For those of you who wished to let this continue, I'm afraid that this is going to be restarted from the beginning, completely. I received plenty of remarks about it, and I'm going to try having it fixed from those remarks, anyway.
At any rate, here's the final chapter of this before I get Dark Pulse to lock this for me, as I don't want to have any more posts in this particular topic. After this version, you'll see a new topic soon that deals with the rewrite, which will be discussed at the bottom of the post.
Deep within the void of space, in the gravitationally stable section of Lagrange Point 3, the remains of an artificial construct float and within its debris field, a pair of Mobile Suits float with in the destroyed wreckage from the recent battle that ensued in the neutral colony of Heliopolis. The two machines are from the secret Atlantic Federation Space Fleet G-Weapons Project. During the late stage of their development, the secret production of these two unit and the others like them was leaked by a terrorist organization to the enemy of the AF. The result was a pitch battle between both the secret unit of the AFSF as well as local United Emirates of Orb National Defense Forces against the Zodiac Alliance of Freedom Treaty or ZAFT for short. During this battle many units were captured and stolen by ZAFT with heavy losses among the defenders, but there was some good luck and good news.
During the course of the battle, ZAFT causalities have been great, several ships damaged or sunk in the action and many mobile suits shot down. This can be attributed to the escape of several of the G-Weapons from ZAFT, finding capable pilots, the remaining defenders fought back and appeared to be on the verge of victory. Then suddenly, unknown to the combatants, someone destroyed the Main Support Column for the old colony, resulting in its destruction. Neither side knows who fired the shot that caused a Forced Purge by the colony's Automatic Central Emergency System, but it added to the loss of life and destruction of private property.
During the battle, the two floating machines had sortied to join battle and during the final fighting had fought two of their brother units, units stolen by ZAFT pilots who were childhood friends from before the war. Within the two units, the two young, civilian pilots who that morning woke believing they would continue the same routine of life in their neutral home, Kira Yamato and Katsuhiro Yamanashi, found themselves breathing heavily just staring in the grips of heavy shock over what had transpired in the past couple of hours regarding their home colony. It just didn't seem possible to them, that Heliopolis could have been destroyed so easily.
For Kira, he had known the neutral territory as his home for many years off and on, a place where he didn't have to move so much, it had been his home as much as Copernicus City had been. Now it was gone, destroyed, he had heard the alert of a shot from an unknown quadrant, but hearing it and seeing what it had done... He was now only beginning to grasp how fragile life in a space colony really was.
Katsuhiro, however, on the other hand looked on with an emotion he couldn't quite describe. He knew he was from what had effectively in the last few hours, had become the enemy's territory. He didn't know what to do now as he had only fought his countrymen in those few hectic hours because he really didn't know what else to do, things had moved too fast for him to really think about it. Now, here was Heliopolis at the end of the battle and fear of what his friends might think gripped his heart. It would have been bad if he were suspected of being a spy, which he thankfully wasn't to begin with, but now what would his friends think of him, would they accept him still or call him a traitor, a person who betrayed their trust?
He didn't want to know, he was simply too scared as he began to shake uncontrollably in the pilot's seat, gripping his shoulders with his hands as he leaned forward wanting to suddenly vomit, but finding he couldn't, he was so scared all of a sudden.
Kira didn't know how long he had been staring, just looking at the destruction before him, but then he heard what would become a voice he would never forget. It started out weak, the reception spotty and broken, but it continued to build up the voice, despite a hard edge to it, carried the tone of worry and fear with in, both for his safety more so than that of his mobile suit. He would never know how he knew that, he could only guess, but he knew a voice of an angel when he heard her calling. It was what finally snapped him out of his trance and he felt himself shift from shell shocked back to being clear headed and aware.
"X-One-Oh-Five Strike, X-One-One-Two Deadfright, please respond! X-One-Oh-Five Strike, X-One-One-Two Deadfright, can you hear me? Please respond! Are you two there? Please answer already! X-One-Oh-Five Strike, X-One-One-Two Deadfright! Kira Yamato, Katsuhiro Yamanashi! If you hear me, if you're okay, respond!"
Within Kira's thoughts, however, he could only hear the words, 'Heliopolis… is gone. Why?' Though it pained him to admit it, he was hoping that he could avoid a confrontation with Athrun in the colony itself, but such a hope was futile it would seem. Still, he knew the others were worried and he had worried them enough.
"X-One-Zero-Five Strike. Kira here, Miss Natarle," he replied, hearing the collective sighs on the other end, "Sorry about that, I really am, I'm just..."
"We know, we know, only you, Deadfright, and the Seer are the only ones left out, but we can't find Seer, we don't know where to start looking and worse a part of the mobile suit was found by the Dragon," Natarle's voice fell at that, "We believe that Seer was destroyed..." Kira could hear the lump in her throat from where he sat, "What's your status and do you have a visual on the Deadfright?"
"Yes on that latter," Kira responded, seeing Deadfright just floating, "But something must be wrong with Katsu, he's floating right next to me, I don't see any sign if he's alright or not, the Deadfright looks... no it's... it appears to be shaking slightly."
The silence was deafening at what Kira said and he feared that it might be something truly bad.
"Recover Deadfright, but be careful, that mobile suit was designed to link with the pilot, I can't even begin to understand let alone explain the technology, but it's suffice to say that if the Deadfright is shaking, then the pilot must be suffering from the stress of the recent battle and disaster,"Natarle's response made Kira feel a weight drop into his gut, but he had to help his friend, so he knew what had to be done.
"I'll get him Miss Natarle, don't worry," Kira responded with conviction, "I can't leave a friend to die after all."
Within the Deadfright, Katsu was worried that his friend was going to kill him at any moment, he just knew Kira would, he hated betrayal as bad as anyone else, that much was true. Then as Katsu knew, the Strike suddenly turned to him, he had no control, no chance to run away, he was going to die. He saw his death coming closer, his thoughts traveling fast as he saw his life began to appear before his eyes and then the Strike reached out and touched the Deadfright and suddenly a sharp poke into his arm and he suddenly felt very sleepy and then his eyes closed.
Kira saw the Deadfright slump slightly, clearly the failsafe worked and Katsu was currently under some very powerful and fast acting sedatives. He had been warned that the system was still untried in an operation sense and what was worse that only a few people could hope to use it and one of those had been its assigned pilot with considerable training. The system was far too dangerous in his opinion and truthfully the two surviving officers agreed, but the project was given the green light from on high and nothing could be done about it. Kira was just glad that the psyche doctor assigned to the ship had been onboard at the time of the attack and was unharmed... they were going to be needing her help in the very near future if what he was told about the Deadfright's system was accurate.
'Hang on Katsu, you'll be fine, you'll be fine,' Kira thought to himself, but he knew deep down, it was going to be touch and go for a few days, touch and go.
"X-One-Oh-Five Strike here, I have the Deadfright, failsafe enabled, looks like Katsu's asleep and I'm returning," Kira reported and then he saw something out of the corner of his screen, "What's that?"
Phase 004: Silent Run
BREAK THROUGH THE DARKNESS, GUNDAM!
Meanwhile, within the Archangel-class Archangel, the civilians and techs that were watching the battle were wondering what was going on and why their home had suddenly self-destructed like that. It wasn't fair; at least to them it wasn't one bit, which their home would vanish. Not only was the colony supposed to be safe from such attacks, apparently somebody had managed to do the impossible and force the Colony Interior Master Computer System to initiate the purge. Though the order to evacuate hadn't messed with anything, it was disheartening to hear that Heliopolis was gone, and nothing would bring back the jewel of Orb any time soon.
Mu La Flaga himself, for that matter, was the one to speak the respective thoughts of the collective crew aboard while floating towards the screen in the front, "I can't believe it. It was so fragile."
Murrue, in her captain's seat, closed her hand into a fist and tensed it on the arm rest. She didn't like it as much as the next leader, at least one unaffiliated with Blue Cosmos, but mainly because she didn't want to be one of the responsible parties for the destruction today. Given the fact that she was only doing what she needed to in order to get people alive that were under her explicit protection, she didn't want to lose anybody like that, especially after the fact that the original XO was nowhere to be found before the battle started back up again.
Of course, it was thanks to the current XO that they managed to get their heads calmed down, as she was doing what she could to contact the lost Mobile Weapons belonging to the Earth Forces.
"X-One-Oh-Five Strike, X-One-One-Two Deadfright! Kira Yamato, Katsuhiro Yamanashi! If you hear me, if you're okay, respond!"
After a bit of waiting, Kira was the first one to reply, "X-One-Zero-Five Strike. Kira here, Miss Natarle," and the bridge of the Archangel changed completely as tension was finally released at his communication, "Sorry about that, I really am, I'm just..."
"We know, we know, only you, Deadfright, and the Seer are the only ones left out, but we can't find Seer, we don't know where to start looking and worse a part of the mobile suit was found by the Dragon," Natarle's voice fell at that, "We believe that Seer was destroyed..." Kira could hear the lump in her throat from where he sat, "What's your status and do you have a visual on the Deadfright?"
"Yes on that latter," Kira responded, seeing Deadfright just floating, "But something must be wrong with Katsu, he's floating right next to me, I don't see any sign if he's alright or not, the Deadfright looks... no it's... it appears to be shaking slightly."
The silence was crashed down onto the bridge with all the weight of a full combat loaded Nimitz-class aircraft carrier. The fact that Kira had reported what he had reported was bad. The system shouldn't even have been engaged and now they had this.
Mu just wondered how bad it was, he remembered the pilot saying it was a system that even he wasn't so sure about or sanguine about either.
"Have him close in and pray he can activate the emergency failsafe," Murrue said at once, standing up, as she floated forward, distantly thankful that standard ops had her wearing long pants rather than a skirt as she heard the sensor operator report the position of the two mobile suits, "We enact the failsafe, bring the Deadfright on-board, and have Doctor Madison begin getting her notepads and pens together as well as whatever else she might need," Murrue ordered as she alighted next to Natarle as Chief Neumann began calling up the woman in question.
"I'm just glad to have her on board," Natarle said, mic closed in her fist, "I'll tell Yamato what to do."
"So I take it-" getting the warning the finger that said quiet, from Murrue, Natarle contacted Kira back.
"Recover Deadfright, but be careful, that mobile suit was designed to link with the pilot, I can't even begin to understand let alone explain the technology, but it's suffice to say that if the Deadfright is shaking, then the pilot must be suffering from the stress of the recent battle and disaster," Natarle's response made Kira feel a weight drop into his gut, but he had to help his friend, so he knew what had to be done.
"I'll get him Miss Natarle, don't worry," Kira responded with conviction, "I can't leave a friend to die after all."
Natarle and the others waited, informed quietly by Neumann that Lieutenant (SG) Amanda C. Madison was on her way to the hanger deck, as Kira closed in on the Deadfright. Once that had occurred, Natarle walked Kira through what he had to do, but warned him to be careful and quick, they were using the radio a bit too much at the moment. Kira jibed back why that had been important, but still went about his work already knowing his rhetorical answer.
"X-One-Oh-Five Strike here, I have the Deadfright, failsafe enabled, looks like Katsu's asleep and I'm returning," Kira reported and the weight they felt was lifted again.
"Copy that Strike, please return and good news, you get first dibs on the shower and hot meal," Natarle signed off for the moment, just listening in for now, taking a moment to reflect what other award incentives could they come up with for a teenage civvie, 'I could give him a the chance for a good grope,' she thought mentally amused, one of the most proven and consistent symbols of physics were teenage boys and their hormones after all.
"Okay, what the hell was that about?" Mu fired off point blank and Murrue indicated for him to follow her, it was not to be spoken lightly of and the crew shudder as he was led off, clearly they knew some of the things about the mobile suit, but they clearly didn't want to think about it, and now the blond was a bit nervous as well.
Natarle shook her head and looked out to where the Strike would be ferrying back Deadfright. Truthfully, she didn't know what to tell Emiri -she believed that was the correct name she heard- they might become an item and here she sighed. She honestly hoped not, their child might become just as enslaved -she shook her head, that was only a POSSIBILITY!-, the child might become the next pilot of the Deadfright. She honestly wished them luck though, she no longer had it, as the rules went in her family and she was lucky in some way, she had always wanted to enlist in the military, but she had wanted the Wet Fleet to the Vac Fleet.
When Kira got back, she would need to speak with him about it, Murrue would be uncomfortable about explaining the details twice in one day. She sighed mentally, trying to keep her mind on the here and now and the incident that had-
'Here and now!' she growled angrily in her head, 'Here and now!'
Then she saw the the Strike approach, getting a confirmation from the Sensors station, she nodded. As she looked at the two mobile suits, she frowned, something seemed off. Their joint visual appearance seemed marred by...
"HE DIDN'T?" the woman shouted as she quickly got back on the radio, "KIRA YAMATO! Is that a life boat you're bringing as well?"
"Um... yes," he responded, but quickly continued, "They're a mix of students from Heliopolis Tech and the Institute of Helios Academy," Natarle cringed, that was a K-12 -or was that 12-1 or something, she shrugged, Orb used a different grade system after all- private academy that had some real big names in it when it came to Orb's Elite, but also held a large number of lesser students, students who would normally go to regular, public schools, she sighed, the only other good news was that the classes also introduced military training to those who wanted to serve in Orb's military, "Also I found a friend of mine and she also found a mobile suit, an Orb Mobile Suit that seems slightly like... the... um... AH! Here, the GAT-X-Two-Oh-Seven Blitz!"
A groan escaped her lips, 'for this headache, no groping for you!' she thought. Was there any part of their research NOT compromised in some way? Even for there to be mistakes, this seems far too many for them as professional soldiers.
"Seems like someone was setting us up to fail," Chief Neumann muttered darkly, he had lost a lot of friends; he'd be getting his due for each of them.
"Just land," Natarle said, drained of energy, "I'll leave the details up to the captain when she's available and I'll talk to you first chance I get about this," her voice had harden, but then it turned soft, "As well as the Deadfright, but even I don't know all the details, I'm sorry."
"Thank you Miss Natarle,"Kira replied and began docking procedures for the three mobile suits and one life boat.
Natarle sighed and began to think what their next step should be. The next step would logically be to ensure that the ship was underway fairly soon, but something told her that there would be time for them to investigate the ruins of Heliopolis, even though she didn't know what it was telling her this information at all. In any case, she would have to wait for the captain's permission, though she felt that both Kira and Lieutenant Hisanaga should be sent out. To her it made no sense, but she decided to listen to this gut feeling again, mainly because of the fact that it was right once before and got Ensign Riddhe into the equation for them, even if momentarily, due to his desire to defect specifically to Orb and the need to check him out beforehand. Though there was something nagging her, something she felt they needed to look for, who knows, they might even find out what actually happened, who fired the shot, but she had an idea as to who now, thanks to Kira and his friend.
At that moment, a tired looking Murrue and a fuming, but subdued Mu returned to the bridge. The blond pilot looked like he had exploded; she had no doubt he did. Natarle saw Murrue's face and knew that things about the Deadfright bothered her greatly and as a school teacher when not in uniform, it had to be pretty hard on her now. So Natarle decided to ask and hopefully get the topic changed and atmosphere cleared a a little.
"Captain, so long as they stay within sight of the ship, will you permit me to have Mister Yamato and Lieutenant Hisanaga investigate what happened here? I mean, it could possibly give us leads as to what's going on in the area, and we might find survivors in normal suits or something to that extent even among possibly what happened exactly."
After giving the idea a bit of thought, Murrue decided to in Natarle's favor, that would work, plus Luna HQ would know where to start poking around for the traitors and who and who not to trust a bit, on this request, strange as it was coming from a regular like Natarle.
"Certainly, Ensign Badgiruel, so long as they don't run out of power while too far away from the ship for us to reach them at all."
"Thank you, Captain, I was hoping you'd agree," Natarle replied, before turning her attention to the console and calling for the Strike and Dragon to be serviced and launched out immediately for recon and to search for more survivors as well as to investigate what had happened.
It didn't take long from her order to both mobile suits being out in space and as it stood, there were already several survivors picked up by Dragon who's grid had put it right on the path of those people. Kira on the other had was not so lucky, but the only bodies he saw so far, were military, both sides, and were obviously dead before hand, but he still collected them for proper burial later. As both suits picked their way through the debris field, closing in on the remains of Heliopolis, they would be in for a surprise they weren't expecting.
Over with the ZAFT ships that survived the battle...
As the ships of the Le Creuset Team were considering what to do next, Rau and Ades were having a little chat about moral ethics in the middle of battle. As it stood, Ades had a strong argument about the fact that it was a breach of protocol for one thing, and now...
"You've really gone in over your head, Commander, siding with known terrorists in the middle of the battle," Ades pointed out, enraged that Rau would even think of siding with evils such as the Grethick Battalion for a mission that ruined diplomatic relations with Orb.
"Two birds, One stone as they say Ades," Le Creuset countered too well first hand, having barely survived being gun down once by them, but others had been so lucky, "And did you think our previous forces could have done well on their own?"
Ades was silent, he had no counter to that, but he still objected none the less.
"Assuage your fears my friend, it wasn't either us or the Alliance that destroyed Heliopolis," here was a grim look, the impassive mask and the thin line that was his mouth, "Someone entirely different destroyed it, plus the Gerthern Team managed to get a thermal lock on who it was, but could not ID them, too far for that, but it might have been an Orb Noble, you know which I speak of, do you not Ades."
"He destroyed his own territory?" Ades had shot out of his seat, palms slapping down on the desk between the two men, "That's just madness!"
All the colonies destroyed to date had been by stray fire or belonging to one side or the other. Yes many people had been killed or rendered homeless, but no one had ever before scuttled their own colony. There was simply an unwritten rule that you simply do not do that!
With the Treaty of Antarctica about to be signed and ratified, the destruction of Heliopolis had put all diplomacy into danger. Then this arrives, someone actually destroying their own colony, actually SCUTTLING it like a ship! No not like a ship, how does one even scuttle a colony to begin with, such a terrifying prospect was unimaginable!
Unthinkable!
It was sheer madness!
"We can prove Third Party involvement and thus ensure that this comes to light," Rau Le Creuset said as he stood, having to be careful somewhat since the ship was currently settling down from motion, "I've already dispatched an emergency message back home and told them I would be dropping from pursuit to begin looking for normal suit survivors and damaged life boats."
Ades was calmed and put at some ease by that, "Those terrorists?" he inquired with a sharp tone.
"Relax Ades, I've told them to aid us and said I would be checking on the roster count and that we'll be operating in a grid pattern jointly and with the Francis and Jonesi Teams pouring on the speed to arrive with no less than sixteen merchant vessels and even some ships, hopefully, from Artemis, we should find many survivors quite easily and we'll have several of our pilots overlooking their shoulders," the look on Le Creseut's face was instantly matched by his ship's captain.
Yzak was a lot of things, but he was a guy with a high moral ground spectrum.
With the ZAFT pilots of the Le Creuset Team...
"Something doesn't feel right," Athrun commented, hoping to get people's attention off of what had happened to the colony. Really, who could blame him, with all that had gone on? He had witnessed a friend of his nearly kill his mentor in the battlefield, and said friend was not one that he knew to be a soldier, in any sense of the word. So far, he had to deal with Kira fighting Miguel in a battle of the titans, the Strike against Miguel's custom GINN and the GINN losing. Then...
Well, he'd rather not think about what he had to deal with his friend for, but...
"Is that you Kira Yamato?" Athrun called over the radio, hoping to get an answer from someone other than his longtime friend. He had hope that Kira was in the PLANTs at this point in time, as he felt his Coordinator friend was supposed to go there away from the chaos of it all. He really didn't want to face his friend in the middle of this battlefield, because he hated the thought of losing his one best friend to the winds of war.
So it was to his greatest dismay when Kira answered, "Wha?"
Recomposing himself, Athrun called out, "So it is you, isn't it, Kira?"
"Athrun? Athrun Zala?" cried out Kira in the cockpit of the Strike, as he did everything in his power to keep his mind focused on protecting the colony. Seeing that the colony was breaking up, he demanded of Athrun, "What is this? Why are you here?"
"You should talk! What are you doing piloting that thing?" came Athrun's angered reply, as he didn't know all the details as to why he was there in the first place, but he had long since understood not to question a superior officer. However, that did not pertain to what he saw as a grave error in how the world should've gone; that his friend was in the flight suit of an O.M.N.I. Enforcer space pilot, in one of their remaining mobile suits.
Just as he hoped to continue and get Kira to see that he was wrong, the colony finally collapsed, and the two friends were forced to split apart like they were not even there.
"I don't blame you," Rusty turned to his friend and commented about what Athrun had said. He too felt something was off about the situation, but he didn't know what it was that was so. He felt that Athrun was worrying about something that shouldn't have occurred, but he didn't know much on the situation, so he didn't comment on that. Instead, he mentioned, "I suppose everyone here has a feeling about the state of the OS on those Mobile Suits before we rewrote them, right?" Turning to face Dearka, Yzak and Nicol, he asked, "I wonder what you guys thought of the shoddy OS?"
As one, the three contemporaries said, "Shoddy and buggy as hell."
Taikobo, who had remained silent through all of this, had brought up a point that he decided to mention about the course of what he knew was off. It was a leap of faith that he was taking, but he trusted them well enough. He had to be curious about his commander, the man seemed different as of late, but he knew the potential threat. He just hoped he wouldn't have to regret what he was about to say, though he did promise them after all.
"If it interests you," he stated, "I have to confess to something about the Commander," seeing the change in the air, he noted that the others were keen on looking at him for that moment in time, so he continued and said, "It has to do with the switch of the meds earlier today."
Those passing by the room where all the pilots had for once gathered would for a long time wonder what happened as the inevitable that was to come at what Taikobo was telling his fellow pilots... the inevitable happened as it always does.
"WHAAAAATTT?"
The inevitable, which at this moment was the case, being the sheer incredulous looks that were sent his way from the surviving team, which included Olor and Matthew having withdrawn earlier from the battle that had nearly cost them Miguel, and the combined screams that could be heard from the Captain's quarters on the Gamow.
While that wouldn't be a problem normally, the Commander himself was on-board to see about the rescue and defense of the merchants in the immediate area, and he was bound to investigate the matter of their outcry first-hand.
With a palm to the face, Taikobo agitatedly groaned out, "Could you guys please keep it down? If you guys continue with it, I might get a headache, and the Commander would really get pissed off at us for even discussing this." Seeing that this got everybody else calmed down, and not exactly in the good way, he got his hand off his face and continued, "In any case, I said that I would mention why I didn't have my normal meds to you guys, so I'll explain. I should be brief with this, but the Commander is taking a medicine to counter the pain from shortened Telomeres, which is only possible through cloning."
Before the outcry could happen again, Athrun came to the conclusion that was bothering Taikobo and spoke up on it, "So, in other words, he's a defective clone?"
"Exactly my point, Athrun," Taikobo said, "I wouldn't have believed it at first either, but what else do we even understand about him? He's been an enigma around many parties, and only a select few, including his doctor, know anything at all about him! Nothing we know is enough to gauge how to trust him, other than the fact that he's a clone of someoneout there!" Running a hand through his tan hair, he stated in an exasperated manner, "I wouldn't be surprised if he had kept even his origins a secret from most everyone, excluding the doctor who takes care of him, Gilbert Durandal!"
Silence was again invoked to the room that they were all in, before it was noted that they stayed silent for a whole minute, until somebody found a way to end the silence. In this case, however...
"I don't think it would be wise to force the issue of loyalty on the Commander," Olor said, keeping his calm about him this time, "I mean, we all joined a team that had one of the best leaders there, and he taught us all how to pilot better than most Coordinators, so it would be reasonable for us to show him the loyalty that is deserved from a student to a teacher... or, in the case that is, a subordinate to a superior."
"Agreed," Matthew said, because he felt the respect and loyalty to his Commander that was deserved staying the same. "I don't think it would be wise to be disloyal to the Commander without more reason than that, in any case, so I vote to stay with him until he gives us reason not to trust him."
After a round of votes, it was decided that they remain with Rau Le Creuset, at least until he did something questionable. He needed to do something wrong first, though, which was other than attack Heliopolis. They still didn't know why he decided to take the initiative on that attack, but at least it was better than letting the CLA have their way there, which nobody wanted to know what would've happened.
Kira flew through the debris that was once his home, the dead had been recovered and taken back, at least those they could find and he even found some survivors to bring back. So here he was, patrolling through what had been the side of the colony at one point and thinking about what had happened. It just didn't seem possible that they could have damaged the colony; even ZAFT had been going out of its way to avoid shooting the Main Support Column...
So what had happened?
"Dragon he-zzz-...found-zzz-at-zzz-pened White Base," Kira blinked at hearing the choppy message from Ryu to Archangel, codenamed White Base, "It ap-zzz-s-zzz-...-zzz-...-zzz-...I say again White Base, someone shot at a critical juncture to force a Purge of the outer walls with a high powered mobile suit weapon, I found the core of the weapon, might have been some kind of advanced bazooka, over?"
After hearing Archangel Requests for documentation, the signal abruptly cut out again. Kira shuddered at the thought of a person actually going out of their way to destroy Heliopolis. It spoke of insanity since colonies were expensive investments, people's homes, and when destroyed, a navigational nightmare for the surrounding space lanes. No one may ever fully clean up this mess for centuries to come because of all the debris that would have come from the colony's body all alone, forget the smaller debris like people's belongings or even those who were sucked out!
"I am starting the engines Duo!" Kira jumped at the scratchy communication that came through all of a sudden, he grabbed at his heart, feeling it thumping against his chest, and he had not expected that at all.
"Dammit!" Kira heard that voice crystal clear, "Someone's got a lot of nerve to be wrecking colonies!"
Kira noticed a large chunk of exterior wall had prevented him from hearing the communication earlier. Now that he was around it, he could hear whoever was talking, though the name and speech sort of gave away who. It was just the discovery of what he was about to see that he wasn't expecting.
There before him was the Sweeper's freighter Arabian Knights. Yet the real surprise was the one mobile suit that was trying to do repairs to the outer hull and engines. It was the Savior of Junius Seven! The Demon God Mobile Suit!
Kira was stumped as to why Duo would have a Gundam. It was simply impossible for Duo to be the Savior of Junius Seven, just wasn't imaginable, especially given how he could be. What he was seeing was supposed to be impossible, however, the truth was right before him as he looked the black, white, and gold mobile suit over, the only thing that helped to make it easily identifiable was the red that helped to outline the mobile suit.
Kira simply didn't know what to think as he heard Hilde, Duo, and Une arguing about the repairs to their ship. As Kira listened, he heard them complain about the destruction of the colony and how Duo had almost been hit by that shot that destroyed the MSC since he had been near where it hit. Kira chuckled at the choice of words Duo used to describe the person who had fired it. Then he stiffened up when Hilde and Une asked for the description and Duo said a 'gold and white painted Gundam with a larger, wider, and thicker than normal frontal V antenna.' Duo's further description matched an Astray Gundam Mobile Suit, belonging to the Orb military, which meant someone from Orb scuttled Heliopolis!
Kira felt his teeth mash together as he felt his hands curl and uncurl around the control bars. He wanted to floor it, go looking for the person responsible, a white hot rage boiling within him. Yet he was able to reign in his temper with the rational part of his mind reminding him of several things, such as the fact the target got clean away -for now- and that he hadn't the power to simply go mindlessly looking, but he will find the person and deck'em good before he really cuts loose. Kira Yamato may be passive, but his whole family, his friends, their families, and more people than he could honestly count were now homeless or dead because of one person! There will be a day of reckoning someday very soon, which Kira promised.
Kira though should worry about the here and now as his mobile suit's sensors alerted him and he saw Duo take a slash at him. Only his reflexes saved his life as he instinctively dodged out of the way and quickly drew a beam saber that parried the next attack, much to Duo's surprise. Kira was moving in close, slamming the Strike's shield right into Duo in a way that Duo was certain only Heero could pull off. The two suits reoriented themselves, before Une interrupted the fight between them and told Duo to calm down and remember it was Kira who was in the Strike.
"Kira?" Duo blinked as he remembered that tidbit and winced, "Hehe, sorry man, forgot, been under a bit of stress as you can guess."
"It's alright Duo, just glad to see you again," Kira replied as they established communications, Kira looking relieved to see Duo, "Though I have to admit I'm a bit surprised, though we can talk later, can we help, Archangelisn't too far away at the moment?"
"That would help Duo," Une turned her suit towards the Deathscythe and station kept it, "I think we could use a tow at this point or we're going to be stuck here for a while."
"Okay then!" Duo announced happily, "We'll talk about a reduced cost in repairs and supplies later after this little tow back to our base on the Graveyard!"
Kira and Une sighed, but both agreed that Duo wouldn't be Duo if he didn't try to get an angle. The reduced fee could be several things knowing him, all technology and resource aligned at least. Duo wasn't much for politics or things like that, it really made for an interesting way as he got favors done. At least they knew where his heart was, he was always very respectful and straight forward honest in his requests for favors.
"Right," Kira said as he began to turn his Gundam about to return to Archangel, "I'll go get the ship and bring it back, I'm certain that Miss Murrue wouldn't mind giving a hand, though she could possibly ask for more."
"Reduced costs! I'm practically going to give her a bargain sale!" Duo responded, figuring the woman wouldn't ask for too much.
Back on the Archangel, the Dragon had just landed with the last in its area and reported seeing a number of civilian ships arriving and what appeared to be ZAFT reinforcements. The command crew, what few officers that could make one left, talked about the report. The Strike was not due back for a few minutes, but they also knew they couldn't stick around too much longer. The problem with recalling the Strike now was that they were very much aware of the lack of range with the communications because of the debris from Heliopolis. Fortunately, the Strike returned early, saying he had run across some friendlies asking for a tow and said he'll explain more lately, fortunately for him, Une had decided to accompany him back to the Archangel which helped speed up things.
Murrue sat with Natarle just behind and to her right. Before the two was Kira and Une, both still flight suit clad as was Ryu who was leaning against a wall. Mu was seated on a chair and two ship marines were outside the door. Good news was, there was no tension filling the room at the moment, just a sense of wonderment.
"I can't believe someone like Duo is the guy who saved Junius Seven," Ryu shook his head in disbelief, thinking it impossible, "How did that ever happen?
"Even I don't have all the answers," Une admitted, she knew Duo liked his secrets, some were simply too personal and too deep to tell to others, "Duo has been through much and can be a surprisingly secretive person when the mood strikes him and very effective at keeping secrets all the time."
"Not to change the subject," Mu spoke up, "But we need to make arrangements for a tow, though I get the feeling we'll still be parting with some cash, at least we won't have to worry about much, the Sweepers' reputation precedes them in honesty."
"Indeed," Une looked rather proud as she seemed to stand a little straighter, "We take great pride in that."
"So," Natarle started asking, "How much would the discount be Miss Une?"
"Depends on the service, we don't make promises lightly in the Sweepers, especially when a favor is being done for us," Une replied, a rueful smile on her face.
"Very well," Murrue stated as she stood up, already figuring this woman had the angles covered, "We're see to getting you safely out of harm's way and back to the Graveyard, though if I may say, please do something about the name."
"Duo's not so well known moniker is the God of Death," Une responded to that little tease, "He survived a plague outbreak and a military conflict that killed everyone else around him, hence his name, the God of Death."
Everyone shuddered at that, wondering just how real this God of Death really was and then wishing not to find out.
Sick Bay, Archangel
That same time
Everyone who was his friend and not needed for the meeting going on in the Captain's Quarters had gone down to Sick Bay where they checked in on Katsu. He was still heavily sedated, trying to make him as groggy as possible for when he wakes up so they can start treating him for what happened in the Deadfright. The whole group looked on extremely worried about what happened to Katsu. They still hadn't been told much, but Murrue and Natarle agreed to talk about it as soon as there was a chance.
"This sucks," Tolle finally broke the silence that had begun to hung over the group, "Why'd they have to go and make such a dangerous thing in the first place?"
Doctor Amanda Claudia Madison sighed as she heard what Tolle said. She was against the whole idea herself, more than half the researchers had been mutinous outright and the remaining half had continued on with gritted teeth. The Deadfright did not have to have such technology, but someone had pushed for it. She knew that the many within the military command structure were incensed as well, it had gotten to the point that the Army had threaten to take over all mobile suit development if the Navy and Space Forces didn't cancel Deadfright.
Doctor Madison had been called in, having proven to be one of the best in her field; she had been asked to give an expert opinion... one that she had been ordered to give in favor of Deadfright. She hedged the bet though, claiming it could work, but with a very limited number of potential pilots, even if one gathered all the Coordinators and Naturals and began to sort through them, they'd likely find only, at best, a few hundred, of which many would be dismissed for any number of reasons, reducing the number to the very low hundreds, probably not even in the triple digits.
She was busted two full grades and docked a third of her pay, but was not removed as she was too valuable.
On the other hand, the Army had been able to get the Air Force and Coast Guard on their side and force the future development of most mobile suits into their hands. Even now, a raging debate was on going, but the Army cited that land operations would be a major factor in all mobile suit design and that was not the realm of either the Navy or the Space Forces. As such the debate for now sat with the Army as victorious over the other two branches, plus the Air Force was making use of the mobile suit research to improve the air arm and gain their own mobile units, while the Coast Guard saw the advantages in both war and peace for themselves.
She shook her head and decided to stand and make her way over to the kids.
Unlike the other officers, she was still wearing her skirt with a modified duty jacket. Several of her bags were still on the dock when the blasts happened. Of her bags, three survived intact with her spare uniforms, personal clothes, and some personal belongings. The other two, including her duty uniforms and dress uniform along with some of her personal books for her given field, were lost. The only spare uniforms left in her size were either too large or too small, the woman was a bit on the short side, just barely getting by on her height, though in truth she was able to fake it and get away with it, her father being an admiral in the Wet Fleet and a long proud line of Navy doctors, she had been allowed in. So since the ship still had been loading, she soon found herself wearing a cut down male uniform coat that still wasn't fully sized to her.
She also hated the heels she was wearing when she addressed the gathered teens, "Trust me when I say we tried to get that torn out and chucked into the nearest smelter," the teens turned to her, the boys doing a double take.
"That's a member of the crew?" Flay asked as she blinked, the child making a fussing noise before she managed to coo the child back to an easy slumber.
Dr. Madison sighed, she was not only short, but she actually looked like a teenager herself, she had short brown hair and green eyes covered by oval glasses, not for show either and her military issue were also in one of the two bags destroyed, and with her youthful appearance, you wouldn't be able to tell she was nearly 30 years old, older than Murrue Ramius by five years. She stood at a 5'4-3/4" and weighed soaking wet at only 134 pounds and had a shapely figure that no amount of military and track and field training seemed to be able to put any muscle on, though she was noted as having a nasty right hook and left smash. The only thing that stuck out on her was her bust line and that was because it appeared rather large for her frame, just over a medium C-cup, nothing special, it just looked like she had a larger D-cup. Otherwise, her general appearance would remind one -Mir and Emiri were currently pinching said person- of a Nene Romanova from some couple hundred year old anime that got a revival a few years ago.
"Girls could you please stop pinching Mister Koenig so that I can assure that we in the military did not want this system even developed," Dr. Madison asked, though she was secretly glad, she hated being compared to someone she was not!
'A girl just can't get a break,' she thought, 'Though if we could make such powersuits, it might shorten this war.'
Once everyone was looking at her and she had taken the time to look over Tolle's cheeks and promise him a shin injury if he didn't wipe off the look he was having off his face, she nodded once and then turned to address them all.
"The system is highly classified, so I won't go into specifics too deeply, yes Emiri?" she was glad she had gotten onto first name basis rather quick with the teens.
"Would we even actually understand half of it?"
"Possibly, give or take a few items, some are supposed to be revolutionary concepts, but as you can guess we're not all that pleased and militarily speaking, this project has split the military at both command and branch levels," she waited for any other questions Tolle raised his hand.
"Yes Tolle?" she asked, hoping he could be serious.
"If it's so dangerous, why not keep it in the trial state before equipping it to a mobile suit?"
"Good question and we did argue about it being kept there as well as being against it altogether," Madison smiled wryly, "I was busted two full grades and I'm still having a portion of my pay docked with really no chance for advancement, only my father being an admiral with a lot of pull kept me from even worse, though I did bring up certain issues, unfortunately, your friend happens to fall within a certain percentage, Heliopolis was found to have the largest number of possible candidates, despite objections."
"Could any of us pilot the Deadfright?" Mir asked nervously, looking over at Katsu's unconscious form.
"Yes and no," Madison answered, though she knew she'll have to start explaining soon, "Only pilots like Ryu, Kira, and potentially Flay could hope to do so, but the latter two have mobile suits set to them and Miss Allster is thankfully outside a range of need qualifications on the system, making her chances of being a viable pilot extremely low, but that's IF the Captain will even consent to even using Deadfright again."
"'In case of Emergency, Break Glass,' right?" Kuzzey asked, if he thought that Coordinators were scary, then Deadfright, made by Naturals, terrified him to no end.
"Very," the dry reply from the Psyche doctor was.
"This system though?" Sai began the inquiry.
"It literally connects to the pilot, how exactly I won't explain, you'll sleep better, but it transmits various tactical and strategic data and utilizes an interface system in which the mobile suit takes on the literal sense of the saying of being an extension of the pilot's body," Madison explained curtly and in short order.
"Urgh..." Katsu grunted out in his sleep, as if he had a nightmare, which was reinforced by him further grunting out, "Stay... away... from me... I'm a... monster... Emiri... Deadfright... has... system... Chaos... Engine... pain... lots of pain... stop it... STOP IT!" Katsu shot up, repeating the last phrase over and over as it took Kuzzey, Sai, Tolle, three Corpsmen, and four marines to force him back down and allow Madison to inject him with a very powerful sedative normally fatal to even Coordinators, except for a recently discovered counter added to the medicine.
"Okay," Emiri turned to Doctor Madison and then shouted, "WHAT WAS THAT?"
"That," Natarle began as she entered with the others, "Was what we call the Chaos Engine, but believe it or not, it's actually stolen from ZAFT."
"You're right," Une said as she walked over to Katsu, seeing something too terrifying similar to both the ZERO System and the Lemming System, "I don't believe, but I don't doubt someone made this!"
Une moved over to get a glass of water as she continued, "We in the Sweeper top leadership, namely myself, Duo, and Hilde have run into a pair of systems known as the ZERO System, Duo is the only one of us to have piloted a mobile suit equipped with it, and the Lemming System, a bastardized knock off, both with majority cases of driving their pilots mad, especially in the Lemming System's case," she lifted Katsu's head and gently induced his unconscious body to begin drinking some, "Duo was able to stop himself from destroying a colony, but two of our friends were not so fortunate, one destroyed a resource satellite and destroyed a colony and the other wiped out a group of friendly forces before they mastered the ZERO System and Duo refuses to even step near a mobile suit equipped with the ZERO System, let alone the Lemming System, unless he's out to destroy the mobile suits equipped with them."
"No... way..." Tolle looked stunned, "How is that even possible?"
"Why would anyone purposely bomb civilians who go about their daily business, why do people kill one another over pointless issues, why are we locked into a war with no goal decided and no real reason to fight?" Une's answer made the group shift, "I can tell you why," Une continued on, having been there, "It is because it's easy, I should know, I once aimed Nuclear Missiles at the Colonies to stop a minor revolt when I was a soldier still."
"When you were a soldier still...?" Natarle asked perplexedly, unaware of the nature of what she heard, but she knew that she would've recalled knowing about Middie Une from her time in the service before. However, what she didn't understand happened to be the effects of the terms that were used, so that would cause a lot of problems for the people here. In any case, she decided to ask something that would help her know if Une was really a soldier before, so she asked, "Which branch of the service were you in before, anyway, Miss Une?"
"I was in the Army branch, Ensign Badgiruel," Une replied almost instantaneously, because it required her to remember the branch of military she was in when she had not even been in the conventional military in a long time. Of course, she didn't need to say everything about what her circumstances were, she just needed to say what branch she was in for the moment.
"Is that so...?" replied Natarle in a tone of voice that said 'I don't believe you, but I'll let it slide for now'. Keeping that in mind, she decided to search the AF records for any attempts by Une to aim Nuclear Missiles anywhere in space in the past, and if that wasn't an option, she'd search through the Eurasian Federation records to see if she could find out the truth to those words.
"It was all classified and hushed up," Une shrugged with a look that showed a sense of bemused irony, "I was too loyal to the mission and never allowed myself to really be anything else, which after a stern punishment from my superior I somehow ended up with Split Personality Disorder, a severe case no less," she saw the shocked and stunned looks and the naval and marine personnel looked ready... "No worries, I helped stop another revolt that broke out among some very influential persons in the end and was honorably discharged after my stay in a hospital after I was wounded in the line of duty, though I was told I was lucky to be alive, the wound was nearly fatal, but I was lucky, though comatose for a short while, the results allowed me to mentally sort out my baggage and I was cleared as fully recovered, everything though was under the table and I wouldn't be surprised if my old file was destroyed or had a KGB Act pulled on it."
The Federal Intelligence Service or FIS was well known for their KGB like operations that they were heavily distrusted by the EF military and considered something similar to their long dead Soviet counterparts by the public. Murrue Ramius knew something of the KGB's actions from her ancestors memoirs. She herself wasn't sure where the term KGB Act originated from, but it was universally used in every nation when they doubted their Intelligence services. So she decided to have the matter slide, though she did get Une's reference about irony from the look on her face...
Une was French for One.
"I see," Murrue said as she defused the whole situation, "We won't pry, my ancestor was Captain First Rank Marko Ramius who defected from the Soviet Union to the United States of America in the 1980s AD," she gave a small smile to the reddish brunette, "If you recall though, it was out of protest to how the State Party had become. He really was a loyal patriot and as such saw that his only recourse to cause him to who he viewed as traitors was to steal his submarine and turn it over to the West in order to check their power," Murrue gave a sigh, "Otherwise he would have stayed and served, without so many having died over his actions, though one can only hope that had remained the case, the Red October was too much of a possible lit match for Nuclear War to begin."
Une only nodded before she started back towards the hallway, reminding Emiri to make sure he had water every now and again to keep his throat wet. Kira followed, his head pounding, while Ryu got a couple of pain killers for himself and Kira and then slowly thereafter, everyone, but Dr. Madison and Emiri had filed out. The room only had two marine guards as well as a few injured and the Corpsmen to tend to them. The Pharmacist Mates had also filed out, their shift would start in the next few hours.
Three hours later, a small fleet of ships that were more a case of mix and match than an actual fleet from any particular army had entered the area, just as all the various people and supplies had been evacuated from the area by either the ZAFT Organization or the Archangel-class Archangel. The fleet was always open to finding supplies that would benefit their ultimate goal, which only the Admiral himself knew of, but the goal wasn't the important part of that at the moment. What they were doing here, though, was trying to find places to raid after a battle or even possibly before one could start.
What many people would consider piracy would be considered an adventure of a lifetime to the fleet that was led by the Agamemnon-class Rikkudo Sennin, which was named off of a particular character of a revived anime that started its rerun the Saturday before the GINN first made its debut, though there were some that wondered what the Admiral was up to by visiting what appeared to be a bunch of debris. When the captain of the ship, Jin Ikuto, was about to ask the Admiral himself, he blinked twice in the direction of the viewport and immediately smacked himself in the face with his palm, causing the others to look at him strangely and in confusion.
Feeling, rather than seeing, the looks his way, Captain Ikuto growled in as clear a manner as he could while showing his frustration in the tone of his voice, "Heliopolis… why did it have to be HELIOPOLIS? I sent my family to live here while we were doing our adventures!" To show what he meant, he pulled up a file that was labeled "Letter from Family – January 23 CE 71" on the ship's main monitor and had the entire crew present look it over, which had the effect of showing the crew why it was imperative that they do a search and rescue of their own… with permission from the Admiral, of course, because nobody did anything in the fleet without his permission right off… at least, nobody did anything that wasn't listed in the rules to begin with. This clearly wasn't in the rules, and that would be a major problem for what they perceived to be the continued survival of the families affiliated with the pirate group Kiiroi Senko no Akatsuki, or "Dawn of the Yellow Flash".
Within one of the starboard pilot dorms, a young Coordinator of 17 named Nagato Uzumaki was busy looking over his journal entry for the day and thinking about what to write in it. His dark blue eyes were looking as if he needed sleep, his blood red hair in need of care, his brown pirate uniform a wrinkled mess and he was still in the middle of his assignment for the day in his dorm. He didn't know what he would necessarily do with his time, but he believed it important to figure out something to do before he would be allowed to sortie for the first time in a battlefield to be. This attitude of boredom and isolation was reaching its limits when he chanced to look out the window and saw what he believed to be a beauty among warships. What he saw was absolutely breathtaking and deserved to be considered an Archangelamong spaceships everywhere.
Shaking his head for a second, he remembered that there were protocols involved for situations like this one, where if anyone found a ship that was unique, they were to report it to the Admiral immediately so that he could decide if it really was something worth going after… at least, that was the idea behind the protocol for this particular incident. While he needed to finish the assignment, he knew that this was more important, so he went to his intercom system next to the door, picked up the phone, and spoke into the unit, "Nagato to the Admiral, I just sighted a new warship out my window. Currently wondering what to do in this situation, given prior attempts to find new warships, over."
The silence that followed was deafening, but it was indeed worth waiting 5 minutes for the Admiral to call back and reply, "Copy that, Ensign Nagato. You're free to make a claim on that warship if you can, but be warned, it's not something that we can understand immediately. Don't get cocky out there, you understand me?"
"Romeo Wilco, Admiral," Nagato answered almost immediately, followed up with, "Over and out." As soon as he hung up, he immediately went to his journal and typed down the following:
January 26th CE 71
I find it hard to believe that I have been permitted to lay a claim on a new warship, much less a beaut that I had just seen only a short bit prior to informing the Admiral. It was as if it were an Archangel among ships like it, which would be rather strange if it were called that. I just hope that nobody tries to claim it before me… that would be embarrassing in any case.
I will continue this tomorrow, if I even live for that to happen, anyway.
After finishing his typing, he got up from his desk chair and cleaned up his uniform before he left the room to go to the hangar bay for his Mobile Suit after the locker room, where his flight suit was located. He knew that there was hardly going to be any time for him to get anybody interested in helping him, but he knew better than to waste precious time to claim the warship with.
When he arrived at the pilot locker room, he almost immediately had to do a double take on how many people were in the room in the first place. He wasn't sure what was going on, but he knew it had to do with the fact that he needed some form of backup in the event that he was going to be in over his head. Looking at the individual pilots, he realized that this was the fleet's best team out there that was assigned to help him out, with no way of knowing who would be in charge of the mission.
The group was all ready to head out in their Mobile Units, but they waited for Nagato to be present and changed before they headed out, though the Lords of Painteam seemed to have an idea what to do for now. Before Nagato could do so much as unbutton the top button of his uniform, though, he saw the apparent leader raise his hand to stop him from doing anything. While confusing at first, Nagato soon learned the reason why that was so important to them.
"Hold on for a bit, Captain Uzumaki," the orange haired, red eyed leader apparent, Yahiko Katsushi, stated. "You need to—"
"Wait, Captain?" Nagato interrupted, due to the incredulous nature of the position that he was put in. "Since when am I, an Ensign, supposed to be a Captain? I'm not the kind of guy that gives orders in the first place!" Raising an arm to point to his locker, he yelled while moving his head over to face it, "I'm lucky to be an Ensign, and you expect me to be a… Cap…tain?" When he finally noticed what his locker said on the front, he would've gone into denial about it, had it not been for the fact that it pointed straight to the facts: Nagato Uzumaki was a Captain, whether he liked it or not.
Getting Nagato out of his little funk, Yahiko cleared his throat and, after noticing Nagato moving his head in the right direction, said, "You need to give us the plan of action over the course of our pursuit of the new warship. You're the boss while we are under your command, after all, and what sort of subordinate doesn't learn of the plan involved in this sort of operation?" As an added measure of his seriousness, he opened a locker that had been specially prepared for Nagato's promotion to Captain, which had a pilot suit and an instruction manual for what appeared to be a new model of Mobile Suit that the fleet had managed to develop back at their base of operations in L2. As soon as Nagato took all of that in, he was shaken back into reality metaphorically by Yahiko asking, "So, what's the plan, Captain?"
Nagato, due to this catching him off-guard, had no idea what to think of as a plan, yet he knew that he didn't have a whole lot of time to think of a plan. He supposed that it would be best to think up a plan as soon as possible, though he needed to know the capabilities of his team first off before going along with a plan. With that in mind, he spoke up and asked, "What are the capabilities of your units? I need to know that before we can effectively come up with a plan."
With a smirk, Yahiko replied, "you probably wouldn't believe us if we told you now, so we'll have to show you our full abilities on the battlefield. Though it's probably for the better that you learn eventually how to fight like us, we won't force the matter onto you, Captain." Seeing the disappointment in Nagato's eyes, Yahiko decided on saying, "hey, at least you will be able to see what we're capable of soon, no need to worry about that part. However, you'll learn of our basic capabilities now, so don't sweat the other details." Getting Nagato to look him in the eye, he said, "My unit, the Tendou, is capable of the Shouten System, a pretty state of the art system for us, but mainly because of what it can do. It takes a Mobile Suit and makes it look and even actlike another one that we are aware of that is within the fleet!"
Before Nagato could ask howsuch a thing was even possible, a green haired, brown eyed pirate said, "My name is Kou Fuuma, and my unit, the Chikushoudou, is able to bring various Mobile Armors of the fleet over to the battlefield, which are controlled by my Newtype powers to ensure that a battle can be won with various units of the group… and they're brought over with the Kuchiyose System to boot. Don't believe me? Look up my suit's system specs as soon as possible… though after the battle to come."
Next on the list, a sky-blue haired, ocean-blue eyed pirate stated, "The name's Minato Katsuragi, and my unit, the Ningendou, is able to link directly with the pilot to perform martial arts maneuvers and certain techniques unique to me as a martial artist. I'd rather not be forced to teach my techniques to anyone, at least because I'm not a master of the art I am a practitioner of, though my Master will be happy to have a new pupil soon enough." Seeing Nagato's confusion written all over his face, Minato clarified, "the Ningendou has a Mobile Trace System installed, which allows it to move to my movements and utilize certain attacks with a gesture, like using a Beam Saber requires you to twitch a certain muscle that you'd normally never use, or even attempting to use the head-mounted Vulcan guns requires certain eye twitching to work. The fact that it's not just limited to my body, but my energies within the body are affected by it as well, I feel like an unstoppable guy while within the unit… though I know better. I can also absorb enemy Mobile Suit energies."
The next man, a middle-aged pirate with greying brown hair and light-brown eyes, simply stated, "Call me Ishmael."
Nagato, confused about this, asked, "What's your real name?" He wasn't sure if that was even the right thing to ask, but it was better than nothing, at the very least.
"No, really, that is my name, Ishmael Nakago," Ishmael replied to the question immediately after being asked it. He didn't want to have people confused over his name; it's just that, in truth, that was just the first thing that popped into his head when he tried to answer the question. After seeing the confusion lift from Nagato's face, he continued, "My unit, the Jigokudou, is capable of providing extra energy to a Mobile Suit so long as it's one of our compatible units. The system in question for that particular operation is called the Enma System, and for good reason at that, as it's the one thing that can bypass the N-Jammer technology that ZAFT uses practically everywhere… it's like the judge of the dead in Japanese mythology, though I don't recall which part of the culture had that particular reference, but it's not quite capable of bringing back a Mobile Suit… at all."
Nagato, who was enraptured by the idea of the Enma System, suddenly came to understand what it meant for the system to bypass the N-Jammer. As he was about to voice his thoughts on that matter, Yahiko beat him to the punch and asked, "Why do you have the only Mobile Suit with a nuclear reactor as the battery? I mean, shouldn't we all have access to that sort of technology, anyway?"
Sheepishly, Ishmael scratched the back of his neck and replied, "I think the reactor is in the trial stages of not going to pieces when we try using it in N-Jammer areas without the Enma System in place, though that's possibly not the case."
As the general consensus was to give a frustrated sigh, everyone other than Ishmael looked forward to obtaining the new reactors as soon as they were completed and on their way over from headquarters in L2. It would be helpful if nobody would have to deal with energy loss, but then again, they realized the importance of having the Enma system in the one unit with a nuclear reactor in a team with just the normal battery instead of a fission reactor… or was that a fusion reactor?
The fifth man, a pirate with no hair on his head whatsoever and had ebony eyes, said in a very playful tone for someone his age, "Me Gatou Noji, me wish to get smart!"
…Okay, more like he sounded like someone who had a refrigerator dropped on their head when they were a baby and survived the impact with much of their brain cells destroyed, but the point is, he needed a procedure post haste to get his brain repaired. He had a retainer, true, but only when he wasn't in a Mobile Suit and/or fighting. The need for the retainer was to prevent him from doing anything stupid, but apparently his Coordinator talents with Mobile Suits and combat stood out the most while his retainer wasn't able to put a stop to it at all. Anything else… well, let's not go there while he's still alive and willing to kick ass.
Gatou, continuing in his usual manner, said next, "Me have Mobile Suit called Shuradou, which makes things go boom~! Me also like to get to go POW!" As he said that, his fist met a locker that was in need of physical repair and utterly destroyed it in one direct hit… and the damage didn't faze anybody but Nagato because of their exposure to the lovable idiot they called "Gaji Stompmania"… though they wished that they had damage control in this locker room for any amount of time that was desired.
Because Nagato wasn't around this guy nearly enough to figure out what that exactly meant, Yahiko translated that for him and said, "In other words, he's the artillery person with a lot of firepower on his end. He also knows about CQC quite a bit and is not afraid to show it in his Mobile Suit… when he feels like it, at least. It's hard to get him to assist in the middle of a dogfight when he'd rather be the bomber of the group. Also, that show of strength was meant to impress people that he likes as a leader."
Nagato, who was still plenty fazed from the damage done, could only dumbly reply, "Uh-huh…"
The final pirate, a man with a bandana on his head to obscure his hair color and with deep blue eyes, cleared his throat and got Nagato's attention so he could say, "Good even'n, Guv, the name's Yangus Adachi and I'm the pilot of the Gakidou. The Gakidou is able to seal away Beam Weaponry so long as it even comes into play, so we won't have to worry about enemy beam tech, hopefully."
Speechless, Nagato was attempting to figure out if he could even find out whether the claims were true for the pilots of the strangely named units, though he needed to know what to expect out of this if he were to properly lead.
Then he got an answer to the problem posed for what the plan would be to get to the new warship, and it was a rather pleasant idea to boot! He then turned to ask Yahiko, "Tell me, how many Mobile Suits are out there in the entire fleet that we can borrow for the Shouten System?"
Raising an eyebrow, Yahiko replied, "Depends on how many Mobile Suits you have in mind to use and what use they'll have. What do you have in mind?"
Nagato gave a grin that would make a lesser man run away in fear for his very life to the answer for three seconds and then explained the plan to the team.
Within the Archangel, things were going rather swimmingly, mainly because a bunch of civilians were all able to vote for where they would like to go before heading back to Orb. As the voting wound down, the option to head over to Artemis was in the lead with the debris belt in second place by a wide margin. Knowing that people were inclined to want to visit a local base within the Earth Forces control, the surviving crew of the Archangeldecided to set course for the Eurasian Federation military base, though there was one problem at the moment they wanted addressed...
"I don't want to be the one to jinx us, but we'll probably run into the Le Creuset Team if we don't try anything to throw them off," Mu warned grimly to the few officers that were on the bridge at the time from his seat at the wheel. "It's probably not going to be easy to get us out of this mess and into Artemis, but it's likely for the better that we fire off a decoy to distract them while we leave the other way."
"I agree with Lieutenant La Flaga," Natarle stated from beside Murrue, who was sitting in the Captain's chair at the time, "we do need to provide a decoy for them to follow while we head over to Artemis, though it's probably going to be a Silent Run with how much is at risk here. We can't just let ZAFT find more on us while we wait and do nothing, plus with all these mouths to feed due to Kira and the others bringing in a lot of refugees from the colony, we can't just sit here anyway. We need to move out rather fast, or else we'll be in a whole lot of trouble with no way to fix this."
"At least we sent most of the refugees to the Arabian Knights for the time being, in case things don't go well over at Artemis," Murrue pointed out, glad for at least a small thing to go right for them. Turning to face Natarle, she asked, "Do you believe that this will go off without a hitch, Ensign Badgiruel? If it does, we'll be able to leave without a problem and we can safely—"
"I highly doubt this will go off without a hitch, Captain Ramius," a voice broke out while the door to the hallway opened and closed during the dialogue. The three Commissioned Officers turned to see that Duo had entered the bridge without needing to worry about being locked out on a bad attempt to enter in the first place. "The reason for my skepticism is because the guys at Artemis tend to be, well, pigs that need to be slaughtered somehow before they can get a real reason to even somewhat be honorable… and that's putting it rather lightly."
Mu, who had an idea what Duo was getting at, decided to pose a question at the Hero of Junius Seven to see what his idea would be in this case, "So tell me, what plan do you have right about now to get us out of that mess should it get to be a mess?"
"Personally? Avoid Artemis if we can help it, but we can't, so we're stuck with 'go in, get supplies, get out' for right now… assuming they play nice." Duo sighed a sigh of annoyance at the idea of having to do business with corrupted idiots like the soldiers who ran Artemis, men like Gerard Garcia who thought it was a good idea to try stealing men's women on the side of his job with the military. How Garcia got to be Commandant was beyond him, unless it was something like he bribed the people in charge to let him run the place by himself and with a few select officers that lived by his word like bread and water should be the foundation of all life for man.
"I see," Mu replied, before he decided it was time to get someone up to speed on the details of what was being planned. Getting off the seat he was sitting in, he made his way to the door and said to Duo, "I hope that this plan you mentioned happens without a fuss or an enemy to appear when we least expect it. I don't want to imagine what could happen wrong with this plan that you cooked up." As soon as those words left his mouth, he headed straight out the bridge and over to the crew quarters, hoping that everyone he needed to speak with were there and together.
At the same time…
Rau Le Creuset had managed to find the time to start writing a report on what had happened in his quarters aboard the Vesalius, though he knew that he needed more info before he could finish the report and let it be sent to Patrick Zala for review, so he decided to talk with both Athrun and Taikobo at some point about what was going to happen next and what had occurred in the factory in Heliopolis. He knew that this was going to be a pain to deal with politically, but he didn't need to worry so much now about the politics involving this can of worms, considering that he had to deal with problems that he'd rather avoid if possible.
While he was busy typing, he heard Athrun state over the communications system, "Athrun Zala reporting as requested." Viewing this to be a blessing, Rau said, "Yes, come in, Athrun."
As soon as Athrun entered the room, Rau decided to probe for information, so he started off this time alone with, "I've been meaning to hear a report about what happened in the factory, from not only you but Taikobo as well, due to having a lot of unanswered questions that I'd like to see answered regarding obtaining the new Mobile Suits." Turning his chair to face Athrun better and then standing up, Rau continued, "If you don't mind sharing your account of what happened in there, Athrun, it would be deeply appreciated by those reading about this in the report."
Athrun, feeling rather down because of what he had to deal with, replied, "I'm sorry, sir, I deeply regret not saying anything sooner about this. During the time the OMNI Enforcer Mobile Suits were about to activate, I saw who the pilot was for the Strike, and I thought I would make sure during the battle that ensued where the colony was scuttled. I had hoped that the pilot would be anywhere but there, but no such luck was with me. He's a very good friend of mine named Kira, sir."
"Kira…?" Rau prompted from Athrun, because he didn't know which Kira was out there in an OMNI Enforcer Mobile Suit as far as he was aware, at least.
"Yamato, sir, his full name is Kira Yamato," Athrun said while with a downcast expression that failed to spot the look on Rau's face.
'So… the Hibiki children are still alive, or at least Kira is. What about his sister Cagalli and what happened to the research material from the Jinchuuriki and Heaven's Feel projects Gil was so interested in?' Rau thought while having a contemplative look on his face that anybody that knew the Commander well enough would know was his scheme face… at least, regarding the future of humanity anyway.
"Yes, I can imagine that you'd be quite attached to this friend of yours, Athrun," Rau spoke up from his musings, "but you must be aware that if your friend is on the enemy side, he's most likely been treated to the conditioning that Coordinators need to-"
"But Kira's a Coordinator!" Athrun interrupted his commanding officer, getting Rau to look at him in surprise, "I've known him since Lunar Prep School, and he's actually kind-hearted and naive to the point of ridiculousness, so it's possible that the Earth Forces are manipulating him!"
'Well, that changes things,' Rau thought as he learned of the changes involved. 'Who knew that Athrun would know that Kira is a Coordinator? Even I didn't know that Kira is one, so for Athrun to confirm for me the identity of the Ultimate Coordinator...'
"I don't know how they're manipulating Kira, it could be with his sister Kyou as a hostage or something," Athrun continued down the line of thought that he was going on, which had given Rau a humongous shock all of his own.
"Wait, hold on for a bit. I'm sorry, for a minute there; my hearing must've gone south, figuratively. You said his sister Cagalli, right?" Rau didn't want to believe that he made a huge mistake in his memory about the number of Hibiki children that were around at all, but the best way to see about this was to ask about the one sister he did know and see what the response would be.
Therefore, it came as a sign of despair when Athrun looked at him oddly and answered, "No, I said his sister Kyou, Commander. Why were you asking as if you knew the family when you didn't?"
Rau, for all of his quick wit, was unable to come up with a good reply while he was raging internally because of the lack of knowledge on the subject to let him know who was alive and who wasn't. Granted, he didn't realize that it would be impossible to keep track of the Hibiki children, but now that he had a way of finding out something on Kira...
Shaking his head, Rau said to Athrun, "I'm sorry, I must've been thinking of a different Kira Yamato, to tell you the truth. I hope you let it slide this once, Athrun." In truth, he had to deal with this sort of problem eventually, what with needing to keep an eye on how Kira and his "sister" got along, and even figure out exactly how the Hibiki's had a third child at least.
Then again, it was hard to fully determine the whole scope of how this ruined his little plan to bring about an age of space exploration, given that he wanted to keep people from wanting to be like the Ultimate Coordinator for as long as possible while they developed the means to live on other planets without relying on Ulen Hibiki's research. If his luck was any indication over the past decade, though, then he needed to find a way to end the war fast and withoutpeople like Muruta Azrael on the prowl... then people would be more willing to go move to other portions of the galaxy without the extreme prejudice.
...Though if the Ultimate Coordinator project was indeed going to cause a lot of wars, why didn't it do so before now?
As if remembering something rather important, which it really was, Rau stood up from his seat and spoke up again to get Athrun's attention, "I won't lie, Athrun, I don't want you to go out in the sorties against the new warship unless you can find it within yourself to do one of the following."
Athrun, looking at him in a curious manner, asked, "What do you mean, Commander?"
"I mean this, Athrun," Rau replied. Before continuing, he raised a finger and held it up as if he were giving a lecture, though he used the finger to help him get a point across. "You either 1, shoot down your friend but ensure that he lives to return with you to the PLANTs, 2," he raised the next finger on his hand, "convince him to come of his own free will, or 3," he raised the third finger on his hand this time, "kill your friend and hope that his sister doesn't try taking revenge on you for what you did. Either way, Athrun, it's a hard choice to make that I'd rather you didn't have to." After finishing the explanations, he lowered his hand and let his fingers go back to their natural position, hoping not to need them anymore.
Athrun, who was starting to look rather shell-shocked at the requirements for going onto the next sortie, replied, "I'll think about the choices, Commander, but I was hoping to avoid that sort of problem if possible, sir."
"Yes, I can understand what you mean," Rau stated, hoping to understand more on the circumstances here regarding Athrun and his friend Kira without trying to pry.
One hour later…
Ryu wasn't sure which was worse; trying to steal the X in the middle of the Battle of Junius Seven or this particular battle. One month of intense fighting just wasn't healthy for the only guy who could pilot a Mobile Suit in the Zero Corp, but he had to make do with what he was able to do in this conflict.
He had to hand it to his superiors; they were getting rather senile about who was after them, leading them to believe that the only MS Pilot in the Earth Forces was the bad guy out to end their lives like it was nothing at all. Of course, it didn't help his cause that he questioned his orders at times, especially on ones like what the CLA were known for carrying out without a care in the world.
…Actually, that was a good thing, not a bad thing like what he thought at first. Come to think of it, the one person crazy enough to follow those sorts of orders who was not in the CLA was a man named Victor Amsel, and that was bound to change one of these days without him realizing until too late.
Anyway, back to the battle at hand, Ryu was hoping that they didn't have to resort to that system to kill the ZAFT soldiers; it would cut down on soldiers in the Earth Forces that actually were any good in the battlefield. If it turned out that way, he really would murder the bastards that issued the order to turn it on and—
"Calm down, Ryu," said the voice of his superior officer and lover Yuna Falcon, who could tell that he was getting antsy by the way he moved his Mobile Suit out in the open. It was one of the hardest things to deal with while in a critical combat situation, but at least she knew the signs better than anybody else here on the Grimaldi Front. "You don't want to be killed out there, do you, my love?"
Ryu visibly calmed because of Yuna's words to him, feeling relieved that she decided to go out of her way to allow him to stay within the battlefield instead of stuck in the base. As he was about to reply...
One of the unlucky soldiers who weren't expected to last long compared to the Zero Corp was suddenly shot down, the first casualty of the day.
Explosions flashed through the sky as a 17-year old Ryu weaved through the endless tide of GINNs that ZAFT had sent out to destroy the base at Endymion. Raising his rifle Ryu started returning fire at the ones targeting him and his squad. 'They must really fear the capabilities of the Moebius Zero if they sent three of their fleets to wipe the Zero corps base.' He thought to himself as he continued to punch through the GINNs that were attacking the base "Have they made contact with Headquarters yet?" he asked his squad mate and close friend Mu La Flaga.
"Not yet no," Mu stated as his Zero's Gunbarrels destroyed a GINN that got too close to the third member of their squad Mickey Johansson who had a silver coloured Zero "For the obvious reason we can't get through."
"They're using their N-Jammers, from what I gather," Kyle Flynn, pilot of a dark blue Zero, got out from his musings. "I'll give you guys three guesses where they came from.
"I hate it when they do that." Mickey complained as he returned the favour by disabling a GINN that was on Mu's tail.
"I hear that" Yuna sighed, she was a pilot of a white Zero with blood red stripes "I just hope that this damn war would end already." Flipping her Zero she fired her rail guns blasting away a GINN that tried to take her from behind.
"Got that straight," Ryu said as his bayonet pierced a cockpit of a GINN before throwing it at a second GINN as it exploded taking said GINN with it "Kyle any idea's on where the N-Jammers are originating from?"
"Just give me a sec," Kyle responded as he rolled away from a series of shots from a GINN "Got it, it's at the center of the fleet though."
"Son of a bitch." Yuna cursed, she was officially the squad commander but most of the time someone else would lead the squad if they had more experience in the terrain they were fighting in "Any ideas?"
"Don't tell me you're thinking of charging straight in Commander." Mickey pleaded in alarm
"Alright then, I won't tell you, I'll order you to." Yuna retorted seriously "Ryu you take point and show'em just how good that suit of yours."
"Yes ma'am," Ryu confirmed with a grin as he drew out his katana and took the point of the V formation the squad took up. "Besides Mickey don't you remember our motto?"
At once the entire squad chanted "Make the Impossible Possible" as they retracted their Gunbarrels and accelerated to the ZAFT fleet.
As they charged forward the other Zero pilots seeing the legendary Falcon Squad started taking the fight to the enemies rallied around them and joined them in a charge that would be remembered for ages to come. Leading the pack Ryu quickly activated what made the ZGMF-X990 Codename: X so dangerous "GO FANGS" he shouted as the prototype DRAGOON system on his mobile suit activated launching six dagger-like objects from the container on the X's waist and circle around him before moving to his will and started punching through the armor of the GINNs disabling some and destroying others as his sniper-like accuracy pick off many who approached him and his katana finished off anyone unlucky enough to get close to him as the Zero's behind him opened up with their own weapons raining bullets upon the ZAFT fleet.
Unfortunately as the battle wore on more and more of the Zero's started to fall, even with the advantage of their wired Gunbarrels and each pilot's spatial awareness, their small contingent were no match for the endless tide that was the ZAFT fleet. Mickey swerved out of the way of rifle fire of one only to be met by the heavy sword of another "Mickey!" Kyle yelled as his longtime friend went down in flames "You BASTARDS!" With that as his war cry Kyle plunged head first into the swarm of GINN descending upon them tearing through them until one of the GINNs shot through his reactor blowing the armor up taking Kyle and two GINNs unfortunate enough to be too close with it.
"GAH! Dammit, Kyle!" Ryu yelled in desperation as his Fangs tore the offending mobile suit apart while his rifle shot through a cockpit of another and his thrown Katana pierced yet another one. "Mu, Yuna, Form up!"
Following his advice the other two remaining squad members flew up beside him as they continued to punch their way through the screen of GINNs blocking them from their objective. After finally punching through the trio started weaving through the anti-air fire from the Battle ships in the main fleet as they tried to shoot down the remaining members of Falcon Squad.
"Ryu," Yuna whispered as he flipped around and emptied his final clip into a GINN pursuing them "Take care of yourself and keep moving forward like I know you can and always remember I love you."
"Yuna?" Ryu asked in confusion as he turned around only to see Yuna's red stripped white Zero Kamikaze their target ship right where the engine would be causing a chain reaction blowing the ship up. "YUNA!" he cried out his eyes widening in fear as he hoped beyond hope that he would see her Zero burst through the explosion like he had seen many times before only to be damaged beyond what any bullet could hope to accomplish as he and Mu stared in horror.
Ryu suddenly had a vision of a crystal the same color of his jade-green eyes spiralling through a black background before it shattered in a golden explosion of light causing a wave of clarity to wash over him and his eyes to morph to golden colored with slitted draconic pupils, letting out a roar that many survivors would report to be draconic in nature Ryu charged the shocked GINNs that surrounded them as Mu watched in utter awe.
"YUNA!"
Ryu shot up in bed, the dream one of his recurring nightmares that had forced him to take a leave of absence in the first place, and started breathing heavily, a cold sweat blanketing him, as he started to wonder a few different things about his current situation. For one thing, he thought he'd be in his apartment on Heliopolis-
'Wait, that's right! I'm back in Alliance duty for the time being,' he thought as he reflected on the situation. Wondering how long it would take to get out of the duty, he was musing a few different things at a time when the door to his quarters opened up.
"Ryu-sensei? What happened to you?"
As Ryu looked up from his spot, he noticed that Kyou was in the doorway, looking rather worried for his well-being as she was trying to remove the sleep from her eyes. He thought about telling her it was nothing, but that was a blatant lie, one that she was sure to catch. Therefore, he settled for the truth, but before he could say anything...
"Damn, Ryu, you reliving the Battle of Endymion in your sleep?" came a voice from behind Kyou, making both of them look at Mu as he came into view. "No wonder, I was wondering if you'd even gotten over Yuna since that day, but I guess that you'd need to keep her in your heart in order to stay alive."
"The Battle of Endymion?" Kyou asked curiously, before she caught on to what else Mu La Flaga had brought up. "Wait a minute, you mean that's who Ryu-sensei was in love with?"
"Yeah, I don't know how far their love stretched out, but-" Mu started to say, but Ryu got the words out of his mouth that he needed to say.
"Mu, get the HELL OUT OF MY ROOM!" Ryu was mad... no, mad was too soft, he was lividly PISSED that Mu thought to joke about that at all, though he reigned in his temper for Kyou's sake with what he said next. "As for you, Kyou, please enter so that I can share the truth with you about what happened back then."
"Actually, Ryu," Mu started up, "I thought I should let you know that we're heading to a bit of a nightmare from the past that won't go away, Garcia's territory, Artemis." He made to move away from the quarters, but then he said, "though we'll be lucky to get out of our current mess without a fuss. If ZAFT doesn't decide to attack us, we'll be as good as gold, though let's not get our hopes up." With that, he left the area and moved on over to the bridge where he was stationed to be at the moment.
As soon as Mu's footsteps were no longer heard, Kyou came into the room, door closing behind her, and then sat on the bed opposite Ryu's bed. When a few moments of silence passed, she decided to ask, "Uhm... do you wish to talk about it, sensei?"
"Sure, Kyou," Ryu replied, though for some reason he had wanted her to come over to his bed and talk with her next to him... and then do something completely stupid that would warrant a death sentence from Kira. With that out of his mind, due to how scary Kira could be when it came to his sister's well-being, Ryu began the topic at hand with his days in the military.
Thirty minutes later...
As the Archangel closed the distance to Artemis, Romero Pal said from his station in the bridge, "Large heat source detected, indicating a warship engine. Distance 200, Yellow 33-17, Mark 02." From the outside, it would be seen that a Nazca-class warship was indeed going alongside them towards the asteroid base, which didn't bode well with the crew of the Archangel at all. "Charlie, course Zero shift Zero," Romero finished for the whole crew inside the bridge.
Mu, who had been lucky to move himself to the bridge within the last half-hour, leaned forward in his seat in the co-pilot area and yelled incredulously, "Beside us? But it's headed in the same direction!"
Murrue, who was worried about the Le Creuset team following them, demanded worriedly, "Are they onto us?" Who could blame her for her way of thinking? She honestly believed that the whole Le Creuset team was going to come after them and try finishing off the ship.
Though, within the Vesalius and the Gamow, the crew and pilots within the Le Creuset team, including Rau himself, all sneezed simultaneously because of this madness involving a Nazca-class vessel being beside the "Legged Ship". Though, for whatever reason, Rau decided to set the Gamow after a group of pirates that were trying to do something stupid... even he didn't know what they were there for.
Back onboard the Archangel, Natarle commented from beside Murrue, "They're a fair distance."
Romero, finishing his report up, said to the others, "Object out-pacing us. Identified as a Nazca-class vessel."
Grimacing, Mu grunted and then commented, "They're positioning themselves to cut us off at the pass!"
Natarle, deciding to figure out where the other vessel was, asked Romero, "Where's their Laurasia-class?"
"Hold on a moment..." Romero replied, looking for any other ships that were trying to use the Net formation to stop the Archangelfrom continuing on its way. When he finally found a ship, he stated, "there's a heat source following us, 300 to stern." Hearing a grunt from Natarle and a gasp of shock from Murrue, he asked nobody in particular while looking at the CO and XO, "When did that appear?"
From his seat, Mu stated grimly, "We know that the Laurasia-class will eventually overtake us, but if we use our engines to outrun it, the Nazca-class will double-back and come right at us." Suddenly getting an idea that might help them out, he suddenly said, "Hey, bring me up a space map and the data on the two vessels."
Natarle, confused by the sudden statement, asked Mu, "Do you have a plan?"
Mu turned his seat around to face Natarle and Murrue, with a coy smile on his face and a reply of "I'm getting ready to think about it."
Romero Pal's voice was then broadcast over the speaker system as the Archangel made its way to the impending battlefield, "Silhouette detected, enemy unit! Silhouette detected, enemy unit! Level one battle stations! All military personnel, take your positions at once! All military personnel, take your positions at once!"
Among the people to hear the broadcast were Kira, who was hoping to look up something to read from the Archangel-class warship's library before fine-tuning the performance of the Strike (as recommended by Duo), Emiri, who was trying to practice her form for the Adamantine, Riddhe, who was getting used to the Messer he was provided, Flay, who was trying to get her new daughter (as it was confirmed that the baby was a girl) Natsuki calmed down from the broadcast and put to bed, Duo and Une, who were trying to get back to the Arabian Knightsin their Gundams, Kyou and Ryu, who were hugging each other to ensure that Ryu could get over the loss of Yuna a little easier without forgetting about her entirely, and Dalida Lolaha Chandra II and Jackie Tonomura, who were rushing out of their quarters with Chandra yelling, "Shit, and I was just crawling to bed!"
Within the cafeteria, where the majority of the civilians were gathered, a young girl clung to her mother and wailed, "Mommy!"
To ease her daughter, the woman said soothingly, "It'll be alright sweetie."
After a moment of wondering what was going to happen, Miriallia, Sai, Tolle and Kuzzey heard something that they were hoping not to hear. "Kira Yamato, Kyou Yamato, Ryu Hisanaga, Emiri Takahata, Duo Maxwell, Middie Une, Riddhe Marcenas to the bridge! I repeat-!"
"Oh no, Kira, Kyou, Emiri, Ryu-sensei, Duo, Middie..." Mir spoke worriedly, wondering if it would be possible to avoid battle and let them get to Artemis, but that was a null chance now. She knew that Katsu wasn't involved in this battle for a good reason, and the doctor wanted to ensure that he got better, not letting him move from his bed in the sick bay.
A thought struck Mir, and as she turned to face Tolle, she said, "Listen, Tolle, we're always sitting on the bench, waiting for Kira and the others to get in the game and protect us."
Tolle, getting the idea, recalled something Mu had mentioned to them earlier, "If you have the ability to make a difference, why not put it to good use, right?" With a nod to Sai and Kuzzey, he received the nods back that guaranteed they'd be willing to work with the Earth Forces to help their friends.
In the bridge...
Chandra, being the representative for the HTC group because they weren't allowed on the bridge, said to Murrue, "Captain, I have civilians who wish to speak with you."
Natarle, hoping to deal with it at a better time than now in the event that the people were complaining, barked towards Chandra, "We have no time for that! I'll deal with their complaints later! Just instruct them to remain quiet!" However, in her head, she was thinking, 'Honestly, I hope that something happens to give us some extra help here in this upcoming battle, or else we're done for!'
Fortunately, luck was favoring Natarle in this instance, as Chandra, who wasn't sure how to better word this, carried on, "Well, um, the students who came from Heliopolis with the G-Weapon Pilots wondered if we needed help. They would like to volunteer."
"Wha?" was the only thing to come out of Murrue's mouth before something incredible happened in her opinion.
Natarle cheered out loud from the news.
Within the Nazca-class Obito Uchiha, Nagato, who was just made the ship's CO, was on the bridge with the ship's XO and thinking of a way to deal with the situation at hand. For one thing, it was near impossible to infiltrate the Eurasian base Artemis without something going wrong, mainly because of the technology needed to even pull off the infiltration mission in the first place. On another note, one that was related, nothing that was developed by the Kiiroi Senko no Akatsuki quite worked for longer than five minutes in trying to replicate the stealth capabilities of the Hero of Junius 7.
Then again, his goal wasn't to destroy Artemis, he wanted to capture the new warship and make that his own personal vessel. Anything else was a bonus, especially if they were new Mobile Suits that were developed to go with the warship. While it was preferred not to allow any survivors that didn't have the right to live, he knew that it was better to allow the innocents a chance to get off the ship and force the pilots of the Mobile Suits to get out of their units after disabling the suits and ensuring they have a chance to surrender at all… unless they wanted to die.
Shaking his head, he focused his attention on getting the circumstances of the upcoming conflict ready so that they'd be able to get their feet in the door and ready to take over for new management. For now, he thought about the method of even putting a tracking beacon on the warship to ensure that they could follow it anywhere and everywhere within the Inner Sol System, because anything past the Asteroid Belt was out of range of the Kiiroi Senko no Akatsukiuntil they finally get around to building the correct relay stations to relay that information and other such information.
Still, his XO had to get his attention at some point, and now was the time that he could think of, so he said, "So that's it." When he thought about it, he hadn't even gotten to take a look at Artemis before, so that would explain his relative surprise when he saw a multi-sided die-like shape taking position to block out anything and everything from entering the base.
Nagato, having some experience with the shielding technology involved, replied, "The Umbrella of Artemis. It seems they've already caught onto us… its active."
"Sir?" the XO asked, "How do you know about the 'Umbrella of Artemis'? For that matter, what is the Umbrella of Artemis, anyway?"
Smacking his face with his right hand, Nagato recalled that he was not supposed to divulge this sort of thing to anyone under strict orders from the Admiral himself, or else he'd get the noose... no exceptions were permitted. He was, however, able to give a lesson on what certain technologies were for and anything else like that, including the Umbrella of Artemis, which was important for the mission at hand.
The truth is, he was born inside of Artemis while his mother had made sure that his Coordinator father, Ash Grey, was far enough away from her and the child she would bear... or so the story goes, at least. He had his suspicions about his birth, but nothing concrete to try confronting his mother about, if she were still alive, which he doubted somewhat. The funny thing about this, though, was that his life was about to get further complicated from the mess that was this mission… a mess he'd rather try avoiding if possible, if only it were.
Turning to his XO, who he didn't learn the name of; he removed his hand from his face and replied, "I have a friend who works for the Eurasian Federation. It's how I know about the technology that makes the Light-Wave Barrier that the people of Artemis use quite a bit. As you can tell, it's a Light-Wave Barrier that blocks anything from coming in andgoing out, but it requires knowing that the enemy is even there to work in the first place."
"Well, we've finally arrived here," Yahiko commented from the doorway as it opened and then closed, with the bridge crew looking over his direction, including Nagato and the XO, "but we've failed to catch the brand new military warship." Looking at the stares in his direction, he flat out asked, "What? Is there something on my face?"
Nagato, for lack of a better word, was a bit stunned that Yahiko was even like this at all. That is to say, what he knew about Yahiko was that he was a guy that didn't state the obvious at all, but rather got people to think outside the box, so to speak. For him to be Captain Obvious… well, that just didn't sit well with him.
Shaking his head, Nagato looked back towards Artemis and stated, "We've cut them off. The time is now."
The XO barked out, "Rotate one hundred and eighty degrees, match velocity to Artemis, then proceed to stern at low speed!" As these orders were being carried out, the XO voiced, "Also, sir, my name is Konan Varcello, in case you needed to learn it at this point in time."
Taking time to notice the XO, Nagato was wondering what made him fail to ask for her name, as Konan was indeed a girl. She had blue hair and a crystal-like gray pair of eyes that would captivate anyone willing to look into the windows of the soul… if they were able to avoid the enrapturing figure that she possessed that just screamed that she wanted to be *beep*ed over by some handsome stud who would be willing to let her walk over them. Her outfit custom-made to reveal things like how her thighs were shaped, while normally very distracting, was actually being ignored in favor of the eyes that she possessed.
Eyes that showed great pain… a pain he didn't want to see in anybody at all. If only he could help ease the pain, see what he could do to help her….
Shaking his head, Nagato wondered where that thought originated from, because he sure as hell wasn't a Newtype, as far as he knew anyway. What he did know was that Konan was in need of a whole lot of help, help he didn't know if she even wanted to receive it to begin with at all.
Kira, while on his way to find Kyou, was about to get the shock of his life when he saw his friends heading his way while in Earth Forces uniforms. When he got closer to them, he could tell that whoever made the female uniforms was a pervert of the highest degree, with a rather short yellow miniskirt and a somewhat form-fitting pink shirt being worn by Miriallia… no, wait, Emiri's pilot suit was even worse in perversion bar none. It was as if whoever designed the outfits was purposely trying to get themself killed by the female population alive to date.
As for the males in the group, their uniforms were a lot less perverted, but it showed that a man made the design choices. The boys had white pants on, with blue shirts to signify that they were working with the Earth Forces, and not as full-time soldiers either.
Tolle, who was the first to notice Kira among the group, called out to their friend, "Kira!"
Hearing his friend, Kira stopped himself long enough to stay and chat for a little bit, while calling out to his friends, "Tolle! Guys?"
Tolle, as he and the others came to a stop, called back, "Kira, hi!"
Kira, who was curious about his friends' attire, asked as his question, "So, what's the deal with the Earth Forces outfits?"
Sai answered, "We decided to help out around the ship. It's undermanned, right?"
Kuzzey, adding in his two cents, said, "Yeah, they wouldn't let us on the bridge without these uniforms," though he was wont to agree with it until they decided to throw in "gun safety classes" for all the HTC students. After all, Kuzzey was the one to shoot a gun out of the Captain's hand, but he had bargained the classes to start when Katsu had awakened and was fully aware of what was going on around him. In any case, he cared for anyone that was his friend, whether or not they were a Coordinator.
Tolle, on the other hand, was feeling like a know-it-all and commented, "But don't you think the ZAFT uniforms are cooler looking? We don't even get a rank badge, so these seem kinda lame."
Chandra, who was behind the group, decided to voice his protest at Tolle and declared, "Alright, wise-guy, that's enough of that ridiculousness!" Upon saying those words, he got the Heliopolis crew to look his way in a bit of shock, though that eased away soon enough.
Kira, surprised at the genuine concern that was shown his way, could only gasp at what he heard. He honestly didn't expect this to happen, not one bit, though he knew that they had no intention of letting anyone aboard the Archangel-class Archangel down… not even their friends. That bit of info reminded him of why he wouldn't let the ship down and fail to protect anyone that was aboard at the time that they needed to get to wherever.
Tolle, almost as if he were aware of what Kira was thinking, continued saying to him, "You guys always do the fighting. Thought you guys could use some friendly company during battle."
Miriallia, picking up where Tolle left off, finished, "Since we're all in this thing together. We plan to help out too," as she drew near the end of what she had to say, Kira got out of his surprised state of mind and put a smile on his face to show his appreciation, "any way we can, Kira."
Chandra, needing to get the students in uniform over to the bridge, pushed the group over that direction and said, "Alright, kids, let's move it now."
As the group was pushed away from their friend, Kuzzey called out, "Bye Kira!"
"See you later," called out Miriallia as they left the immediate area.
Chandra, looking back to Kira as he moved to the bridge himself, made mention of something that he barely remembered, "Oh, and you might want to let Miss Allster know about the temporary female pilot suits, we're going to figure out how to make working female pilot suits rather soon." With that, he left to return to duty.
"Uh, yes sir, Mister Chandra," replied Kira, though it took him a moment to realize something…
'Wait a minute; Flay's going out into battle? What made her decide to do that?'
After a couple minutes, Flay had managed to fit herself within a pilot suit, even though it was a good deal loose around her waist and a good deal tight on her chest and hips. Next to her, Kyou and Emiri were contemplating whether or not to kill the guy behind the design of the pilot suits, though they knew that they had no real chance of doing so. She noted Kyou's pilot suit, but wasn't sure where Emiri's pilot suit was to begin with, so she thought of asking where it was. Turning to the blue-haired girl, she asked, "Hey, Emiri, where's your pilot suit?"
Seeing Emiri blush, Flay assumed the worst, but was then told, "I don't have a standard pilot suit, it's something that comes from the Adamantine Gundam itself—"
"Wait, what's a Gundam?" Flay couldn't help but ask that question. It was weird, being in the middle of this discussion without a clue as to what was even being said, but she needed to know what was what as soon as possible.
Fortunately for her, Une was in the room and had heard the question that Flay asked, so Une cleared her throat and, after getting everyone's attention, answered, "A Gundam is a special kind of Mobile Suit, one with a certain set of requirements that make it what it is. For one thing, the visual appearance is crucial, as Gundams generally look like Samurai and are more humanoid than any other Mobile Suit developed. Another thing to look out for is what metal the Mobile Suit is made out of, because even if the Mobile Suit looks like a Gundam, it still might not be a Gundam without the right alloy."
"It needs to be made out of Luna Titanium completely," Riddhe added as he made his presence known, nearly shocking the females in the room in the process. When they looked at him, they noticed that he was getting a pilot suit from the locker he was next to before he overheard the conversation, so they knew he had a rock-solid alibi for him being here. Seeing that they were going to let him continue with the explanation, he said, "Luna Titanium, also known as Gundarium, is what was used to armor the very first Gundam, used by the EF against its enemy's years ago. Its pilot was known by foes as the 'White Devil' due to his relentless destruction of the enemy forces, whether they wanted to surrender or not. From that point on, any Mobile Suit that was built like the RX-78-2 Gundam was labeled as a Gundam-class Mobile Suit, in honor of the very first line of Gundams ever built."
As Riddhe went on with the explanation on the RX-78-2 Gundam, Kyou couldn't help but feel as if something was a bit off about the situation, like she could feel something that Riddhe wasn't even saying. Riddhe was saying things that weren't in Eurasian Federation history books, like in one that Kira had checked out before, but the details behind the explanations were so vivid that it wasn't even funny how accurate they were. As she was about to question the validity of the situation, she suddenly felt herself drop to the ground, as a look of confusion and shock was shared by everyone that was in the room at the time.
Kyou couldn't figure out what the big deal was. One minute she was getting ready to kick ZAFT's asses, the next she was in an out of body experience that resulted in a trip to another part of time itself. In this sector of time, Kyou came to realize that she was living in someone else's memories and not in the most pleasant of ways either. For whatever reason, she was sitting in the chair her memory benefactor was sitting in at this time, and she was not a girl in this environment, but rather a self-depraved boy that was cooped up in his room trying to rewire a computer that was fit for something in the 1970s AD.
Soon, she was to get a name for the boy, or at least she hoped it was his name, when she heard a girl come up from through 'his' bedroom door saying, "Oh yeah, I should've known you'd be cooped up in here. You've got to eat, Amuro, you need to take better care of your health. Amuro!"
What she heard next was a robotic voice saying to her, "Hello, Amuro. Hello, Amuro."
"You're looking very well today, Haro," the voice she was forced to share said, which made her wonder where the term 'Haro' came from to begin with. She knew she heard of it from somewhere, she just didn't know where, but the scene that was playing out was too much like her and Kira being found by Mir because they had no interest in eating unless forced to… with the obvious differences that made it more fitting for this 'Amuro'.
"Thank you, Amuro," replied this 'Haro' that Kyou was not able to even see at all. Based on estimation, however, she knew that the 'Haro' was a sphere the size of a basketball that served the role of a mascot when was absolutely needed.
Before more thought could be given on the Haro, however, the girl that barged into the room declared, "You got to hurry and get dressed, Amuro!" As if being ignored, the girl waited a few seconds before yelling out, "AMURO!"
"After I finish rewiring this computer," Amuro replied, focusing intently on the rewiring job that was eating away at his time. Kyou suddenly felt that she should never again do what this Amuro guy was even trying to do, ignore the female friend that was concerned for hers and Kira's wellbeing, otherwise there would be hell to pay in the form of Mir turning off the electricity in their house, which would result in an enraged set of parents who would be tongue-lashing them.
The girl pressed on, which Kyou gave her credit for, saying, "Don't you know about the evacuation order?"
This caught both Kyou and Amuro off-guard, Kyou because this was a first for her, and Amuro because he was too preoccupied by the work he was doing right then. As if to ask for both of them, Amuro turned his head around and asked, "Evacuation order?" Further clarifying his point, he continued saying, "I heard a siren, I didn't know what—"
"It's an emergency," the girl clarified for him. "Didn't you hear the military broadcast? A warship is docking today and we have to evacuate the sector!"
"Why?" Amuro asked in a grumbling mood fit for complainers while still working on rewiring the computer right in front of him. For whatever reason, Kyou thought that if he didn't man up within a few weeks, he'd be dead meat by the time he got himself in serious trouble.
The girl, who Kyou could tell was a very dear friend of his, replied, "I don't know," while setting something down on a table for Amuro. As if looking to see what Amuro was doing and finding his actions disagreeable, she yelled at him, "Amuro! We don't have much time!"
Turning around to face her again, Kyou noted that she had a green jacket on over a red shirt, while she was wearing a green skirt and had chestnut-brown hair on her head with freckles on her face, showing that she wasn't a child who was made a Coordinator or was the daughter of a Coordinator and a Natural (at least). However, Amuro added onto the 'list of annoyances' Kyou had about him by saying to the girl, "Alright, already." With that, Amuro and Kyou, who were momentarily sharing a body, finally got up from the seat they were in, while they heard in the background, "Evacuate at once! Evacuate at once!"
"We'll wait outside for you," the girl permitted for Amuro and Kyou, then said to the Haro, "Haro, let's go." With that, both she and the Haro left Amuro and Kyou all alone, with Kyou wondering what sort of guy this Amuro really was physically.
Amuro, having shut down a computer that he was working to rewire, said more to himself and not to Kyou, "What a pain." After saying this, he yawned and stretched his body to get the kinks out of his system, lest he stay stiff-bodied.
Taking some time to get dressed and then look in the mirror, Amuro saw that his yellow shirt under his blue pants and coat were definitely a good thing for him to wear, despite the fact that he had no idea what was causing him to feel water on his face when he wasn't near a source of water… what was that all about?
Kyou spluttered from the water that splashed onto her face to wake her up, wondering why that tactic was employed like it was on her brother… then she looked up to see Kira had splashed her with the offending bucket. Knowing that she would need to take revenge on Kira for this stunt, but deciding not to do so now, Kyou figured out the perfect way to get Kira to see the error of his ways. What she had started with that train of thought, however, was a series of events known as the prank wars of the Archangel of War and Peace… however, the prank wars were not to start this minute, because of certain circumstances like the battlefield at hand that they had to fight in.
And CUT! Normally, I'd not give a damn about how my writing is atrocious, however that would not be the case under these conditions. I mean, even though this is a challenge that I had accepted, I had a lot of ideas for this that needed to be cleared with my co-author. Even then, because I had been concerned about factors like how to get more readers for this particular story, I started asking around and eventually I got to the point where I was eventually frustrated with my own work on this challenge.
As far as how likely this story is going to turn out better, I'm already rewriting it with my co-author, and had explained to him what I had in mind for the rewrite as well as my original plans (to some degree). Hopefully, by the time it reaches the end of SEED Destiny, we'd have enough material to make a new set of "seasons" that detailed what would happen at the end of the Second Bloody Valentine War on to the events of Frozen Teardrop... and hopefully beyond that.
No, I won't spoil what I have in mind for how the story will eventually go about, but keep in mind that Riddhe won't be the only character specifically from the UC to show up as a character in the revised version. Plans include Riddhe as one of the characters, but from which UC is up to reader speculation, as there's three versions of the UC that I have in mind for this. To be fair, however, there's a lot of distinction between the three different UC timelines involved.
Case in point, the UC in which Riddhe is from is around the time the novelized version of Gundam Unicorn, while the other characters are from different points in the timeline from the animated stuff. Namely speaking, one character is from Stardust Memories, while the other two are from the OVA version of Gundam Unicorn (roughly around the time of episode 4). Any other characters are going to be from different points as well, though I'm not pulling a Kamille Bidan on anyone (meaning I'm not bringing in a comatose Newtype or anything).
Anyway, now that this has your attention, I'll be frank here. My original attempt was a major fail, as many people can attest to (at least the ones that chose not to read this work after trying to read it fair and square), and I'm aiming to relocate this from the section it was in to the Anime X-overs section of under the name of "Xamusel's Fail Story Corner" (at least when I get to rereleasing the story after finishing the prologue). For now, though, the name stays the same (until I get the time to finish the prologue of the rewrite… not sure when that will happen, but it will happen pretty soon, though within a month or even a year is what I'm trying to determine from this).
A/N from F-14 Tomcat Lover:
I'm gonna say... We had something going. Regrettably, enough nitpickers out there who act like a bunch of old maids couldn't avoid pointing out some pointless issues. Now Xamusel what's too make everyone happy, so
I'm going along for the ride.
So hear we are, off to start again, because some folks had to complain...
Personally, we had it going just fine, but hey, who knows, we were having trouble, maybe we might do better this time around. The trouble was simply we were adding too many characters. Gotta be careful of that there folks, as it can be a bit ol' trap.
Well, we got the next coming out and Xamusel is largely in charge, with me trying to keep him from going overboard.
I expect a LOT of positive reviews for my hard work. Xamusel's got imagination to spare. Regrettably, that means I get dragged along in the complexities of them.
Well, life was getting boring anyways.
F-14 Tomcat Lover
"The Big Cat is on the Prowl. So Bee Eaters better start Running."
PS - The Na-Na-Na Wiseguy!
Xammy, you're turn!
Xamusel: Right, but no more calling me "Xammy ('RATS!' F14TCL)", that's reserved for another site!
Er... anyway, enough about that, the revised prologue has been in the works while this was sitting around, gathering dust, so on and so forth. If anything, I'd like to get this part of my life out of the way to say, "I'll fix you up when I get the chance!"
At the end of the day, I hope you all have learned that this will be rewritten, and for the better (hopefully). Now, will Miguel survive the next version? I hope he does, but this might not be under my jurisdiction.
Anyway...
Later.
~Xamusel
Originally Posted by crystalwatcher
