On a medical vessel drifting through space, a blonde-haired doctor with a gold mask was reading through research papers. He was reading how each of his experiments were fairing. The fruits of his labor were paying off.
The door slid open as a medical officer came through. "Sir, we have no news of the two that were captured."
He paused with a smirk. "We shall cut our losses. Hopefully they have used the poison lodged in their gums but there will be no concrete evidence that it will connect back to me if they were unable to. She's only just begun trying to draw us out. Her first infiltration of our facility is just to mock me. Now she thinks she can continue it." He placed down the papers. "Continue on course of sabotaging ZAFT. That's our main goal here."
"Yes sir!" The officer started to leave.
"Wait, how is our patient 0415CE71?" The masked man asked.
"His body is fully functioning, no scarring from the procedures," the officer explained. "Today is his second day of being awake. No outbursts or panic attacks. Still on schedule to transition him back to a functioning human being."
"That's promising," the masked man smiled. "Very promising. How about patient 0417CE71?" The officer looked away. "I see. Let's take a look at them." The masked man got up from his chair to drift over to the medical officer. The two headed down the corridors, passing sections of laboratories, surgical rooms, rooms with cryo-tanks filled with water like liquid, and finally to a room with cryo-tanks that were laying on the ground. There were cushions in the tanks.
The two headed over to two tanks side by side to one another. Both patients were wrapped in gauze from head to toe with only openings at the mouth, nostrils, and eyes.
"Patient 0415CE71 is breathing steadily," a nurse drifted over. "After waking up, he seems confused and curious. Typical reactions from this procedure. Nothing out of the ordinary. Patient 0417CE71 on the other hand, he woke up with a jolt, that reaction isn't new but we had to sedate to get him under control before he woke up the other patients with his jolts and close to breaking the glass. We are going to proceed with lessening the doses over time to allow him to wake up slowly and to keep the edge off. Please tell me if you want something different, Dr. Landry?"
The masked man looked over the two of them. "No, I think that would be the best course of action. Has the DNA results come back?"
"Yes, it has been a match for both of them," she nodded. "Now to see if they remember who they are."
Dr. Landry smirked. "We may have some use for this one." He placed a hand on the Patient 0415CE7's glass. "We may have a use for both but this one could become a bargaining chip. I want full reports of their progress each week. Any problem arises, let me know." The nurse nodded.
Dr. Landry and the medical officer headed off to other rooms to check on the progress of patients in person. Another medical officer floated towards him.
"Dr. Landry, our request to dock at Copernicus City has been requested," the medical officer informed.
"Good," Dr. Landry responded. "Keep with standard procedure on supplies. Are there any established patients from Copernicus City to be transferred over to them?" The three floated towards an empty room to where they can speak privately.
"Not yet," the medical officer answered.
"Keep constant surveillance," Dr. Landry commanded. "Make sure the patients don't know where we are and make sure to not let outsiders know what exactly we are doing on here. Remember we are a neutral, nonprofit medical vessel, helping the fallen get back on their feet out of the courtesy of our hearts." The two nodded. "The only ones who know of our true nature are our sponsors from Blue Cosmos and Zala extremists as well as our dear Princess from the Kingdom of Scandinavia who seems to be enjoying playing cat and mouse."
"We have that section ready; would you like to see?" The medical officer asked.
"Oh," Dr. Landry perked up. "Yes." The three drifted to another part of the vessel. It was heavily fortified. Dr. Landry inspected the rooms. It was a scaled down version of the rooms they passed earlier, only enough for one occupant. "This will work for what I have in mind." The two medical officers were relieved. They were anticipating the next plan for the mission. Dr. Landry knew by glancing at their faces. "We won't be starting that part of the mission just yet. Too much commotion going with too many variables. I don't know what else she has in mind, for now we just play along." The two nodded.
Back on the Voltaire, Dearka was bragging to Yzak about how he only had to fix a few habits during battle to decrease his reaction time and increase his attacks.
"How did you know to fix your habits?" Yzak was tired of listening to his bragging.
"All thanks to our borrowed engineer, Private Orsino," Dearka gloated. "She even helped reconfigure my machine to follow keystrokes and detect patterns. Private Illyria has been helping Shiho with her machine as well. Maybe we have them help all the pilots?" Yzak finally looked over to him. "Just see what they have to offer. That's their field of study anyways, why not use their capabilities."
Yzak stared at him dead pan. He let out a sigh. He rose from his chair. "Might as well see how the repairs are coming." He drifted towards the door. Dearka smirked, following behind him.
The two came into the hanger to see the crew working. Yzak drifted over to his machine where Selena was working near it. "Private Orsino."
"Yes, Commander," she drifted over to him.
Yzak glanced to Dearka who was speaking with another engineer. Selena followed his line of sight. He looked back to her. "Deputy Commander Elsman has informed me of your work."
"Oh," Selena was surprised. "Deputy Commander Elsman has. Is the Commander also interested?"
"Yes," Yzak tried not to sound reluctant. "I would like the same treatment."
"Understood," Selena nodded. "After you." She waved her hand. Yzak drifted to his cockpit. Selena followed after him.
Yzak sat in the chair. She watched him turn it on the machine. He had it password protected. She noticed the password without seeing the keys. She knew it by keystrokes as the password were consisted of numbers not words. Numbers that were actually a birthdate. She made sure not to smirk.
"May I?" Selena asked. She was still outside of the cockpit. He nodded to her, getting out of the seat for her to sit in. Selena sat down, her fingers automatically touching the keys, typing away commands to get keystrokes during time certain times. Yzak watched her as several windows popped up. He was curious as to what his results would be. After a few more moments, the windows all closed with only one pop up showing. Selena read through it. "Would you like to know the results here or in a more private area?" She glanced out to the open area.
Yzak glanced out as well. "Would you be able to fix as Deputy Commander Elsman explained?"
Selena gave a soft smile. "The 'fix' partly lies in you as well the machine. While getting the keystrokes within the last few battles, I have implanted the program to follow keystrokes and patterns, possibly trying to assume what is next. A tailoring of the macro-options instead of nuisance pop ups that you have to disregard each time to override controls. Machines are mass built to production. Pilots are trained on base level cockpits, new machine, different layout, new controls to learn. It gets to slow the reaction time unless used enough to write over old habits."
Yzak was intrigued by this information. It would be help to cut down reaction time. "How much does this fix cut down?"
"It takes a few seconds in battle to move switches, using joysticks, getting the machine prepped for the next moves, this shaves off seconds," Selena explained. "Shaving off milliseconds for some movements. The computer should know with the prompts but it learns from keystrokes and usage over time how the pilot maneuvers the machine. It has a simple AI system, why not use it more. Especially a machine used by one pilot over a period of time."
It was plausible. It was also something he should have thought about as well. Something so easy, to keep personalizing the machine. He didn't think that far enough ahead. Selena could tell he was mulling it over. "You've already analyzed my keystrokes, what can you tell then?" He asked her.
She pointed to one section of the pop -up window. It was a command screen with coding. "This here," she pointed to another section. "And here are two codes that are the same. Same type of maneuvers but different time intervals. One took you longer than the other to do. There is always a possibility of outside forces, maybe information coming in, or the target headed off. We can continue to compare with these ones here and here." She continued to explain.
Yzak leaned on the chair. It was comfortable listening to her explain. It felt familiar. Nostalgic. He caught himself glancing at her at times compared to the seeing the commands on the screen and thinking back to the battles. He tried to keep himself in check. This was just an engineer.
"The 'fix' for yourself will have to go over time as habits and muscle memory build up over time," Selena finished discussing. "I hope this is what you were hoping it was." She looked him directly in the eye.
Yzak stared at her. "It is. Thank you."
She gave him a small smile before turning back to the computer to bring it back to the regular screen. Yzak watched her. It was a nice nostalgic type of feeling with her. "All set, Commander." She looked back to him as she turned off the computer and the machine. He gave her a small smile back with a nod. Yzak drifted out of the cockpit, allowing her to follow after him. He paused by holding onto the side of the opening. Selena wondered why he paused but followed his example.
"After this tour, you'll be making it easier for all pilots with your research," he speculated.
"Hopefully, it would be short-lived," she mused. Yzak raised an eyebrow. She looked out to the other machines and workers. "Chairwoman Clyne received a peace treaty, hopefully that peace will stay."
"It will be our job to keep it that way," Yzak informed.
Dearka and Mikael both spied the two conversing at the opening of the cockpit. Mikael was leery while Dearka felt smug. He knew Yzak would be wanting to see about his results in battles and how to make them better but he also knew there could be something between them. Yzak looked softer instead of the rigid, leader self. Dearka was going to tease him when they were alone.
The two separated at that point. Selena headed off to help another crew member with working on the machine next to them while Yzak headed towards Dearka.
Dearka muttered to Yzak. "We should put in a form to have them transfer here. Even Shiho has taken a liking." Dearka glanced over to Mikael and Shiho speaking over a smart tablet. Yzak followed his line of sight. He turned back to Dearka with a bit of a glare. "Or not." Yzak drifted away. Dearka followed him. "How did you like the results of your reaction time?"
"Something I should have known but that's why they are the specialists," Yzak headed back through the corridors to get back to his room.
Dearka agreed. "Something so simple, but we don't always think about it." As the two entered the room and the door closed, Dearka asked something confidential. "Any word on the unmarked, white GUNDAM?"
Yzak headed over to the map. "They had the same reaction as we did. No technology of that advances has been noted. The disappearance of large objects is also baffling them. We should be thankful that they aren't fighting us, only stealing. They also captured two enemy pilots. Their goals may be different but at least we have a common enemy."
"You don't think it could be Blue Cosmos?" Dearka sat down on the couch. "But then again, they would be attacking us, and why would they steal back their items. Vast amounts of debris, but they are taking what we need."
Yzak looked over the map as the next coordinates they were heading. "They could know of our goals. Stealing away the things we need."
"Back to earlier, they would take everything away," Dearka argued.
"What if they don't know exactly what we need until we go after it?" Yzak speculated.
"Or they could be messing with us?" Dearka shrugged. "Who knows? We will just have to wait until the next mission."