When Murrue Ramius regained consciousness, she heard a several voices talking indistinctly. After a few seconds, she was able to hear them clearly, and looked around to see Tolle, Kuzzey, and Sai examining the Strike. Upon seeing them, Murrue immediately reached for her pistol.
"Stay away from that machine!" She yelled, firing a round just above the cockpit. Tolle yelped in fright before descending with Kuzzey.
"Hey, stop it!" Kira objected, "They're the ones who carried you out while you were unconscious!" Murrue immediately turned her pistol on Kira.
"I'm grateful that you helped me, but that machine is a top military secret that civilians should not be thoughtlessly playing with!" At that moment, Hikari had come back in the Fortune while scouting the area. Upon seeing the situation, he decided to intervene before things could potentially get out of hand.
"Hey, hey, hey! I do not approve of this!" He yelled through the Fortune's external speakers, "Why don't we have some nice, civil introductions?"
Upon seeing the Fortune, Murrue visibly blanched before regaining her composure. Seeing that she had little other choice but to comply upon realizing that Hikari was not getting out of the Fortune, she awkwardly accepted a bottle of water that Miriallia had been offering her the entire time, before everyone introduced themselves. Hikari reported that some vehicles in the convoy were still intact, so Murrue sent Sai to get the number five trailer-the only one with any parts for the Strike-while Kira attempted to contact any friendly Federation forces with the Strike's radio. Hikari chose this moment to voice his concerns.
"I'm not sure how much good I'll be as I am if things get dicey. My left arm's completely shot, and even if the parts were within walking distance, I can't repair damage this bad by myself."
"It's fine, the Fortune can still fire one-handed, right?" Murrue asked.
"Yeah, no promises about accuracy though." Hikari deadpanned, "I don't want to risk blowing a hole in the colony, so the railgun's out." He sighed. At that moment, Sai returned, driving the number five trailer.
"This is the one you wanted, right?" Sai asked.
"Yes, mount the Striker pack, and we'll try the radio again. The weapons and power pack are one unit, so we'll have to mount the entire thing." Murrue replied. With that, Kira moved the Strike over to the trailer while Sai prepared the Striker pack. As the process was finishing, everyone's attention was drawn by a massive explosion from the colony shaft. From the smoke emerged a ZAFT CGUE-a silver command-type mobile suit-and a badly damaged Moebius. However, instead of the standard red and white, this one was orange. The CGUE, piloted by Rau Le Creuset, immediately started heading toward them, and everyone save for Murrue, Kira, and Hikari began to panic. While Murrue herded Kira's friends into suitable cover, Creuset fired at the Strike. Kira was able to activate the Strike's Phase Shift armor milliseconds before the bullets impacted, rendering them useless. Creuset was about to go for another pass when there was another explosion, with a legged warship emerging from the flames.
"The Archangel!" Murrue exclaimed.
"The new warship? They failed to destroy it!" Creuset fumed, briefly shifting his attention to the new adversary. He fired a burst from his rifle at it, but the ship was able to evade by evading hard to starboard. With the new threat temporarily distracted with regaining stability, Creuset turned his attention back to the Strike.
"Phase shift, huh? Then how about this?" Creuset fired his mobile suit's shield-mounted vulcan cannon. To his dismay, the rounds impacted against the armor uselessly. "Not even enhanced APSV?" He wondered to himself in shock. At that moment, Hikari took aim and fired one-handed. Unfortunately, every round missed due to the reduced accuracy. Upon realizing that the magazine was empty, he cursed, as it was impossible to reload with only one arm.
Meanwhile, on the bridge of the Archangel, the acting captain, Natarle Badriguel, ordered an assessment of the situation. Upon seeing that the Strike was under attack, she ordered the sparse bridge crew to prepare for combat.
"Prepare to fire missile tubes seven through ten! Under no circumstances are you to hit the ground or shaft, understood?"
With that, the Archangel fired 4 Sledgehammer missiles at Creuset's CGUE. Creuset only had enough ammo left in his rifle to shoot down one missile and dodged the other 3, causing them to hit the colony shaft. Everyone else could only look on in horror as the heat caused by the fires that had broken out melt several supporting cables in a matter of seconds. Kira, realizing the Archangel was unable to shoot down the CGUE by itself, readied the Strike's targeting computer and unlimbered the Agni beam cannon that was stored on its back as part of the Launcher pack. Upon seeing what Kira was going to do, Murrue immediately ran forward in an attempt to get his attention.
"Wait! That's too-" She was about to say 'powerful' when Kira fired, missing Creuset by a small margin, only managing to destroy the right arm of his CGUE. The red-orange beam kept going, eventually blowing a substantially large hole in the far side of the colony. Creuset took this opportunity to retreat through the newly made exit, seeing as his mobile suit was down an arm and out of ammunition.
"How could they allow a single mobile suit to have that much firepower?" He pondered to himself.
Back in the colony, Hikari had backhanded the Strike's head with the Fortune's good arm as the Archangel landed.
"You idiot! This is why I didn't want to use my railgun! Did you even know what that was capable of doing?" Hikari scolded. Kira remained silent, too shocked at the collateral damage he had caused to respond. At that moment, a loud screeching sound filled the air, such that even the bridge crew of the Archangel and the Moebius pilot could hear it. Everyone turned to see that the Nadesico had powered through the rubble blocking the spaceport, none the worse for wear due to its Distortion Field.
"Oh, hey guys!" Hikari yelled over the radio.
"Hikari? You're okay! Where are you?" Megumi responded. Hikari directed them to what was left of the Morgenroete factory, and the Nadesico touched down. In the meantime, Hikari joined Kira and the others to meet the bridge crew of the Archangel and the Moebius pilot in one of the Archangel's hangars. They were joined shortly by Yurika, Akatsuki, Noal, Aki, and Mr Prospector. After exchanging formal greetings, Kira exited the Strike, causing a wave of chattering to break out among the Archangel crew.
"What's going on? Don't tell me that kid piloted that thing." Petty Officer Murdock, the chief mechanic, wondered. After Murrue explained the situation, the pilot of the Moebius introduced himself.
"I'm lieutenant Mu La Flaga of the 7th Orbital Fleet. Permission to come aboard please? The ship I came in has been shot down."
"I believe Lieutenant Ramius has that responsibility now. All of the other officers of this ship have been killed." Natarle explained.
"Oh, ah, yes, please, welcome aboard." Murrue quickly regained her composure.
"Oh, man, well this is a disaster." Mu commented, rubbing the bridge of his forehead. Mu turned to face Kira.
"You say he is the one who reprogrammed and piloted this thing?" He asked Murrue, gesturing at the Strike.
"Yes." Murrue responded. Mu looked Kira up and down.
"You're a Coordinator, aren't you?"
"...Yes." Kira said after a few seconds. At that, several security crewmembers readied their rifles, while Tolle stood in front of Kira defensively.
"Lower your weapons!" Murrue ordered, with the crewmen hesitantly complying.
"Explain yourself, Lieutenant Ramius!" Natarle demanded.
"There's no mystery, is there? Heliopolis is a neutral state, after all. It would be no surprise to find Coordinators who wanted to avoid the war." She explained. Kira nodded in acknowledgement.
"Sorry for causing such a stir." Mu apologized, " So, who are you fine people?" He turned to address the Nadesico crew.
"We're from the Nergal warship Nadesico. We would like to join you." Mr. Prospector explained, "Mr. Akatsuki informed us that Nergal had joined forces with the UEFA in light of the war with ZAFT. It would only be natural for us to work together."
"Very well then. We can discuss the particulars on the bridge." Murrue accepted.
While Murrue and Yurika discussed the fine details of their alliance on the bridge, the crews of the Nadesico and Archangel loaded parts and ammunition for the Fortune and the Strike, respectively, in addition to any food and water that was still intact at Morgenroete. While the loading was in progress, Hikari was helping Uribitake fix the Fortune's arm in the Nadesico's hangar.
"Didn't think you'd be back so quickly, kid." He commented.
"Neither did I. To be honest, I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing that we're back together." Hikari responded.
"Given the way things are in the Earth Sphere right now, I'd say it was pretty much inevitable that we'd get back together. It just happened a lot sooner than expected." Mindy chose that moment to walk in.
"Oh, hey Mindy. Where are the girls?" Hikari asked.
"Working on the Titania. They think that they can use some of the salvage we got on Gallia IV to improve it. They're working on the finishing touches right now." She answered.
"You mentioned earlier that they thought those alien units seemed familiar, right? That's been bothering me for a while." Hikari said.
"I'll say; I can't make heads or tails of the Titania, but from what little I can understand, the materials we got from Gallia IV are pretty similar in composition to its plating." Uribitake said.
"I just hope they know what they're doing. We're probably going to need every machine we can get if worst comes to worst. The last thing we need is one of ours out of commission because of bad maintenance" Hikari opined, turning his attention back to the Fortune's arm.
"They said they weren't going to do anything too drastic," at this, Mindy put a hand to her forehead, as if massaging a headache, "but I'm still not completely sold on the idea of upgrades with mostly unknown parts and materials."
"I respect that line of thought." Uribitake quipped, turning back to help Hikari, "So, a yen for your thoughts on our situation? You are the military mind among our pilots, after all." Mindy sat down on an empty crate and let out a resigned sigh.
"Based on what I've heard, it's not going to be easy. Apparently, the ZAFT forces that attacked the colony are lead by Rau Le Creuset. He's ruthless, and will stop at nothing to achieve his objective, even if it involves civilian casualties." Mindy postulated, "If he acts like I think he will, then this colony's not going to last the next 12 hours." At this evaluation, both Hikari and Uribitake grimaced, realizing the gravity of the situation.
An uneasy silence settled over the Nadesico as they prepared for an inevitable battle within the colony…
On the Archangel, Kira was sleeping like a rock in one of the residential areas, while his friends kept him company. They had been informed that the alert level had been increased to 9, and consequently, all the shelters were now locked. A barely audible snore from Kira brought the group out of their internal musings.
"I'm impressed that he can sleep in this situation." Kuzzey noted.
"He's tired. It was really tough for Kira, you know." Miriallia chided him.
"It was tough? I guess that's true, but…" Kuzzey paused.
"What are you getting at, Kuzzey?" Sai cautiously prompted.
"Nothing. Just in Kira's case, we can only say, 'it was tough for him,' and that's it." Kuzzey explained.
"Kira said he rewrote the OS for that thing, right? I figured Kira to be a Coordinator all along. To think that Coordinators, born genetically enhanced, do these amazing things, and to them it's nothing more than 'tough.' The guys in Zaft are all like that. Do the Earth forces really stand a chance against them?"
"Well, what about that other pilot that Kira knows, Hikari, that was his name, right?" Tolle countered, "From what I heard, he was able to take out two of them, no sweat!"
"Even so…" Kuzzey stared at the floor. The group entered another round of internal musings, this one slightly more foreboding than the last.
Meanwhile, Yurika and Murrue were discussing their next course of action via video conference in the bridges of their respective ships.
"I think we should leave the colony as soon as we're able to. We don't want to fight in the colony interior, after all." Yurika insisted, not wanting a repeat of what had happened on Mars. Though Murrue agreed, Natarle, ever the realist, decided to inform both the captains of some bad news.
"Electronic interference in the colony interior just tripled. At this rate, I don't think we'll be able to avoid fighting inside the colony." At this, Mu La Flaga sighed.
"Well, looks like we'll have to talk to the kid again." He deadpanned.
"You're sure you can't use the Strike?" Natarle asked.
Mu snorted before responding, "Have you seen what the kid did to that thing's OS? I don't even know if I could get it to move properly."
Murrue sighed before turning back to Yurika.
"Excuse me, but I need to see if Kira will go along with this willingly." Yurika nodded.
"We'll do everything we can to protect you, but there's no guarantee." Yurika cautioned before closing the connection. With that, Murrue gave Natarle the con while she went to see Kira. Frankly, the prospect of forcing Kira to pilot the Strike horrified Murrue to no end, but with the current situation, they didn't have many options.
"You people aren't being fair!" Kira retorted, "You're going to tell me that there's only one mobile suit on this ship, and that I'm the only one who can operate it, right?"
"Yes." Murrue decided to be completely frank. She didn't see any reason to sugarcoat things at this point. Kira glared at her before looking down at the floor, then back at her.
"Fine." The venom in his voice was evident.
As the Nadesico and Archangel took off, an explosion ripped apart part of the colony mirror, allowing a large amount of GINNs to enter, while at least a dozen more entered through the hole that Kira had made. At least half of them were equipped with Type-D equipment, a series of missile launchers attached to the shoulders and legs designed for heavy bombardment of military fortresses or capital ships.
"Are they crazy?" Mu La Flaga thought aloud upon seeing what the ZAFT forces were equipped with. His Moebius Zero was still too badly damaged to pilot after his encounter with Le Creuset, so he had decided to supplement the bridge crew for this battle.
"Send out the Strike, now!" Natarle ordered.
On the Nadesico similar orders were being given. As the entirety of the Nadesico's machines with the exception of Mazinger Z and Aphrodite A prepared to launch, Hikari decided to make small talk with Skull Squad.
"Have you ever fought against other humans?" Hikari asked.
"Only in mock battles with paint rounds." Alto replied, surprisingly nonplussed at the prospect.
"Don't worry about it. We were hired to protect the ship, and that's what we're going to do." Ozma assured him.
"If you say so." Hikari said. Mindy's face then appeared on his screen, followed by Nikos and Exi, who were in the backseats of the Titania.
"We don't have a choice right now. It's either kill or be killed. Besides, they're SMS-professionals-why are you asking them?" Mindy inquired. "You're nervous, aren't you?" She realized.
"Yeah, I guess the adrenaline from Mars has worn off." Hikari admitted sheepishly.
"Cut the chatter, we have to launch!" Ryoko cut in.
And so, the machines of the Nadesico launched to join the Strike, which had sortied with the Sword pack equipped. Michel put his Valkyrie in Battroid form and settled on top of the Archangel in order to support its point defenses, while everyone else scrambled to fight the horde of GINNs that were coming at them from two directions. Mindy was able to tag a GINN with an anti-armor round before it fire its missiles, noting that the Titania was performing better as promised. She evaded a bazooka round from another before blowing it away in one shot. However, this show of superior range caused most of the GINNs with Type-D equipment to rush the Archangel and Nadesico, firing of all their missiles in a bid to destroy the ships. Eiji, David, Roanne, and Luca immediately went to help shoot down the missiles, while Ozma and Alto attempted to intercept the remaining Type-D GINNs. Unfortunately, at that moment, one of the stolen Gundams showed up at that moment.
"New thermal pattern detected...it's X303, the Aegis!" One of the Archangel bridge crew exclaimed. Natarle cursed under her breath, while Mu took manual control of the Gottfried beam cannons to more quickly shoot down the GINNs.
To say that Kira was stressed would be a grave understatement. It was taking all of his mental endurance to not break and run while dodging or blocking beam rounds and missiles from the GINNs, when one with a custom orange color scheme attempted to rush him with its ion cannon. The GINN was piloted by Miguel, and he was looking to pay Kira back for what had happened at the Morgenroete factory. The Sword pack, true to its name, was equipped with a sword, the Schwert Gerwer, a beam sword with a solid backing designed to take down battleships, a rocket anchor, and the Midas Messer, a beam dagger designed to thrown as a boomerang. Kira was currently at a disadvantage, since the head mounted Igelstellungs lacked any kind of stopping power, and the Midas Messer could easily be shot in mid-flight. Thus, he was left with one option: rush at Miguel to negate the ranged advantage he had and hope he got sloppy. Kira fired the Strike's rocket anchor in an attempt to bait Miguel, but he saw through it and backed away instead of dodging to the side, increasing the distance between them. Miguel fired a beam round, only to see it dissipate uselessly against the buckler that the Sword pack was equipped with. Kira rushed forward and attempted to bisect Miguel's GINN lengthwise, but he was able to dodge and fire a quick shot, which Kira was barely able to block with his shield. Hikari, seeing nothing good coming of the current stalemate, decided to intervene, firing his shotgun at Miguel in order to distract him. It worked, with Miguel now forced to divided his attention between the Strike and the Fortune, lest he be destroyed by one of them.
While this was happening, the SPT squad and Luca had found to their dismay that there were far too many missiles to shoot down, even with Luca's Ghost X-7 drones devoted entirely to the task. Though Eiji, David, and Roanne still had plenty of ammunition, their rifles were on the verge of overheating because of the rapid rate at which they had been forced to fire. David had switched to punching out GINNs with Baybull's knuckles, while Roanne and Eiji fired very slowly in an attempt to stall the buildup of heat. As a result, the Archangel had been forced to evade several salvos of missiles, resulting in them hitting either the colony ground or the shaft. Meanwhile, the main force had been able to stall the rest of the GINNs, though this didn't stop the ones equipped with Type-D equipment from firing their missiles, mostly out of spite. The Nadesico had managed to stop a few salvos from hitting the colony structures with its Distortion Field, it was unable to retaliate due to its lack of point defenses, as a Gravity Blast or inaccurate missile salvo from the ship could easily destroy the colony.
Meanwhile, the two-on-one between Hikari, Kira, and Miguel had again stalled, such was Miguel's skill. However, he noticed that the Aegis, piloted by Athrun, had only been observing since it had arrived. Miguel decided to rectify that.
"Athrun, what are you doing? If you came here without permission, then at least contribute! Take one of them behind!" He yelled over the radio.
Athrun reluctantly gunned the Aegis' engines and dove at Hikari. Hikari cursed as he evaded the Aegis' beam saber by a hair's width, bringing out the Fortune's knife. He attempted to stab the Aegis in the chest only for his knife to shatter against the Phase Shift Armor. Thinking quickly, Hikari pulled back and threw what was left of the knife at the Aegis. Athrun batted it aside without a second thought, but this moment of distraction allowed Hikari to empty what ammo was left in his shotgun at the Aegis and peg him with his railgun, severely disorienting him.
At the same time, Kira and Miguel were once again jockeying for position. Kira was unable to get close enough to damage Miguel, while Miguel was unable to damage the Strike because of its buckler. Realizing that he needed to resolve the stalemate now, Kira decided to take a gamble and threw the Midas Messer at Miguel's GINN. Miguel dodged, but the beam dagger boomeranged around, taking off his GINN's legs. This enabled Kira to cut what was left of Miguel's GINN in half with the Schwert Gerwer. Miguel barely had time to cry out before he was engulfed in the explosion of his unit. Athrun recovered from his disorientation just in time to see what had happened.
"MIGUEL!" Athrun cried out in anguish, having just lost a dear friend. At the same time, Michel was able to peg a GINN with his Valkyrie's rifle, but the explosion was in close proximity to the colony shaft, causing damage to it as a result.
"Oh, shit!" Michel cursed to himself. The shaft began to show visible strain due to the collateral damage from the battle at this point.
Athrun, unwilling to fight anymore at this point, decided to see if his worst fears had been confirmed. He opened a radio channel to the Strike, unaware that Hikari and Mindy could also hear them.
"Kira, Kira Yamato! It is you, isn't it?" Kira's eyes widened in shock when he recognized the voice.
"Athrun? Athrun Zala!" At that moment, the last Type-D GINN was destroyed by Izumi, but not before it was able to fire its missiles, which collided with the shaft. Unaware of this, the two of them continued to argue.
"Why? Why are you here?" Kira asked.
"That's my line! What are you doing in that thing?" Athrun retorted. Before they could argue any further, the colony shaft began to fall apart, unable to handle the strain in its damaged state. As a result, Heliopolis began to fall apart under the force of its own rotation. Horrified reactions were had in the bridges of both the Nadesico and Archangel, and even the normally upbeat and cheerful Exi brought her hands to her mouth in horror in the cockpit of the Titania. In a matter of seconds, what had once been a thriving space colony was now little more than a shell in the process of becoming space debris. The force of the venting atmosphere separated Athrun and Kira, and Hikari quickly took off after the Strike, fearing for Kira's safety. Kira could do nothing but scream in anguish as what was once his home fell to pieces.