Summary: With the death of Chairman Dullundial, the Second Bloody Valentine War had ended. However, as a new enemy approaches it becomes imminent that this newfound peace would not last…

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam SEED/Destiny or any of its original characters.

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Phase One: First Encounter

Orb city of Felicus. The very important strangers enter a mechanic shop. The mechanic greets them warmly, as he knew who they were. They whisper something to him and he frowns.

"Sorry sir, but with the war over there isn't much need to put things like that under production, and besides, we're not that big and we never made that stuff anyway." The mechanic replied, swearing under his breath that he didn't have what the important people in front of him wanted.

"That's okay, but do you know if anyone else might have them?" The first man asked. "You see, it is very urgent that we find someone who does."

"No sir, I…"

"Please, you can call me Kira"

"Yes sir, I mean, Kira. Well, as I was saying, unless you were to go to Morgenrate, no one here probably has what you're looking for."

"Are you sure" the second stranger demanded.

"Come on Cagalli, you don't have to be mean about it…" the third stranger went, but he was cut off by the second.

"Shut it Athrun. Now, as I was saying, you're sure nobody has what we're looking for?

"Probably not…" the mechanic answered. "Unless… he has it"

"Who's he?" Cagalli asked

"He is Cale Tamatha" a girl answered. She had shoulder-length black hair, blue eyes, and wore a black jacket and jeans.

"Who are you?" The mechanic demanded. "And why were you eavesdropping?"

"First," the girl replied calmly. "My name is Relyn Gatther, and second, you left the door open. It was kind of hard not to hear you."

"So," Kira intervened. "You mentioned Cale Tamatha?"

"Yes," the mechanic cut Relyn off. She stormed off furiously. "Cale Tamatha is, regretfully, the best mechanic around, in most people's opinions. He just got back from a trip to Nasris if I recall, so he should be in his shop.

"Nasris?" Kira, Athrun and Cagalli asked in unison."

"Yea, what about it?"

"Nothing!" They all answered.

"Whatever. Anyway, he looked a bit edgy after coming back, but…"

"Look," Cagalli interrupted. "Can you tell us where he is?"

"Sure, you just drive down the road to the spaceport, go a bit further until you reach a big building with rubble all around it. You can't miss it."

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Sure enough, the trio arrived at Cale's shop, and as they got out of the car, the building's doors opened and a boy walked out. He had messy blond hair, blue eyes, and wore a mechanic's outfit.

"Hi, what can I do for such important guests such as you?" The boy asked. "My name is Cale Tamatha and…"

"You're Cale Tamatha?" Kira asked.

"Yea, what about it?"

"Well," Athrun replied. "You're kind of young…"

"So? I'm only you're ages and you to are extremely important to Orb and you're its leader." The last part was directed towards Cagalli.

"Good point." Kira stated.

"So, I assume you guys are here for a reason?" Cale asked.

"Yes," Kira said. "We're actually looking for weapons for gundams and ships"

"Kira!" Cagalli said

"Relax, its not like anyone else is going to hear us."

"I hope I'm not ruining the moment," Cale interrupted, "But would you like to come inside?"

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Inside Cale's shop. There are random things scattered everywhere, and to the side there are mobile suits.

"So…" Kira asked­­­. "You collect mobile suits? "

"Not really," Cale answered. "I only have a Ginn, two Strike Daggers and two of the new Astrey Zero models generously donated by the defence force of Felicus."

"But why are they all ready to launch?" Athrun demanded.

"In case Felicus is attacked." Cale replied coolly. "Currently, the defenses here aren't that large, and Felicus is close to Nasris…" the three looked strangely at him. "What?" He shrugged. "You think that I don't know what is going on? Why else would you be looking for weapons? Why else would people as important as yourselves come to a smaller shop instead of going to Morgenroate?" Cale opened a door and the four walked into his office. It was pretty plain except for the papers scattered around. Kira picked up a file.

Wait a minute, are these? Kira thought. He was about to look through it when. "I suppose I should show you this then. Mr. Yamato, what's that you're looking at?" Cale asked. Kira dropped the files "Nothing. Please continue."

Cale turned around. "Information on the new enemy- I hacked into their systems while I was escaping Nasris. I…I don't think that these guys are ZAFT or the EAF."

"Terrorists?" Cagalli suggested.

"No. Way too organized. They're something else altogether. Eight ships… with strange new mobile suits and each with one one-of-a-kind gundam. They wiped out the defenses of Nasris in a couple of minuets and destroyed its Mass Driver."

"Do you have any information on any of the enemy?" Athrun asked

"A bit." Cale answered. "Here, let me show you"

Cale pressed a button and a screen came on. Immediately it showed one mobile armour. It was labelled 'SPITFIRE', and was yellow, red, and green and almost looked like a Skygrasper, but not quite, and strange weaponry.

"As you can see," Cale told the other three, "These belong to neither ZAFT nor the EAF. Now, I'll show you what else I know."

Four ships appeared on the screen, one at a time. The first three were marked; the 'Hydra', the 'Jolly Roger, and the 'Behemoth". All three appeared to be heavily armed and impressive warships.

"The last ship," Cale said, "'The Trinity' is the most impressive I found. It's a carrier/battleship, if anything is. If I had to guess, I would say that it is the capital ship in the fleet."

"What about the other four?" Athrun asked Cale

"I couldn't really get information on them because there were only four there. The others weren't there at the time" Cale remarked.

"I assume you will be showing us the gundams now?" Cagalli asked.

"Well, I could only get the ones that were out on the field." Cale answered, "But I also got the names and ships of the others that didn't launch. There was one I couldn't get, which was the 'Gladiator' on the Behemoth. Now, for the other three…"

He pressed the button again. First a gold, silver, and black gundam titled the 'Zealot' on the Hydra, the light brown and black 'Pirate' on the Jolly Roger, and the blue, white, and grey 'Crisis' on the Trinity.

"That's… incredible…" Kira said after Cale had gone through all of the data.

"I agree" said Athrun. "I mean, how was the production of new mobile suits, eight ships and a few gundams completed without anyone noticing?"

"I don't know…" Cale said looking out the window. He suddenly turned back to them, his cheery disposition returning. "Now, would you like to see what I have?

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Cale lead Athrun, Cagalli and Kira down another pathway. They came to a large metal door with two men standing by. Both were wearing the same mechanic's suit as Cale. The one on the left was slightly tanned, had brown hair and green eyes. The one on the right also had brown hair, slightly pale skin, and grey eyes. Cale motioned to them and they stepped aside. As Cale opened the door Kira asked:

"Who are they?"

"Two of my assistants" Cale answered. "He is" he motioned to the one on the lift, "Jasil, and he is" too the other one, "Vrain. They help me out around here and-here we are! My experimental weapon area."

Kira looked around, and was amazed by what he saw. There wasn't much, but there were beam rifles, heavy weapons, swords, and many other things around the place.

"And past all of these," Cale said, "Is my own invention, the Ballistae Missile System"

The system consisted of a launching pack, and inside the pack were four strange, metallic, spear-like objects. Cale handed Kira blueprints and Kira quickly read through them.

"As you can see," Cale continued, "The Mobile Suit and Gundam Ballistae System comes with four Javelin-class missiles, also invented by, yours truly. After fired the missiles will rise slowly, than come down on the target at incredible speeds. I don't have any here for ships, but if I did, it would hold thirty missiles."

"Are you a Coordinator?" Cagalli asked, amazed.

"No, I'm completely Natural" Cale answered.

"Then how…"

"Years… many years" Cale said sadly, for some unknown reason.

"By the way…" Kira asked, "What were you doing on Nasris?"

"Oh," Cale answered. I was helping to build a few new gundams for the Orb military, in case a war broke out."

"You mean…" Cagalli interrupted

"Yea, the Y607 PHOENIX, the Y608 HIGHFLIER, and the Y609 FREEBIRD."

"Where are they now?" she asked.

"The Highflier is in Orb, along with the incomplete Freebird. As for the Phoenix-well it's with Zaft."

"What?" The other three replied.

"Yea, I gave it to Zaft and the Plant's new chairman, Zhal Renaigal, for picking us, well, me up after we, err, I escaped Nasris."

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Flashback

Keiver Remlas sat back on his chair. It was another usual patrol mission to see if anyone was trying to sabotage the peace efforts. He was glad that the war was over, but a bit disappointed that the new Zaft capital ship, the 'Albatross' was being used for such a purpose. At least he wasn't in the Heliopolis sector. The 'Caravan', Zaft's other capital ship, was having some difficulty with strangely organized terrorists. Suddenly, the door into the control room opened.

"Ah, Shinn, Lunamaria, I see you made it here from the Plants okay?" Keiver greeted.

"Yes sir," Lunamaria replied

"And you?" Keiver asked Shinn

"Yes sir, but I don't see why we need to be here-I mean, it's not like were going to be attacked or anythi-"

"Sir!" the communications officer yelled, "A distress signal, from the colony of Nasris"

"Send it through" Keiver commanded. He turned to Shinn, "See? It's not all boring."

This is station one, we're under attack! Requesting immediate backup and-

Explosion and then static. The crew listened on.

Who the hell are these guys? Station one, come in… damn… Stations two? Three? What the-Aghhh!

More static. Suddenly one last message patched through.

This is Cale Tamatha. Come on you guys, get those gundams ready. We have to get them out of here. If anyone out there can hear me, we need evac right now!

"Quick! Battlestations!" Keiver commanded. "Shinn, sortie in the Echo and have Lunamaria and Fenril go with you in Validaos units."

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Cale pulled through an explosion with two Astrey Zero units, three pods containing the gundams, and his Ginn. Suddenly, another violent detonation occurs and the two Zeros were destroyed. As Cale leads the pods into space, he raised his weapon. A purple and green gundam came out from behind an asteroid accompanied by two grey, white, and blue mobile suits.

"Come in, this is Shinn Asuka. Are you Cale Tamatha?"

"Yea, I am. I take it you heard my distress call?"

"Yes we did." Shinn replied. Where are the other survivors?"

"Dead. All of them" Cale said. "I barely survived myself. And I wouldn't go back there if I were you. You'd get wiped out."

"I guess we're going back to the Albatross then?" Lunamaria asked.

"Hmmm…" Fenril thought out loud. "We'd have to. There's no other choice."

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Fenril and Keiver made their report to the Plants in the control room.

"As you can see Chairman Renegal," Fenril concluded, "We may very well be dealing with a very organized extremist group trying to restart the war."

You mean like Blue Cosmos?

"Kind of, yes. But we aren't quite sure about their motives; they don't seem to be attacking only Naturals or Coordinators, but all of us."

What do you mean?

"Well, their tactics seem to be the same as the terrorists that attacked the Caravan in the Heliopolis sector." Keiver explained. "Though the terrorists used outdated mobile suits, we believe that the attackers around the remnants of Heliopolis are just a small part of this new threat."

I see. As much as I hate to say it, the war may be rekindled. But, if we can strike first, we may be able to stop this new threat before too many lives are lost. You are ordered to stay in the vicinity and wait for the Caravan team. Whatever you do, do not engage the threat until then. Zhal Renegal out.

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The hanger on the Albatross. Cale is talking to Shinn and Lunamaria.

"So," Lunamaria asked Cale. "These guys aren't the EAF?"

"No." Cale answered. "Something like this would've come up during the war and they wouldn't have made them in a month or so during the peace. My guess is that someone's been working in the shadows for years."

Keiver and Fenril entered the hanger. "The Orb ships are nearing us, are you ready to launch?" Keiver asked Cale.

"Not quite yet" Cale answered as he contacted the Orb ship. "This is Cale Tamatha, designer of the Y608 PHOENIX, the Y609 HIGHFLIER, and the Y610 FREEBIRD. Report yourselves."

This is the Orb ship 'Navajo'. With us is the 'Iroquois' and the 'Lakota'.

"Very good. I'll send the Highflier and Freebird to you"

What about the Phoenix?

"If it weren't for Zaft none of these suits would still be around, so, I think I'll give the Phoenix to them."

What are you talking about? You don't have the authorization-

"I'll do whatever I want" Cale replied coolly. "After all, I did design them, so there isn't anything you can do about it"

… Fine. But we're cutting your pay for Gundams.

"Whatever." Cale cut the message and the Freebird and Highflier were sent out. The Orb ship left and Cale went to Keiver.

"I want you to prepare my Ginn for launch."

"What?" Keiver asked

"You heard me, I'm going to get into my Ginn and you're going to launch it out". Cale commanded

"Just who do you think you are?" Shinn demanded "You're not in charge here. I could just take you out right now."

There goes Shinn again… Lunamaria thought I hope he doesn't get himself in trouble…

"Better have tried..." Cale responded as he walked away. Shinn, angered that Cale was ignoring him, charged at Cale. Just as Shin was about to hit him, Cale spun around and caught his fist. He quickly made his own and hit Shinn right in the stomach. Shinn reeled back in pain and Lunamaria supported him. Keiver and the rest of the people in the hanger looked shocked that Cale had such fast reflexes, and Fenril just looked on, slightly amused at the situation.

"You think that just because I'm a Natural and you're a Coordinator you can beat me?" Cale asked Shinn. "Let's get this clear, the likes of you can never match me. It takes more than enhanced strength and speed to do that." He turned to Keiver. "Now, launch my Ginn. I don't want to have to ask again." A short pause

"Just do it," Keiver said, giving in to Cale.

"But…" Shinn gasped, still in pain, but Keiver cut him off

"We'll be better off without him around"

"I agree" said Fenril

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End of Flashback

"If you're going to go to Nasris," Cale informed Kira. "I hope you have a fleet. It's… not going to be easy."

"We do." Kira replied. Suddenly a loud alarm went off.

"Hmm. The warning alarm." Cale said casually "Something's going on, maybe an attack…"

"We're under attack?" Athrun asked out loud.

Cale looked up. His eyes widened and a small smirk grew on his face.

"It's them."

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Coming up next: Phase Two: Face of the Enemy