"There is one other reason why you're the perfect candidate to be the face of this operation," Admiral Schneider said. He pressed a few buttons, and a model of Island Iffish appeared on the screen atop his desk. The center of Island Iffish flashed yellow for a moment before returning to its previous color. "For a reason that wasn't initially clear to me, Lieutenant Commander Jack Caldwell gave the order to have Island Iffish scanned. When a fault was found in the colony's design, he passed the scan up the chain of command. According to this report, the scan was carried out due to the suspicions of Lieutenant Sebastian Dogwood. Does this sound familiar?"
"Yes, sir," I said as hope surged in my chest. Commander Roth had actually listened to me, and the subsequent scan had made it all the way up to Admiral Schneider. "Did you derive any utility from the scan?"
"You've got a talent for speaking. It's good for a hero to be verbose," Schneider said, and my eyes twitched in annoyance. "Yes, I sent the scan straight to Gihren Zabi, and he ordered us to alter the trajectory so that the largest fragment would strike Jaburo."
That was probably the best thing we could do under the circumstances. If I was in Degwin Zabi's shoes, I would have pursued a strategy of diplomacy by forming a coalition with other Earth Federation colonies. Perhaps they could have achieved independence by threatening to drop a few colonies and destroy the Earth's ecosystem. Now that the demon was out of the box and ten million people aboard Island Iffish were dead, war was the only path left available.
"What effect will this have on the Earth?" I asked.
"That depends," Admiral Schneider said, scratching his white beard. "If any large fragments strike an ocean, there will be massive devastation the likes of which the Earth has never seen before."
I took a deep breath, preventing the accusations and insults from leaving my mind. "I recommend you scan Island Iffish and make sure that its trajectory wasn't altered during the battle."
"That would be tough with the state of the 2nd Fleet, but I'd be remiss to ignore the advice of the Oracle," Schneider said with a laugh, and I had to stop myself from glaring at him. It was bad enough for my squad to carry that name, and I really hoped the nickname didn't stick to me.
"Thank you, sir. If I may ask, why not you? Why can't you be the Hero of Operation British? You have operational command," I said.
A wide, sardonic smile appeared on Schneider's face as he said, "There's no room left for my advancement. As Zeon is now, the only people allowed to rise above the rank of rear admiral are named Zabi. If I started calling myself 'hero,' I'd be dead or retired within half a year."
Right, the Zabi family had a stranglehold on the military's upper echelon. Degwin Zabi's children - Gihren, Dozle, Kycilia, and Garma - were essentially in charge of the military. It must have been hard to compete against somebody when his dad was in charge of the country.
"Isn't that…" I chose my next word carefully, "infuriating?"
"Absolutely," Admiral Schneider said, "but I choose the tyranny of Zeon over the tyranny of a government 400,000 kilometers away."
"I understand," I said, though I still couldn't comprehend how this line of thinking had led to a person who could knowingly order the deaths of several billion people.
"Good. The 2nd Fleet will begin heading back to Solomon Base as soon as Island Iffish hits the Earth's atmosphere. They'll take some pictures, and you'll probably be expected to give a speech, so start writing one now."
"Yes, sir."
"You're dismissed, Lieutenant Commander."
After leaving Admiral Schneider's office, I was escorted to the battleship's crew quarters. My guide told me that I would stay in a room with the rest of my squad until they prepared an individual officer's room for me. As I entered one of the common rooms of the Gidoru's crew quarters, the twenty men inside cheered and applauded.
Vultee and Ramos, located in the center of the common room, were leading the applause. I smiled and waved in response. After seeing the genuine excitement in the faces of my allies, my smile became genuine. These men had just experienced a significant loss, Vultee and Ramos especially, and they needed something to celebrate.
When the applause died down somewhat, one of the soldiers said, "Did you really take out the enemy flagship by yourself?"
"Ensign Vultee helped," I said modestly, and the crowd erupted once more into cheers and laughter.
For nearly the next hour, we explained everything we did during the battle in excruciating and often fabricated detail. While I tried to speak modestly and claim that any Zaku pilot could have done the same in my shoes, Ramos embellished the truth. By the time the explanation was done, Ramos was claiming that he sank an entire flank of the 4th Fleet (even though he only had nine rockets) and that I had cut the Titan in half with a single blow from my Heat Hawk. I tried to give an honest explanation of what had happened, but the Zeon soldiers preferred Ramos's version of events.
It was revealed that somebody had built a make-shift brewery in the crew compartment, and a vacuum-sealed bag of moonshine was pushed into my hand. I took a sip through the straw and almost threw up. It tasted terrible, but I could tell it would get the job done.
Ensign Vultee raised his bag of moonshine into the air and said, "Here's to Lieutenant Commander Sebastian Dogwood, Hero of Operation British!"
"Cheers!" All the soldiers in the room called out in an uncoordinated series of shouts, and I could tell that quite a few of the men were already drunk. I took a sip from my bag, and that terrible liquid caused a burning sensation to course through my mouth.
January 10th, 0079
"Prepare for acceleration in thirty seconds," the voice declared over the intercom.
I sat in the crew common room with Vultee and Ramos who were reading from small electronic tablets. They tightened their grips on the tablets, and we were all pushed against the ground by the weight of acceleration.
Diego Ramos used the opportunity to stretch his legs, and Heinrich Vultee started doing jumping jacks in place. Artificial gravity was a luxury in space, and they were committed to using it. I stood from my chair and started stretching out my knees.
After about two minutes of acceleration, Ramos said, "This acceleration period is taking longer than usual. Admiral Schneider must be in a hurry to make it back to Solomon Base."
"It's only natural," Vultee said with a smile. "Vice Admiral Dozle will want our prisoner to be delivered as soon as possible." He looked over at me.
"How long until the colony hits the planet?" I asked dourly.
Ramos thought about it for a second. "If we're decelerating this hard to get away from the planet, it can't be more than an hour before impact."
Vultee frowned, saying, "Schneider's cutting it a bit close, isn't he?"
Ramos shrugged. "He had to make sure the Feds didn't have anything else up their sleeves."
The acceleration stopped, and we returned to zero gravity. After a few minutes, I left the common room and headed toward one of the observation halls that faced the Earth. There were already a number of Zeon soldiers there, and the number grew with every passing minute.
"Do you think we'll be able to see the impact?" a soldier asked.
After scratching his chin, the other soldier said, "You can see nuclear blasts from space, so we should be able to see this. It probably won't look all that impressive, though."
As I watched the planet, I still didn't really believe that my efforts would cause a meaningful difference in the timeline. The battle might have knocked Island Iffish off course, and the damage to the fleet might have prevented Admiral Schneider from putting it back on course. Maybe the colony would crumple more than expected due to the damage it received.
I didn't fully comprehend the nature of this timeline and my place in it. Could I really change the timeline so significantly, or would some unseen force keep things in place? Maybe the failure of Operation British was a "canon event," and my name would forever be tied to the most famous failure in human history. Sebastian Dogwood, Hero of the Great Disaster.
What would Operation British's success even mean for this timeline? How would things change? Would the Federation give up? Would Project V still happen? Would Amuro Ray still get in the RX-78-2 Gundam and escape Side 7 aboard White Base?
All of those thoughts seemed utterly academic to me at that moment. I refused to accept that Operation British could succeed until I saw it with my own eyes.
Fifteen minutes passed as I stewed in my own thoughts. Eventually, Ensign Heinrich Vultee appeared beside me, and I was reminded of the last battle where his instinct was to stick with me while bullets and rockets filled the air (vacuum, whatever).
"I figured you'd want to watch the impact," Vultee said.
"Yeah," I said, not breaking eye contact with the Earth.
It was completely soundless when a country-sized fireball blossomed over central Asia. In an instant, most of mainland China was destroyed.
The soldiers gasped in shock, and this immediate apprehension transformed into jubilation after a moment. They cheered as smaller explosions occurred throughout Europe and central Asia.
"Did we miss?" Vultee asked with wide eyes.
"Not yet," I said.
Orbital mechanics delivered the fragments of Island Iffish to Earth in a slow-moving wave. After less than a minute, another huge explosion detonated on the far side of the globe, and I could just barely determine that the second piece had landed in the center of the Atlantic Ocean.
Finally, there was a flash that was much bigger than the others, though I couldn't see where it had landed. The last piece of Island Iffish had struck the other side of the planet.
Seeing the extent of the damage, the soldiers slowly stopped cheering. The fireballs slowly expanded, and entire countries were consumed by the slowly-growing fire.
One of the soldiers quietly said, "H-Hold on. I have family members in Korea."
I turned my eyes toward the Korean peninsula, and it had been completely destroyed in the fireball that had already taken China.
"Vultee, where did that last piece of debris hit?" I asked.
Quietly, Vultee said, "I don't know. Somewhere near South America, I think."
In a muted voice, I said, "We did it."
No one cheered.
Operation British was a success.