Battle of Orbit - Definition

This article or section should be merged with Bloody Valentine War

After a long pursuit by the Le Creuset Team (armed with OMNI Enforcer's stolen Gundams), the rendezvous between Archangel and the 8th Fleet was a relief to the Archangel's crew. The Archangel was ordered to bring the last Earth Alliance Mobile Suit, the GAT-X105 Strike Gundam to OMNI headquarters at JOSH-A. Just before the Archangel was about to begin its reentry into Earth's atmosphere, the Le Creuset team attacked again. Earth Alliance Rear Admiral Lewis Halberton ordered the entire 8th Fleet to defend Archangel at all cost. Though the 8th Fleet was numerically superior to the ZAFT forces, its 130 meter class escort ships and TS-MA2 Moebius Mobile Armors were no match for the stolen Gundams and ZAFT's heavily-armed Laurasia class and Nazca class warships, and as a result, were completely annihilated.

The loss of an entire fleet in battle was a strategic disaster for the Earth Alliance forces. Despite this, Admiral Halberton, at the cost of his own life, achieved his goal, the Archangel successfully survived reentry.

The battle also resulted in the deaths of several hundred Orb Union civilians, who were refugees from Heliopolis who were killed as they retreated from the battle in an Earth Alliance shuttle; during reentry, the shuttle came between Yzak Joule in the GAT-X102 Duel Gundam and Kira Yamato's GAT-X105 Strike Gundam. Yzak, still seething from being wounded in battle with Kira, was enraged by the shuttle blocking his line of fire. Believing that shuttle was filled with escaping soliders, Yzak fired on and destroyed the shuttle, killing the civilians.