Well, it's been a while. My apologizes for taking so long, but life tends to happen a lot. As always, thanks for taking the time to read through my latest chapter, and reviews (or suggestions for future chapters) are always welcome.

-S3

Gundam Seed: F.R.E.E.D.O.M.
The Abandoned Battlefield

Phase 4: The Silent Rundown
It's like submarines! In Space!

"...Strike! X-105 Strike, please respond!"

Kira Yamato's face was the epitome of 'a complete lack of emotion' as he sat in the cockpit of the Strike Gundam. On all three of the Strike's cockpit monitors, Kira's home for the last decade was currently disintegrating before his eyes. Trees and patches of sod, along with large chunks of buildings floated past, though Kira was comforted to see a lack of corpses.

"Strike Gundam, do you hear me? Please respond!"

It took a few seconds before Kira realized that he was actually hearing someone who was trying to talk to him, and not just slowly going insane. Clearing his throat and toggling the communications panel to his left, Kira spoke up, "Strike Gundam, Kira here. What just happened? Anyone have a good explanation as to why Heliopolis just went all Bloody Valentine on us?"

There was a long, awkward pause as Kira could barely make out some muffled discussions coming from the bridge. It wasn't heated, but more along the lines of polite arguing between two or three people as to who should talk next. Another few seconds passed, and a male voice came on the line. Kira easily recognized it as Commander laFlaga.

"Ah..." Mu started, trying to think of what to say, "That might be kinda my fault, kid. I was the one manning the main Anti-Air guns against those two GINNs, and the guns weren't calibrated properly before we went into battle. So, the collateral damage caused by ZAFT and ourselves..."

Kira waited for several seconds as his brain processed this information. It was then that he simply shrugged, "I... kind of expected it, actually. One of my history papers back in grade school was on the history of Heliopolis - the colony is... was... one of the first PLANT colonies. Orb bought it off PLANT as a jump-start to their own colonial fleet, so to speak." he paused and laughed somewhat derisively, "And then the costs of upkeep accidentally made sure that it was the only Orb colony."

"Ah..." Mu blinked a few times, unsure of how to continue. He wasn't really expecting that.

Looking up, Kira began to move the Strike towards the friendly IFF signal he was receiving from the Archangel, "This is just fucked up, Commander laFlaga. I'm coming home, prepare the landing bay."

Kira could hear Mu's grin over the communications channel, "You got it, Kid. Hell, if you can find any more supplies out there, bring them in too."

Back on the Archangel, Kira's friends weren't going that bad, all things considered. Unable to assist with any fighting for the time being, like most of the mechanics, they were quickly ushered into one of the Archangel's recreational rooms. There had been plenty of room, and the Archangel's lack of strong gravity had been a blessing in disguise when the ship began to perform one of the pilot's insane stunts... although Tolle Koenig hadn't been as fortunate as his friend and girlfriend. Luckily, he'd found one of the many fake potted ferns in the room to hold his vomit for him for the time being while his stomach continued to do flip-flops all over the place. However, it wasn't until Tolle pulled his head out of the fern that he noticed something was off about the room.

"Hey, Mir..." Tolle whispered as he crept towards his girlfriend, trying not to stare at the nervous tattooed chefs in one corner or the rather distressed-looking suited executives in the opposite corner, "..who are all these people? I don't remember seeing them when we came on board." Tolle paused, frowning, "I mean, it was really rushed and crazy when we did get here, but I'd think I'd have noticed."

Miriallia Haw looked at her boyfriend with a raised eyebrow, sounding worried as she spoke softly, "Tolle. These are people that also came from Heliopolis. The guys in suits are some visiting people from Morgenroete HQ back at ORB." Gesturing slightly at the men dressed in cooking attire that had seen better days, Miri continued, "These guys are from that awesome Space Taco Truck we found last week. Remember? Romero Pal came back with them and the Space Taco Truck." Upon seeing Tolle's face stay blank with confusion, she continued, her voice flatter than before, "The Space Mexican we had while working on the Strike."

Realization slowly dawned on Tolle's face as he wondered why that Space Mexican had tasted so good. There was an awkward pause as Tolle continued, "I kinda wish someone had told me about these people..."

Sai Argyle looked over at his two friends, hunkered over his tablet computer as he had been for the last several minutes, "Both of you, quiet. I need to concentrate. I'm working my way into the Archangel's network through the Wifi, trying to find out what happened in the battle - and why we just got tossed about." There was a 'bleep' from the tablet, and Sai raised an eyebrow in surprise, "Huh. Faster than I thought. Routing external front cameras to the television."

The recreational room's television flickered to life, showing off the logo of a famous off-brand TV maker for a second before flickering to a silent image of outside the Archangel. Seeing the TV turn on, pretty much everyone in the room turned to look at the screen. There was a long pause as people tried their best to figure out exactly what they were looking at. It pretty much hit everyone at once - and gasps flooded the room as each and every person realized they were looking at the spreading rubble of their home, Heliopolis.

Sai adjusted his glasses and stared at the screen impassively, "Huh. Nice resolution."

Inside the Strike's cockpit, Kira began to flip some switches on the control panel, turning on what passed for an autopilot as he had the Strike Gundam approached the Archangel's docking bay. As the Strike slowly slid inside the Archangel, the mobile suit's radio crackled to life as someone on the bridge finally noticed the two 'spoils of war' that Kira had brought back with him.

"...kid, I told you to pick up supplies, but I don't think I meant that." Mu laFlaga's voice came over the comm system. There was a kerfuffle of noise in the background as the mic was ripped from Mu's head and pushed up against someone else's instead.

"Kira Yamato!" It was Murrue, and Kira flinched at her sharp voice that happened to be at yelling volume, "What the hell are you doing, dragging a Heliopolis Escape Capsule in with you? Every single government just heard the death throes of this colony, thanks to the distress signal that Heliopolis was built to send out. They'll be rescued in a few hours! Why are you ev-"

Kira interrupted Murrue before she could continue on her admittedly justified tirade, flipping a few more switches to make the Strike Gundam slowly 'land' on the deck, "A Heliopolis Escape Capsule, yes. From Morgenroete."

There was another brief scuffle in the background, and Captain Ramius sounded much calmer now. In fact, it almost sounded like she was smirking, "Point made, Kira. If anyone in that pod is half as good as the rumors of Morgenroete keep claiming their employees and students are, we're going to be in good hands."

Over the comm link, Kira could just barely make out Commander laFlaga's attempts at hiding his laughter as the other, slightly less worrisome item was finally noticed by the bridge crew.

"...did he do what I think he did." came a flat murmur from the background on the bridge, the voice belonging to Natarle.

"Ah... kid?" came Mu's voice again, "That's an enemy GINN. And they don't normally come in that color, so it must be a custom job. How did you..."

The Strike's pilot shrugged slightly, "I'm not quite sure myself. The pilot..." he paused, trying to find the right words for the complete stupidity that had ended the life of Miguel Aiman, "Bailed. So I figured I'd bring it home. It might be an enemy suit, but both this and the suit's Ion Cannon should be good for something."

Kira could barely make out Natarle's laughter in the background as he pressed the final buttons to make the Strike 'land' in the Archangel, "Welcome back, kid." she said as the headset was passed to her, "I think our engineers can whip up something for that thing."

Back up on the bridge of the no-longer-top-secret Earth Forces battleship Archangel, the mood was decidedly relaxed. Some of it was due to the fact that Kira had just secured a rather impressive prize and even some potential recruits for the ship. The other reason was the fact that the bridge bunnies on the Archangel had just verified that, outside the sole pod that Kira had brought aboard, every single Heliopolis escape pod was working perfectly fine - and that at least 90% of the population had been confirmed onboard those pods. Considering the surprise assault from ZAFT and the quick way Heliopolis had torn itself apart, that level of survival was a miracle.

Sitting back down in her captain's seat in the middle of the bridge, Murrue Ramius ran her right hand down the armrest for a second before speaking, "Any sign of ZAFT mobile suits or their ship?"

Dalida Lolaha Chandra the II spoke up from his chair behind and above Murrue, the author cursing his stupidly long name as he spoke, "I'm picking up no heat signatures in the debris that would correspond with working ZAFT mobile suits. All I'm getting are the remains of two other GINNs and a lot of Heliopolis right now." Thwacking the right side of the monitor once with his fist, Dalida continued, "I'm still getting a lot of N-Jammer interference, though. That ship could be right above us and I probably couldn't pick it up."

"Well, at least that means they can't see us either," Mu laFlaga observed as he floated above the deck while resting his hand on his chin in a thoughtful manner, taking advantage of the bridge's zero gravity to literally take the weight off his feet, "That puts us at about even."

Murrue frowned at that, looking out into the debris field, "But if they find us, we're sitting ducks. We need a plan."

A brief laugh came from Mu, "I hate to be a downer, Captain, but with what?" the commander spun his body to face Murrue, "As amazing as that Kira kid has been, all we have is the Strike and my damaged 'Zero."

There was a burst of static over the ship's intercom, interrupting the scene, "Ah..." it was Jackie Tonomura, who'd taken to overseeing the unloading of the civilians onto the Archangel, "Sorry if I'm interrupting anything, but mister Murdock told me that we'll have Commander laFlaga's Moebius Zero should be fixed within the hour." There was a brief pause, as some mumbling could be heard just far enough off that clear words couldn't be heard, "Yeah, looks like the worst of the damage was the main gun, but they'll have that swapped out in 30 minutes. Then it's just connecting new Gunbarrel Pods."

Mu shrugged at the news, "Ok, so we'll have my 'Zero available as well. My point stands that we're shorthanded and in a bad situation, though."

"Shorthanded, schmorthanded," came a voice from below the deck. It was then that Natarle emerged from the gap running along the deck at the back of the bridge, which lead down to the CIC room, "The old Captain was the biggest, pompus, most arrogant asshat to ever be given a command." Floating over next to the captain's chair, Natarle continued, "Considering his orders would likely have been "rush the enemy and gum up their weapons with our bodies, I get the feeling we'll survive somehow."

"...point taken," Commander laFlaga winced at the description, remembering the horrid tales of Captain Jack Dumass and the Battle of the Malicious Mother's Day. Moebius units had been ordered to ram ZAFT mobile suits, rather than even bother to fight, and Captain Jack was the one who issued those orders, "But we're still sitting ducks for the moment. I don't think leCruiset out there will just let us wave the white flag and surrender, either."

"If surrender and fighting aren't options, then the only thing we can do is clear," Murrue mulled over her words for a second before making her decision, "We run. I'm not about to give this ship over to ZAFT." Seeing Mu smirk at the idea, Murrue continued, "Sure, it's something they'll expect, but it's also our only option open to us. And I've got just the idea of where to run to."

"Artemis?" Natarle spoke up as she pressed a button or two on the Captain's chair's armrest, which brought up a holographic map of the area, "We're in the same Lagrange point, so it's not a far run."

Luckily, everyone on the bridge knew about Lagrange points and how they're gravitational anomalies in the gravitational relationship between the Moon, Earth and Sun which allowed the colonies to circle around a central point in space without much effort, so this was not explained one bit for any possible audiences watching them, "And Artemis is one of our better-defended bases, so we'll be in good hands."

Mu's smirk faded into a frown as he looked over possible flight paths, "Yeah, but they're also from the Eurasian Federation, not the Atlantic Federation. We may all be part of the Earth Forces, but it's like a Marine squad taking refuge at an Air Force base. I hope we're not that much of a top-secret project..."

Murrue shook her head, sighing, "If ZAFT knew about us, it's a sure bet that the Eurasian higher-ups knew about us as well. Same with the Eastern Asia Republic." a bitter laugh escaped from the captain's lips as she continued, "Hell, the South African Union probably knows about us, too."

Natarle moved a few holograms around in the display, zooming in on Artemis, "Another plus about Artemis is that invincible shield of theirs. What silly name did they give it again?"

"The Umbrella of Artemis," Romero Pal joined in the conversation, "Supposedly, no one's been able to break through that lightwave barrier they have."

"All right, then," Murrue sighed, slightly relieved, "We'd better get some preparations ready before we start. I think we need to talk to everyone from Morgenroete, see if they have any ideas that can help." With that, Captain Ramius left her chair and floated over to the ladder system in the back of the bridge that was the main way of reaching the main hold of the ship, "Dalida, you're in charge for the time being. Let me know if anything changes."

Dalida watched Mu and Natarle follow, simply responding with an "Aye, ma'am."

"You know..." Mu's voice trailed off as the three commanding officers slid down the shaft, "It's odd that an old ZAFT colony purchased by ORB would be stationed right next door to an Earth Alliance base. And the one with an invincible shield, at that."

"Never underestimate how stupid life can be," Natarle's voice followed Mu's comment, "Let's just hope ZAFT doesn't have some sort of invincible spear to match."

With the Strike Gundam finally secured in the hangar bay, Kira popped open the Strike's cockpit hatch and began to climb out of the decidedly awkward cockpit. As he finally emerged after several seconds of climbing around the Strike's console and under the hatch itself, Kira saw that the escape capsule he'd brought in was already being taken care of. In fact, there were several civilians Kira recognized from Morgenroete, although he could place none of their names. As Kira pushed himself away from the Strike, towards the deck of the Archangel, he let out an awkward shout of surprise as his jacket began jumping about on his body, the sound of mechanical wings flapping and a bird call chirping repeatedly. Knowing exactly what was going on, Kira unzipped his jacket and was unsurprised to see the green robot bird Birdy fly out at top speed.

"There you are," Kira laughed, shaking his head as Birdy hovered in place in front of Kira, "Jesus, Birdy. I was thinking I'd have to hire the Junk Guild to sift through Heliopolis to find you again."

Ignoring it's owner, Birdy decided to fly across the hangar deck to the Heliopolis Escape Capsule. Perhaps Birdy wanted to see why there were so many people gathered in one place. Letting out a slight growl of frustration, Kira bounced off the deck of the Archangel and pushed himself to follow, shouting out "Hey, get back here!"

It was then that Birdy chose to dive-bomb into the waiting hands of a redhead Kira had more than a passing familiarity with. Flay Allster, the redheaded and tempermental girlfriend of Sai Argyle.

"Birdy, you little...!" Kira sighed softly as he drifted next to Flay, shaking his head at the silly robot bird.

Flay looked from the demanding little green robot bird she now held in her hands up to Kira, looking a little confused, "Hey, I know you, right?" She paused, the wheels in her head slowly spinning before realization dawned on her, "You're... you're Killer! Killer Tomato! One of Sai's friends!"

Kira would have facepalmed, had he not been used to this. Flay wasn't scatterbrained, but she was horrible with names. And rarely bothered to learn the names of people she wasn't attracted to, like Kira. He raised a hand, as if to correct her, "...Kira Yamato?"

Flay let Birdy glide back to Kira and 'humphed' slightly as she crossed her arms and fumed slightly, more mad at herself than Kira, "That's what I said."

As Birdy landed on his shoulder, Kira decided it would be best to change the subject, "So... what were you doing on that lifeboat? It's one of the ones for Morgenroete employees. Last I checked, you were studying the human sciences at Heliopolis U, right?"

The reason Kira happened to bring up 'last I checked' is that Flay was one of the many college students who just could not nail down a major that sounded good to them. Some bounced between two majors like a pinball, such as between Math and the Sciences. Others, like Flay, would change their major on a whim and decide one week that being a teacher was their calling, while the next week, their calling was always being a marine biologist. This did wind up leaving Flay with an odd array of facts bouncing around in her head, and surprising skills that few expected when they came up.

Luckily for Kira, Flay knew she was flaky in this area and didn't mind correcting people, "Actually, I just changed my major so I could study veterinarian medicine. Just got approved yesterday, but with what's been going on..."

There was a good sized silence as Kira stared at the floor, and Flay tried not to remember watching Heliopolis collapse from within the escape pod.

Flay shook her head and continued, pulling a small box out of her backpack, "I was just coming to give Sai his lunch, Kira." She laughed softly, bouncing the lunchbox between her hands, "You know how he gets when you guys work on the project. I think he actually forgot to eat yesterday." Moving in closer to Kira, Flay's voice dropped to a whisper, "So... what happened? I heard ZAFT attacked us..."

Kira nodded, "They did, yeah. It looks like our leaders in ORB decided to let the Earth Alliance make mobile suits and warships in secret."

"Some secret," Flay rolled her eyes, "I guess that's what we're on now? An Earth Forces ship? Then what's with the ZAFT mobile suit in the corner?"

Kira turned, and saw Flay was pointing to the Artist formerly known as Miguel Aiman's custom GINN, slumped next to Commander laFlaga's own Moebius Zero. Some of the engineers were already taking a good look at the GINN and looking at the rather impressive list of spare parts the Archangel had to try and slap something together.

"Long story," Kira admitted, rubbing the back of his head, "Let's go find Sai, I'm sure he was worried about you."

Flay looked flatly at Kira, "Kira, I love Sai, but the man seems not to notice me half of the time." she frowned, looking thoughtful as she spoke again, "Probably not even if I stripped naked and started dry humping him from behind."

"...I'm sure he's thought of you at least once." Kira tried to continue, while also trying not to keep that mental image of Flay in his head. Not that Sai would kill him or anything, but it just wasn't kosher to lust over a guy's girl like that.

Over on the ZAFT vessel Vesalius, things were incredibly quiet. The entire bridge crew had listened in horrified silence as three of ZAFT's best pilots (well, two and Miguel) had been silenced almost instantaneously - two of them by the fierce warship known only as the Zadkiel and the third by the new Earth Forces mobile weapon that had been unfortunately left behind for them to activate. It hadn't helped things that Heliopolis then literally fallen to pieces, almost as if the colony had done so out of spite or a demented plot twist. It had been several agonizingly long minutes since that event, and the bridge remained so silent one could hear a pin drop. Had there been gravity to drop said pin, that is.

One of the so-called bridge bunnies, genetically bred and designed from the proverbial ground up for his ability to remain almost unnoticed beyond his few lines, spoke up, "Unable to locate Zadkiel, and the enemy mobile suit has vanished into the..." the man known only as Plain Faceman paused, looking for the right words, "...Heliopolis Debris Field. Heat sources are scattershot all over the place, and the only signals I'm picking up through the N-Jammer interference are the multitude of distress calls coming from the Heliopolis Escape Pods."

Captain Ades let out a soft curse, slamming his fist onto his chair's armrest, "Damn... The Council isn't going to be happy with this."

"Considering we were able to liberate four of five advanced mobile weapons and devastate our enemy's ability to make more, I have a feeling we'll come out of this in one piece," Commander Rau observed from his favorite position on the bridge: floating upside-down above Captain Ades like a demented genie with long, flowing blonde hair. And a mask.

"We were one of the two factors in the Heliopolis colony being utterly destroyed!" Ades spat out, on the verge of either having a panic attack or a conniption fit. Perhaps both, "A colony that, mind you, belongs to a completely neutral nation!"

Rau raised an eyebrow at Captain Ades' more-than-nervous tone, "Neutral. Right," the half-masked commander's eyebrow dropped as he deadpanned, "I guess those were ORB defense personnel we killed. Wearing Earth Alliance uniforms in an incredibly elaborate deception in order to make us think they were our sworn enemy, the Earth Alliance." Rau paused to let those words sink into Ades' head, before continuing, "Besides, I have the feeling this is going to be a bigger embarrassment for ORB than it could ever be for ZAFT."

That sound you would hear if this was animated (or one of those smashing audio dramas) would be Captain Ades sputtering as he tried his damnedest to come up with a counter-point to his commanding officer. Instead, the best that anyone else on the bridge could make out was, "B-but... I... but... the people..."

"I have a strong feeling that this..." Rau paused as he looked for the right words, then drew them out slowly, "...event will be forgotten about soon enough. Swept under the metaphorical rug, as it were."

With his opinion on the matter made clear, Rau turned one of the monitor screens in to catch an incoming transmission from what remained of Heliopolis...

The incoming signal from Orb was admittedly filled with static, but the relays from Heliopolis weren't exactly working at top efficiency anymore. That does tend to interfere slightly with proper television viewing. Still, it was just in time for the daily evening news from ORB, and Rau's selected channel was the most popular news program from the channel KNDU-42. The smartly-dressed news anchor was seen shuffling papers on a rather nice-looking desk, while a blatantly-fake green screened backdrop showed an artist's interpretation of a busy newsroom gathering information and checking facts before getting them blatantly wrong on-air.

"Good evening," the immaculately-styled anchor stated, pausing to flash his artificially-whitened teeth from underneath his ridiculously large mustache, "I'm Richard Pound, substituting in for Kent Brockman, who is currently visiting his family on Heliopolis for the week." Dick paused to shuffle his papers importantly and adjusted his tie, "Our lead story today, Princess Watch is deep into the third day - Lady Cagali remains sick with what her secretary is calling the 'stomach flu' and will not be seen. However, rumors from our resident insane crackpot persist that the Lady has fled Orb and has joined a rebel group in Africa, fighting the ZAFT invasion. Stay tuned with KNDU-42 as this develops."

"In other news," Richard continued as he turned to a different camera, making sure to show off his best smile before continuing, "The Earth Alliance and ZAFT remain fighting. No change there."

There was a long pause as Richard Pound held his hand up to his ear, obviously getting some breaking news from the editors. His eyes bulged and sweat rather obviously began to slide down his forehead. After several seconds of being frozen, Jon turned back to the camera, a Stepford-level grin plastered across his face, "Aaaand in one last note before we go to weather and our commercial, I've just gotten word here from my producer..." Jonathan paused and took a deep breath before continuing, "...thatHeliopoliswasdestroyedinafightbetweenEarth andZAFTforceswithnoconfirmedsurvivorsasofyet. But that's enough of that. Jimmy! Take us away to the weather board!"

Captain Ades blinked in surprise as the TV was turned off by Rau, "...you make a good point, Commander." Ades now looked deep in thought, staring out at the slowly expanding Heliopolis wreckage, "But we're down four GINNs - I don't know if we can fight them like this."

"We have three more GINNs, Ades, as well as my own CGUE," Commander LeCruiset reminded his subordinate, "I wouldn't have counted Miguel's own custom unit as one of our own, though, but it is a loss." Rau reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out those precious snapshots of the Earth Alliance's own mobile weapons, though it escaped him why they were Polaroid pictures rather than high-quality digital prints, "I'm not about to send our new weapons out into live combat, either. We may have their data saved and sent off to PLANT, but they're still incredibly valuable." Noticing Captain Ades was about to object, "Young Zala was an exception - I knew I could trust him not to do something stupid like blow up his own mobile suit."

Rau paused for a long while before tucking those pictures back inside his jacket, "However, I've been told our manufacturing facilities onboard should be able to re-create decent approximations within a few days." The almost-ever-present smirk on Rau's face returned, slowly turning into a grin, "And then, Ades, I'll have no problems with an unfair fight."

Confidence returned to Captain Ades, and he saluted Rau with a smirk of his own, "Sir."

Inside the rather spacious meeting area that passed for the Archangel's mess hall, the civilians from the escape pod picked up by Kira Yamato slowly shuffled through. There were many places where the line stopped, each person (or, rather, fresh recruit) being asked specific questions about their expertise or personal experience with various things that needed to be done around the ship. Those few who hadn't almost immediately volunteered to help out the Archangel after Captain Murrue's simple, yet passionate, request for help were sitting off on their own at one of the many tables set up for mealtime.

Romero Pal looked up from his tablet as the next person slid in front of him, perhaps the 15th or 20th person he'd talked to today. Although he was rather glad that the max capacity had been somewhere around 40 people, it was getting a little draining. Not looking up, Romero brought up the next profile that had been started back with Jackie Tonomura's own station a few minutes ago. Skimming the document, Romero Pal finally looked up at the man in front of him.

"Yuuta Asuka, right?" Romero uttered, not blinking at the rather unusually tall man in front of him.

"You got it," the man replied, running a hand through the black hair on top of his head, "I hear the Archangel's a little shorthanded right now."

Pal raised an eyebrow before looking at Mr Asuka, realization dawning on him, "Oh, right. Morgenroete security. I'm surprised anyone from your department survived..." Romero Pal paused, then added as he realized he'd put his foot into his mouth, "Ah, no offense."

Yuuta Asuka shrugged, "I've always been more about protecting the people who work for Morgenroete than the projects." Leaning in a little, the taller man couldn't help but chuckle, "Besides, my wife would never forgive me if I 'left' her alone with our two kids."

It was then that Kira and Flay entered the mess hall - coming in from the side of the room that hadn't been blocked off by a good two dozen people or more. Flay brightened immediately as she saw Sai tapping away at his tablet computer, and seeing that both Tolle and Miri were unharmed was good as well. The two of them also hunched over tablet computers, although Tolle seemed more interested in devouring some more Space Mexican cuisine than whatever was on the personal computer.

"Hey, guys," Kira waved lamely, the robot bird perched on his shoulder giving him the air of a slightly demented anime space pirate, "Guess who I picked up."

Miriallia looked up and gasped, "Flay!" She was around the table in seconds, hugging what was probably her only female friend very close, "I'm glad to see you made it out of there ok..."

"Hi, Flay." was all she got from Sai, but Flay was familiar enough with 'reading' him now. Outside of the occasional outburts of emotion over, say, an important project, that was about as emotional as Sai tended to get.

Tolle merely nodded and mumbled something through his Space Enchiladas.

Looking around the mess hall, now noticing the high amount of Morgenroete employees slowly filling up the room, Flay couldn't help but wonder if there was a way she could help out. It didn't escape her notice that three uniformed people huddled over a table with what looked like a paper map rolled out across it, anchored down with coffee cups. Many people with passing knowledge of the series would instantly recognize these three as Commander Mu laFlaga, Captain Murrue Ramius and Lieutenant Natarle Badgiruel, although what they might be working on was beyond anyone walking by at the moment.

It had been several long, boring hours on the Vesalius' bridge, and it had been getting to Captain Ades. He had been finger-tapping music out on his armrest for the better part of a half-hour, a song that sounded dementedly like the old Earth classic "Call Me Maybe." Meanwhile, Commander leCruiset had taken a deck of cards out of his coat's inner pocket and began playing some Zero-Gravity Solitaire, a game that requires steady hands and patience more than the ability to match colors and card suits.

"They could have left hours ago, Commander," Ades finally voiced his frustration as he finished the song, "And we would be none the wiser."

Rau smirked as he placed a few cards 'down' in sequence, "I highly doubt that, Ades. Our Vesalius has sensors that can pick up the finest piece of debris out there, and plot the course of it for several months. Had something as large as..." Rau paused, frowning at the nickname Ades had chosen, "Zadkiel moved, we would have noticed it."

It had been about eight hours since Heliopolis had collapsed, sending (and in some cases, hurling) itself off into the reaches of space. The shape of the colony was still easily identifiable, albeit inflated like a balloon. If said balloon also looked like a shattered remnant of itself, that is. The bridge of the Archangel was silent, mainly because they were waiting for a signal from the lower decks rather than participating in a demented writer's dreams of what running silent in space means. Finally, the intercom panel on Murrue's chair crackled to life.

"This is Murdock," came the voice of the Archangel's scruffy mechanic, "I've got all the 'presents' you wanted ready to be delivered to our guests when you want, Captain."

A smirk not unlike that of Commander Rau leCrusiet's slid across Murrue's face, "Perfect. Thank you, Chief. Get your men to battlestations." Standing up, Murrue gestured out with her hand toward Dalida Lolaha Chandra the II, "Put us on red alert. Ensign Badgiruel, Petty Officer Pal, arm weapons systems."

Natarle, knowing full well what was coming, did not question a damned thing. Natarle issued orders to the four volunteers who had been 'drafted' to work in the ship's CIC, one of them being the formerly-introduced-to-the-reader Yuuta Asuka. Romero Pal, on the other hand, raised his hand rather slowly.

"Um... really?" Pal asked, although he was arming weapons as told, "Won't ZAFT spot us if we go out shooting like a wild west shootout? I, for one, would like to keep on living."

Murrue turned to look at Romero, spinning in the zero gravity, her long brown hair curling around her body as she smirked, "Thousands of bright lights in the sky and hundreds of heat sources surround us that can still be mistaken for us. We've got an advantage, because ZAFT's just as blind as we are with their stupid N-Jammer field." Murrue looked behind her, up towards the pilot's seat, "Petty Officer Neuman, what are we looking at for travel time to Artemis if we put the pedal to the metal?"

Arnold Neuman's face was a blank for several seconds as he did mental calculations, then spoke up, "I'd give us an hour, maybe 45 minutes if we can coax a bit more speed out of her.

Commander Mu laFlaga nodded several times as he did his own mental calculations, having moved from his own chair to float next to Murrue, "ZAFT's Nazca-class ships are no slouches when it comes to speed. We might be cutting it close, leaving it to luck like this."

Murrue turned to face Mu, the smirk not fading one bit, "I know you've got a representation of making the impossible possible, Commander, but I think we can make our own luck here." Sitting down in the captain's chair, Murrue looked up at the surprised-looking Mu and quirked her head to one side, "I might be a grease monkey in Captain's clothes, but I'm not unfamiliar with command." The smirk turned into a sheepish grin, "Remember the Kobayashi Maru?"

Mu's own worry vanished as he grinned right back, "That incredibly stupid no-win test the Brass had everyone take? How could I forget? I still have nightmares of taking on those ten generic ZAFT ships with nothing more than a frigate to our name."

"...well, apparently my training officer and those above him frowned on the idea of shoving our frigate's cannons down the enemy's throat." Murrue laughed deeply, then added, "Literally."

Arnold Neuman snapped his fingers, "I heard about that! I thought that captain candidate was going to be drummed out of the academy!"

"...why do you think I was a mechanic before this crap?" Murrue offered with a shrug.

A bark of laughter came up from the CIC station below as Natarle made her voice heard, "And here I thought I was being original when we turned that CGUE into roadkill earlier."

Murrue smiled, her confidence growing by leaps and bounds, "Ladies and gentlemen, battlestations. Operation "Tom and Jerry" is go. Let's get to work."

It was still quiet on the Vesalius' bridge. Commander leCruiset had gone to rest in his quarters, leaving Captain Ades in charge. And it looked to be a boring time of it, to be honest. A stalemate. A faceof-

...why was one of the consoles beeping like R2-D2 on a sugar high?

"Captain!" came the cry from Plain Faceman at the back of the bridge, "Zadkiel's on the move! I've got them coming over Heliopolis and heading for the Earth itself!"

Another alarm.

"And another! This one's going to the PLANT Colonies!"

Still another alarm. And another. This continued for what felt like forever.

"S-sir!" Plain Faceman finally stuttered out as he did some quick math, "I've got over 35 contacts, each read with the same mass and engine power as Zadkiel, each one on a different course!"

Had anyone been looking toward their captain, they might have seen Ades almost literally shit a brick before regaining composure, "Dummies... they hope to thwart our glorious plans with dummy missiles and balloons? Analyze them!"

Mu couldn't help but let out an appreciative whistle at the insane amount of 'friendly' contacts flying all over the radar right now as he stared down at the readout in the CIC, "Goddamn. I'm sure leCruiset's about ready to tear out his hair over this one." Looking up into the bridge from his position, Mu let out a shout, "How many of these decoys did we prepare, again?"

Jackie Tonomura looked up from his own console next to Mu, which showed three of the thirty-eight dummies lit up in a different shade of friendly green, "Thirty eight. Took us about an hour to get them all ready. Five are the old-fashioned inflatable ones that won't fool even an idiot, but they're at least sending out the right signals. The rest are all scrap metal and engines," Jackie Tonomura's face held a grin as he continued, "It's a good thing we had enough debris and extra missiles to slap them all together in such a short amount of time."

"Each one of those thirty-eight all have a different programmed course," Arnold Neumann chimed in from the bridge above, "I made sure each one looks... somewhat right, and a possible destination for someone in our situation." Arnold paused, a grin splitting across his face, "Well. Three of the dummies are actually something else: remember how you talked about a surprise for that leCruiset guy?"

"Sir!" Plain Faceman shouted out as his own CIC system began to give feedback, three of the Zadkiel signals highlighted in a bright orange color rather than a dull orange, "Three of the enemy signals are coming our way. They're still reading as Zadkiel, but their mass and the speed at which they're moving now suggest dummy missiles."

Captain Ades attempted to nod sagely, the worried look embedded on his face turning into more of a worried smile, "Then the Earth Forces are simply trying to distract us. I do hope they're not hoping those three are going to fool any of us into thinking they're the real de-"

"SIR!" Plain Faceman interrupted, his voice filled with shock as alarms began to fill the bridge, "The three dummy units have all fired missiles! Multiple contacts - at least thirty, all incoming!"

Captain Ades' face paled drastically as he turned to the helmsman, "Evasive manuvers, avoid as many of those as we can! Gunnery chiefs, shoot down those damned missiles!"

"There's too many!" came a shout from the Combat Command Center at the back of the bridge, "Going to shoot down as many as we can...!"

Ades groaned, gripping the arms of his chair. Commander leCruiset was going to be damned unhappy if a single missile hit the ship.

"...wow. I don't think I've ever seen a Nazca-class ship turn tail and start panic firing like that before," Jackie Tonomura chuckled softly as he saw the swarm of missiles launched from the 'special' dummies all fly towards the Vesalius

Murrue smiled softly as she saw some of the missiles intercepted by the anti-air gunfire from the Vesalius, her concentration interrupted by a blanket of nostalgia, "Almost reminds me of fireworks from the days before the war."

Mu shook his head and grinned, "If we get out of this intact, I'll take you to a fireworks show myself, Captain."

Arnold Neumann let out a low whistle as one of the missiles erupted into a bright pink eruption of death and destruction, "Hey, Natarle. What are those missiles called again?"

"Helldarts," Natarle responded as she looked over her readouts from each of the decoys they'd deployed, "I think they're supposed to be for anti-air fire, but I think they did the job of scaring the enemy and confusing the hell out of them."

"From the comm chatter I'm picking up through the N-Jammer interference," Jackie Tonomura spoke up as he looked over his shoulder, "I'd say it worked. I think some poor bastard out there even thinks that we're just one of 30 secret ships launched by the Earth Alliance today..."

Romero Pal looked down at his own readouts of incoming information and smiled, "Ladies and gentlemen, we've left the Heliopolis debris field. Next stop, Artemis."

The bridge of the Vesalius was nothing short of a mess, with small fires having erupted from a console that had exploded not long after a few missiles had slammed into the port side of the ship. That hadn't scared Captain Ades... much... and he had been determined to chase down their enemy to teach them a lesson. However, both he and Rau leCruiset had less than agreed on the destination.

"Ades," Rau said patiently, floating behind the fuming Captain, "I told you, it's most likely that the enemy is heading to Artemis. It's closest to what was left of Heliopolis, and easily could assist with the resu-"

"And I'm putting my career on them having fled to Earth," Ades interrupted, slamming his fist down on the armrest of his Captain's chair, "They embarrassed me- my ship, and I'm not about to let them get away with it."

"Now approaching Zadkiel," came the voice of the navigator, "Putting us on a parallel course."

"I'm getting no weapons readings," Plain Faceman added, "In fact, I'm not picking up the right N-Jammer readings either..."

"They're running silent," Ades decided, despite any logic of 'silent' in space not making any damned sense, "It's a ploy to make us think they're nothing more than a dummy balloon."

Finally, after several anxious minutes of waiting, the Vesalius pulled up alongside their target, only for Ades to deflate visibly when the image resolution cleared.

"...it's a dummy." Ades mumbled softly, sounding deflated.

Rau leCruiset savored the moment, having proved Captain Ades plain wrong. It was a good moment. After he let Ades' failure sink in, Rau tried his best to suppress a grin before giving out an order, "Turn around, set course for Artemis. The enemy is there, and we need to track them down - make them pay for Olar and..." Rau paused as he realized he didn't remember that other pilot's name. Grimacing, Rau faked a cough as he mumbled several syllables that he hoped sounded like poor what's-his-face.

As the Vesalius' bridge lurched back to life and the ship began to spin around, Rau couldn't help but add as his head tilted to one side, his eyes stuck on the slowly vanishing dummy balloon of the Archangel, "Still... I must admire their ability to draw such a highly detailed vulgar image on a dummy balloon before it was inflated like that. Excellent skill."

"Incoming message from Artemis!" Jackie Tonomura grinned as a rather odd, blue-glowing space-gem appeared on the front screens of the Archangel's bridge, "Looks like we made it."

A few cries of joy went up around the bridge, and the tension that had been so thick that one could almost cut it with a beam saber evaporated almost instantly.

"Open hailing frequency," Murrue commanded, a smile of relief showing on her own face as well, "Let Artemis know our credentials... such as they are... and request entry."

It didn't take long. Jackie spoke up again as he read out the text reply, " Incoming Message from Artemis. Request to enter port acknowledged and approved. They'll have an inspection team waiting for us, though."

Natarle climbed up out of the CIC pit and let out a thoughtful hum as she heard this, "You know, I just realized something. We don't have any real credentials with the Earth Alliance." she paused, then continued, "And lord knows if anyone outside of the Earth Alliance troops on Heliopolis knows about us, much less the Strike."

Mu, following Natarle up onto the bridge, simply shrugged, "Looks like they realized we're at least not ZAFT. We may be with the Atlantic branch of the Alliance, but the Eurasian branch answers to the same brass we do... somewhere in there. We are one big happy fleet after all."

Had anyone genre-savvy been up on the bridge, someone might have called bullshit.

Several hours later...

Kuzzy Buzzkirk sighed as he reclined in his seat. It had been a long, hard trip, worthy of several tales in the hallowed halls of travel lore. Kuzzy had scheduled a bus trip across America, starting with Washington D.C. and ending with Seattle, Washington a good month later. The bus had broken down, ZAFT attacks had taken out several of his fellow tourists, and Kuzzy was left backpacking across the nation with just his name and a tattered old backpack to help him survive. And survive he had, as Kuzzy was now relaxing in a civilian shuttle, ferrying him back to Heliopolis to meet with his friends for the first time in what felt like years.

"Lllladies and gentlemen," the pilot droned in a tone that one had to attend flight school years just to attempt, much less master "We arrre now approaching Heliopolis. Please put your tray tables and chairs in their upright position a-" the pilot paused as the shuttle came closer to their destination, "...llladies and gentlemen, we've hit a bit of a snag. It seems that Heliopolis is currently no longer there. I'm receiving a transmission from the rescue shuttles surrounding the wreckage that almost everyone is accounted for, and they even have a large rescue ship to hold refugees for the time being, but everyone is to be sent Earthside within the hour. Sorry for the inconvenience, but please remember that there will be no refunds for this trip."

Kuzzy looked through his port-side window, out at Heliopolis' remains, and said the only thing that came to mind:

"...aw."