Chapter 4

One Day Later….

From the bridge of the Claxon, one of the recently reactivated Musakas, I watched Colony Kudelia grow ever so slightly smaller in the distance. Foolishly, I declared myself tired after the fight outside of the colony, but man was I wrong. I had ascended to a new plane of tiredness. The circles under my bright blue eyes had their own solar system. My mullet, however, retained its form perfectly.

I'll admit, it was starting to grow on me.

As I observed my distorted reflection on the computer screen before me, I realized something. My new face wore exhaustion well. It sure didn't look like I was operating off a collective three hours of stolen sleep, cause I was, but only that I had stayed up too many consecutive nights in a row.

My reverie was broken by a crewman of the recently reactivated Claxon walking up to me with...ah the nectar of life.

"Compliments of the cooks sir." The crewman told me as I was handed a tin cup filled with a steaming hot liquid. The crewman strode off to hand out the rest of the restorative nectar to the bridge crew. With my left hand behind my back, I swirled the coffee, idly watching the resulting whirlpool spin. Mentally weighing the odds that a fleet that has been on the run for a fair amount of months now(need to get a number on that soon) would have even semi decent quality liquid joe in its stocks. Probably not.

Erring on the side of caution for the sake of my tastebuds, who had already suffered the horrors of ration bars, I downed the coffee in a single gulp. Shiver. Blegh, I was right.

Still the drink did its job, even if it's taste deserved to be put on trial at the Hague. I could already feel some extra awareness begin to come back to me. And just that happened, the cheap plastic watch I had grabbed during the evacuation beeped its alarm. Guess it's time to get back to work.

I placed the tin cup on an empty console dash, and ran my hands down the front of my red coat, which I had come to realize was in the same cut that Full Frontal would wear during the Laplace Incidence. Although at this moment it lacked any of the adornments it would, noticeably the trademark ornate cuffs that were ubiquitous in the Sleeves organization, so it was just a red coat with some fancy bits on it. I guess it does leave me time to grow into it, so to speak.

I left the bridge, nodding to Acting-Captain Monroe as I did so.

Exiting the bridge, I grabbed a mag line handle that propelled me towards the Claxon's hangar. I returned the salutes of various crew members that I ran across and that fact that I had people saluting me still slightly weirded me out. Not enough for it to manifest visibility but it still makes my stomach kinda twist. Although that feeling seemed to be diminishing rapidly as I was exposed to more salutes, so that was nice.

My smooth,electrically propelled journey through the ship was interrupted by the most recent bane of my new life: boxes. Boxes as far as the eye could see.

Well not really, but the overwhelming number of boxes, mixed in the crates and the like, prevented the mag lines from running directly to the hangar. So I let go the rail handle, and managed to more or less stick the transition from horizontal to vertical. I might have almost knocked down a stack of boxes, but so what? Not like anyone saw that, tree falling in a forest and all that.

Grumbling under my breath, I wove my way through the winding and narrow path toward my destination. See, the reason the ship was currently inundated with this plethora of items was both because I was determined to have everything pertaining to my...creation out of the Federation's hand, and that Neo Zeon are masters of the quick evacuation, having -thanks to their years of being on the run- devised a system of operational importance. Using this system, they had ranked every single piece of their equipment from top priority, mobile suits and their pilots for example, to low priority, things like toiletries.

Now while this means that we were quick in moving stuff from the hangar to the ships, matters that Dawson had revealed to me had required a different approach in the hangar attached to the colony.

Dawson had taken me, along with Commander Yoshida, to the lower decks of the hangar. We had arrived at a guarded door, two armed soldiers and all, were Dawson punched in a code into a keypad. The door swished open with a smooth hum, showing that its internal components were well maintained.

The revealed hallway went further into the hangar, maybe even the colony proper, before ending at another locked door. Dawson punched in the code and then a panel above the keypad retracted and revealed a red bulb with, I kid you not, a mono-eye sensor going back and forth. Probably a retinal scanner of some kind, since Dawson did press his right key into the depressed space. The second door opened to reveal an actual room, aglow with the blue light of computer screens and projections.

The smell followed the sight, a surprisingly comforting aroma of machine oil and metal that hit my nostrils like a wave.

"Follow me." Dawson said to me and Yoshida as he moved deeper into the sprawling room. The two of us followed him, with Yoshida refusing to glance in my direction as we walked side by side.

Free space seemed to be pretty rare in this room, what with computers and desks taking up most of the area. Even the walls weren't spared, being covered in drawings. The drawings themselves were probably the weirdest thing I'd seen since awakening, and that's saying a lot, especially because I had just gotten back from flying a twenty meter tall war machine in a dogfight. Some of them were drawn on plain old paper, while others managed to look like a folded up, borderless Ipad with sharpie lines on it. It got even better, because the screen paper, I was calling it, then transitioned to another drawing, a strange four winged mobile suit.

What made the screen paper even more impressive was that it was the relative size of a plasma tv. I inwardly chuckled. The Future sure was impressive.

Finally we exited the cramped mass of computers and desk and into a more open area. The smell of machine oil and metal was even stronger here than it had been at the entrance so this must have been the source of it. And what a sight it was.

Half constructed mobile suits, perhaps three in total, though it was hard to tell due to their state of disassembly, lay scattered throughout the area. The torsos and head were suspended in the air from hooks that anchored onto the ceiling. Legs and arms lay on wheeled metal slabs. Various loose parts surrounded them. Looked like a Dreissen arm over there, but it had a weird metal sheath over its cannons.

Outwardly, I did my best to remain calm, cool and collected.

"Care to fill me in on this Dawson?" I ask the captain. A quick flash of confusion flitted through his eyes before Dawson realized I would actually have no idea what this room was.

"Of course sir.-" He instinctively stood at attention when addressing me. His eyes directly at me. "This facility is the result of salvaged information from our facilities at Sweetwater, before we evacuated it. Technical designs for new mobile suits and some prototypes from Axis mainly."

So this was a R&D lab then, which would make that Dreissen not a suit under repair but a new version being constructed. My mind went back to the strange four winged diagram that was on the wall.

Hoooly Shit. That's the Kshatriya, the infamous Quad-Wing herself, and it was designed in what is essentially a hole in the wall workshop. Could it have been made here? I cast my gaze over the workspace once again but couldn't find anything that looked like a giant leaf, so I guess it wasn't produced here.

"It would indeed be a terrible blow to our cause if the Federation was able to get their hand's such designs, Captain." I told the man. He nodded in agreement. "But if you're asking me for permission to have these evacuated, I'd question your command abilities."

"I'm not sir. The main reason for bringing you down here, besides showing you the workshop, was to deliver this into your hands." The captain had, apparently, went and retrieved a tablet of some kind, which he held out for me to take. I cautiously took the tablet from his outstretched hand before closely examining it.

The tablet was bulky, a vast difference from the smooth design of the tablets that I was used to, and bore visible signs of wear and tear on its body. Most of the finish had come off with the passing of time, but I could vaguely tell that it had looked impressive when it was fresh off the production line. If these old engraving lines were anything to go on. Flipping the tablet over, I was surprised to see a faded sigil on it: the angular emblem of Newborn Neo Zeon.

"Where did you get this from?" I held the tablet up, allowing Dawson and Yoshida to see the worn emblem, although Dawson already knew it was there in all likelihood.

"In Supreme Commander Deikun's quarters sir, after the Axis Shock and our retreat from Earth Orbit." Dawson said. "It was found in the Supreme Commander's desk."

"Anything else found with it?" I asked, tilting the tablet back and forth as I further examined it looking for some sign that someone like Char Aznable had once handled it. Suffice to say, I found none.

Dawson shook his head negatively at my question. "Nothing else was found with that tablet. In fact, that tablet was the only item found on the desk."

Therefore everything in the hangar, down to the last bolted on chair, had been hauled into the empty holds of the Claxon and its sister, the Renewed. Even with the ships being manned by skeleton crews to save space, and one of the mobile suit hangers on the Claxon being taken over for holding space, the other supplies we were taking with us had necessitated a spill over into the hallways.

Hence my travel to the open mobile suit hanger being at such a slow pace, but thankfully I was finally able to escape the crowded trench of boxes and enter into a real hallway. I grabbed a nearby handhold and hurled myself along the hallway, following the signs that pointed towards the operation mobile suit hanger.

A few quick directional readjustments along the way and I floated into the hangar. The small group of mechanics present quickly caught sight of me -probably due to the red coat- and the group fell into a hush. An impromptu standover occured, the mechanics looking at me with familiar awe in their eyes and I not saying anything due to not knowing if just giving out orders would come off wrong. I wanted to cultivate a good working relationship with these people, just as I did with most of my newfound subordinates, and making them think I was an asshole as a first impression wouldn't be conducive to that desire.

Luckily the stalemate was broken by a woman separating from the crowd and approaching me, stopping a few feet away so as to not intrude into my personal space. Considerate of her.

"Aviation Structural Mechanic Lilia McCanson, pleasure to meet you sir." The short and stocky woman saluted me. I returned the gesture, slipping into what I had started to call 'business mode'.

"A pleasure as well Mechanic McCanson." I replied. "I'll skip the rest of the pleasantries until a later date. Is my suit ready to go? I was informed that several missing components were being added to it. I do hope that they don't limit the speed of my Geara Doga." I felt my face settle down, my overall expression becoming more neutral than I like it to be. Having previously watched this happen in the mirror at the end of a brief break, I had a good mental picture of what I looked like. My mouth was probably a thin line, my blonde eyebrows lightly furrowed in a way that implied concentration, and my sapphire blue eyes somehow glinting as if they were a conduit of my thoughts.

"The additions to your suit shouldn't hamper its speed or maneuverability in any way, the AMBAC system was already calibrated for their inclusions. Might throw you off some, sir, as you aren't used to the shield. Ain't like I can tell you, I'm not going to be flying it." She said with a 'what else can you do' shoulder shrug. Fair enough I suppose, I am the pilot.

"Then prepare for mobile suit launch Mechanic McCanson, I'm going out." I say, leaping off the hangar floor and floating towards my Geara Doga, gaining an overhead view of it due to arcing my leap higher than normal. It was laying on its back, as was the proper way to store mobile suits, not like the moronic way the Federation prefers to use, and the Doga was looking fine in my opinion. It had only been 24 hours since the engagement outside the hanger, so the burn marks from stray beams hadn't been taken off which was fine by me, it added character to the suit. True to the word of Yoshida back in the officer's lounge, my Doga had several new additions to it.

A newly added shield gave me a considerable upgrade in offensive power with the two grenade launchers at the lower end of the shield and the Sturm Faust holders located in the upper part of the shield. As I slowly began to descend, I looked over at the right side of my suit. Another new edition was the two missile pods attached to the hip and upper thigh of the suit. Along with what looks like a scavenged Federation beam rifle in its right hand, my mobile suit now looked like a veteran instead of the factory fresh version it had been yesterday. Maybe like me.

Noting the already opened cockpit entry hatch, I angled my descent so that I slid smoothly in, most definitely not knocking my head in the process. Damn new body and its tangibility.

Once I was strapped into the cockpit, I fired the Doga's reactor up and brought my machine to life with now experience guiding my hands instead of whatever allowed me to operate it the first time. As I did that, the hanger depressurized and the MS catapult hatch opened.

Releasing the restraints on my mobile suit, I used brief bursts of my tertiary thrusters to maneuver into the catapult. I keyed up the comm. "Full Frontal, Geara Doga. Ready to launch."

The other side of the comm line buzzed in silence for a moment -I could have sworn I heard a sound of disbelief- before an unfamiliar voice replied. "Copy that Full..Frontal. Launching in 3..2..1 Launch!"

Thrusters to maximum, a brief feeling of motionless, and then my vision blurred at the edges as I zoomed back in the grasp of space.

"Did he have to show off by performing a full combat launch?"

After launching from the Claxon, I had joined up with the other seven mobile suits that now formed the rearguard of our retreating fleet. My old, although maybe permanent now, wingmen of Savoir and Jess forming up on my sides. Together the three of us made up the rear of the mobile suit formation. Here we would wait, preparing to fight off the Federation should they appear in order to allow our ships to escape. I had been assured that allies of Neo Zeon in the current Republic of Zeon were doing their best to hold up the nearest Federation inspection force and that given how good those allies were at stalling with bureaucracy on their side, we had a good window of opportunity.

This position allowed me the interesting view of the Claxon and the Renewed towing the inactive Rewloola through space with the Endras forming the lead elements of the ragtag squadron. When Dawson had informed me that he was reactivating the two Musakas part of the reason he gave was, besides needing more space to haul things, that the Rewloola just couldn't propel itself under its own power. It didn't even have its own power and even if the engines were in a state to work, the reactors were completely cold and reigniting them would just end up with the Federation finding us. So the Musakas, ontop of being used as mechanical beasts of burdens, were playing the role of glorified tugboats to move the Rewloola along, committed to dragging it along to the next safe haven. Dawson freely admitted that he didn't know where another safe haven was located and with confidence left our heading in my hands. Joy.

So with the threat of another Federation/Londo Bell attack hanging over us, we mobile suit pilots waited in tense silence for an hour.

Nothing happened.

Another hour.

Still the dreaded attack never came. We started to loosen up, some idle chatter floating over the comms. I said some pleasantries to Savoir and Jess about it being a pleasure to fly with them again, but I didn't clearly remember what I said being focused on the empty and contactless space in front of me.

By the third hour, the notion that we had managed a clean getaway began to creep up on us. The energy from the coffee I had earlier wore off, and my tiredness smacked me upside the head again.

The fourth hour passed. The colony on the edge of Side 3 had long departed our vision and sensors. Not even a false alarm came to us.

Finally, Dawson made the announcement over the fleetwide comm channel: we had done it. I could almost hear the mass, myself among them, sigh of relief from the fleet.

I released my grip on the Doga's controllers and wearily flexed the sore appendages and leaned back as much as I could in the cockpit's faux leather seat. The feeling of hard metal against my right side drew my attention and curiosity.

Reaching inside my jacket, which was definitely in need of a wash by now, I pulled out the mysterious tablet. Odd, hadn't this been left in my quarters?

I pursed my lips in irritation at the thought. Releasing the tablet to idly spin in zero g, I took a hearty suck from my water bottle, soothing my parched throat. I put the bottle back in its holder and grabbed the tablet, looking it over once again for any missed details.

Seeing nothing new minus that blinking light on the side, I put the tablet back in my coat.

I froze halfway. Blinking light? I stared at the tablet and sure enough, there was a real tiny blinking red light that hadn't been there before.

Odd. Moving the tablet over to my left hand for a better view, I cautiously poked the red light and held my finger over it, thinking it might be a hitherto unseen power button. A brief jab.

"Ouch!" I exclaimed with surprise, vigorously shaking my stinging index finger to ease the pain. Damn thing stabbed me!

But to my surprise, and slight relief, the tablet didn't turn into some swirling knife machine. Rather, the screen came to life and white text began to appear.

Authenticating DNA sample…..

100% match detected.

Welcome Supreme Commander Aznable.

What in the? I watched with stunned disbelief as the tablet opened up to its equivalent of a home page. There were only two options to pick: Plans and Communication.

Still unsure if I wasn't seeing things due to sleep deprivation, I selected 'Communication'. My eyes widened in shock as a seemingly never ending list of names and places appeared. I read over the names at the very top of the list, my attention drawn by the one with 'Master' at the front of its name.

I selected that option and some kind...of array opened. I realized what exactly this was and my mouth dropped in shock.

This was, this was a game changer. I ran my free hand through my immaculate mullet in frustration. Dawson, along with the upper command, would have to be brought onboard so a plan of action could be drawn up. However, as my brief rush of adrenaline gained from the discovery died down; the true extent of my exhaustion became apparent.

Time to get some real sleep, then make a game plan.

Resolutely nodding, I dismissed Savoir and Jess back to their mothership and began to journey back to the Claxon. Before I put the tablet in sleep mode -or whatever the now revealed power button on the screen did- I noticed a small time and date in the left hand corner of the screen.

0321 EOST. 18.12.0093 U.C.

Huh. What a strange calendar these people use.