January 4th, 0079
Lights blinked and alarms blared as my vision slowly came into focus. Pain shot through my head, and I could feel blood streaming from a wound on my scalp. I was sitting in a crash harness of some kind, making me feel like I had just been in a plane crash.
"Lieutenant Dogwood! Are you okay!?"
A fearful voice called out over the machine's intercom, though I assumed it had just intercepted someone else's communication, since my name wasn't Dogwood. I groaned in pain and tried to take stock of my situation. There were two joysticks in easy reach of my hands, and numerous other flips and dials decorated the interior of the strange cockpit in which I had awoken.
My body was horizontal to the ground, and a huge hole had been torn in the side of my cockpit. The hole was big enough that I could see through it. On the other side of the hole was a grassy field and the sky.
No, that wasn't the sky. As I looked up, I saw more green fields and small villages where the blue sky should have been. I was in some kind of giant cylinder.
Something massive entered my view. It was easily the size of a building, but it moved with the speed of a man. The object resembled a giant man wearing green armor and wielding an equally-sized rifle. I saw the single bright cyclopean eye in the center of the creature's head, and I knew what it was: a Zaku II mobile suit from the original Mobile Suit Gundam.
An instant later, I realized that I must have been inside of the cockpit of a similar Zaku II, though mine was clearly damaged. Based on the readings of the screen, I had only taken damage to the cockpit, and the rest of the mobile suit was undamaged.
There was a crackling noise from the direction of the other Zaku, and the same voice from earlier emanated from that giant green mobile suit. "Sebastian! Are you alive!?"
I flipped the switch connecting me with the other Zaku, barely registering that I somehow knew which switch to flip. Trying to keep the pain from my voice, I said, "What happened?"
A massive boom gave me my answer, and the other Zaku was shot in its armored shoulder. It staggered back, causing the ground to rumble with each gargantuan step.
Realizing I was under fire, my hands shot toward my Zaku's controls. With expert precision, I pushed the Zaku to its feet and swiveled the head-mounted camera to search for the source of the attack. There, a few hundred meters away, was a giant train-mounted gun the size of a building. It was crewed by nearly a dozen men, and they were in the middle of loading another shell by hand.
My machine gun is faster.
I aimed my rifle at the train and squeezed down on the trigger built into the right joystick. A bullet fired from the rifle and struck the train with the force of a tank shell. The cannon instantly exploded in an orange fireball, and the rest of the train was rendered into a heap of scrapped metal.
From the moment I grabbed the Zaku's controls to the moment I killed everyone aboard the train, I was operating mostly on muscle memory. It was only when the threat was neutralized that I fully comprehended what had happened. In a mere instant, I had killed a dozen men.
I shook my head clear of the growing sense of fear and disgust in my throat. This must have just been a strange dream or something. Either way, I couldn't afford to stop until I was out of danger. I looked up at the screen and saw two names written there: Petty Officer Heinrich Vultee and Ensign Felix Hotchkiss.
Another Zaku entered my field of view as the first Zaku tore off its shoulder-mounted shield that had been torn and crumpled by the cannon shot. Evidently, I was the squad leader of a three-man team of Zakus.
When I looked up, I could get a better view of my surroundings. I caught a glimpse of an outward-facing window and saw the moon begin to float by like an orb on a baby's nursery mobile. We were standing on a giant spaceship, and the gravity I felt was just the force of its rotation.
Oh no.
I was piloting a Zaku inside of a gargantuan space colony. There was no way that I had woken up at that point of the timeline.
Deciding to take the initiative, I activated my radio and said, "Sound off! Vultee!"
"Roger!" Officer Heinrich Vultee called out over my radio. He was the one who had called out to me when I first woke up.
"Hotchkiss!"
"Roger!" Ensign Felix Hotchkiss called out from his undamaged Zaku.
"Good!" I said. "Ensign Hotchkiss, you take point since me and Vultee have taken some damage."
"Yes, sir!" Hotchkiss said as his mobile suit jogged for a second to reach the front of the pack.
We continued forward, following the lead of Ensign Hotchkiss. I was able to control the legs of the Zaku with only one hand, so I used my other hand to quickly scroll through the HUD located on the front of my damaged cockpit. As I scrolled, the first thing I found was the date: January 4th, 0079 UC.
A pit formed in my stomach. That was the day it happened, sure, but maybe I was on some other space colony. As the Zakus reached a small town, I noticed that our mobile suits dwarfed many of the buildings we passed. A small armored column of five main battle tanks appeared in front of us, and we opened fire with our 105mm rifles. Two or three shots was enough to detonate each tank's ammo reserves, and we kept moving after that horrendously short battle.
Eventually, I found the digital file of our mission briefing. After reading two lines, I could feel my skin start to get clammy. The mission name was Operation British.
"We're in Island Iffish, right?" I said, terrified to hear the answer.
"Did you hit your head, Lieutenant Dogwood?" Vultee asked. "Of course we are. We're on our way to release the G3 Gas."
I was correct. Of all the places I could wake up, it had to be here in the middle of Operation British.