Calyx” and the three “Corollas”. No medium showed this group of men moving beside some dust from the rock layers swaying around, and they climbed onto the bottom of the shafts in less than 30 minutes.

They got past the bottom of the “Gaza D” that acted as a cannon, and split up to many different shafts. The AMX-006 “Gaza D” was a transformable mobile suit that used the mega-particle cannon as part of its body. When transforming, the arms would be folded behind, and the legs that were like a wild bird would support the cannon. 16 ECOAS 729 members started their operation with the “Gaza D” practically transformed into a cannon. Their tasked job was to climb the shafts and plant sticky high-explosive bombs there.

The shafts linking the large asteroids were 30m long in diameter, and the external thickness that surrounded this linear car path was about 1m thick. The largest shaft was about 3km, and if one counted the support pillars outside the quarry factories, there were 10 batches of shafts leading up and down. It was seemingly too tough to blow up these constructs completely, but if they set up a suitable amount of explosives at the crux and set off a chain reaction with maximum damage, all the materials would be blown away by their own weights. Such places included weak areas like shaft connectors, water pipes for cooling and a power generator installation near the exterior. The members climbed up the long and wide exterior of the shafts and got to work setting up the explosives.

The explosives that were used were the plastic explosives SHMX-type that could be used even in near absolute zero temperature, and they could adjust the formation accordingly in order to get the expected outcome of destruction. If they wanted to cut off a point, they would set up a thin rhombus-shaped diamond charge. If they wanted to blow it up, they would use a plate charge that had piercing ability. These methods were all part of the intricate mathematics required in explosiveness and construction engineering, and all the ECOAS members were well trained in them. This group of men was inside the Asteroids that were floating around, carrying out the simple yet dangerous mission only they could do with the hollow of the ‘cove’ the Neo Zeon army was docked at right below their eyes.

Commander Nasri Razal was hiding inside one of the two “Lotos” behind the rocks, the one with long-ranged cannons on both shoulders, and felt that this was a really long moment. The end of the operation was to be 2 hours later, and they could not check on the progress as long as communications were sealed. They had to continue on in this still time until all the members finished their work and came back safely.

“Don’t make a mistake here. Daguza’s watching after all…”

He brought his eyes to the periscope at the driver seat and stared at the green nightvision image. He could see the round cylinders of the debris in the quarry block, but could not see the shafts. He turned the periscope around and turned towards the space where debris was floating at. At that moment, an enemy patrol unit pointed the gun at him, and his heart froze. Since he lost the disguise balloon, there was no hoping for a second time lucky.

''I can’t make a mistake here. I have to let my subordinates return.'' Nasri’s sweaty hands held onto the grip of the periscope as he focused on the surroundings. A mobile suit form “Gaza D” seemed to swap around duties as it silently glided over to “Loto”.