Editing KSGU:Volume 4 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 13===

0. Universal Century 0096, April 12th, 18.00 sharp.

Not a lot of vehicles were moving through the connecting shafts of “Palau” at this time. The factories had three work shifts through 24 hours, and the job shift for night duty ended 2 hours ago. The people working in the morning shift had returned home, and the people working during the night shift were still in dreamland. Thus, not many linear cars were in operation. As for what would be moving along this long and wide tube-like tunnel, that would be the linear cars without anyone in them, ferrying the mined rocks or trucks sending food and daily necessities. Including them, there were still less than 20 vehicles moving on a shaft.

Suddenly, an intense tremor spread inside the tunnel. The booming noise blew up the highway that was 3km long. The ferrying trucks present hurriedly stepped on the brakes and brought the vehicles to the road shoulders. There was no gravity within the connecting shafts, but the tires’ magnetism on the ground made the vehicles feel no different from a gravity block. ''Did a meteor strike?'' The truck driver floated out from the driver seat and intended to land on the ground with his magnetic soles. However, he floated in the air like this, and heard a second explosion.

''The magnetism isn’t working. Is it a power outage?'' He did not even have the time to think as the lights in the tunnel went out and changed to a red light. At the same time, there was a flash expanding right in front of him, and a storm blew through the wide tube. The truck driver was blown away by the wind, and was soon knocked 50m away. His back slammed into the partition shutter that was activated, was knocked unconscious because of this impact, and remained asleep for the next three hours without knowing anything until the firemen arrived at the scene to wake him up once everything ended.

The ‘fireworks’ ECOAS planted were exploded. They timed this moment where traffic flow was at its minimum and blew up the areas near the connecting shafts with SHMX, creating the expected destructive outcome on the connecting shafts. The supersonic explosion winds were compressed into a shockwave, and a fatal fissure was caused by the explosion spread while the generators on the other side of the shafts showed deep cracks. The energy from the explosions multiplied without any wastage, causing the cracks outside the shafts to form breaks. The cracks letting out gas and flames instantly expanded. They expanded to form a round around the 30m diameter shafts, and all 10 of them ended up being severed like they were sliced at the waste.

The unmanned linear car carrying the mined rocks made an emergency stop, and emergency partition walls were lowered before and after the breaks. Fires spurted out from the broken areas, and numerous lights lit the joints of the 4 asteroids. However, it was just a poke of a needle at the stomach of “Palau”. The trajectory of the large asteroids would not change as long as nuclear weapons were not used. Of course, there was no major obstruction to the main part “Calyx”, and even the 3 “Corollas” were not affected. The “Palau” continued to remain floating in the shoal space region just like how it was before the explosion, but all connecting shafts were severed, and the 4 asteroids could be said to be separated from each other—this was the first time in the history of “Palau” that the 4 asteroids were separated from each other, and only managed to maintain the usual “Palau” shape. However, there was no time to check on what happened here as a second incident struck “Palau”.

Two unknown machines entered the watchzone at the same time as the explosion. More accurately, there were 3 machines. A “ReZEL” transformed into its Waverider form, an ECOAS 920 “Loto” riding on the back, and there seemed to be a third heat source sighted on the radar—but there was electronic interference after that, which made further observations impossible. The “Nahel Argama” followed the advance squad and entered the watchzone, scattering Minovsky Particles that caused this interference.

Multiple unknown machines started moving towards “Palau” at the moment there were explosions in many areas. This was undoubtedly an attack, and 4 “Geara Zulus” were launched hurriedly from the military port ‘cove’. They had an “Eye Zack” checking where the enemy was attacking, the mobile suits located at the alert sites left the surface, and the many “Gaza Ds” set a perimeter around the ‘cove’. The defense squad that detected an abnormal electric pulse from “Palau” believed that the enemy had already snuck into their camp. The alert sites lights were moving around, and a “Gaza D” pilot searching “Palau”s surface caught sight of a deep brown machine hiding in a crater.

It had a rock-like color scheme on it, but it could not evade detection under close range. The “Gaza D” pilot detected the “Loto”s heat source and pursued the attack as it transformed. The hook-like hands turned around from the stand it was like, and the body in the shape of a cannon grew a pair of hands. Despite having an arthopod-like silhouette that was dubbed ‘an alien transport’, the mobility “Gaza D” in mobile suit form was not something the “Loto” could match. The “Loto” fired its Gatling cannons on the shoulders wildly, using the weak verniers to move back, and the “Gaza D” pilot charged right over at its enemy.

At that moment, another shot came from another direction, hitting the “Gaza D” directly. The “Gaza D” had no chance of drawing the beam saber from its shoulder binders as it was sliced in half at the waist, and the weak machine frame blew up under the expanding fireball. The other “Loto” fired a 120mm low recoil cannon from behind the rock—and Squad Leader Nasri Razal “Loto” rushed out from the rock after checking that the enemy was shot down, and let its humanoid body with thick Gatling cannons on its shoulders hide in the next hiding spot.

The landscape of “Palau” was saved into their database, and they would not make the simple mistake of letting themselves get caught by the enemy so easily even if it were enemy territory. ECOAS specialty was concealment. Nasri checked that the allied unit acting as bait started to move, and proceeded on to find the next prey. They wanted to use this method to shoot down as many enemies as they could in this manner and support Daguza and his ECOAS 920 squad members in their assault. In order to break into “Palau” and go through lots of effort to save the capture civilian, they had to create a commotion as obvious as possible and gather the enemy’s sights on them. There were only a few seconds until the main event of “Operation Billiards”—the firing of the hyper mega-particle cannon. Nasri saw the large number of enemies rushing out from the ‘cove’ through the periscope, and gave a numb-looking smile on his lips.

There would be an assault after the destruction, and a ring of exploding light indicating that their allied machine was shot down came after. “Palau” descended into sudden chaos, but it would be later that the people in the large round tubes between “Calyx”—the inner walls of the shield machine knew about this. The explosion of the connecting shafts merely sounded like thunder to them from afar, and they could not experience the tremors for themselves. The resident blocks on both sides were about to have the usual sunset, and the only thing ringing dully was the sirens mixed with the winds, indicating an abnormal situation.

In the center Uppertown, Pepe was in his official residence near the governor’s estate, and got on the leather chair the moment he heard the siren. Full Frontal asked to break off ties with him on his side, and to him, who was about to go mad, who was able to negotiate with people in the related worlds, that siren sounded like it was the declaration of destruction. On the other side, in the Downtown area, Tikva kicked over the dining chair and ran out of the house while ignoring his mother’s attempt to stop him.

His father, Marida and the Captain returned to the ship because it was said that there was an emergency order. Banagher too disappeared after he went out. ''There’s no reason for him to escape—'' the Captain said so, and Tikva did not feel that the immature prisoner had such courage, but the sound of the siren sounded abnormally heavy, causing his chest to flutter. Quite a few people felt the same too, and they looked up at the artificial sun that disappeared, praying to God that their relatives in the Neo Zeon Army could remain safe.

Banagher did not have this luxury. He walked out from the subway at the military facility ‘cove’, moved through the zero gravity path, and ended up feeling the tremors of the explosion closer than Tikva and the rest.

DUN. A deep noise echoed through the path devoid of anyone else, and the siren could be heard after that. This path that was recorded on the monitor sheet map was a service route that was used by the guards at the excavation fields. It was connected to all the tunnels like a net, and ordinary people would be prohibited from entering this ‘cove’. Banagher compared the area code on the wall with the monitor sheet to see where he was, and had a premonition that caused him to panic in the midst of the aftershock. It was 6pm, the time the ‘receivers’ would arrive—

“It started…”

It was the Federation’s attack. There was no other guesses as Banagher hastened his speed up the liftgrip. He did not head towards the 14th spacegate he was told to head to, but went to the ‘cove’ Neo Zeon fleet base. The attack started, and his plan might be something unnecessary, but he could only continue on. Whether he could succeed or not, there was no other way to bring the residents of “Palau” away from the battlefield. He looked forward while hearing the sirens annoy his nerves like they were prompting him. This was just a premonition that things were beginning, and the hands holding onto the liftgrip were sweating.