- Unfriendly Allies Phase 6 -
Armed troops from Artemis stormed the ship's hangar and began herding the personnel out towards another part of the ship, where as Mu and Setsuna were instead guided to a shuttle. In route they met up with Murrue and Natarle, lead by an officer with an armed escort and soon they were transferred to Artemis.
Upon reaching the door to the commandant's office, one of the two guards flanking the door keyed the intercom. "Sir. The ship's officers have arrived."
The response was immediate. "Enter."
The other guard opened the door for them and the four of them entered while their escort remained outside. Inside the room behind a large desk were two men, sitting at the desk was no the doubt the commander and standing off to the side was clearly his XO, a series of monitors mounted on the wall behind them were linked to together to show either several images or one large one.
"Greetings and welcome to Artemis. I am Gerard Garcia, Commandant of this space fortress." He greeted them; he didn't introduce his XO deeming it unnecessary. After introductions were made he confirmed their identification.
"Lieutenant Murrue Ramius, Lieutenant Mu La Flaga and Ensign Natarle Badgiruel. I've confirmed that you all have authentic Atlantic Federation ID's," he looked to Setsuna, "except you Lieutenant. According to the system, you don't exist."
Murrue, Mu and Natarle all glanced sidelong at Setsuna who showed no reaction whatsoever, nor did he offer an explanation.
"He's with intelligence commandant," Mu explained, "and you know what they're like, any personal data and military history is under lock and key, eyes only." The confusion on Murrue and Natarle's faces was evident judging by the looks they were giving him, as he hadn't volunteered this information beforehand.
"True, the alliance does take intelligence matters seriously." Garcia agreed though he didn't sound convinced.
Mu continued projecting confidence in his voice. "I personally escorted him from Lunar HQ when my superiors informed us at the last minute that he would be tagging along."
"Lieutenant, I request an explanation." Natarle asked.
"Yes Lieutenant." Murrue said icily, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Exactly when were you going to share this with us?"
Laughing nervously knowing that he was going to regret it later he explained. "Ideally your original Captain would've briefed you, of course how much he'd have told you... who could say."
"Really." Murrue and Natarle spoke simultaneously, glaring at him; Garcia appeared to be enjoying seeing Mu under such scrutiny, he turned to Setsuna for help.
Thou he hid it well; Setsuna was quite surprised that Mu would cover him with such a blatant lie; it was telling just how little he trusted the Eurasian forces. "Lieutenant La Flaga is correct, and before you ask, I'm afraid I can't disclose the details of my mission to you Commandant." Setsuna informed him.
"Well… with a man of La Flaga's reputation vouching for you I'll have to take your word for it." Garcia acquiesced.
"You've heard of us?" Mu asked thankful for the change in topic.
"Having fought on the Grimaldi Front myself, how could I not have heard of the 'Hawk of Endymion.'" Garcia explained. "While the battle may have ended in defeat, your praise worthy use of the Zero to destroy five GINNs is at very least to say exemplary. May I ask why you of all people are on the Archangel?"
"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to say, sir." Mu politely answered.
"Understandable, though I'm sure you're aware that it'll take some time to resupply you." Garcia pointed out.
"And I'm sure you understand that it's paramount that we reach Lunar HQ as soon as possible." Murrue countered.
"Especially with ZAFT dogging our heels." Mu added.
Garcia glanced at his XO who returned the look. "ZAFT?" He asked with mocking smile an image appeared on the monitor behind him.
On it only one ship was visible, "the Laurasia class?" Natarle noted out loud, there was no sign of the Nazca anywhere. 'Did they withdraw? Was the damage we inflicted that extensive?' she wondered.
"As you can see there is nothing ZAFT can do so long as the barrier is up. We are perfectly safe, not once has Artemis' defenses being breached." Garcia suddenly noticed a red mark on Murrue's uniform. "Lieutenant. You're wounded?"
"It's nothing, just minor injury, sir." She assured him.
Garcia however saw this as the perfect opportunity to cease their objections, he smiled. "Nonsense, we can't have our commanding officers running around like the walking wounded. It's bad for morale; I'll have you taken to the infirmary to have that looked at. Afterwards you'll join your fellow officers in specially prepared quarters." He told her, keying the console in front of him to summon the guards outside.
"Commandant-" Mu tried to reason with him but was interrupted when the door to the office opened.
"Excuse me sir, if you all would come with me." With that the three of them were escorted to a guarded room while Murrue was taken to the infirmary – under guard.
On the ship the crew were all herded into the mess hall, an indignant Murdock after being escorted to and from the men's room sat down next to the ships helmsman Arnold Neumann.
"Just how long do they plan to hold us here?" Petty Officer Chandra grumbled."It seems a bit much for simple ID check."
"I think there's more to it than that, they're after something." Neumann reasoned quietly.
"You think they're after the Strike?" asked Tonomura.
"Don't worry about the Strike," Murdock whispered with a grin, "It ain't moving anytime soon, the Lieutenant saw to that."
In the hangar Artemis' engineers shuttled over from Artemis to examine the Strike found an unexpected surprise sitting in the cockpit.
"This is inexcusable," Natarle ranted. "There is no reason for this level of treatment."
"True, but there's nothing we can do about it." Mu reasoned lounging in one of the chairs as Natarle continued to pace back and forth in frustration; Meanwhile Setsuna was busily examining the room looking for who knows what.
Natarle ceased pacing. "I know, but still..." she said helplessly.
"I hear what you're saying..." Mu assured but then changed track. "My problem is that I think the commandant is far too overconfident in this fortress."
"You think ZAFT can get past its defenses?" She asked doubtful.
"Don't get me wrong. The light wave barrier is a revolutionary defense system, but Artemis isn't strategically important enough for ZAFT to mount a serious effort to take it." Mu pointed out. "The shield hasn't been blooded yet."
"But how would they get through?" Natarle wondered out loud.
"What about stealth?" Setsuna asked still examining the wall. He could of several approaches that Celestial Being could attempt in order to assault a fortress like this.
"Unfortunately due to the interference by the N Jammers, you don't really need stealth. However, unless you can bend light there's there's no way to slip past Artemis' ladar net without being spotted, it's just not possible..." Mu suddenly noticed that Natarle had frozen in place. "Natarle...?"
"The Blitz." She admitted, "It's outfitted with a prototype optical stealth system."
"Seriously?!" Was Mu's response.
"So they have a way in." Setsuna stated.
"I don't know... at the time of the attack only the physical hardware had been installed. The software and hardware calibrations were to be done during trial testing after we returned to Lunar." She explained. "In theory it should work... but in terms of duration and effectiveness we don't have any hard data."
"We should assume the worse." Setsuna advised.
"Your right." Mu agreed. "Le Creuset is the kind of person who likes to hoist us by our own petard. The enemy's plan would be first; to seemingly withdraw from the area, in response the barrier comes down."
Setsuna joined the conversation, "Second; the Blitz launches and approach while under cloak, upon reaching the fortress it will most likely attempt to identify and disable the barrier's emitters." It was what he would do.
"If the emitters are camouflaged, the Laurasia may launch a long range bombardment to draw them out." Natarle added. "Once a hole has been breached in the barrier the Laurasia will most likely launch its remaining machines."
Mu continued, "Third; the Blitz will hit the port to cover its reinforcements as they transit into the battle. It will then move deeper into the port searching for our ship letting the Laurasia take over covering the others."
There was a pause as the group absorbed the situation. "Well we have a good idea what the enemy is going to do. Now the question is; what are we going to do other then sit here and wait."
Surprisingly Setsuna had already thought of that. "When the ship bombards the fortress, Artemis' personnel will all be focused on the external threat, which will be our chance to escape." He started taking off his boots.
"Assuming we could escape, we still need to retake the ship and even if we did, the Blitz would most likely would have found us and attempt to engage, at the very least to delay our escape." Natarle said thoughtfully.
"In which case, I and Setsuna's first order of business is to launch and provide cover for the Archangel until it can get out of port." Mu concluded.
"Negative," Setsuna said, putting his boots back on after retrieving a number of objects.
Mu and Natarle gave him a bewildered look. He explained "You said to put a lock on the Strike, I interpreted that as; 'make sure the Strike can't be moved.' I'm afraid that the measures I took prevent the Strike from being deployed in an emergency."
Mu turned to Natarle, "well Natarle, looks like it's up to you and me to defend the ship."
Natarle's face reddened, "um...yes." She turned to Setsuna. "Speaking of which, what did you do to the Strike?"
Commandant Garcia stormed towards the Archangel's hangar in a foulest of moods. The day had started out so well, the Federation's secret project had practically jumped into his lap, the officers were securely tucked away and the loitering ZAFT ship had slunk away with nothing to show for its efforts. Bad news came in the form of discovering an explosive device sitting in the pilot's seat. The engineers had called EOD whom upon examining the device informed them of more bad news which in turn made its way up the chain of command to Garcia, who then transferred over from Artemis to eyeball the problem personally.
"What's the situation?" Garcia demanded.
"The techs discovered an IED jury rigged into the cockpit, sir." The EOD officer informed him. The IED in question was large steel cylinder seated directly on top of the pilots chair for all to see, coming out of the top of the cylinder's base was a rat's nest of wires, these wires lead into the cockpits electronics where panels had being removed.
"Looks overly elaborate," Garcia observed, "could it be a dummy?"
Instead of answering the EOD pointed to a nearby trolley carrying a one of the Archangel's anti-ship sledgehammer missiles… minus its explosive warhead. Garcia could feel the beginning of a headache building behind his eyes.
"Can you disarm it?"
"Not in timeframe you want, sir." The EOD answered. "The fiend that rigged this up designed it so that if we disconnect it from the cradle, it would start the countdown timer for the suits built in self-destruct. Good news we can disarm that easily, the real problem," he gestured towards the rat's nest, "is that the warhead is rigged to detonate in the event that the self-destruct is subverted. We've got no choice but to tackle the warhead first."
"So? What's the holdup?" He demanded.
The EOD once again pointed at the rat's nest, "the holdup sir is this. I can guarantee that half of these wires are dummies, one half do nothing but waste our time as we cut them one by one and the other half trips the self-destruct.
As for disarming the warhead the relevant wires are arranged in one of two ways; firstly, they could be buried in the rat's nest and we have to run a gauntlet to get at them. Secondly, it may be hiding in plain sight so the fiend can disarm it without going through the same headache as we are. Unfortunately only he knows which." There was a third dumb option that he neglected to mention where as the bomb's rat's nest of wires were all for show and that it was completely harmless, but EOD procedure was that unless absolutely certain it was to be treated as a creditable threat.
"Fine then! Have some the ship's crew show you how to disarm it."
"No good sir. None of the ship's personnel have the skill set needed to improvise this, except..."
"Go on."
"Your mystery Lieutenant may just have that skill set in his non-descript background, sir."
After Setsuna explained the precautions he took, Mu grinned. "Wow, that's just fiendish."
Natarle was lost for words, they had been waiting for quite some time now and Murrue had yet to return from the infirmary so they were killing time while they waited for the inevitable attack. Suddenly the room was rocked by an explosion.
Natarle finally found her voice. "Looks like the enemy has made their move."
"Then it's time we made ours." Setsuna applied plastic explosive to the door and attached a detonator – both of which he had smuggled in his boots – and blew the door off its hinges. He and Mu then rushed the guards posted outside the door who were still recovering from the blast and debris, they then appropriated the guards' weapons and made to move on when Natarle stopped them.
"Wait! What about the Captain?"
Setsuna was about to offer to go find her but Mu – who couldn't pass up the chance to play the knight in shining armor – beat him to it.
"I'll find our misplaced captain, Setsuna take Natarle and help her retake the ship." Mu ordered him. "I'll catch up with you later." With that sorted out they split-up with Natarle following after Setsuna as fast as her high heels would allow.
After some searching Mu had managed to find the infirmary, after taking out the guard he made his way inside. Apparently the doctor and his physicians were preoccupied elsewhere with the ensuing chaos and he was able to sneak in easily, only one of infirmary's beds was occupied.
Yanking back the privacy screen he was gifted with the sight of a topless Murrue, apparently they had just finished patching her up when the attack came. The two stared at one another briefly, or more specifically she stared at him and he was staring at her cleavage. Upon recalling her state of undress she reflexively slapped him hard enough to send him sprawling across the floor.
By the time he picked himself up off the floor, Murrue had gotten dressed and two of them began to make their way back to the ship. By this time the Blitz had entered the port and was searching for the Archangel.
Things hadn't gotten any easier for Setsuna and Natarle since they split up with Mu, the fortress was taking a lot of damage and there were hull breaches everywhere exposing parts of Artemis to vacuum causing many of its internal bulkheads to close sealing off entire sections of station.
Suffice to say they were trapped.
"Looks like the only way to the ship is to go outside." Natarle observed. Setsuna agreed; fortunately they were trapped in part of the docks, this one lead to Moebius mobile armors. The pair raided the pilot's locker room, as Setsuna suited up; Natarle went for one of the normal suits.
"Unless you plan on flying on your own I'd recommend a pilot suit." Setsuna informed her.
"What!? Why?" She demanded, firstly; the reason she went for a normal suit was that they were designed to be put on quickly in the event of an emergency. That meant that they were a one-size-fits-all with only a few exceptions to what you couldn't wear underneath it – which made them somewhat bulky – with the exception of her hat and shoes, all see needed to do was hike up her skirt and she'd have it on in under a minute and ready to leave. Secondly; she couldn't fly a Moebius.
For Natarle this caused a bit of dilemma, pilot suits were designed to fit inside a cramped cockpit and provide protection for mobile armor pilots against vacuum. As a result they were form fitting and took few exceptions to what could warn underneath them – which was why some of Setsuna's uniform was floating around the room abandoned – that meant she'd have to strip down.
"The cockpit is going to be a tight fit as it is," he pointed out. If they had been going out in the Strike he wouldn't have said anything as its cockpit was a little roomier, however if the Moebius was anything like Mu's Zero it was going to be quite a tight fit with the pair of them. "Or would you rather I strapped you to the hull?"
Through gritted teeth she tossed her cap, kicked off her high heels, shrugged off her jacket and unzipped her skirt. However she absolutely refused to surrender her underclothes – it was all she had left to preserve her dignity – and wrestled with the form fitting pilot suit. When she turned she found Setsuna watching her, he had already finished suiting up.
"How long have you been staring!?" She exclaimed.
"Attack in progress, waiting on you." He answered unfazed by her reaction.
Incensed she stormed passed him to the airlock. "Whatever, let's just get going already."
Setsuna coughed, "ahem."
"What!?" She demanded still flustered from before, only to find him holding out a helmet. Embarrassed she snatched it from his hand, with that they proceeded to the mobile armors.
On the ship, the Archangel's crew was on the same wavelength as their officers and took advantage of the commotion to overwhelm the guards and retake the ship. Not that it was all that difficult, when the attack started most of the guards and the accompanying techs, along with Commandant Garcia were fleeing the ship in mass back to the safety of Artemis. Resuming their stations, the Archangel crew readied the ship for takeoff.
"What about the others?" Chandra asked.
"Focus on getting the ship ready, it won't do them any good if we're not ready to leave at moment's notice." Neumann pointed out.
Not long after, Murrue and La Flaga made it to the ship. Mu immediately diverted to the hangar to ready his Zero for launch while Murrue continued on to the bridge. Not seeing Natarle when she entered Murrue asked. "Has Setsuna and Natarle returned yet?"
"Negative Captain."
"Captain! Enemy approaching from twelve o'clock, it's the Blitz!"
"The Blitz!? Takeoff now! We'll escape through the port on the opposite side. Fire control, throw up a barrage!"
"Captain? What about-"
"-We're a sitting duck right now! They'll have to take care of themselves."
"Aye Captain."
Mu launched his Zero as fast as the launch procedures would allow under emergency conditions and quickly turned to engage the Blitz with somewhat limited success. Because most of the Zero's ballistic weaponry was ineffective against the Blitz's PS Armor, it all he could do to harass it while stalling for time needed for the Archangel to escape. Fortunately he had help.
Help came in the form of a barrage from the ship's Igelstellungs peppering the Blitz as the ship detached from the dock; Mu deployed his wire-guided gunbarrels and bombarded the Blitz covering the ship's retreat. As the Archangel pulled away Mu was faced with a dilemma. 'Now how to disengage and return to the ship without being shot down?' He wondered.
Trapped in a lethal dogfight in the cluttered port, which he had no hope of winning Mu got some respite when out of nowhere a Moebius outfitted with standard armaments engaged the Blitz firing two of its missiles the impacts stunning it.
"This is Setsuna, time to go." Came over the radio.
"Setsuna…? Alright kid one more attack run and then we split." he radioing back.
"Roger." Setsuna acknowledged, the pair opened up on the Blitz with their autocannons and linear guns the barrage sending it spiraling out of control under numerous impacts. To cover their escape Setsuna launched his last two missiles and when the Blitz was engulfed in the twin explosions, the pair bugged out.
Inside the Archangel's hangar Mu dismounted from his Zero, not far was the Moebius piloted by Setsuna. After escaping from Artemis, there had been no sign of enemy pursuit – they had somehow managed to shake their pursuers. Mu approached his fellow pilot to congratulate him on job well done, only to realize it was in fact Natarle, Setsuna had already moved to the Strike, busily disarming the bomb he'd set. Turns out the rat's nest was no bluff.
"What happened to your cheek?" Natarle asked him.
"Oh... this?" Bringing his hand up to his swollen cheek courtesy of Murrue, "With all the explosions rocking the station I collided with a wall." he fibbed.
Natarle eyed him suspiciously not quite believing him as he looked her up and down appreciating how her pilot suit hugged her curves.
"Not bad." He complimented her, unfortunately his timing was poor.
Natarle was still self-conscious from being stuffed in the cramped cockpit sitting on Setsuna's lap for entire flight until they had mercifully docked with Archangel. Suffice to say her temper was still frayed.
"Well now I know how you got that mark Lieutenant, allow me to issue you a matching one on the other side!" Red faced with anger she slapped him and courtesy of zero gravity he spiraled from the impact. Afterwards Natarle glided out of the hangar leaving Mu pin wheeling helplessly, her destination; her quarters for a change in cloths, she wouldn't be caught dead on the bridge wearing this.
- Exia Astray 2; Armor of Diamonds? -
On the H.O.M.E'S flight deck a showdown took place between a mobile armor and a mobile suit. The pair stared each other down, their respective weapons at the ready.
"Let's go, Kisato!" Lowe wielding a GINN sword in Red Frame called out.
In her Chimera, Kisato gritted her teeth as she held up a sheet of a ship's armored hull as makeshift shield. "Roger!"
"Hiyaaaaaaah!" Lowe charged, "Take this!" Swinging the heavy sword down in vertical slash, the blade cut into the hull plate, only to come to a sudden halt when it ran out of momentum. "Wha...?!"
Kisato could only stare at the surprisingly lackluster result.
'Dammit...' Lowe thought, looking over the hull plate, the GINN sword had only managed to gouged halfway through it.
"GINN swords use their own weight to slice into things." Kisato pointed out.
"Yeah, But it's not strong enough." Lowe admitted his disappointment at its performance. "Oh well."
'That's one helluva kick-ass mobile suit.' Lowe thought, leaning over the rail, eying the Red Frame with a look of worry. "Some other asshole might try to steal it," he muttered out loud, "I need a good weapon so that won't happen."
Not long after the Serpent Tail mercenaries had left they had encountered some pirates who had broadcasted an SOS after their ship was disabled when they themselves had a run in with the mercenaries. With a rescue fleet already on the way - as pointed out by Liam - there was no real urgency to rescue them, however Lowe in his usual (stubborn) manner insisted. He then made the mistake of giving them a tour of the ship and showing off Red Frame, which of course enticed them to do what pirates do best. They had managed to fight them off easily enough and even offered to repair the damage to ship – naturally Lowe billed them for the trouble.
"You have the beam saber." She suggested.
"I know, but..." Lowe recalled his previous encounter. "When we tangled with the pirates it really messed up their ship. I was out of control. That beam saber is dangerous! And afterwards, I realized that it burned through all my fuel. I need something that's easy on fuel but powerful. After all, Red Frame runs on batteries." 8 displayed a graph showing Red Frame's power consumption when using the beam saber.
Three days after that incident they headed to Artemis where a battle between ZAFT and Eurasia Federation had taken place resulting in the loss its defense shield. Word was that a number pirate ships – much like the one they encountered before – had been disabled while attempting to raid the now defenseless asteroid base. Curious, they moved in closer to investigate, only to once again run into Serpent Tail's now heavily armed Blue Frame. During the battle, Lowe had been captured by Gai and taken into Artemis after he lost all his weapons and was low on power. In order to escape he had to steal Gai's beam saber and reroute all his remaining power to it.
Then there was the incident at the Aktaion Industry Satellite where they'd been lured into another trap to steal Red Frame under the guise of procuring derelict mobile suits and armors, by sealing them deep within the satellite. The only way to escape was to patch Red Frame into the satellite's power grid in order to provide enough power to breach the hatch with the beam saber. Lowe billed him for his troubles as well.
"Red Frame…?" Kisato asked.
"The mobile suit." Lowe answered jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "It's red, so we call it Red Frame."
"What about the other one that the mercenaries got their hands on?"
"Blue Frame. We only have the arm for the other one but that's one's called Gold Frame."
"And the mystery suit?"
"Gundam."
"Gundam…? Why a different name for that one?"
"Because that's what's engraved on the suits armor." Lowe explained as if it were obvious.
"What about its sword, can't you repurpose the blade?" She asked.
Lowe shook his head. "Nah, according to the Liam, the blade is designed to react to whatever it is that powers the suit. Red Frames batteries aren't compatible."
"Is this really worth all the hassle?" She wondered. "Why don't we sell them? We're Junk Techs, after all."
"Absolutely... NOT." He refused turning away from her before whirling back to face her. "We got our hands on two awesome machines! We can't just sell them! Besides, the Professor's already called dibs on the Gundam." He silently added, 'you don't see their value?'
8 who had mostly been observing up till now spoke up. [No need to get angry, Lowe.]
'Lowe is just being selfish...' Kisato thought with a sigh.
Later, Lowe and Kisato entered the bridge where Liam was working feverishly at his workstation.
"What's up, Liam?" Lowe asked. "Were you able to find some information?"
"I am looking right now." Liam answered, thinking out loud as his fingers flew across the keyboard. "A 'sword' for a mobile suit with low power consumption... It's difficult finding relevant information..."
"Wow! He's fast" Kisato watched in awe. 'He is a Coordinator, after all.' Coordinators being genetically engineered humans were endowed with enhanced physical and mental abilities. So in comparison to other Coordinators, what Liam was doing was rather ordinary, nothing spectacular.
"All this data is daunting. It's too much to sift through." Liam explained as the others looked over his shoulders. "These databanks are constantly accumulating information. You have to sort out the new data from the old and outdated archive logs. However, older data that is useless right now could be useful in the future."
Lowe understood instantly. "I see. Kinda like what we do!"
"Really?" Kisato asked not sure how keeping useless data was anything like salvaging materials.
"We look for parts, fix 'em and use 'em right?" Lowe pointed out.
"That's true." She agreed, but she still didn't see the similarities.
Liam let out a sigh, "there is just so much to look through."
"Hey Liam, isn't that gundam's armor made out of some radical material?" Lowe inquired, "Couldn't we make a sword out of that stuff?"
"It's made from an allotrope of carbon. It's highly durable and super lightweight so its cutting power would depend on how sharp the blade is, unlike the GINN sword which relies on its weight and momentum." Liam pointed out.
"An allotrope?" Kisato asked.
"Multiple forms of the same element in the same physical state," Liam explained for her. "Common allotropes of carbon that you'd be familiar with would be; graphite and of course diamonds."
"Its armor is made of diamonds?!" Both Lowe and Kisato demanded.
"Don't be ridiculous." Liam chided them. "Even if they were, it would be industrial grade which is cheap by design." The two of them deflated as Liam crushed their dreams.
"This allotrope has more in common with the artificially made fullerenes used to make carbon nanotubes," Liam continued. "However… this appears to be much more advanced process. Unfortunately the Junk Guild is a salvage company not a research institute; we can't manufacture this without outsourcing equipment and expertise from a specialized lab such as Morgenroete, or the DSSD." Cautiously he suggested, "We could approach the Earth Alliance's Aktaion Industries, or the PLANT's Asimov Design Bureau. However, given the current political climate there is significant risk that it would be weaponized, assuming of course that either of them doesn't attempt to confiscate the entire suit from us."
"Dammit!" Lowe cursed, "And you got my hopes up for a diamond edged sword."
"We can still do that, thou it's coming out of your pay Lowe." Liam offered.
"You suck!"
The hatch to the bridge hissed open and the Professor stepped through. "How's the search going, Liam?" She asked.
"I am working on it-" He replied turning away from the monitor to face her along with the others, only to be confronted by a soaking wet and virtually naked Professor. She'd just come out of the shower and was wearing nothing but her underwear and her trademark lab coat, which was so waterlogged that it was practically transparent, leaving very little to the imagination. Thankfully she was wearing her red underwear saving the trio from further awkwardness.
Turns out that Lowe isn't the only person who could bewilder Liam. "She has the worst fashion sense..." Liam said disapprovingly covering his face with the palm of his hand. Seriously just because there are only four people - if you didn't count 8 - on board is no excuse to run around the ship half naked.
Unconcerned with her state of undress she asked. "Did you look into the Graveyard?"
"Graveyard?" Liam couldn't recall anything from that particular source. "No..."
"Check this out." Inputting a command into the keyboard, she brought up an image that appeared to be a Frankenstein assemblage of an unknown number of ships and a small asteroid. "A Long time ago, many artisans from earth migrated to this satellite, called... Graveyard."
"I've never heard of it before." Liam admitted.
"And look what they once had..." She brought up another image.
"""Wow!""" The three exclaimed.
"What a beautiful sword!" Kisato appraised.
"The sword is called the Gerbera Straight." The 'Gerbera Straight' was a single edged katana scaled up for mobile suits.
"How did you know about this?" Liam asked, he hadn't even come close to looking over this data.
"From an informant I knew a while back." Was the only answer she gave before leaving the bridge to return to her quarters to get dressed.
"Could it be her ex-lover?" Kisato wondered. "I mean how well do we know her?"
"Who knows?" Lowe didn't really care. "We don't know anything about her past."
[Gossips] 8 accused the pair.
"All I know is, we've found our target!" Ignoring 8, Lowe announced. "Let's go to the Graveyard and find this sword!"
Liam sighed at how single minded Lowe was. "I hope this doesn't turn into a big mess!"
Kisato on the other hand was actually looking forward to going. "How exciting! I can't wait to see the sword!"
- End of Chapter 4 -
AN; those of you who are familiar Gundam Seed Astray and its spinoffs "R, B & X". Have noted that I've skipped whole chapters of the Astray series. The reason for this is because when I decided to incorporate the Astray series into this story, it was to act as exposition for how Exia could impact the Seed Universe in later chapters. Therefore I'm only going to gloss over the events of the Astray series and unless I say otherwise in this story, assume that all, if not most of the events played out the same as in canon.
To guest reviewer; Sorry, no GN Gerbera Straight just yet. Thou I may use that concept in the latter half of the story.
To guest reviewer Papercut; Even if Lowe starts it up, Exia's 'pilot identification authorization system' won't let him pilot it.