"God DAMN, but this system is finicky! It's even picker about its arrangement than y..." Dearka trailed his comment off, as he figured that while some comments might go unnoticed in the heat of combat, if he made too many derogatory comparisons to Mir, regardless of his entirely reasonable frustration, she would definitely make him pay for it later.
"I am not picky about any arrangements I happen to be involved with." Miriallia replied, with a hint of frost in her tone that made him wince and berate himself for not managing his runaway mouth better. "I like things to be neat and organized, but that does not make me obsessively picky, fussy or badgering, despite your many muffled complaints you think I don't hear. I may not have the ears of a Coordinator Redcoat, but you don't have the voice of a ninja, ya know!" She frowned as she typed intently at her keyboard, working to adjust the alignment of the closer accelerator units, while Dearka worked on the admittedly trickier more distant units. Though Dearka's comment was rude, and entirely baseless, at least when it came to her, she DID have to admit the targeting and pre-firing set up for the Spear of Ares was... clunky... to be polite. In words Dearka might use, or even she herself were he not around to hear her and make her feel guilty, it was a goddamned fucking shitheap of a system! It was MORE than obvious that the system had never been test fired outside of a computer simulation, and the recent technical software update had done little to address some SERIOUS issues with the system. "I think I've just about got this bastard lined up on this end. You?"
"Well, we appear to be aiming somewhere lower than his navel, but if we try and readjust our aim, it will mean reworking ALL the placements of the accelerator units, or basically starting over from step one, so I vote we just take the shot we have and hope for the best. If the Spear does ANYTHING at all like what it's supposed to do, it shouldn't really matter where we hit him, after all..." Dearka shook his head and sighed with exasperation, leaving off with his fiddling, nascent perfectionist attempts to align the accelerator units to a full 100 percent ratio. He was at greater than 99 percent already, but he felt that when working with ANYTHING that dealt with materials moving at speeds of any significant fraction of lightspeed, there was no such thing as too much precision in your calibrations! A few tenths of a percent off wasn't much when dealing with something that fired at a couple thousand miles per hour, or at ranges of a few tens of miles, but this weapon, even at standard levels, was shooting at over thirty three MILLION miles per hour, and he wasn't sure there WAS a max range at all! Errors would be magnified quite a bit, to say the least. "How's the rest of the battle going?" He asked, now that they had a free moment, while the accelerators finished their pre-charging cycles and the computers double checked all their inputs for glaring errors.
"Well, the big, huge, scary guy is still right where he's supposed to be, which is some consolation." Miriallia reported, somewhat sourly. "Though he's a lot more active than he has any reasonable right to be... no surprise there. His right arm's off at the shoulder, and his armor is as much hole as metal, but he's nothing if not persistent. The Archangel seems to be doing okay staying ahead of him for the moment, and they've pasted him pretty well, but his defenses are just too good... even point blank Lohengrin shots probably wouldn't take him down for sure, and if Captain Ramius tried to line up a shot like that, he'd shoot them down well before they got their attack off. If the Brotherhood is the same people that produced the Pulsar, they've definitely improved on their self-repair systems... nothing short of blowing it apart entirely is going to put an end to that monster for sure! Hell, if we left it alone long enough, it'd probably start walking around again!"
"Well, hopefully a couple minutes isn't long enough for THAT to happen." Dearka said, with an attempt at lightness that fell flat, even to his ears. "What about the others?" He asked, with a cough to cover the awkward silence that had followed his last comment.
"Uhh... sucks to be the Brotherhood?" Miriallia summed up concisely, after a look at the larger picture through the Warmaster's sensor suite. "Kira, Athrun, Cagalli and Kisaka ganged up on them like mobsters terrorizing an elementary school class."
"There's always a bigger fish. Or meaner bully. Or fantastically skilled pilot in a scary new Gundam." Dearka said with a pitiless shrug. If all the Brotherhood forces were just plain wiped from existence, well, he would be far from crying, that was for sure! "So, once we take down the zombie over there, its a wrap?"
"Basica..." Miriallia was interrupted by a lightning quick series of events around the Archangel, where the starboard Gottfried turret just sort of... fell off the ship, and twin smaller explosions blossomed on its starboard dorsal surface, even as the sight of the Vengeance coming to a halt just before the bridge resolved on their cameras. Standing out on the battlefield like a pulsating star on their thermal sensors, the Vengeance paused, as if to regain its footing, and then, before anyone could cry out in shock, much less try and give a warning or take any preventative action, the Vengeance thrust it's sword at the Archangel's bridge. Even if they'd not been locked into position preparing the Spear of Ares for activation, there was nothing the Warmaster could have done... none of its weapons were pointed toward the Archangel, of course, and nothing they had that was capable of injuring the Vengeance would A, get there in time and B, also not do a pretty good job of destroying the Archangel's bridge even if it DID get there in time! Miriallia dimly remembered seeing the icon of the Seraph closing in on the Archangel's position on her sensor board, but Kira was moving with apparent glacial slowness.
Nothing could stop the Vengeance from decapitating the Archangel, and killing Murrue, Waltfeld and several hundred other Orb soldiers. Except something did. The Vengeance stopped DEAD in its tracks, its sword tip actually touching the Archangel, but not penetrating deeply enough to cause real damage. At first Miriallia couldn't figure it out... then something jogged her memory and she gasped in realization... she'd seen people freeze like this before actually! Back when Lacus had gotten completely off her rocker pissed off, when Sai and his men were threatening Kira when he was hurt and in a hospital bed! Except of course it wasn't Lacus this time but Katie, who'd always protested she didn't have that kind of power, but since she was power boosted by Ysak she must have... Miriallia's thoughts trailed away as she saw that the Vorpal was nowhere nearby, not even within a hundred kilometers of the Lunar surface, much less the Archangel. Her dead certainty faltered and crumpled away... but if this wasn't an example of a Newtype in action, WHAT THE HELL WAS GOING ON!? She felt almost guilty for complaining, but she really didn't like it when things just went completely fucking random all of sudden, with no visible cause!
The Vengeance staggered backwards, as if cuffed across the face, more stratled than injured, its sword now dangling loosely in one hand. It continued to stare at the Archangel's bridge, like it was looking at the most fascinating... or horrifying... image imaginable. The Vengeance was so caught up in whatever had transfixed its attention it didn't even make an attempt to evade or strike out against the Seraph, as Kira powered in at maximum thrust, first putting a multilayered wall of shield energy between the Archangel's bridge and the Vengeance with his wings, and then bodily slamming into the Vengeance with the Seraph, like a football player going for a rough sack, catapulting the Vengeance off the Archangel in an uncontrolled arc, even as the Seraph also wobbled and assumed a mostly ballistic trajectory as Kira struggled to unscramble his own actions after the pulverizing collision. To Dearka and Miriallia's continued surprise, the Vengeance did not even attempt to recover, instead allowing gravity to take hold and pull it in a slow motion plummet to the Lunar surface, raising a small mushroom cloud of dust and debris when it struck. Dearka wasn't sure he saw it right, but he could have sword he discerned something small breaking away from the Vengeance's chest region shortly after the Seraph had body slammed it... he wondered what that was?
Both of their minds were comprehensively dragged back to the here and now by pulsating alarm sirens and lights, as the ECM and threat assesment boards of the Warmaster lit up like a Christmas tree festival. They both took in the situation at a glance, and shared a mutual blanch and grim look. With the Archangel embroiled in its own conflict once more, and sideslipping away from the Revenant in the process, Cray had somehow managed to get bored and had turned his attention to other matters. Though still locked into place, half fallen over, with his ruined right arm thrust into the ground and his legs immobile and useless, he was able to contort the Revenant's left arm and torso around a bit to hunt out another target he'd been meaning to take care of for some time, even though they'd been suspiciously quiet for the past little while. It didn't take him long to find them, surprisingly, since they weren't hiding or running, but standing in plain view, a relatively short distance away, only a few kilometers. He was both impressed and depressed... he'd been anticipating a long, drawn out affair, with them scurrying for cover like a mouse evading stomping boots, and him blasting them out again and again. On one hand, he could cut to the climax that much sooner... on the other, what the hell else was he going to do while his legs healed?
"We need to fire RIGHT now!" Dearka said, swallowing hard, as the Revenant's left arm swung around with wicked grace to point more or less directly at them. Their camera's zoomed in until he could swear he was looking down the barrels at the firing chambers, as the tripled muzzles began to spin up in lethargic preparation for firing. Whether Cray knew that they couldn't dodge or he was just taking his own sweet time to fire for reasons of his own, Dearka didn't know, but he was grateful for the few extra seconds. With every passing moment they came closer to the time when the Spear of Ares could be fired.
"We can't yet." Miriallia replied, her heart in her throat as she saw the same things as Dearka did. "Not for another forty seconds. If we shoot now, it'd be almost the same thing as not shooting at all. It wouldn't have enough power to hit any harder than an Earthshaker shell, and that's just not enough!"
"We probably don't even have ten seconds, much less forty!" Dearka protested lamely, though he knew she was right. Hell, the goddamn system wouldn't even LET you fire prematurely, he was pretty sure, to avoid wasting shots. Incidentally, while setting up to fire, the thrusters and other mobility systems were also extremely limited, to avoid accidental mispositioning of the first accelerator, aka the Warmaster. Something he'd have to edit out later, assuming somehow that they managed to get to a later... sometimes being able to shoot first mattered a lot more than being able to shoot hardest! "Mir... baby... I know I ain't always been the most perfect of guys to have a relationship with... but I just want you to know that..."
"Don't even BEGIN to say things like that! It's completely unnesessary and presumptive!" Miriallia cut him off, though she could do little to disguise the raw emotion in her voice, or the tears trickling from the corners of her eyes. "There's absolutely nothing to regret, Dearka..." She unbuckled her strabs and rose up onto her seat, turning around so that she could face him directly in his pilot's chair, turning her back on the Revenant and its menacing weapon. She wanted the last thing she'd ever get to see to be something worth seeing. And at the moment, there was nothing more worthwhile than Dearka. She reached out a hand, and he took hold of it, moisture beading out from his own eyes, as he pulled her lightly towards him, enveloping her in a warm embrace even as all their forward screens flared with violent green light, as the Revenant opened fire with its Gatling Gottfried, incandescent green flares of energy spearing towards the unable to dodge Warmaster. They both bent their heads together and waited for the brief flash of pain.
And waited. And waited. And waited a few seconds more, as alarms pinged and their screens continued to flare bright green. But there was no impact. No rush of heat followed by fading coldness. No sharp stab of pain followed by oblivion. It was like time had stopped. For a little while, Dearka wasn't sure it HADN'T stopped somehow, though he could feel both his and Mir's hearts pounding like out of control drums, and he didn't think hearts would beat if time was stopped. Wishing that the grim reaper would just get it the hell over with, if he was going to do it, since now definitely seemed to be the right time, given the circumstances, Dearka slowly lifted his head and squinted into the actinic green light radiating from his screens, wondering what the hell was going on? He stared, jaw open in amazement, because the reason for the lack of the death he'd been expecting was that the Revenant's firepower wasn't reaching the Warmaster. Wasn't even getting close, as a matter of fact. Hell, the shots were barely traveling a half kilometer from the barrels before being intercepted by a impermeable barrier. A Citadel Shield. Or to be completely honest... two of them.
"Who the hell...? Kira? Ysak? Athrun?" Dearka rapidly exhausted his roster of people he knew that would be stupidly brave enough to interpose themselves between weapons of that firepower and another target. But the Seraph was still over by the Archangel, and so was the Phoenix King. And the Vorpal had yet to fully recover from the pasting the Revenant's defense pods had done to its thruster systems, and was still nowhere nearby.
"YO! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING OVER THERE!?" An unknown voice cried out from their comm system. "You think this is easy or fun over here!? Kindly move your ass so we can do the same!"
"Who is this?" Miriallia asked, somewhat belatedly slipping back into her chair and rebuckling herself in, now that death was no longer heartbeats away. Well maybe it still was, but...
"The people SAVING YOUR ASS!" A different voice retorted, filled with strain and more than a little distemper. "Does it matter if we're fucking PIXIES or DRAGONS or just plain fucking SOLAR KNIGHTS or WHAT!? My name's Lain, Lain Debora, if you really gotta know who's saving you!"
"And I'm Knight-Ensign Eric Kellson." The first voice answered. "We saw you were in a bit of a pinch, and considering all the help the Clyne Faction has given to our friends, we figured it'd be churlish to not return the favor." Eric gritted his teeth as he fought to keep his Archon's shield steady and aligned with Lain's, deflecting the majority of the incoming energy, trading position for time, as they were both slowly forced backwards by the unending onslaught. "Whether or not I'm still a Knight-Ensign, or even a Solar Knight after this battle is something that remains to be seen." He commented in a private aside to Lain.
"What, just because we told a superior officer to go fuck himself you think they're going to punish us!?" Lain replied with a smirk. "Shinn did it, and he practically got a medal! I think that's a proper precedent, don't you?"
"I don't want Luna to hit me either."
"Picky, picky..." Lain returned his comm to the line they'd opened up with the Warmaster, which STILL hadn't moved. "ANY DAY NOW, YA KNOW! We don't do this living shield gig for fun!" He turned his comm back to Eric. "Speaking of... why do WE always get stuck with this living shield gig!? This is what, the second or third time in one battle!? What kinda lunatics are we?"
"The adorable, heroic ones that will hopefully get all sorts of thanks from the cute girl we saved type." Eric smiled widely. "And all sorts of props from the Gundam pilots we saved type. And maybe even the internationally recognized and lauded type."
"When I said I wanted to be famous, I didn't mean being famous for doing something incredibly stupid, like standing in front of what amounts to a space battleship while it fires its main guns at me repeatedly!"
"Picky, picky..." Eric's smile turned into a frown when he saw that the Warmaster still hadn't moved an inch. "Hey, if your movement systems are disabled, just eject and get well clear! Sucks about the Gundam, but its not worth your lives! We can't do this forever!"
"Can you do it for another twenty seconds?" Dearka asked cautiously, eying his targeting systems specuatively.
"Uh... maybe... if we had to... why...?"
"Imagine the biggest gun in the world." Dearka replied with a trace of his usual cocky smirk back on his face. "Imagine a barrel that is three point two kilometers long. Imagine what sort of munition a gun of THAT size would fire. Imagine that this gun can only work in space because it's bullet would tear itself to pieces with air friction if it was used in atmosphere, BEFORE it even left the barrel! Imagine that this gun takes almost twenty minutes to charge up and aim, its THAT powerful."
"Is this hypothetical weapon aimed at the Revenant?" Lain asked wolfishly.
"Imagine you can't move while aiming and charging this weapon, because it takes so much processing power to keep the barrel aligned properly, especially in gravity, even light gravity like the Moon has." Dearka added as way of reply.
"Just tell us when to get out of the way. You aren't going to have long before the beams reach you though." Eric warned.
"It'll be long enough." Miriallia assured them. She began counting down the seconds in her mind. Six... five... she watched Dearka curl his hands around the control yokes, even as her own finger hovered above the activation key for the Spear. Four... three... she put her hand over the comm switch, knowing there would be a slight delay in response time of the Solar Knights, from when she told them to move and when they actually did. However, the Spear would have no such delay. Two... "GET OUT OF THERE!" Mir yelled at the top of her lungs. One... the Solar Knights dropped away to either side of the path of fire, their shields half molten and their armor blackened from all the abuse it had taken. Zero... her finger stabbed down on the activation switch, firing the Spear of Ares and allowing power to return to the Warmaster's movement systems, thus letting Dearka throw the machine to the side in an ungainly dive for cover.
Initially, in the microseconds following the push of the activation key, there wasn't much to look at. The tiny, shiny ball of Ice-Gold was ejected from its holding position along the top of the Warmaster's head, drifting forward a mere foot before being scooped up by the sucking magnetic fields of the first accelerator, which grabbed hold of the ball and hurled it towards the next accelerator in line, discharging its pent up energy in a shockwave of brilliant red-gold light that trailed after the ball, forming a glowing line between the accelerators, like the shaft of a heavenly spear. The explosions of light as the ball passed into each successive accelerator maw and out the opposite side blossomed faster than a human eye could comprehend, faster even than most machines could quantify, much less observe. Suffice it to say that the Revenant's energy beams had reached three quarters of the way to the Warmaster's position by the time Miriallia had pressed the firing trigger. The beams still HADN'T passed the Warmaster's position when the Spear of Arms exited the final accelerator and then struck the Revenant, with a period of time between those two events so brief in scope there are no words fit to describe the difference. They may as well have happened at the exact same time.
Even space is not empty, and the space near a large gravitational object, such as a plenatrey body or planetoid, like a Moon, is even less empty than the deeper reaches of the void, so while there was no air or cohesive gas particles to provide friction for the ball to slow or melt itself against, there were still microscopic fragments of dust and scattered gas particles populating the space between the end of the spear shaft and the Revenant. Collisions between the searhead and these objects accounted for almost a quarter of its mass, shards spalling off in ejections of plasma, like the sparks from miniature suns, even as faint trails of red-gold energy bleedover from the accelerators continued to hound the spearhead, marking its trajectory for all to see. Still, when the tiny spearhead struck the Revenant low on its left side, the trauma of the impact could NOT be overstated. Even though the spearhead actually struck on a recently repaired Citadel Scale, one of the strongest portions of the Revenant's armored form, it hardly mattered. The spearhead instantly translated into pure kinetic energy, which innundated the Revenant, spreading outward in a rippling tide of destruction that happened in less time than it takes to think a single thought.
If anyone HAD been able to see the devastating effects of the shot, before the explosion of light and heat obliterated the area and confused the image beyond the ability of man or machine to completely recreate, they would have seen the Revenant completely seperated at the waist, with the middle quarter of its body just plain GONE, with nothing remaining at all between the middle thigh and upper belly of the monstrous machine. Cray never knew what hit him... one moment he was crowing victoriously, the next he was spinning violently as the limbs of the Revenant cracked, shattered and splintered away from the body, even as armor peeled away from him like sunburned skin, as the upper torso and head of the Revenant tumbled through space in a chaotic spin, throw up and entirely out of the Lunar gravity field by the force of the explosion. He managed a brief, incoherent squawk of surprise, before the crushing gravitic forces of the uncontrolled spin proved too much for even the strength of a BCPU to endure, especially with most of his compensation systems, not to mention systems in general, either disabled or just plain GONE.
Back on the Lunar surface, Dearka, Miriallia, Eric, Lain and just about everyone else within a hundred kilometers or so were blinking spots out of their eyes and looking with awe and even constrenation, at the wide and shallow blast crater that was all that was left of the Revenant. Hunks and pieces of the once mighty machine had been thrown into orbit, or even out of Lunar orbit, but by and large, there wasn't anything bigger than a tabletop toaster left over. There was one larger chunk, but it was moving at almost twenty thousand miles per hour in an uncontrolled spin, and bleeding fire and wreckage constantly to boot, as it headed towards the Earth's debris belt, unable to overcome the gravitic attraction of the larger planetary body. For the intents and purposes of most observers, they had just annihilated the Revenant in a single shot, and left a crater almost two kilometers across in the process, even if it was only a few meters deep. Rock dust from the explosion would be raining down across most of the Lunar surface for weeks, like ash from a volcanic eruption, which was one of the things News agencies would compare the utter devastation to in their description of the aftermath of the second battle of Galileo.
-----------------------------------------
Ashino had only gotten about an eighth of a kilometer when the Revenant just plain ceased to exist, between blinks of his eyes. Hell, he wasn't even sure he had blinked, events had just transpired too fast for a human... or close enough anyways... eye to comprehend. Unlike the impact of the Vengeance, he had no warning, no way to prepare or mitigate the secondary effects of the Revenant going up like a small atomic bomb, or even a not so small one! At first, even as he was flying through space, knocked off his feet by the ground shockwave and then hurled by the expanding "pressure" wave of dust and small debris, Ashino thought the USN had indeed, in fact nuked the Revenant. All the factors seemed to fit... sudden devastation, bright flash of light, the utter destruction of something that had thus far proved largely unbeatable to conventional weapons... it all pointed to a sudden, decisive use of a WMD. And as far as he knew anyway, the USN was the only military still allowed to keep nuclear weapons, if only a very small number of them. In some ways, he was surprised they'd waited as long as this to use one on the Revenant, considering the collateral damage Galileo base was sure to suffer, since the Revenant was inside the base perimeter, or had been anyway.
As he gathered himself, uncurling from the protective ball he wrapped himself into to minimize damage from striking objects while flying, finding himself lying face up on the ground, covered in grey dust and half buried in loose detrius and rubble, Ashino began noticing a few things that started to put the lie to the nuke theory. There was a mushroom cloud, but it was not as big as he'd been expecting, for a strategic level weapon anyway. He'd seen those go off before, during the Australian Maneuver, and this didn't look quite right. Also, there was too little wreckage left over... contrary to popular belief, nuclear blasts, while incredibly destructive, didn't atomize everything in their blast radius. Melt, burn, blast apart, rend into small pieces, sure... but completely obliterate... no. There was... too little left over, for lack of a better description. Even a direct hit with a nuclear weapon, warhead on armor, probably would have left more debris, especially from a large object like the Revenant. Heat based explosions, such as nuclear bombs, didn't propogate well in vacuum, since heat didn't travel well without air. It would take an absolutely massive bomb to completely vaporize the Revenant, and a bomb of that size would have left a crater MUCH bigger than the one he could somewhat see.
"Well, at least he's gone." Ashino chuckled grimly, standing up and brushing himself off slightly. If it hadn't been for his helmet, he'd have spat in the direction of the Revenant's crater. "Stay dead this time, if you would be so kind, Cray. The world is so much happier without you." Ashino implored his "brother". He put his hands on his hips and looked around some more, trying to decide his best way to get out of the immediate area, before search and rescue teams blanketed Galileo, not to mention news crews and plenty more military forces. His only option was to slip away in the confusion of the battle aftermath, but the trick was getting far enough away... traveling on foot would see him tracked down by the Solar Knights or another Mobile Suit unit within hours, and even stealing a shuttle or military transport would do him little good if he was tracked down later. He needed something to defend himself with... a Mobile Suit would be just great. Trick was... where was he going to get a servicable Mobile Suit in these conditions? Pilots didn't generally get out of their machines on a battlefield if they had the option, and any machine that HAD been abandoned was almost surely not working anymore.
Motion in his peripheral vision drew his attention and his gaze, though it took him a few moments to make out what he was seeing. And then, he spent a few moments staring, in mixed epiphany, admiration and disbelief. The Vengeance was lying in its shallow crash crater, about a hundred meters behind him, half concealed behind the crumpled ruins of several outbuildings that had not weathered so well the dual shocks of the Vengeance's landing, and the whatever it was that took out the Revenant, the buildings now little more than collections of torn metal and shattered plastics. To his great surprise, the cockpit appeared open, or else the torso region was so badly damaged that the cockpit was accessible, but the hole looked too regular, too intentional, to be the result of battle damage. Though why the pilot would choose to abandon what was certainly one of the most powerful Gundams ever built was something Ashino could not fathom, especially because he could make out very little battle damage, and even that was disappearing as he watched, healed over by the amazingly powerful self repair systems the Gundam seemed to be equipped with.
That accounted for his epiphany... almost as if ordained by Fate, here was a Mobile Suit, a Gundam even, ripe for the taking, practically tossed into his lap in time of need, as if God was apologizing for taking the Independence from him! His admiration and disbelief, equal parts of either, came from observing the attempts of the figure in the burn scarred flight suit to clamber into that selfsame cockpit, even though the efforts were obviously so painful as to be nearly crippling, judging from the individual's jerky, lethargic, constrained motions. Ashino could hardly credit his eyes... he knew damned well what sort of pain that fool had to be in, he'd inflicted it upon the bastard himself! That he was even standing upright was amazing, much less moving around and trying to climb up the side of a Gundam, no matter that it was lying on its back! He should be unconscious right now! Hell, he should be dead! Though Ashino was fairly sure broken ribs and a collapsed lung wouldn't stop he himself, he was a BCPU, and this Shinn Asuka was only a Coordinator! Truly, it was a terrible thing for him to be enemies with someone as admirable as this!
So engrossed in his painful work was Shinn... or so blinded by the agony of forcing his broken body to move... that either way, Shinn failed to notice Ashino's approach, even as he fell backwards once more, having gotten about halfway up the Vengeance's side, his fingers pushing into the slightly yielding surface of the Vengeance's shimmering armor, leaving shallow marks that swirled and faded, like the stuff was very hard cheese instead of a fully solid material. The stuff was slippery, and hard to grab hold of. Normally he'd just use his legs and take advantage of the light Lunar gravity to leap atop the downed Gundam, but right now he could barely STAND, much less think about JUMPING! Damn that Ashino and his incredible strength... every time he moved, Shinn could feel bones moving around inside his chest, and blood droplets trickled freely from his nostrils and corners of his mouth. He forced himself not to think about the damage he was causing himself. If he just sat back and waited for rescue, he would probably die. If he didn't actively seek out help, he was a goner. And the best way of seeking out help would be to capture this Gundam, and use it to take himself to a hospital, as soon as possible! He was reaching up to start his climb again when a strong hand fell firmly on his shoulder, halting him.
"Let me help." Ashino said, shaking his head at the irony. Here they were, two men that had just been trying to beat each other unconscious, or worse, not five minutes before, and now he was helping his opponent board a Gundam? He'd debated, for a few moments, just conking Shinn over the head, or perhaps more effectively, punching him in the chest again, to disable him while Ashino took the Gundam, but he hadn't been able to muster up the kind of hatred for Shinn that would let him do that, despite Shinn being a Coordinator, a Solar Knight and someone who had been trying to kill Ashino and defend Durandel. Shinn was being decieved, being misled by his superiors for their own goals. He was a victim of Durandel much like Ashino was, if to much lesser extent. Killing him, or leaving him to die, just didn't sit well with Ashino's conscience. Not when it wouldn't take much effort on his part to at least TRY and save him anyway. Ashino snorted as a thought occured to him... in a lot of ways, Shinn reminded him of himself, back when he'd first met Lacus Clyne at JIHAD. He'd been the decieved one then, and she the one to show him the light of truth... now perhaps he might be able to do the same thing for this Shinn Asuka? A worthwhile effort, he decided.
"You..." Shinn's sentence trailed away in a wet gargle, and his body shook and shivered as he coughed and choked violently for several seconds before recovering his breath slightly. "You..." Shinn said again, his voice growing weaker as he started to fade out from consciousness. "Why..."
"In the end, my job is the same as yours. Protecting the lives of citizens of the USN. From threats external... and internal." Ashino replied sardonically, though he was pretty sure Shinn couldn't hear him anymore. He cradled the tall Coordinator as gently in his arms as he could and flexed his leg muscles, hopping them both up to the Vengeance's chest with a minimum of fuss. The Vengeance's cockpit was indeed empty, though Ashino could hardly stomach calling the cavity in the Vengeance's chest a true cockpit... there was no chair, no screens, no instruments, not even any controls at all as far as he could see! It was just a hole, an empty space... how could anyone pilot a Gundam inside a place like that? Well, he considered that he wasn't going to find out by standing around on the outside, so he lowered Shinn into the hole and then hopped down into it himself. He was fortunate that he was smaller than average, because with Shinn already inside, space was VERY cramped.
He cast his gaze around, looking for some sort of button to push or control to activate or heck even figure out a good place to stand, but there was nothing. The interior walls were blank and featureless... he was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to tell the floor from the ceiling if he didn't have the hatch open so he could see where the head was! How was this thing controlled... if Frost had been able to pilot a prototype of this unit, there was no reason Ashino shouldn't be able to handle the finished product! He was still looking around in frustrated puzzlement when the Vengeance's cockpit hatch suddenly closed and sealed itself shut, locking him and Shinn inside in pitch darkness. Ashino snatched for a illumination stick, but before he could complete the motion fully, his limbs felt like they were weighed down with three hundred pound blocks, and movement of any sort took all his concentration and effort, though he could neither feel, nor, once he got the stick working, see any form of bonds! It wasn't until he saw the stick, which he'd dropped to the ground, instead free floating in the air, despite the fact that they were still in a gravity well, that he began to understand.
The Vengeance, like the Pulsar, was capable of performing extremely high gravity maneuvers, to the point where it seemed almost inertialess in its movements. However, while machines could relatively easily be designed to bear up under stresses like that, the human body was less well equipped, and even modern restraint harnesses would only cut a human body up past a certain amount of acceleration or decceleration gravities, splattering the pilot across his cockpit in a gory mess. Obviously the Brotherhood had to have some better way of protecting their Gundam pilot, of keeping his or her body completely immobilized and cushioned from the high gravity stresses the Gundam itself was enduring. Whatever this field was that he was in... magnetic or who really knew what it was... it was functioning like a full body restraint, designed to keep whoever was in it totally immobile and probably insulated from any sort of vibration or kinetic shock as well. It also did a damned good job of functioning as bonds, to keep him from doing much more than twitch his fingers and roll his eyes, as the Vengeance slowly, and entirely on its own, or so it seemed, powered up and righted itself, with Shinn and Ashino trapped inside.
More irony abounded... they'd both been trying to capture the Gundam, each for their own purposes, but now it looked like the Gundam was the one who'd captured them! Ashino felt distressingly few inputs, given the immobilizing field slowly levitating him off the floor, he had no idea if the Gundam was moving or not, but he expected it was. however, with no access to screens or sensors or anything else, he had no idea where they were going. He had no clue of speed, or direction, or even if they were turning or just flying straight. It was very frustrating, for a person that almost never got lost or confused about where he was in a physical sense. There was no sound save his own breathing, the only light was from his illuminator stick, which was barely enough to illuminate his own face and chest, and the only temperature he could feel was the stuffiness of his flight suit. He sighed, and then resigned himself to the best recourse in situations like this, where a person was helpless to do anything to affect their fate, and they weren't in immediate danger. He closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep.
-----------------------------------------------
"The Captain shouldn't be exposing themselves to possible danger like this." Waltfeld admonished, as he and Murrue headed towards the port mandible hanger, where the captured Brotherhood Gundam, the one known as the Tormented, had recently been deposited by the Phoenix King and the Dawn Goddess. A work crew was also out searching for the pilot of the Vengeance, who'd ejected from his machine for unknown reasons shortly before Kira and the Seraph had tackled the Vengeance off the top of the Archangel. It had been a while ago, but the pilot couldn't have gotten far in a simple unpowered flight suit, unable to do more than drift with whatever negligible momentum his ejection process had imparted. Of course, given the technology of the Brotherhood, perhaps he had full powered flight capabilities, even in just a basic environment suit, but if there was a possibility of capturing the pilot of that Gundam, Murrue and Waltfeld both agreed it was too good an opportunity to pass up! Especially because they'd missed on the chance to capture the Vengeance itself, as it had taken off shortly after falling to the ground, either following hardwired instructions or being remote controlled like the majority of the Brotherhood Mobile Suits. They'd tried to track it, but it quickly moved beyond their range, at such a speed that though they continued to try to hunt it down, nobody held any real hope of finding it.
"Neither should the XO." Murrue replied with a brief smile. "Who exactly did I leave in charge of the bridge again?"
"It must have been Lieutenant Neumann." Waltfeld flexed his artificial arm nervously, as the door to the hanger came into view. Truth be told, he wasn't going to miss out on the unmasking of a Brotherhood gundam pilot, not to mention mostly intact Brotherhood Gundam, for anything! Not to mention the mostly intact Zealot that Kisaka had disabled... combined they represented a treasure trove of information on the Brotherhood's technology, which might very well be able to answer many of their long standing questions about the Brotherhood's capabilities and even goals! The enemy Gundam pilot might be able to help along those lines as well... though Orb definitely didn't condone the use of... coercive practices... in its criminal justice system, where exactly international terrorists fit into the bargain was a grey area. Waltfeld was fairly sure a few "long talks" with Cyprus Finch, Thomas Glory and Richard Ramierez would have just about anyone, no matter how hardy, singing like a canary. And there probably wouldn't even be too many surface marks either.
"Yes, Lieutenant Neumann is a very capable officer, who follows orders from his captain well, unlike some." Murrue shook her head in mock despair.
"I follow plenty of orders." Waltfeld pointed out.
"Quantity of service does not beat out quality of service here, Andrew." She admonished, though she didn't carry it any further than that. She knew Andrew was concerned for her, which was touching, if somewhat misplaced given their current professional roles, but she could forgive him for it, and definitely understand the curiosity that also drove him to not want to wait a second longer than required to start furthering their understanding of the Brotherhood! They both stepped out together into the controlled chaos that was a hanger deck either pre or post battle. Indeed, it often seemed that the only times a hanger deck was truly calm was when there either had not been a battle for some time, or they were in the very midst of a battle and everything was secured and locked down. Colonel Kisaka's Dawndrake was in one corner of the hanger, being attended to by a team of disgusted looking technicians, who were shaking their heads in confounded anger as they tried to assess what exactly had happened to one of Orb's most advanced military machines, to render it so totally inoberable!
The Vorpal, newly restored to functionality by Ysak's determined efforts, as well as the Seraph, remained on patrol outside, in case of any last gasp efforts by the Brotherhood, suicidal or otherwise, while the Warmaster was in the other hanger, along with the disabled and mostly intact Zealot. The Phoenix King and the Dawn Goddess standing together made this hanger mandible very crowded, and the limp and battle scarred form of the Tormented, now securely clamped to a wall with plenty of weapons trained up it, made the overcrowding even worse. They could barely walk a step without having to push or slide past a technician, mechanic or soldier of some variety. Most of the soldiers were of course clustered around the Tormented, which though restrained had yet to disgorge its pilot, despite repeated demands, and the otherwise totally nonfunctional state of the machine. Even it's holoshroud was offline, leaving behind a fairly standard looking Gundam, that wouldn't have looked too out of place alongside the original five Gundams, except for the spindly, clawed left arm.
Murrue stepped past the encircling cordon of nervous soldiers and faced the Tormented directly, Andrew slightly behind her, his arms seemingly folded casually across his chest in a position of confidence, but she knew he was coiled tighter than a spring, ready to pounce like his namesake, in order to sweep her out of the line of any attack, whether it be from the Tormented or response fire from the soldiers behind her. Murrue stared the Gundam in its still slightly pink glowing eyes and mustered her nerve. Let it not be said that Murrue Ramius was fearless... merely well able to control her fear. Besides, though she WAS staring down a Gundam, she was doing it inside her own ship, with plenty of soldiers and other Gundams of her own backing her up. "My name is Murrue Ramius, Captain of this vessel, the ONS (Orb National Ship) Archangel, speaking to the pilot of the Tormented Gundam. You have been captured and your machine disabled. Your allies have fled and left you behind. Now, it really doesn't matter to me if you want to stay in there until we cut you out, but it would save quite a bit of unpleasantness on both sides if you would act with a smidgeon of honor. I can promise you won't be mistreated while in our care."
There was a long, heavy silence. "Maybe the pilot can't hear..." Andrew started to say, even as the Tormented's chest suddenly levered open, revealing a small, darkened cavity that seemed to serve as the cockpit, despite the fact that it was about a third the size of a similar arrangement in any non-Brotherhood machine. It was barely big enough to stand upright in, as evidenced by the pilot straightening and stretching, unconsciously but definitely, as she stepped out of the cockpit onto the armor flange that served as a boarding ramp when the cockpit hatch was open. It was a definite female, which matched up with their previous intelligence on the pilot from her foray into Orb, though she was quite a bit younger than Murrue had been expecting... not many years older than Cagalli or Lacus, if she was any judge, with an unbowed posture that bespoke of strong personal willpower, even in the face of what many would consider crushing adversity. Her flight suit was a dark emerald green, the favored color of the Brotherhood, emblazoned with the golden winged eyes that were the Brotherhood's most well known symbol across her chest and on her shoulders.
A huge, tightly bound mass of silvery wires extended out of the back of the pilot's helmet, and presumably out the back of her skull as well, with the wire bundle snaking back into the cockpit out of sight. Murrue was familiar with the general look of those wires, having seen the interior of the Pulsar's cockpit on several occasions, both before and after use, though there was no sign of the pinkish oxygenated gel that had filled the Pulsar's cockpit, acting as a sort of fluid restraint harness that protected the pilot against acceleration forces, in a superior manner to any regular physical harness. The silver wires retracted from the pilot's helmet and reeled back into the cockpit, allowing her to step forward a little more, even as almost every weapon in the hanger pointed at her face. Still acting with remarkable calm, or was it perhaps fatalism, Murrue couldn't tell, the pilot slowly reached up and unclasped her helmet, and then lifted it off her head, before lowering her hands to her sides and looking down at them placidly. Definitely fatalism, Murrue decided... the red haired, blue eyed girl didn't look sad, or angry or scared or anything much... she just looked like she didn't care about ANYTHING. She didn't say anything either, even as Orb Marines floated up to her in the microgravity of the hanger and relieved her of ehr helmet before binding her hands together and escorting her out of the hanger.
Murrue and Waltfeld exchanged glances, even as the techs descended upon the now vacated Tormented in a mutual near orgasm of expectant delight, and immediately began pulling the machine apart at the nuts and bolts level, each eager to find some astounding tidbit of information to convey to Dr. Erica Simmons, who was waiting impatiently back in Orb, imperiously demanding that any and all Brotherhood technology be delievered to her for reverse engineering as soon as humanly possible, if not before! "I swear, the terrorists are getting younger all the time. Back in the desert, at least the Blue Cosmos guys were fully grown men!" Andrew groused. "I almost felt guilty for a few moments there, looking at her... she looks like a college girl that just happened to get in way over her head on a bad deal or something! Why can't we get another Frost or something... the bad guys should look and act BAD! Not... resigned!"
"I think I'll take resigned over apocalyptic madman bent on the extinction of all humanity." Murrue said with a slight smile. "Less stress involved. I shudder to think of what would have happened if Frost had somehow managed to get on board the Archangel, and I never even saw him in action personally!" She looked up at the Tormented for a few more seconds, and then turned away, shaking her head.
"What?" Andrew asked, coming up to stand by her side again, taking advantage of the hurrah and bustle of the hanger to slip his biological arm around her waist comfortingly.
"I don't know. I was expecting... something. From that thing." Murrue waved her hand over her shoulder at the Brotherhood Gundam. "I feel... let down, or disappointed. Maybe I was expecting someone like Frost after all, and the reality of the situation is just so banal that..." She trailed off and shrugged, blushing slightly. "I guess it just wasn't exciting enough for me, terrible as that sounds." She lent into his arm as they both headed back towards the Bridge, willing to allow a bit of professional decorum, never her strongest suit, slip now that they were out of life threatening danger, and had achieved a great, if costly victory over the Brotherhood. They'd destroyed what had to be their most devastating Gundam, captured another Gundam, heavily damaged two more, and wiped out what had to be the majority of the Brotherhood's Mobile Forces... things were definitely looking up. They might even have been able to capture two of the enemy pilots, assuming...
"Make way, prisoner coming through! Make a hole, make a hole, people!" A burly master at arms shouted, bulling his way through the center of the hallway leading into the interior of the ship from the other hanger mandible. He was clearing a path for a wheeled medical gurney, which was being escorted by a five more spacesuit clad soldiers, though they were carrying their weapons at port arms, not ready to use. Their prisoner was also clad in the dark green flight suit of the Brotherhood, with the golden winged eye emblazons, just like the other Gundam pilots, though this man's suit also had traceries of silver in the form of feathers on his helmet, an obviously personal affectation that bespoke to Murrue of either high rank or great autonomy, or even both. Given that this was likely the pilot of the Vengeance, the most advanced Brotherhood Gundam they'd seen yet, if not the most destructive, she wouldn't have been surprised to learn that its pilot was higher ranking than the Tormented's pilot. She couldn't get a good look at his face though, because his helmet was still on, and the faceplate was opaqued. He was strapped securely to the gurney, and looked either stunned or otherwise unconscious.
"Where are you taking him, Petty Officer?" Murrue called, as the master at arms passed by. Suddenly noticing the presence of the Captain and Executive Officer, he snapped a hasty salute, which Murrue returned with much less fervor, if no less feeling.
"To Medical, Ma'am, to get that helmet off and for a routine battery of tests. We found him floating unresponsively, and haven't been able to determine the extent of his injuries, if there are any. He seems to be breathing normally, but he hasn't regained consciousness. After we've ascertained his condition, we'll be taking him to the brig... as far away from the other prisoner as possible. Standard practice, Ma'am." The master at arms replied quickly, though he didn't stop walking or clearing people out of the way even so. Murrue exchanged a brief glance with Andrew, and they both fell in behind the gurney, following it to medical. One more diversion before they got back to the no doubt belabored Lieutenant Neumann, the Archangel's longtime helmsman. An exceptional pilot, and a good officer... but not the sort of person either of them wanted to dump an entire post battle recovery situation on without warning or assistance, especially with neither of them disabled or otherwise prevented from accomplishing their normal duties.
They encountered a few difficulties once they'd gotten to Medical, the most notable of which was that the pilot's helmet wouldn't unclasp, didn't even seem to HAVE clasps, though they knew they had to be there. Murrue and Andrew had seen the Tormented's pilot remove her helmet with ease, though neither of them could remember where exactly she'd pressed on the locking ring collar of her suit-helmet interface to accomplish the seperation. The flight suit proved extremely durable and resistant to cutting force of any kind, even blunting surgical scapels and powerful saws with hardly a ding or scratch. Finally, fed up with the delay, andrew stepped forward and carefully stripped off the prosthetic skin "sheathe" that covered his artificial limb and made it look and feel like a normal human arm most of the time, revealing the skeletal black steel limb in all its sinister glory. Capable of punching through cinderblock walls, crushing metal posts and wreaking fearful damage on pretty much anything Andrew chose to hit with it, it could also manipulate more finely and more gently than most normal biological hands. However, Andrew chose to resort to the brute strength side of things for this particular occasion, as the master at arms and two other sailors carefully braced the pilot's head and neck while Andrew dug his steel fingers into the collar assembly and began ripping material out in fistful lots.
It only took a few fistfuls before bright pink liquid began leaking and spurting out from the rents in the flight suit, and Andrew backed off, wiping the body warm sloppy stuff off his hand with a nearby sheet, unaccountably disgusted even though he knew it was just a liquidated oxygen formulae of some sort. It was making a shocking mess of the medical gurney, and the floor of the Medical bay itself, as the flight suit, which must have been filled to bursting with the gellish stuff, drained out. After the stuff stopped pulsing thickly out of the hole he'd opened, Andrew stepped forward once more, seeing that the flight suit was sagging and much limper in a lot of places now that all that fluid was out of there. It made getting handholds without fear of accidentally grabbing and ripping up flesh much easier, and in a matter of minutes he'd removed the majority of the pilot's flight suit, certainly not neatly but definitely effectively, revealing a boxer clad male body that was well built and quite heavily scarred, especially around the arms and upper torso. The head and face were still concealed by the helmet for the moment.
Andrew finally managed to hook his hand up under the lip of the helmet and yank out the remains of the locking mechanism that had been sealing the helmet to the pilot's neck. Without further ceremony, already well tired with his unexpectedly disgusting chore, Andrew snatched the helmet up and off the man's head and set it aside gingerly, as another rush of pink fluid poured out from inside, like blood warm ichor. It was revolting... he didn't see how people could just walk around in a suit filled with stuff like that, much less fight in a Gundam while breathing it! He was so focused on the yucky pink gel that he didn't get a good look at the pilot's face, just getting a suggestion of wet blond hair plastered to his skull and a fine featured, almost noble face marred by quite a bit of raised pink and brown scar tissue. Even when he first looked back, he didn't immediately notice anything strange, the scars broke up the outline of the face so completely that it took real concentration to figure out why something was naggingly familiar about the features he was looking at.
It wasn't until he looked up and saw Murrue, her face as white as a ghost, her eyes wide and staring, almost bulging out of her head, her hands and face trembling, that things really started to click for Andrew. He reached out a hand towards Murrue to steady her, wincing when he realized it was his mechanical one, still entirely fleshless and sticky with pink glop to boot. He couldn't spare too much attention from the man lying in the bed though, lying there peacefully, entirely unaware of the distress he was causing Murrue, and now Andrew as well, though to a much lesser degree. After all, he'd only been friendly with the man... Murrue had been a great deal more than just friendly! Or she'd been hoping to be before things were cut shockingly short... one of those painful things he'd finally gotten her to confide in him in the interest of putting the grief of the past behind her. She ignored his comforting hand and stepped forward as if in a trance, staring down in pained disbelief at the man lying on the gurney.
"Murrue..." Andrew said in a cautious tone, wondering himself just what he was going to say next. Was he going to caution her that maybe it was just a crazy likeness? That it couldn't very well be the man they BOTH were thinking it was, because that man was dead and gone, and had been for almost seven years now? "Maybe we should..."
"Mu?" The achingly pained tone of Murrue's voice, tenative and even a tad bit frightened, nothing like she usually sounded, made Andrew swallow like he'd just been punched in the gut. In some ways, he would have preferred a good gut punch... from a Gundam even... compared to how he was feeling now! He watched her reach out a hand and place it carefully on the man's brow, just above where most of the scars ended. It just didn't seem possible, that Commander la Flaga could have survived a direct hit with a Lohengrin blast, but then again, who was he, Andrew Waltfeld, to say what a man should and should not survive, given what had happened to him and Aisha in the desert!? What was perhaps a more pressing concern was... why hadn't Commander la Flaga, an honorable man among honorable men, tried to contact them, or anyone, to tell them he was alive and at least mostly whole? Why were they only finding him NOW, seven YEARS later, by great accidental chance? And WHY was he wearing the colors of the Brotherhood, an organization of religious, militant COORDINATORS bent on destroying the world? That Mu had formerly been the pilot of the Vengeance seemed an irrefutable fact... but why would the Brotherhood give a Natural war hero like Mu la Flaga, regardless of his skills, their most advanced Gundam!? Why would he use it to further their goals!? If there was a last man on Earth that Andrew would ever think would be a terrorist, Mu la Flaga would be about third or fourth in line for the honor, before even Andrew Waltfeld himself!
The man on the gurney groaned slightly after Murrue touched him, and coughed up a thick wad of pinkish gel. His eyes flickered open, revealing bright, cerulean blue eyes that blinked at the harsh radiance of the bright Medical bay lights, obviously taking some time to focus on his surroundings. For all that, the eyes were clear and focused and definitely alive, with that merry, irrepressable spark of life in them that had been as much a trademark of Mu la Flaga as his feather adorned helmet or his famous motto, "I can make the impossible, possible", which was actually etched above the entranceway to the Archangel's bridge! And it was definitely a motto the man seemed MORE than able to live up to, as the current situation showed, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Mu looked around and met gazes first with Andrew, and then looked past him, following the arm on his forehead up, up, into a face he'd never been able to forget, even when he couldn't realize it himself. He lacked the strength to say anything, as unconsciousness beckoned once more, but he did manage to smile in contentment. He was back... he'd made it back!
Andrew was still shaking from the recognition he'd seen in Mu's eyes... there was no doubt in his mind any longer... this man WAS Mu la Flaga! He turned to see how Murrue was taking it, and was barely in time to lurch forward to catch her as she fell limply, having fainted dead away shortly after meeting Mu's knowing gaze and seeing his selfsure smile, the same one that had brightened her dreams and haunted her nightmares for years now! "Murrue! Shit!" Andrew lowered her gently to the floor, even as the master at arms, standing in the back of the room the whole time, pounded his fist on the wall intercomm and began barking orders into it. Andrew looked over at the gurney, with Mu la Flaga, the very Hawk of Endymion himself, the Savoir of the Archangel, strapped to it, even as he fanned and pinched Murrue, trying to wake her from her faint, something he hadn't seen her do since the very early days after the first Valentine War, when the pain of Mu's apparent death was still a wrecking ball slamming into her over and over again every time she closed her eyes. For the second time that day, Andrew found himself wishing that they'd found another Frost type person instead... why couldn't the bad guys be BAD!? It would be so much easier for everyone!
-----------------------------------------------------------
"Whatcha looking at there, pardner?" Lain drawled, coming up behind Eric and staring down at the portable data screen his friend was studying in his lap. They were both inside the Galileo base proper, now several hours past the end of the battle, regrouping with the rest of the remaining Solar Knights... not that there were overly many of them left now! First Platoon was down to just five Archons, Third Platoon had lost two thirds of its sixteen Archons, and second Platoon was sporting sixty percent material damage, and thirty percent personnel casualities as well! The support and supply corps were still at close to one hundred percent, but then again they hadn't got anywhere near the battle, and for once, no frontline combat pilot was going to give them shit about it, either! Nobody in their right mind should have been near THAT battle! A good many frontline combat pilots were seriously considering joining support corps, no matter the lower pay and lack of glory... at least they got to live to enjoy it! "I don't see any pretty girls." Lain noted, pouting disappointedly.
"Man I am so tired... and so pent up... that I can barely even think about girls right now, pretty or otherwise." Eric replied absently. "I got about ten thousand different things warring inside my head right now. Libido is down near the bottom."
"And that is one difference between us. My libido is never near the bottom, and I fail to imagine a situation where I could not spend good time by thinking of girls." Lain answered with a smile. "So if its NOT girls, then what are you looking at?"
"The projected flight path of the Revenant's remains. It seems it's going to impact somewhere nearby the ruins of Junius Seven, in the debris belt." Eric replied matter of factly, tilting the screen so Lain could see it better.
"Bro..." Lain trailed off, causing Eric to look at him expectantly. Seeing he had his audience hanging, Lain paused a moment more and then smiled. And then shouted in Eric's ear. "WHY THE FUCK DO YOU CARE!? IT'S DEAD! GONE! KABLOOIE! The Warmaster hit it with the... the... the whatever it was that made it go BOOM! BOOM! You saw the BOOM, right!? Everyone on this side of fucking Moon saw THAT boom! That thing is HISTORY! You couldn't shingle a garden shack with the pieces left over! What's it matter where it goes, towards Junius Seven or not? Its WRECKAGE! Inert wreckage!"
"Why do I care? Why do I fucking care!?" Eric retorted, rocketing to his feet and getting in Lain's face unexpectedly. "I DON'T FUCKING CARE! NOT ABOUT THAT! NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT! IT'S STUPID, POINTLESS TRIVIA! BUT IF I WORRY ABOUT THE STUFF I DO FUCKING CARE ABOUT, I'M GOING GO TO PIECES, DUDE! NO FUCKING JOKE!"
"Whoah, whoah!" Lain held up his hands placatingly. "Slow down, man, don't eat me alive! Just your friend here, thats all!"
"Yeah... yeah, I know." Eric said after a few moments, backing down from Lain's personal space. "Sorry about that. I just... got a lot on my mind, like I said."
"Dude, there's nothing to worry about. They ain't gonna courtmartial you, or me, or anything! At worst we're going to get a stern talking to from the Knight-Commander, now that he's calmed down some, since the SecDef isn't in danger anymore. It sounds cruel to say it like this, but given the mauling the Solar Knights have just taken, they CAN'T afford to lose either of us, since we're two of their most elite pilots! We could probably flip the Knight-Commander the bird in front of the entire unit and not lose rank! Though he would prolly break our fingers later." Lain assured him.
Eric snorted in dry amusement. "Man, I could give a SHIT about what happens with the Solar Knights right now. I've half a mind to just fucking resign right now! They tried to ORDER me to kill one of my best friends. One of my mentors! My little sister's fucking husband, for most intents and purposes! They impugned his name, questioned his loyalties and tried to get me to help execute him, just like that!"
"Compltely playing devil's advocate here, my friend, but he WAS in his Gundam, WASN'T at his assigned post, and WAS trying to break down that door to get at the SecDef. Purely from the outside looking in, he looks like a terrorist, or some kind of nutcase." Lain pointed out, as gently as he could.
"If it was Athrun Zala, and not Markov Ashino, how would you feel, no matter how it looked to someone who was uninformed?" Eric replied caustically. Lain held up his hands in apology again.
"I totally get you, dude. Just saying, is all."
"And that's not even the thing that's REALLY eating me up!" Eric continued to vent. "Jean, my little sister, Ashino's girlfriend, was WITH him at his last post, doing some college work, and just because she wants to be with him and she's old enough now that my parent's can't stop her! There is NO WAY, simply NO WAY Ashino would willingly seperate himself from Jean if he had any choice in the matter. She is EVERYTHING to him... literally everything! I can't even describe how much he cares about her... I've never loved anyone outside my family like that, I can tell you that much! But he said... he said he FAILED to protect her! It was eating him alive... and that... that's just tearing me apart inside too! If something happened to my little sister, that was enough to make Ashino want to kill the SecDef, and fight the entire USN along the way if need be... then... then I'm not sure I should be working for the USN anymore! Maybe I should be trying to kill the SecDef too!"
"DUDE! Not so loud!" Lain clamped his hand over Eric's mouth, darting his gaze around frantically. Luckily, no one seemed to be nearby, or listening closely. "Man I don't care what you say to me, and in a lot of cases, I'm with you one hundred percent, okay? But that doesn't mean I can just let you go mouthing off what amounts to premeditated high treason, ya dumbfuck! If someone else was to hear that, you'd be in a nice, dark, cold, secure cell REAL QUICK, and probably in front of an honest to god firing squad not too long after, ya know!? So SHOOSH, okay!? I understand that he's your friend, and practically your brother in law, and mentor and who knows what else. You trust him way more than you trust anyone else I've yet met. More than you trust me even, which is okay, since you've known him a lot longer! I understand you're worried about your sister... every sane person would be! I hate to say it, but it DID sound like, from what he said, that something not very good did happen to her. But she wasn't dead! I got that much! He said he sent her to Orb. I got friends in Orb... lots of friends. Tracking your sister down should be a cinch, okay!? Lets not fly off the handle before we got all the facts, okay?"
"Its hard..." Eric said, his tone strained but much quieter, once Lain took his muffling hand away. "It's all a little much, you know? This battle... all the friends we lost... Ashino... Jean... its all swirling around inside my head and I can't get my bearings! I feel like I'm going to explode unless I do something to distract myself!"
"Thus the pointless research into where all the various pieces and parts of the Revenant were being flung." Lain shrugged. "I understand totally. You need to keep busy, keep your mind occupied. You ain't the only one... just about everyone I know is looking for make work of some sort or another. Rey's off talking with the SecDef, he's prolly the only one doing real productive work at the moment. Meyrin's off in some sort of haze of her own, doing some heavy computer research shit of some sort, and she wouldn't even TALK to me, not even about her honey pie, and she hasn't shut up about him since they started seeing each other steady! Luna... well... Luna is... well..."
"Have they found Shinn yet?" Eric interrupted with forced casuality. He grimaced and held up a hand to stop Lain from replying. "Never mind... you wouldn't have been searching for terms if Shinn was back, for better or worse. Really, its the not knowing thats the worst of all... if we knew he was dead, we could all grieve and swear revenge, and move on a little. But just gone? MIA?" Eric shook his head in misery.
"I ain't giving up hope." Lain said resolutely. "Its only been a few hours, and thats a BIG battlezone out there. It's gonna be at least a week before things even BEGIN to get sorted out around here. And Shinn, for all his damned faults, is one motherfucking tough devil-bastard, that is for sure! Little thing like a hundred meter tall death machine Gundam tearing up and rearranging an entire space fleet base around him isn't going to slow him down, no siree! He'll prolly be strolling in her with fucking champagne and souvenirs any hour now, just you watch!"
"I can't wait to tell him how much his worst rival was missing him." Eric smirked. "You think he'll be touched? Or revolted?"
"I know how he'll ACT, anyway." Lain replied in a mock dangerous tone. "Though if he LEARNS that I was worried about him, even a little, I am so going to fill your flight suit with itching powder before the next endurance flight training, and the next four after that as well." The levity dropped from his voice. "All the same, lets not talk about him overmuch when Luna's around, okay? She's a very strong person... kinda like a diamond. Very hard, very beautiful... not very good with sudden, sharp impacts. I'd really feel terrible if we were the ones who put a crack in her with a careless comment, or worse broke her entirely. Silly girl didn't even realize how much she loves the bastard until he's missing, of course."
"Ain't it always the way." Eric commiserated with a smile. "Maybe we should go missing as well, see who gets a sudden pang of loss and throws themselves into our arms when we show up out of the sunset, dusty and weary, but definitely victorious?"
"That is... GENIUS!" Lain half shouted in way of reply. "No, really! That's like a "totally wasted out of my mind" good idea, but we aren't wasted! That makes it REALLY good! We could TOTALLY pull that off, and it wouldn't even take that much work!"
"I was kidding."
"Maybe so, but that doesn't mean you aren't right!" Lain was full on into scheming mode, coming up with wilder and wilder ideas, or variations on the same theme, as Eric tried to talk him down, before they both ended up locked into another hare brained scheme. It was a fun way to pass the time, and it definitely helped keep their minds off whatever other problems were looming in their minds. They both lost track of time, and even their surroundings, just enjoying the mutual company of two like minded people of similar age and background, not to mention profession and philosophy.
"Man, NO! I mean it, NO! This is even worse than the LIONS!" Eric protested, practically choking on his own laughter.
"Man, why do you always gotta bring up that damn lion's thing? How the FUCK was I supposed to know lions went extinct in the wild a hundred years ago? I live on an ISLAND, and there certainly weren't any lions there, outside of zoos! And zoos always have the exhibits talking about animals in their "natural habitats"!"
"The African ones must be Coordinator lions then, because they aren't IN the Natural habitat!"
"Dude, that is BAD. Shut up with that. I mean it. Ick."
"Don't be mad just cause you keep getting burned the same way."
"Um, excuse me... what lions are you talking about?" A new voice, entirely unexpected by both of them, caused them both to stand bolt upright and turn around, gawking like a pair of spell bound tourists at the person who'd walked up behind them, entirely without either of them noticing. And considering she was clad in a bright pink flight suit, that was actually somewhat embarassing. Stella looked at the both of them neutrally, unphased by their incredulous expressions, though she was far from as calm in reality as she appeared on the surface. She was violating direct orders from Roanoke, doing this... a thought that was almost enough to make her sick to her stomach by itself. But she couldn't forget what these two men, men she didn't even know, had risked to save her from... from... that thing she couldn't name. Not without causing herself to fly into a panic attack. She didn't know what it was about that word, that concept that disturbed her so, but she couldn't stand to hear it said, or any derivation of it either! Not when it referred to her or people she cared about! The fear would eventually turn into berserk hatred, and the hatred into crushing despair, and only Roanoke could lift her spirits from that state, at least as far as she could remember.
"Uhh..." Lain said, not at his most suave and intelligent. He looked around, but didn't see any sign of Sting or Auel, or of Dr. Roanoke, or even any FNE personnel at all, save Stella. He matched glances with Eric, who'd been likewise sweeping the area for threats, and also hadn't found any. "The lions... in Africa. Don't exist anymore, in the wild. Something I did not know, at one point in time, and only learned after I attempted to imitate some in order to, uh, get myself out of a bind."
"You ALMOST got us tear gassed by our own security forces!" Eric cut in, not willing to let Lain wriggle out from under the pin. "That guy totally thought we were up to something kinky in the woods! Do you SEE how he smirked at us as we walked away!?"
"Well, what would you think if you saw two disheveled guys with mussed hair and clothing come out of the brush together at that time of night, especially after making strange noises like those of cats in heat?" Lain said, reasonably enough. "Next time I'll be sure to imitate something a bit more manly though... like an elephant."
"There will BE no next time!" Eric said hotly, before being interrupted by a musical feminine giggle. He gave Lain a very hard glare indeed. "Great. Now she's laughing at us. Super." He commented quietly.
"Don't worry, I got this... the first step to charming a girl is to make her laugh, trust me." Lain replied confidently.
"Every time I hear those first five words, something bad happens to me..." Eric complained.
"You two are funny." Stella commented with a smile, getting her giggles under control with a supreme effort of will. She hadn't come her to laugh and enjoy herself, something she really knew she wasn't supposed to be doing without Dr. Roanoke's permission. She'd come here to thank them, not play with them. She couldn't account for her sudden shyness though... it had seemed a simple enough thing back when she'd been first thinking about it, shortly after she'd been allowed to leave her Panzerwulf a few hours ago. She steeled herself and stepped up to them, moving quickly before she could entirely chicken out. "Thank you for saving my life." She said seriously, before reaching up to the one on the left, the one with mismatched blue and green eyes she thought was called Lain, cupping his head with her hands before she leaned in and pressed her lips firmly to his. She held the kiss for a few seconds, her eyes closed, before she drew back and then took the one on the right, the blond hair with blue eyes named Eric, by the head and repeated the gesture. Then, thanks cnveyed, she turned around and walked away, knwoign she was going to have a lot of explaining to do when she got back, oblivious to the incredulous stares of the men behind her.
"She just made you eat those words, dude." Lain commented, at long last.
"The exception does not make the rule, man." Eric retorted, staring after Stella, even though she was long gone from view by now. "She kissed me longer."
"No fucking way. And even if she did, she kissed ME first!"
"Just cause you were closest!"
"Not even! She totally picked me out!"
"Dream on, dude... she totally likes me."
"I ain't backing off from this one, dude! Seriously, get your own girlfriend!"
"I just did! Her name is Stella!"
"Don't make me beat your ass...!"