Mobile Suit Gundam: The Sister's War

by Nicthetoony

The Harmony Project (Part 2)

Sleep was usually a dreamless thing for me. A surrendering of my consciousness to the blank void while my body rested. I think as a child I had dreamed more, but by my high school years and especially through college, I hardly dreamed at all. Or at least I struggled to remember them. Maybe that reflected a lack of imagination on my part.

It was nice in its own way. In the waking world my mind always ran faster than I could keep up with, with research and anxieties and goals to strive for. On the good nights, when none of those things could overpower my desire for rest, I could cease being a thinking creature. Only a bundle of nerves and synaptic signals.

Deep, deep I slept. Mouth agape and curled on myself like my most prized instinct was the desire to develop spinal issues later in life. Dead to the world, shrouded in the dark, in the far corner of the Earth Sphere where nothing but quiet and a failed grassland reigned. This was peace. This was tranquility.

There was something else.

I couldn’t tell when, but my eyes would no longer let themselves stay shut, despite all of my groggy protests. The surrender of my limbs was replaced by a tension in my joints and a small but persistent feeling in my head that something was wrong wrong wrong. I rolled around my uncooperatively uncomfortable body, struggling against the bedsheets and suddenly finding the mattress too warm and the air around me too cold. Eyes half-open and vision blurry, I wondered if maybe I was coming down with something, my immune system compromised by the rush of the last few days of work.

But at the same time, I couldn’t help but feel like this was something different. Something more… fundamental.

I stood up on the bed, reaching for my glasses on the nightstand and rubbing my eyes, grumbling muted sounds of frustration as it became increasingly clear that whatever this bad feeling was was not going to allow me rest.

And that’s when the sound hit me. The sound of whistling.

KABOOM came the deafening, echoing cacophony that rocked the ground beneath my feet and shattered the quiet of Dodge. The shaking knocked me out of my bed and onto the floor, where I landed painfully on my side as my ears rang from the assault on my senses. My eyes were no longer bleary and tired, instead darting around the room while my breathing quickened. I scurried to my feet like a cat after being hit in the head, standing despite the newfound unsteadiness in my legs.

Another explosion rocked the colony, a test for my body to see if it could endure the shaking, a test it failed when again I collapsed to the floor like a whole row of the books on my shelf. Some part of me recalled the safety drills of my childhood, old memories that were burned into my muscles, and I ducked my head against the floor as if it was possible for a space colony to have earthquakes.

The sirens came with the sound of gunfire, and finally my thinking mind caught up with my animal flesh.

“We’re under attack.” I whispered to myself.

Under attack. Under attack. Under attack. The thought repeated itself in my mind again and again. It was that singular thought that carried me on my feet and out of my bedroom door, into the hallways where just over the gunfire and the explosions outside I could hear the panicked yelling of others in the building.

Out in the hallway which contained all of the researcher’s rooms, we scrambled amongst each other in panic and confusion. I felt arms wrapping around my side as a smaller woman crashed into me, yelling my name as her body shook.

“Twilight!” Yelled Twinkleshine, an acquaintance from college and head researcher of the Eynhorn’s sensor system. “What’s going on!?” We never talked much, but I’d always observed Twinkleshine to be a confident and easygoing girl, none of that was present in the cowering animal before me.

“The Coalition.” I said without thinking, the words spilling out as if on autoplay. It was the only logical conclusion. “They’ve found out about this place and are launching an attack.” It was the Eynhorn. Somehow the Lunar Coalition knew about the Eynhorn.

“They can’t do this to us!” A frightened male voice screamed over the noise of the crowd. “We’re civilians!”

“Tell that to them!” A woman yelled back. “We gotta get outta here! Where’re the exits!?”

“Ladies and Gentlemen!” A familiar voice of senior authority prevailed over our anxious chatter. Director Perfect Pace stood at the end of the hallway, flanked on either side by an armed guard. “I suspect all of you understand the situation we find ourselves in. All of you follow these men if you wish to live. There are panic rooms situated throughout this compound that will guarantee your safety. With any luck, our Princesses’ new battleship will arrive before the Lunarian Cyclops’ can breach the walls.”

Despite the chaos of the situation, the researchers meekly sorted themselves into lines behind the guards and followed along as they began their trek through the labyrinth of halls. Twinkleshine left my side to follow suit, but as we walked, I did not follow the guards. Instead I followed Director Pace.

“Sir.”

“Miss Sparkle, can I help you? We’re in a bit of a rush here.”

“What’s going to happen to the Eynhorn? Are we sortieing the mobile suits?”

“The Siphons are already taking to the field, Miss Sparkle. Though, our security detail tells me that no one has seen Lieutenant Flash Sentry since this attack began. Apparently he had decided to head out into town and hasn’t come back. We aren’t risking the Eynhorn in battle with the other pilots, so unless he decides to show his face, we must have faith the privates can buy us enough time.”

I grimaced at that. The Siphons were half a decade out of date compared to the Cyclops’ and our pilots were spares that could be taken away from the frontlines without much thought. They were sacrificial lambs at best, pawns to stall out the inevitable. Something in my gut told me that relying on them was a fool's hope.

There was another feeling that gripped me, the same kind of feeling as when I laid in my bed. The tension in my joints and something in my brain saying wrong wrong wrong wrong . We weren’t safe. We weren’t safe.

I heard it again. The whistling.

“EVERYBODY STAND BACK!” I yelled suddenly, pulling Director Pace along with me as I stepped back away from everyone else. He looked at me strangely, but before he could ask what I was doing, something collided against the roof and tore it apart. An explosion demolished the layers of steel and concrete that held up the building, sending it raining down on the group walking in front of us. Their screams were drowned out by the echoing crash of raw material, concrete dust kicked up in front of us as I fell once again to the floor, dragging the Director down with me.

“TWINKLESHINE!” was the first thing I heard after the ringing in my ears had subsided. I looked up to see a woman with tears in her eyes, held back by a guard as she tried to run towards the rubble. Wet with red blood and lifeless limbs.

‘Lemon Hearts’, my memory supplied me. Another acquaintance from the Celestial Institute.

Ignoring the scene, I got up on my feet, leaving a disoriented and shellshocked Director Pace speechless on the floor. The Siphons were failing. We were all going to die here.

Unless…

I ran, away from the researchers, away from the scene of death. Perhaps I heard Director Pace call after me, but I didn’t spare him any attention. No, my mind was set on one place, one thing. I couldn’t let the Compact Harmony Engine be lost in a senseless attack. I couldn’t leave my work to die like my colleagues had.

On instinct and adrenaline, I made my way to the hangar bay, hastily scanning my card to open the door. Within, I found a similar atmosphere of chaos and confusion, the crew looking bleary eyed and exhausted, propelled only by that same fear and grim determination that propelled my steps. At the center of it all, the Eynhorn stood high, safe for now.

Scanning the room, I found Hard Hat on the bottom floor, swamped on every side by men seeking assurances of their safety. No one seemed to pay much attention to me as I ran down the steps built into the wall and marched towards him.

“Hard Hat!” I yelled, relieved when that seemed to catch his attention.

“Miss Sparkle? What in Tartarus are you doing here!?”

“Lieutenant Sentry! Where is he!? Why hasn’t he sortied yet!?!”

“Lady, if I knew, I’d tell ya! No one’s seen him since last night!”

I scoffed at him, the fear and anxiety that had been filling my veins replaced by a mounting frustration. I looked past him, past the crewmen, up towards the machine that had been our sole purpose. The Eynhorn stared down from on high, the toil of my research, the future of this war, the faith that Princess Celestia herself had bestowed upon me. All of it would be wasted. Our duty would be burned in the fires of Dodge.

Everything fell away as I stared at the Gundam. Its golden eyes looked as if they were commanding me, the striking image of Princess Celestia’s gentle stare filling my mind.

I was transfixed by it, a force deep in my bones pushed me towards it. In my mind I could hear the hum of the Harmony Engine, drilled into my subconscious after months of testing and development and construction. The sound of the universe snapping into position.

I couldn’t let it die. It was all that mattered.

“Listen, Sparkle, you need to get your ass to the- Wait! Whaddya think you’re doing!?”

Before I knew it, I was standing on top of an elevator platform, ascending towards the Eynhorn’s cockpit. “SOMEONE GET HER DOWN FROM THERE!” Hard Hat yelled, but it was already too late. I had pulled open a compartment built into the cockpit hatch and pressed a red button labeled “OPEN”. Soon, I could hear the sounds of pistons shifting as the mobile suit’s innards revealed itself to me. The Eynhorn was equipped with a linear seat cockpit first installed in the Pegasus type Mobile Suits. A chair suspended in a large orb of screens with controls to either side of the armrests. Before any of Hard Hat’s men could draw the elevator back down, I hopped into the cockpit and crawled onto the seat before pressing a button on the chair that closed the hatch shut.

The instant it did, the Eynhorn’s screens came to life, producing a high fidelity video feed of the entire 360 degree area around the Mobile Suit, which gave me a good view of Hard Hat and his men yelling at me to get out of here.

“Made it this far…” I muttered to myself, scanning over the controls to give myself a proper bearing. I had never actually been inside the Eynhorn before, I had however studied up on the Celestial Standard MS Controls built into almost every Suit of the Celestial Forces, including the Eynhorn. I knew theoretically what every button and lever in front of me did, and I knew for certain that the three levers to my left initiated the startup sequence.

I clicked each one in sequence, hearing the hum of the Harmony Engine reverberating throughout the machine. Not long after, a mechanical feminine voice filled my ears.

“EYNHORN GUNDAM. SYSTEMS ENGAGING. HARMONY ENGINE AT OPTIMAL OUTPUT.”

My brow furrowed, and my hands found their grip on the control sticks built into the arm rests.

“ELEMENTAL PILOT DETECTED.”

I pulled back, confused. “What?”

“REQUIREMENTS MET. ASCENSION SYSTEM PHASE 1, ENGAGING.”

The hum of the Harmony Engine intensified, and a dam of pain broke inside my mind. I grasped my hands against my skull, groaning in agony as I was bathed in the cockpit’s red lights. My pupils dilated, my muscles contracted, hairs stood up against my skin as waves of this new and exquisite pain assaulted my senses. Everything was too much. Even the back of my eyelids were too stimulating for my brain.

And then, as quick as the pain arrived, it had left. My breathing, which I hadn’t realized had quickened, was already back to normal. No, the pain had not merely left, it had left me with a clearer mind than I had ever had.

Fight. Escape. Survive.

With my newfound intent came also the sudden movement of the Eynhorn Gundam, the machine creaking and groaning as it broke through the cage that surrounded it. The hangar crew all skittered away from the Mobile Suit, like mice fleeing towards their hiding holes. They looked at me- at the Gundam with fear and awe.

I looked down at them, and it only hit me then that I had not moved the control sticks.

“How did I…?

Outside the walls of the hangar bay, I heard another explosion.

Right. No time for questions.

Grasping at the controls, I turned the Gundam’s head around the hangar until I spotted the Beam Rifle hanging from the wall. I reached out the machine’s hand, at which point it automatically grasped at the weapon’s handle and pulled it off its rack.

“Open this door!” I yelled into the Eynhorn’s open comms, my voice ringing through the Mobile Suits speakers. When no one seemed to comply with my request, I raised the Beam Rifle and aimed it at the large metal door blocking my way. That seemed to get the message across, as not half a minute later did the door pull itself aside to reveal the starlit battlefield. With heavy steps, I pushed the Eynhorn into the fire.

The city of Dodge was a smoking wreck in the distance, black plumes billowing from the old western style buildings that held the colony’s permanent residents. I had rarely visited the city myself, but seeing the destruction still felt disquieting.

My attention was stolen by the sound of something heavy crashing towards the ground near me. Bisected through the torso, a mangled Siphon unit laid crumpled on the asphalt, a sizable chunk of its chest blown off.

Standing above its fallen foe was a Lunarian LMS-09 Cyclops, the standard unit of the Coalition army. A stocky mobile suit painted in midnight blues with large powerful legs housing high performance thrusters, a shield bolted to its left shoulder with a spiked pauldron on the other, and a head that housed its high fidelity monoeye camera unit.

In its right hand was the fairly thick Cyclops Beam Rifle, and in its left hand was the fearsome Lunarian Beam Axe, a weapon with a shaft nearly as tall as the machine carrying it with beam emitters powerful enough to slice through most mobile suits.

Its colors made the Cyclops blend into the night of the colony, illuminated in orange glows by the burning wrecks of cars that surrounded it. Its glowing blue eye turned in my direction, and the Cyclops brandished its axe at me.

No chance for diplomacy then.

Before I could finish raising my rifle, the Cyclops dashed forwards and upwards with a thruster boosted jump, leaving me to scramble to adjust my aim towards the sky. In the dark of the night, I struggled to get a bead on my target, but when I saw the green beam of the axe ignite, I took my shot.

It was different, watching the beam fire from the comfort of an observer deck, away from the crackling noise of burning air or the bright flash of the beam itself as it spewed from the barrel of the gun. All the fire and fury of our physical world condensed and sharpened into a single phenomena of destruction.

I watched and waited for the beam to slice through the Cyclops and end this fight in one fell swoop, but before the shot could make contact, the enemy Mobile Suit dashed out of the way, the beam only making grazing contact with its right arm.

“They dodged it?!”

That arm succumbed to the Harmonic Energy of the Eynhorn’s beam rifle, lost in a fiery explosion. Unfortunately for me, the enemy pilot seemed to use the momentum of the blast to propel themselves downward, helped by the thrusters mounted to their backpack.

I backed away, hoping to take another shot, but the Cyclops came down faster than I was expecting and slammed its axe against the Eynhorn’s chest, too close to comfort to the head.

The Eynhorn shook from the impact, my head slamming against the back of the pilot seat as I let out a yell of pain. Any other Mobile Suit would have been cleaved in two by the attack, but the high melting point of Equestrian held the beam at bay.

“That’s one hell of a Mobile Suit you got there!” An unknown woman’s voice rang through the Eynhorn’s comms channel. Was this… the enemy pilot? “But it doesn’t matter how tough your armor is if you can’t aim!”

“B-Back off!”

Again, without moving the controls, the Eynhorn seemed to act in accordance with my will as it dropped the beam rifle to the ground and grabbed the shaft of the beam axe, lifting it up in defiance of the Cyclops’ pushing. I sat stunned for a moment, but discarded my curiosity. This was my chance!

I ripped the axe from the Cyclops’ hands, tossing it aside as the enemy stumbled back. The Gundam stepped forward, raising a fist to strike at the Cyclops’ head, but before I could swing the Cyclops’ thrusters roared to life before the machine dashed forward and tackled me with its spiked pauldron.

I jostled violently in my seat as the Gundam was sent back by the impact, tripping backwards as the machine lost balance before slamming to the ground. Again my head crashed against the back of the pilot seat, my mind dizzy and my body reeling from the G-Forces. My hands twisted the control sticks either side of me to try and set the Gundam upright, but my efforts were halted by the Cyclops stomping its feet on the Eynhorn’s cockpit chest.

The armor creaked as the Cyclops raised its recovered beam axe and ignited it again, raising it high. “Sorry to do this, Kid.” The enemy pilot said. I couldn’t tell if it was an earnest apology. “You sounded young.”

Her words fell on deaf ears. I was spiraling inside the cockpit, my mind racing for anyway I could fight back. Any way I could survive.

I had to live. Spike was depending on me! The Harmony Project was depending on me! Princess Celestia was depending on me! I couldn’t die!

I started jostling the control sticks at random, hoping to throw the Cyclops off of me, but only succeeding in momentarily unbalancing my enemy before I was stamped down once more. “Come on come on come on come ON!” I screamed at the control panel, sweat beading down my forehead. “Something here has to work!”.

Suddenly, I could hear gunfire echoing from above. Looking forward, I saw a stream of bullets shooting up at the Cyclops’ head, most of them missing but some of them finding their mark inside the suit's sensitive monoeye. I looked down at the screen in front of me, flashing the words “VULCAN GUN AMMO - DEPLETED” over a silhouette of the Eynhorn. Slowly, I realized my thumb had pressed hard on the left stick’s fire button

Startled by its sudden loss of sight, the Cyclops stumbled back and I wasted no time capitalizing on this chance. Steadily, the Gundam rose to its feet, cameras trained on my enemy, now blind but still armed.

“You think this is enough, Kid!?” The enemy pilot yelled, flailing its axe around like a club. “I can take you out just fine with my sub cameras!”

Again, the Cyclops charged at me, relying on pure chance for the axe to strike the Gundam. A swing nearly did make contact with my head, but I managed to maneuver the Eynhorn quick enough to dodge the attack. The Gundam pulled its right fist back, ready to swing forward.

“DIE!” I screamed with the full force of my lungs, and as I did, the Eynhorn’s built in beam saber ignited into a long purple blade.

The beam cut through to the back of the Cyclops chest. For the briefest moment I could hear the blood curdling scream as my enemy was hit with the beam saber, her skin boiling to nothing as a heat as hot as the sun tore her body apart. The moment passed quickly as her screams abruptly stopped, replaced only with the static hiss of the Eynhorn’s comms.

Everything went still as the Cyclops’ limbs turned limp. I was left there with nothing but that awful hiss and the hum of the beam saber, watching the purple light fill up and burn away the space inside the enemy machine that had moments before housed a human being.

I could feel the adrenaline slowly begin to leave my body, and I became cognizant of how heavily I was breathing, how badly my lungs burned. I pulled the Gundam back, and drew the beam saber out of the hole. Inside the Cyclops’ cockpit was nothing more than burnt metal and dark ash. After a while, its legs ceased to support its weight, and the machine fell backwards, sprawled upon cracked earth.

The realization did not hit me strongly in one wave. No, it was more like a gnawing understanding blanketing me. My grip on the Gundam’s controls loosened as I looked down at the fallen Cyclops. It was metal and rubber and wires strung together into a high tech killing machine, yet laying there with its head laid on its side and its limbs so flimsy, it looked less like a machine and more like a corpse. The beam dissipated.

I had killed someone.

That didn’t matter. It was self-defense. It was justified. Morally, legally.

She was an enemy! A traitor to the kingdom. In defense of the interests of Princess Celestia, what was the life of one stranger who had so brazenly rejected the immortal kindness of their benevolent sovereign? Why should I have cared about snuffing out such a foolish existence?

It didn’t matter. I could ignore the churning in my stomach.

I slouched against the seat, rubbing the back of my head. Yeah, that was definitely going to be a lump. A fatigue spread within me, my head lulling to the side and my eyes closing as my shoulders slackened, this momentary rest encouraged by the gentle hum of the Harmony Engine, almost like a soothing wind.

I was-

Something fast and heavy exploded against the Eynhorn, breaking my reprieve before another volley of explosions rocked the ground beneath the Mobile Suit and tearing to pieces anything less resistant than the Gundam’s own armor. I jolted as the Gundam crashed into the Harmony Project building behind me, embedding itself through the glass and concrete and steel.

Dazed, I moved the Gundam’s head up to see what had struck me.

In the distance, I saw a mobile suit coming towards me, carrying a large bazooka over its shoulder. It was another Cyclops, identical to the one I had just defeated, though this one had apparently traded its beam axe for a more long range option.

This one must’ve taken care of the Project's other Siphon.

I needed to move, needed to fight back, but something in me failed to respond. I was frozen out of- fear? Shock? Exhaustion? I didn’t know, but whatever it was that kept me in place was going to kill me. My mind screamed at my body to cooperate, to do its part for our survival, but it was useless.

The Cyclops raised its beam rifle at me and I closed my eyes shut.

I heard the sound of a beam firing, but I never felt the impact of the blast.

Hesitantly, I opened my eyes, and saw that the approaching Cyclops was no longer approaching. In fact, it seemed to be occupied with shots coming from the sky.

I forced the Gundam to stand once again and looked up at the artificial horizon. There, up near the center of the colony’s diameter, I saw a sleek fighter craft painted in an electric cyan. The fighter expertly dodged the salvo of fire coming from the Cyclops, effortlessly weaving through the beams and the rockets while giving back suppressive fire that forced the Cyclops to remain constantly on the defensive.

As the fighter descended, I finally noticed the mark emblazoned on the craft’s left wing. A stylized cloud, with rainbow colored lightning spewing from its bottom.

The fighter dove closer to the Cyclops, with speed that would lead one to assume it would crash into the mobile suit. But before the nose of the fighter could make contact with the lunar steel, the parts of the fighter shifted in mid air. Thrusters turned to legs and wings inverted as its chassis grew arms and sprouted a head. From the fighter craft emerged a menacing angular mobile suit that drew a beam saber from its wrist that slashed the barrel of the Bazooka, forcing the Cyclops to abandon it as it retreated.

Dawn rose on Dodge as the Pegasus Custom fired shots at the fleeing Cyclops, seeming for a moment ready to pursue, before pausing to look my way.

The variable mobile suit hovered towards me, until finally it was in range of the Eynhorn’s comms.

“LIEUTENANT FLASH SENTRY! What the hell happened here!?” Came the high pitched voice of an irritated sounding woman. “What kinda amateur manages to blow a hole inside a colony!? I got held up patching up your fuck up!”

“I- Uh, sorry, who are you?” I asked.

“...You’re not Sentry.” The Pegasus’ pilot said as the mobile suit landed before the Eynhorn. The two machines stood face to face. “Identify yourself. Now .”

“Um, I think… it might be easier to explain off comms.” With no small amount of apprehension, I pressed a button on the control panel and watched the Eynhorn’s cockpit open. Despite the shakiness in my legs, I stepped out onto the Gundam’s waiting hand, subjecting myself to the judgment of the Pegasus.

After a few moments of tense silence, the Pegasus’s own cockpit hatch also swung open, and out from within emerged the newcomer dressed in the full white ensemble of a proper pilot suit. She pulled off her helmet, revealing the face of a woman with sun kissed skin and a head of rainbow colored hair.

“My name is Twilight Sparkle.” I said, giving a weak salute. “I’m the Harmony Project’s Lead Researcher on Harmony Engine Generation.”

She eyed me with confusion and apprehension, before breathing out a sigh.

“I’m Lieutenant Commander Rainbow Dash.” She said, then surveyed the destruction all around her. “I’m gonna have to take you in for questioning.”