January 25th, C.E. 71
Heliopolis, LaGrange Point Three
On a bench in a Heliopolis park, a strange tableau was laid out. Looming over the trees, an advanced looking mobile suit knelt on the ground. On one of the benches lay a woman wearing orange coveralls - Lieutenant Maria Ramius of the Earth Alliance, wounded earlier in the day by one of the ZAFT commandos who had successfully seized four of the five Mobile Suit prototypes developed jointly by the Atlantic Federation and the Orb Union.
Watching over the Lieutenant was a young woman, Mirialla Haw, who was providing little more than nervous chaperonage to the man tending the lieutenant's wounds. "She's waking," she cried as Maria groaned and rolled her head.
"Ayup," the man replied, knotting off a bandage he'd wrapped around Maria's shoulder. "I'll rely on your testimony as to my conduct then."
Maria's brown eyes flickered and then she reflexively jerked away from the man, recoiling almost off the bench before he caught hold of her with a firm grip. "Don't move yet," he ordered absently.
"Kira!" called the girl, summoning one of the young men who had been attending to the giant robot only a few metres away.
Maria's eyes hardened as she remembered the earlier events of the day - the sudden attack and the loss of the mobiles suits, being shot by one of the raiders and then the desperate fight as first she and then the young man she saw approaching had fought off a ZAFT GINN in the towering Strike Gundam, only to be stunned when the damaged mobile suit self-destructed almost on top of them.
"I'm so sorry," Kira began, looking ashamed of himself. "It was my fault."
"Keh," the man said dismissively. "Those commando types all running around, shooting guns, and then those giants fighting - the lad's probably the only reason you got off so lightly, and all he does is apologise."
"Have some water," the girl offered and Maria accepted the offered bottle, glad for a moment to think before having to respond to Kira. She was puzzled at why the boy wasn't looking straight at her, then realised that her jumpsuit was open to the waist and had been tugged off her right side. Her reflexive attempt to cover herself didn't do much more than lose the water bottle (Kira caught it before it reached the ground) and elicit a yelp as she put pressure on her shoulder.
"I had to open your shirt to get to the shoulder," the man told her calmly after she had steadied herself. "Strictly professional - the lass can vouch for my behaviour."
Maria was trying to regain her composure when a snatch of conversation came from the three boys still entranced by the war machine.
"This is a great Gundam. Can you move it or not?"
"You guys, don't mess with it!" called the oldest of them, who remained on the ground. As a wonder, the boy in the cockpit emerged without trying to move it.
"Why is it grey again?" asked the third boy.
"Because the main battery is off," replied the second boy.
"Stay away from it!" Maria shouted, her pistol in her hand almost before she realised it. A warning shot glanced off the armor plate between the pair on the machine and they cringed reflexively. An instant later, the gun was out of her hand and she whirled, eyes tracking it, to see the man who claimed to have treated her wound holding the pistol by the barrel.
"What are you doing?" Kira protested. "They're the ones who brought you out of the machine when you were unconscious!"
Maria ignored him glaring up at the only adult in the group. He returned her stare with an air of amusement, then examined the pistol and tentatively tapped one of the levers, causing the clip to fall to the ground. "Tsk," he said, working the action in a professional manner quite unlike the awkward grip he'd used earlier, and letting the live round eject into the air. "I'm so clumsy today. This is yours, I believe," he added innocently and passed the empty gun to her.
"Who are you?" Maria asked, cautiously accepting the weapon.
"A roll of the dice that went your way," the man replied. Now that she looked at him, he was out of place amongst the little group. Not just in age - although he certainly looked closer to her age than any of the teenagers - but in everything! He was almost painfully thin, his tall frame topped with a ragged beard and shaggy locks of corn-blond hair that was obviously the result of neglect rather than deliberate styling. His clothes were odd - a red leather jacket, tough pants and a shirt that looked like it belonged in a video of the pre-Cosmic Era times - and his eyes... Maria shivered as she looked into those grey-blue eyes. She had never realised how dark that shade could be when the eyes were shadowed by more than just the light. "The name is Thomas Finn."
It was almost a relief as the kids introduced themselves. If nothing else, it gave her an opportunity to palm a spare clip of ammunition from her belt and slip it discreetly into her pistol. "I thank you for saving me. My name is Maria Ramius. I am a Second Lieutenant of the Allied Military," Maria told them. "I'm sorry, but that is the military's top secret. It's not something people should touch."
"What? Kira was the one who was operating the machine," protested Tolle.
"I cannot let you go," Maria added, raising the gun again, this time keeping the gun pointed squarely at Thomas, who was evidently the major threat.
"WHAT?"
"Whatever the reason, since you guys saw the secret, you have to stay with me until I have contacted the official board of directors and receive their orders."
The babble that exploded was almost louder than the sound of a gunfight and Maria was about to fire off another round (into the air this time) to get their attention when there was a sharp crack from the back of the group as Thomas clapped his hands together. "Lieutenant Ramius is correct," he said firmly.
"We're Heliopolis citizens!" Sai protested. "We are neutral! We have nothing to do with the military and those sort of things."
Thomas pointed up at the Gundam. "That was built here wasn't it? For the Allied Military? That doesn't sound neutral to me. I don't think that those commando boys believed it either. They came in shooting - that puts all of us in the middle of a war whether we like it or not. And in any war there are only two sorts of people - those who act and those who are acted upon. The latter are called victims and I don't recommend it."
"But why can't we just go to one of the shelters!" protested Mirialla.
"Because the other side would hunt you down to find out what you know about the Gundam," Thomas said bleakly. "And the lieutenant's side would hunt you down to keep you from telling it. Unless you think you can take them both on, your best shot is to co-operate with one group or another - and she's here and has a gun."
"What about you?" Kira asked.
"She smells trustworthy," Thomas answered. "So I guess I'll trust her. For now, anyway." Then he brightened. "Besides, someone has to look after than gunshot wound of hers. I'm sure that that leaves me with some sort of moral obligation to take off her shirt again..."
Maria almost shot him.
.oOo.
"Which one is the power pack?" Kira called down as the Strike knelt by the large truck that Sai, Tolle and Kuzzey had retrieved from Morgenroete on Maria's instructions, while Kira tried fruitlessly to contact any Earth Alliance forces in the area and Thomas and Mirialla tended to the wounded woman. The truck had opened up to display a number of components, some of them obviously weapons, even to his inexperienced eye.
"The weapons and the power pack are together," Maria shouted back up to him as he leaned out of the hatch. "Just put them on."
Down below, Mirialla and Kuzzey were helping Sai puzzle out the controls on the side of the truck that would, in theory, raise the components to connect to the mobile suit. It all seemed like a carefully thought out package - or to put it another way, a very well-accessorised military weapon. Admittedly the help of the two younger teens was entirely moral as they took the opportunity to get out from under Maria's gimlet eye.
Their speculations on the well-being of their families and how long they could expect to be diverted by this madcap military incident before things went back to normal were interrupted as explosions wreathed the spinal column above them. The column was far enough away to look deceptively tin, but the two war machines that emerged from the explosions grew rapidly in size as they dived towards the little group.
The pale grey ZAFT mobile suit was in the lead, but the orange mobile armor was in close pursuit and pulled off a last minute interception to force the CGUE away from the truck at the last moment.
"Put it on!" Maria screamed to Kira, running towards the shelter of the truck with Thomas close on her heels.
Up in the sky, the two fighting machines clashed again and actually came close enough for the CGUE to lop off the muzzle of the armor's spinal cannon. Now free to engage Kira, the suit plunged down but the brief respite bought by the Earth Forces fighter had been long enough. The Launcher pack locked into place and colour flooded across the armoured surfaces as the phase-shift armour activated.
There was another arrival however, and Thomas dived for Maria, bearing her to the floor as explosions engulfed a section of forest only a few dozen metres away. Out of the black and orange smoke, a white shape emerged, it's gleaming hull trimmed in crimson and blue.
"A dragon..." the man hissed as he saw the winged ship flying overhead, drawing the attention of the two giants about to do battle.
The ZAFT pilot recovered first and after a burst of cannon fire failed to hit the smoothly maneuvering ship above, he turned and dived to try the same against the Strike. Thomas bounced to his feet, heaving a startled Maria up with him and she was practically over his shoulder as he hustled the other kids behind the truck's dubious protection, Kira shuffling his huge ride to provide the more substantial shield of his sophisticated armour.
The ship above them did not hesitate to come to their protection, a quartet of missiles chasing the CGUE away along the colony, but the cure might well be worse than the disease Thomas thought warily, seeing the explosions of the missiles against what looked like some sort of structural member.
Kira, with better vision naturally (not to mention the advanced sensors of the Strike) was even more concerned by the damage, and unlike Thomas, he was in a position to take action, unlimbering the massive cannon that was part of the Launcher package.
"Wait!" Maria screamed. "That's too..."
The beam of energy lashed out across the colony, blasting an arm away from the agile mobile suit but expending the bulk of it's energy against the colony's outer hull. Even Thomas, who was only vaguely aware of the structure of the colony, paled as the result became clear: a massive hole that was already beginning to vent the colony cylinder's atmosphere out into space.
.oOo.
A few minutes later, the ship was at rest close to the surface and Kira was able to carry the little group up to the vessel by using the mobile suit's hands as a makeshift platform. They were subdued as the Strike landed at the mouth of a chamber obviously scaled for such a machine. Although an automatic system had sealed the hole in the cylinder, the kids had had a terrifying reminder of how fragile their homes were in the face of even incidental damage from military hardware.
"Lieutenant Ramius!" came a call from further inside the cavernous hanger and a little group in Earth Alliance uniforms came running towards Maria as she led the little group down from the hands of the Strike Gundam, Kira having kindly carried them all up and onto the ship. "I'm relieved to see that you're alright," continued the woman in the lead.
"And you," Maria replied. "I'm pleased to see that you were able to protect the Archangel. You saved us," she added, referring to the ZAFT mobile suit that had left rather than face the ship and the Strike Gundam at one time.
Up above this little conversation, the Gundam's hatch opened, and a rather woeful looking Kira emerged, drawing surprised looks from the military personnel. "Come on," protested a scruffy looking man in coveralls. "What's going on here? He's only a kid. You mean that child piloted that thing?"
"That child," Thomas remarked sarcastically, "took out another Mobile Suit as easily as you or I take out a bag of trash."
"Lieutenant Ramius, what's going on?"
Maria was at a loss for words, but an interruption saved her from having to give an immediate response.
"Wow, what a surprise," came a voice from behind the ships crew and an blond man emerged from the shadows, wearing a grey and violet flight suit. "I'm Lieutenant Mu La Flaga of the Seventh Orbital Fleet." He saluted. "Nice to meet you."
"I'm Lieutenant Maria Ramius of Sector Two, Fifth Special Division," Maria replied, returning the salute.
"Ensign Natarle Badgiruel of the same division," added the lady leading the crew. Thomas choked his laugh off into his fist - she didn't look like a 'bad girl'.
"I'd like authorisation to board this ship," Mu said, ignoring the dirty look that Natarle was shooting at Thomas. "Who's in charge here?"
Natarle lowered her eyes. "The captain and top officers of this ship have all perished in battle," she admitted. Thomas stifled his amusement immediately. "Therefore, I believe Lieutenant Ramius is now in command." Maria gaped speechlessly at the Ensign. "Only a dozen or so of us were saved, mostly non-commissioned officers. Fortunately, being in the shaft, I was able to escape danger," Natarle explained.
"The captain?" Maria exclaimed, regaining command of her voice. "How could that be?"
"Oh, man," Mu sighed. "What a disaster. In any case, Lieutenant Ramius, I request permission to board the ship. My Mobile Armor has been shot down."
"Ah. Sure. Permission granted," Maria agreed.
"And who's that?" Mu asked, jerking his chin towards Kira.
"As you can see he is a civilian teenager," Maria explained. "For some reason he was in the factory district while we were under attack. I let him on the G-weapon. His name is Kira Yamato. As Thomas - sorry," she added. "This is Thomas Finn, a civilian doctor. As he said, thanks to Kira we were able to fight off the GINN and protect this one machine."
"He fought off a GINN?" Natarle exclaimed. The other military types looked at each other in disbelief. "That kid did that?"
"I came here as an escort to the young pilots trained to pilot that," Mu said to Maria, an enquiring expression on his face. "Where are they?"
Natarle cleared her throat. "We were bombed when they were in the control booth, being welcomed by the captain," she explained. "So they too..."
"I see," said Mu sadly. He paused in thought for a moment and then stepped towards Kira and the other students, the rest of the group trailing after him.
"Wh-what is it?" Kira asked nervously.
"You're a Coordinator, aren't you?" the pilot asked kindly, sending a ripple of concern through everyone in earshot - everyone except Thomas.
"Yes," Kira admitted.
Instantly, the four soldiers at the back of the group raised their rifles to port arms. Almost as swiftly, Tolle and Thomas interposed themselves between Kira and the soldiers. "Put those toys down before I take them off you!" Thomas snapped with such authority in his voice that the four had relaxed their grip on the almost before they took in who was speaking to them.
"You are in no position to give orders!" snapped Natarle.
"Lower your rifles," Maria ordered.
"Lieutenant!" Natarle protested. "Why...?"
"There's no puzzle, is there?" Maria chided gently. "The Heliopolis Colony belongs to a neutral state, after all. It is natural that some Coordinators would choose to come here to avoid being involved in the war. Am I wrong, Kira?" she asked.
"No, you're right," the boy said. "Especially with me being a first-generation Coordinator."
"'First-generation'?" one of the crew muttered in confusion.
"Meaning your parents are Naturals," Mu said for the benefit of the crewman. "Well, I apologise for causing such a stir. I was just curious. Nothing more."
Thomas snorted. The man played the innocent well, but there was a reason he'd asked the question in front of the crew. His reasons might have been good - Thomas couldn't have said for sure - but the action had been calculated.
"On my way here, I observed a fair number of simulations involving the guys who are expected to pilot this but not one of them could do much more than get it to move," Mu told them as he backed up and then started to walk back into the ship.
"Lieutenant, where are you off to?" Maria asked.
"Off to?" he asked, as if it were obvious. "I landed after being shot down, and the team waiting outside is Le Creuset's. He's one persistent fellow. If you ask me, I don't think we can afford to spend too much time here."
.oOo.
"I won't do it!" Kira snapped. "Please don't involve us any further in this war than you already have!"
"Kira..." Maria pleaded.
"What you say may be correct, that there is a war going on outside our world. But we don't agree with it! We dislike war! And that is why we chose to be here in neutral territory. Yet you..."
"Lieutenant Ramius!" called the intercom.
"What is it?" she asked, crossing the corridor to the intercom.
"There are mobile suits approaching!" Mu reported. "Come up here and take command. You're the captain."
"I am?" she exclaimed.
"I may have seniority," the pilot advised her. "But I don't know anything about this ship!"
Maria's shoulders slumped and then she deliberately squared them. "Understood. Then prepare the Archangel for takeoff! All hands to level one battle stations! What about your mobile armor?"
"No good! It's not ready!"
"Then, Lieutenant La Flaga, please take charge of the CIC." She turned back to the children, and to Thomas, who was deliberately wiping off his hands with a towel. "It's like you heard. We're entering another battle. With an alert level nine for the shelters, I can't let any of you off the ship now. If we can somehow overcome this and escape Heliopolis..."
"Tolle..." Mirialla whispered, taking refuge in her boyfriend's sheltering arm.
"You people are not being fair!" Kira spat.
"Kira..."
"And you'll tell us that there's only one mobile suit aboard the ship and that right now I'm the only one capable of operating it, right?"
"The fact that you don't like it doesn't make it untrue, lad," Thomas sighed. "The fates are careless of our wishes as a rule, and prone to whimsy to boot!" He shook his head. "I doubt that those mobile suits out there care that we're aboard more than they care about destroying the military's new toys."
"You want me to do it as well," Kira whispered.
Thomas shrugged his shoulders. "Only you can decide who you count as the precious people you want to protect, and what means you will use to defend them."
.oOo.
"Hey!" Tolle called from the crew lounge. "We can see what's going on outside on the monitor over here!"
Kira's other friends hurried to join him. If they were trapped on a warship while the young Coordinator struggled to protect them then the least that they could do was to cheer him on. Thomas followed them, taking a spot on one of the couches and sprawling out on it, long legs stretched out in front of it. For all the world he could have been watching a movie on the screen, rather than a life or death struggle.
Almost immediately, Kira clashed with a mobile suit carrying a large energy cannon. The Strike had been equipped with a different weapons pack - this one providing a long, slender sword. A glowing bar of energy ran along the edge and Kira was holding it like a katana. The other suit's shot missed him cleanly but severed a cable connecting the spine of the colony to the floor.
A second shot from the GINN ploughed into a large building, smashing it open. Clearly the attackers weren't worried about further damage to the colony. The spectators gasped as shot hit the Strike and then there was a cheer as it emerged from the smoke, having parried the blast with it's reinforced left forearm.
The ship rocked and they were all suddenly reminded that the fight involved more than just the duel between these two mobile suits. Their viewpoint moved as the Archangel banked to avoid heavy missiles and they got a front side view as the missiles shot past the ship, punishing the colony further.
"Look!" Thomas exclaimed, pointing. The Strike had thrown what looked like a truncated light saber at the GINN and there was a hiss from the crowd as it missed the target. "Wait for it..." Thomas declared, eye fixed on the movements of the weapon. "Now..." Like a boomerang, the spinning energy blade returned to it's parent suit, it's trajectory taking it through the GINN's leg and the ZAFT suit seemed to stumble in the air as it lost the benefit of the thrusters on that leg. Given the opening, Kira lunged closer, the long blade cutting in a swift arc that bisected the suit's torso.
There was an explosion, and suddenly one less enemy to fight. The handful of crewmen in the lounge cheered - for the first time they had seen one of the feared ZAFT mobile suits being defeated by a Alliance suit. The students looked uneasily between each other, not sure what to think, and Thomas leant back into the couch, his face inscrutable.
A moment later, a shot from the Archangel took out another of the GINNs, but the excess energy hit another structural member and it began to fall past the Strike as it hung in the air, facing the pinkish suit that was obviously one of it's stolen brothers. Both seemed to be fighting tentatively - they dashed past each other, but neither made even a cursory effort to strike despite their proximity.
The last of the GINNs died, but in killing the suit, the Archangel also destroyed the only control on the heavy missiles that it had fired, leaving them to go wild. Against the armoured Archangel, the strikes might have been crippling - if indeed the shots penetrated the active defenses. Against Heliopolis, they were the last straw and a dozen eyes went wide with horror as lines of destruction began to trace themselves along the colony floor.
The Archangel was shaken back as the atmosphere exploded out into space - this break up went far beyond anything that the emergency systems could cope with. The lighter mobile suits were less fortunate and were pulled apart, each expelled from the colony through a different rupture in the outer hull.
This battle was over...
And the death throes of a small world would be added to the nightmares of he who called himself Thomas Riley Finn.
.oOo.
Thomas, having had quite enough of sitting back and watching as the situation spiraled out of control, left the lounge to explore the ship and was in the hanger when Kira returned, carrying a damaged lifeboat from Heliopolis. The tall man was only too happy to help the civilians aboard the pod to clamber out of the top hatch.
He was vaguely aware that Kira was parking the Strike against a gantry that seemed designed for it and when he heard a gasp from the mobile suit's cockpit, he looked up from the redhead who was climbing out and saw the kid's little mechanical pet diving down towards the girl, Kira close behind him. The way the little gizmo acted, Thomas could almost think that it was the boy's familiar. Hmm, given that the kid was some sort of machinery whiz, perhaps that wasn't as far-fetched as it sounded.
The girl looked up and beamed. "Ah, it's you," she called. "Sai's friend!" She jumped up from Thomas's helping hand and coasted up in the zero gravity towards Kira, arms outstretched.
"F-Flay," the boy stuttered. "Is it really you, Flay Alistair? So you were on this boat!"
"Hey, what happened to Heliopolis?" she asked once their faces were level. "What happened there? What went on? I... I... I got separated... from Jessica and Misha in a store in Florence and I ran to a shelter alone, and then...! This is a ZAFT ship, right? What's gonna happen to us? What are you doing here, anyway?"
"Th-this ship belongs to the Earth Forces," Kira corrected her once he got a chance to talk through her babbling.
"You're lying!" she protested. "There's a mobile suit on board."
"No, that also belongs to the Earth Forces," the boy assured her. "B-But, boy am I glad. Sai and Mirialla are here too. You'll be fine."
'Glad' huh? Seems like the kid had a crush. Thomas shook his head and turned back to see a small girl nervously looking around over the rim of the hatch, her mother trying to persuade her to move forwards. Putting aside the adolescent byplay above him, Thomas reached down and scooped the girl up by the back of her dungarees, hauling her out of the pod before she could react. "Upsay-daisy, pup," he said, not unkindly, as her startled face passed his. "Hold onto my head for a minute, there's a good girl."
He didn't quite manage to refrain from flinching as two small hands latched onto his hair and offered his hand to the girl's mother, the woman startled and then choking down a chuckle at the expression on his face as the little girl pulled herself determinedly closer to his head.
"Mama," came the announcement from somewhere far too close to his ear. "He's got yellow hair!"
'Owowowowowow!' Thomas mouthed to the woman, who couldn't restrain her giggle at that point.
.oOo.
"I was meaning to ask," Thomas asked as he probed the injury carefully. "What's a Coordinator?"
Maria blinked at him in disbelief. "You don't know? Where have you been for the last fifty years?"
"For half of them, I hadn't been born," Thomas replied casually.
"But you stood up for Kira anyway?"
"Well, yeah." He shrugged. "He's a good kid. That's more important than some damnfool label."
"Damnfool?" Maria asked, smiling slightly. "You're sure it's not important then?"
"Doesn't bother you, does it?" the healer observed, his face directed at where his fingers gently manipulated her shoulder rather than her face. "I trust your judgment, I'm just curious."
Maria gave him a puzzled look and gave the blond man a thumbnail summary of the Coordinators and the Naturals. At the end of it, Thomas merely shook his head with an amused twist to the corners of his mouth. He pulled out a length of bandage and checked the length. "You're healing nicely, by the way. A few more days and you won't need bandages any more."
"Does that mean that you won't be taking my shirt off anymore?" Maria asked impulsively, and blushed furiously as she realised how flirtatious that sounded.
Thomas chuckled and let his hand trace the line of her shoulder for a moment. "Only if you ask me nicely," he replied lightly. "Now, let's put this bandage on for you."
Damn the man!
.oOo.
Shortly afterwards, Thomas entered the small compartment being occupied by Kira and his friends. It wasn't much - bunks built into the walls and a passage between them. He guessed that it was probably just a standard crew berth and shuddered at what it must smell like after a couple of months of occupancy.
"I wonder where we're heading," asked Kuzzey as Thomas entered. No one seemed to notice him, engrossed in their own conversation.
"They changed course once, didn't they?" Sai observed. "I wonder if ZAFT is still around."
"They're after this ship and that mobile suit, right?" Tolle observed from where he stood, leaning against one of the bunks, facing Kira. "Then maybe they're still after us."
"Huh? Then what?" Flay protested. "Are you saying that we're less safe now that we boarded the ship? No way!"
Kira flinched and Thomas shook his head. Fret fret fret. "You're safer from losing life support," he advised the girl. "If Kira hadn't have spotted you, you'd have died in the boat before help arrived. Unfortunately, if these ZAFT fellows were going to be happy with just what they snatched the first time, they wouldn't have gone back into the colony for another fight - so they'll likely still be trying to do us in."
"Oh, Thomas," Mirialla said. "Do you know where we're going?"
He shrugged. "Not a clue. One place is as good as another for me... I suppose Maria knows, but I haven't seen her since I put the bandages back on -" There was a tap on his shoulder and he paused. "Help you, Lieutenant?"
"Is Kira Yamato in here?" Mu asked, trying to look past the larger man's shoulders.
"I'm here," Kira replied as Thomas turned slightly to let them see each other.
"Petty Officer Murdoch is furious," Mu explained. "He doesn't have enough people. He says you're responsible for maintaining your own machine."
"My machine?" Kira asked. "Wait, what do you mean, 'my machine'?"
"Let's just say that's what's been decided," the pilot told him. "The fact is, you're the only one capable of piloting that thing. It can't be helped."
"Sure I rode the thing twice, only because I had no choice!" the youngster protested. "But I'm not a soldier or anything!"
Mu rubbed his face. "So when the fighting starts again, you'll say that again. You'll refuse to pilot it, and we'll all die, right? Right now, you and I are the only ones who can protect this ship."
"But I..."
Thomas reached over and patted him on the shoulder. Kira looked up and saw the regret on the man's face as he growled something that the boy wasn't sure he could pronounce, much less comprehend. It was as much snarl as speech and Thomas frowned as he realised he'd used the wrong language. "Sorry, forgot who I was speaking to," he said. "Roughly translated, you can sing or make love when you wish, fighting you do when the other guy wants to."
"Right..." Kira admitted. "What you said about war and victims, back on Heliopolis."
"Yes," Thomas agreed. "No one's saying you've got a good deal out of this, but for better or for worse, we're all dependent upon you. I'm sorry."
Kira gulped. "I..." He shook his head and then bolted from the room.
The two adults in the room looked each other in the eye and grimaced. "Hey, Kira?" Tolle called after his friend.
"What? What's that supposed to mean?" Flay asked, confused. "You mean that that Kira kid was on...?"
"You heard that a mobile suit carried your lifeboat to this ship, right?" Sai explained. "That guy, Kira, was the one piloting it."
"What? Him? But how? How could he pilot a mobile suit?"
Thomas gave her a puzzled look. "I presume he puts his hands on the hand controls and his feet on the pedals. They have pedals?" he asked Mu suddenly. "They're not piloted through some sort of mind-machine interface thingy are they?"
Mu blinked. "Er... no."
"Oh. Good."
"You really liked giant robot shows when you were a kid, didn't you?"
"I really like giant robot shows now... what's your point?"
"Excuse me," Sai asked, interrupting what looked like it was going to be a long and probably pointless argument. "Where is the ship headed?"
"A Eurasian military fortress," Mu told him. "Well, we'll be lucky if they let us in without incident."