"Understood, Lieutenant Aker," Saturnalia replied respectfully. She turned her attention back to the black suit that had engaged her. It didn't make sense, as far as she could tell, the suit had literally appeared out of nowhere and began firing at her. This suggested to her that the black MS potentially had some sort of stealth, like her optical camouflage, though Virtue had to remain stationary to maintain its stealth. When Lieutenant Aker noticed an MS being pursued and decided to jump in to the rescue, Saturnalia decided to find a vantage point from which she could flank and surprise the large group of enemy MS's. For the black suit to appear here suggested that either they had anticipated her coming to this location, or they had some way of moving while stealthed, a technology that Aeolia Schenberg hadn't invented and that Veda hadn't predicted. However, considering how many unfamiliar MS's were currently attacking Lieutenant Aker, Saturnalia had to wonder who these rogues were and how they could have developed so many MS with such advanced technology outside of Veda's predictive capabilities.

At any rate, she was in a bit of trouble, she had originally intended to fire on the large group from her position of safety, providing Lieutenant Aker with cover fire while he rescued the other suit, but her position was disrupted by the appearance of this black gundam. Saturnalia wanted to refrain from using her GN bazooka as she didn't know if there were energy sources where she could refill her GN particles with, and firing the bazooka was too costly if she was trying to conserve. While the black suit was still further away, she had taken a few shots with her shoulder cannons but it's massive shield easily shrugged those off. As it got closed in, Saturnalia activated Virtue's GN field, providing herself with good defense, but now she couldn't fire with her shoulder cannons as the cannons themselves operated as her GN field generators when closed. Still unwilling to use her bazooka unless she really needed it, she pulled out two beam sabers and decided to stall. This way, she can take down her field while making a slash, but bring it back up immediately afterwards to protect herself from any openings. Since reinforcements were arriving, time was on her side. She just hoped the reinforcements came with a battleship or carrier where she could replenish her GN particles. If they did, she could unleash the full power of Virtue.

Th black gundam leveled a few shots at her from the beam rifle installed in its shield, but Virtue's field absorbed the damage easily, which was fortunate as the Virtue wasn't very maneuverable and would have a hard time dodging. She rushed towards the enemy and lowered her shield temporarily to make a complex two sword slash, but the enemy pilot had reflexes enough to block one sword with his shield and parry the other slash away with a beam saber that emitted from his shield. The black gundam then pointed its left arm and launched its massive three-pronged grappling arm at Virtue. Virtue's field lit up, stopping the full force of the grappler, though this drained a substantial amount of Virtue's GN particles. Saturnalia followed up with another slash, causing the black gundam t oback off, at which point ,Saturnalia decided to lower her field and opened fire with her shoulder cannons, seeing that the extent of the black gundam's firepower was far beneath her own and that even if his beam rifle got in a few good shots, her heavy armor would probably be able to sustain the damage. She just had to watch out for the three menacing missiles mounted in his all-purpose shield.

She didn't know who these people were or why they were harassing that one mobile suit, but for now, she would follow the one thing that she could easily recognize, Lieutenant Graham Aker, the ace pilot from Union.