"Approaching enemy vessels. All hands to level one battle stations. I repeat, all hands to level one battle stations."
After telling Azumi to stay put, Mwu left the room in a hurry, swearing under his breath. He immediately headed for the pilots' changing rooms and pulled on his space suit, grabbing his helmet along the way. Soon, he was in his Mobile Armor, ready to face the battle.
"Mwu La Fllaga, launching." The words had been uttered by him so many times they seemed to have lost all meaning. The uneasy feeling he had come to associate with entering a battle was, as always, punctual and ready to turn his stomach as the machine was flung into the uncertainty of space.
Mwu quickly scanned the area around him, searching out the enemy. There were only a handful of GINNs and a few CGUEs. The carrying vessel was keeping its distance, meaning it didn't intend to enter the fray. Singling out a GINN, Mwu opened fire. Moments later, he was joined by three more MAs and the game began.
Azumi was busy pacing the small room she currently occupied. Her frustration was growing with each passing second. Thoughts succeeded each other with painful speed, as her mind tried to process them all. Even with her Coordinator abilities the task was tiring. She hated not knowing how the battle was going and which vessel was attacking. 'Could they be looking for me? Probably not. No one starts a battle over a prisoner, especially when the prisoner in question is on the ship they're attacking.'
Sitting down on the bed, Azumi finally managed to consider the situation more calmly. The ship she was currently on was still damaged from yesterday's battle and they hadn't managed to restock their ammunitions. They were a Mobile Armor short of their previous force as well. If the ZAFT forces currently attacking were as strong as her own team had been yesterday, there was a good chance of the EA ship getting shot down. Azumi almost smiled at the bitter irony of her dying in battle against her own people on a vessel she had helped weaken.
'And what about Mwu?' she wondered. Somehow, she didn't want the man to be killed, something she had attempted to do only yesterday. 'How fickle one's feelings become if allowed to grow.' she philosophized, after reflecting on her situation.
'Pull the trigger… NOW!' Mwu commanded inwardly. His timing proved impeccable as he struck the GINN's most vulnerable area, rendering the machine useless. His teammates, however, were having no such luck. Mwu raced to Hoji, who seemed to be having the most trouble, and quickly pushed the CGUE away from the other MA. His younger teammate was safe for now, but the situation was becoming worse, fast. With only four MAs, one of which was already disabled, keeping the enemy machines away from the ship was impossible, and the vessel had ended up taking a few hits. Its defenses were noticeably weakening.
Mwu was certain Commander Horace would have to resort to drastic measures to pull the ship out of this fight soon. Firing another round of shots at an advancing GINN, Mwu retreated slightly to get a better look of the battlefield. Just then, a familiar voice sounded out of his communications system.
"Lieutenant, the Commander wants you to return to the ship immediately. There, you are to attach your Mobile Armor to the GINN we captured yesterday, with its pilot inside. You will lead the GINN back to the battle, where you will release it and we will activate an explosive attached to it from here. It should provide us with enough of a distraction to escape. Do you understand?" He did not.
Azumi was rudely pulled out of her thoughts as two crewmembers entered the room and proceeded to lead her out at gunpoint, ignoring each one of her questions. Soon, Azumi found herself once more in the landing area of the ship, in front of her GINN. This time, however, a large device was attached to the machine. She was very much unaware of the nature of the device, but she didn't like it.
The GINN itself was as damaged as it had been yesterday. Azumi doubted it would even be able to fly. The crewmembers, however, lead her straight toward the Mobile Suit, and she soon found herself roughly shoved into the cockpit, hands still tied behind her back. The door was closed and locked manually from the outside, leaving the Coordinator in the darkness of the lifeless machine.
"I'm afraid I don't understand. You intend to use the damaged GINN as a body for a bomb?" Mwu's mind was running a mile a minute as he tried to grasp the reasoning behind his Commander's order. "Why does the girl have to be in it?"
The voice that answered was that of Commander Horace. "Look Lieutenant, follow the orders! Getting rid of the prisoner is just an added bonus. Besides, she's already in the GINN and I'm not wasting time getting her out." The words were spoken in a harsh growl.
Mwu had already made up his mind. "I'm not going to launch her with that bomb. I'll just have to take down those Mobile Suits the old-fashion way." With that, Mwu cut off the communication and launched once more into battle. He knew it was a risky move, but he couldn't possibly bear to follow through with the Commander's cruel plan.
He had already taken two machines down, when he finally noticed the lone CGUE aiming directly at the ship. The spot it had targeted was very vulnerable at the moment and it would definitely be a critical hit. With one last readjustment of its gun, the machine fired. Mwu was already flying towards it, planning on blocking the blast, when he was intercepted by a GINN. He could only watch in horror as the beam of energy edged closer and closer to the ship. Time seemed to slow, as it always did such situations. The shot would have hit too, had it not been for Hoji, doing what Mwu had planned, and blocking the blast with his Mobile Armor, resulting in a mangled mass of metal.