The Enemy Within
Veda
Beneath the layers of cyber security protocols floated an artificially created being better known as an Innovade with dark purple hair drifted along a hallway surrounded by files of different sizes and importance. A handful of them were covered with a profile picture, while some were attached to a smaller file with relevant info. But that's not what Tieria was interested at the moment.
The process of releasing Anew from her cages made out of firewalls was not done purely out of sympathy. Sometime before the ELS conflict, Tieria had discovered that he wasn't the only one that could regularly save his consciousness within Veda. In fact, every Innovade ever could do the same as long as they wished to do so. This was good news, and bad. Two years ago, a rogue Innovade and Gundam Meister Ribbons Almark led a group of aggressive Innovades and started a series of conflicts. Among the group was Anew, originally tasked to infiltrate Celestial Being.
Compelled to double check the consciousness logs, Tieria headed down a vertical corridor and towards a level 5 database. He paused at a door to have his eye scanned, and was quickly approved to enter. Once he made it in he opened a list of all the known innovades with his mind and started checking them off the list as their names appeared on the title of each files. The more check marks he made, the more fearful he became.
Revive Revival, Hilling Care, Bring Stabity, Devine Nova, and Anew herself. So they've been here this whole time? The must not be released!
To his horror he eventually saw a name he least desired to find. Ribbons Almark. Last saved on 23rd July, 2312.
It won't matter if Veda disallows it, Ribbons must go!
He hastily searched for a delete option within the file, but to no avail. The best he could do was to move the file to another location using a teleportation program in almost any computer of the modern age, but it was a dilemma. If he moved it to a database with lower security, some unwanted visitor might free the rogue Innovade by accident or deliberately. If he moved it up the ladder, it would mean the consciousness of Ribbons Almark might never have a chance to be erased for good.
He had to interface with Veda to fix the seemingly harmless bug before it spreads.
It was near the end of the day on Helios station, and near the end of Foreman Jasper's working hours. He's a renowned engineer working in Hyperion, famed enough to occasionally getting Jack's attention when something new needs to be invented.
"I'm sure you've already heard of the incidents regarding the unknown machines." Jack stated.
"What do you need me to do, sir?"
His question was answered when a USB was tossed to him. "This should answer all your questions. If it doesn't, go to Wilhelm. He knows about these guys the most."
Inside the USB were duplicates of every unknown enemy sightings recorded. Every detail of those encounters were nicely organized. Even the traits of certain types of enemies were analysed and placed into the portable drive. In his perspective, this was the most detailed report to refer to. At last, it instructed everyone who had authorization to read it to prepare themselves to have to take part in the operation to counter the new threat, whether it's fighting on the frontline or working vampire hours in the R&D department building new weapons and loaders.
It also indicated that Wilhelm's personal loader was to be mass-produced, except its weapon slots were replaced by hardpoints to mount equipment according to the pilots' preference. A list of co-workers he'd need to work with immediately struck Jasper's mind. Not everyone was his friend, but he had learned to deal with most types of people during his career. It included a handful of both Hyperion and non-Hyperion engineers and technicians.
Time to do some wetwork before I start.
Twenty three, twenty four, twenty five.
Feldt ran a headcount on her radar upon hearing the alarming buzz of enemy contact. Her opponents were mostly the new yellow mobile suits Celestial Being has recently encountered, and the new models were also present. She never got the chance to count them. The five leading mobile suits were already firing despite being outside effective range. Unfortunately for Feldt, their unseen precision made their attacks no less deadly than point blank shots.
She returned fire almost instantly like she did in her countless times of training. Her first mistake. Pausing at a nearby asteroid, she took aim again and finally scored a hit after three or four shots. But not only did her enemy almost gracefully evaded the first burst, the shot only grazed its hip and barely did any damage. Feldt didn't quit, but every second she was getting more and more frustrated as she missed more than half of her shots. Apparently the pressure of fighting nearly impossible odds did not have a good effect on her.
"Come on, just hit already!" She did occasionally scratch her opponents' armour a few times, but she knew well that was far from enough. Out of both frustration and rational decision making she withdrew her GN rifle and went close quarters with the leading mobile suit, clashing her beam saber with its anti-beam coated shield. She quickly ignited another saber and was able to lodge it into the stomach section of the yellow mobile suit only a few yards away from her. Afraid of getting caught in the doomed machine's explosion, she kicked what's left of the mobile suit to an asteroid below her. It didn't get very far, and exploded the moment it made contact with the asteroid.
Nadleeh's cockpit was pounded by the debris of various size. Her shield was heavily dented, and her camera was temporarily blinded. Unfortunately for her, she was pinned on a second asteroid by the time the dust and debris cleared up. She ended up having to fight hand to hand with her opponent, who was almost twice as heavy as the Nadleeh. At that moment, she thought she might actually die.
"The Trans-Am system is useful when you might get killed or when you're in a major disadvantage." She suddenly remembered a line from Setsuna himself.
Well bite me if I'm not about to get killed. She thought as she voice-commanded Nadleeh to activate the Trans-Am. Soon she was able to overpower the yellow and red mobile suit and drew a cross on it with the beam sabers. Without staying to observe the fate of her opponent, she sped upwards, then came crashing into a manned red mobile suit with one of her beam sabers stowed away and her other used as a spear. The cockpit was instantly pierced, leaving the mobile suit motionless as it drifted to its destruction. As it exploded Feldt took aim at a closing loader with guns blazing. She fired a single shot towards its right chest, rendering it practically lifeless.
With no means of deactivating the Trans-Am system despite it being no longer necessary for the moment, Feldt stole a glance at a newly included timer located at the bottom right corner of the HUD. She had no more than two and a half minute left before the shutdown sequence goes off and gets her killed, and the best she could do was to keep flying as erratic as she could while still shooting and maiming the rest of her opponents.
However she forgot one fatal flaw about the seemingly invincible system, and she learned it the hard way when the left leg was cut off by a loader that snuck around her. When she finally regained situational awareness, the Nadleeh was rendered to a damaged-beyond-repair state.
Ultimately it was Veda itself that determined Nadleeh was no longer capable of combat, and ended the training session.
She left the cockpit of Harute II, where she usually spends most of her time to hone her skills in piloting a Gundam. Unlike her usual self, she disappeared from the training ground speechless, other than saying she needed a drink to Marie, who had been training her for almost months.
"I don't think it's really fine to let her walk away like that, to be honest." Allelujah interrupted Marie's thoughts from fifteen feet above, where he was finally allowed to go ahead and repaint a small section of his mobile suit.
"I would've said the same, if she wasn't dating Setsuna." She replied.
"What does that do?" Allelujah asked curiously.
"There are just some things she has to understand by herself. We can lecture her for a full day and she still wouldn't get anything. And that is how to survive." Marie changed to a more serious tone.
"Right. There's hardly anyone that knows it better than him."
