Chapter I

It felt as if some brilliant light from the heavens had suddenly burst forth and its many rays were engulfing the tiny, spec-like Duel and Buster Gundams. Both Yzak and Dearka felt as though some tremendous fist had slammed them into the back of their seats. "Dearka!" screamed Yzak into the comm-link. "Dearka, are you there?!" he called. It was of no avail. The message came through to the blonde-pilot as nothing more than static and broken words, not that it mattered anyway. He was already unconscious. The last thing Yzak remembered before blacking out was the sight of a Ginn beside him quickly being enveloped into the growing light.

Yzak's head pounded with an aching pain, feeling as though someone was inside his skull trying to puncture a hole out of it with a steel pike. He groaned as he opened his eyes and tried to bring the world into focus, finding himself still in the cockpit. All the instruments that normally flashed with life were now dead, and the visor on his helmet was cracked but still intact. Once he had gotten his head back together and, he removed his helmet and let down his platinum blonde hair before opening the cockpit. He unbuckled his harness as fell forward rather ungracefully onto a mound of soft earth. His body still felt weak from the crash, so he decided he would lie for a few minutes, thinking things over.

Okay. Where the hell am I? he thought. Am I in one of the plants? he asked himself. No, if I had crashed into a plant, I wouldn't be alive . I can't be on earth. There's no way I could have survived reentry. Where am I?

Asking himself these questions, the Gundam pilot began to gather the strength necessary to force himself onto his knees. He then reached over and picked up his helmet to use the comm-link. "Dearka….Dearka….Dearka, are you there?" he asked….

Nothing. He just got back static. Yzak sighed heavily and dropped his helmet before turning around to survey his surroundings. Forest lay in every direction and in the distance he could make out a long stretch of dirt road. The Gundam pilot began to walk down through the city of greenery towards the vast stretch of paved Earth. Maybe I can call him from the clearing. He thought as he pushed his way up onto the road. He stopped at the edge and dropped down to his knees, catching his breath and resting his sore muscles. Could this be Earth? He asked himself. If it is…

His train of thought was cut short by a familiar sound; the humming of an approaching vehicle. Yzak turned his head in the direction of the oncoming noise, and saw coming up over a hill in the distance a pair of automobiles. One, a large canvas truck, and the other a smaller tan car out in front of it. Both seemed ancient to Yzak. There were not at all like the streamline designs he was used to seeing. He didn't move as the vehicles came closer, and a passenger in the lead car stood up as he noticed the silver-haired boy. He tapped the driver of the car on the shoulder, indicating for him to stop. As it slowed, the standing man stepped down from the car, his black-leather boot making a crunching noise as it hit the soft gravel scattered of the road. Yzak lifted his head slowly to look over the intimidating figure that stood before him.

He was taller than the boy by a few inches and wore a black open-breasted tunic with a matching black tie and breeches. Wrapped around his waist was same-brown belt that stretched up over his right shoulder. Atop his head was a peaked officer's cap, bearing a distinctive skull and crossbones on the crown and an eagle on the peak.

However, what caught Yzak's attention was a curious item wrapped around his left sleeve. A red, cloth band with a white disk and a strange cross in the center that looked as though it each end had been bent to the right.

One of the Core Curriculum that all military academy students were required to study was earth military history. Until now it had seemed like any other class to catch a snooze in, but there was one portion which Yzak remembered distinctly. The chapters he had studied on the Earth's world wars. The second of the World Wars was instigated by a radical group of racial supremacists who were known as the Nazis. He remembered the lesson on the origins of the national socialist movement and how they had come to power. He remembered Hitler and his notions of Aryan supremacy. He remembered…he remembered the swastika. That's what this cross was. A swastika. This man was a Nazi.

"Get up!" commanded the figure in black. Yzak did not obey, choosing instead to remain seated, quietly looking up at the Nazi officer. "I said get up!" yelled the man as he reached down and pulled out a pistol from his hip holster. Now Yzak could see he was getting serious, and so decided to quietly submit to his orders. The officer looked at him directly in the eyes with a death gaze about his face. He looked up and down the boy, examining his space suit before speaking. "Who are you?" he asked. Yzak said nothing, still looking at his captor. "Answer me!" commanded the man in black, this time jamming the top of his gun in Yzak's soft gut. The silver-haired boy wheezed and coughed. "Now, who are you?"

"My name is Yzak. Yzak Jule." He hacked out.

"I see. Tell, me. What is that ridiculous uniform you are wearing?"

"It's a suit, a Zaft space suit."

"Hmm. What is Zaft?"

At this point, Yzak felt slightly dumbfounded at two things. The first was that this man did not know what Zaft was, and the second was how he was going to explain it to him. "It's…" the silver haired boy paused to catch his breath from the blow. "It's a….a military group." The officer replaced his pistol and began to stroke his chin as though a thought was now running through his head. "Military? Interesting. Now, perhaps you can tell me what that over there is." He said as he pointed to the Duel off in the distance. "Never-mind. We'll talk later." The officer turned his head and waved his hand, summoning a pair of gray-clad soldiers in primitive steel helmets and toting what Yzak recognized to be sub-machineguns. "Tie his hands." ordered the Nazi. "It would be better if you gave that information to the general." The two soldiers slung their weapons over their shoulders and walked behind the pilot, grabbing his hands and wrenching them behind back, then securing them with a piece of rope. They led him to the back of the truck and proceeded to push him through the canvas covering.

The nameless officer stepped up on to the rail along the side of the car. "Try to radio in to SS regional command and get a recovery team on that weapon. " He said to the driver. "That boy could prove to be useful link."

"What do you mean by that, Herr?"

"This Zaft he talks about is a military organization. It's possible that he could be linked to the resistance. If that proves to be true…"

Tink, tink. The sound of something metallic hitting the ground was heard, and the SS man looked down near his foot. There he could see a small, oblong metal sphere. "Grenata!" he screamed diving for cover. The grenade exploded, causing the tan car to jolt upwards and to throw the officer several backwards over the edge of the road. Gunshots filled the air as men emerged from the bushes firing at the German soldiers. Yzak ducked down as the soldiers guarding him took cover behind the truck. "Resistance!" one of them yelled. The silver-haired boy saw this as his chance and waited for the soldier on his left to turn before delivering a full-moon kick that knocked his gun down, and a second, beautiful chop kick to his face. The soldier dropped and Yzak ran.

"Stop!" he heard someone call out behind him. The second guard began shooting, but was cut down by a hail of bullets before he could aim properly. Yzak looked back momentarily, but kept running with no thoughts in his head except to get away. He didn't have a second thought about his gundam and what those men would do to it. They probably couldn't understand how it worked anyway. He also took no notice of the tiny hole in his left arm just above the elbow.

After about ten or fifteen minutes of running (He couldn't tell seeing as his watch was broken), the pilot came to stop at the top a hill that descended into a small valley. In the bottom of the valley was a cabin with all windows boarded up. Assuming it was empty, Yzak ran without haste and shoulder-jerked his way into the door, making a loud splintering sound as he contacted. The door landed several feet forward and Yzak thudded against the hard wood of the floor. He hardly time to look up when he saw a pair of feet in front of him. Slowly, the silver-haired boy craned his head upwards and found himself looking down the barrel of Thompson sub-machinegun in the hands of a young man about his age.

"Shit…." He said.