Gundam World
Author's notes: I am giving Athrun Kira's Gundam, you'll find out what it is as you read this, don't shoot/flame me, as you have been warned, besides, its for good reason, both political and ethical. On with the chapter!
Phase 3 Episode 4
"Athrun Zala of Kluze team, please report to captain Hajime Saitou's office." Athrun was woken from his slumber as the noise repeated. He pushed himself up from the hard-backed bed, which he was previously lying on, and rubbed his tired eyes. He shifted his head to the left and saw the reading of "03:37" on his digital clock. He groaned and rubbed his hand through his ruffled hair; why would the captain want him in his office at this hour? He thought drowsily, what could be so important? "Athrun Zala, do you copy?" The speaker spoke again through the COM.
Suddenly realizing that the CAPTAIN of the BISMARCK was calling him to his office, Athrun snapped to attention and pulled on his uniform hastily. Then he went over the COM and pressed the 'talk' button and spoke into it.
"Athrun Zala here, sorry for the delay, I am on my way." He depressed the button and almost bowed in apology, but remembering that the operator on the other side of the COM couldn't see him, he ran out the door, down the long corridor to captain Hajime's office.
Hajime Saitou sat in his office, his Uniform draped over his shoulders while he read the document that was presented to him on the screen in front of him. He pushed his reading glasses a bit higher onto the bridge of his nose, dark circles hung under his heavy eyelids; a look of annoyance was in his eyes. He scrolled down. Some pencil pushing morons from headquarters had sent him a transmission at 03:30 hours, with a simple "Please present this to Athrun Zala immediately, TOP SECRET" as its name and nothing else. This had better be good.
This is what the document said:
Greetings Captain Hajime Saitou of the flagship Bismarck:
I am terribly sorry to be bothering you at this hour, but the document attached to this transmission is of utmost importance and is highly classified information of the ZAFT military. I, Siegel Clyne, am hard pressed to present you with a weapon, which we have developed but have not used for quite a while now. But after recent debate with the council about the report about the new Earth-Alliance Prototype mobile suits from you, I am sorry to say that in order to off-set the loss of military influence and ZAFT troops brought on by the appearance of these new mobile suits, we must use this weapon and use it now!
I am to inform you that we, the ZAFT, have engineered and built a new mobile suit, in the form of a highly sophisticated assault unit, that can surpass all aspects of traditional Zakus and Ginns in all specs of combat abilities. Please read the attached data and present the ZGMF-010 to the pilot, Athrun Zala; we have utmost faith in him that he will use our new weapon to its greatest potential and achieve the Freedom that we so hoped for.
Saitou's left eyebrow shot up and he leaned forward to open the attached data while calling his secretary. After a few seconds of silence, a voice came through.
"Yes sir, may I help you?" The voice of Tokio, his personal secretary, asked through the telecom, her voice sounded sleepy.
"Yes, Tokio, call Athrun Zala for me, let him visit my office ASAP." Saitou said, not taking his eyes away from the screen in front of him as he spoke, his eyes narrowed when the file began loading and schematics of Mobile suits began popping up.
"Now?" Tokio's voice inquired.
"Yes, now, I want our ace pilot in my office now." Saitou said and clicked on the attachment with the transmission. A file opened with a series of schematics and explanations. Saitou's breath caught for a moment.
What is this?.
A wolfish grin lit up his face a moment later, on his screen, there was schematic of a mobile suit; this unit looked just like the type of EA prototype mobile suit during the attack on Ptolemaeus base, with the V-shaped radar on its forehead and the sophisticated Armour systems.
ZGMF-010 Freedom GUNDAM. Zero Gravity Mobile Fighter-010 Freedom, General, Unrestricted, Nuclear, Drive, Assault, Module. This is a highly sophisticated mobile suit with advanced capabilities in combat and mobility. A set of wing-like anti-gravitational propulsion systems, code named HIMAT, is attached to the back for the pinnacle of mobility for both atmospheric flight and spatial flight.
Magnetic joints make it possible for unsurpassed mobility of the mechanical limps, which could not have been achieved before, with the elimination of friction and with it, heat.
High-impulse rail guns, dual rail guns mounted on the back are able to flex into the ZGMF system when not in use. Fires a series of magnetically propelled, high-speed titanium piercing slugs and can also be used as a charged Balaena plasma beam cannon. Dual hyper impulse cannons mounted at the waist produces two beams of high-energy blasts with effective radius to destroy normal sized warships and battle cruisers.
ZGMF-010 Freedom is powered by nuclear energy.
Saitou stopped. 'Nuclear energy?' He thought, 'this must be a joke; nuclear energy is no longer available due to the neutron Jammers spread all throughout space. They could have a nuclear power plant, but no energy is going to come out of it.' Saitou continued reading, out of sheer curiosity.
A new ZAFT technology, a device codenamed "Neutron Jammer Canceller" is able to nullify the effects of Neutron Jammers and thus providing free movements of neutrons within a 2-kilometer cubed 3-D radius. This makes the use of nuclear energy possible, because the ZGMF-010 Freedom is powered by nuclear energy, its phase shift Armour and battery of weapons will never run out of power.
Saitou stopped reading; he had to cut himself off before something even more terrifying presents itself. He couldn't believe it; he didn't just see lines that said that the ZAFT had a new device called the "Neutron Jammer Canceller"!
He had always questioned the intelligence of some of the high commands of ZAFT; sometimes he just thought they were nuts. But bringing about the creation of the Neutron Jammer Canceller is out of even their league. Dreadful possibilities ran through his mind like math problems:
Are the ZAFT preparing to launch nukes at the Earth? What if the Earth gets a hold of the N-Jammer canceller? What if…
"Athrun Zala, Captain Hajime, you wanted to see me sir?" Saitou's telecom suddenly flared and he heard Athrun's voice at the other side of his door.
"Yes, Athrun, come in." The doors slid open with a slight hiss and Athrun entered and managed a decent salute; his gaze was curious and drowsy.
"Well well, the ace of ZAFT," Saitou began with a smirk, "how have you rested since the Ptolemaeus battle? Is everything well?" Saitou leaned back in his chair and pulled out a cigarette from the breast pocket of his shirt, he needed a smoke badly even though he knew he was someday going to pay for it as a hacking and spitting old man. He studied the boy in front of him over the top of his glasses carefully as he lit his smoke.
"I am doing fine sir, thank you for your concerns." Athrun said as he snapped off another brisk salute.
"Mmm…" Saitou took a long, slow drag from his cigarette and exhaled a cloud of smoke before he replied, "well," he chuckled, "you aren't going to okay any longer after I show you this, to put it simply, you'll be getting a new mobile suit Athrun." Saitou finished briskly and turned his computer screen so Athrun could see its content clearly. The boy scanned through the information quickly and stopped as his eyes trailed over the part about the N-Jammer canceller. "You'll be operating a machine that every Earth Alliance Mobile Suit in the solar system will be trying to shoot down that will create a huge boom when it gets shot." Saitou laughed and took another drag from his smoke.
"Sir, this… this can't be real?" Athrun had turned slightly pale while his messy blue hair fell around his face in all its orderly glory, "I mean, our council couldn't possibly be actually trying to use nuclear power?"
"Well, as you can see clearly Athrun, they are. And apparently, you are the only pilot in our forces they could think of who can both pilot the Freedom without blowing it up and be a great propaganda tool at the same time." Saitou shook his head lightly while Athrun dipped his head in resignation.
"Yes sir."
"That will be all, Athrun, you have permission to head back for another three hours of extended sleep," Saitou paused, digging his cigarette into the ashtray forcefully, "you'll need the extra strength after all."
"Thank you sir." The blue haired boy said after saluting once more; he stood for a moment, not moving, and then a look of resignation took over his pale face. Athrun, with one final look at the monitor, turned and exited Saitou's office.
After the doors had closed behind the young ace, Saitou turned his monitor back to face himself and scanned through parts of the file again with interest.
"Tokio?"
"Yes Hajime sir?"
"Get me Le Kluze, I have something to speak to him about."
OXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
"I can't believe we only got one week off," Kira pouted loudly as he headed towards the Strike alongside Major Mwu La Flaga, "only one week, and its already over, and here we are, heading off to another mission!" The commander turned his gaze sideways to look at the youngster.
"Hey Kira, are you okay?" He began absentmindedly, "I haven't seen you for 3 days and you've changed? Who are you and what have you done with Kira?" Mwu laughed loudly, finding the joke very funny, while he planted his gloved hand into the Strike pilot's lengthening brown hair and ruffled it, causing the younger boy much annoyance.
"Hey, stop that! Is it so wrong for a boy to want to have some fun?" Kira protested, hands waving as reinforcement for what he was saying as if just speaking weren't enough anymore. "And I don't even know where we're heading now."
"Kira, just how many times did you visit Gion with those teenagers and how much caffeine did you consume? And…" Commander La Flaga's voice suddenly became a silent whisper as he leaned in close, "and how many times did you visit the red-light district?"
A loud smacking noise was heard and left Commander Mwu La Flaga grabbing the top of his head and moaning in pain. Kira's eyes snapped to a spot behind La Flaga, where a women, dressed in a clean wash of the standard Earth military issue for Lieutenants was standing with her hand planted firmly at her hips with the other raised. Clearly the very hand that have just smacked Mwu over the head, she had a full head of luxurious brown hair that fell down past her shoulders in sensual waves and a look of annoyance marred her otherwise beautiful face.
"La Flaga!" she began in an exasperated tone, "I am hard-pressed to find our very own lead pilot attempting to corrupt the minds of our young aces with his LOWLY ways!"
The commander turned around fearfully, hands still covering over his skull like an army cap.
"Oh, its you Murre, you didn't have to resort to you VIOLENT ways either! I was just trying to teach our Strike pilot something about the real world!"
"Oh! You are the pilot of the Strike Gundam!" The women named Murre moved forward quickly and shook Kira's hand, "I am Lieutenant Murre Ramius of majestic, nice to meet you! I'm also impressed with the results of your battle during the attack on the Ptolemaeus base!"
Kira couldn't find what to say for a second, the energy that he had projected a moment ago was gone at this onslaught of happening around him.
"Uh, nice to meet you Mrs. Murre," Kira shook her hand and said without thinking much.
"Oh no, she's not married." La Flaga's blonde head popped out from behind Murre and he interrupted.
"You have no room to talk!" The lieutenant shot a withering glance over her shoulder and La Flaga moved back a few steps, his hand moving in front of him for his own protection. Kira, however, was picking up a strange vibe coming from the two adults in front of him; throughout the whole time, from the start of the conversation with the mention of the red-light district by Mwu till now, the two seemed to be flirting more than actually talking to him. A strange smirk glanced Kira's lips.
Oh sweet blackmail material
As Murre turned back, her expression changed rapidly as she saw the glint in Kira's eyes and quickly let go of Kira's hand. Then she proceeded to say:
"Whatever the Commander is teaching you, don't listen to him, unless it's battle tips, otherwise, he'll just lead you into a swamp of bad things that you could care less of sorting out later in life!" Murre said as she held both of her arms at the side of her waist in dignity.
"You certainly know a lot about Major Mwu La Flaga MS. Murre." Kira added intonation when speaking the "miss" part. Murre blushed slightly but smiled afterwards.
"Oh, you are all the same; Kira, best of luck!" She said and made her hasty retreat.
"Ahh, she's a good catch any day, don't you think so Kira?" The Strike pilot looked to the Burning Gundam pilot quickly; there goes his blackmail material.
"Ugh, I'm not sure you could depend on me when it came to dating tips Commander." The sly smirk that graced Kira's lips were soon wiped off of them as Mwu engaged in another round of noogying the poor boy's hair. "Ahh stop it!"
"You really have changed Kira, I'm glad to see you like this now, but don't relax, we are going to Heliopolis and if you get too loose, you'll get shot down." Mwu's voice suddenly became serious as loud speakers rang in the hanger.
"All units and personnel please stabilize your positions, Majestic is preparing for take off in two minutes." The thunderous drumming of the gigantic propulsion engines on the Majestic could be heard starting up; this would possibly be Kira's last moments on the Moon in a while where the memories of Gion still ran through his mind.
He had tried to block out the tension that had built up within himself over the past few days by giving himself up completely to the enjoyment of his time off, not even straying near the hanger anytime that he was on the Majestic. He didn't want to be reminded of the savage battles that hid behind the powerful facade of the Gundams and their gleaming armors. But now, as the sound of the engines grew steadily louder, Kira could feel the pool of dread beginning to settle back into his stomach and the dream of a peaceful world like the one in Gion slowly fading; because he was headed off to Heliopolis, where his new enemy waited silently, a Gundam named Freedom.
End of Phase
Author's notes: sorry for the slow update, to tell you the truth, I have been preoccupied with before-the-Christmas-break-massive-amounts-of-school-work-must-ensue for the past week and a half, and organizing and establishing two forums of (one which is very, VERY successful so far) is more work than I thought, but it is fun. I have also paid a friend of mine (whom I have yet to pay hehehehe) to read through Gundam World and give me suggestions on possible improvements to the story, which a writer cannot possibly spot. I have added over two thousand words just by editing and overhauling the first six chapters alone! And now that the major tests and assignments are over and done with for now, I can have a little time to begin writing the next big phase in Gundam World! Hope to see you soon!