CE 71, January 25th
"Kira, Kira Yamato, can you hear me? Please respond!"
Kira stared at the remains of his home, the colony formerly known as Heliopolis.
"Kira! Please respond! Are you injured?"
He ignored Ensign Badgiruel's attempts to contact him; after all, the Archangel was partly responsible for the destruction of their peaceful home.
"Strike! Kira!"
Now Murrue was trying to contact him, after all she had done, forcing him and his friends aboard the Archangel and then demanding that Kira fight in order to protect his friends. It was an underhanded technique used by adults to force other people to do their bidding.
"Kid! Respond if you can, there are still ZAFT forces in the area!"
Kira slowly reached for the transmit switch. Mu was different than most of the other Earth officers, wasn't he?
"This is Kira Yamato," he began slowly. "I'm fine."
"Thank god! Kid, can you find the Archangel"
He scanned his sensors and found the big ship easily. "I have you on my screens."
"Good, then come on back before ZAFT finds us again. La Flaga out."
Kira obeyed finally, landing the Strike with ease. Mu was waiting for him as he stepped out of the cockpit. "That was a fancy bit of fighting back there Kid, I'm impressed. Head up to the mess hall, your friends are waiting for you."
He nodded numbly, still trying to deal with fighting against Athrun and the collapse of Heliopolis, his home for the last several years. When he got to the mess hall, he found only Miriallia waiting for him, but that was just fine. She was fervently trying to hold back her tears as Kira walked in with a sad expression.
Wordlessly they hugged, both seeking strength from the other, and both failing as the tears started to flow. Kira felt Milly's legs give out and slowly lowered her to the floor as they continued to cry in silence, mourning the loss of their homes and very possibly the lives of their loved ones. Mir regained control of her emotions first, or at least temporarily. Wiping away the tears, she kissed Kira on the cheek lightly. "Come on," she whispered. "Everyone else is waiting for us."
Standing up, Kira nodded and steeled himself as best he could. "Right." Their friends were quiet as they entered the room, all of them sharing the same disbelief that their home was truly gone. The ship shuddered as two loud thumps reverberated in the corridors.
"What was that?" Sai wondered.
"Were we hit?" Kuzzey feared.
"Calm down." A confident voice said from behind them. "It's just part of our plan to shake our ZAFT tails and get to safety." Mu explained and he was instantly bombarded by questions.
"Where are we going?"
"Will we be able to leave when we get there?"
"What if ZAFT isn't fooled?"
Mu answered the last question. "Kira, if we didn't fool ZAFT with our decoys, we will need your help if they attack. Can we count on you? Can I count on you?"
Kira glanced at each of his friends, Tolle, Sai, Kuzzey and Miriallia. He looked back at Mu. "Yes." The older pilot smiled. "Good.
"The Laurasia-class frigate is still behind us Ma'am, but it doesn't look like they've spotted us yet." Romero Pal reported.
"Good. Any sign of that Nazca-class destroyer?" Murrue asked.
"No sign so far. It looks like they've gone chasing one of the decoys."
Murure let out the breath she was holding. Their luck was holding so far, four hours of running silent and so far the enemy was none the wiser on the Archangel's actual destination. Plus Mu had told her that Kira had agreed to pilot the Strike if either ZAFT ship figured things out.
"How far away are we from Artemis?" Murrue asked.
Helmsman Arnold Neumann replied. "At current velocities we're looking at another 25 hours Ma'am."
It was going to be a long day.
Kira lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling trying to figure out how all of this had come to pass. Halfway through analyzing his time living in Copernicus City on the moon, the general stations alarm went off. He sat up, unsure of exactly what to do, but fortune was on his side.
"All pilots report to their craft immediately!" Natarle's voice rang out. "I guess ZAFT wasn't fooled after all." Kira muttered heading to the change room for his new pilot's uniform. On the way he ran into his friends who had disappeared in the last hour. "Milly, Tolle, Sai, Kuzzey, what are you all doing?" he asked in regards to their Earth Alliance uniforms they now donned.
"We're just doing what we can to help out Kira." Tolle answered.
"Yeah, it wouldn't be fair to let you do all of the hard work." Sai chipped in.
"We thought you could use a few friendly faces and voices out there." Milly smiled.
"This means a lot to me you guys, thank you." Kira replied as he passed them, still heading for the changing room, while his friends were on their way to the bridge. It was exactly where Mu had shown him, the blue and white flight suit fit like a glove, even providing a bit of protection around the chest and shoulders.
"Well now, that looks natural on you Kira." Mu said from behind him. "I … I guess." Kira replied hesitantly, facing Mu as the man bit into a piece of toast. Catching Kira's eye, Mu offered the other half of the browned bread, but when Kira refused, Mu ate the rest of it in one mouthful.
"Always a bad idea to go out on an empty stomach." He explained after swallowing. "But now that you're ready I can tell you me little plan." Putting an arm around the boy pilot, he pulled Kira in close. "Now …"
"Mu La Flaga launching!" the Moebius Zero shot out of the hangar bay and disappeared in the void of darkness known as space.
The Strike was lowered onto the catapult and then equipped with the Aile Striker Pack. "Kira, all four G-Weapons will be participating in the attack, so keep an eye out on all of them. Keep in range of the Archangel's guns; we'll do our best to support you." Murrue informed him.
Kira nodded, keeping his eyes forward and knowing full well what to expect. "And Kira," she continued, making him look at the small vidscreen at the top of his primary monitor. "I just want to thank you for everything you've done to help and protect this ship. Thank you."
She was sincere about her words, but it wasn't quite enough at this stage, not after all of the tricks she had pulled. Maybe soon he could forgive her, but not right now. "Launching!" he yelled instead of replying and rammed the throttle up to full, blasting out of the Archangel and rotating around to find the Laurasia-class distantly behind them but catching up.
Conserving his thrust power, he throttled back, waiting for his enemies to come to him. Mu was probably halfway to his target by now, undetected and poised to strike. "Undetected." The word rolled off his tongue as a plan formed in Kira's mind. "Time to make a few changes to your plan Lieutenant." He said to himself.
"The Strike has disappeared off our sensors!" Pal reported with a hint of panic in his voice.
"What?" Murrue and Natarle asked at the same time. "I'm not picking up any EM emissions of any kind, and with the debris in the area I can't pick up any traces of him." Pal concluded.
"Was the Strike not ready for combat?" Natarle asked.
"Of course it is! I went over her systems myself!" Murdock replied indignantly. "The kid probably has a plan that helps him survive, that's all."
It was a moot point. "Captain, I'm picking up spiked EM pulses from the Laurasia-class, they're launching the G-Weapons." Romero cut in. "Contact in two minutes or less."
Kira calmly slid the targeting computer into its ready position and locked onto one of the oncoming suits. The computer started beeping as it tried to gain a solid lock. He waited patiently as they closed the gap, drawing closer and closer. The computer gained a lock and the beeping noise turned into a solid tone.
"For Heliopolis." Kira pulled the trigger. A green beam shot out, aimed at the GAT-X207 Blitz. It missed the mobile suit by inches. Putting the targeting computer back, he swore to himself. "Damn, scope needs to be calibrated."
"What the hell was that?"
"Nichol, are you alright?"
"Where did that come from? I've only got the legged ship on my scopes!"
"There! It's the Strike!"
Kira activated all of his systems and the phase shift armor, leaving his position immediately and reminding himself to aim a little to the left. The four stolen mobile suits spread out and began their attacks, the Aegis and Duel taking on Strike while the Buster and Blitz went for the Archangel.
The three mobile suits circled around each other, firing shots that either missed or were deflected off of shields. The Blitz was held off from the Archangel with a steady barrage of AA fire, giving Nichol no chance to use his Mirage Colloid or close range weapons. The Buster fired as fast as his weapons would allow, trying to find a hole in the Anti-Beam Depth Charges.
Just as Kira lined up a shot on the Aegis, the Duel charged forward and slice Strike's beam rile in half. He swore vehemently and backed away as fast as he could, drawing a beam saber to compensate. Duel and Strike clashed several times as Aegis watched, looking for an opening to attack.
And he found one. Gunning his verniers, the Aegis flew forward, beam saber ignited and at the ready. A proximity alarm on the Strike warned Kira of his new odds and for a moment he could think of nothing but how he was going to die, killed at the hands of a former friend, far away from the rest of his friends.
His body would be vaporized due to the heat of the beam saber slashing the mobile suit in half at the torso, and then they would leave the wreckage behind and overwhelm the Archangel, damaging the great ship as Mu would be forced to decide on his objectives. Whatever he chose, he would still die, outnumbered, outgunned and outperformed.
He would die as Kira would die, and everyone else aboard the Archangel, including his friends. "NO!" he screamed, taking action as a cloud of red haze overtook his vision. Kira threw his shield at the Aegis, which stopped his forward momentum to block the impromptu missile attack.
Taking advantage of his own opening, Kira swung the beam saber horizontally at the Duel, who managed to block the attack with his shield. Using his free hand, Kira grabbed the other saber and ignited it, slashing it downwards so fast that Duel was barely able to block it with his own saber.
Pressing the thumb trigger, Kira unleashed a hail of bullets from his head vulcans, the 60mm rounds doing little to the phase-shift protected armor, but they managed to knock out one of the eye cameras, shattering the lens in an instant. With the Duel distracted, Kira disengaged and flew to the Archangel, aiming for the Buster first.
Mu slid between the chunks of debris that started to litter the area. Passing a large piece of hull plating, he noticed a name painted on the metal wreckage, burnt and twisted but still legible. "The Enterprise … flagship of the 3rd Fleet. So close to Artemis, are we to suffer the same fate as her crew?" he wondered aloud.
The large blue ZAFT destroyer grew larger and larger as he continued to approach it. "Right there." He muttered. His gunbarrels were armed and ready, and his linear cannon primed for action. "I'm coming for you Rau." How he knew that Rau Le Creuset was on that ship he didn't know, all that mattered was taking the Nazca-class out of the picture.
Blasting out of the debris, he felt an almost familiar electric jolt surge through his body, and in that instant he knew that Rau knew. It wasn't intuition, it was certain knowledge. To reinforce his point, the blue ship rotated to present her more heavily armored bow, but it was too little too late, Mu was already firing at the port engines.
A round from his linear rifle blew through the armor plating and damaged the engine enough to send the ship into a horizontal counter-clockwise spin. Mu fired his rocket anchor, latching on and using the grounded cable to swing himself back around to the Archangel without losing momentum.
A message popped up on one of Kira's secondary alert screens right after the Buster had part of his V-fin sliced off. It read:
Mission accomplished
Returning home
-MLF
The Archangel armed her Lohengrin positron blaster cannons and fired both of them, reddish-white beams tearing through space. The Vesalius dodged enough to avoid a direct hit, but sustained more damage to her port side. Signal flares erupted from behind them, coming from the Gamow, ordering the attacking G-Weapons to retreat.
"Good job kid, you managed to stay alive and protect the Archangel, I'm impressed." Mu transmitted.
Kira wasn't listening; his sensors had just picked up something. The object in question had disappeared scant seconds later, leaving him to wonder if he actually saw something out there. Something blipped on his sensors again, and he got a near fix on its location.
"Kira, where are you going?" Mu demanded.
He scanned the debris as carefully and quickly as he could, wary of a trap despite their retreat. Finally something caught his eye, a large cylindrical pod in very good shape, especially compared to the beaten debris around it. "What is this?" A name flashed out at him. Heliopolis.
It was an escape pod from Heliopolis. And it was mostly functional. "That means there are people on board!" Kira grabbed the pod gently and returned as fast as he could manage, landing before Murrue or Natarle could attempt to force him to leave the pod behind. Locking down the Strike, he opened the cockpit to see a few techs already helping people out of the pod.
"Looks like the engine stopped midway through her escape burn. There's still propellant in the tanks, but none of the systems are responding. Probably a bad fuse blew the engines out." Murdock surmised.
One of the refugees Kira recognized immediately. It was Flay Alster, a classmate of his at school and the girlfriend of his good friend Tolle. "Flay!" Kira called out, pushing off from the Strike towards the pod. Flay looked around to see who had called her name and saw a familiar mop of brown hair coming at her. "Kira? What are you doing here?" she asked as a surge of emotions flowed through her.
"I brought your pod in from amongst the debris." Kira replied. Flay wrapped her arms around him in a hug. "Thank god you're here! I never would have expected to see you on a warship, but what are you doing in that uniform? Why were you out there?" she rattled of the questions faster than Kira could try to answer.
"It's a bit of a long story, but Tolle's here too!"
Kira led her to the bridge to where Tolle was, ignoring the protesting look from Murrue. Flay rushed to Tolle and they embraced happily, whispering sweet things to each other. Kira smile as two of his friends were reunited. "Engage full engines to Artemis, we're not stopping for anything now. The Nazca-class is out of our path and there's no way the Laurasia-class can catch up."
"Aye aye ma'am, full speed to Artemis." Arnold complied.
Artemis was not the haven they had expected. Dissension still filled the ranks of the various nations comprising the Earth Alliance, and the Eurasian Federation Fort Commander Gerard Garcia was no different. He had the Archangel locked down and boarded the ship with a complement of armed guards.
Now he surveyed the assembled crew, minus the senior officers, in the Mess Hall, wondering just which one of them was good enough to pilot the Alliance's top secret G-Weapon in battle well enough to fend off four enemy units.
"Who is the pilot of the Strike?" Gerard demanded. Kira tried to stand but Murdoch held him down.
Silence answered him. "Well? I know the pilot has to be in here somewhere."
"Mu is the pilot." Kojiro answered, keeping pressure on Kira's shoulders.
"Now that is a lie. We've been monitoring your battles from here and we've seen the Moebius Zero. I won't ask again, who is the pilot?"
And more silence answered him. A notion popped into the bald man's head and he grabbed Miriallia and twisted her arm painfully around her back. "Since the ship's captain is a female, the pilot could very well be a female."
Kira stood up. "Let go of her now." he growled. Gerard tightened his grip, making Miriallia cry out in pain. "You bastard! Let go of her! I'm the pilot!"
"I really dislike young people disrespecting their superiors." he leaned in close to Miriallia's face and licked her cheek. Mir tried to shy away but there was nowhere for her to go. "You know ... females in the army are a rarity, and I'm sure my men are anxious."
Kira walked up to Gerard, barely containing his anger. "Let. Go. Of. Her."
Gerard threw his hostage at one of his soldiers, who promptly caught her and resumed the arm lock, and then swiftly punched Kira in the face. Unfazed, Kira turned his head forward again, looking down Gerard's arm like a gun sight and threw his own punch. Gerard caught the fist fully in his face and was sent flying into the bulkhead behind him.
And amazingly enough, he was still standing. Wiping the blood from his mouth, Gerard looked at Kira almost approvingly. "So, you're a Coordinator."
The shocked look on Kira's face confirmed it and Gerard explained. "I've knocked out bigger Naturals with less powerful punches in the Fleet's Heavyweight Division Boxing matches."
Kira charged at Gerard, but one of the guards swung his rifle and connected the butt of the rifle with the back of Kira's head. Caught off-guard, Kira stumbled forward and into Gerard's uppercut which hit him square underneath his jaw, sending the boy to the floor, completely dazed.
"Kira!" Miriallia screamed in fear for her friend.
"Bring him to the hangar, and bring the girl as well." he ordered.
Though conscious, Kira didn't put up a fight as two men dragged him to the hangar and set him down none too gently in front of the Strike. "You can start by deactivating the lock you put on the OS, and then we can work our way towards copying all the data on the mobile suit and its weapons."
"I'm not in the Earth Alliance forces, there's no reason I have to any of those things."
"You did betray your own people didn't you? If that isn't enough, remember that we have the girl with us." he pointed to Milly, still in pain.
Kira almost snapped, but he realized that it would have been useless. "Fine." he said dejectedly.
He floated up to the cockpit and sat in the chair. Two technicians and the guard with Miriallia followed. Kira pulled the keyboard out and started to type at a slow pace, even by Naturals standards. He hadn't been at work long when an explosion rumbled across the asteroid base. Kira heard panicked voices from a speaker and heard Gerard's equally confused replies and made up his mind.
Quick as a flash he pulled Mir to safety inside his cockpit and kicked the guard off and then closed and sealed the hatch. Mir looked at him doubtfully. "Uh ... Kira? Just what are you planning on doing?"
"No choice, sorry Mir. Get comfortable because this could be rough." Kira shrugged.
He loaded the Sword Striker pack and armed the Schwert Gewehr. Mir decided to try to stand behind the seat as best she could to stay out of Kira's way as the Blitz approached. The enemy pilot fired his Gleipnir piercer lock and Kira fired his own Panzer Eisen rocket anchor. Both remote wired weapons collided and both pilots moved to melee range.
Dodging a few swings, the Blitz retreated back to range and his Lancer darts. Kira dodged the first two and sliced the third in half, and the explosion sent Miriallia tumbling over the seat and into Kira. "Sorry." she apologized.
"Sit on my lap and hold on." he said, with no trace of embarrassment or humiliation.
Mir did so, hugging Kira tightly as he charged forward again. Blitz and Strike fought for several more minutes before the Archangel finally took off, ordering Kira back to the ship before making their escape.
A safe distance away from the remains of Artemis, Kira landed the Strike inside the Archangel's hangar and locked it down. "Kira?"
"Hmm?" Kira finished a few more commands when Mir kissed him on the cheek. He looked at her with a stunned expression and suddenly realized how she had been sitting for half the battle with the Blitz.
"For saving me and standing up for me."
Kira smiled. "Anytime."
"We failed to gain any supplies or crew from Artemis, and now things are starting to run critical. Food, water, even power cells we must ration carefully." Natarle advised, going over a data pad.
"But where can we get supplies without running into ZAFT forces? Any more fights with them and I fear we'll drain our supplies so badly we won't make it to Earth." Murrue asked.
"There's only one place we can get supplies in relative safety from ZAFT." Mu said.
Both women looked at him. "The Debris Belt."
Finally, I update. This will be the last update I make for New-found Love until November passes. During the 30 days of November I will be participating in the NaNo WriMo (National Novel Writing Month), scrambling to write at least 50,000 (50k) words for my original fiction. I've chose to do the Paradise War. See you there.
--Prayer