The year was 0080. The One Year War—a calendar year that felt like a lifetime of fire and screaming metal—had finally reached its fragile conclusion. I was a freeman now, my criminal record scrubbed clean as payment for my service. Unlike Lydia Mercer, who was born for the uniform, I had a anchor pulling me back to the soil of Ontario: a son, a wife, and a mother whose lungs were failing her.
With the Federation credits clinking in my pocket—blood money that would finally buy the medicine my mother needed—I stepped onto the streets of Thunder Bay. Canada was in a fever of celebration, marking the January 1st declaration of peace. In the skies, the "Zeon people" were being rebranded as "Spacenoids" once more, ushered back to their colonies in a mass exodus that mirrored the frantic days at Cape Canaveral.
When I reached my doorstep, the war felt like a distant nightmare. My six-year-old son, Jennifer, clung to my legs; my wife's eyes held a year's worth of unshed tears. I felt like a man again, not a serial number. But the war has a way of leaving its wreckage in the places you least expect.
"Daddy, there is a big giant robot in our backyard," Jennifer chirped, pulling at my hand.
I followed her, expecting a pile of scrap or a discarded tank. Instead, I found a ghost. Looming over the fence was an MS-05 Zaku I. It was an antique compared to the Zaku IIs and Goufs I'd faced, the same model Lydia had dismantled during our first mission. It had collapsed into the soft Canadian soil, likely around the time I was on mission at Cape Canaveral.
The machine was remarkably intact, still clutching its 105mm machine gun, its Heat Hawk holstered and its cockpit sealed. In this violent neighborhood, the Federation hadn't bothered to reclaim it; it had simply become a towering, rusted playground for the local children.
Looking at its mono-eye, I couldn't help but think of Ederich von Nacht, the "Fool of Zeon". I remembered the heat of the California Base, the moment I punctured his gas tank before his Gaw transport whisked him away toward Mexico or the final stand at A Baoa Qu.
"Daddy, what is war like?" Jennifer asked, her small voice cutting through the memories.
I knelt beside her. "It's a cruel world, son. It's like when Mom and Dad argue, but a thousand times worse. It's a place where people leave and never come back".
"Are you going back inside the robot?" he asked, fear dancing in his eyes.
I ruffled her hair, forcing a smile. "No, my little princess. The war is over. I'm staying right here with you".
I tried to build a normal life. I unpacked my military belongings: the medals that felt like lead, and the one thing I actually cherished—a polarogram from Christmas. It showed me, Sammy, Alleyne, and Lydia standing before a tinsel-covered tree, flanked by Barry Abbot and Lilith Aiden of the Witch-Hunt squad. It was a snapshot of a time before the casualties mounted, before we lost so many comrades to the vacuum of space and the mud of Earth.
I took a job at a local food factory, seeking the quiet rhythm of civilian labor. But the "peace" of the Federation was a lie.
Walking home one evening, I heard the dull thud of boots on ribs in a dark alleyway. Three Federation soldiers were brutally beating an old man. When I intervened, they didn't see a fellow veteran; they saw a target.
"Stay out of this," one spat, his hand tightening around a lead pipe.
The instincts of the Black Dog squad took over. I moved faster than they could track, knocking the three of them to the pavement until they scrambled away like rats. I knelt by the old man, but his breath was shallow, his chest crushed.
"The Federation..." he wheezed with his final breath. "They pretend to save us... but they are just puppets for the wealthy elites... exploiting the citizens they claim to rule".
His words chilled me. I remembered the Black Dog squad—psychopaths who treated killing as a sport. I had thought they were the exception. Now, seeing regular infantrymen acting like thugs, I realized they were the rule. My wife later confirmed the bitter irony: when the Zeon occupation forces had been in Chicago, they had treated the locals with more respect and discipline than our "liberators" ever had. The Federation wasn't a shield; it was a boot on the neck of the world.
The horror returned at midnight.
"MARKUS, GET UP!" my wife screamed.
The house shook with the thunder of 90mm shells. I looked out the window to see a nightmare: RGM-79 GMs were opening fire on our neighborhood. This wasn't a Zeon remnant attack; it was Federation on Federation.
We fled into the streets, guided by Federation Military Police who were desperately trying to evacuate civilians from the rampage of their own kin. "A rebellion," one MP shouted over the gunfire. "Federation units who refuse the peace treaty. They want to purge every Zeon remnant and anyone they think is a sympathizer".
The rebels bore a black 'X' over the Federation emblem on their shields. They were winning. The MPs' GMs were being torn apart.
I looked toward my backyard. "Stay with the MPs," I told my family.
I ran. I sprinted through a hail of machine-gun fire and falling debris, my lungs burning until I reached the rusted feet of the Zaku I. I hauled myself into the cockpit. The interface was archaic, but the logic was the same as a GM. I slammed the ignition. The mono-eye flickered to a baleful pink glow.
I patched into the open channel. "STOP THIS! THE WAR IS OVER!".
"Haaaa?! The war must continue," a rebel pilot hissed back. "As long as one Zeon hides on Earth, there is no peace. Civilian sacrifice is a small price to pay".
I didn't argue. I leveled the Zaku Machine Gun and fired. "YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!!"
The lead GM caught the rounds on its shield. I boosted forward, the ancient thrusters screaming. As a second GM lunged with a beam saber, I parried with the heat hawk, the orange-hot blade clashing against the plasma with a shower of sparks.
I was a ghost in an old machine. I rammed the rebel GM with the Zaku's spiked shoulder, sending it reeling, then finished it with a point-blank burst to the cockpit.
The battle was a blur of steel and heat. I used the Zaku's shoulder to ram a GM, throwing it off balance before finishing it with a point-blank burst. But the Zaku I was old; its ammo drum ran dry quickly. I was forced to engage with the Heat Hawk, dancing between six GMs. I took out their legs, clipped their sensor arrays, and fought with the desperation of a man protecting his home.
The rebel leader circled me, dual-wielding beam sabers. "No weapon, eh lad? Let me finish you!"
He lunged. I parried, but the heat hawk was too short. A beam saber sheared through my Zaku's left arm. Then, I saw her—my son, Jennifer, running toward the fray, screaming for me. Suddenly, a rebel GM with a British accent lunged, its dual beam sabers shearing off the Zaku's left arm. I saw Jennifer running toward the fray, screaming for me.
"GET BACK!" I screamed.
"GOT YOU NOW!" the rebel yelled.
I slammed the thrusters to full, ignoring the alarms. I swung the Heat Hawk in a desperate arc, bisecting the GM's torso just as it prepared to strike. It vanished in a fireball, but the victory was short-lived. A beam saber took the Zaku's legs out from under me. The cockpit turned a crimson 'Danger' red.
The rebel leader loomed over me, his beam saber poised over my cockpit like a guillotine. "I know you're no civilian," he sneered over the comms. "You have to die".
The killing blow never came. Instead, the comms were suddenly flooded with the driving beat of rock and roll.
A blur of Black-colored armor streaked across the radar—a YMS-08B Dom Test Type. It moved with a fluid grace that defied its bulk, dodging the rebel's machine gun fire in perfect sync with the music. The Dom pilot didn't even use a gun; she drew a Heat Saber and engaged the GMs in a display of fencing that was as beautiful as it was lethal. With a final, rhythmic thrust, she pierced the rebel leader's cockpit.
The Dom knelt beside my broken Zaku. The hatch opened, revealing a woman with brown skin, light yellow hair, and piercing purple eyes.
"Sergeant Major Bridget Rhodes," she introduced herself.
She explained the truth I had already begun to see: the people of Thunder Bay had long ago sided with the Zeon Remnants, choosing the "enemy" over the arrogant cruelty of the Federation elites. Even the local Military Police were secretly aligned with them.
"You have the hands of a pilot," Bridget said, looking at me. "The Federation is a rot. We are the cure. Join us".
I looked at my crying son, my terrified wife, and the burning ruins of my neighborhood. I had wanted peace, but the Federation would never allow it. I took her hand.
"I'll join you," I said.
To be continued...