Mr. Yamato hefted his pack and rifle unhappily as he trudged aboard the cargo-submersible in Norfolk, one of the oldest and largest sea navy bases in the Atlantic Federation. Mrs. Yamato staggered into line behind him, back protesting under the encumbrance of her seventy pound pack. She had been designated a field medic, in reference to a few half remembered first aid lessons she'd received back when Kira was a baby. Mr. Yamato had been made a squad leader due to good performance during basic training, he was brevetted a corporal, which really just meant that he had more responsibility with no extra pay. Pay was a sore subject indeed, because as far as any of the conscripts could figure out, they weren't getting any. The military could say that they had actually spent all their paychecks buying their issued gear as much as it wanted, but these people were adults, not eighteen year olds. They knew bullshit when they saw it. They were conscripts. Life expectancy not very much. Why pay them? Sure, their morale would suck, but even mutineers would fire at the enemy to save their own lives.
Worse was the fact that contrary to all established military custom, conscripts with family or spouses were all assigned to the same unit. Doubtless some cold hearted slimeball back at high command had reasoned that a family would fight harder if they were all in the same danger at the same time. The worst thing was that whoever they were was right. A man would go to far more extremes to protect his wife and child than he would for even trusted squadmates. Trust was another sore subject. People from all strata of society had been conscripted and then thrown together with little rhyme or reason. Mr. Yamato's basic training division had been full of lawyers, fast food servers, ex cons and stock traders, a volatile mix to be sure. His current squad consisted of himself, his wife, a scared young fast food server who couldn't have been more than seventeen, named Jimmy, three tattooed ex-cons, an older man of Japanese descent, and three brothers of eastern European stock.
Mr. Yamato got along with all of them but the cons, who were surly and disrespectful at the best of times. Luckily, the three brothers were very tough men themselves and they kept the convicts from attempting strong arm tactics on their squadmates. Mr. Yamato led his wife and the rest of his squad to their assigned berth, little more than a large cubicle about twenty feet by ten by ten, which was supposed to fit all ten of them. There was barely room to have all of them stand in the room, much less sit down or store their bags. It looked like it wasn't going to be a comfortable ride to Gibraltar. Mr. Yamato made sure his wife and squad were situated as best they could be and then left to find someone in charge, to enquire about food, sanitary facilities and their estimated travel time.
It was difficult going. The cargo-sub wasn't meant to carry large numbers of people, and now nearly a regiment of soldiers was being packed aboard. People were everywhere, the echoes of their voices resounding all around, making it hard to think, much less talk. Mr. Yamato eventually learned that chow was served twice a day, in a ridiculously small galley barely big enough for a platoon at a time. They would be lucky to eat once every other day. Fortunately for him, he had quickly acquired the soldiery habit of bringing his own rations with him, hidden in his pack. Between them, he and his wife had enough food to last them three days. The other members of his squad were likewise well stocked. Sanitary facilities were dismal, only five bathrooms on the entire ship and only one reserved for females. Again, no less than expected.
As for travel time, no one had the slightest clue. And every officer he saw wouldn't so much as look at him, much less give any specific information. Mr. Yamato sighed in exasperation and started to wind his way back through the crowded passage towards his berthing compartment. Suddenly a hand dropped on his shoulder from behind and he tensed. Surely no one would try to assault him in the middle of the hall, and he hadn't done anything wrong…
"Mr. Yamato! I thought it was you, but from the back I could not be sure…" the heavy set man behind him said with a pleased tone. Mr. Yamato took a few moments as he searched his memory for this man, since it had been more than a year since Orb and the last time he had met him.
"Mr. Haw?" he asked, incredulous. "You too?"
"And my wife, of course. The Earth Forces are damned efficient at finding soldiers, if not training and equipping them." Mr. Haw replied bitterly, pulling at the tight stretched sleeve of his combat fatigues. "I've seen the Argyle's and the Buskirk's on board as well."
"I don't suppose any of you have heard from any of our children, have you?" Mr. Yamato said hopefully, though depressed at how many of his friends from Heliopolis had been drafted.
"Not the slightest word. Dropped off the face of the planet, they have. It's driving me crazy, let me tell you!"
"I know what you mean. It must be worse, missing a daughter."
"Miriallia is a tough girl. And your Kira and the others are a good, tough bunch as well. I'm sure she's in better shape than we are, right now."
"I wish I could say I thought you were wrong. Still, knowing Kira… no… I can't say that anymore. I really don't know Kira, not since the start of the last war. He's changed so much." Mr. Yamato replied. He may not be my biological son, but it still hurts that he's changed so much. Or been changed so much. Having to keep the secret of his parents from him was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. He has suffered so much because of what my wife and I did, accepting him into our home. I hope he can forgive me, eventually.
"Hasn't everything, just." Mr. Haw agreed. "So they made you a corporal. Congratulations, I guess."
"Stuff it in your ear." Mr. Yamato growled. "I catch ten times the shit now. The job has shifted from onerous to hellish. If I never see another sergeant again, I'll have a heart attack from joy." He paused a second. "What job did they give you?"
"Well, I made the tiny little mistake of admitting to having driven load lifters thirty years ago, when I worked a summer job at the Orb docks. So now I drive a half track, while my wife is my navigator and communications operator… just like back home, actually."
Mr. Yamato managed a dry chuckle, and then excused himself to go back to his wife. Nobody in the squad was pleased at the results of his scouting trip, but they buckled down to it. There was nothing they could do besides complain and grumble, of which they did plenty. Clangs and bangs resounded throughout the boat as the sub cast off and slipped beneath the waves, headed out across the wide Atlantic Ocean, to a base that was living on borrowed time.
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The heavy leather ball sailed through the thin mountain air, arcing toward the ground. Ashino trapped it against his bare chest with a meaty smack and then brought his knee up to cradle it for a moment while he turned and aimed. He then pumped his knee, sending the ball straight up and down, right into his swinging shin. The sting felt delicious as the ball spun through the air and through the vertical metal hoop affixed to the wall of the playing field. One more goal and they would win. Opposing players dashed for the ball while it was still falling, because it was very difficult to get it off the ground once it stopped bouncing. And leather balls did not bounce very much.
The game was one based off an ancient Aztec game, the name of which not even Ashino could remember. It was a little like soccer, a little like rugby and a little like basketball, with a tiny bit of bloodsport thrown in for flavor. Or maybe not so much a tiny bit. Players were divided into teams of nine and no padding was allowed. In fact, the only article of clothing that was allowed to be worn was a pair of shorts for guys, with a sports bra like addition for females, color coded either red or blue, depending on which team you were on. The rules were fairly simple and straightforward. Get the leather ball through one of the hoops situated at either end of the playing pit. You cannot use your hands or your feet to propel the ball. That was really it for the rules. Most players, like Ashino, chose to bind their hands behind their back during play, to prevent even accidental hand contact with the ball, which was cause for a penalty, which pretty much meant a free goal for the other side.
Because all the players were BCPU's, the game was very heavily aggression oriented. You could not strike an opponent with hands or feet, but anything else was just fine. It was not uncommon for more than half the players leaving the field at the end to be substitutes for other players disabled by injuries during play. Ashino added another to that number by charging and driving his knee into the lower back of the opponent who was just trapping the ball like Ashino had done less than a minute earlier. The other, a BCPU 3 named Sarl, arced his broad back in agony and fell twisting to the ground. Ashino had felt a few organs rupture under the blow. He stepped over the prone form and bounced the ball off his shoulder, passing it to a teammate. He felt no pity or remorse for the sneaky attack.
As a matter of course, the game was also a simulation of combat. Scientists, doctors and technicians lined the walls of the game pit, a rectangular hole one hundred feet long by fifty feet wide and fifteen feet deep, writing in notebooks, speaking into personal recorders and reading sensor displays. They were there to see how the refinements, additions and prosthetics they had created endured a stressful environment. Also to gauge the skill and worthiness of the BCPU's playing. Someone who was good at the game would have to be in extreme physical shape, have excellent situational and mental awareness, be able to think and plan on the move and be able to endure a great deal of physical hardship. For not only could the players attack you, but the ball itself was made from hundreds of layers of boiled and tanned hard leather. It weighed a good thirty pounds and it was quite hard, with very little give. It couldn't quite crack stone, but an unskillful trap or block could easily earn someone a broken bone.
Winners of the game got positive evaluations and subsequently were considered ready for the next phase of training after a certain number of consistent wins. Losers were punished with even harsher basic training regimes and even "dis-enrollment" after repeated poor performance, which was Doc speak for getting executed and then having your organs and prosthetics harvested for the next crop to use. The Doc himself was watching this game… not in person of course, the Doc hardly ever left the security of his quarters or lab, but there were three cameras watching the course of the game from good vantage points around the field. Ashino ran forward, pushing past two BCPU 2's who tried to intercept him, leaving one on the ground with a smashed nose. Ashino may not have been the biggest player on the field by a large margin… Sarl was a good six foot four inches and weighed two hundred something pounds of muscle mass and his even bigger friend, just called Juggernaut or Jug, who was captain of Blue Team, was seven feet tall and more than three hundred and fifty pounds of muscle… but he was easily the smartest and most agile. Of course he was the only BCPU 4 as well, so that went sort of without saying.
Jug intercepted one of Ashino's teammates, one who was nowhere near the ball action. The enormous BCPU just ran the smaller boy down and trampled him into the ground. It wasn't quite illegal, but it didn't prove much beyond the fact that you could destroy a target of opportunity… anyone could do that, even normals, so most players only went for hard targets, or mission targets, aka, the guys with the ball. Ashino took the opportunity of Jug being out of position to dart through the screen of defenders and intercept the ball with a header. Ashino trapped the ball, balancing it on his forehead. He could hear defenders closing in on him from both sides. Suddenly the sound of their footfalls stopped and then receded. Ashino knew what that meant. A moment later he could almost feel the pounding steps of Jug coming up behind him. Jug wanted revenge for what Ashino had done to his friend. Ashino flicked the ball over to one of his teammates with a twist of his neck. Jug didn't slow down. That was fine. Jug was one of the toughest BCPU 3's, slated for rapid advancement into the BCPU 4 program. However, Ashino didn't feel that Jug had the right qualities just yet. The big guy thought too much with his muscles, not with his brain.
Shani would have agreed with him, he was sure. He'd never been very close with the lime haired BCPU, but they'd been friends, if for no other reason than they shared a higher degree of refinement than most of their peers. BCPU's lower in stature were focused on primarily physical things, getting tougher and faster and stronger so they could get advanced and not "dis-enrolled". BCPU's higher in stature were crazy ass nutcase killers, though Shani had left before they were created. Neither had time for much thought besides the daily grind. They had no appreciation for debate or discussion or argument beyond physical fighting. Ashino could remember fondly some long nights of philosophical, political and moral discussion with Shani.
But now was not the time for fond memories. Jug's shadow blotted out the sun as the massive BCPU tried to throw himself onto Ashino like a gorilla doing a body slam. Ashino skipped to the side with grace undreamt of by his attacker. Ashino pivoted and brought his knee up, directly into Jug's descending sternum. His knee flared with pain, but the joint held and the sternum did not. With a harsh snap, the center of Jug's ribcage collapsed inward. It was simple physics. Force over area. A large amount of force concentrated on a small area… say the force is Jug's hurtling form, the small area Ashino's knee… and the force was magnified many times. Thus the breaking of ribs. Thus the collapsing of Jug onto the ground, shrieking in agony. Thus the transfer of angular momentum into Ashino, which he used to flip himself up, down and around, landing with point of elbow foremost onto Jug's lower neck. Vertebrae cracked loudly and the big BCPU went limp, gasping and drooling wads of spittle. Total paralysis of the lower body. Not uncurable, especially for a BCPU, but debilitating for a long time. It would be several months before Jug was ready to even begin playing the game again, much less be advanced to BCPU 4.
While Ashino picked himself up, his team scored again, winning the game. Ashino cheered with the rest of his team, though it didn't mean much for him. He didn't really want to be advanced to BCPU 5, not that a game on this level could even begin to count towards that qualification. He'd seen what the BCPU 5's were like. He liked having a personality, thank you very much. Ashino had spent his time in the games already, so now he only played for fun. And for the rush of winning, of course. His team's victory wasn't worth as much since he had played, but it was still a victory, and his team had not played poorly or depended solely on him, so that would go in their favor. He sauntered out of the game pit and got dressed. BCPU's still in training weren't allowed much more than simple white-grey tunics and trousers, like the clothes inpatients at hospitals wore. However, as a "graduate" and combat pilot, he got to dress in his uniform, a lieutenant in the Earth Forces Space Forces. He was aware of the privilege and exalted in it whenever he was back at the lab.
The lab itself was buried deep under a mountain in the Chilean Andes of South America. The United States of South America was unaware of the secret research base of Blue Cosmos, constructed with no military or government funding at all. Codenamed JIHAD, the facility was the primary manufactory of Blue Cosmos mobile suits and advanced technologies, of which the BCPU was one. The Raider, the Forbidden and the Calamity had all been constructed here, as had the Fury, the Purifier, the Merciless and the Bane. The Judgment, a colossal mobile suit of epic stature, was still under construction in the factory levels of the base. Lesser factory lines pumped out Strike Crusaders at the rate of one per week, the main production centers for the mass produced mobile suits were elsewhere, under Earth Alliance guard. The base was massive, though not quite on the same scale as Heaven's Base, JOSH-A or Panama. Still, it was large enough for more than five thousand technicians, scientists, researchers, doctors and maintenance personnel, plus a complement of eight hundred Blue Cosmos guards and security personnel. The special BCPU section consisted of three hundred more researchers, surgeons, doctors and engineers, plus one hundred and twenty elite mercenary guards hired from various Earth based military Special Forces units.
Of the BCPU's themselves there were roughly one hundred at any given time, plus about one hundred more potentials… young children, age four to nine, who were undergoing the physical tests to determine their worth to the program. Of the actual BCPU's, sixty were BCPU 2's, thirty seven were BPU 3's, one was Ashino, a BCPU 4, and the other two were Cray Thresher and Zacharis Frost, a BCPU 5 and 6 respectively. Of these hundred, only Frost, Thresher and Ashino had graduated from the program and were considered deployable assets. It took years to create a BCPU, they were not just stamped out like machine parts.
The process started with rigorous physical and mental and academic training. Some would call it brutal, to force young children to endure such trials. Ashino didn't mind. Great threats called for great countermeasures, and the Coordinators were the greatest threat humanity had ever faced, one that imperiled their very existence as a race. By the time the children reached eight or nine years old, they were considered ready for the first implants and treatments. There was only a forty percent survival rate on these procedures… the human body wasn't designed for the renovations a BCPU had. Those that did survive were now BCPU 2's. They continued training for two more years, undergoing even harsher schooling and exercises, of increasingly deadly natures. It was not unheard of for people to get killed during live fire or live blade exercises and wounds were nearly an everyday occurrence.
Now twelve or thirteen, the BCPU's judged ready would go back to the labs for more enhancements. The eighty percent of those who survived would now be BCPU 3's. After three more years, the remaining BCPU 3's would return once again to the labs for what had been the final process. Only one in ten survived the BCPU 4 enhancements. Needless to say, it was hardly an efficient program… ruinously expensive for most companies to undertake, but Blue Cosmos was not just a company… it had resources beyond those available to some nations. Ashino didn't know what the price tag on a single BCPU would be, but given what went into even a BCPU 2, he would not be at all surprised to learn he was worth hundreds of millions of dollars in components alone. Then of course there was training time, housing costs… even a cell cost money… and the price of the equipment he interfaced with, also known as the Bane.
Ashino entered the compound through one of the secure doors, the one vehicles used. As a BCPU 4, he was considered sane enough to not need an escort wherever he went. Or at least not a visible one. Ashino was pretty damned sure there was always at least one hidden camera trained in his direction. Ignoring his watchers, Ashino buzzed the elevator and went down to the first sub level of the base, which housed the quarters for the guards and researchers. The elevator guards acknowledged him, swiped his ID and searched him, even though there was no way he could have had a weapon. Again, Ashino didn't mind. They were just doing their job. The guards escorted him to the next elevator, past several sentry gun mounts and camera blisters. Calling the facility "secure" was a little like calling a mobile suit "an upgrade" to a tank. As in, it didn't even begin to cover it.
Each level was compartmentalized with thick steel blast doors, magnetic locks and fortified with heavy machine guns mounted on wall and ceiling turrets. The turrets would shoot anyone and anything not cleared by the security system, controlled by round the clock shifts of guards down on sub level 5. They did not fire at Ashino, but they did track him as he moved. He was so used to their presence he didn't even really notice them. As an additional security measure, to get to each lower floor and upper floor, you had to use a different elevator than the last time. Well… except if you used Doc's private elevator, that went straight from his opulent quarters on sub level 2 to his private lab on sub level 6.
Ashino made his way down through sub 2, which housed the generators, air exchangers and heaters for the facility below, as well as massive storage chambers for food and supplies. Sub 3 was the first of the actual "facility" levels, consisting of testing labs, training areas, classrooms and operating theaters. Sub 4 hosted quarters for the BCPU 2 and 3's, more classrooms, more training rooms, more labs and the simulator chambers for pilot simulation. Sub 5 was the most advanced labs, the prison wing where new arrivals or punishee's were held, the BCPU 4 rooms aka cells, the recently converted BCPU 5 rooms, the waste pit, which dropped four hundred meters further into the mountains roots and the testing chamber where some trials for advancement were held. It was also the space where Doc addressed all the BCPU's, on those rare times he felt the need to tell them all something. Sub 6, where Ashino was headed, contained Doc's private lab and workspace, the BCPU 4 and above training area, more piloting simulators, a small gym, a recovery room for grave injuries, Frost's cell and a briefing/debriefing room.
When Ashino entered the lab the Doc was working. Clad in his usual blood and fluid stained operating vestment, Doc stood over one of the four operating tables in the actual lab area. A young child, only eight years old the tag dangling from his ankle said in bright red letters, was strapped to the canted table. The child's chest was opened up and the Doc was tinkering around in the chest cavity, maneuvering what looked like an adrenalin injector to Ashino's eyes into place. Ashino kept quiet, not wanting to interrupt Doc's concentration while he was performing an upgrade. However, the Doc noticed him anyway, as he had expected.
"Markov… good game." The Doc said, without turning. "There… now… doesn't that feel good?" he asked the operatee. The child on the table nodded, biting his lip to keep from screaming in agony. The Doc used anesthetic during his procedures… he wasn't a monster… but he did like to keep his subjects awake. He said that was because the subject was the first to feel something go wrong, and could tell him about it. Ashino privately thought it was because the Doc was a sick man, who got most of the joy in his work from hearing the stifled gasps of pain as he worked. Not that Ashino begrudged the Doc, who may have been insane and twisted, but who was still the closest thing to a father figure Ashino had. He didn't love the Doc, but he far from hated him. It was an attitude all the BCPU's had. As humans they could hate him for what he had done, taking away their lives… but at the same time they were grateful to him for making them into something powerful and special. That he loved them was plain to see from the amount of work he put into them. If some of them had to die to make the others better, well, a father had to make tough choices sometimes.
"I had to teach Jug and Sarl a lesson. Their instructors need a reprimand, letting them get so undisciplined." Ashino replied.
"Not all of your brothers and sisters are as governed by their higher minds as you are, Markov." The Doc said. "Going with instinct can be a good thing too… look at Frost."
"With all respect… I try not to."
"Heh… yes, you've made yourself quite clear on how you feel about my greatest son. Are you sure you aren't jealous?"
"Very. I like the ability to think."
"You do at that." The Doc's hands flew through the operating procedures as he rapidly inserted and attached blood coagulant dispensers, synthetic muscles, organ armor and nerve wiring into the child's body. Within ten minutes the operation was done and the child was sewn back together, only a very faint scar on his chest proving that he was now a BCPU 2 and not a normal person to the uninitiated eyes. "You can step off the table now, Arnold. You've been a very good boy, not making a sound." The Doc said, though he sounded a bit wistful too, like he'd been expecting a bit of screaming and yelling.
"T-thank you, sir." Arnold replied shakily, almost falling off the table.
"Please… call me Doc… everyone does." Doc said, pressing an intercom button. "Mr. Langly, please collect Arnold and return him to his quarters. He's on operation watch for the next two days."
The door to the lab buzzed open and a white lab coat clad instructor came in. He bowed to the Doc and nodded respectfully at Ashino, before taking Arnold roughly by the arm and pulling him away. It was the job of the instructors to instill the fear of god and man into the BCPU's so they could be controlled by their human superiors. Ashino remembered Mr. Bockller, his Instructor. God, but he'd loathed and feared the man. But he couldn't deny that Bockller had made him into an excellent soldier. Arnold and his instructor left and the door buzzed shut.
"Not everyone calls you Doc, Doc." Ashino said. He'd been around for a while, in the program for close to twelve years now. He knew the Doc about as well as anyone did. And that meant he knew that the Doc's name was actually Frank. Frank something. He only knew his first name.
"I'm on a first name basis only with my family, Markov. And I loathe my family, you know that." The Doc answered, putting up his tools and wiping the gore onto his apron. The Doc always forgot to clean his clothing and switch out his aprons, so he could be quite frightening to behold for the first time. A middle aged man, perhaps in his fifties or sixties, average height and build, with graying brown hair and dark blue eyes, dressed in formerly white clothing with blood streaks and spots all over it, holding a razor sharp scalpel in one hand, brought to mind all sorts of images of mad scientists. Of course, the Doc was mad and he was a scientist, but he produced tangible and realistic results, unlike the figures of fiction.
"A broken upper spine, a shattered ribcage, internal bleeding, punctured organs… you did a number on Juggernaut. And you ruptured Sarl's spleen and left kidney with that back attack. Neither will be advanced to BCPU 4 for at least five more months, now. And with graduation only two weeks away too…"
"I'm not sorry, Doc. They had it coming to them. And if they couldn't prevent it from happening, they hardly deserve to be promoted, do they?"
"I'm not rebuking you, my boy. Just observing. So did you come down here just for a chat or did you want something? A girl maybe? Thresher requests feminine company quite often."
"I'm not Cray, Doc. No, I didn't come down here for that. I just wanted to know when we were going out on an operation again."
"Unusual. You aren't usually this eager for fighting. Especially in a war you don't totally believe in."
"Doc…"
"Shut up, my boy. I know you as well as you do. I know your motivations and your thoughts. I suppose I ought to be grateful that you are so reluctant to wipe out my kind, even though you agree that they are a threat, but weakness is NOT tolerated in my program. And pity and understanding for the enemy is a SERIOUS weakness, my boy."
"Doc… isn't there any other way to get rid of the Coordinators? Send them all out to beyond the asteroid belt or something? Why do we have to kill them all? I know I've been made into a weapon and that weapons aren't supposed to care how they're used… but it seems so wasteful to just kill them all, when they could be used for something."
"Coordinators are human, my boy. We may be changed… manipulated… modified… but at the basic level, we are still Homo Sapiens. If enslaved we will find some way to revolt. If harnessed we will sabotage. If allowed status we will rebel. That's what humans do. Worse, if confronted with the strange, incomprehensible or that which we find frightening, we will do our best to eradicate it. For humans, that which is frightening is the Coordinator. For the Coordinator, that which is frightening is the Human. The two cannot co-exist, because they must have one be superior over the other, and neither is willing to submit." The Doc said tiredly. It was one of the closest of secrets, but the Doc, the mastermind behind the BCPU project and high level member of Blue Cosmos, was actually a Coordinator. Why a Coordinator would work to destroy his own people was one of the things Ashino did not know about the Doc. He didn't think even Cervantes Zunnichi, the new head of Blue Cosmos, or Murata Azrael, the old head of Blue Cosmos, had known why the Doc worked for them. That he did was enough.
"So we have to kill them because they are human… in order to protect humanity?" Ashino asked.
"Don't twist words, Ashino. You don't want to make me angry. History is full of similar actions."
"Like the Nazi's of World War II?"
"You say that like it was a bad thing."
"It was, wasn't it?"
"History says so." The Doc mused. "Given how long ago it happened, I'm inclined to believe the facts have been warped, though how much so I don't know. I'm just not sure which part of the analogy the Coordinator is. Are we the Nazi's or the Jews? We have the genetic purity the Nazi's strove for, and the elitist attitude… but we are also persecuted for being perceived as better, wealthier, ahead of our fellows. Think on that, my boy and tell me if you can come up with a good answer. As for your initial question, I have it on good authority that the three of you will be deployed to the Gibraltar area in the next few days."
"Why Gibraltar? We're sure to lose that base."
"Maybe keeping the base isn't what the Alliance wants. It is beyond me, I know medicine, not war. Now, get you off to your quarters. It'll be meal time soon. And remember what I said about Nazi's and Jews. I'll be expecting an answer."
"Aye aye, Doc."