littlemsstrawberry: There will be romance, but most of that's going to happen in the desert. That's not to say there won't be a kiss or two along the way, though. XD
JC: Oh, the April Fool's crisis will be mentioned soon enough. *evil smirk* Just wait.
Rob DS Zeta: I know you! Where'd you come from? XD
Flutter: Thank you for your comments and I hope you enjoy the rest of the story.
I'm sorry about this chapter taking a while. Here it is.
Chapter Eleven: Laid to Rest
The next morning was the first one that seemed remotely uneventful all week. After explosions, death, explosions, Heliopolis falling apart, explosions, GUNDAMs, explosions, my childhood best friend appearing and reappearing out of nowhere, and yes, more explosions, an uneventful morning was heavenly.
Tolle was still nursing his gunshot when I checked on him but he was expected to resume his usual duties in a couple of days. Knowing that he was going to be okay for sure put me in a good mood when I entered the bridge to check up on my other friends.
It was then when I saw a massive structure before us. A dead PLANT.
"Whoa," I said.
"Whoa indeed," Mu La Flaga said from behind me. I turned to him. "We just found that thing right now. Biggest piece of anything we've seen in the debris belt so far."
"Can anyone tell me why we're still in the debris belt, other than to hide?" I asked.
Murrue got up from the captain's chair and smiled at me. "Mu La Flaga himself pointed out something to me yesterday. The debris belt is potentially a treasure trove. Leftover supplies and parts are all over this place. Right now, we haven't found anything substantial enough to hold leftover supplies and parts, though . . . not until now."
I looked ahead at it. It looked familiar to me for some reason. I thought I had seen that PLANT from somewhere before.
Then I realized where.
Athrun's room at the Academy contained a picture of Junius Seven, taken by Athrun himself as they passed by it on a slingshot route towards the moon. And it looked exactly like the dead colony we were staring at right now . . . except Junius Seven then was brimming with life and beauty.
This Junius Seven was nothing but death. Gray. Debris. Destruction.
"Are we really going to stop here?" I asked.
Murrue raised an eyebrow. "This is the first substantial structure we've found so far, Cagalli."
Mu knew. He had realized it just as I had spoken. "Cagalli, wait-"
I would not be stopped from pointing something inconvenient. "You people do realize that is Junius Seven, right?"
I was greeted with silence for several seconds, before Murrue finally spoke. "I should have guessed. It did look suspicious to me."
Mu sighed. "I heard wreckage from Junius Seven drifted into the debris belt, but I didn't think that included the main structure. Look at it, it's like a grave marker in space."
"Are we really going to take supplies from there? It's barbaric!" I shouted.
I wasn't raised in Junius Seven, but I could not see any benefits from raiding such a place. A place of odious atrocity, for no apparent reason than to start this violent, never-ending war. Then coming here, like grave robbers, moving the dead aside like they were nothing more than sandbags or something while stealing what remained? It was depravity. I didn't want to go in here, it felt like spitting on those who died just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
My imagination went haywire, and I briefly imagined a zombie apocalypse, ghosts possessing everyone, or some insane crew member killing anybody who ventured inside one by one . . . until he found a way to get onboard the Archangel and do the same to everyone in here. It took me ten seconds or so to get these ridiculous yet terrifying nightmares out of my head so I could refocus. I did just in time to hear Murrue.
"We are not going to be grave robbers, Cagalli. But we have a water shortage, and we need parts to repair the various malfunctions and damaged areas of the ship. We absolutely must have both of these things. Anything else is secondary, and that includes ammunition . . . which I doubt any ammunition we'd find would be compatable with the Archangel anyway," Murrue said.
"You're just justifying stealing from the dead," I said.
Miriallia stood up. "Cagalli, the water shortage is getting really bad. I was talking with Flay earlier, the civilians' water ration is being cut drastically. Flay doesn't even have enough to shower with."
"I don't care about Flay," I said.
"You should. The military's water ration is going to be cut next," Miriallia said. "Unless we take the water from Junius Seven, soon there won't be any water period."
"I can't believe you're saying that," I replied.
"You can't always do what's pretty," Mu said. "We need to survive, and that's how we're going to survive. Or would you rather keep your hands clean and join Junius Seven as a permanent part of the debris belt?"
He pointed at the wrecked colony, and I knew what he, Murrue, and Miriallia were all saying was right in that we needed to survive. But this . . . this wasn't living. No matter the justification, stealing from the dead is the wrong thing to do in my opinion.
But I knew there wasn't any choice. If water was that short, there was no guarantee we'd find anything else in the debris belt. We had to go in.
"Fine," I said. "But I'm not taking part in stealing the supplies."
"That wasn't the plan for you anyway," Natarle Badgiruel said, as she emerged from behind Murrue. "You're going to be running patrols outside with Mu and the Artemis pilots you rescued. In the event of enemy attack, you will have to hold any ZAFT forces off until everyone's back onboard. Not to mention there is a possibility the ZAFT may keep a small guard around here."
That just pissed me off. "Oh great, we murder soldiers just to steal from the dead. This gets better."
Murrue spoke so calmly that I had to take notice of her words. "There is no guarantee that there's soldiers in there, Cagalli. It's just something we have to take as it comes. Like everything else. Now, will you help or not?"
I looked at the others. I could see, whether they were friends, or just acquaintances, that there would be no changing their minds. I was in the minority, the fringe minority.
Survival trumped all.
"Yes, I'll help," I finally said.
Murrue smiled. "Thank you, Cagalli. I know this has to be hard on you, but please understand. There's no guarantee we'll find anything else out here. We don't have much of a choice."
"I understand." I took a deep breath, and closed my eyes. I did my best to collect myself. It has to be done, there's no choice, it has to be done, there's no choice, I kept telling myself.
But in the back of my mind, I wished that there was a better choice, that we had another option besides running out of water.
But the cold, stark fact was that we didn't.
I opened my eyes. "When do we get started?"
The answer turned out to be "as soon as possible". In a half-hour, I was in my piloting suit, and standing out in the hangar bay. I was surprised at the size of the search team going inside. It looked like a small army, at least to my untrained, civilian eyes. And I even saw Tolle among those donning space suits.
I floated towards him. "You're really going, Tolle?"
"I can make one trip before I need to change the bandages," Tolle said. "Junius Seven is the size of an entire city. They need as many people as possible to go inside. They're even stripping the bridge crew. I gotta go, Cagalli, even if it's only for one trip. They need people to carry the equipment, we're expecting to be melting a ton of ice."
"But . . ."
"It's not like I know enough about this ship to repair it," Tolle said. "We have mechanics for that. But they need go-fers, most of all. And if I can at least help melt some water or find a part the mechanic guys are really desperate for, that means I'm still useful."
I could not argue with Tolle the way I could argue with anyone else. Especially as I knew he was right. "Just be careful, okay?"
Tolle smiled broadly. "Don't worry, I will. No psycho base commanders with pistols waiting for us over there!"
He quickly realized his mistake. After all, there wouldn't be anyone around to meet him when he went over there, 'cause they were all dead, lest we forget. "Uh . . . sorry. I, uh . . ."
"It's okay." I tried to smile. "What kind of girlfriend am I if I can't even forgive one bad joke?"
My smile must have looked like the sickest thing in the solar system becaue Tolle couldn't quite meet my gaze. "Seriously, sorry."
"I said it's okay," I said. "Just do your thing and get back over here. And don't do anything to aggravate your wound. It hasn't been very long since you were shot. I don't need you bleeding in zero-G."
"Trust me, I know. I've bled enough already," Tolle said. He kissed me on the cheek. "I'll be safe, Cagalli. I promise. Kuzzey, Sai, and Miriallia are all coming with me, and I know you're hanging around outside the base to shoot any bad guys down. I know i'll be okay with all of you guys around."
"Thanks." I kissed him back. "I'll see you soon, okay?"
"I will," Tolle promised, and we traded an embrace before we went our separate ways.
As I went over to Mu La Flaga, I saw him standing around four people I had never seen before. Three men, and one woman. I realized quickly that they were the people I had rescued from Artemis' destruction.
Mu waved at me as I approached. "Hey, princess! I need you to take two of these fine pilots under your command."
"I'm not a princess," I said, almost by force of habit.
Mu sighed. "This is Vasili Federov and Natalya Trotsky. They're Russian, and I can't speak Russian, so . . . can you make do?"
I looked at the two of them. Vasili was tall and late-twenties, and Natalya was petite and early-twenties. Both had blonde hair and brown eyes, and if it weren't for their different facial structures they could be almost mistaken for siblings. It was actually kind of eerie to look at them.
I tried to be professional, and extended my hand. "I am Cagalli Yamato, pilot of the Strike Gundam. I look forward to working with the both of you," I said in Russian.
The Russians looked dumbstruck that I could speak their language. The man, Vasili, actually ran up and kissed me on the cheek in that passionate Russian way that disturbs everyone but other Russians. This would include me, even though I kinda saw it coming. Why Russians kiss people they never know will forever be a mystery to me.
After Vasili separated from me, I looked at the equally-dumbstruck Mu La Flaga and gave him a thumbs up. "I think I can manage."
Mu nodded. "I suppose so."
When it was my turn to fly out into the void, I felt sick. It wasn't my spacesickness, it goes away after enough time being weightless. It was the knowledge I was trepassing on the dead. I just hoped that the crew was living up to their promise, their orders, to only take what they needed, and not steal any possessions or valuables. Those things belonged with the dead, with the bodies.
They had been able to repair the Archangel while I was waiting for my turn to head outside. The engines were back up to full capacity and the small amount of battle scars were being patched up by a combination of suitable debris and what the extraction crews had been able to bring back. Water, however, was proving a scarce find, in the four or five hours that took up Mu's shift, they had only been able to find enough water for two more days at the current personnel level. Murrue wanted at least two weeks' worth.
Natarle Badgiruel had personally taken charge of the extraction team, and was now probing deeper in the colony with Miriallia and a few others, searching for something that stored water. Anything. That's what we needed the most.
And, just for the record, no survivors had been found. So, for right now, we weren't getting transported into a horror story involving monsters, mutants, ghosts, or crazed serial killers. Though Natarle was insistent on everyone staying in groups, just to be safe.
I ordered Vasili and Natalya to watch one side of the thinly defined "corridor" in-between the Archangel and Junius Seven and I would handle the other on my own. I thought it was strategically the smart thing to do, that my firepower would make up for being on my own, but it was hell on my nerves. I felt vulnerable, and surrounded by unseen, malignant spirits seeking to possess me, corrupt me, destroy me at every turn.
It had to be my imagination, but every few minutes, I would see a pale, nearly-invisible figure out of the corner of my eye. I would turn in the direction, and it would be gone.
"I'm sorry," I whispered softly after the fifth or sixth time that happened. "We're only here for water. We're not after your possessions. Please. I'm sorry."
It was another sign that my sanity was not at its peak. First was nearly laughing maniacally at Artemis' destruction, and now I was seeing things. Not good. Not good at all.
I cabled the Archangel. "Murrue, is Kira there, or did he go with the extraction team?"
"I believe he's still here, Cagalli. Why?" Murrue asked.
"I need to talk to someone or I'm going to lose it out here," I said. "And I'm not going to have my new wingmates think I'm going crazy. Please, just send someone to find him and bring him on the line."
A pause. Then Murrue said "I understand. He'll be here soon."
As I waited, I saw what seemed to be another ghostly figure out of the corner of my right eye. I spun the Strike in the direction, aiming the Launcher Pack's artillery where I had seen it, but it was gone. I was chasing phantoms, figments of my imagination. But they seemed so real, so plausible, out here by myself.
"I'm sorry," I whispered. "Please don't hurt me. Don't hurt anybody. We're not going to stay here. Don't hurt us."
It was foolish, but in my mind, it seemed like words were the only things I could use to defend myself. Like some invisible shield was rising around me, preventing the phantoms from reaching in and spiriting me away to their reality, where there was no such thing as eternal peace or being laid to rest.
I didn't want to see their horrible, painful world, their purgatory, their hellish realm of undeserved pain and suffering. I wanted to stay here. I wanted to live. And there was no charm, no pendant, that shielded me from these spirits. I wished I had a cross, a Star of David, a crescent, anything. Something that would ward these beings away.
And the trouble was, these spirits lived in one area: my imagination, and I could not tell my imagination to shut down. My imagination was completely out of control and feeding me nightmares while I was wide awake. That is not good for your state of mind, let me tell you. You start hating your imagination and your creativity after a while.
Kira came on the line. "Cagalli, you all right? Murrue says you need to talk to me."
Now that I had him, I realized I had no clue what to discuss with him. After some quick soul-searching, I grasped at the first straw I could find. "About Heliopolis. What made you want to investigate Morgenroete?"
A brief pause. "Oh, that. Um, I wasn't happy with the rumors I was hearing about Morgenroete building Mobile Suits for the Earth Alliance, and I asked my father to investigate the Heliopolis facility. My father gave me permission. Not like there's anything I could have done to stop Morgenroete from producing the machines at that point, all five were pretty close to being done as you know pretty well."
"And then you just walked in."
"Nobody shuts the door on the prince of Orb," Kira said with a short laugh. "Being a royal causes a lot of doors to open. After all, after my father dies, I'm going to be their leader. I'm going to find out about their activities one way or another, might as well be now, you know?"
"I wish I was in your position."
"You'd probably drive my father crazy," Kira replied.
I laughed. "Yeah, I would. I don't think I'm the 'royal' type at all."
Kira changed the subject. "Seriously, Cagalli, you doing okay out there? Lieutenant Ramius is concerned about you."
"Just stressed out, that's all."
Kira's voice turned skeptical. "You sure that's all there is?"
I paused, wondering what to say. Finally, I decided to tell him the truth, even though I would look stupid. "Kira, do you believe in ghosts?"
Kira realized what was going on immediately. "You think you're seeing things out there, flying around."
"Yeah," I admitted softly.
"I understand. You're not the only one who's thinking about ghosts. That red-haired girl you seem to know . . . Flay, right? She's all freaked out right now, she thought she saw a ghost too."
"Yeah, but she's Flay. I'd almost expect her to do that."
"Anyone can get spooked, Cagalli. You're not the only person. Even an atheist can suddenly find himself believing in the supernatural, in what comes after, given the right circumstances. It's only human. Now calm down out there, okay? The Strike has plenty of power left since you haven't been shooting anything. Do a short patrol around, take a look around."
"Like I want to see any more of this lovely scenery," I replied.
Kira sighed. "It'll help, Cagalli. Trust me. And remember, you're not alone out there. We're all in the same boat right now."
"Thank you, Kira."
"I'll stay on the line. It's kind of cool to be on the bridge right now, anyway. There's so many buttons for Lieutenant Ramius to tell me not to push."
I admit it, that made me laugh. "What, her buttons or the Archangel's buttons?"
"Both. And I think I'm pushing Lieutenant Ramius' buttons right now by joking about her," Kira said, a sheepish tone creeping into his voice. "Let's drop the subject. Just fly around. Everything's okay, Cagalli."
"Okay." I slowly accelerated the Strike, and began navigating my way through the debris.
The Launcher Pack, meant for long-range, was a curious choice to bring into the middle of a debris field. The advantage, however, was that the Launcher's weaponry could shoot through entire pieces of debris, vaporize them, and still hit its target. The thought was that the sheer power would give me an advantage, especially if I gained the element of surprise.
Personally, I found it a bit of a risk, but I needed to improve with the Launcher Pack anyway, and now was as good of a time as any to give it a spin.
That was when my console beeped.
I immediately stopped the Strike. I looked at my sensors, and realized that the Strike had managed to detect an enemy. I immediately pulled up close to the nearest significant piece of debris I could find and hid. and slowly poked the Strike above the debris so I could get a visual.
I saw a civilian ship in the distance, it seemed to have little, if any, armaments. And it was damaged. Badly damaged. Inoperable. It hadn't been completely blown apart, but it didn't look like it could run or even support life. It also looked too new to be part of the Junius Seven wreckage, which made me think it had to be some kind of ceremonial group who had gotten caught up in something. Whether they had been unable to avoid debris or had been attacked was immaterial, but they were in serious trouble, if not already dead.
My sensors beeped again as something else was detected. I zoomed in using my rifle's scope.
A GINN.
A long-range reconnaissance GINN, to be exact. And it wasn't moving either, but showed no signs of battle damage.
Then I saw something. A lone figure, emerging from the wrecked civilian ship.
The pilot, wearing the standard green ZAFT uniform.
Not good. This was not far from the Archangel at all, and dumb luck was the only reason why it, me, or anybody else hadn't been picked up by the GINN's sensors yet. It was only a matter of time before it did, though, especially at this close range. One move in the wrong direction, and it would find us. And the Archangel was in an exceedingly vulnerable position right now. If reinforcements got called while we were so vulnerable . . .
There was no choice.
The pilot entered the GINN and shut the hatch. It was too late to blow up the GINN and save the pilot. Any second, an extraction team would launch either form Junius Seven or the Archangel, and it could alert the GINN's sensors.
No choice. No choice at all. It was still sitting right there, an easy mark, and by destroying it, and the pilot, the Archangel would still have a few hours to grab what we needed before we'd have to vacate the area.
Or not even that much. All ZAFT knew was that we were somewhere in the debris belt, and they knew that a long-range GINN was in the debris belt. They didn't know where we were, and how would they know where the GINN was?
I aimed right at the torso of the GINN and fired.
The GINN was ripped in half as the torso, and presumably the pilot, was vaporized. The remaining two pieces of the GINN both exploded seconds later, obliterating the Mobile Suit completely. The GINN had no time to react, or sound an alarm, or anything.
It was an efficient, cold-blooded kill.
And it was terrifying to realize I was capable of that. No, not just capable. I had done that. And now that I had, I could do it again.
And again.
It was easier this time, too. Compared to the previous three pilots I had killed, this one was professional, cold, calculated. I had planned it like a soldier, and had gotten my kill.
I was turning into a soldier a little more every time I stepped into this cockpit.
I heard Murrue's voice almost immediately after I shot the GINN down. "Cagalli, we've detected a shot fired. What happened?"
"There was a long-range GINN near the Junius Seven entry point," I said. "I had to shoot it down."
Silence. Then Murrue asked "How could a GINN get this close to us?"
"The debris is interfering with everything. It could be hours, even days, before ZAFT has any idea of what happened to it," I said. "I'll keep an eye out for reinforcements."
As if on cue, my console beeped again, and I immediately raised the Strike's artillery, ready to fire at any arriving backup. But I didn't see any GINNs. It took me a moment to realize the object I'm detecting wasn't any Mobile Suit, it's a lifepod.
I brought it up on the screen. It's a tiny, one-man lifepod, and it was not functioning very well, the engines seemed to be damaged. But some lights were still working, suggesting that whoever was onboard still had to be alive.
It was close to the civilian ship that had been destroyed. The pieces came together in my head. The civilian ship had carried some important ZAFT person, and a GINN had come all this way into the middle of the debris belt in search of that all likelihood, this important ZAFT person had been shoved into a lifepod and launched, but its engines had been damaged by debris or something shortly after leaving the civilian vessel.
I knew what I had to do.
By the time I had brought the lifepod onboard, the extraction teams were taking a break from their work, and most of the personnel had returned, including Natarle Badgiruel. She was not happy with me.
She did not raise her voice, but the look in her eyes suggested I was on the verge of crossing a line. "You need to stop putting yourself at risk over lifepods. This is becoming a bad habit, Cagalli Yamato. One of these days you are not going to be safe while you're off being a hero."
"Like you would expect any of us to let this guy rot in space," Mu said curtly. "Anyway, look at it this way. We just got ourselves a P.O.W. Some important ZAFT guy's now out of the war."
Natarle pursed her lips. "True, I suppose."
Kojiro Murdoch had been busy cracking the unlock codes. The ZAFT person inside hadn't been inclined to open the door, perhaps the person literally couldn't open the door. There was no radio communication either, the receiver appeared to be damaged. Natarle summed it up as "he might be able to hear us, but we can't hear him . . . or her."
A beeping noise echoed throughout the hangar bay. Then Murdoch sighed. "Opening . . ."
The door hissed, and flew open. I peered inside, and then got attacked by a hopping pink ball.
Not joking.
"Haro! Haro!" the mechanical doofus-thing yelped as it jumped up and down and bounded over my head. I recognized it from somewhere, but I was so surprised I couldn't recall where exactly.
And then it occurred to me. And I felt like I was going to collapse. I spun around, and tried to keep myself from staying conscious.
I saw the person emerge from the lifepod, and it was one of the last people I ever wanted to see.
Ms. Hypocrite herself, the daughter of the Supreme Chairman whose warmongering was helping prolong the war while she sang pop songs of hope and idealism.
"No," I whispered, so softly no one else seemed to hear me. "Not you."
But it was true, and no amount of denial was going to change that.
She smiled so gently, so innocently. "Hello there, thank you for saving me. My name is Lacus Clyne."
She paused as she looked around at all of our collectively stunned faces. "Uh, this is a ZAFT ship, right?"
Heaven help me.
