Declaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed, Rurouni Kenshin, Halo, or any other references in my fic.
Gundam World
Phase 4 Episodes 2
"Lieutenant Lufius sir! I am picking up transmissions from the Lexington fleet and the joint federation fleet coming in towards our location!"
Lufius looked up from his notepad and took a second to decipher the information.
"Did you say Lexington and J.F fleet are coming?"
"Yes sir, an armada of approximately one hundred-twenty ships."
Lufius gave a sigh of relief and glanced at his watch, the timer read "00:32:56". Then he laughed.
"And here we were, about to leave without them. Okay then, call the Captain."
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
"So the Duel has been destroyed, and Buster captured." Kenshin repeated as his fingers flashed over the keyboard in front of him. His conversation with the Blitz pilot had gone well, before doctor Kamiya rushed back and forced the poor boy to lie back down and sleep.
Kenshin had spent the past hour writing a fairly lengthy report back to the Earth Alliance headquarters about the revelations in his office. His light was turned down, only the harsh, electric glow of the monitor in front of him illuminating his sharp features.
The talk with Soujirou had given him some valuable information; Kenshin now knew that the ZAFT also had a formidable, operable mobile suit. Soujirou had described it as "dark red, and it had overwhelming firepower, even for the three of our Gundams to face. And its phase shift armor had stayed on even after the unit had used a barrage of high-energy weapons almost non stop for the entirety of the battle."
Had the ZAFT developed a new power source? Kenshin thought as he placed his long fingers under his chin in thought. But with what Soujirou had described, the power source had to be equal or even surpass nuclear energy.
Kenshin stopped typing. Nuclear power. Kenshin shuddered,The ZAFT were the ones that launched the Neutron Jammers throughout Earth and Space, it would make sense that they themselves had a counter for it. He started typing again "the ZAFT have possibly developed a counter for the N-Jammer in order to make the operation of this new, overly powerful mobile suit possible, unless they had developed a power source that equaled in power to nuclear energy."
The captain sat back and pressed, "send". He sighed.
The launch of nuclear weapons, followed by the dropping of the N-Jammer; the bloody war that ensued and the development of Gundams, followed by the appearance of these new, even more powerful ZAFT mobile suits, what would come next?
Kenshin stopped.
the destruction of the human race.
"Captain Himura, please come to the Bridge." The female voice of his operator filtered through the intercom. Kenshin sat up, dismissing whatever thoughts he was having, and went out the door. 'This was not a time to be contemplating about the outcome of the war; one can never see a clear picture when they are in the middle of it'. The war had to be stopped and stopped now, if things escalated at the rate, there was no other path BUT human destruction.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
Kenshin was calm and collected as he strolled into the bridge to a series of mechanical humming and buzzing noises and the crew of the bridge tended to the Ship's position and condition. He looked at his watch.
00:16:45
"Lufius, we are sixteen minutes from departure, has there been any sign of our reinforcements?" Kenshin asked as he took his position in his captain seat and powered up his control panel. Holographic shapes and numbers danced over his palm and displayed an array of information.
"Yes sir, we have just established contact with the Lexington and Joint Federation fleet about…" Lufius glanced up at the large display clock, "about five minutes ago."
"Ahh, that's good," Kenshin gave an involuntary sigh of relief, "what's their distance and status?"
"They are at distance twelve hundred sir, estimated twenty minutes till join up with our fleet." The female operator said from her station with a hint of nervousness.
"Ah, we can't have that, it'll hinder our progress and give the enemy an additional five minutes to prepare if they know we're coming." Kenshin said in an almost jovial tone. Now that reinforcements had arrived, he felt that a large weight has been lifted off of his shoulders. Kenshin had thought of reinforcements as unnecessary, but after being attacked out of the blue and the information from Soujirou, he was convinced that the enemy had known long ago that they were coming and had made necessary preparations.
Hiko was right; maybe the ZAFT's intelligence is as good as ours.
Kenshin held up a map and checked the information on the screen. The Lexington and Federation fleet were heading for Junius Seven with Heliopolis behind them, and then would have to turn back to head for Heliopolis. But if they simply changed their course, then the reinforcements would meet up with the Eighth Fleet about seven hundred miles off of Junius Seven, that would save both fuel and time.
Kenshin made adjustments to the travel course for the support fleets and his own fleet, then he marked the intersect point of their fleets as 'lambda'.
"Operator, please send over a transmission to our support fleets and tell them to change their course fifty-six degrees to their left at a slower heading of sixteen-hundred twenty-five miles per hour and wait for the Eighth Fleet at point Lambda." Kenshin paused to considering another factor. "And also, send a transmission to Junius Seven central control, tell them to establish contact with the Lexington and Federation Fleet and send out sufficient fuel using transports to the rendezvous point on the double."
"Yes sir."
Kenshin sat back and waited for another minute.
"Prepare to launch Majestic and Eighth Fleet in five minutes, commence all pre-launch preparations."
"Yes Sir."
"And how are the refueling operations going?"
"Central control has already sent seventy transports to refuel the support fleets sir, they have also sent additional parts for several ship malfunctions in the support fleet."
"Good, engage engines to seven percent power, establish minimal propulsion."
Majestic trembled for a second as its many engines flared and began to slowly push the large flagship forward, away from the Junius-Seven dock. The fleet around it also began to move slowly, its recent injuries mostly healed by hundreds of engineers working overload to repair them, and surrounded the red flagship in its standard formation.
"Set course for Heliopolis, travel time, two hours and thirty five minutes. Overall ship count, reinforcement fleets included, three flagship-class vessels, seventy-seven battle cruisers, one hundred and twenty carriers, two super carriers, two-hundred fifty destroyers and warships and finally, eighty-two orbital ships."
"Yes sir, entering stats into battle-record data. Forty-five seconds to launch."
"May the might of the Earth Alliance be with us." Kenshin announced to his crew as the engines roared and the Flagship, along with the Eighth Fleet, shot away from Junius-Seven and into deep space, towards Heliopolis.
XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOX
"All units scramble! Repairs on the double!" The speakers buzzed too-loudly throughout the Heliopolis ZAFT base as the heavily damaged ZAFT fleet entered into orbit around the tiny artificial planet. "All engineers proceed to the launch dock and prepare for ship repairments in orbit."
Mobile suits powered up and went into position around the huge base spanning almost a quarter of the planet itself. Anti-missile turrets loaded up, and battleships launched. Hundreds of civilian ships launched in the distance, where Heliopolis central space dock was located, to evacuated the civilians living on Heliopolis, even the politicians knew that if they didn't get everyone out, this was going to be a massacre in the form of collateral damage.
Athrun Zala woke to this commotion, groaning as he adjusted his position on the hard-backed bed that he was so used to. The three extra hours of sleep didn't do him too much good seeing as how he was still exhausted from the lack of it.
He was given the right to be exhausted while everyone else scrambled around him. Two days ago, Saitou had given him a new mobile suit, or rather, a Gundam. And he'd spent the next two days practically locked up in the cockpit of the Freedom, memorizing every control scheme for the overly complex, nuclear powered machine. At any given point, he was terrified that his unit was going to have a malfunction and blow up, taking half of the Heliopolis base with it. To his relief, it hasn't happened yet.
This was really too much for a mere sixteen year old, as the war dragged on, most of the experienced pilots in ZAFT were killed in action, and the recruiting age got younger and younger, until even a kid like Athrun, who had just reached young-adulthood, had to join. It didn't help though, when Athrun's dad was no other than Patrick Zala, the second-in-command in PLANT, and now Athrun had become a propaganda tool for PLANT also.
"Athrun, get up, Captain Saitou wants you in his office." Nicol's cheerful voice made Athrun open his eyes just a bit. He rolled over and groaned, wanting more sleep.
"Athrun, the CAPTAIN wants you in his office." The blue haired boy groaned again, suddenly, he threw the blanket off of himself and got out of bed in one, unified motion.
"Thanks Nicol," Athrun said drowsily as he pulled on a pair of red pants, standard issue for the elite pilots of ZAFT.
"No problem Athrun," Nicol said and stood for a moment, his usual grin faltering a bit, " I suppose it won't help to run around screaming, but the Earth Alliance is sending a massive fleet to Heliopolis as we speak, they say its around five or six hundred ships!"
Athrun had finished putting on his red uniform and walked out of the door, Nicol following beside him.
"And the expedition fleet just came back, half of their ships gone, and everyone's trying to sort things out and make hasty repairs before the EA comes."
Athrun stopped. He turned and looked at Nicol, who had a tiny frown on his face.
"Half of their ships gone? That's… over one hundred ships!"
"Yeah, exactly! And they were the ones that attacked; it looks like the EA got them pretty good, if the EA attacked now, we would be doomed for sure."
"Don't speak like that Nicol, PLANT is sending over reinforcements as we speak, and" Athrun put a strong hand to Nicol's shoulders, "we must win this, if not… well, it could be very bad for PLANT."
"I know," Nicol replied downcast as they continued walking, "if the EA gets a hold of Heliopolis, they'll cut off our Yakin Doe base to PLANT, PLANT would be left almost defenseless."
"Exactly, so we have to win this. Or defend Heliopolis until help arrives." Athrun was surprised; he was becoming a good propaganda promoter himself.
"Sometimes I'd wish that this damn war will just end, call me stupid, but I wouldn't even mind if PLANT lost, as long as people are saved." The green haired boy, Nicol, dropped his head in shame, "Although I'm never going to surrender to the EA, if just to buy PLANT another day of Freedom."
"Nicol…" Athrun looked to his best friend sadly. Nicol was a great musician, at the tender age of fifteen; he had gained the top honors in the PLANT's youth music competition last year. His skills with the Piano was not rivaled by any other youth, when he began playing, his fingers seemed to dance over the keyboard on their own accord while his body followed gracefully; and there was always a smile on his face when he was near a piano.
Athrun had been to several of Nicol's concerts, and he was convinced that the green-haired boy was destined for fame.
Nicol was just another case of a boy full of potential, who was ripped away from his dreams to fight a war that seemed all too meaningless compared to what they could have done to advance human civilization.
They had reached the doors of Saitou's office on the ground.
"Well, see ya later Athrun, I'm ordered to prepare for the defense of sector six." Nicol waved and sped off down the hallway.
"Nicol! Athrun called after his friend, but he had already disappeared around a corner, "be careful." He looked after his friend for another second before turning around and pushing open the heavy doors that lead into the smoky interior of Saitou's office. The captain was chain-smoking again.
Athrun stopped and saluted, to both Saitou and his team commander, Raw Le Kluze.
"Good morning, Captain Hajime, commander Raw Le Kluze." Saitou shuffled some papers and looked up from them when Athrun spoke.
"Ah, our fighter ace, so, have you mastered the control of the Freedom Athrun?" Saitou asked while Kluze stood beside him and watched silently.
"Yes Sir, I now have confidence in my abilities to pilot the Freedom in combat."
"Good," Saitou said slowly, "now, I'm sure that you have heard about the impending Earth Alliance Armada to Heliopolis?"
"Yes Sir."
"Good, it is uncertain as to when they will appear on our radar, but we know that that time is soon, so I need you to sit out the rest of the time in the Freedom, on the ground."
"Hajime sir, with all due respect, wouldn't it be better for us if the Freedom were to engage the enemy in space rather than on the ground?"
"No, the Earth Alliance has too many ships, and our intelligence say that its commanded by Kenshin Himura, the renowned genius in spatial and landing combat, our fleet will be ripped apart in orbit, and they will launch massive landing missions on Heliopolis, just like they did during their attack on our Ptolemaeus base."
"Yes Sir."
"Now, Athrun, good luck." Kluze spoke up, "we want to see exceptional performance out there."
"Yes Sir."
"You have permission to leave." Saitou said as he looked back down to the paper in his hand, "I am leaving for the Bismarck in a little while."
"Yes Sir." Athrun said once again before turning and exiting the captain's office, anxiety pooling in his stomach.
"Good luck Athrun Zala of ZAFT." He heard Saitou's voice just before the doors closed behind him.
We'll need it
To Be Continued