Gathering Dark Clouds

The first thing Ensign Jess Starlord learned about the Londo Bell was that the corridors of its flagship smelled like hot metal and recycled coffee, and the second was that nobody here stood on ceremony long enough for either to cool. He had rehearsed his salute twice in the lift. He had rehearsed his introduction eleven times, and the eleventh version—the one where he remembered to say Starlord before his first name—was the one he was still murmuring under his breath when the hatch sighed open onto the hangar deck and the whole speech blew straight out of his head.

Because there, framed by the hangar’s lamps, stood Amuro Ray.

Not the grainy photograph of a war hero that Dutch schoolteachers tacked to classroom walls. Not the legend the other cadets at Nijmegen had argued about over lunch—the White Devil, the Federation’s Newtype, the boy who shot down a mobile armor and then walked away from all of it. Just a man in a pilot suit with his sleeves pushed up, leaning against a stanchion and grinning at a tall officer with the tiredest eyes Jess had ever seen on a commanding officer.

“Hey, Bright,” the living legend said. “I’ve been waiting. Whoops—should I be calling you Colonel Bright now?”

“Oh, knock it off, Amuro.” The Colonel’s voice was a shovel dragged through gravel, and it was also, unmistakably, fond. “I’ve finally escaped all that tedious paperwork. Just treat me like you always have.”

“Ha ha, got it.” Amuro’s gaze slid sideways, found Jess standing at attention in the hatchway with his back so straight it ached, and his grin widened. “So, Bright. Is that the new recruit everyone’s been talking about?”

“Yeah.” Bright Noa turned. Measured him once, top to boots, and Jess felt the way you feel when a star cruiser’s searchlight sweeps over you. “Vice Admiral Cowen personally recommended him. Apparently he graduated from Nijmegen with excellent marks.”

“Oh? So he’s Kou and the others’ junior.”

Excellence, Jess thought, sweating, had not prepared him for being discussed in the third person by two of the most famous men in the Earth Sphere.

He saluted. He was proud of how level his arm came up, and less proud that his voice cracked on the last syllable. “I’m Ensign Starlord. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Major Amuro Ray.”

“Nice to meet you, Ensign.” Amuro did not return the salute so much as wave it gently out of existence. “And just call me Amuro. Like Bright said, rank doesn’t mean much in Londo Bell.”

Jess’s arm stayed up, stranded somewhere between military discipline and confusion. “It doesn’t mean anything?”

“Not so much anymore.” Amuro’s laugh was quiet, and it had a history behind it. “Londo Bell used to have a lot of civilians. We couldn’t exactly force military discipline on them—they were volunteers helping us of their own accord, after all.”

“So… Ryoma from Getter and Koji from Mazinger are volunteer helpers?” The words came out before Jess could stop them. “That’s kind of amazing.”

And it was. It was like being told the sunrise filed its flight plan with this unit.

“That’s right.” Something in Amuro’s face shifted then, the way a sky shifts before weather. “Now—sorry to put you to work when you’ve only just arrived and must be tired, but we received orders a moment ago. It seems Luna II is being targeted by DC remnants, and we’ve been ordered to head there as an escort.”

“Good grief.” Bright tipped his head back as though asking the ceiling for patience and receiving none. “The brass are as eager as ever to work us to the bone.”

A chorus of groans rolled out from the observation rail, where the rest of the pilots had gathered. Jess recognized them from the roster: Kou, Chris, Bernie, Emma, Fa—and Keith somewhere behind them, laughing. They had the easy familiarity of people who had survived battles together, and Jess wondered how long it would take before he belonged among them.

“More DC remnants?” Kou Uraki said, in the tone of a man who had lost an argument with reality and expected to lose it again. “How do those guys still have so much energy?”

“Federation policy has been getting increasingly harsh toward people living in space lately,” Amuro said. He said it plainly, without heat, which somehow made it worse. “So it wouldn’t be surprising if some colonists started helping the DC under its anti-Federation banner.”

“Seriously, the Federation’s policies right now are ridiculous.” Bernie had his arms folded tight, and his accent had slipped into the old colonies. “Tariffs like those will wreck the colonies’ economies.”

“That still doesn’t excuse the DC’s terrorist attacks,” Chris said, crisply, and Bernie spread his hands: no argument, no agreement, just the weary shrug of a man who had seen both sides of a wall.

“True,” Bright said. “That’s precisely why we’ve been deployed as a peacekeeping force, but…”

He didn’t finish. Emma Sheen did it for him, and her voice had the careful flatness of someone laying a grenade on a table. “Speaking of which, Captain Bright. Is the rumor about the Titans being established true?”

“The Titans?” Fa perked up. “What’s that?”

“Apparently, they’re a peacekeeping unit proposed by Lieutenant General Jamitov…”

“…A unit whose core members are DC remnants,” Bright said. “They’ve already begun operations.”

For one heartbeat the hangar was very quiet. Somewhere in the hull, a pump cycled.

“DC remnants?” Keith’s voice climbed. “That’s insane!”

“Lieutenant General Jamitov seems to think it’s a clever way to kill two birds with one stone.” Bright consulted his wrist terminal, and the set of his jaw said he’d like to stone a third bird, and the third bird was the brass. “Now, if there are no other questions, we’ll get underway.”

Jess had approximately forty questions. He held every one of them.

---

Luna II hung in the black like a fist of old concrete, pocked and gray and bristling with communication spines, and it was, as far as Jess could tell through the Gespenst’s forward optics, entirely peaceful. Which made the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand up in a way the battlefield probably would have too.

“Looks like Luna II hasn’t been attacked yet,” Amuro reported, his voice crisp through the encrypted channel.

“Let’s deploy our units ahead of time.” Bright’s order came without hesitation. “Ensign Starlord, take the rear guard.”

“Understood.” Jess swallowed. “And you can call me Jess, too.”

A pause, then the faintest hiss of amusement. “Roger that, Jess. Be careful.”

The Gespenst settled into formation at the rear of the line—Amuro ahead, a white-and-red silhouette in the dark, Emma and Keith on the flank, Kou and Fa holding the center, Chris and Bernie sweeping wide. Jess gripped the control grips and felt the machine breathe around him, coolant humming, gyros whispering. His first real patrol. His first real war zone. He made his hands relax one finger at a time, the way the instructor at Nijmegen had said, as if loosening a knot rather than strangling the yoke.

“It’s quiet,” he transmitted at last, because the silence had to be said out loud. “Do you really think the DC is targeting this place?”

Kou’s voice came back, dry as toast. “Better if they don’t show up.”

Jess almost smiled at Kou’s answer. For one brief moment, he allowed himself to hope the man was right. Then came the white flash, the impact that traveled up through the Gespenst’s frame like a shouted word heard through bone, and a column of fire unspooling from the base’s far side, silver debris turning lazily against the stars.

“Whoa! W-what was that?!”

“Damn!” Amuro’s tone clipped hard. “They were already inside!”

“Lieutenant Emma! Ensign Keith!” Bright’s voice cracked across the channel like a whip. “Go investigate inside Luna II! Everyone else, tighten security!”

“Understood! Ensign Keith, with me!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Their thrusters flared and they were gone, two bright sparks falling toward the base. Jess’s mouth was dry.

“I hope the damage isn’t serious,” Bright said, quieter now, a captain’s thought accidentally left un-muted.

That was when the real attack began.

They came out of the dark in a wedge so tight the formation itself looked like a single weapon—three Dom IIs, black and purple and gray, their armor drinking the starlight and giving nothing back. Jess knew them before the targeting computer finished spitting the identification. The Black Tri-Stars. Every cadet in the Earth Sphere knew them. Nijmegen could have used their portrait for the entrance exam.

“Hmph. So Londo Bell showed up after all,” came the voice of Gaia, flat and heavy as a dropped anvil.

“Federation dogs… I’ll crush you!” Ortega.

“Damn! That explosion was a diversion! Recall Lieutenant Emma and Ensign Keith, now!” Bright snapped.

“Understood!” Torres’s answer from the bridge.

Jess’s hands had gone cold. The first explosion had been a hole in a wall, and they had all turned to look at it, and while they looked, the Tri-Stars had walked in through the door. He filed the lesson away in the box where he kept things he could not afford to think about until later.

Zaku Kais fanned out behind the Doms, more of them than the scanners liked, and the rearmost ones moved with a discipline that made the DC’s reputation look like a bad joke. And then Emma and Keith came burning back into formation, close enough that Jess flinched.

“Sorry we’re late!”

“Looks like there wasn’t much damage inside!” Keith sang out.

“’Looks like’?” Amuro said. “You didn’t check?”

“Uh, well, that’s…”

“They said it was a restricted area, so we couldn’t inspect inside,” Emma finished, and her voice dared anyone to make something of it.

“I see. Good work,” Bright said, and whatever else he thought went into the box with all his other thoughts. “They outnumber us, so don’t let yourselves get separated.”

Separated. Jess checked his wing spacing, trimmed it tighter. The Gespenst’s display showed a battlefield that was already a net, and the net was already drawing closed, and he understood suddenly why they called this kind of thing a war rather than a fight.

Then the comm channel crackled, and a new voice—hot, huge, unmistakably alive—filled the cockpit.

“Everyone all right?!”

“Getter Robo!” Fa’s cry was pure delight. “It’s Ryoma and the others!”

“Ryoma, Hayato, Benkei?!” Bright’s composure slipped a full inch. “What are you doing here…”

“We’ll talk later. First, we have to deal with these guys!” A beat, and Jess could hear Ryoma grinning. “Hayato, Benkei, let’s go!”

“Yeah! Time to show off the results of our training!” Benkei boomed. “…Though I guess we can’t use Daisetsuzan Oroshi in space.”

“We’re over the Moon and that’s your concern?” Hayato, dry as arithmetic, cut in.

Jess leaned forward in his seat. He couldn’t help it. The Getter Robo was being shot out of the dark toward them in three pieces that shouldn’t have worked and were magnificent anyway—a machine that looked like a promise somebody had made and kept.

“Whoa, Getter Robo! Man! I can’t believe I get to see it this close!” The words were out of Jess’s mouth and into the entire squadron channel before a single discipline cell in his brain could object. “Joining Londo Bell was totally worth it!”

“W-what?” said Ryoma.

“Oh, I forgot to introduce myself!” Jess’s salute came up—he had no idea why, no one could see it, his helmet had a sun visor. “I’m—no, sir! Ensign Starlord, newly assigned to Londo Bell! Please call me Jess!”

The silence that followed had a texture. Somewhere in the channel, Keith began to laugh and then thought better of it.

“R-right,” Ryoma said at last, in the tone of a man deciding that in wartime you take the reinforcements you’re given. “Nice to meet you, Jess.”

He had barely finished speaking when the tactical display lit up again, and this time the warning chirp had a different pitch—a capital ship signature, several smaller contacts, and then a lone fast mover that the computer flagged in red and then flagged again, as if it didn’t believe itself.

“New contacts!” Jess called, and was startled to find his voice steady. “One Musai Kai—and a mobile suit on an attack vector!”

The Musai Kai slid out of Luna II’s shadow, lean and predatory. And ahead of it, glittering against the gray, came a machine with a silhouette like a drawn blade, its armor a deep reddish-pink that caught the distant light and held it.

“A Gerbera Tetra!” Kou’s voice snapped around like a gun turret. “Cima Garahau!”

And the woman herself, silk and acid over the open channel: “Heh heh… As expected of the Black Tri-Stars. Not bad at all. That makes my job a lot easier.”

“Cima, you’re late!” Gaia barked, and there was no friendship in it, only the peevishness of old thieves sharing a fence.

“They still outnumber us,” Bright said, and the weariness was gone from him now, burned off, leaving the voice that had brought ships home from A Baoa Qu. “All units, hold formation and engage. Jess—stay on the rear and call your targets. Don’t let anyone get behind us.”

“Understood, Colonel.” Jess pushed the throttle forward, and the Gespenst surged into the gathering dark—and then there was no more time for rehearsal, because the dark was shooting back.

A Zaku Kai broke from the enemy line and came at him in a long, lazy arc that was anything but lazy, its machine gun winking. Jess hauled the stick over and the Gespenst answered with a lurch that pressed him sideways into his harness; tracers slid past the cockpit, close enough that he felt the frame ring with their nearness. His hands wanted to freeze. He made them move anyway, one finger at a time, the Nijmegen knot loosening. “Rear guard, engaging—targeting the lead Zaku!” he called, and was distantly proud that the words came out whole.

He brought the Gespenst’s Neutron Beam up and squeezed off a shot that clipped the Zaku’s shoulder armor and sent it spinning wide, and then he was already turning, because a second one was trying to slip behind him and that was exactly what Bright had told him not to allow. “One trying to flank—marking it!” The Split Missiles leapt from their bays with a hard cough of thrusters, fanning out in a spray that forced the Zaku to break and scatter rather than close. It wasn’t a kill. It was a door held shut, and Jess found he could live with that.

Ahead of him, Amuro’s white-and-red silhouette cut across the field like a blade drawn through water, one smooth line that pulled two Doms off their attack run and onto him instead. “Nice work, Jess—keep calling them,” Amuro said, calm as ever, and the calm was a rope thrown across the dark. Then the Getter Robo came through the gap the Tri-Stars had left, three machines locked into one impossible shape, and Ryoma’s voice rolled over the channel: “Leave the big ones to us! Tomahawk—go!” The great blade flashed and the Doms gave ground, and Jess, breathing hard, held his lane and kept his eyes on the rear, where the net was still drawing closed and the night was full of enemies.

“Understood, Colonel,” he said again, quieter this time, to himself.

---

The battle was still cooling into silence—debris drifting like a shattered constellation, the last of the enemy machines breaking apart against the stars, Cima’s laughter fading into Minovsky static—when Bright’s voice came through, and it was tired again, but differently tired.

“Getter Team. We’re glad you made it. But is everything at the Saotome Institute all right?”

“That’s the thing.” Ryoma’s voice had lost its battle-edge. “Dr. Saotome told us something troubling. It happened when he attended a robotics conference in Stockholm… Apparently, several prominent robotics scientists have recently gone missing. And every one of them was born in the colonies.”

Jess, easing the Gespenst back into escort position, felt his stomach settle into a cold, unfamiliar knot.

“That’s… news to me,” Bright said.

“Apparently no missing-person reports have been filed. They simply can’t get in touch with them.” Ryoma exhaled. “At first, everyone assumed the researchers were just absorbed in their work… but lately there have been far too many cases.”

“So we came to Side 7 to visit an acquaintance of the professor,” Hayato said, “and ran into this battle.”

“That’s why we have to head to that professor’s place now. We’d really like to help you all, but…”

“No, under the circumstances, it can’t be helped.” Bright’s tone was the tone of a man filing paperwork in advance. “Besides, Londo Bell doesn’t have independent authority right now. We can’t just fold you into the unit on our own.”

A pause. Then Amuro, lightly, as though offering an umbrella in the rain: “But Bright, escorting civilians is a perfectly legitimate mission, right? Then we can escort them to the professor’s place.”

“Hmm. Good point… That would work.” Jess could hear the Colonel’s small, resigned smile. “What do you say, Ryoma?”

“Of course. We’d appreciate it.”

“Man… everybody’s got it rough,” Benkei sighed.

“By the way,” Emma asked, and her voice had softened its edges, “how are Koji and the others? Are they doing all right?”

“Yeah. They’re in the American sector now, I think. They said they’re helping with research at the Tesla Leicht Institute.”

“What’s the name of Dr. Saotome’s acquaintance on Side 7?” Nina asked, the question of a woman who liked her facts bolted down.

“Dr. Raizo Kasshu. He’s made some outstanding contributions to biotechnology,” Hayato said.

“Huh,” Kou said, which from Kou could mean anything.

“Apparently they haven’t been able to reach him lately.” Ryoma spoke quietly now. “I hope nothing’s happened…”

Jess looked out at Luna II, gray and scarred and still standing, and at the black beyond it where the DC had gone, and at the Getter Robo holding station off his wing like a promise somebody had made and kept. Scientists vanishing, and every one of them born in the colonies. He was a brand-new ensign who had just been handed a war, and he understood that the strange, cold knot in his stomach had a name: the suspicion that the gathering dark ahead of them was not going to pass quickly.

“All units,” Bright said. “Set course for Side 7.”

And the Londo Bell turned, together, toward the gathering dark.