Ghosts of War
Chapter One: Finding Unbelievable Miracles
They were in the Debris Belt, near the remains of Junius Seven; a ghostly, yet at the same time, tangible reason for fighting in the war that now raged around them. Kira could only sigh as he and several others focused on getting some much-needed supplies for their ship, the Archangel.
"So many innocent people had died here…..Are we even justified getting our supplies from inside it?" Kira wondered; almost jumping out of his skin when one of the alarms went off in the Strike's cockpit.
"What is it, kid?" Mu's voice asked, over the speaker. He'd seen the younger pilot start at the sudden noise, and look at one of the panels on one side of the cockpit.
"I'm picking up three signals, Commander…..Looks like mobile suits, but I can't be sure…..The signals are very weak." Kira murmured, as he checked the instruments again to be sure.
"Can't very well ignore that. Let's go see what it is……Might be worth checking out, in the long run." Mu stated; getting a nod from Kira for a response. It didn't take them long to find the source of the signals their machines were picking up; and yet they were still stunned by what the origins looked like. There, just in front of them, loomed three dark, manmade shapes.
"Are they…..Gundams?" Kira mumbled, as he stared at the three mobile suits that floated weightlessly in front of them.
"Good question." Mu muttered; his own eyes taking in the unbelievable sight.
"You mean even you don't know?" Kira again asked, shocked that the officer seemed to be as 'in the dark' as he was!
"Kid, I'm a pilot, for crying out loud! I can't be expected to know every single detail about the Gundam projects…..but I can say this; I've never heard of anyone using the Debris Belt to hide mobile suits. Especially in the shape these three are in." Mu stated, then added, "They've seen some heavy-duty fighting at some point." It was then that Kira could see what seemed to be laser scoring on the armor of the mobile suits; the paint on the armor was burnt and peeled away in some places, and explosion damage could be seen, as well.
"Do you think the pilots are still alive?" Kira questioned, hopefully. He could hear Mu sigh in exasperation, and saw him shake his head.
"I doubt it. These suits look old…..and there's no way to tell how long they've been here. If anything, the pilots are probably well-preserved corpses, by now." Mu murmured, his tone subdued as he thought of that.
"Then don't they deserve to at least be laid to rest with some dignity?" Kira asked, as he sadly gazed at the three still mobile suits. This got yet another sigh from Mu, before he bent under the younger pilot's idealistic and humanitarian views.
"You're going to get the whole lot of killed, kid, if you keep this up." Mu mumbled, as he reluctantly attached a tow-hook onto one of the 'Gundams', and started pulling it back towards the ship.
"I'm sorry, Commander……but something tells me that we can't ignore these three suits…..or their pilots…..Even if those pilots are long dead." Kira mused, as he carefully took hold of the two remaining suits, and made his way back to the Archangel's hangar.
Vvvvvvvvvvvvvv(divider)
"Wow, they look even worse in the light."
Even though they had seen how severe the damage had been from the outside, the hangar lights revealed even more.
"The battle must've been pretty intense, to have damaged armor of this caliber…..Okay! Opening the first suit's cockpit now!" Murdoch announced, as the cockpit slowly opened. They were all shocked and a bit numbed by what they saw within it; there, sitting at the controls, was what appeared to be a teenaged boy.
"Damn…..Poor kid." Mu mumbled, not even turning when he heard Miriallia gasp, and Sai, Tolle, and Kuzzey murmur shocked epithets of their own under their breaths as well. Kira, on the other hand, got even closer.
"Kira!" Sai hissed, trying to rein in his friend before he could do anything foolish.
"Don't be morbid, man!" Kuzzey added, but went pretty much ignored as the stubborn young pilot carefully reached in and checked for a pulse. At first, it appeared that the other pilot was indeed dead, and that nothing more could be done for him; then Kira's eyes widened, and his jaw dropped.
"Kira?" Miriallia asked, when she'd seen the disbelieving look on her friend's face.
"His heart……it's beating! I can barely feel it…..but he's got a pulse! He's still alive!" Kira yelped; wonder and joy warring for supremacy on his young face, at this finding.
"Then call sickbay for some stretchers! Hurry up! If it's true what Kira has said, then the pilot of this mobile suit won't last much longer! Hop to it!" Badgiruel commanded, getting an immediate compliance from the personnel nearest to her.
"Get the next ones open. The other pilots might still be alive, as well." Mu added, as Murdoch did just that.
"Can one of you help me get him outta this?" Kira asked, as most of the attention turned to the next mobile suit.
"Yeah!" Tolle agreed, as he rushed to Kira's side and started helping his friend undo the safety harness from around the other teen's slim body. They both felt it when the pilot flinched, and heard it when he uttered a soft cry of pain; his almost angelic face taking on a slight wince in response to being moved.
"Guys, be careful. I think he's been hurt, too." Miriallia said, as the two boys carefully lifted him from his seat at the controls, and carried him to the catwalk where their companions now stood.
"Wonder why he was piloting that thing? Is he a Coordinator too?" Kuzzey murmured, as he watched Tolle and Kira gently lay the young pilot down on the cold metal floor, and as Miriallia sat down and placed the teen's head on her lap.
"No idea……Those mobile suits look old…..Almost museum quality…..Why would they fly in derelicts like these?" Badgiruel mused aloud, as she gazed thoughtfully at the machines, "And why do they look so much like…..?"
"Miri, you're right! This guy's bleeding!" Sai yelped, finally breaking his silence and pointing out the blood that had pooled in the pilot's seat of the old Gundam.
"Put pressure on the wound! Personnel from sickbay are coming." Badgiruel stated, as she kneeled down beside the injured teen, and started searching for the source of the bleeding.
"It looks like the blood's coming from his back. Maybe he got stabbed with something?" Tolle suggested; breathing a sigh of relief when the sickbay personnel finally arrived.
"Possibly. It also looks as though whatever weapon it was that had done this had gone straight through. He's got a wound in his stomach too." Miriallia quietly said; watching as one of the crash teams approached, carefully lifted the teen from the floor, placed him on a crash cart, and started on their work.
"Shit! This guy's in even worse shape!" they heard Mu shout, as the last of the three Gundams was opened, and its' pilot was pulled from within it. The sight that met their stunned eyes almost sickened each and every one of them; almost all over the man's body, deep gashes could be seen. Blood glistened on his torn flightsuit, and dripped down his pale face from a deep cut over his left eye.
"Looks like whatever explosion had damaged the armor, he was the one closest to it." Kira murmured, as he watched one nurse press an oxygen mask onto the injured man's face; inwardly cringing when he heard the pilot painfully inhale.
"And this guy was the farthest. There isn't even a scratch on 'im!" Murdoch said, as he carried another unconscious teen over to them.
"Better get him checked out, just in case. There could be some injuries that we just can't see, because of that dark flightsuit." Badgiruel suggested.
"Right." Murdoch agreed, as he gazed somberly at the pilot he now had in his arms.
Vvvvvvvvvvvvvv(divider)
Conscious thought had been so much of an elusive thing for so long, that he'd almost given up on it. There always seemed to be a thick grey mist hanging over him; making even the prospect of awakening impossible. It was to his evident surprise that now, the mist seemed to be lifting…..Feeling was returning to his limbs, warmth was reaching his skin, and his eyelids didn't feel as though they were being weighted down with ten pound weights.
"W-what? Where…..? W-where am I?" he wondered; feeling something akin to alarm, when he found that he wasn't in the cockpit of his mobile suit anymore. Vaguely, he could hear what seemed to be people his own age talking between themselves about him, and two others.
"What were they able to find out about their mobile suits, Kira?" one asked, the voice echoing slightly in his skull.
"Just what Ensign Badgiruel had said. They're pre-Cosmic Era…..they might even be After Colony Era mobile suits." 'Kira' responded, the disbelief in his voice very noticeable.
"No way……Y'mean to say that those mobile suits are over a hundred years old and they still work?! How's that possible?" another teen asked; not knowing that his words had caused a jolt to go through the pilot's mind.
"No idea." 'Kira' honestly replied.
"How? How the hell did this happen?! Is this somebody's idea of a cruel joke?!" the pilot wondered, as he forced himself to awaken all the way; flinching when the bright lights of the sickbay struck his overly-sensitive eyes.
"Guys! He's awake!" a girl's voice almost shouted, as its' owner appeared before the stunned pilot.
"Hey, how're you feelin'?" one boy asked, as he and his companions gathered around the pilot's bedside.
"Like I've had a colony dropped on my head…..Where am I?" the pilot in turn asked.
"You're on board an Earth Forces battleship known as the Archangel." Another teen, this one sounding like the 'Kira' that had been speaking just moments before, said.
"I see…..so the war between earth and the colonies has resumed, eh? I'm not surprised." The pilot muttered, bitterly, as he slowly sat up and looked each teen in the eye.
"What's your name? And what do you call the mobile suit you'd been found in?" Kira asked; just as curious as his companions were about this pilot's identity.
"The name's Duo Maxwell. I may run and hide, but I never tell a lie. My 'partner's' name is Deathscythe Hell." The pilot said, calmly.
"Where are you from, Duo-san?" the girl asked, hesitantly.
"The L-2 Colony cluster is where I'd originally come from…..But what's this talk about Deathscythe bein' one hundred years old? He'd looked pretty new to me, the last time I'd looked at him." Duo said, tensely.
"A-re you…..it's original pilot?" another of the teens asked, in turn.
"Yeah, as far as I know. Why?" Duo asked; becoming even more concerned and edgy when the teens exchanged uncertain glances with one another.
"Duo-san……It might be hard for you to believe…..but it's been a long time since you'd last seen the outside of your machine….." the girl said, uncertainly.
"Y'mean to tell me……that it's true? I'm a hundred years in the future?" Duo again asked; his face paling and his mouth drying at the implications of this. The five teens before him nodded.
"Damn…..I never would've thought that something like this could even happen…..Did that explosion cause it?" Duo wondered, aloud, as he lay back down; reeling from the added shock.
"Explosion?" Kira asked; remembering what Mu had said about the damage to the machines' armor, and what he had seen with his own eyes, keenly. Duo nodded.
"During the last battle of the Eve War……White Fang's battleship, Libra, almost collided with the earth. We barely managed to stop it, but the damn thing red-lined at the last moment and blew up…..That's really the last thing I remember, before waking up here. How the hell could I have possibly survived for so long?" Duo asked, as at a loss to explain what had occurred as the teens in front of him were.
"I think….the doctors may have found out why……When they'd done some tests on your blood to make sure that you hadn't suffered any radiation poisoning…..they found out that, somehow, you've become Coordinators." Kira murmured, almost guiltily.
"Coordinators? What're they?" Duo asked, confusedly, "What do room decorators have to do with this situation?"
"Coordinators…..are genetically enhanced humans. They're the ones who're mostly able to pilot mobile suits in this era….." Kira replied, hesitantly.
"Weird……" Duo muttered, then asked, "Have any more been recovered with me?"
"Yeah. But only two, and both of them are in worse shape than you are." A man's voice said, as he entered the sickbay.
"Commander Flaga!" Kira yelped, surprised that the higher-ranking man was even there. At this, Duo only allowed himself a slight, bitter smirk.
"It's as I'd thought. I always was either blessed or cursed with 'good' luck." Duo muttered, then added, "Deathscythe hasn't been scrapped yet, has he?"
"You mean that black Gundam? Not yet. I think there's some talk about actually restoring all three and putting some of the latest tech in them." Mu stated, in an attempt to reassure the shaky teenager before him. This earned him a highly skeptical look from Duo in answer to that, as well as an arched eyebrow.
"You guys must be desperate…..to want to refurbish 'old' Gundams like that! What's it gonna cost me?" Duo questioned, skeptically. At this, Mu only shrugged.
"That's up to the captain to decide, I'm afraid." Mu said, even though a mischievous glint could be seen in his deep blue eyes.
"I was afraid you'd say that." Duo grumbled, irritably. Yet, before anything more could be said, one of the ship's officers entered the sickbay, and nodded to Kira and Mu.
"Duty calls." Mu stated, before he rushed off again.
"Unfortunately." Kira muttered; not looking forward to the next foray into the dead colony at all. He was about halfway into the hallway, when he heard Duo call out after him.
"Wait up. I'm goin' with ya." Duo's voice said, then added, "Show me the way to the locker room. I'm gonna need a flightsuit."
"But you can't! You can barely sit up on your own, let alone stand! How do you expect to fight, as weak as you are?!" the girl asked, as Duo stubbornly got out of bed. At this, she got a slight, devil-may-care grin from the pilot; a smile that made her wonder.
"I've been through a lot worse. Trust me." Duo said, as he willed his body to stand without support, and then made his way to the door.
"So you're gonna fight too?" one of the other boys asked, as he watched Duo leave with Kira.
"Might as well. Let me know when I get back if the other two that were recovered with me wake up, okay?" Duo replied, confidently.
"Will do." The other boy promised, before Duo and Kira started running down the hall towards the locker room.
"This isn't my war or my time…..but it looks like I'll be able to still make some sort of difference……" Duo mused, as he quickly followed Kira into the locker room, put on a flightsuit, and then rushed to the docking bay. Little did he realize just what sort of difference he and the other surviving pilots from his era would make…..but he would soon find out…..
Author's Note!
Very odd crossover, I know, but it's a crazy idea that has refused to leave me alone, since I first read the manga, and started watching the anime. But I need some help! Since I'm not sure what I may be missing that the manga has left out (and I've had very little luck in finding some of the DVDs for SEED), I might need to be filled in on some of the events leading up to the Archangel's descent to earth. Any help is appreciated! Thanks!
Gemini14