Murrue tried to stand the G-Weapon up again. "Why won't it stand? I got it to move earlier," she complained. The controls seemed incredibly responsive... and impossibly hard to use. Finally, after another minute, she gave up and opened the hatch. "What did you do?" She was looking down at the brown-haired kid with purple eyes.

"Um, well I had to rewrite it. That system was useless," Kira said while wincing. He might have overdone it with some of his optimizations.

"Well, I need you to get in here and move it somewhere more defenseable then," she grumbled.

Hot Shot had been watching the proceedings with interest. These humans were very interesting. "Let me help you down," he offered. He set Murrue down on the ground while Kira clambered into the mobilesuit.

And it was good timing as an explosion heralded the arrival of a CGUE and the battered remains of a Moebius Zero mobilearmor.

"Whirl!" Hot Shot shouted.

"I guess we picked a side of this battle," Whirl said as he transformed to a large, blue VTOL and roared up into the air.

Rau Le Creuset grumbled as he had to dodge the energy weapons mounted on the Orb VTOL. "So they were testing energy weapons on this platform, hmm? Well, the should have picked a better combat platform. I'll get to you in a moment, Mu La Flaga!" The CGUE suddenly zoomed towards Whirl. "Die!"

"Slag! This guy's good!" the Autobot yelled, transforming into his robot mode. Whirl then dodged the attack, then fired his blaster at the dodging CGUE.

"Transformable? Interesting." Rau smirked, his mask glinting as his CGUE deployed his sword. He was just about to charge when a massive explosion shook the entire colony.

Out of the billowing, black smoke a massive white ship rocketed outwards in an arc, then hovered on its engines above the curving plain of the inner colony wall.

"The Archangel!?" Murrue called out in surprise. "It survived?"

On the bridge of the newly launched ship, Ensign Natarle Badgirul took in the situation. "Fire slammers one through four at both targets!" she ordered.

Armored panels opened on the main body, firing missiles at the CGUE and Autobot.

"Whoa! Whoa! Friendly fire ain't!" Whirl shouted, shooting down the missiles heading to him. He quickly transformed into his VTOL mode and flew off, trying to lose the last missile. Whirl then started flying in an erratic pattern.

Rau had handled the two missiles that came at him. "How bothersome. This is starting to turn into a bad situation. I better finish my mission to destroy that G-Weapon." The CGUE shifted and dodged a strike from the Moebius Zero's remaining weapon, then loaded the Armor Piercing weapons.

Kira, in the Strike, suddenly realized that the advanced ZAFT mobilesuit was heading his way. Quickly thumbing on the Phase Shift, the gray mobilesuit turned red, white and blue. Reacting instantly, he put the right leg of the Strike in between his friends and Murrue to intercept the brazen attack.

"Slag that jerk!" Hot Shot shouted, unleashing a burst of white hot super-napalm from his gauntlets that the CGUE avoided adroitly. The other Autobots started firing their blasters, but the mobilesuit was just a bit too fast.

The armor piercing rounds had done nothing to the Strike, much to Rau La Creuset's frustration.

"How dare you shoot at my friends!" Kira shouted as the massive cannon of the Launcher Striker lifted up as his sight locked on.

Rau suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of danger and tried to dodge. The shoulder of his CGUE was sheared off by the near miss. His weapon arm fell off and his mobilesuit was partially blinded as the head half-melted. "What power! The fools would put that power in the hands of a single pilot?"

The blast had continued onward and blew a fifty meter hole in the side of the colony that started leaking the air. The CGUE took the very convienent exit and fled the colony.

Hot Shot started looking around frantically even as klaxons went off. "Where is he? Where's Megatron?"

"Calm down, Hot Shot. That was the G-Weapon guardian with Launcher Striker," Perceptor said in his maddeningly monotone. "That was not Megatron. It was a mere 1/10th of this power in any manner."

Swerve and Downshift peeked out from behind different buildings they had hidden behind. "Well, I have to commend their quality of their weapons. Enough to even scare the spark out of ya," Swerve said in a disgrunteled tone.

Murrue had seen their response and had to chuckle at it. Though it was worrying that their enemies had that sort of fire power. Especially if they were the same size as all these other transformers. "Kira, are you all right? Radio the Archangel. We don't want them shooting at us or our allies." Well, at them any more as she winced at the missiles that had been shot at Whirl.

"Strike GUNDAM to Archangel," Kira radioed quickly.


Natarle and her improvised crew trotted down from the bridge to the starboard landing pod. "Lt. Ramius! Who are these people? And what are these mobilesuits? Are they more secret development projects?"

"These are... This is going to sound crazy, but these are extra terrestrials. They call themselves Autobots," Murrue explained as the Kira tromped the Strike over past the smaller robots.

"Excuse me?" The dark-haired woman looked up at the twenty-five foot robots. Hot Shot waved jauntily to her.

"I'm Hot Shot, leader of this band of Autobots." The flame-painted robot seemed quite was their standard way of greeting unknowns. Perceptor, the real leader of their band, was just a bit too impersonal to really relate to people. And for some reason the leader of the Junkions said Perceptor sounded like an old speak and spell. Whatever that was.

"Right," Downshift said sarcastically. "There's as much chance of him being leader as this turbo reving punk named Hot Rod becoming a Prime."

"Not now, Downshift. Introducing ourselves to totally new and unknown people," Hot Shot said with a tight grin. Downshift just grumbled a bit.

"Extra terrestrial robots? And I shot at them?" Natarle didn't know how bad that would be, but probably very horrible. She might even be demoted.

"Whirl doesn't take it personally. You were just shooting at unknowns-"

"-Who says I don't take it personally?" Whirl tried to complain before he was kicked in the shin by Swerve.

"Shut up, lugnut," the older Transformer said to the flier.

"-and we did blunder into your warzone. Really, all we are here for was to trade for some energy. But our shuttle was destroyed and we're a bit stranded," Hot Shot continued explaining.

"You are Whirl?" Natarle said. "I do apologize, but you did not look like a friendly unit at that time. Lt. Ramius, you must assume command as you are the highest ranking officer here."

That was when an Earth Federation pilot walked up. "Permission to come aboard?" he called out. His helmet was under his arm, revealing his plastered and sweaty blond hair. "Lt. Mu La Flaga."

"Permission to come aboard. Is your mobilearmor able to help defend this ship?" she asked hopefully.

Mu La Flaga watched the young man exit the mobilesuit. "Not reliably. While it still has its main armament, all of its gun-barrels have been lost. Say, are you a Coordinator," he asked Kira directly.

"Ah." Kira looked around nervously. "Yes, I am."

The soldiers that had been with Natarle quickly pulled up their rifles and pointed at him.

"Hey!" Tolle Koenig said, stepping between the soldiers and his friend. "He might be a Coordinator, but he's not with ZAFT. He saved our lives!"

Miriallia Haw, Sai Argyle and Kuzzey Buskirk all nodded in agreement as they moved to protect them.

Hot Shot had narrowed his optics in thought.

"Guns aren't exactly friendly," Swerve commented in a dry tone.

"Weapons hold!" Murrue called out, holding out her hand to stop the soldiers.

"Very commendable," Mu said. "I was just curious, as you managed to pilot that mobilesuit with amazing ability. I saw what the original test pilots were able to do and it wasn't even half as good. I'm sorry if you thought I was blaming you."

"Well, you kids have to come this way. We have a room that you should be safe in. Hot Shot, I would like to discuss matters. Ensign Badgiruel, please expidite retrieving supplies." Murrue accepted Natarle's salute.

"The rest of my team can help with that, if you don't mind? Guys, help them out for some goodwill, okay?" Hot Shot called out his orders quickly.

Though what they didn't see was Perceptor using Cybertronian optical code to give Hot Shot orders. "Affirmative," the scientist said.

"You bet, boss!" Whirl said with a thumb's up. Swerve and Downshift sighed. Looks like it was another work cycle.


Murrue had moved up to a catwalk so she could talk to Hot Shot more face-to-face. "Sorry about that. This has been a real mess."

"How did this all start here?" Hot Shot asked.

"This battle? By sabotage and stealing top secret mobilesuits. I have to protect the Strike and get this ship out of danger, but we are very weak and undermanned." Murrue ran her hand through her long hair. She really needed to get into uniform rather than the technician's jumpsuit.

"Isn't this colony neutral? I thought some of the immature humans said that," the Autobot asked.

"While Orb is militarily neutral, they had a treaty for military development. It's both ways. Orb will develop their own mobilesuits for the defense of their lands." She shrugged. "The PLANTS might complain, but as long as Orb only defends their territory, there's not a lot they can do in the world's opinion or court."

"Ah, that makes sense. Would the Earth Federation be willing to assist us to getting back to our ship?" Hot Shot asked curiously.

"I don't see why not. This is a very big event for us since we found the fossil of the Space Whale," Murrue explained.

"Space whale fossil?" the Transformer asked.

"Proof of life from outside our world."

Hot Shot's optics blinked in amazement. "You mean you don't know of the dozens of alien races? I mean, space whales are just a big pest really. Kind of like Scraplets."

"Nope. You are our first meeting with intelligent life. I guess we really are the out-back of the galaxy."

"Well Cybertron is currently about 300 light years from the Solar System," Hot Shot noted "Nebulos, Quintessa, and Velocitron are the closest space hubs and they're not very close. Though Junk isn't that far away. They use your radio and television programs as the basis of how they talk these days."

"You're kidding right?" Murrue asked.

"Nope. They do use human signals and I can't understand a word they say," Hot Shot admitted. "In any case, they are like your Junk Guild. Only a lot crazier."

"That's possible?" Murrue asked sounding shocked. She'd heard the Junk Guild do some rather insane things over the years.

"Yes, it is," Hot Shot said. "They're nice though. Their leader Wreck-Gar is a long time ally of the Autobots."

"Is that really his name?" Murrue asked.

"Actually...no," Hot Shot said in bemusement. "It is the closest translation of his name is into English. Cybertronian is something I doubt any human could speak."

Trucks were starting to pull into the landing pads of the Archangel when Murrue saw something that should not have been possible. "Are those G-Weapons?" she asked. She started running along the catwalk towards the trailers being towed by two autobots.

They were not her missing G-Weapons, though they looked very similiar.

Perceptor and Downshift transformed into their robot forms, even as Hot Shot and Swerve could be seen off in the distance dragging a third mobilesuit.

"Black, red and blue? That doesn't look like our G-Weapon," Murrue said with a frown on her pretty features.

"This is the Astray Project," Perceptor said. "We found records of another G-Weapon Project and recovered it."

"We can use all the firepower we can get," Downshift said "Though we probably better not let Kira fix up the OS for the thing so other people can use it."

"Though Perceptor will probably make the thing explode given the big words he'd use," Swerve joked.

"I am a capable programmer, Swerve," Perceptor said in an almost angry monotone. If there was one thing that could upset the Autobot it was impinging on his skills.

"Jeez download a slagging sense of humor," Swerve muttered.

On the overhead, a female voice could be heard. "Paging Lt. Ramius to the bridge. Paging Lt. Ramius to the bridge."

"Now what?" said lieutenant asked.


Murrue was not happy at all, finding herself the captain of the Archangel despite not being the most senior officer. But Lt. Mu La Flaga was pretty strictly a pilot. One quick meeting between the her, La Flaga and Ensign Natarle Badgiruel was already giving her a headache.

And that led back down to the civilians that she had holed up in one of the enlisted quarters. She hit the attention button.

Sai opened the door, stepping back in surprise. "Um, lieutenant?" He pushed his glasses up his nose in worry.

"Thank you, Sai. Right? Kira, if I could speak to you for a moment? It's concerning the safety of the ship," the white-uniformed woman said. She wondered if she would have remembered to split him from his group like she was trained to do.

"Um, sure, I guess?" the amethyst-eyed boy replied. He followed her down two doors and into another set of bunks in its own room. "What's going on?"

"I wish I could get you kids off the ship, but the colony is on total lockdown. All of the occupied shelters are ready to launch at a moments notice due to the damage," Murrue was explaining. She saw the flinch from the boy. "You had no idea how powerful the Launcher Striker was."

Kira nodded. "But why did you want to talk to me?" He had a suddenly bad premonition.

"You're the only one that can use the Strike. Heck, I wish I had three more of you and I might feel slightly better. Hot Shot has said the Autobots will help, but I guess only one of them can fly at all. The rest are ground forces. They are likely to send out more forces."

"I don't want to fight," the young coordinator said morosely.

"And I don't really want you to, but if you don't our chance of all of us surviving is not good." Murrue put her hand on Kira's shoulder. "You want to protect your friends, don't you?"

He glared at her, but nodded. "Of course."

"Then will you pilot the Strike?"

Kira sighed and then nodded. He wanted to stay out of this war. He didn't want to have to fight his friend Athrun again and possible kill him. Or be killed by him. He then remembered that even the woman in front of him could no longer get the Gundam working after his modifications to the OS of the unit. He might be the only person on this ship or even in the Earth Alliance that could get it to work for them now.

Though Kira prayed that he and Athrun could manage to survive this war and be friends again after it was over.

Klaxons started to sound and the overhead started to blare out with orders for the soldiers to man battle-stations.

On the bridge, the sensor officer was starting to panic as Murrue settled herself into the command chair. "We are picking up three more GINNs... and G-Weapon GAT-X303 Aegis. I'm also getting readings of Anti-Fortress weapons!"

"They are using our own mobilesuit against us?" Natarle griped in anger.

"Raise ship. Lt. La Flaga, take over CiC while Ensign Badgirguel handles communication," Murrue ordered.

"I would be better served directing weapons," Natarle replied.

"No, it is too important to communicate with the Strike and the Autobots. You have your orders, ensign." Murrue stared through armored windows of her bridge. "Prepare for battle."


The Gundam Strike launched, but was directed to land on top of the Archangel and meet up with the Autobots. Kira looked over controls as he saw the much smaller forms of Hot Shot, Downshift, Swerve and Perceptor. Whirl rocketed forward, engines at full thrust in his flight form.

"What should I do?" Kira asked in worry.

"Slagging officer drafting a protie into battle," Downshift said vehemently.

"Murrue has no choice. The enemy is attacking in overwhelming force. Designate Strike should intercept the enemy GINN mobilesuits in support of Whirl. Let him take the battle to them. The rest of the Autobots will defend Archangel," Perceptor ordered firmly. The Strike blasted off to try and keep up with the VTOL.

"Time to show you guardians what an Autobot can really do! Full speed dash attack!" Whirl shouted, even as he blitzed past Miguel, the Magic Bullet as he unleashed a hail of blaster fire.

"It's that odd transforming mobilesuit that La Creuset warned us about. How did those naturals manage to miniaturize energy weapons in such a manner?" the ZAFT lead pilot complained. "So fast!" Alarms blared in his GINN as it warned him of someone locking on behind the mobilesuit. "That mobilesuit?"

Miguel's GINN managed to dodge the Strike's anti-ship sword, though it was closer than he would have liked.

"Why don't you just leave us alone!" Kira shouted as he sent the Sword Strike to try and take out the long ranged GINN out. He should be able to hit its gun.

Another GINN lined up an attack, firing a heavy missile at the Archangel as it flew up into the center, low centrifical section of the O'Neil type space station. "Scratch one ship," he crowed.

"Evade to port, full power!" Murrue shouted to her crew.

The massive battleship swerved with far more agility than its size should have allowed. On the top of it, the four Autobots added their firepower to the CWIS chainguns, detonating the two missiles with ease. Inside, Mu La Flaga was very happy for their help, as this crew was incredibly green.

Miguel's GINN was firing as fast as its large ion cannon could cool down. He was so incensed at the Strike's dodging, he did not care that he was taking out support beams. It was not until he saw a kilomete long support strut smash into the curved inner surface that he even noted something was going on.

"Mother? Father? You bastard!" Kira shouted as it really sunk in that his home was in dire danger. His next slash was dodged, so he attempted to use one of the other weapons of the Sword Striker. He sent a spinning beam-boomarang that the GINN dodged again. But Miguel had not expected it to spin back and lopped off both legs.

The Strike charged forward, shearing the top of the GINN off at the shoulder. Inside the GINN, Miguel realized that he whole mobilesuit was in danger of exploded.

"Miguel!" Athrun shouted from further back where he had been giving support to the GINNs attacking the Archangel. Could Kira really have done all that? With narrowed eyes in anger, he charged the red, white and blue mobilesuit while activating his own built in beam-saber.

Back on top of the Archangel, Perceptor was starting to get worried. "Heliopolis is taking extreme punishment. Recommend that we defeat ZAFT forces as quickly as possible with minimum force."

"You have any tactics for how to do that, boss?" Hot Shot shouted as he blasted another missile out of the sky.

"We always could just Wreck and Rule," Downshift commented almost with a shrug.

"That is the worst idea for this," Perceptor stated and almost glared, a large feat for the Autobot that had removed most of his emotions.

"Oh Primus," Hot Shot said. "Is that GINN armed with something looks like it should be attached to Shockwave?"

"This will not end well," Downshift grumbled.

The Autobots kept firing at the GINN armed with another heavy ion cannon. Massive green beams shot out from the Archangel, taking out the GINN and the major central shaft behind it. Supports that were running from it to the curving outer wall started snapping in a choreography of destruction.

Heliopolis control launched all shelters as life pods as centrifical force started to rip the colony apart. In the center of the destruction, the Strike and the Aegis were swept apart.