Author's Notes: As promised, the second installment of this double-update. As a side note, some oldschool Gundam fans will notice that I put in some similarities from the Universal Century into my explanation of MS mechanics. One reason for this is that if 'it ain't broke don't fix it'—UC had a lot of rather elegant solutions for common Sci-Fi problems. The second reason is that, unfortunately, unlike UC Gundam and Minovsky Physics, the SEED universe is much less thoroughly fleshed-out in terms of how things work. Besides, it seemed rather obvious to use autobalancers…
Disclaimer: See first chapter.
Phase 5: The Stars from Hell
First Lieutenant Mimura Kunio could hardly believe his bad luck. It wasn't that he was in enemy-held territory, probably up against a large number of mobile armor units, fighters, and at least one frigate-sized ship. It also wasn't that he was in a field of debris so irregular and reflective that he could barely detect the enemy and possible reinforcements either.
What really made him rue the day he signed up for service was that he was going to have to fight in a GiNN Long Range Recon unit, with a 100mm APSV sniper rifle as his only weapon. It didn't help that the two-seater GiNN LRR was only large enough for him to move his arms to control the unit, and lean back an inch before jostling Doyle's sensor screens.
"More with less," He said sarcastically under his breath, marching the GiNN further towards a better rock outcropping to snipe from and take cover in. It wouldn't hold up to a blast from the frigate he now saw hanging like a gray dagger in space just to high one o'clock, but the craggy ravine was deep, and its shadow would hide him well. He cocked the outsize-barreled rifle and kept watch. "Lyles?"
"Doesn't seem they've taken notice. I'm picking up about fifteen mobile armors…and about as many recovery pods. They're definitely hauling something out of here that just couldn't be towed." Doyle raised a gray-and-red gloved set of hands, cracking his knuckles through his pressure suit. This was absurd, he'd admit readily to that, but it sure was a rush. He just wished he were piloting, instead of being stuck in the backseat. A beep alerted him to a change. "Heads up, looks like someone's coming our way."
"Kuso…" Kunio swore, easing into the shadows a little more. Suddenly, he wished his GiNN didn't have an imposing, brightly-glowing red monoeye to act as a beacon for his enemies. He looked at his tracking scopes and saw that one of the little recovery haulers was moving serenely in their direction, towards what appeared to be a maintenance shaft that had been ripped open by the explosion that tore the space fortress apart during its death. Kunio, in the almost entirely black mobile suit, lifted his rifle slowly, aiming a shot, just in case.
The hauler wasn't very big, maybe half the size of a GiNN. Its two grappler arms and little outboard thrusters weren't geared towards combat and evasive action, but it could probably pull or push several tons of material to salvage whatever its masters thought was necessary. Painted an unseemly beehive yellow, it was a boxy thing that moved along on a pair of rear-facing verniers. When the onboard computer recognized it, it flashed as a MAW-01 Mistral type mobile armor/salvage vehicle. It soared near the 'horizon line' of the asteroid, far too off course to be heading to the shaft now. "Go away, damn you. Out of my sky."
Then it suddenly corrected, evidently because the outcroppings were blocking the most direct route. Now, it turned, headed for the shaft, and facing in their direction. It stopped suddenly. It saw them.
"Dumbass!" Before he knew it, Kunio pressed the firing stud on his control bar, jarring the sturdy GiNN Recon with a single shot from the high-powered three-inch artillery sniper rifle. The big APSV round slammed into the nearby salvage craft with brutal accuracy, ripping it into two pieces as the accompanying explosion sundered the rock outcropping, gouging out a small crater. He didn't know how many people were in the thing, but it looked like it could fit at least two.
"Maybe they'll think it crashed." Kunio said hopefully, knowing it was a long shot. "What are they saying?"
Doyle listened in on the UHF band and pulse code radio. At this range, it was easy to eavesdrop on their conversation, as they were practically inside the enemy formation. Doyle didn't bother relaying it, he just put it on the speaker.
"Do you think it crashed?" One person asked frantically.
There was a pause. "Maybe, but at that speed? Someone go send a Mobius Zero out there to see what the hell is going on."
"Copy, lead."
"Do you think ZAFT is here?"
"Hope not, those damned Coordinators give me the heebie-jeebies…wouldn't want to run into them here of all places. It's their fault we're dragging this shit out of—"
And it went on in that track.
"Incoming." Doyle said, though he felt he hardly needed to, as he could already feel the mobile suit springing into action with all the grace of a drunken circus actor, as it jumped out of the crevasse. He held on for dear life. This is going to get rough.
Inbound on their position was one of the notoriously hard-to-kill Mobius Zero type mobile armors, already launching its four gun-pods, trying to target Kunio and Doyle in their dark recon unit. For all his complaints about the 704b, Kunio found that it responded well enough to his commands, as he leapt out of the way of an enfilade of artillery fire from the gun pods that could easily have shredded the mobile suit. He had to give the Naturals some credit where it was due; those Mobius-types were pretty decent.
Not decent enough, he thought as he readjusted his bearing, spun, backing away from another shot that came too close for comfort on his left shoulder, and fired the sniper rifle with another thud. True to the red targeting sights on his screen, he watched with gratification as a weapons pod detonated dramatically, a half-second from firing what could have been a shot to end his life.
"Time to show them why we're faster, stronger, and better," he said, not caring for political correctness anymore, in the heat of the space duel with his unnamed enemy. This was what his training was for; so he could do more with less, against bad odds, because he was engineered to be stronger, smarter, and quicker on his toes than the pilot of that Zero. That it was his first firefight didn't dawn on him quite yet, as he was absorbed in his piloting. A howl from behind him informed Kunio that he'd scored another hit.
"Look out, on our five o'clock down, another MA," Doyle yelled over the din, as shots passed close enough to graze the paint job on the GiNN. The odds were getting worse. The Zero was almost unarmed now, but he had a lot of friends waiting to take a shot at him.
A sudden alarm caught Doyle's attention. "Break high, break high!"
Kunio, trusting Lyles implicitly, threw the humanoid fighter into a thruster-powered mid-air leap, evacuating the space he'd been in as it was abruptly transformed into a swath of angry, bright green energy. His eyes traced the shot back to its origin, and he discovered with no small amount of dread that the Eurasian frigate was firing on them. That made them outnumbered and outgunned.
Calmly, but with some irritation, he swung the barrel of the 100mm rifle over his left arm, letting go with the left hand for movement's sake, and snapped off a quick shot in that same direction.
The frigate—an Agamemnon class vessel--might have rocked as the heavy anti-armor round connected, right with the double-barreled turret that just fired on the wily mobile suit, destroying the weapons emplacement neatly, thereby eliminating that threat. Unfortunately, there was more where that came from, and the other forward portside battery opened up on them with a rain of fire.
"Sir, the GiNN is taking evasive, and trying to break for it." The tactical officer aboard the Eurasian Agamemnon Destroyer Lusitania, which was now erupting into the pandemonium of a ship at war, had to shout to be heard. Officers in vac-suits sat at their consoles, all focusing on the task of covering their mobile armors and recovery vehicles.
"Godfreit number two, destroyed!" Another officer reported, causing the captain to take notice. That GiNN was doing terrific damage for a lone reconnaissance unit.
"Damn that ZAFT monster from space!" The captain, a middle-aged man from the Eurasian Continent growled. "Focus your fire on it, and make sure you don't kill our own people!"
"Heat sources sir, ten of them!" Someone cried out over the wailing klaxons. "Mobile suits approaching!"
Inside the Recon GiNN, jostled about this way and that, Doyle stared at his screen in amazement. For a bunch of amateurs, the Earth Alliance managed to scramble pretty damn well. Maybe he'd underestimated them. In any case, he wasn't there to appreciate their tactical and strategic intellect, just to dissect it enough to keep them alive until reinforcements arrived.
"Damn, I've got more units appearing…I can't even tell what the closest one is. Fucking static!" Doyle cursed, punching codes. Had they outflanked the GiNN? Kunio was currently pulling them into a tight turn that was illegal in most traffic zones, coming back around at a forty-degree angle at such high speed that Doyle almost blacked out, seeing spots as they came out of it. A second later they were jarred as a missile tore off the giant LRR's foot.
"Damage to right foot." Doyle warned.
Kunio was red. "I know."
"Damage to left shoulder, Boss." Doyle figured that if he was going to die in that 'mobile coffin' he was going to do so in as blasé a fashion as possible.
"I KNOW!"
In front of them, one of the ubiquitous, dual-nacelle design mobile armors—a TS-MA2 Mobius—coasted into view, firing its heavy vulcans, firing off a large, oblong missile for good measure. The outsize ballistic implement came roaring at them with all the glamour of a giant, solid-fuel propelled medicine tablet.
"Come on!" Kunio growled, firing the sniper rifle once, killing the missile in a brilliant ball of flame. It hid its mobile armor owner long enough that he couldn't track it, and another hit ripped the left arm fully off.
"Left arm---"
"Shut up, Doyle! I know!"
Doyle then said something useful, as the mobile suit pitched to one side and he was suddenly squeezed into a corner by angular momentum "Hey, incoming, break left!"
As the GiNN veered sharply away from another missile, the space where the previous mobile armor was—just to their right—became a blinding shaft of light, debris, and jetsam, and the force of the nearby detonation almost hurled the seventy-eight metric ton monster right off course.
Kunio's roving eyes glanced up as he lifted the GiNN's head, focusing the eye on whatever it was that had just taken apart the enemy unit.
Streaking in from above was a silver-gray unit, burning a path at high speed for their direction, two lines of high-caliber machinegun fire issuing from somewhere on the body, and a large, menacing rifle slung in one hand, a shield in the other. And, to Kunio's amazement and unending gratitude, its head lit up with a single, scarlet point of light.
"It's one of ours!" the squadron commander cried gleefully, swerving to avoid colliding with the rip-roaring mobile suit, which quickly adjusted its momentum, raised a shield, blocking a few gun hits, and then opened up with a well-placed shot to a Mobius' midsection with a green shaft of light. "ZAFT Mobile suit, Identify!"
"Sorry we're late for the party, Kunio." Nagisa's grinning face appeared on a side screen, sitting alone inside a mobile suit that looked much more comfortable than the low-rent housing that was the GiNN recon. His display suddenly lit up with beamed ID numbers: ZGMF/YFR-600 GuAIZ, Lt. J.G. Mimura.
The two mobile suits were trying to jink and juke to evade blasts coming in from almost all directions, but now that reinforcements had arrived—at least ten GiNNs, and another of the unknown MS types that Nagisa was piloting, a gold yellow beast with dual rail guns and an impressive flight lifter—they were slightly more free to move about unencumbered by suppressing fire. That advantage wouldn't last long though.
"Go back and recover to the Solomon, and this time we'll cover you." Suzuka's voice came in over the squadron-only frequency. He couldn't tell immediately where she was, but Kunio imagined she was close by, judging from how battle alarms could be heard through the transmission.
Kunio scoffed. "And leave you guys alone?"
"Hardly," Nagisa said, firing off a shot with that black beam rifle of his while executing a barrel roll that forced him to break away from Kunio's side.
Since when do we have beam rifles? Kunio wondered. Now wasn't the time to think on that though, and he was already picking up unwanted company. Pushing the GiNN as hard as it would go, he blasted away from his current location, just in time to avoid another salvo from a group of sluggish but well-armed mobile armors firing multi-barreled CIWSs. Turning, with only one arm to hold out the large rifle, he aimed his shot as best he could, and fired. He was now empty, with no left arm to reload the clip.
The force of the rifle's kickback, without the stabilizing benefit of a second arm, recoiled the entire GiNN back a few meters. Its hull became alight with a warm glow as the target in front of it became a ball of expanding, superheated gas.
"You're already messed up anyways, recover, sir." Suzuka added a second later.
"Copy that. Hold down the fort." Kunio said with some dissatisfaction. This was his fight; he should have been the one to finish it. This was no way for a commander to leave the field of battle. It didn't appeal to his sense of military pathos or ethos.
There was a chortle on the other end, probably Nagisa. "Don't worry, we'll follow in your example. That was some flying."
Kunio smiled despite himself as he powered for the Solomon, which just now was emerging from behind a great slab of floating, jagged concrete, probably a sealing wall before the ZAFT attack on Artemis, weeks before. The bow of the mighty ship turned towards them, and the berth was open. To discourage anyone from following it in, the two 120 centimeter anti-ship beam cannons came to life, cutting a destructive path through the darkness as the impulse streaks singed space vehemently.
Doyle whistled. "That…was more action in an escape pod than I'd care to ever relive."
For once, Kunio was forced to agree with Lyles' snide humor.
Nagisa rolled his mobile suit out of the way of the oncoming attack from the Solomon, narrowly avoiding getting hit by his own ship. That would have been an ignominious fate indeed: crisped to death by your flagship's main gun while taking over a combat action.
When he and Suzuka returned to the Solomon, Captain Yuki himself greeted them in the launch bay, telling them to take two of their experimental units. These were the units on the Solomon that the four pilots fresh off of Boaz were actually assigned to, as opposed to their temporary placement with the Recon GiNNs. They were literally fresh out of the MMI factory at Maius City, gleaming with galvanized metal.
What awaited him was a twenty-meter, twenty-four centimeter, eighty metric ton gray ghost of a mobile suit, with large rocket thrusters and verniers, an sweeping, flaring shoulder assembly, and a variety of weapons. The YFX-600R 'GuAIZ' Experimental Firearms Model was a test bed for new technologies that ZAFT was exploring both before and after the acquisition of four of Morgenrater's GAT-X series mobile suits. Only one was truly the Experimental Firearms version, the other three were more accurately what would be represented in the mass production version, if their flight tests proved the unit viable: the ZGMF-600 GuAIZ. All were equipped with two beam claws in the Composite Shield, to replace the aging GiNN sword, a pair of 76mm MM1-GAU2 'Picus' Close-In Weapons System, six-barreled, electric-powered vulcans, and an MM1-M20 'Lupus' experimental beam rifle. Suzuka, in the 600R, instead of a shield, carried two folding Xiphias rail cannons and dual beam sabers, and a flight lifter with beam cannons and machine guns.
When Nagisa saw the Guaiz, as he was calling it, he fell instantly in love. Now, headed towards the thick of it with the new high-performance mobile suit, he felt powerful, capable, and clever. More so than he should have, he knew, but it was like being a child and in a candy store, a birthday gift from the whatever god of war which might have existed. Aside from being a rather nice piece of technology, his job was now slightly easier.
He spied a mobile armor trying to regroup—one of the last remaining ones, as Major Katagiri's GiNNs were making a clean sweep with a rushing maneuver—and leveled his Lupus rifle at it, targeting it squarely with the special zoom optics. A squeeze later and a vibrant line of green intersected with the target where the velocity sight designated it to, and the mobile armor became so many hydrogen atoms. Its partner accelerated to get clear from the flames, but he only became gun-fodder for a nearby GiNN's machinegun rounds.
Sorry. He didn't care if he'd just killed someone. There were too many people he cared about who were depending on him to defend them, too many innocent people who would die if he failed here.
Suzuka wasn't far away, and seeing that the mobile-weapon on mobile-weapon fight was dying down, with only a few Mistrals left, shifted her attention to the frigate that was steadily attempting to down the Jericho. It was scoring multiple hits, and the space between the two large ships was becoming a firestorm of small lines. She had to end this before the Lurasia-class went down.
Bringing her Guaiz to a relative stop, dodging dogged fire, she unfolded her Xiphias class rail guns towards the enemy frigate's bridge, which she stood only about two MS lengths from now, and fired. Yellow streaks crashed through the windows of the command deck, and the space behind it detonated stupendously, ushering in another gout of flame as the cruiser began to die.
"Got one." Suzuka pursed her lips and vectored away from the growing chain of blasts, not wanting to get caught in the blowback. "Anymore targets to splash, Nagisa?"
"I don't see anything." Came the prompt reply. "Looks like Major Katagiri beat us to the punch."
There was a commotion over the open channel as units began mopping up, and GiNNs from Jericho and Aurora littered the combat zone, securing the perimeter.
"Who in the Zodiac killed that Zero?" It was Katagiri, who seemed to have found the remains of the Mobius-type mobile armor somewhere on the lifeless rock formerly known as Artemis.
"That would probably be Lieutenant Mimura, sir." Nagisa replied calmly, prowling towards the edge of the zone. The only thing that seemed to be remaining in the combat area were a few remaining recovery craft, which were now being herded in by a flight of machinegun-armed GiNNs.
"Which one?"
"Kunio, sir." Nagisa answered, not hiding a touch of pride.
The space around the Artemis' graveyard had become a mess of molten debris, disturbed, flying rock, and the remains of one enemy frigate, breaking up here and there into smaller chunks. There didn't look to be any survivors from that wreck, Nagisa noted, seeing a conspicuous lack of escape pods. Then again, the way that Suzuka snuck up on the thing, no wonder there weren't any survivors. Well, that was one less thing to worry about. No sense in dwelling on it.
"Suzuka, on me. We're going back to the Solomon." Nagisa said, turning his GuAIZ around, and engaging the main thrusters. He was pleasantly pressed down into his mildly uncomfortable flight chair, as faux gravity returned.
From his lower left, the other prototype suit came in, taking position next to him. "Got it. You know...I still don't get why we had to fight here. What did they want with this junk?"
"We have survivors." Nagisa offered experimentally. "Let Intelligence drag it out of them. Not our problem."
Somehow, Suzuka begged to differ, but she kept quiet. The fact of the matter was that she wasn't going to find out unless the brass wanted her to, or she began to hold loose morals while on visits to Intel, and that just wasn't going to happen, not on her watch. What they did could stay their business.
But, she couldn't help wondering what exactly was so valuable to Eurasia and the Earth Alliance that they'd come so close to the PLANT homeland in order to salvage it.
Slowly and carefully, the two pilots navigated their MS into the hold of the Solomon for minor repairs, re-supply, and some needed rest.
Exiting his GuAIZ quickly, Nagisa propelled himself with a kick of the feet as soon as the hatch had been lowered, cruising gracefully through the air as Suzuka's suit secured itself into a mooring berth. He was there only seconds before the chest compartment folded down and the Guaiz's pilot exited with a similar counterforce leap, straight towards him.
He caught her by the shoulders, and their combined momentum sent them sailing towards the gantry, landing with a clop of boots. Removing his helmet and stashing it under an arm, Mimura Nagisa gave her a grin. "Not bad for our first run."
"I'd say, but I have a feeling that our Fearless Leader is going to disagree." Suzuka said quietly, hooking a thumb towards the black, purple, and orange GiNN recon that sat dejectedly across the bay from them, ominously brooding after a mission that literally cost it an arm and a leg. Already, a repair crew was working towards severing the uneven parts so they could rotate in new limbs, and the Master Chief Petty Officer was shouting aggravated orders. CPO Country would be dangerous country for the time being, so they made sure to avoid the Master Chief for a while.
"Hey!" Someone called from the end of the pilot gangway, at the end of the gantry. A crimson-clad figure waved.
Suzuka and Nagisa made their way towards Kunio, offering him a salute. He returned it, and stood observing them, as if something was wrong. After a second, his brown eyes looked away.
"What's eating you?" Nagisa asked, cocking his head to the side.
Kunio waved dismissively. "Nothing important. Just wish I'd done better out there."
"You kidding me, Kunio?" Suzuka was almost gaping. "You were hopelessly outnumbered. I don't care how bad mobile armor are, enough of them can take anyone out. You did more than could be expected, especially in that goddamn Recon type. You took down a goddamn Mobius Zero too."
"Whatever happened to that business about the leader being the example to follow? I quit after half the fight." Kunio muttered as they walked into the pilots' lounge. There, Lyles, who sat on the couch distractedly looking at a little paperback, joined them. His hair was ruffled, his head bandaged slightly, but he didn't look to be very badly off. Kunio also seemed to have a couple of lumps, but nothing serious.
Must have been a rough ride, Nagisa concluded. He could only imagine what it must have been like, pulling those white-knuckle flight maneuvers in the cramped snooper unit. He said, "That's a myth and you know it."
"Oy." Doyle piped up from the couch, sitting up. Letting his book drift away, he floated towards them. "That was pretty slick, coming in that hot. What the hell are those things anyway?"
As if his question wasn't already clear enough, he turned his manic gaze towards the launch bay and stabbed a finger towards one of the two recently-docked Guaizs, which were now crawling with technicians and repair crews, checking the frame for damage.
"ZGMF-600 Gu.A.I.Z." Suzuka said with self-mocking pedantic speech, closing her eyes and raising an imperious finger. "No, well…technically they're YFR-600Rs, Guaiz for short, Experimental Firearms mobile suits. We're supposed to be the testers, that's why we got assigned to Solomon."
Lyles screwed up his face, crossing his arms, now flying slowly away from them. "So getting crammed into those snoopers was just some sort of test Yuki-taicho cooked up?"
Nagisa's eyes widened slightly. "Yes and no. He really did need a recon detail, and he wanted us to prove ourselves. He said as much while we were getting in the Guaizs."
"Sounds like a fun guy after all," muttered the blond pilot, shaking his head. "Man, Master Chief Jorge is going to kill us for messing up that GiNN."
"You borrow the car and crash it," Kunio said, breaking his unusual silence with a thin smile, "And that is what tends to happen, Lyles." He felt odd, coming out of the GiNN and waiting for the end of the operation. What surprised Kunio the most wasn't finding out about how the captain was actually testing them, but rather that Yuki-taicho told Nagisa first. He was the leader of the unit, so it reflected on him that he was being viewed as inept as to be circumvented. Then again, if the tested know they're being tested, then control is lost. Kunio settled for the opinion that he was being paranoid.
One thing did strike him as amusing: Nagisa was turning out to be pretty good at making himself a leader of sorts, guiding Suzuka, and taking over the unit in the heat of battle. He would make note to keep Nagisa in a position to back him up, or take on responsibilities as required. Personally, Kunio trusted Nagisa implicitly, but he had to gauge all of his soldiers professionally before translating personal trust into a commander's reliance on a particular pilot to accomplish a given task or fulfill a role. It was incumbent upon him to keep his personal feelings to himself in his decision-making process. That was hard though, when every member of your team is a close friend, and one is your brother. Despite this, Kunio felt himself to be the most fortunate squad leader in ZAFT.
"All of you did well today. Even you Doyle." Kunio said teasingly, grinning. He'd gotten a little hot under the collar at the nonchalant, dark humor that Lyles displayed during the firefight, but he knew that it was the older pilot's way of dealing with the thin line between life and death. Whatever helped with dealing with such a daunting prospect was a good thing.
"Something happen?" Nagisa asked, chuckling.
Doyle spoke up from the other end of the room, placing his paperback in his locker. He was already dressed in his uniform instead of his flight suit. "Just some battle babble. You know, the standard 'we're doomed', 'we lost an arm' shtick."
"You never belay the johnwayne, do you?" Suzuka asked, unimpressed.
Doyle gave her a prim salute as he flew towards them at speed. "Never, ma'am."
Suzuka smiled tiredly, before going towards her locker to change. "Men."
Aboard the bridge of the Solomon, Captain Yuki scanned the battle statistics from the recent engagement at Artemis' ruin reef. ZAFT lost two mobile suits, four were damaged, including one of their two GiNN recons, and would take a while to repair; the Jericho's portside engine was struggling, but would soon be up to snuff. On the Eurasian side, it was almost a total write-off: seventeen mobile armor units were destroyed, three more captured, a line-frigate was destroyed with all hands aboard, and six recovery craft were successfully captured, after surrender. It was a fairly good turnover ratio, considering only the Jericho was involved in serious combat, while the Solomon and Aurora secured their flank. If only the war would keep up like this, then ZAFT wouldn't have to worry as much.
"Interesting…" He said lowly, reading the initial report filed by the elder Lieutenant Mimura. They would find out soon enough what it was that Eurasia had come back for so unsuccessfully. What was more on the forefront of his thoughts though, was the word that Patrick Zara was cooking up a major operation for sometime in the foreseeable future, 'Operation Spit-Break'. There was currently no set timetable, and details were hazy.
Slowly, he left his command chair and moved towards the rear of the bridge, where a gaggle of lean youths stood at attention the best they could on a zero-gravity space battleship. "At ease."
"Sir." Mimura Kunio gave a quick salute, and slouched back slightly, easing his back. Ray couldn't blame him.
"I have to apologize for before." The Captain said with a nod, folding his hands behind his back. "However, reconnaissance duty is very important to the safe operation of any military force. Your advance warning allowed us to rout the Eurasians here."
There was the usual round of thanks, but the pilots seemed taciturn for the time. Yuki ascribed it to their relative inexperience, only a couple hours after their first live-fire battle with the enemy, and their lack of comfort with a new commander. That was to be expected really. Given time, they would be more forthcoming.
"Your assignment, aside from occasional recon detail," He explained, bringing up a screen which flashed various images and bits of data about ZAFT's new mobile suits, "is to test our experimental mobile suits so we can produce refined versions en masse, by way of putting them through combat trials."
The images that flipped by were of each different suit. Aside from the GuAIZ, and the Experimental Firearms type, there was also the ZGMF-1017M High Manuver GiNN, with an experimental 27mm gun, and a very recent addition: the Cgue ZGMF-515 Commander Unit. Very few of these had been produced so far, and they were being used mainly as mobile suits for high-ranking officers or ace pilots. Gray in coloration, it resembled the Guaiz in various aspects, carrying a very similar arm-mounted shield. One such unit was currently assigned to Raul La Cruise. It was their responsibility to produce evaluations of those units to further the war effort; a sometimes-difficult task, considering that these were trial versions, and not the final, 'working' models. There were hushed rumors throughout history of failed projects, and usually armament advancement and technological success came at the price of at least a few lives, as the legendary American Apollo program proved, among the pioneers of Humanity's space-travelers.
The pilots scrutinized the images and readouts closely, occasionally murmuring a comment here and there about the design. What had qualified these pilots initially, Yuki knew, was that three of them were engineering science graduates cum laude, from Heliopolis' Science College. The remaining pilot, Hayes-Sato, was already a promising ace, and scored high academically. Mimura Nagisa particularly was of interest: while not the best pilot of the lot, he was almost at the top of his graduating class in strategy and tactics, as well as science. Some of his other categories were below-average, but his dedication in those specific fields aided in his selection.
"You can decide who gets what later." Yuki said with a smile. He could sympathize with the four pilots. By military standards, Yuki was still fairly young himself—only fourteen years older than Doyle—and considered something of a 'rising star'. "Though I may commandeer that Cgue on occasion. You'll also have the Recon GiNNs in your operational inventory, but don't rely on them too much; we'll need them almost constantly."
"Sir, what about the current task? Are we en route to the moon or L1?" Kunio asked eagerly, tearing his eyes away from the information displays.
The captain nodded briskly, killing the display images with a tap of a key. "We're moving towards the Earth Alliance's Moon base. Of course, we're not going to be hanging around in their airspace, but we'll probe their defenses a little, see what they're doing. Then we move on."
"I see." Kunio fell silent. His eyes shifted towards Nagisa and Suzuka, remaining on the latter for a moment. She'd changed her hairstyle back to her dual bunches look, something she couldn't do while piloting. Her dark brown hair, though in something of a childish hairdo, didn't detract from her mature, pale face. She glanced in his direction, and he looked away. She was smiling, but she gave the impression of slight confusion. Nagisa, whose eyebrows shot up, followed her gaze.
Why was I looking at her like that? He wondered after they were dismissed, headed towards the lift. He grimaced inwardly as the lift descended to the median deck. His squadmates were talking about their new mobile suits, like young children during Christmas.
"Hm…That EF type has too many weapons to worry about." Nagisa was saying, palms turned up helplessly. "That rail gun isn't my style. I'll take one of the regular Guaiz test types, if that's alright with Kunio."
"That's fine." Kunio said automatically.
Nagisa observed him critically, wondering what was getting at him. He hoped it wasn't that same nonsense about his 'lack of leadership'. That was just absurd. There wasn't a better leader among them than Kunio. With a smile, he patted his CO on the back lightly. "What about you?"
"Whatever's left, except a Recon." Kunio flashed a brief, winning grin, offering them a wink. "I've had enough rides in that thing for the time being. Once being shot at in that tin can is once too many."
That caused a round of laughter as the doors opened and they emptied out onto the deck, and they headed towards their quarters. Still conversing about their equipment, Doyle stated his position. "The Guaiz isn't bad, but I like speed. I'll see what that GiNN High Maneuver can do, and then hand you back whatever's left and take a Guaiz later on."
Kunio shrugged, feeling somewhat confused that nobody wanted the Cgue, the suit they had only one of. It didn't occur to him that Nagisa suggested to the others when he wasn't paying attention that they leave that suit for their leader. So he brought a smile to the group when he announced he'd grab the commander unit.
Life aboard the Solomon, for the first day and a half, wasn't all that bad. Even though their first day saw a battle, they didn't take that as a bad sign. It did though, mean that their deployment was going to be one of almost constant action, and that did sober them up a little. However, the general atmosphere amongst the four friends was one of cautious optimism. As time went on, Kunio began to feel more comfortable stepping in the squad leader shoes prepared him, which satisfied the others to no end, since it meant they wouldn't have to worry about his self-esteem.
They were given the basic tour and show, and when they sat down to discuss squadron tactics, it came down to who would have to fly the dreaded Recon GiNN during the missions they would need it. With four pilots and two necessary to operate each, they decided that recon duty would go on a rotating schedule, with Suzuka and Nagisa again, but with roles switched. For the most part though, they agreed that it would be best to keep Kunio and Nagisa free as much as possible to fly point, with the Cgue and Guaiz. When not on recon, it would just be a straightforward diamond with the Commander in point, the two Guaiz-types in the wings, and the GiNN in the upper rear. As for the testing, they were to make one report every week on the performance of their mobile suit, transmittable to headquarters.
They also took some time to get to know Major Katagiri and Drake. Katagiri was an unassuming man, pretty gruff, but likeable. He was usually found not far from the launch bay, keeping his squad under control.
The morning of the third day, they were out flying on patrol, each unit for themselves, flying in an elongated rhombus around the three fleet ships, their eyes and sensors searching for anything unusual. But it was quiet out in the Lunar Sea, with the gigantic mass of the moon hanging in the far distance. Here, there was practically nothing, much more literally than on their earlier flight. This was the location of great space battles, not a place to put a station or base. Not very far away though, if they traveled long enough, would be L4 and L1, and in between, the moon.
Nagisa was flying rearguard for the shift, his GuAIZ seemingly immobile if not for the trail of blue engine wash from his shoulder-mounted thrusters. The red monoeye slid around on its track occasionally as he scanned the perimeter. If anything, patrol duty was exceedingly boring, but he would feel just fine with it as opposed to getting stuck in the backseat of the LRR, or 'Cleaning the Giant'.
Inside the cockpit, he leaned back a little bit, allowing himself to relax. It was still morning, and breakfast sat uneasily in his belly, disturbed by the intermittent pilings of g forces associated with flying. At this steady velocity and bearing though, he was thankfully able to digest. Outside, he noted that the formation was changing, a mobile suit with a sunshine-yellow, white, gray and red hull edged closer and closer towards his position.
Mobile Suits, since the beginning of their development with ZAFT's 'Proto-GINN' (and later, the GINN Trainer) operated on the basis of using a complex computer protocol known as an Autobalancer. Essentially, using stress sensors in the frame of the MS, the unit's central computer OS calculated the relative momentum and angle of each movement, and automatically compensated for it with miniscule, barely visible movements. Using this method, it took only a slight adjustment for Nagisa's MS to shift along with the formation, requiring practically no thruster consumption. So potent and accurate were the calculations, that short of a full power-down, the program-system could keep the MS maneuvering almost indefinitely off of the ultra-compact energy battery. Of course, nothing else would work, but it was still an impressive engineering feat.
The Experimental Firearms unit had to be the most highly-visible unit in the Aprilius Gang's arsenal, a cross between the Earth Alliance's MS aesthetic and the curves of the CGUE, with its large wing binder/lifter unit and fold-out rail cannons. The rifle it carried was the same as his, but with an armor attachment painted white and blue.
He shifted accordingly, so that he and Suzuka now were on either flank of the fleet. Nagisa then opened a private communications link. "Awake yet?"
Suzuka's voice didn't sound groggy, but he imagined she wanted to rub her eyes. When her face appeared on a screen, Nagisa noted her tired expression. "Barely. You?"
"I'll make it, I think." Nagisa said with a small, reassuring smirk. "That was some nice flying you did the other day."
"You too." There was a long silence between them, but no one moved to cut the connection. Eventually, she said, "You never talk much about yourself, Nagisa. I mean, I guess I've only known you three for a month, but it feels a lot longer, and I still know next to nothing about you besides that you're Kun-kun's brother."
"Sorry. It isn't anything personal." Nagisa raised his MM1-M20 beam rifle slightly, trying to get the default aim position to be over the profile of the Aurora. It wouldn't do for a misfire to take out its engines. "I'm just like that I think. I clam up a lot."
"No kidding." Suzuka said. Nagisa couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not, and that thought he found a little disconcerting. "Back home, I used to keep fish, and they were my hobby…well, kind of. What about you?"
The completely unmilitary question caught Nagisa off his guard, and it was a moment before he could reply. He considered his words carefully. "I liked making computer programs and little machines, that sort of thing. Kinda lame, huh?"
"Not at all." Suzuka smiled, and her head turned for a few seconds as she checked her scopes, then her features resolved again, behind the transparent visor of her helmet. "I think that's actually pretty impressive. I like intelligence in my friends—you won't find me hanging around people who don't care for expanding their knowledge."
"Lyles aside?" He couldn't resist the light barb, partially in order to avoid what hidden implications that might lie behind her phrase. What she likes in people…what she looks for in people?
There was a small laugh. "Yeah, Lyles is okay. Smarter than he looks, isn't he?"
"He's not all dick and no gray matter. I mean, come on, he's a Coordinator with a top-grade education." Nagisa said casually, making sure his six o'clock was clear. It was almost time for the end of their shift. Soon they would be able to go back in, re-supply, and then just do drills until anything more important came up.
"What do you mean by that?" Suzuka's tone was suddenly laced with an undertone of misgivings, and her eyes narrowed enough that he could detect it through the small screen. "What's being a Coordinator got to do with it?"
Nagisa went cold. He'd said the wrong thing to the wrong person. He knew it would come down to a mistake on his part, and it had come when he was keeping the least amount of watch on his words. If he wasn't careful now, his cover would be blown. He'd let himself get too comfortable. Nervously, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind.
"Nothing!" He shook his head, hoping he hadn't gone pale. "It's that he is a coordinator, and the college we went to is one of the best. Even back home he was always near the top of our class. It's hard to top him."
"I guess you're right about that…" Suzuka looked sideways, sounding much more introspective than before, the suspicion gone from her voice. However, she didn't drop it entirely, and said something that left his pulse pounding. "But still…you sounded like a Natural just now. Jeez."
"Sorry. I'm just kinda stupid, you know?" Nagisa chuckled uneasily. His GuAIZ accelerated slightly, closing up the formation by a few meters. "I'm just not very social, so sometimes I say things funny."
"It's alright." Suzuka smiled weakly. "Just don't get too weird on me. Maybe Heliopolis rubbed off on you more than you think. Remember who you are, and it will wear off, right?"
"Right…" He muttered, fighting the urge to shake his head, knowing the comm line was still open. Up until that moment, he hadn't considered Suzuka's feelings about Naturals. She didn't hate them like some Coordinators that Nagisa met, but she didn't really like them either. Intellectually, Nagisa understood the reason for this, as he understood the reason that many Naturals feared and loathed Coordinators. The irony, that she should tell him to 'remember who he was', was overpoweringly bitter.
For all she knows, I'm just your average coordinator kid. Nagisa sighed. He wondered, if she ever found out his secret, how she would act. It didn't occur to him that Suzuka's friendship would be contingent upon his actual nature remaining hidden. It was a solemn reminder that not all people were as open-minded and accepting as his father, Kunio, and Doyle.
Their shift ended sometime later, and Kunio debriefed them with as few words as possible, dismissing them for an hour of rest. They would meet up later for midday meal, then go through some exercises. In his room, he sifted through his meager belongings, eventually finding one item that he kept hidden from everyone, including Lyles and Kunio.
He held the picture of his birth parents between his fingers gently. The Saito family was all but gone now, and the faces of his smiling mother and father brought tears to his eyes. How long ago had it been since his real dad died? He couldn't remember exactly. He was too absorbed in his studies then to really recall exactly when it was. Oh, Nagisa cried then, and had a real fit, but then exams came around, and he had to get back at it. Then, when his mother passed away from cancer, he was somewhat prepared for it, and with the morbid qualification of having one dead parent 'under his belt', he was able to deal with it in his customary, efficient manner, organizing the funeral personally, and even avoiding a breakdown.
Now with the thought that maybe he was forgetting who he 'was'—Saito Nagisa, Natural, son of Natsuki and Kiyosato—he did break down, feeling the hollowness within him created by one month of living in secrecy, of living a lie.
Then, a particularly wicked thought afflicted him. Why do Coordinators have to exist anyways? Why couldn't they just be some other failed human experiment, so everyone could just be the same and not fight so much?
Realizing how bigoted that sounded, how completely incongruous it was with his own personality and that of his friends, he felt self-betrayed and traitorous, and it made him wretch even more.
Humanity's strength, he knew, lay in its diversity. If he were to begrudge diversity, it would be throwing away all he'd worked for his entire life. Of course he'd seen anti-coordinator hysteria in Heliopolis. Granted, such sectionalist thought was very contained and by no means as widespread as on Earth, but it still existed where he'd lived, and he more than once defended his friends from criticism and worse. Now, with the tables turned, his own kind being criticized, even hated, he felt the sickening dualism of his own life. Caught between Coordinators and Naturals, feeling the rage of both sides made him feel the one man out. He was only getting caught in their crossfire of disdain and mistrust.
But it helped, experiencing the events in which he defended Kunio, then later, Doyle. It made him feel somewhat like a coordinator would; indignant that people would deny him the right to exist and live as he wished, and born that way without being given a choice. Of course, that last one was less of an issue amongst second-generation and third-generation Coordinators, but to those who lived away from the Homeland, it was a definitely valid notion.
Alone in his room, he wondered if there would ever be peace. Not just on the outside, but on the inside as well, within his own heart.
-
End of Phase 5.
Moon. Tsuki. Humankind's silent watcher since the dawn of time. Disturbed by Mobile Suits, the Moon bears host to another exchange of fire, outside the Earth Alliance's Gempten Base, and does battle with Earth's new mobile squadron. Pushing himself to his limits, Nagisa strives to step into the large shoes he's chosen for himself… but finds he may not be alone.
Next time, on Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Fog of War – Dark Side of the Moon!
Look forward past the flames of confusion, Gundam!