By: Shadow Chaser
Phase Sixteen - Colony Mendel
The remnants of Colony Mendel could be seen with the naked eye. So far there were no warnings of approaching ships or of weaponry being fired at them, but Kira knew that it was only a matter of time before those alarms went off. He finished stepping inside of his skin-tight flight suit; its familiar blue-white colors a welcoming sight. Zipping it up tightly left the top open to buckle up later and checked his helmet.
"You okay?" Athrun asked, stepping away from his own locker aboard the Eternal and zipping up his orange-white flight suit.
"I'm fine," Kira replied smiling gratefully as he knew that Athrun was asking about what had happened a few hours ago in the mess hall. "It took a while, but Yzak's right in a way. If we do capture Griever, he can clear Senator Amalfi's name."
"Yeah, but you said so yourself. He's one of the twisted experiments and I don't think we'd be able to capture him. It's kill him or he kills us," Athrun said, checking his helmet before fiddling with a few pads inside.
"I know," Kira sighed, "it's just that…" He trailed off, slipping his helmet on before adjusting it to encircle his flightsuit's neckline. It wouldn't be too good if there was a leak in the suit and the Freedom Gundam suddenly depressurized.
"Did you talk to your parents?" Athrun changed the subject and Kira was glad that his best friend could always pick up on his moods so easily.
"Yeah," he zipped up the rest of his flightsuit and secured the neckline to his helmet, "I don't like it, but they know what they're doing."
"I never would have expected to see your mother or father holding a gun. They were so nice back on the Lunar base," Athrun joked lightly and Kira grinned, knowing that he was trying to get his mind off of the upcoming battle.
"Never would have expected to see it too. Guess parents aren't what they seem at times," he replied before giving a final once-over to himself making sure he didn't miss anything before looking up at Athrun, "you ready?"
"As I'll ever be," Athrun replied before the two of them headed out of the locker rooms and towards their Gundams.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Kanoko asked her husband while he polished the pieces of an assault rifle with delicate care. She had not seen him touch a gun since he had married her, and now, the sight of him getting ready to go back to his old life, even if it was just for one mission, was unnerving her. She herself only carried a handgun as she didn't want anything to do with weaponry. It was forced upon her by Ledonil who had told her that they were the only two people who knew what files had to be eliminated and if they were killed, and then no one would know what to do.
"I'm sure, Kanoko," Keiji replied evenly, blowing the alcohol to dry before assembling his rifle with uncanny precision and speed. He sighted along the barrel to make sure everything was straight before slapping a full clip into it. "Ghosts like Anderson shouldn't even be allowed to wander. Our son should be left alone, not brought back so violently to his past."
"But Keiji…I…don't like the idea of you-"
"Kano," it was his nickname for her, "I saw your pain when you heard about our son joining the Earth Alliance forces in their fight against the PLANTs, I saw it again when you found out that he nearly died in his battles, only coming back out scarred. That pain was shown once more when you found out about Sven Anderson and the Talon. I don't want to see that pain again."
"Still, I don't want you to die," Kanoko whispered, suddenly afraid.
Keiji placed the rifle down on the bench he had been sitting on to clean it before clasping his wife's hands in his own, making her look at him, "I won't die out there, nor will you. We'll both come back safe and sound and with Kira too. He's our child, my son, your son. Katherine Hibiki was his birth mother, but he is our son. Nothing can take that away from us. We'll put the past behind us and make sure nothing like this ever happens again.
"All those years ago, I swore to protect you and protect Kira. Nothing's changed. I didn't die then when they sent the second team over and I won't now," he continued and Kanoko by then was in tears. Keiji stopped for a moment before he hugged her tightly before whispering into her ears, "I love you Kano."
"I love you too, Kei," he heard her muffled reply as the two shared a brief moment of peace before the second phase of the storm was about to strike.
Preparations were almost completed when the first warning alarms burst through each of the four LF ships' corridors. The alarms were then replaced by their respective captains signaling all hands to battle stations. Already the Gundam pilots were in their mobile suits and the Astray pilots were ready to head out and meet the opposing force. Both infiltration teams had already shuttled over to the Kusanagi who, under the command of Quinn Misali's second, was ready to execute its mission.
The first round of beam weaponry was fired and the mobile suits were sent out.
Kira looked over the targeting data his Freedom picked up and fell into seed-mode. He lined up the targets with deadly precision and fired his beam weapons, washing the area in a light of red, yellow, and green.
There weren't too many ships, but he knew that he had to get rid of them before the Kusanagi could approach. Speeding forward, he throttled the controls and fired his beam rifle. Three short bursts caught three JINNs, exploding them on sight. He knew that he usually didn't kill, but he also knew that while Anderson may have known about Mendel, it was the probable fact that his underlings knew what Mendel was capable of.
He had to kill them, there was no other choice, a part of him said, as he dropped his beam rifle and activated one of his sabers. Diving towards a cluster of mobile suits, he slashed at two of them, decapitating them in the waist. They promptly exploded and he turned around raising his shield to block a few bullets coming his way.
A few of the mobile suits started towards him to challenge him and he dispatched them with ease. He noticed that Athrun and the others weren't having too hard of a time dealing with the other suits and signaled to the Kusanagi. "Passage clear, start your mission," he said before clicking off the comlink.
Turning slightly he stared at the floating remnants of Mendel. It still looked the same…and he wondered if Anderson changed the inside of the colony to suit his purposes. Suddenly a squad of Strike Daggers firing their rifles at him alerted him back to the battle at hand and he thrusted forward to meet them.
He slashed at a Dagger, cutting it in half before turning around and brought his other beam saber out, cutting two daggers across the head before he turned slightly and stabbed them each in their cockpits. They floated a bit away before exploding in spectacular fashion.
"Kira," Athrun's voice came over, "the Babylon's reporting that there seems to be a cluster of warships on the far side of the Colony. Dearka and Yzak have gone to check it out."
"Roger that," Kira replied, "is the Babylon-" He froze mid-sentence as he felt a sudden swoop in his stomach followed by a forming pain in his head. The swooping feeling dissipated as he started to feel the sense of déjà vu. But that wasn't possible…he was back in Panama, on Earth. There was no way…the LF fleet would have detected him…
"Kira?" Athrun's voice came over, concerned.
"He's here," Kira could not deny the sense that told him who it was.
"Who?" Cagalli asked, confused.
"Griever," Kira replied, the word tasted like sawdust in his mouth as the pain increased.
"That's not possible-"
He suddenly shot upwards as a huge burst of yellow beam weaponry tore through where he was, before the outline of a ship appeared on his sensors – indicating that it was the Brimstone, the capital ship of the Talon. He narrowed his eyes as he saw three mobile suits fly from the hanger bays of the Brimstone. They were identified as the Claw, Corsair, and Liberty.
"Weren't expecting us?" Griever's voice came over the battle comm. system and Kira dropped his shield, giving his left arm free range of motion with his two beam sabers.
"You not supposed to exist," he growled as he charged the Liberty, beam sabers raised
The two clashed head on.
The soldier inside of him knew that it wasn't possible for the Brimstone or its mobile suits to show up. But the human side of Athrun speculated that whatever had gone on in Mendel, it had something to do with the sudden and abrupt appearance of the warship. Nonetheless, the appearance of a new ally for the Talon forces had revitalized their fighting spirit and now were on attack patterns that were almost suicidal.
Athrun drew out his double beam saber and activated it, discarding his almost depleted beam rifle for it. He noticed that Kira had taken on the Liberty for a one-on-one and knew that somehow, Kira and Griever were connected, if not by appearance, but by something higher. That left the Claw and Corsair.
"Cagalli," he keyed the comm. to warn her.
"You take Claw, I'll handle Corsair," she replied and charged off, firing at the Corsair who dodged and ducked.
It was times like this that almost made Athrun wish he had rebuilt the Meteor systems for both the Justice and Freedom, but he quashed the idea as he knew that both were too powerful to ever exist again.
"I'll take you down and raise your head as my trophy!" the pilot of the Claw yelled over the comm. and Athrun grimly didn't say anything as he clashed with the mobile suit.
He swung upwards before slashing across, but the Claw evaded all of his blows and he gritted his teeth, frustrated. He parried her furious blows but suddenly she lashed out with her foot and Athrun fell back. He recovered just in time to block a blow aimed at his head. His beam saber was forced back to his head and Athrun pressed hard, trying not to let the Claw overpower him.
Activating his flyer, he let it out and it zoomed away from him before arcing back and racing towards the unprotected back of the Claw. To his surprise, the Claw suddenly stuck a hand out and caught his flyer before tossing it away.
"You're dead," the pilot of the Claw growled over the comm. and he noticed something akin to tension in her voice. He remembered what Yzak had said about the pilots of the Claw and Corsair, they were manipulated to fight, they weren't doing this on their own…which meant that if he killed her, then it would be on his guilty conscience for killing someone who was technically innocent.
"You can't kill me, you have to fight it!" he activated the comm. and spoke with her.
"What?" the female pilot replied, confused, "I will kill you!"
"Fight it!" he urged her.
"Fight you, of course Justice Gundam pilot Athrun Zala! I am fighting you to kill you!" she replied but her words were jumbled a bit and Athrun knew that he was getting to her.
"You aren't what you are. You don't want to kill anyone."
"You're bullshitting me, Zala," the pilot sneered, "why don't you just dig your grave and die." She pressed harder with her beam saber, forcing his closer to his cockpit.
"You were just a young girl who got caught up in this whole mess-"
"Because of you! You and your father's stupid ideals! Your father betrayed my family!"
Athrun started…this was new… He pushed more power into his thrusters to try to heave the Claw off of him, but to no avail. "How?" he asked, forcing the words out of his mouth as used all of his strength to keep the powerful Claw at bay.
"Your father used Genesis to wipe out my brother and father with no care in the world. You left my mother and I abandoned! Out of her grief, she killed herself, leaving me alone to fend!"
"It's not my fault!" he replied, trying to convince her.
"It is so yours! You left them! You could have saved them by stopping your father! You abandoned them to die like the dogs they were!"
"Your family was lost like mine!"
"My family was my home! That's something you wouldn't understand!" she screamed.
Athrun flinched at her words, costing him a few precious centimeters and his beam and hers slipped closer to his cockpit. He could feel the heat in his cockpit rise a few degrees as a result but ignored it. "I understand, Amai," he said in a quiet but firm voice, "my mother was killed on Junius 7. My father died of his own madness…"
"Then you should know that you should die!"
"I probably should," Athrun agreed, "but that doesn't mean you should kill your own soul to do so. You're a gentle person, Amai Asterli. You shouldn't carry such burdens as you do. Let others take them and help you along."
To his surprise, the Claw suddenly stopped its attack and backed away. Athrun breathed a quick sigh of relief before lowering his saber to a defensive position. He knew that even though his words might have gotten to Amai Asterli, she was still an enemy at the moment and people who liked to live didn't let their guard down so easily.
"W-What…a-am I doing…" gone was the screaming voice, and in place was a high-pitched one, very confused and very fearful.
"Amai?"
"W-Who are you?" she sounded terrified.
"I'm a friend, here to help you," Athrun dared not reach out a hand in case it was a ploy.
"W-Where a-am I?" she stuttered.
"You've been asleep for a long time, Amai. You've only recently awakened, but everyone here is your friend here to help you…"
"Help me?" she asked.
"Yes. I'm Athrun Zala-"
A strangled cry that sounded half like a keening of an animal and half like a human's scream reverberated through the comm. system. It sounded so painful and so terrified that it made Athrun wince. "Amai! Amai!"
"YOU WILL DIE!!!" the screaming voice was back and the Claw charged him, swinging her beam saber wildly.
It happened too fast, but Athrun regretted every moment of it. The Claw had charged him and the soldier part of him found its weakness when she raised her arms high to strike an overhead blow. His beam saber tore through her middle, where the cockpit was and cut the Claw in half. The Justice floated away a bit as the two separate halves of the Claw sparkled a bit before exploding.
Amai Asterli, the pilot of the Claw was dead.
"Wolf will take point while Desert and Tempest covers him," Kingfisher ordered directing his five-man team. He had opted to take on another member because of the advantages of five people. "Akuma, you're with me."
"Roger that," came the four replies of his teammates and Quinn Misali, known to a majority of the Earth Alliance and ZAFT as Kingfisher grinned. He glanced at his former partner back when they were both in the Black Ops of OMNI, Keiji Yamato – still codenamed Akuma – who was wearing the regular attire of infiltration. Age didn't seem to dim his good friend's ability to blend in with the shadows, but he still didn't know how good was his accuracy.
Yu-Ling Chan, or Wolf, was the only female on the team, but she was one of the best that Kingfisher knew. She excelled in sniping and was a good grenadier. Tarrant Nemati, Tempest, whose file he had come across had said that he was a Coordinator and like most Coordinators was an excellent marksman and all around skilled at infiltration. He was hesitant at first to put him on the team, but got past his own prejudices to include him. Michael DaCosta, Desert, was Andy Bartfield's second, but Andy had recommended him as a good reconnaissance person to go for the mission.
"Clear," was the reply from Wolf and Kingfisher exited out of the shuttle, Akuma tailing after him. He moved away and gave an all clear sign to the pilot who nodded and began to back out of the hanger bay. Turning his gaze to the dusty bowls of Mendel, he shielded his eyes from the wind that was blowing up a lot of brown dust and raised his hand, signaling for Desert and Tempest to move forward.
"Find a spot, Wolf," he ordered her and she nodded before scurrying to find a viable sniping spot in case they encountered any resistance.
"Clear," came the comm. check over his ear peace, and Kingfisher signaled Akuma to move ahead.
The first team slowly made their way into the depths of Colony Mendel. But as they did so, they did not see a person following them. The shuttle pilot had not gone back as ordered, but instead landed in a different area and followed them from a distance. On one of the pilot's wrist dangled a gold charm bracelet, on the other, a silver charm bracelet.