Even though the rest of the people on the bridge were transfixed at the sight of damages inflicted on Heliopolis, Natarle wasn't one of them. "X-105 Strike! X-105 Strike! Come in. Kira Yamato, please respond!"

"This is X-105 Strike. Kira here."

Natarle relaxed a bit. "Are you all right?"

"Yes,"

"Do you have our vector?"

"Yes,"

"Then please return. Can you do it?"

"Yes, Ma'am,"

Even though the radio communication was over, she still didn't look at the video feed outside, paying more attention to the radar showing Strike's location.

"This is Strike. I'm carrying a lifeboat on board,"

Natarle felt her blood curdled at the announcement. "This is Archangel. Can you repeat that?" she asked in a calm, forced manner.

"I'm carrying a lifeboat onboard Archangel,"

"You're not authorized to do that. I repeat, you're not authorized to do that," she insisted.

"What's going on?" Murrue asked her.

Natarle changed the view on the main screen to display a magnified video of Strike. She then got up from her seat to approach Murrue's chair and pointed at the mobile suit that was carrying what seemed to be a slightly damaged lifeboat. "He's going to bring that in. I believe that the correct decision is to leave it as the diagnostic signals indicated that only propulsion is slightly damaged,"

"I'm not going to leave it here. It's damaged and any help could be too late," the Strike's pilot insisted.

"You would not do such a thing. Please leave the lifeboat as it is."

"If I do that, the occupants would be in danger!"

"Look here..."

"I'll authorise it!" Murrue interjected.

"But Captain!" Natarle said, trying to change her mind.

"We can't waste time arguing here."

"Aye, Ma'am," Natarle said while saluting at her before going back to her console to direct Strike's landing approach. She wasn't trying to be a cold-blooded person but the captain and the pilot were making a mistake, one that could come back to bite them later on. The duty to rescue persons in distress at sea is a fundamental rule of international law and applied during peacetime and wartime; the current war notwithstanding. However, purposely involving civilians in a conflict was something that the ship had a duty to prevent as well.

Murrue wiped her face in frustration. Then again, it's probably pointless to split hairs in the matter. As they said, the ship has long sailed. They already had a civilian become a combatant and from the look of things, they would be relying on him from thereon. It was then she realized something. "Commander Flaga, you predicted that this will happen, right?"

"Yes, though not this bad,"

No wonder Mu said that they didn't have to worry about exiting. He knew that ZAFT would be tearing through the colony to get at the ship.

"The ZAFT commander is an asshole," Mu said as if explaining how he knew things would turn out the way they did.

To Murrue, Mu had established himself as an asshole as well for not telling about the impending attack. A handsome asshole, but an asshole nonetheless. Then again he probably didn't want everyone to worry. If that was the case, he was still an asshole but a very considerate one.

Kira climbed out of Strike just as the mechanics began to open the hatch of the lifeboat. The first that came out was the girl he was crushing on, Flay. He would have been happy to remain at his location if not for Birdy flying out of his shirt toward the girl, chirping. In an attempt to retrieve it, Kira moved toward Birdy.

Alerted by Birdy, Flay turned toward him. "It's you, after all, Kira!" she said as she jumped in his direction.

"Flay," Surprised by the move, Kira caught her body as she embraced him.

"Thank you, Kira," she said.

"You're welcome," he responded, putting his arms on her shoulders while blushing. "You're on this lifeboat?"

She retreated a bit but still a bit close to him, to his pleasure. "Is Heliopolis all right?" Flay asked worriedly, her eyes brimming with tears. "Jessica and Misha… I'm separated from them and don't know how they're doing."

Kira didn't know what answer to give her. Meanwhile, the two floated inside the hangar.

Flay finally noticed the Strike and Aegis parked side by side to her right and she gasped in horror. "A...a… a..." she stammered, her eyes dilating wildly.

Surprised by the adverse reaction shown, Kira did the first thing that came to his mind. He put his hands on her shoulder and pulled her toward him in a reassuring hug. "Don't worry. Flay. You're safe. This is the Earth Forces' ship."

"But there's two of them! It's supposed…"

"Ah, those?" Kira said as understanding came to him. Mobile suits were associated with ZAFT so it's normal to assume that any ship carrying them belonged to the faction. "They belong to Earth Forces,"

Flay looked at him with worry in her eyes. "But…"

"Miriallia and others are on board as well. Come, I'll show you," he said as he led her away from the hangar toward the indicated place which was the ship's cafeteria.

Kira thought that meeting the rest of the ensemble would calm her down which it did when she saw Miriallia and waved excitedly. The wave, however, stopped once she saw Sai.

"Good day, Mr Argyle," she said frostily.

Sai groaned. "Look, I am sorry for what I did, can't you forgive me already?"

"No," Flay said with a hard expression.

"What did you do, Sai?" Kuzzey asked with interest.

Sai seemed like he was about to answer the question when a sharp look from her caused him to hesitate. "I made a mistake and betrayed her trust"

The statement caused Kira to recall his other friend that was at the infirmary and decided to go there. "I guess I'll see you later," he said as he began to leave but a tug on the sleeve stopped him.

It was Flay. Kira looked at the hand, and then at her before settling on Miriallia who shrugged helplessly. He was about to ask Flay why she held his sleeve when the announcement paged for him.

Kira went to the Captain's room, as indicated by the message, stopping a few times to refer to the maps on the walls, to ensure that he wasn't lost. Ten minutes later, he was in the said room and found that he didn't like the seating arrangement. Lieutenant Murrue was sitting in the middle, while Commander Mu was to his left and the officer named Natarle to his right. If he was to describe it, he was being surrounded.

"Kira," Murrue said, "I'll go straight to the point, we need you to pilot Strike on a more permanent basis,"

"Are we having this conversation again?" he challenged.

"Yes, because you're the only one who can pilot it," Mu said.

"I did it twice, but that's because I have no choice! I'm just a civilian!"

"This is why I was against you bringing the lifeboat in," Natarle muttered.

Kira turned toward her, "Sorry?"

"Nothing," Natarle said.

"Natarle," Murrue said, "Since you already said something, and we know you did. Please say it out loud,"

Natarle saluted her. "Yes, Ma'am. Permission to speak freely,"

Murrue massaged her temple. "Granted."

Natarle turned toward Kira. "Right now, there are several refugees on board due to your reckless decision to bring them in. I admit that you and your friends being on this ship is a gross violation of rules and a mistake on our part. But then you bring them in. Good humanitarian decision and all. But that means now, they will be with us, until we can drop them off. You can't just say, 'I rescued them because I wanted to help them but now it's not my responsibility to protect them since I don't want to fight,' just like that!" she berated him. "Can you imagine what will happen if the ship is destroyed because no one protects it?"

"You refuse and everyone dies," Mu said in an offhand manner. "Right now, only you and I can protect the ship. Unless our sleeping handsome awakens and suddenly have a change of heart, that is."

"Athrun, how is he?" Kira asked.

Murrue shared a look with the other two. "Fortunately, one of the refugees is a doctor and we've assigned him to care for him. I can't promise you anything but Atran is probably going to wake up today or tomorrow."

"Thank god…" Kira said in relief before he realized his mistake. He had revealed that he had another reason to keep piloting Strike, which was to protect the life of Athrun. He looked at Mu, Murrue and Natarle and could see that they were just waiting for his agreement. "That's unfair! "

"If I have a penny every time unfair things happen to me, kid, I could afford to buy my estate."

Kira stared at him. "You're that unlucky?"

"No, I'm that lucky and I have my estate regardless."

"I don't get the point you're trying to make!"

Mu grinned. "You'll get it someday." He then turned serious. "There's another solution that I can think of. Two, to be exact. One, we reset the Strike's OS,"

"That would make Strike unusable," Murrue interjected.

"And have Kira reprogram the whole thing program so that I can use it. Strike would be out of commission while I defend the ship alone using Moebius Zero,"

Murrue shook her head.

"That's a no go, then."

"What's the other one?" Natarle asked, seemingly not wanting to give up on the idea that Kira shouldn't pilot Strike.

"He reprograms Aegis for my use," Mu answered, "on top of piloting and maintaining Strike."

"Child labor on top of slave labor on top of the current crimes?" Natarle asked snidely, crossing her arms defiantly. "I'm going to record my objection to this,"

"I didn't say it's a good idea," Mu said before his expression changed. "Slave labor?"

"Section 1 of the Constitution: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the Atlantic Federation, or any place subject to their jurisdiction," Natarle stated in staccato.

"So, back to the original idea then, the coerce… totally voluntary conscription of underage foreign citizen for war,"

Murrue sighed. "That makes what we're doing so horrible but we're out of options. You need to decide now, Kira,"

The teenager answered reluctantly. "Very well, until the ship arrives at somewhere safe that my friends and other refugees can get off."

"Agreed," Murrue said.

That agreement was the reason he was back in the hangar, having to carry out the maintenance on Strike by himself. He noticed that Flay was standing at one of the walkways, gazing at the mobile suits.

"You're here," he remarked as he approached her.

"They're currently assigning the berths but since I didn't mind where they put me, so here I am," she said, not turning her head toward him.

Judging from the interaction earlier, she probably didn't want to be near Sai at the moment. "You want to tell me about it?" he said before he realized that he was going over the line with such a question.

"Nothing much to tell, really. We… had some," Flay searched for the words, "altercation in the past so I wanted to make up to him. So, I shared a secret with him. But then he told others who aren't supposed to know."

"That's why you couldn't forgive him, even though you told him the secret to make up in the first place."

Flay chuckled humorlessly. "That sounds petty, doesn't it? That's what I am, I guess."

Kira would have she was pretty as well but wasn't sure that was the correct time to say it.

"But I'm surprised that this place's security isn't good," she said, changing the subject.

"They don't have enough people. Besides, it's not like we can run away if we do something wrong."

"I probably can't run away." Flay was quiet for a few moments, "I've heard about you're being the pilot because you're a Coordinator,"

"I am," Kira admitted.

"They also said that you're one of them, an important friend and don't care about your status."

"They said that, didn't they?"

"They did. How about you?"

"How about me?"

"Do you see them as people worth fighting for?"

"They are. That's why I've no choice but to fight," he said bitterly.

Flay nodded toward Strike, "Every time you enter it to fight, it is always your decision. You may not like it, but it wouldn't change the reality."

"Then, what is reality?" he asked her back.

"That's a good question, which I don't have," she answered, presenting him with an awkward smile. "Demo, ne, Kira-kun," Flay says, suddenly switching to Japanese, "Ima, koko ni iru yo,"

Kita nodded. Her words meant that he should focus on the present. At that time, he was onboard Archangel, together with his friends. Therefore, instead of trying to overthink, what mattered was trying to survive. "Thank you for the reminder,"

"You're welcome,"

Both of them watched as some maintenance crew conducted repairs on Strike while some were performing diagnostics on Aegis. A few were even clowning around, playing with a rounded helmet that clearly didn't belong on a mobile suit or mobile armor.

"Live in the present," Kira said as he tested the words coming out of his mouth.

"To have things devolved to this," Ades, the captain of Vesalius remarked as he viewed the damage inflicted on the colony, "The Council wouldn't accept our action which caused a neutral nation's colony to be damaged."

"A colony that produced weapons for our enemy cannot be considered as 'neutral'," Rau answered calmly. "Don't forget that Rusty McKenzie and Athrun Zala went missing in action in that neutral colony. And even though we fought in the colony, it's still there, isn't it? After all that, most residents escaped with their lives, something that cannot be said to Junius Seven residents."

Ades had no rebuttal to the statements since it was true.

"Can you detect the enemy ship?" Rau asked the radar operator, satisfied that his points had been made.

"No, sir. The interference from debris had made it almost impossible to detect."

"Do you still plan to go after it?" Ades asked. "We've lost most of our mobile suits," he said, recalling that only Miguel's GINN had returned.

"We have three of the prototypes. Since we've extracted the data required, we can use them."

"But they have two," Ades replied.

"I believe that only one named Strike is usable in the short term," Rau replied. "Aegis suffered from damages,"

The two moved to the tactical table.

"Perhaps they've already left, using the debris as a cover," Ades said,

Rau considered what the man said. It was possible since the debris would hamper detection by radar and other sensing methods. "I doubt it. They have no way of knowing whether their movement is detectable or not." He pointed toward Artemis, "Vesalius will move forward and set an ambush near Artemis. Gamow would pursue from the back in a pincer move."

"Artemis? Wouldn't they go straight to the moon?"

"If that's the case, then we already lost it and trying to catch up is almost impossible."

"Sir, we detect that large object's movement," the radar operator announced, "Estimated vector and vector, it's moving toward the Earth Alliance's headquarters on the moon,"

"With that, the ship is certainly moving toward Artemis," Rau announced confidently. "Otherwise, it wouldn't have made such a big movement. Contact Gamow. I want the captain and the three to know about the plan."

The door opened and Miguel entered.

"Ah, good for you to join us," Rau said, 'We're about to start."

Mu smiled when he entered the briefing room and saw that the kid was already in the flight suit. "You look dashing in that uniform soon we'll have to beat them off you with a stick,"

Kira laughed nervously. "Just one is enough,"

"Hm… I see," Mu said thoughtfully. He recalled seeing the brunette girl but she seemed spoken for. "Oh, by the way, your friends are volunteering at the bridge."

"They did?"

"Yup. Doing their parts, they said."

Natarle predictably objected to the four of them volunteering but Murrue overruled her, saying that the ship was understaffed and any help was much appreciated. Mu fancied himself as a pragmatic person as the teenagers were very much helping to protect themselves as well as the rest of the refugees. "Say, you people are technical whizzes aren't you?" he asked, recalling that Dalida something... something Chandra commenting that they took to their assignments like fish to the water.

"We're from Heliopolis Technical College."

That made sense. The place was known as a 'Geek Heaven' due to many pure science courses being taught at that place. "Alright, before we go, we'll go through the plan,"

Mu detailed out his plan. At that present time, Archangel was moving to a Eurasian military station by the name of Artemis. Due to N-Jammers, space debris and Archangel using momentum to move, the ship wasn't detected by ZAFT. However, two ZAFT ships were chasing after it, with one in front and the other in the rear.

"The ship's in front is ambushing us?" Kira asked with concern.

"Yes, while the other is corralling us. But the joke's on them. We'll ambush it in return. I will launch earlier and executed a sneak attack. Meanwhile, all you need to do is focus on defending the enemy until I return. Simple, right?"

The boy nodded when a thought entered his mind. "Can you tell me again why this ship has yet to be detected?"

He explained that detection was being carried out through two approaches, active and passive detection. Active detection involved sending out radar waves to locate the enemy through the radio waves that were bounced back. Passive detection involved processing reflections from the environment, such as heat, illumination or radio transmission from the enemy. However, the raw data yielded by both approaches was useless as they would be full of background noise. Only after further processing and the noise being removed the information generated would be useful.

"So, Archangel's movement is too slow to be recognised as a ship?" Kira questioned.

"Yup. There's the N-Jammer that makes detection worse. As far as detection goes, we're just space debris. Unless we start moving fast enough, ZAFT's radar processing would ignore us; otherwise, its radar screen will be full of dots on it,"

"In that case, can't we alter a bit the plan that you suggested, reverse it a bit?"

"Reverse…" Mu rubbed his chin. Reverse the plan. A new idea occurred to him and he told Kira about it. There was no need to play by Rau's book when they can just make their own.

"Will that work?" Kira said after he finished explaining.

Mu gave the boy a good-natured smack in the back. "Of course! It's your idea and my great planning! I'll tell Captain about this change of plan." He was about to leave the place when Kira held him.

"Wait! There's something else you have to tell her,"

"We've arrived at the Umbrella of Artemis," Rau said as the said fortress came into view.

"Hmph, I don't know whether I should comment about the irony or the fact that the fact that umbrella didn't exist during that time period," Ades said.

"I agree that the Sphere of Artemis would have made sense," It was ironic, Rau thought, that the Artemis in the mythology would dance from a place to another place, accompanied by nymphs but the Artemis fortress in front of them was an isolated place in the middle of nowhere serving negligible strategic purposes. "Maybe a committee came up with the name."

"A Natural way of inefficient bureaucracy,"

"And it looked like they've detected us," Rau remarked at the fortress activating its defence system.

"The ship has arrived there safely?"

Rau shook his head. "No, I believe that they have to go through us to reach there,"

"Change the direction 180 degrees, and match Artemis' vector," Ades commanded. The ship turned, engaging its thrusters and boosters until it was facing away from the fortress, in the general direction of Gamow.

Now, all they needed to do was wait for the trap to be sprung.

"Heat source detected, increasing speed," the CIC operator announced.

"Looks like they're making a run for it," Rau remarked, "They're getting desperate. Now, we'll wait for Gamow to launch the prototypes. Prepare Migue's unit as well,"

The prototypes were launched from Gamow as planned. "Miguel has taken off from the Vesalius," Yzak, the newly elected leader of the mobile suits prototypes said to Dearka and Nicol as he eyed the ship on his radar. "Follow me,"

"Copy that," Dearka said.

"They're gonna pay for what they did to Athrun," Nicol said.

"We'll do that. You two go after the ship while Miguel and I will..." To his surprise, the ship suddenly disappeared. "What the?"

Before they could execute their plan, a communication officer called out in distress, "Gamow is under attack! I repeat, Gamow is under attack!"

Mu grinned as he deployed his gunbarrels and attacked the Laurasia-class ship in his target reticule. The updated plan he and Murrue came up with involved him launching in his mobile armor using vernier thrusters and slowly made its way toward a group of debris, hoping that the ship chasing after Archangel wouldn't detect him. The ship passed through him a scant fifty kilometres without reacting; the proliferation of N-Jammers and radiological interference from everywhere rendering it blind to his presence.

At exactly the determined time, his radar showed a large dot appearing. Kira's Strike has released the preprogrammed decoy it was carrying and the decoy activated, moving toward Artemis at constant velocity to masquerade as Archangel. Meanwhile, the said ship changed its vector so that it was no longer directly between the two ZAFT ships. It was a simple matter of doing the same trick they had done earlier.

A few minutes later, the Laurasia-class ship launched the three prototypes. It was as Kira had predicted, ZAFT would utilise the prototypes to chase after Archangel. However, since that had been taken into account as well, the plan continued with minor changes.

"Eat this," he said as he pressed the trigger and attacked the ship again, inflicting more damage to it. From what he could see, the main engines suffered heavy damages. It was time to leave. His Moebius Zero fired an anchor to the ship and used it to redirect its vector away.

Destroying the ship was never the objective no matter how tempting it was. Maiming, not killing, the ship would force some if not all of the mobile suits to return to protect it.

Moments later, Miriallia who was manning the communication console on Archangel announced, "Message from Lieutenant La Flaga, mission complete,"

Murrue let out a relieved breath. "CIC, Second Phase,"

"Understood," Natarle said from her station, "Load Corinthos into tubes 19 to 24. Target the mobile suits. FIRE!"

There was a slight tremor as the missiles launched from their silos.

"Load Sledgehammers into tubes 7 through 12. Target the Laurasia-class ship. FIRE!"

The Corinthos volley was launched to force the prototypes to defend themselves. Even if their Phase Shift armors would protect them from physical damages, getting hit by such missiles would sap their energy greatly. While they were busy protecting themselves, the Sledgehammer volley was fired at their mothership to 'convince' it as well as the mobile suits to leave the area.

"Phase Three," Murrue announced.

"Prepare to fire Lohengrins in alternate salvos," Natarle announced.

"Send warning messages to both Lieutenant La Flaga and Kira to clear the area," Murrue said.

"Messages acknowledged," Miriallia announced a few seconds later.

"Positron bank breath chamber at maximum," Chandra announced. "Muzzle choke resistance stabilized. FCS 1, 2, online! Launchers deploying.

"Salvo 1 and 2, three seconds!" Natarle commanded.

"Three seconds," Chandra acknowledged.

"Neumann," Murrue said, "Vector correction, aim Lohengrin 1 at the Nazca-class in front".

"Vector corrected."

"Lohengrin 1, FIRE!" Murrue commanded. A second later, Archangel fired the Lohengrin located on its starboard side. "Vector correction, Nazca-class. Lohengrin 2, FIRE!"

"Nazca-class, starboard damage!" Jackie Tonomura, in charge of the ship's search and detection sensor array, announced.

"Tell Lieutenant La Flaga and Kira that Phase Four starts."

Inside Strike, Kira's eyes darted to the message screen for a fraction of a second before turning back to the main screen, grunting as he barely evaded Duel's beam rifle shot. Mu's strategy had drawn away two of the enemy mobile suits and he was left facing Duel and a GINN. However, to him, that was still two mobile suits too many. But from what Mu predicted, his enemies were focussing on him rather than attacking Archangel. Which was good since that meant he was doing a proper job of protecting his friends onboard.

His eyes darted at the battery indicator. If he wasn't careful, he would have to change the battery in the middle of the fight. The whole of Strike shook as the GINN landed multiple hits on the cockpit, the bullets bouncing off the Phase Shift protected wall. Before he could retaliate, it moved out of the way and Duel attacked with its beam saber.

The attack was blocked with the shield, but then Strike was attacked from behind from the GINN. The mobile suit quickly moved out of the way just as he was about to respond. Then Duel attacked using its beam rifle at almost point-blank, forcing him to block again.

"They're working well together," Kira uttered.

"Hang in there, kid," Mu's voice went on speaker.

For him to be able to use sound transmission meant that he was near. Kira's guess was correct when a few shots landed on the Due, catching it off guard. Mu's Moebius Zero then strafed the GINN which forced it to abort its attack on Strike. "Thank you, Lieutenant Fllaga."

"No problem. Adult's prerogative."

The Moebius fired off few more shots at the enemy mobile suits before turning toward the Nazca-class ship. The GINN quickly chased after it while Duel seemed to hesitate before the mobile suit followed suit.

"Kira," Miriallia said through the communication channel.

"What is it?"

"Can you fire a few shots in the general direction of the mobile suits and not hitting the Lieutenant's unit?"

"I will try," Kira said as he engaged the targeting module and did what was asked. He did try to hit the mobile suits but they easily evaded them while still maintaining pursue. But that was alright, according to what Mu had drummed into him before the operation started. As long as the pilots thought that he was trying to stop them, it would make Mu's feint all the more important to stop. He had heard from the Archangel's hangar crew that Mu was some sort of a hero but the man really took some risks attacking the ship behind them and then the other ship.

"Kira, Phase Five starts,"

"The ship behind us?"

"Retreated, with Blitz and Buster. Stand behind the anti beam screen indicated on your radar,"

"Understood," Kira said as he adjusted Strike to be beside Archangel as the ship launched its anti beam screen mines. Due to the mines' inertia when they deployed the screen, the beam screen appeared to be moving in front of the ship at a constant speed. All he needed to do was to maintain a perimeter and fire from the fringe of the anti beam screen to harass Duel and that GINN.

"In range shortly, Kira,"

"Ready," Strike landed in the middle of the ship in front of its bridge.

He saw three brights orb of lights appearing, signalling Mu to retreat. At the same time, Archangel increased its speed and pierced the anti beam screen to fire five salvos of its complement of Gottfried beam canons. It then engaged its reverse thrusters to drop its speed to move behind what's left of the beam screen. It then fired off another round of anti beam mines.

Archangel's tactic of popping up to take pot shots managed to score some hits on the already damaged Nazca-class ship which launched its signal flares. Whatever it meant, Kira didn't know and care. All that mattered was the two hostile mobile suits landed on the remaining ZAFT ship which then retreated. He waited until Mu's unit returned to the ship, noting that it lost two of its gunbarrel units.

"Kira, come back,"

Kira was sure that kind of message wouldn't be used by trained military personnel. However, coming from one of his friends, it sounded so welcoming. "Roger,"

1

A/N

The chapter illustrates the difficulty of trying to create a cordon to contain a ship running silent with just 2 ships. It's like a horror movie. You know it's there somewhere but not sure where. Plus, the movement is in 3D, not 2D so while Archangel still had to face Vesalius in the end, it had more options. The original GS episode also highlighted the same problem ZAFT had but wasn't exploited by Archangel.