Author Note: I've gone through my email, and will be checking my profile email account again, if anyone wants to send me PM's, for whatever reason. I saw a few of the recent ones, and I'm honored and flattered that people would include my characters and ideas into their own stories... its a wonderful compliment, thank you. I unfortunately deleted the message before starting this reply, but whomever wanted to do that side story, or "Gaiden" I think you called it, after Chaotic Cosmos chapter 16, by all means PLEASE DO SO. I would love it. And consider this overarching permission to everyone else... I have no qualms about people borrowing or expanding upon my work... if you want to run with something, by all means, go where it takes you. If you like it, tell me about it... if you don't like it, oh well, hopefully you had fun. This is going to sound slightly arrogant, but really, I have little fear of my work being plagarized... writing style is like a very unique signature, I think, and I'm confident my writing stands out as my writing.
Hmm, review replies, let me see. Mixed feelings on the Haros. Do I hate them? Well, they annoy me, certainly. Altogether they're a bit too easy to dislike in my opinion... I understand the principles of comic relief, but I feel its a role better enacted by a full on character, rather than a bouncy pink robot ball. Besides, if I WAS going to try and spy on Lacus Clyne, bugging her Haro or Haro's would be a great way of doing it. Same way for assassinating her even... green Haro hops up, anti-personnel mine inside, burbles and "KABOOM"... no more Lacus. The things, upon reflection, are a menace, disregarding even their annoying swarming habits. Let's see, starting at the bottom... Archangel2385, the reason Alkire didn't go SEED mode is because he can't. All humans may have the Seed, latently, but only a very few can actually use it. And like I said in my review reply, Cyprus used a gun with the Seed during his fight with MAGOS and Frost. Sai's wife's name was Vanai. And if you were trapped in a pink toy ball for five years, unable to speak, I wonder how you'd feel.
Asmus, yes. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with Hazy at the moment... he's good for illustrating the not so good sides of PLANT and Coordinator society, so yeah, he'll probably be back eventually. Good idea about Melanie and the Zam clan. Shoulda thought of that myself. And yeah, the Clyne Faction will pretty much know Noah is the antagonist here soon. Trick is... what the hell are they going to do about it? So far he hasn't done anything to them that a court would believe... taking people to court for mindrape, putting you in a coma or attempted murder by remote heart stoppage won't get you far with most judges... but it is always good to know someone out there is being big and nasty and bad-guyish, I suppose.
Is there something more sinister to Noah just up and letting Kira go? Well, he did promise to help Randolf take Kira down... but he never really specified when. And you're very right... as a fellow Ultimate Coordinator, Noah definitely holds Lacus and Kira in higher regard than he does poor Randolf, who is, however useful, still just a pawn/tool. Of course, trampling all over Randolfs plans doesn't exactly endear the two of them to each other... hmm... I wonder if this might be more foreshadowing for something else... well, I'll let the story tell that, eh? Rihaku... well, I know that is what I've said, that the Brotherhood is minding every electronic comm device in the PLANTS, and even on Earth. That is what everyone believes anyway. And its not that far fetched... the National Security Agency in the United States does something similar, though really its just a search for key words or certain phrases, not actually listening in to everything said. If I had to be more specific I'd say the Brotherhood does exactly that... they have automated programs searching for words like "Brotherhood" or "Terrorists" or "Borander" or other such things, and whenever they get a hit, it then goes to another program for recording, and is then passed through several more filtering programs before it ever gets to anyone human. Because of the advanced state of computers in Cosmic Era, this probably happens in a matter of seconds. Are they really "listening" to everything... no. But that's the impression they like to keep people under.
Regarding your other question, about the Biological Intelligence Interface Chip characters... Melanie, Phlegethion, Aether, the Zam Clan, and, in some ways, Frost... yes, they are rather deluded. But that is because they aren't whole minds... just the parts of those minds Noah wanted to draw out and use, from people who suffered severe mental and physical trauma before they even got hooked up to the BIIC machine. They're all "damaged" at the very least, if not totally insane. Second part of it is harder to say... not sure if even I know. I mean, from one standpoint, since the original body dies, I suppose the actual consciousness is transplanted. One the other hand, he's using electronic means to record data stimulated from the mind, which is what actually encodes on the chip, and that would make it a copied consciousness. Does a copy become an original if there are no other originals or copies around, especially as the BIIC's only have vague memories of their time before being BIIC's? Feels like I'm getting into Ghost in the Shell territory.
Noah calling Lacus Eve is kinda creepy... but everyone was off balance just from the finding of the animals in the Ark, much less being addressed by a floating dodecahedron, with a fully intelligent Haro-girl and a two foot tall T-Rex in attendance. It'll get commented upon later. Turyaza... well, yes, Noah/Meyrin is in many ways similar to Ashino/Jean. Like I said in my review reply though, there are some differences I'm hoping to explore. Ashino was a victim, kidnapped as a child, given no choice but to become a BCPU, and everything since then has been him warring against his internal programming... man vs machine, on a soul level. Whether or not Noah is a victim... well, thats something you'll have to decide for yourselves at the conclusion of ED. In any case, he's got ALL the choices Ashino never had... its just a matter of which ones he takes, and whether his involvement with Meyrin is what pulls him away from the brink... pushes him over it... or keeps him centered upon it.
In any case, on with my show.
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"... and once more, I'd like to stress that despite the tone of my arguements, I have nothing but the highest degree of respect for Queen Zala-Attha and her firm, steady guidance of Orb through its trials and tribulations, both past and present. It is merely her intractable and frankly irrational opposition to the current USN military policies that concerns me, and concerns me deeply enough that despite my personal feelings, I have seen no other option but to come forward and make my case to Parliament as a whole." Unato Ema Seiran, head of the Seiran family, most prominent of the other four Royal Orb houses, said, his well modulated voice calm and firm, nary a hint of any internal thoughts he might be having crossing his placid, somewhat saggy face. He looked up from the microphone on the speaker's booth on the floor of the Parliament hall, regarding his fellow members of Parliament with piercingly beady eyes behind his blocky orange glasses. The legislative assembly hall was packed to capacity today, for this emergency meeting he'd managed to create, through much political maneuevering. Unato smiled inwardly as his gaze passed across the Royal Observation Booth, on the center of the second level of the assembly hall, directly across from his podium. Today was a day of reckoning, a day of repayment, of a history of wrongs done to him and his family being righted. He was enjoying himself, he could not lie.
"Smug bastard." Cagalli muttered, meeting Unato's gaze squarely, though she kept a confident smile plastered across her face, her lips barely moving as she spoke just loud enough for Athrun to hear her from the chair next to her. Her fingers tangled with his below the balcony lip, out of sight of anyone on the floor below, reassuring her with the steady, unyielding grip. It had been a long, painful day so far, and it was looking like it wasn't going to get much happier in the next four or five hours. Cagalli was glad of every last iota of support that Athrun could give her at this point in time... at least one person wasn't abandoning her or stabbing her in the back! It felt at times that everyone else certainly was! She cursed herself for a fool, for not realizing how her own actions and policies had been formenting this degree of discontent in her very own backyard! She'd only ever been trying to do the right thing for the world, was that so wrong? Apprently, it was.
"He definitely has an arrogantly triumphant poise to him." Athrun agreed. Unlike Cagalli, he wasn't obliged by political custom to appear calm, controlled, happy or anything else pleasant, and he was taking full advantage of that to glare daggers at Unato, the same way he'd done for all the previous speakers that had presented arguements against Cagalli during this emergency Parliament hearing. There had been precious few members of the legislative body, none of them very senior, who had opted to argue in favor of Cagalli's current course as Chief Representative. Athrun was pissed at himself for allowing Cagalli to be entrapped by this sudden surge of discontent... he took it upon himself to not only smooth things over with foreign diplomats, but also to keep Cagalli's sharp edges from cutting the pride of her own supporters too deeply... but if today was any judge of his efforts, then he was a dismal failure in that regard. Not only did it rankle because of that, but he was as aware of the truly dangerous nature of this first questioning of Cagalli's authority as was Cyprus, or any major political analyst.
Simply put, if Unato Seiran, and his supporters, which were most of the old guard and senior members of the legislature and judiciary, could get the voting support, the seventy percent majority they needed to over-rule Cagalli's decision to oppose the USN's Solar Protection Fleet and Solar Knights initiatives, then Cagalli could kiss her reign as an effective Chief Representative goodbye. Once the political opposition won one victory, they would then press harder on other issues, eventually garnering the majority support to over-rule her on those as well. It wouldn't happen all at once of course... but if Cagalli lost today, then that would be the mortal wound that would in the end eventually kill her administration.
Bluntly, many of her policies, however well recieved they might be by the public of both Orb and the rest of the USN, chafed like rough sandpaper to the political sensibilities of even her staunch supporters. Cagalli was well known as a political maverick, heedless of the rules at the best of times, when she wasn't actively breaking them! She allowed no "pork" into her public works bills and pretty much did her best to put commercial-political lobbyists out of business. She played no favorites and came down like a ton of bricks on anyone that tried to play things a little shady with their influence or insider knowledge, even if it was to her indirect benefit. She granted no tax exemptions to the rich, gave no bailouts for failing companies, and was frankly a merciless bitch when it came to dealing with the "woe is me" complaints from various people and organizations coming to her for money to help fix their own, largely self caused problems. Orb had publicly provided health care, and a "safety net" version of social security, but it only paid for up to two months of inactivity, unless there were medical or other special, case by case considerations. In her opinion, if you weren't willing to make an effort to help yourself, then Orb wasn't obliged to make your effort for you in the slightest. No free lunches, sorry... survival of the fittest and law abiding only.
Not only that, but she was a young female national leader. Sexism was publicly a thing of the past, but still, in reality, only in the PLANTS were women a truly equal part of politics, facing not even the slightest bit of prejudice or extra expectations that they did in other governments. Some of the nations of the FNE had had female leaders before, but they were abnormalities in the system, and few lasted longer than a single term of office. Too many cultures in the world were still disdainful of the concept of women as leaders for their administrations to be very productive or effective. Even in Orb or other Royalistic Democracies, with both a heriditary ruler and a democratically elected government that did the actual work of running the nation, the people usually running the show were male, regardless of the gender of the heriditary ruler. Of course that also brought up the point that Cagalli was both the Queen, the heriditary ruler and the Chief Representative, which was a post relatively synonymous with Prime Minister or President, being the person in charge of the actual Government. Such a thing wasn't completely unknown in Orb's history, since her father, Uzumi Nara-Attha had been both King and Chief Represenative, but again, it had always been a male before.
As if all that wasn't offense enough to the sensibilities of the traditional elements of the government and the other Royal families, but she was married to Athrun Zala, had indeed taken his name for her own instead of forcing him to take hers, which was Orb custom when an outsider married into a Royal family. While again, publicly Athrun Zala was widely admired and beloved, especially in the PLANTS, which lent Orb significant diplomatic advantages with the Coordinator nation, many senior political figures in Orb and throughout Earth still blamed him for the sins of his Father, and were highly suspicious of his motives at the very least. No, Cagalli Zala-Attha had done precious little to endear herself to many important political figures in her own government and elsewhere... but up until recently, she'd enjoyed such an overwhelming degree of public support no politician would have dared speak out against her, for fear of ruining their own career to no advantage. But that had changed, with the defeat of the Orb Special Projects squadron outside LAS, and the triumph of the Solar Knights. And like a house built of cards, no matter how impressive it was, when the support wavered in the wind, so did the entirety of the building.
Cagalli saw Unato gathering himself for another long winded, rambling, and subtly self righteous series of speeches. It was almost like the man was trying to bore her to death or some sort of impulsive action. She snorted quietly... she may be idealistic, but she wasn't naive. She wasn't going to throw herself at the mercy of the wolves any more than she had to, or tie the noose around her own neck for him either. She was keeping her fiery temper under tight check today, helped by Athrun's quiet, steady presence. Nothing would get to her today, no matter what was said or how preposterous or self serving it was. She was totally untouchable... an ice sculpture! There would be no public scenes from her, for Unato and his cronies to latch onto and use as fuel for their "concerned public citizens" act. She didn't like acting with such stifling political decorum... it felt like she was being false to herself, and worse to her father... but she could make the sacrifice when needed. She was shocked that her opponents didn't seem to realize that. "Your pardon, Lord Seiran, but could I ask for a short intermission before you continue? I'm sure we could all use a brief respite, even from such important business as this." Cagalli spoke into the microphone cunningly concealed into the banister in front of her.
Unato closed his mouth, eyeing her fiercely, obviously wondering what sort of devious political ploy this was. Cagalli just looked back at him calmly. To be honest, while it would be nice to have an ulterior political motive, a backup plan she was implementing during the break that would kick Unato's support out from under him in one fell swoop, that wasn't the case at all. She didn't have anything like that level of support, that much had been made agonizingly clear to her during the speeches and testimony preceeding Unato's. No, she just wanted to take a break, go to the bathroom maybe, get a cold drink, maybe get a breath of fresh air to keep her head clear... perhaps even find a convenient punching bag to tear apart for a few minutes... simple staples of life like that. They'd been going for close to three hours straight since the last break, and they'd been at it since early in the morning.
"Well, what I have to say is very important, Mrs. Chief Representative, but I suppose a ten minute recession wouldn't hurt." Unato allowed slowly, still maintaining eye lock with Cagalli, trying to bore into her mind, looking for the slightest hint as to her intentions. She didn't give him a thing. She must have been practising... usually Cagalli was an open book, her emotions and thoughts plain upon her face. It allowed her to be disgustingly endearing to the public, but it also made it easy for experienced hands like Unato to read her moods and intentions to their own advantage. Not today though. He shrugged inside... it didn't really matter. She was doomed, and every person there knew it. It was all but over, except for the crying. She could thrash and protest all she wanted, she was practically interred in her political grave already, from the moment the public had started questioning the wisdom of opposing USN SecDef Durandel after LAS. Unato stepped away from the podium and headed over towards the Parliament seats reserved for the Seiran family, where his closest supporters were not being nearly so self controlled in their wide smiling jubilation as he was.
Cagalli waited until she and Athrun, along with Kisaka and their two Stormhound escorts of the day, the towering Sergeant-Major Glory and Sergeant Kurtz, had reached a private study-office along the outer edge of the Parliament building and she and Athrun had gone out onto the outside balcony before she allowed her calm smile and placid expression to fall away to reveal the firestorm beneath. She kicked the wrought iron balcony as hard as she could, unmindful of the pain in her foot, her hands gripping the sun warmed banister so hard that her knuckles turned entirely white. She desperately wanted to yell, wordlessly even, just to let the pressure inside out, but she dared not, not in semi-public like this. Athrun's arms encircled her gently from behind, and he pulled her back into him in a tight embrace, resting his cheek on the top of her head, her hands clasped with his before them. Cagalli sighed and relaxed slightly back into him. "Well, this hasn't been a very fun day." She murmured.
"Well it could be worse. They could be shooting guns at us." Athrun replied with a smirk.
"I'd almost prefer that. Then I could shoot back. Right now I just have to sit there and smile confidently, like none of this bothers me." Cagalli sighed again, more heavily. "I can't even daydream about stomping them all flat with the Dawn Goddess... if I miss even the slightest detail, it could be the final nail in my coffin." She looked up at the nigh cloudless blue sky. "I wonder how Kira, Lacus and the others are doing. I wonder if they've found out anything concrete yet."
"I'm sure they'll be fine." Athrun smiled. "I'm hard pressed to think of anything that could slow down Alkire and Cyprus together, much less Kira and Lacus. And then there's Ysak and Katie to consider. Hell, they'll probably just use those mental powers of theirs to figure out where the terrorists are coming from without even leaving Lacus's house, for all I know. No, there is absolutely nothing to worry about with them, trust me. If anything, they're probably even more bored than you and I are. The chances of them actually finding anything concrete out about the Brotherhood is very slim, and the chances of actually encountering the Brotherhood even slimmer."
"I was expecting a call at least though." Cagalli shrugged. There were a hundred reasons why their friends had not yet gotten in contact with them... for all she knew, they'd been trying, she was just too wrapped up in the Parliament meeting to answer her private comm lines. She debated checking her messages, but decided against it. Like Athrun said, there was no reason to worry... she could check up on them after they got this damned emergency meeting out of the way, whichever way it went. Cagalli glanced around furtively for a moment, not seeing anyone else within easy line of sight. Athrun had already loosened his embrace, intuiting what was going through her mind. He bent his head down as she turned to meet him, and their lips met for several long, enjoyable seconds. "Thanks. I needed that worse than a cold drink." Cagalli whispered, resting her head against his chest.
"Happy to provide necessary sustenance when called upon." Athrun smiled, touching his forehead to hers, lifting her chin with one hand for a second round. "If it's any further consolation, I'm pretty sure I saw some of the older Representatives snoozing, even during their so called hour of victory. Unato bores them just as much as he does you and me. I don't think he'll last long as Chief Representative, assuming he can even force people to elect him."
"Excuse me? Are we making out or discussing political problems?" Cagalli asked breathlessly, cutting him off with another kiss before he could reply.
"Just striving to make the most efficient use of time available." Athrun grinned, once he had his lips to himself again. "It pains me to say it, love, but I think we'd best consider how we're going to deal with not being in charge anymore."
"Take a long vacation, start acting like real Royalty again?" Cagalli's own smile was somewhat bitter. Not for her the life of idle luxury... she couldn't turn her eyes away from the world when it needed her, even if the world wanted to turn its eyes away from her. "Do you really think I have no chance?"
"I think that we both underestimated the degree of animosity between us and many of the movers and shakers of the other government branches. We saw how everything was getting done the way we wanted it, and didn't stop to consider how bitter and angry it was making people privately. I hate to admit it, but we've caught the short end of the stick here... Durandel's policies, no matter how suspicious we find them, have captured the public eye, and his political acumen has captured the support of the traditionalists across the world. He's a man who plays by their own rules, and he plays better than any of them, which they respect and admire, even if many of them don't like him personally. He's a natural leader in their eyes, whereas us... well, we lead just as well, but we step on a lot of toes to do it. People I thought before this morning to be staunch supporters of us were among the first to testify against us, and many more followed their lead. Not preparing for the worst at this point in time would be stupid." Athrun replied more seriously.
"So what should I do then? Just give up and resign myself to eventually having all my major decisions that are unpopular with these damn traditionalists get overrulled, one at a time?" Cagalli's distaste for that idea dripped from every word.
"You, give up?" Athrun's tone was sardonically disbelieving. "I don't think that's possible, nor smart. I'm just saying that maybe we should do a strategic reconsideration... we've probably lost this battle, but this battle is not the war. I think we should fight this thing to the bitter end, go down kicking and screaming and biting and clawing, so to speak, even though we know we're going to lose. It'll feed their egos, while at the same time it'll make them hesitant, make them waste resources, political and otherwise. It'll give us time to work something else out, while they re-marshal themselves and search for truly overwhelming force, to prevent us from making a scene again. The last thing either side wants is to make this dissent a major public issue, but when it comes down to it..."
"The public is still largely mine." Cagalli finished softly. "It's playing dirty, but sometimes you have to get covered in blood and guts in order to come out ahead. It hurts them more to make this a public scandal, and the same for whatever the next disruption down the line is. I can take having the press crawling through every aspect of my life... I have nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of! I wonder if Unato and his friends can hold up so damned well against such scrutiny!? They want me to go down in flames, well then so be it... but I'll drag them through purgatory with me, and may the righteous and worthy be the ones to make the crossing to the end!"
"There's the vicious girl I love so much." Athrun chuckled. "Who tried to kill me even after I spared your life and then saved it. Unapologetic and unwavering to the last."
"And if things go really sour, I can always resign from being Chief Representative of my own free will, and choose a sucessor myself. Letting them override me is bad enough, I won't let them humiliate me by impeaching me!" Cagalli growled. "Morganroete Armories is majority owned by me, once you get through all that legal bullshit, and I'm still the goddamned Queen of Orb... I didn't want to be, but they MADE me be Queen, so now they're damn well stuck with me! Maybe I'll choose that bastard Unato... or better yet his son, that turdball Yuna! He'd be thrown out of office before he even got to sit down behind my desk!" Cagalli chuckled at the image. "They may be united against me, mostly, but they're hardly united in the real sense of the word. I kinda like that idea actually... if Unato wants my job so damned bad, maybe I should GIVE it to him! Everyone would think that he and I were in cahoots about it, and his own allies would murder him in his bed, politically speaking. I'm still young, I could step back in after he makes a bloody hash of things and fix it with a little work."
"It's worked for opposing political parties for centuries." Athrun acknowledged. "No matter how badly they may have sucked the last time they were in control, after letting the opposition royally fuck up for a few terms, they find themselves cast in a golden light, buoyed up by the "well, they can't POSSIBLY be as bad as the last guys" philosophy. Politics is so wonderful that way. I mean, I'm leery of the idea of putting Unato, much less Yuna, in charge during this crisis with the Brotherhood, but really, there's always going to be a crisis of some magnitude going on somewhere, so I suppose there really is no "good time" for this sort of thing. And since they'd both go crying to the USN for protection, at least we wouldn't have to worry about too much of a negative impact on the lives of our citizens. All the responsibility for protecting people would go to the USN."
"Wouldn't we be playing into Durandel's hands by doing that though?" Cagalli chewed her lip thoughtfully. "I mean, speaking of just Orb, individually, by resigning and letting Unato or Yuna or someone else take the flak and ire from everyone for a few years would probably be not too bad a thing, for us personally and for Orb in a long term sense, but I still can't bring myself to trust Durandel even slightly. I can't prove a damn thing, but I just know that there's more to the timing of these terrorist attacks than just pure chance! He's dirty... he's fucking filthy! For all I know, he's in control of the Brotherhood, or working closely with whoever is! You're right, pretty much anyone I choose to succeed me would run to the USN for support and help. I could fix the damage my own people do to Orb... I'm not so sure I could fix what Durandel would do to us after a few years of sinking his damn claws in!"
"Thorny road." Athrun agreed. It wasn't like he had the answer for everything. Or even many things. Like Cagalli, all he could do was suggest what he thought was the best course of action, and do his damndest to follow it to the best conclusion he could. This time it was he who cut her off with a kiss... he didn't see any more advantage in continuing down this line of thought for the moment. They lost themselves in the feel of each other, and the warm sunlight of the early afternoon, for some time, until a polite clearing of a throat from the doorway leading back to the office interior brought them back to the here and now, flushed and slightly out of breath. They both turned their heads towards the source of the cough, slightly embarassed by having lost track of time.
Kisaka had an eyebrow cocked at them, though the expression on his craggy face, while not exactly a smile, was still quite benevolent, at least to those who were familiar with him. He glanced down at his wristwatch and then brought his gaze back up to regard the two of them, amused at their sheepish looks. As if he'd never walked in on them when they were doing things a great deal more embarassingly private than simply holding each other and kissing. It was almost chaste behavior, considering some of what he'd seen or heard of them doing. He could hardly begrudge them seeking solace within their mutual affection considering the events of the day, and the likely aftermath. They were still very young people after all, barely out of college age. He tried to imagine himself at their age, in their position. The image wouldn't come to mind, it was just too preposterous. He'd been a sullen, self centered and altogether not very pleasant young man when he was their age, certainly not the sort of person that would make even a slightly acceptable national leader.
"How much time left?" Athrun asked, keeping his arm around Cagalli's waist and keeping her close. One of many plus sides to a formal marriage... he was no longer obliged to keep his hands to himself in public, regardless of the audience, and a big screw you to anyone who tried to disapprove of him for it. "We were, uh, discussing political strategy, and well, kinda got caught up in it and..."
"I wish my political strategy discussions went like yours do." Glory commented dryly from within the office. "I might actually get into politics with THAT kind of incentive. We still got about ninety seconds, don't worry."
"I dunno, I wouldn't give me too many ideas, Sergeant-Major." Cagalli retorted with a wicked smile, as they walked back into the room, arm in arm. "I was just considering a nasty strategic booby trap involving free willed resignation and designation of my own sucessor. While it would be amusing for me to set one of my enemies up for a fall by selecting them, it might also be interesting to put someone completely new in office... I mean, really, how badly could you screw it up? Not any worse than Unato or Yuna, certainly."
"It'd be kinda hard to do worse than that vermin Yuna." Kurtz acknowledged with a wide grin. "You could take a shit on your desk and it'd be a better Chief Representative than he would. Be of better character and smell too."
"There's an image for my private gag list, the next time I need to induce vomiting." Cagalli muttered with a queasy shiver. "Chief Representative Glory has a nice ring to it, I should think." She added, getting her composure back.
"Uh, no." Glory held up both his hands in a firm negative. "Thanks, but I don't do so well living under a microscope. Though I'd definitely recommend the Lt..."
"Yeah, not going to happen." Cagalli answered, with a different sort of shiver. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm sure he'd do a pretty good job, but I wonder how many Representatives would suffer "mysterious accidents" or "sudden disappearances" with him in charge?"
"Surely not too many more than the number of them that tried to get cute with him like they're getting cute with you." Kurtz's grin grew even wider. "Sometimes you've just got to burn the house down to get all the roaches out."
"You could put Kira in charge. Technically, as your brother, he's a member of the Royal family." Kisaka suggested, almost idly. The room went quiet at that thought.
"Tempting." Cagalli said after a long moment of consideration. "It would definitely give him something to do with all that damned energy Lacus complains about. But for all his faults, I do like Kira, and he is my little brother. It would be just too mean to dump this on him, and Lacus has enough problems without vicariously dragging her into it as well."
"So wait, you care too much about Kira to dump it on him, but you'd dump it on me without hesitating?" Glory asked mournfully. "It's so nice to be loved..."
"It's the fate of underlings to suffer under their master's will." Cagalli replied mercilessly. "If you don't like it, make a union, and then I can roll my eyes in exasperation at you just like I do to everyone else."
"A union? Please, I do have some personal pride." Glory grinned. "Besides, if I didn't like suffering, why the hell would I be a Stormhound?"
"A question I ask myself most mornings, Sergeant-Major." This time it was Kurtz's turn to be mournful, drawing smiles from everyone else. Kisaka led the way back to the Royal Observation Box, with Athrun and Cagalli behind him and the two Stormhounds in back. They arrived scant seconds before Unato was due to resume his speech, he was already down at his platform, eyeing the ROB and the clock alternatively, obviously hoping that they would be late, so he could subtly criticize Cagalli for not giving the emergency meeting its due respect, but she appeared in her designated position before that minor dream could become a reality. Unato shrugged inwardly and shuffled his notes, though he really had no need of them. He'd been preparing this speech for a long time, all it took was some minor modifications to incorporate recent events, the basic structure and tone was unchanged.
He was just opening his mouth to pick up where he'd left off when the entire Parliament building vibrated sharpely, not just once, but several times in quick succession, before the sound of thunderclaps echoed mutedly from outside. The vibrations were intense enough to cause Unato to lose his balance for a moment, and he flailed until he grabbed hold of his podium to steady himself. "What the hell!?" He shouted, looking around in cunfused indignation. What the devil was this disturbance? An earthquake? A volcanic eruption? A freak thunderstorm? Nothing seemed plausible. Unato turned his eyes up towards the ROB and blanched, because the Stormhounds and Colonel Kisaka were in plain view, weapons drawn and ready, listening intently to some reports over their comm system. Unato's face went even whiter as the two Stormhounds donned their helmets, something which they never did except before imminent confrontation as far as he knew.
"Mrs. Chief Representative... I demand to know what is going o...!?" Unato dived for the floor, along with almost everyone else as the roof caved in without warning, a huge hole being blasted in it by an large object screaming down from the heavens. The object impacted in the middle of the Parliament floor, crushing dozens beneath its bulk and gouging out a deep crater, the shock of impact throwing shrapnel and debris around the room like a tornado going through a junkyard, scything down other members of Parliament, aides, masters-at-arms and other sundry personnel who were in attendance without regard to status or preparedness. Dust, smoke and debris rained down from the ruined roof, settling onto the object, which fritzed and hazed, fluttering in and out of view as its damaged Mirage Colloid cloaking system fought to keep it hidden from sight, even now that it had largely accomplished its goal.
Automated grenade launchers on the top part of the drop pod whirred into action, belching canisters of smoke and tear gas in all directions, while a jamming array went to work on cluttering up the commonly used frequencies for tactical radios and other personal comm devices. The two armored boarding ramps slammed downwards, revealing the greenish foam filled interior of the drop pod. Fighting their way out of the shock absorbing foam like men wading through thick mud, a ten man squad of Brotherhood Harbringers, in full armor and helmets barged out of the interior, five men to a ramp and immediately began clubbing those people who had survived the drop pod's landing to the ground, firing their eeriely silent linear rifles into the air to keep people cowed and ducking away from the explosions. Half the squad, including two men with beam cannons, rushed for the stairway that would take them up to the second level, dashing through the firepower directed at them by the Stormhounds and other security forces like it was a mere spring shower, bullets sparking and bouncing off their limited Phase Shifted armor and helmets.
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The Traitor was already shimmering as it uncloaked from Mirage Colloid, taking the form of an Orb M-4 as Dylan landed outside the Orb National Palace grounds, a couple of kilometers distant from the Parliament grounds, where the cloaked drop pods carrying the infantry Harbringers were crashing down like invisible steely hailstones, pounding huge divots in the lawn and even crashing right through the top of the building in a spectacular explosion of stone rubble, glass shards and wooden splinters. Seconds later and about a kilometer higher up in the sky, the two larger cloaked drop pods burst asunder, spilling out the Tormented, already covered by its Holoshroud's standard guise, as well as four Zealots, deploying from the pod with the ease of longtime ZAFT orbital drop veterans, which those particular pilots were. Caught off guard, the Orb anti-air defences opened up sporadically, but could not stop the Brotherhood forces from descending and taking up close defensive positions around the Parliament building.
The smaller infantry pods burst open, as automated grenade launchers and twinned .50 caliber machinegun turrets on the top part of the pod began spinning, spitting smoke, tear gas, incendiary and frag grenades, as well as yammering .50 caliber tracers in all directions, pinning down or slaughtering anyone within a fifty meter radius of each drop pod, to give the four ten man Brotherhood squads time to disembark. As they fought their way out of the thick green foam that had exploded into the interior of the pods in order to shield them from the worst of the impact with the ground, which came at close to terminal velocity, with only last second braking thrust applied for a minimal slowdown, several squads came under fire from quick responding Orb security forces, but their Phase Shifted body armor and helmets allowed them to shrug off the rifle bullets with ease, and their return fire, consisting of explosive armor piercing arrows and bright green beam blasts, quickly cleared away the opposition.
The Harbringers sprinted mightily for the Parliament building, blowing the doors open with 15mm bolt and beam blasts, or else just battering them down with their shoulders trusting to their unyielding armor to protect them. Meanwhile, the drop pod automated weapons ran out of ammunition and fell silent, though their powerful jamming arrays continued to operate, blanketing the area around the Orb National Palace and Parliament building with sensor and comm static strong enough to drown out even military strength devices. The Zealots and the Tormented used their weapons to sever surface and subterranean power, comm, water and personnel access connections between the Parliament building and the rest of the Palace complex, aided by maps and schematics of the area hacked from Orb's National Security Headquarters by Noah. Speed was critical in the first phase of the attack. They had to take as many hostages as possible, preferrably two in particular, and then seal off the area from conventional access.
Dylan made sure to keep out of sight of the other Brotherhood forces... though his IFF should show up as friendly to them as well as to Orb, he didn't trust the trigger happy Harbringers. If they saw an Orb Mobile Suit, they were likely to shoot at it, and he didn't need that kind of crap on his plate. It was his job to mingle with the Orb response teams and sow havoc, slowing them down as much as possible, while the other Brotherhood forces took care of any direct assaults. Whatever happened, they could not afford to let Orb resolve the situation, that was their prime directive. They were to hold out as long as they could, until the proper players arrived and they could move into stage three of the plan. If it looked like Orb was going to break them, then they were under orders to just kill everyone, especially the two principal hostages, and cause as much collateral damage as possible before fleeing. Dylan was glad he didn't have that job... he had trouble with killing people face to face. In a Gundam it was different... but he didn't know if he could shoot someone while they were right there in the flesh.
Dylan winced and flinched away from the direction of the Brotherhood forces, as Mary strode a safe distance away from the Parliament building and then cut loose with her Banshee's Wail, shattering several smaller administrative buildings, flinging dirt and bits of landscape around like a child destroying a sandcastle and blowing out windows for a kilometer in every direction. Dylan smiled grimly... if Orb didn't know they were under attack before, they sure as hell did NOW! He settled back to wait for his moment, circling away from his drop point. It wouldn't do to be seen as the first responder in this case, no, not at all. He didn't trust his acting skills that far, it was best to blend in with a crowd and wait for an opportune situation. Goddamn, but he didn't get paid enough for this sort of stuff, did he?
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"Goddamn it!" Kurtz swore, dropping out his empty magazine and slamming in a full one to replace it. "That fucking armor!" He popped his head back up over the balcony edge, but the five man team he and Glory and Kisaka had been trying, without success, to supress was now out of sight, underneath the overhang between the second and first floors, headed for the stairs. He snapped off a few well aimed shots at the Harbringers still down in relatively plain view on the Parliament floor, but his shots deflected harmlessly from helmets and shoulder pads in showers of sparks. He gritted his teeth... either the Brotherhood had upgraded its head protection since Switzerland, or now they were wearing their combat helmets, whatever the reason, they now had near total protection! Clouds of black smoke and pale yellow tear gas occluded his vision, even his thermal sensors in his helmet, and he was forced to turn away from the targets below, for fear of firing blindly and hitting civilians.
"And me without my Shrike." Glory lamented, though he remembered how the minicannon hadn't exactly been a surefire method of taking these bastards down in Switzerland either. He cast a gimlet eyed glance over at Kisaka, who was half sheltering, half consulting with Athrun and Cagalli. "Any luck with outside comms, colonel?"
"We had them for a moment, but we've lost them since. Very strong jamming, very advanced." Kisaka replied tersely, a frown stamped on his face. "They've even cut the land lines, and the power lines as well. The building has internal generators, but those won't last forever, and the enemy will likely take them down quickly as well. There seems to be a rather significant Brotherhood presence around us... how the hell did they get so close? How could they catch us by surprise? Orb's defence systems are..."
"Just as vulnerable to a well planned terrorist raid using inside information on our defenses as anyone else." Athrun interrupted, checking the load on the pistol Kisaka had procured for him. "Even with our security patrols and sensor sweeps, our Vari-Camera's have a maximum range of five hundred meters. That... thing... is something like the orbital drop pods ZAFT used to attack terrestrial locations in the First Valentine War. By the time it was close enough for our sensors to strip away the Mirage Colloid, it was less than a second from impact. We have anti-orbital defense plans, but we always assumed they would involve warships or else a large scale, very visible drop... we didn't account for Mirage Colloid cloaking tech being applied to drop pods. I'd like to know how the cloak survived atmospheric interface, but that's something we can hopefully find out later, once we get out of here."
"Well, its obvious that they're coming after me." Cagalli racked the slide on her own pistol. She was glad that the clothing that the Chief Representative was supposed to wear to meetings like this was just a slightly more ornate version of the purple slacks, purple jacket and cream shirt that formed her usual day to day uniform. At least she could run and maneuver in this clothing... if she'd been caught in a dress... ugh, it didn't bear thinking about! "Athrun and I are the two most important hostages in the building, obviously they want to take us alive."
"It's not certain." Kisaka's frown deepened. "Recall how they treated their hostages in Switzerland... they executed them barbarically, and then sent others out to die of hypothermia. Living hostages doesn't seem to be their main priority. And neither does necessarily getting out of the situation alive. We've yet to capture a living Harbringer, remember."
"Ya, these guys are complete nutjobs." Glory commented with a heavy sigh. "They don't go down easy, and even if they do go down, they aren't always out. I'm not sure we have enough ammo between us five to kill even one of them, much less five, plus who knows how many more. Running like little girls... no offense, ma'am... is our best hope."
"Too late for that... damn it, how the hell do they know the building so damned well!? Yoww!" Kurtz yelled, firing a long burst out into the hallway before rolling desperately away, just inches ahead of the bright green plasma blast that bisected the doorway and set the door itself alight. More strobing green energy bolts pierced through the walls and flashed by over their crouching heads, sizzling like man sized racks of bacon dropped onto half molten steel. Explosive bolts blew torso sized chunks out of the wall and ceiling, covering them in dust and splinters, with Athrun throwing himself on top of Cagalli, and Kisaka throwing himself on top of Athrun. Cagalli squirmed uncomfortably under all the weight pinning her to the floor, but she supposed it was better than getting shrapnel in the back, though she detested the idea that she needed to be shielded!
"Grenade!" Glory bellowed, as several cylindrical objects came bouncing into the box through the holes in the wall. He kicked one out through the open door, caught a second and heaved it off the balcony and then dived headlong on top of a third. This is going to hurt a little bit... He thought, already tensing up, feeling time slow down a little bit as Kurtz missed his kick of a similar grenade. The two flash-bang grenades went off at once, glowing brighter that the sun for a few seconds as the air shook with concussion waves. Kurtz staggered back, arms up shielding his face, even with his helmet filters at maximum. For his part, Glory felt like he'd just grabbed an armful of live coals from a firepit and hugged them to his chest. The flash flare wasn't long lasting, but that didn't mean it wasn't fucking HOT all the same. The concussion blast, trapped between him and the floor, rattled every bone in his body and left a deep bruise from collarbone to crotch across his front, even as his body armor smouldered and frayed. He gasped for air, the breath well and truly knocked out of him. Well, at least it wasn't a frag or incendiary... I guess... ouch...
Protected from the worst of the effects of the flash-bangs by his training and helmet filters, Kurtz blinked errant spots out of his eyes and then opened fire, full automatic, hosing down the doorway as the Harbringers tried to bull rush in. He went through most of a fifty round clip in a little under two and a half seconds, fighting the recoil the entire time to keep his aim more or less centered on the doorway, though he had tracked up from waist to shoulder height by the time he ran out of bullets. The Harbringer that had been in the doorway was now lying limply across the hallway, bullets holes deeply scarring the walls on either side. There was no blood, and the man's armor was still unscratched, but apparently the sheer kinetic force of taking an almost full clip of 7.62mm assault rifle rounds at near point blank range was too much for the solider inside the armor to handle, and he was definitely down, either unconscious or dead.
Kurtz scrambled to reload, as another Harbringer stepped into view, linear rifle with mono-molecular knife mounted on the bayonet clip dragging a thin line through the wall as he brought it to bear, heedless of the 10mm pistol rounds ricocheting and deflecting from his torso, shoulders and head, courtesy of Kisaka, Athrun and Cagalli. One hand fumbling for his next clip, Kurtz squeezed his secondary trigger and jolted the Harbringer with a 10 gauge solid slug shotgun round right to the sternum, knocking him backwards, shotgun slug dropping to the ground between them like a flattened steel mushroom. The shotgun's unbraced recoil twisted the MAAR-274 out of Kurtz's grip, clattering to the ground at his feet. Kurtz dropped to his belly, clawing for it, wincing and gasping as the explosive bolt from the enemy's weapon sliced deeply across the top of his shoulder, right through his armor, before flashing away to detonate near the roof. Though not a direct hit, which probably would have killed him, his right arm was all but useless now, and the wound both deep and bloody.
"Fire in the hole!" Glory croaked, flipping a HE grenade out through one of the holes in the wall. The Harbringers in the hall reacted less quickly than Glory or Kurtz had, constrained by their bulky armor and the fact that there were three of them crowded together. The grenade blast blew the legs off one of them below the knee, and hurled his two friends several feet backwards, dazed and stunned, trailing smoke from charred spots on their armor. The same blast almost entirely demolished the wall between the box and the hallway, and set much of the floor and ceiling alight, much to the detriment of the legless Harbringer, who screamed and flopped helplessly, blood jetting from his stumps with the smell of cooking meat as the flames rolled over him. Kisaka grunted in pain, yanking several long splinters of wood from his side and back, shooting Glory a disagreeable glare as he clamped his free hand against his wound. "Hey, it shut em up, didn't... fuck...!" Glory started to say, as the shotgunned Harbringer leapt forward into the box, still eager for more.
Kurtz was there, firing from a half crouch with his pistol in his left hand. His accuracy was down, but the range was point blank anyway, and the Harbringer was so large and bulky he was almost impossible to miss. The 10mm hollow point bullets shattered on the Phase Shifted armor, and Kurtz cried out as he was shoulder charged backwards, his booted feet skidding on the carpeted floor. Two shots went wild into the ceiling as the Harbringer swatted the pistol out of Kurtz's hand with the butt of his rifle before reversing the weapon and slashing it downward, bayonet blade to the fore. Kurtz jerked backward, but his back encountered the railing and his dodge was stopped well short. The mono-molecular dagger blade sliced cleanly through the front of his helmet, shorting out one of the baleful blue eyes and severing the demonic muzzle. Kurtz screamed in agony and blood spurted as the blade edge likewise carved down through his face and left eye, bisecting his lips and cleaving his jaw open down to the bone. Kurtz fell to his knees, still screaming, good hand clamped to his half blanded face, right hand still hanging limply from its bloody shoulder.
Sergeant-Major Glory pounced upon the turning Harbringer like a bear falling upon a wolf, knife in one fist, still mostly breathless from the flash-bang impact but fighting on regardless. Taller and bigger than the Harbringer, even in his armor, Glory slammed the man backwards into the side wall of the box like a football player making a very rough sack, leaving a man shaped crater in the hardwood wall and driving the breath from the Harbringer. Glory jammed his knife into the middle of the man's faceplate, so hard the knife blade snapped when it couldn't penetrate. Still, the impact alone cracked the Harbringer's head back into the wall again, with a sound like a cermic plate being thrown onto pavement from a great height. Glory took hold of the stunned Harbringer's head in both hands and twisted sharply, putting his shoulders into the motion. There were several sharp "POP" noises, and then the Harbringer dropped to the ground, still and dead, his head staring back over his own shoulder, no longer attached to the spine.
Glory retrieved the Harbringer's linear rifle and spun, ducking down and rolling to the side, acting on well honed instinct, as two beam blasts from the Harbringers the HE grenade hadn't maimed passed through the air where he'd just stood, so close that his body armor caught fire on the back and blisters raised themselves along his spine. Glory didn't stop to draw a full breathe, much less put out the flames or cry out in pain. He didn't have that wondrous ability the Lt. called his "Focus", which let him do practically superhuman things when the situation got totally nuts, but he did have a lifetime of brutal combat experience to draw upon, and a ferocious will to live that was surpassed by very few living people. Glory charged the other two Harbringers, swinging his stolen rifle like a club, swatting the beam rifle from the hands of the one on the right, even as his foot thundered up into the crotch of the one on the left. Glory felt something in his foot break, but like the flames, he paid it no mind for the moment.
The right Harbringer snarled something incoherent and snatched for the knife on his belt, but Glory caught his arm before it could complete the motion. The Harbringer's armor was proof against physical impacts, much like Phase Shift armor on Gundams... but it was still just a cloth like, semi-rigid armor. It provided no real support for the tissue inside the armor, which was still just a regular human being, or a Coordinator anyway. This lack of structural reinforcement allowed for greater mobility when wearing the armor... but it also made the Harbringers vulnerable to certain types of hand to hand combat. Little things like being spun about like a weight on the end of a rope and slammed into a door frame, then having their arm yanked backwards and twisted awkwardly, while their knee was kicked out from under them. As the Harbringer collapsed sideways with a squawk, Glory twisted more on his arm and brought down his free elbow on the twisted shoulder, dislocating the joint. A further twist dislocated the elbow, and then the wrist as well. Glory didn't stop there either, wrenching the arm as hard as he could, he smiled when he heard the wet noises of bone spearing out through flesh from the inside. Compound arm fracture, after multiple dislocations... very painful, very nasty, potential for permanent damage.
Glory turned from the screeching ruin of the a man he'd made to find himself staring at the muzzle of a beam rifle from about five feet away. Too close to dodge, too far to stop. Damn. Looks like his number was finally... Athrun appeared out of nowhere, leaping up into a very pretty flying kick to the side of the head that connected with enough force to leave a dent in the far wall of the hallway, with the unfortunate Harbringer's head still in the dent. Athrun snatched the beam rifle from the Harbringer's grip before it could even fully loosen, and he wasted no time or mercy on the man before turning it's business end around and blowing a charred hole right through the middle of his chest, armor notwithstanding. Kisaka almost leapt on Glory from behind, Cagalli's outer jacket held in one hand as he beat frantically at the flames blazing merrily away on Glory's broad back, his other hand still clenched to his bloody side. Glory pushed Kisaka roughly away and staggered on his broken foot, before slamming his back several times into the wall, smothering the flames. "How's... Kurtz..." Glory coughed, all the adrenaline suddenly draining from his body.
"Not good." Cagalli called in reply. "He passed out, from shock I think, and he's still losing blood fast! His eye is... gone. He was lucky his head didn't get cut in half!"
"That's a... Stormhounds luck, alright..." Glory grinned weakly. "He's only down... an eye... versus an entire... head!" He was dimly aware of Athrun putting the stolen beam rifle to use incinerating the other Harbringers lying around the hall, both the injured ones and the dead ones, just to be sure. A survivor, Athrun was. Good head on his shoulders. "All right... let's be on our way. No telling when more bad guys will show..." Glory saw Kisaka and Athrun looking wide eyed down the hall past him, and he didn't need much more warning than that! The two of them darted back into the observation box, skirting the flame drenched floor, coughing on the thick black smoke. Glory tried to follow them, but his broken foot... actually a broken ankle too... buckled when he put weight on it and he fell to his hands and knees in the doorway. "FUCKING...!" Glory gritted his teeth on the rest of his exclaimation, tasting blood in his mouth from where he'd bitten down on his cheek and tongue.
He sat down and turned as best he could, linear rifle coming up to his shoulder, prepared to make the Harbringers have to go over his dead body, literally, before they could get through the doorway. He was not prepared though, to come face to face with another concussion grenade, which actually bounced off the front of his face mask just before detonating. The world went white and hot, and then black and cold, and Glory knew no more, his helmeted head leaving its own divot in the floor. Kisaka had just been returning to pull Glory fully inside the room, and he caught much of the debilitating effect of the concussion grenade full on as well, stumbling backwards, blinded and stunned to fall heavily as he tripped over a chair, leaving a gout of blood on the ground as he hit on his injured side.
Athrun blew the head off the first Harbringer to try and step over the unconscious Sergeant-Major Glory, the ravening green energy blast plucking the man's head away neat as you please, leaving a charred stump that trailed greasy smoke as the corpse toppled over backwards. This obviously caused some constrenation amongst the other Harbringers, who had obviously not expected to find an enemy with one of their own weapons, capable of ignoring their otherwise nigh impenetrable armor. Still, they were far from intimidated, and far from unprepared for this sort of situation. Instead of rushing the chokepoint and allowing themselves to be cut to ribbons by the beam rifle, they threw more grenades, a mixture of tear gas and flash bangs, and kept the grenades coming as they slowly edged forward and then finally broke into the observation box from three directions at once, blasting in through the side walls and charging in through the doorway as well.
Athrun wasn't nearly as incapacitated by the flash bangs and tear gas as the Harbringers could have hoped, and he seperated one of them from his arm with a semi-wild shot before a clenched fist drove into his gut and knocked him to his knees, coughing and gasping, only to gasp worse as he inhaled the irritant gas instead of fresh air, in a very painful cycle. He was still trying to rise, hearing Cagalli cry out in rage and pain, when a rifle butt descended on the back of his head and laid him out cleanly on the floor, the Harbringers crowding around their prize hostages.
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"All right, gentlemen, the situation isn't good." The gruff Orb General who was taking command of the situation said grimly, eyeing the glowing display of the situation map in the back of the Mobile Command Vehicle. "They caught us with our pants down, but right now isn't the right time to assign blame. We have confirmed visuals on four of the Zealot type of mass production Mobile Suits, plus that disgustingly freakish Tormented Gundam that the Chief Representative and the Ambassador drove away outside Morganville. They're all hugging the Parliament building, so that's going to make any sort of direct attack very dangerous to us. So far we have no idea how many members of Parliament have been taken hostage, but the number could be anywhere from several dozen to more than a hundred, plus the Chief Representative and the Ambassador themselves! So far we have recieved no demands from the terrorists, and have had no contact with potential security forces or survivors inside the building."
"There are an unknown number of Brotherhood ground troops within the building as well. Reports range from twenty to more than fifty, all armed with those explosive arrow shooting rifles or those beam rifles, plus many grenades and who knows what else. They've also got that damnable armor that acts like Phase Shift... bluntly put, we don't have anything capable of taking them down, not without risking causing damage to the people inside." Major Raine Belaruse, the senior Stormhound present, while Alkire and Cyprus were up in space, added quietly. "Unlike in Switzerland, these guys have armored helmets as well. They're vulnerable to energy weapons, some types of hand to hand combat that don't rely on impacts, as well as large explosions. Other than that, they're pretty much invincible. We've had no comms with either Colonel Kisaka or the Stormhound detail guarding the Queen and her husband, so their status is unknown. Can't we do anything about that comm jamming?"
"It appears to be coming from those cloaked drop pods that the enemy infantry deployed from. We're working on disabling them right now, but its a tough situation. We can't just send forces out to attack them while they have hostages! They've got most of the legislative branch in there, plus the Chief Representative and the Ambassador!" The General growled, stabbing his finger down on the digital representation of the Parliament building. "Is there any chance we can go through some of the underground access tunnels and get the hostages out? I can't do much besides stand here with my hands tied until we get our people out of there!"
"All the access tunnels we've tried so far have been closed by precision weapons fire from the enemy Mobile Suits. It's like they knew where everything that connected the Parliament building to its surrounds was... I think we have a major breach of information security here!" Raine replied fiercely. "I have almost twenty Stormhounds ready to go in on a moment's notice, but we can't deploy with the Mobile Suits outside! We can be inside in less than a minute, all you have to do is keep the Mobile Suits off our backs."
"It's too risky, Major! One wrong move from us and they'll..." The General protested. Raine slammed her own hand down on the situation table.
"Sir! Don't you recall Switzerland!? These bastards take no hostages! The longer we wait, the more time they'll have to slowly torture our people to death in horrific ways! These people are suicidal fanatics... they don't have any egress from this situation! They came, they took, and now they're just going to hold out as long as they can and hurt us as bad as they can! For all we know, the Queen and her husband, as well as everyone else, is already dead! Just sitting around out here, crying and clutching our heads in our hands... thats what they WANT us to do! The longer we wait, the more time we give them to kill any hostages they might already have! What if the Queen is being decapitated right the FUCK NOW!? What if she's next!? What if she's only got five minutes to live!? Are you just gonna sit here and worry about what might happen until it DOES happen!?"
"But..."
"For fuck's sake, GROW A PAIR, General!" Raine snapped. "It's crunch time, what's your decision? Fold, or call?" She stared the older man squarely in the eye. There was a long moment of silence, as the various aides and junior officers stared, dumbfounded at the confrontation... it wasn't every day that a junior officer got in a senior officer's face like that. Those Stormhounds sure as hell were something else... ballsy bastards, even the women! At long last the General smiled, hard and tightly.
"Orb does not negotiate with terrorists." He said quietly. "Get the M-4's and M-7's ready for a blitz assault! I want infantry forces on standby to support the Stromhounds at a moment's notice! Get the medical teams prepped for emergency deployment! I want construction crews waiting with equipment in case the building goes down in the crossfire! Move it, we have lives on the line here, people! Major Belaruse, the go code for this little party is going to be..." The General trailed off, as did the hubbub his orders had spawned, as a loud explosion tore through the air from nearby. "What the HELL was that!?"
Raine jammed her helmet onto her head and threw open the door to the MCV, taking the stairs down two at a time. "This is the Major... what the fuck is going on out..." Raine was cut off by a whistling sound that grew louder and louder and louder, before a terrific explosion knocked her to her knees at the bottom of the stairs. Smoke and fire gouted skywards from across the parking lot where the MCV and its attendant vehicles, including many press vans scattered amid the clutter of armored troops transports, tanks, supply vehicles and secondary command vehicles, had set up camp, some several kilometers from the Government District. A squadron of M-4's stood guard around the perimeter, and many more M-4's and even a few M-7's were in evidence on surrounding blocks and streets. They were all looking frantically for the source of the attacks, but there was nothing nearby, not even anything Mirage Colloid cloaked! Artillery fire maybe... but the observation units reported no fire coming from the Brotherhood machines...
Raine only noticed because she happened to be looking at the M-4 at the very rear of the parking lot when it turned from its "guard" position almost casually, its hands moving in very un-Mobile Suit like motions as it took something from within it's hip and slotted it onto the end of its rifle, which it then pointed at the MCV, again casually. No overt threat, just a pilot pointing his weapon in the direction he was scanning, the same as pretty much everyone else around him was doing. But Raine had seen the fingers of the Mobile Suit actually brush THROUGH its hip, like the hip wasn't even there! And then there was the unstilted, smooth motions... Raine realized what she was seeing, having reviewed the sensor logs Ysak and Katie had sent back from Galileo. "WATCH OUT! IT'S THE TRAIT...!" Her exclaimation, which was broadcasted across all comm bands her helmet could access, at least those not being jammed currently, was cut short when the MCV blew up behind her, victim of one of the Traitor's 300mm rifle grenades. Raine was hurled forward by the blast, landing roughly on the pavement and rolling for several meters before slamming into the side of a APC.
She lay there, semiconscious, as more explosions bloomed all around the parking lot, as other parts of the Orb forces began to realize that not all of the friendly forces were truly "friendly", though most realized too late, as there were so many Mobile Suits flying and dashing around it was difficult to keep track of any of them, much less one specific one, especially because it never targeted any Mobile Suits. In the confusion, Dylan activated his Mirage Colloid and opened up with his 20mm CIWS and finger mounted .50 caliber machineguns, as well as the arm mounted 40mm grenade launchers. Though Orb's Mobile Suits could see through Mirage Colloid at close range, in this sort of chaotic situation, few pilots had the concentration to pick out a moving sensor image that radiated the correct IFF signals but could not be visually seen amongst all the moving sensor images with correct IFF that could be visually seen. Invariably, most pilots connected the sensor image with one of the Mobile Suits they could see, that was approximately in the right position.
By the time things started getting back in hand, and the junior officers who had not been in the MCV had gotten the Mobile Suits and other forces to stop flying around erratically, the Traitor had re-emerged from Mirage Colloid cloak and was out of sight of the ruined parking lot to boot, circling around, waiting for another chance to cause chaos. Dylan smirked... he'd probably bought a good hour or so of confusion time by wiping out the guys in charge, just like that! Who needed a super-weapon type Gundam... Mary and her Tormented couldn't have accomplished what he had with duplicity through direct force no matter how hard she tried! The trick was not to do the same thing twice... they'd be better organized next time, and he couldn't count on being so lucky as for them to panic like they had then in the future. Well, maybe there were ways they could make them panic... people tended to do such irrational things when their leaders lives were in danger, after all...
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