The Covenant Gundam's rear thrusters erupted with dazzling flames as the machine dove at full speed like a ferocious bird of prey swooping down on its quarry. The Beam Pistols in both hands unleashed an unceasing barrage of deadly fire. Jiliang's expression was cold and focused. Every main gun, secondary gun, and missile launcher on Freedom Gundam's Meteor weapons module lit up with high-energy radiance, the machine facing the incoming beams and silhouette as all systems entered maximum combat posture, ready to intercept.
Elsewhere, on PLANT's final defensive line.
"Here they come! Scatter!"
At the same time Jiliang and the others were pursuing the Earth Forces' nuclear strike unit, the "Peace Maker" team, dense crimson warning markers lit up across the fire-control radar displays of ZAFT's homeland defense forces in the airspace not far from the Jachin Due fortress headquarters.
Yzak Joule slammed down the throttle in his cockpit and roared into the onboard communicator.
Loaded with its heavy Assault Shroud, the Duel Gundam's back and shoulder thrusters spewed scorching plasma streams. With a shriek that tore through space, it charged ahead of the pack toward the Moebius formation carrying nuclear missiles.
Under the selfish arrangements of Supreme Council member Ezalia Joule, this Joule Team had originally been deployed at the very rear of the entire defensive formation.
As a mother, she had hoped that her only son would survive safely in the rear, far from the main battlefield.
Yet the Earth Alliance's surviving fleet, driven into a mad counterattack after suffering Genesis's first devastating strike, had allowed this nuclear assault unit—prepared to die—to tear through the outer defensive line from the flank and crash directly into the Joule Team at the innermost layer of the defense perimeter.
The shelter his mother had painstakingly built had instead become the foremost