Kira Yamato typed on the keyboard of his laptop, barely paying attention to a small window on the screen displaying the news on an attack by ZAFT on the Earth Alliance base in Kaohsiung.
"Kira!" a voice called out to him.
Kira looked up to see Tolle and his girlfriend Miriallia standing next to him.
"Here you are! Professor Kato was looking for you."
"Giving me more work will have to wait. I'm still trying to finish the stuff he gave me yesterday." He stared at the screen as Tolle approached his place. "ZAFT attacked Kaohsiung last week and has already captured it… I guess."
Tolle rubbed his chin. "That's a big possibility."
The deployment of N-Jammers all over the world and earthspace had affected communication. As such, the already physically isolated Heliopolis colony would receive outdated news of the outside world. Kira switched off the laptop and let the screen recede.
"Kaohsiung isn't that far from Orb," Miriallia expressing her concern. Both areas were located in the Pacific Ocean region so it wasn't impossible that the fight might spill to the home country. "I hope that it's alright."
"Don't worry," Tolle assured. "We're a neutral nation,"
Meanwhile, Kira has tuned out the rest of the conversation and instead watched his pet mechanical bird fly around, recalling the promise he made to his friend in the Copernicus City a few years back. He wondered whether Athrun was doing fine in whatever he was supposed to be doing.
A few minutes later found Kira walking together with Tolle andMiriallia towards the campus, where he spied a group of three girls talking boisterously. He did a double-take when he recognized one of them. It was Flay Allster, a red-haired girl whom he harbored a crush on. The girl then turned toward him; the three of them, he corrected himself.
"Mir!" Flay called out, waving toward them.
"Hi!" Miriallia greeted back.
The other two girls approached Miriallia. "Hey Mir, you probably couldn't guess what happened. Flay received a letter from Sai!"
"What?!"Miriallia uttered in surprise. "Tell me!"
Meanwhile, Flay sighed and watched the three of them with a slightly reproving look. "It's just a simple letter, there's no need to blow it out of proportions," She then turned toward Kira and Tolle and smiled politely. "I apologize for my friends' antics."
"You don't have to apologize for Mir's part," Tolle said.
"By the way, congratulations?" Kira uttered. He didn't know why but the word 'engagement' was at the tip of his tongue.
Flay cocked her head. "For the dissolution?"
It was Kira's turn to be dumbfounded. "Huh?"
What said was not missed by the other girls as they turned toward her, demanding an explanation. Tolle and Kira watched the four of them talking animatedly, with the Allster scion trying to deflect others' questioning. "Color me surprised," Tolle remarked. "Normally that kind of high-level arrangement couldn't be ended just like that."
Kira didn't know what to say in response.
Tolle slapped his back in encouragement. "One's bad news is another's good news, yeah?"
"Right."
Lieutenant Murrue Ramius of the Earth Alliance's Atlantic Federation looked hopefully at the trucks leaving the Morgenroete hangar, their destination was the yet to be launched LCAM-01XA Archangel. She found the whole thing was hypocritical since the ship was developed by Morgenroete Incorporated, a nationalized defence company that belonged to Orb Union. Even its complement of mobile suits was constructed with the help of the company. Orb trumpeted its principles of would not attack other nation, would not allow itself to be attacked by another nation and would not intervene in other nation's conflict. However, Orb seemed to be more than willing to sell weapons to other nations for them to attack and kill each other.
Life is one giant irony; she had accepted that. Besides, arguing about another nation's sophistry was a time-wasting exercise; she had better things to do. One of them was reacting to a message that ZAFT mobile suits were spotted inside the colony. It seemed that there was a leak in the G Project, one that threatened its existence.
"Strike and Aegis?" she demanded from Hamana, her aide, who was standing nearby.
"Structural repair and OS calibration on Aegis had been completed and we're in the process of loading it."
Aegis's reconfigurable mode decreased its reliability; nothing was new about that. "Strike? It's not supposed to have any problem, isn't it? Why isn't it out there!?"
"I thought I told you that it was undergoing Block 5 interface upgrade?"
"Damn those NAGI assholes!" Murrue cursed. "And where are they now?" she said, wondering if there was a way for her to shoot the technicians without being indicted.
"Already left once the updating's on the way."
"Those arrogant eggheads! Next time tell me when they come around so I can slug them with my own hands." The Continuous Capability Development and Delivery, or CCDD as it was known, reared its ugly head again at the worst possible time. She could understand that the five G units were prototypes. Therefore, it was to be expected that development would continue up to production. However, according to what she found out from the archive, the so-called agile approach of continually making small upgrades was unprecedented compared to other prior projects. The only positive thing that she could think of was the CCDD was limited to GAT-X105 Strike which made sense since it served as a testbed for the whole G program.
"But fiddling with codes at such young age, I wonder whether…"
"Zip it, Hamana! I'm stressed and looking for a victim right now."
"Yes, Ma'am."
Murrue didn't like the way people in the military are dehumanizing their enemy; a few even called Coordinators 'space monsters' outright. Hamana was not one of those but he did tend to run off his mouth at the wrong times. "OS recompile has been started?"
"Um... mhm…."
"Hamana…" Murrue growled. He was a bad joker who didn't know the timing as well.
"Up and running," Hamana answered, sensing her anger. "We'll have the kennel up and ready soon but the libraries' optimization will take some time."
"Great. Making the half-baked control even more impossible to deal with." There was the possibility of getting people to pilot the prototypes to get them to move via their power to Archangel but it seemed that was out of the question with Strike.
The feeling that something was out of place, disturbed Kira even when he, Tolle and Miriallia arrived at the Morgenroete laboratory. It magnified when he came across Sai Argyle, the supposed fiance. "Here you go," Sai said as he handed Kira a memory disc. "He wanted you to finish the frame setup."
"Oh, he wanted me…" Kira blinked. "Like you said just now."
Tolle shoved him to the side. It was then he saw a newcomer leaning against the wall, wearing a dark brown overcoat and an exaggerated large hat covering what seemed to be blonde hair.
"Hey," Tolle said, "Now that's out of the way, what I want to know is what happened between you and Flay?"
Even though he was caught by surprise by that question, Sai answered, "Nothing much to say. My father runs for office and that's it." He glanced at the newcomer who seemed disinterested in the discussion. "That's how the politics work, I guess."
Kira turned toward him in surprise.
"One bad news, eh?" Tolle said, clearly hinting to him about their earlier exchange.
Sai turned toward Kira.
"Your father is entering politics?" Miriallia asked in what seemed to be an effort to change the conversation.
"Yeah. A representative post. And that comes into conflict with her father."
Kira nodded. From what he knew, George Allster was a minister in the Atlantic Federation. Even though Orb was a neutral country that maintained diplomatic ties with both belligerent sides of the war, the tension remained high.
"But your father entering politics should be a plus, isn't it?" Tolle added his own opinion.
"Morgenroete," Sai simply responded.
"So your parents and hers were arguing about it?" Tolle pressed.
"Wha? No. It's just a message and both sides... agree to disagree."
Tolle frowned. "No fight."
"No."
"It fizzles out like that?" Tolle moaned. "Man, I've expected more of a bang."
Then the whole building shook.
Mirrillia looked around. "What's going on? Earthq… not… that's not it. Asteroid?"
Kira was already on alert. "We must evacuate!"
"Why?"
The building shook once more.
"No matter asteroid or meteor shower, follow the protocol. We must go out of the building and move to the shelters!"
"But…" Sai trailed.
The tremor continued.
"Hurry up!" Kira said while raising his voice.
The group of friends and the outsider began moving out of the building when the outsider suddenly sprinted away.
"Hey," Sai said, alarmed at what had just happened.
Kira pointed toward the exit. "GO! I'll go after that guy!" he uttered while chasing after the person.
He caught hold and pulled the person toward him as a small piece of the ceiling collapsed in front of them. "Look at where you're going, buddy…" he stopped. The person's cap fell when he made the safe, revealing that the 'buddy' was a girl.
The girl pushed him away and continued to make her way toward a hangar. Once she reached it, she recoiled in disappointment at what she saw.
"FATHER! YOU BETRAYED US!" the girl shouted as there was gunfire amidst two grey mobile suits in the hangar.
"CAREFUL!" Kira said as he pulled her away from the area; a shot would have hit her had he didn't do so. "PLEASE DON'T MIND US, WE'RE JUST PASSING THROUGH TO THE SHELTER!" he shouted to those fighting down below.
He pulled the girl who no longer resisted the attempt to pull her.
Murrue watched the interlopers leave the place incredulously. "Kids?!" she said. The situation was so tense that she shot at them by mistake when she heard the scream. Yes, the situation that she was in was so surreal that even though the stakes were so high, the adrenaline pumping through her body keeping her hyper-aware of any threats, she couldn't help noticing some things.
One of them was that ZAFT fielded child soldiers. At least that what it seemed to her as the soldiers attacking them were comparatively shorter than adults. Maybe Coordin… ZAFT, Murrue corrected herself, had different standards than Earth Alliance, she reasoned to herself.
Talking about different standards, maybe ZAFT's military had different standards when it came to training as well. It seemed that their attackers weren't trained to shoot properly. Despite catching her team off guard, she and her team manage to trade casualties with them despite the so-called physical superiority Coordinators had. In fact, just now she saw one person in a green uniform running around while firing from his hips like a hero in a film. Sure, firing akimbo looked cool but there was no replacing carefully aiming to take a shot, as Brian quickly took him out.
"Hamana, Brian! Start them up!" she commanded.
"BEHIND YOU!"
Murrue quickly dropped down and turned to find a ZAFT soldier was aiming toward her. She quickly aimed at him and emptied the rest of her rifle rounds. Her shots found their marks and he crumpled down. Murrue looked in the direction of the person who warned her and saw the same young man from earlier. "That kid…" she said as she tossed away the now-empty rifle and pulled out her personal defense weapon.
A shot hit Brian, killing him. Aiming while shooting was one part of training that Brian remembered to do but he forgot that part about standing behind cover to minimise him being shot. Hell, why did she and everyone forgot to put on their bulletproof vests when they received news about the attack from the outside of the colony? Murrue gritted her teeth. The adrenaline was making her think about unnecessary things. She took a deep breath, leaned to locate his killer and took him out. She then quickly duck, minimizing the chance of being retaliated at.
"COME HERE!" she shouted toward the boy.
The corridor to the boy's left exploded as if telling him that he had no choice but to follow her instruction. The boy jumped from what seemed to be three floors high, the colony's low gravity allowing him to land safely on Strike's left shoulder. He quickly flattened his body, causing Murrue to reevaluate him. Before she could ask him, Hamana was taken down. She turned toward his killer to shoot back but a shot hit her right arm.
She was barely cognizant of her assailant jumping toward her and the boy; Murrue almost missed the boy moving in to cover her and delivered a kick to the assailant, knocking him away. The boy then pulled and threw her inside the cockpit before jumping into it himself.
"Tell me how to start this thing!" the boy said as he sat on the pilot's seat with her ended up behind him.
"What are you..."
"No time to waste!" he told her. "You can't control well in your condition, can you?"
What he said made sense as he seemed to notice the wound on her arm. "Push that button," she said, pointing towards the 'Start' button reluctantly.
The boy pushed the indicated button. "I've experienced controlling cyber-frames before," he said in an attempt to assuage her doubt.
Kira eyed the unactivated mobile suit to his left. The person that attacked him and the woman behind him looked like his childhood friend, Athrun. The screen in front beeped, catching his attention. He eyed as the screen booted up, showing what seemed to be its version; it was Version NV9-N199. Then a pop-up screen appeared, revealing the acronym General Unilateral Neuro-Link Dispersive Autonomic Maneuver. "GUN...DAM?" The acronym seems easier to pronounce.
He then tried to recall what he did countless hours before, manipulating robotic frames in the laboratory for his professor in order to get extra credit. Kira searched for the thing's throttle, settling on the lever on the left console. Pushing it made his mobile suit stand up. Something felt wrong. He glanced to the left. The mobile suit has been activated. It's probably unarmed, he decided as he pulled down the keyboard. He typed some diagnostic commands.
"Hurry up!" the woman behind him urged.
"It's more sluggish… I don't think this thing is supposed to be slow!" Kira replied as he found what the culprit was. "Why aren't the libraries properly linked?!"
"It's just been updated! We didn't have time to optimize."
"I'll do it," Kira said as he quickly overrode the current setting and then quickly link all the necessary procedures. He then rebooted the whole OS. "Okay, it's movable."
"Set connected elevator to stand Strike."
While punching in commands, Kira noted that he was in something called 'Strike' "What's next?" he said as he nervously watched the other, what was the name, 'Gundam' started to stand up.
The woman behind him pressed a button.
"What did you do?"
"Activating the PS armor."
"BS?"
"Phase Shift. Helps against physical attacks…" she looked left. "Disable the mobile suit next to us!"
"How?!"
"Lim... Destroy its limbs! Hurry up, before it activated its PS!"
Kira tried to do as suggested, deciding that the easiest course of action was to 'stomp' the other mobile suit's left feet, shifting his own mobile suit's weight on the said appendage.
Unprepared, the other mobile suit didn't react as one of its feet was destroyed.
"Attack the joints!" the woman suggested again.
Kira's mobile suit raised its fist and punched the other mobile suit's right elbow.
Athrun stared at the screen displaying damages to the "Aegis" mobile suit he was piloting. A few minutes earlier, he was kicked by someone who looked like his best friend. And now, the evidently hostile 'best friend' was working on disabling his mobile suit and seemed to be succeeding, judging from the diagnostic graphic on the main console.
He had to fight back. Rusty's death had allowed the enemy to take control of the mobile suit he was facing. Athrun quickly went through the weapon's menu. Two of the beam sabers were still active. There was another tremor and then only one remained operational. Not willing to give up, he scrolled down the menu and found a 60mm high energy beam rifle. But before he could even select it, the thing disappeared from the menu as he saw what seemed to be a rifle fell down in front of him.
Whoever piloted the other mobile suit was certainly not Kira, Athrun concluded.
"Grab the beam rifle!" the woman commanded, seeing that their adversary wasn't moving.
Even though he did as he was told, grabbing hold of the rifle was a bit hard was an action difficult even for Kira who has experience manipulating cyber-frames and the thing fell from his mobile suit's grasp.
"What are you doing!"
"Not as easy as it looks, lady!"
"Murrue!"
"Yes, I'm doing it one more time."
"No, my name is Murrue. And yes, grab it again."
The second attempt was successful and he managed to grab the rifle.
"Kid!"
"Kira Yamato!" the boy corrected.
"Kira, destroy the co…" Murrue reconsidered her words, "Fire at the other leg."
"How?"
"The red trigger on the HOTAS!"
"Pochahontas?"
"The stick you're holding using the right hand!"
It was then it dawned on him what Murrue meant; HOTAS was an acronym for 'Hands On Throttle And Stick'. Kira aim the rifle and pressed the red trigger. Nothing happened. Instead, a pop-up box appeared. "Are you kidding me?" The pop-up box showed that the operating system was installing the necessary libraries to use the newly added weapon. "What crappy system are you people using?" he complained, forgetting to be polite for once.
Athrun stared at the opposing mobile suit and frowned. Starting Aegis was more difficult than he had expected but not impossible. Now, he had to focus on the mission on hand. He already captured Aegis. The secondary objective he was given was to neutralize any uncaptured prototype.
Something difficult given that the said prototype's movement was better than expected, having disarmed his own. Maybe the movement was due to the so-called Phase Shift armor that all prototypes were supposed to have?
Thinking about it more clearly, his opponent probably had the order to neutralize him as well. If so, it has yet to shoot, probably not wanting to damage Aegis more than it should.
He tried to hail the surrounding ZAFT units but to no avail. That was to be expected since the only people who could hear him were the pilots of the other three prototypes given equipment differences. Athrun had to decide fast, which he did. Escape. That was his current prerogative.
Once he escaped, he would have time to reprogram the whole operating system so that it wouldn't suck so much. He activated the thrusters. Just as Aegis was a few meters off the ground, he felt the world spinning and Aegis hitting something. That was the last thing he recalled before darkness took him.
Murrue put her face in her hands in a resigned manner. Yes, she was the one who told the boy in front of him to stop Aegis from getting away. How could she have known that Kira would cause Strike to jump, grab Aegis's left leg and then use Strike's mass to throw Aegis face down to the ground? She would have said that it resembled a scene of a cartoon that she saw when she was small if not for the fact that he was smashing equipment worth billions to the ground. "Couldn't you disable it using a better way?"
"It is the best that I can think of. Besides, I didn't kill the pilot,"
Idealistic, the boy seemed to be. Maybe it was better that she didn't point out that he probably killed the pilot, Natural or Coordinator notwithstanding, through the sheer force impact caused by slamming the prototype down from a five-storey height.
"What's next?" Kira asked.
The Aegis' thrusters were disabled so perhaps the pilot was knocked out, or killed. Murrue decided to take a chance. "Can you grab the Aile Strike pack?"
"I don't know which one is the 'L' pack!"
Murrue pointed toward the said pack. "Activate the auto docking system."
A few minutes later saw Strike armed with vernier thrusters behind its back, a 57mm High-energy Beam Rifle hanging on its right hip and the one it procured from Aegis on the left. It slowly moved out of the hangar, dragging the fully disabled Aegis by its right leg. Murrue would have preferred that the other mobile was transported in a better manner, but without anyone else to drive the transport, it was the best thing that they could do.
To the two's surprise, a GINN landed in front of them without opening fire. "There you are Rusty! What happened to Athrun?" it asked using a loudspeaker.
Murrue noticed that Kira was shocked by the question. However, a plan was already forming in her mind. Quickly, her hand moved to the keyboard and opened the light communication. She sent a message that the radio was damaged and 'Atran' was injured but was safely inside Aegis.
A tense few seconds passed before the GINN turned, its back in front of them. "Understood. Yzak and the rest have secured the prototypes."
Murrue felt her heart sank.
"We'll need to get away before those stupid Naturals come looking,"
It was the last straw for Murrue. She wrestled the control from the still silent, boy and deployed Strike's 52mm beam rifle. While properly aiming was difficult, she could at least raise the rifle straight up. However, the GINN turned its 'head' a bit, as if noticing that something was wrong. It was now or never. She took a shot and hit its crotch area. The resulting explosions knocked the GINN to the ground in front of it. It tried to move and turn but to no avail. The legs were taken out. It could turn using its arms but Murrue would be prepared for such a move.
Realizing that Strike was hostile, the GINN's cockpit hatch opened and a ZAFT's pilot jumped away. Murrue was confused by the pilot's action.
A few seconds later, the GINN exploded.
Natarle Badgiruel came from a distinguished military family. When she was seven years old, children her age were more interested in toys and games but she was into the difference between World War 2 fighter planes. To be sure, she had fighter models as toys due to her parents supporting her rather an eccentric hobby, but she could explain how a Zero from a nation named Japan could be outmanoeuvred by a Mustang from the United States.
And Natarle liked, no, love parade. She loved it so much the real reason she entered the military to watch and participate in parades. Of course, to have that kind of reason would make her looked crazy so whenever she was asked, she would always say that she did so to continue the family tradition.
Like most people, she never entered the military to kill or to be killed. Killing or be killed is the result of the current conflict and while she would never hesitate to pull the trigger, it was never due to anger. Her parents had brought her up, instilling that in her. Another thing that they had instilled in her is to remain calm in the face of adversity
Natarle swallowed a sob as she shed some tears at the sight of her colleague's corpse floating nearby. But being a Badriguel meant being a fighter and Natarle was no exception. She took a deep breath and began her search for other survivors. It was then there an airway to her left was kick open and a familiar face emerge.
"Ensign Badriguel! Glad to see that you're alright!" a non-commissioned officer named Arnold Neumann entered the place and flashed his flashlight around.
"Others?" Natarle asked.
"There's a few of us, and right now we're thinking about what to do."
For her, the decision was clear. "To the Archangel."
"Olor's unit has been heavily damaged and returning! Firefighting unit to Deck B" the announcement rang through the bridge of Vesalius.
"Olor's been hit in a battle like this?!" Ades, the captain of Vesalius asked in disbelief.
A man with a white mask named Rau La Creuset looked in a direction. "It seems there's an annoying pest buzzing around."
"Laser beacon from Miguel Aiman." another announcement was made. "Transmission received. Emergency! Aegis and Strike are under the enemy's control! Unit's lost!"
"What?!" Ades exclaimed.
Rau got up from his chair. This was the reason why he had registered his objection to the personnel selection for the current mission. He had no problem using child soldiers for the war since he really didn't care for their lives. What he did care about, was the 'school visit' manner in which the mission was conducted. Instead of properly selecting battle-hardened veterans to steal the prototypes, he had to chaperone the sons of the PLANTs Supreme Council members and their 'friends'. Even though they were trained and could probably pass for Earth Alliance's infantry in term of physical conditioning and skills, they couldn't hold a candle against special force agents fielded by Earth Alliance. Yet, they are part of a 'special' force, but that's due to the unique political nature of their composition. Joule, Elsman, Zala, Amarf and MacKenzie didn't need to send their children to the battlefield but they did anyway since the success will propel their own careers. Rau found their determination amusing but annoying given that he had to clean the mess created due to their sons' incompetency. "I guess I'll have to go and destroy the two prototypes. Ades, prep my unit."
"Yes Sir," Ades said before turning to address the bridge. "Commander Creuset is launching, Prepare his CGUE unit."
1
A/N
Gundam Seed was released in the Post 9-11. The release of Gundam Seed Momentus reflects that 'anniversary' twenty years ago and how it comes together with what is happening in Afghanistan.