EPISODE 13: NEW FRONTIERS, OLD TIES
At long last, the Amuro Ray docks at the Jupitorius Space Colony, Bunch 1.
Founded by the wealthy and powerful Scirocco Family, proprietors of the Jupitorius Hydrogen Mining Corporation, Jupitorius is the farthest space state from Earth. During the U.C. 0070s and 0080s, the great distance of Jupitorius from Cislunar Space meant that the Jupitorius Colony was essentially autonomous from both the Earth Federation and the Archduchy of Zeon. Nevertheless, Jupitorius prospered greatly from the Earth/Zeon wars because both sides needed Jupitorius’ chief export product, raw hydrogen gas and crystals, to fuel their military confrontation. During the decade between U.C. 0079 and 0089, Jupitorius generated revenues that towered into the trillions of Federation credits, enough for the Scirocco Family to fund their own private army, which Scirocco scion and heir Paptimus Scirocco took into battle to support the Titans during the Gryps Conflict of U.C. 0087.
Paptimus’ death at the end of that conflict left the Scirocco Family without an heir, but the real threat to the family’s hegemony emerged in the early U.C. 0090s when the surviving Zeon warlords, driven out of Cislunar Space by the Earth Federation Forces, began settling the Jupiter Zone. The Zeon generals who had served under Regent Haman Karn and later, Colonel Char Aznable now vied with each other for the right to rule the Archduchy of Zeon. The Zeon warlords each needed Jupitorius’ hydrogen mines to rebuild their shattered war machine, and they took it by force. Had the Zeon invaded several years earlier, they would have met fierce resistance from the Scirocco Corps, but following the death of Paptimus, the patriarch of the Scirocco Family, Patrilochus Scirocco, lost the heart for combat. The Scirocco Corps, once a military power so formidable that it was regarded as the shifter of the balance of power in the struggle among the AEUG, Titans, and Axis Zeon, was but a shell of its former self. The Zeon warlords found Jupitorius wealthy, prosperous, and surprisingly vulnerable. Overrunning the remains of the Scirocco Corps with appalling ease, the Callisto Zeon and Jupitorius Zeon unseated the Scirocco Family, took control of Jupitorius, and turned upon each other…with the citizens of Jupitorius caught helplessly in between.
Strictly speaking, neither the Callisto Zeon nor the Jupitorius Zeon (despite their name) rules the Jupitorius Colonies, at least not officially. With the demise of the Scirocco Family, however, the Zeon factions have established hegemony over the Jupitorius Colonies, including a puppet governor, one Richard Linker, who is nominally an elected official but in truth, installed by the Jupitorius Zeon as a lapdog. The Earth Federation Government has treated the passing of Jupitorius into Zeon control with indifference. Appeals to the Earth Federation Government to deliver Jupitorius from Zeon control, made by the few Jupitorius government leaders courageous and scrupulous enough to risk the wrath of Zeon, have fallen upon deaf ears at the Earth Federation Security Council. A proposal to liberate the Jupitorius Colonies was made by General Bright Noah in U.C. 0095, but was quickly vetoed by the Security Council. Hence, Jupitorius has languished under a state of de facto Zeon occupation during the past half decade. On the surface, it would appear that the citizens of Jupitorius have continued to enjoy relative peace, prosperity, and stability, but the shadow of Zeon looms ominously over them, manifesting itself only occasionally, but dramatically and violently, in mobile suit raids that have, in the past five years, left several thousand Jupitorius civilians dead.
Two years earlier, in U.C. 0097, elements of the ISRLA (Independent Spacenoid Republic Liberation Army) began taking root at Jupitorius…both so that it would have allies and a far-removed sanctuary for its guerilla struggle in the Outer Solar System against the Earth Federation and to assist their Spacenoid brethren against Zeon oppressors. The movement, led by Jupitorius citizens and former AEUG heroes Judau Ashta and his wife Lu Luka Ashta, have the popular support of much of the Jupitorius Colonies’ people. What they lack, however, is firepower. They have inspiration, courage, and justice on their side, but no physical weapons with which to counter those used by the Zeon oppressors. What few weapons the ISRLA has is concentrated in the Cislunar Space; there is simply nothing to spare for the ISRLA’s operations in Jupiter’s orbit.
And so the Jupitorius ISRLA freedom fighters plan…and wait.
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Twenty-five year old Elle Viano Olech, once called by her peers the “Blonde Bombshell of Shangrila” and, more than ten years after she left the space colony of her birth to battle the Axis Zeon as a member off the AEUG, retains enough of the qualities she had as a fourteen year old hellion to be worthy of that nickname. The wild blonde ponytail of yore is still in evidence, although she has long since traded in the normalsuit of a mobile suit pilot for the skirt of a homemaker.
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Elle Viano Olech, wife of Captain Beecher Olech. This image was captured in U.C. 0088 when Elle was fourteen years old. Now twenty-five, Elle has settled down with Beecher, although she still retains her fire from her teenaged rebel days.
After those heady days of the late U.C. 0080s, when Elle replaced the slain 1Lt. Emma Sheen as the pilot of the Gundam MK-II, Elle settled into a quieter, less turbulent life. Having initially returned to Side 1’s Shangrila Colony, Elle and her fiancé Beecher Olech eventually found their way out to the Jupitorius Colonies in the early U.C. 0090s, where they joined their longtime friends Judau Ashta and Lu Luka.
Beecher and Elle married in U.C. 0095. To Elle’s chagrin, however, Beecher, who in his youth had been among the most irresponsible, selfish, lazy, cowardly, and good-for-nothing rats she had ever known (and yet, none of that stopped her from falling madly in love with him in those desperate final days of the war against Regent Haman Karn’s Axis Neo Zeon Empire), had suddenly, as a consequence of his wartime experiences, had suddenly discovered his latent taste for adventure and heroism. A more unlikely character transformation could scarcely be imagined. It was a complete and utter change of character that would have delighted Elle, and did for a time, until she realized that it would draw Beecher away from her as he dedicated himself to his newfound military career. Her man had finally found his calling for his not insignificant talents, but he was no longer quite her man: he had become the Earth Federation Forces’ man.
Beecher and Elle argued bitterly the previous year when he told her that he had accepted an assignment with the Federal Forces Space Armada in Cislunar Space…which would take him far from Jupitorius and from her. Elle had tried to persuade Beecher to take up a quieter staff position with the Federal Forces’ small regional patrol station at Io (which was at least closer to Jupitorius than Cislunar Space), but Beecher would hear nothing of it. He wanted in on the Big Action, and the Big Action was, as ever, in Cislunar Space.
Eight and a half months ago, however, Elle unleashed what she believed was her trump card: the one suasion she was certain would keep Beecher by her side.
Elle Viano was pregnant.
Beecher’s first reaction was not the one Elle had expected or wanted.
He laughed.
Laughed as if he had heard the most ludicrous joke ever told.
Beecher and Elle had always been such jokesters that it had never been clear when they were serious or when they were simply taking the piss. During their time as guerilla fighters with the AEUG (and before that at Shangrila, when they had been juvenile delinquents), it had been something of a survival mechanism – something to gain a toehold of control over the fear that was a part of their lives. Beecher, perhaps not entirely unexpectedly, in retrospect, reacted to the announcement of Elle’s pregnancy as if it were another prank. It had to be.
Elle sulked, pleaded, raged…punched, kicked, and through heavy ceramic objects at Beecher (they had shattered so many vases over the years that Elle had lost count), but he did not believe her until she cleansed his face with the medical report that proved her pregnancy.
Beecher’s next reaction was delight…he was going to be a father!
That was more like it!
Then, he blanched in realization: he had just accepted a new assignment with the Special Forces.
Elle threw Beecher out of the house, screaming obscenities and hurling household missiles at him, saying something on the order that after she had shit out his baby, she’d mail it to whatever wreck he got assigned to.
How could he, Elle wondered. How could he be so selfish? How could he go out in search of adventure, leaving her to birth and raise their child alone? She didn’t need him, she decided. Maybe she’d get lucky and he’d get killed out there.
But Elle knew she didn’t mean that. Relenting after having left him sitting on the city streets for hours, she opened the door to him. They held each other and cried together until the early morning hours.
When he found his voice again, Beecher told Elle that his acceptance of the new assignment was not primarily to satisfy his thirst for adventure (though he was honest enough to admit that that was at least partially the motive). Beecher and Elle knew that the Zeon threat to the Jupitorius Colonies continued to linger like an ominous cloud. Judau and Lu were doing the best they could to form a resistance, but they had no armed support for their efforts. All they had in their arsenal was their courage, their dedication, and righteousness – all important weapons, to be sure, but not enough by themselves to achieve victory against their well-armed and well-equipped oppressors.
Elle strokes her swollen belly lovingly and smiles brilliantly as she sees the Amuro Ray pulling into the Woodhaven Colony Spaceport. Woodhaven is one of the newer developments of the Jupitorius Colonies, completed fewer than five years ago. Its internal landscape dominated by forested areas, (artificial) meadowlands, and rolling green hills, the environs of Woodhaven are perhaps the most convincingly Earthlike to date. Elle and Beecher had wisely put down their stakes early at Woodhaven, as the colony, despite the ever-present Zeon threat, is considered prime real estate. Elle and Beecher could reap a substantial windfall were they to sell their property at Woodhaven and return to Shangrila Colony at Side 1, but they had decided that Woodhaven was where they wanted to raise their children – so that their childhoods could be happier and healthier than Elle and Beecher’s had been.
“Daddy’s home, sweetie,” Elle says to the baby inside her belly, “and I hope he can be here when you come into the world.”
Elle senses two familiar, friendly presences. She turns and finds her longtime friends, Judau Ashta and his wife, Lu Luka Ashta, approaching.
“Hey, you guys!” Elle shouts with characteristic vivacity, waving her hand at them.
Judau and Lu are all smiles as they step forth to embrace their old friend affectionately.
“You’re almost due, aren’t you?” Lu says with a grin, putting her hand gently on Elle’s belly.
“Any second now,” Elle says, “Hope you two remember your first-aid training from our Ahrgama days.”
Judau chides, “Yeah…standard procedure: wrap your forehead in a huge *** bandage, regardless of the fact that it’s your LEG that’s hurt!”
The three laugh together, much as they once did when they crewed the Ahrgama.
Over a decade after they had fought the Axis Zeon Empire as the “Gundam Team,” Judau, Lu, and Elle remain as close as ever. Judau and Lu married three years after the end of the war, having settled at Jupitorius as pioneers and developers. Now in their mid- to late-twenties, Judau and Lu remain full of youthful vigor as ever. Judau, now a man, has grown even more handsome than he was as a teenager; Lu, his companion and in many ways, mentor, is still a statuesque testament to feminine charm.
“That’s Beecher’s ship, the Amuro Ray, isn’t it?” Judau remarks as he watches the ship pull into port.
“Yeah,” Elle replies, “I hope that he’ll be in port for quite a while…long enough to see his baby born.”
Lu says, “The ship looks so much like the Nahl Ahrgama,” referring to the first ship that Beecher commanded in the waning days of the First Neo Zeon War, “reminds me of the old days.”
“Listen to you,” Elle teases, “boy, you sound old!”
“Says the woman who’s going to be a mommy before the end of the month,” Lu teases back. The two have always loved needling each other. “You’re about to settle into a routine of midnight diaper changes and 4 a.m. feedings, girl!”
Judau laughs, but then, his smile fades as he is seized by a sudden and extremely painful headache.
“Are you all right?” an alarmed Lu asks, rushing to her husband’s side.
Judau shakes his head clear, “I’m…all right. I sensed…there are two very powerful Newtypes on Beecher’s ship.”
Elle’s eyes widens, “You must be sensing the White Phoenix.”
“The White Phoenix?” Lu queries, “The Federation’s ace pilot, Jolie Minh? She’s a part of Beecher’s crew?”
Elle nods, “Yeah. He’s written to me about her in his emails. Made me a bit hot and jealous too because she’s supposed to be a real hottie, too!”
Judau says, “She’s very powerful. I’ve never felt so much raw PSI-power before…not in Camille Vidan, not in El Peeple, not in Haman Karn. Her raw PSI-energy must be several orders more powerful than mine.”
Judau’s remark takes Lu and Elle aback. They’ve long known Judau as the most powerful Newtype of his generation, and they were awed by his feats during the First Neo Zeon War. Now, however, Judau proclaims that the White Phoenix, Jolie Minh, is a Newtype of even greater potential than his.
“There’s another Newtype aboard…maybe even a third,” Judau continues, “the second one is nearly as powerful as the White Phoenix. The third one is weaker by comparison, but still nearly at my own level.”
“Well, at least I can take comfort in knowing that Beecher has got an army of Newtypes on his side,” Elle shrugs.
Lu becomes serious, “But will their presence here help the people of Jupitorius, or cause them even greater hardship?”
The three friends grow morbidly silent as they contemplate that thought.
Episode 13 to be continued...