"I want to beat the person who did this silly," Murdoch groused nearby. Even as Kira was removing a nut that was holding the blackened servo in front of him, the mechanic cum reluctant pilot shared the man's sentiment. At the very least, Kira wanted to get a slap in. Whoever piloted Buster had really done a thorough job on overriding the restrictions of the firmware controlling the servos, thus leading to mechanical damage to the mobile suit. Kira didn't like being involved in the war, but he had a healthy appreciation of the art and science of mobile suits.
What was done was a sacrilege on the highest level.
Kira understood that the pilot did it to ensure that the mobile suit couldn't be used to chase after Gamow but there were other ways to do so, such as locking the operating system that would have forced for a full firmware flush and reinstall. While that would take time to recover from, at least it didn't require replacing everything on Buster.
"If I don't know better, I would have thought that we're building this thing from the scratch," Murdoch continued his tirade.
"Maybe we can rebuild Duel and Blitz, after this," Kira said jokingly.
"You're a glutton for punishment, aren't you?" Murdoch replied. "We haven't repaired the one your girlfriend wrecked because we're doing this first and you're already talking about those two? She put you up for this, didn't she?"
Kira laughed nervously as he pulled away the part he was working and then put the replacement in place. "Um... no. I've been thinking about it for quite some time. This ship does carry the needed spare parts. Besides, I don't think Flay could be blamed for what happened,"
"So sweet of you to defend her," came the snide comeback.
"Not really," Kira wasn't trying to be sweet. Objectively speaking, he was the one responsible for causing the micro cracks found in Aegis's joints; they must have been formed when he took the mobile suit down before it could even activate its Phase Shift armor. Flay did fly Aegis in haphazard fashions few times, but what she really did was make the existing problem worse. Then, there was the explosion Aegis took while protecting Athrun' shuttle prevented it being able to transform as well as damaging the Scylla cannon. Due to the complexity of Aegis' frame, it was decided that would be far easier to repair Buster first before starting on it. On the plus side, since Aegis was damaged while in mobile armor mode, it would easier to repair the already exposed Scylla cannon.
"Thinking about it clearly," Murdoch said, "we can Frankenstein a Strike or Blitz, since they share many spare parts. Heck, even Strikster or Duelitz is okay as long we don't need those invisible gas, reinforced frames, or that crab appendage."
"Crab?"
"For Aegis. The current Aegis wouldn't transform with just the masking tapes and glue we applied to it. And talking about that," the man raised his head in the direction of Buster's open cockpit, with cables coming out of it. "She's doing the same thing with Buster?"
"She was reluctant, but they... were persuasive," Kira replied.
"Hey, were you about to call them 'the three monkeys' for harassing your girlfriend?"
"No!" Kira denied hotly before reconsidering, "I wasn't about to call the three of them monkeys,"
Harassed her into submission, they did. Murrue, Mu and Natarle knew that there was a need to work on Buster's operating system so upon her landing, the three took her aside for a private discussion. The four of them only emerged out of the meeting room three hours later, with Flay being extremely frazzled while the three of them looked like they wrestled with a polar bear and survived.
When asked later, Flay replied that they gave a very convincing argument why Buster had to be made to be pilotable by another. While the system that she had to deploy was proprietary and belonged to her father's company, separate negotiation and arrangement would be made to accommodate that. From what Kira understood from the business-like terms used, she would charge them money for her cooperation. Some of the things the four of them agreed upon was way over his head and he just nodded his head dumbly when Flay explained it to him. It was him that asked her about it, so the very least he could do was pretend to listen attentively and taking interest.
She did look happy explaining it all to him, so all was well.
"But who would have thought that Missy's pretty involved in the Gundam project,"
That was what Kira found strange. When he first rescued her, she had shown surprise upon seeing the two Gundams. Kira had pegged her reaction as someone who realized that she was inside a ZAFT battleship. However, now that he thought about it, she must have been to the ship before to oversee the software maintenance carried out by her father company's technicians, which was the reason she showed familiarity with the ship's layout. If that was the case, the real reason she was surprised was either the Gundam-jacking went well or not so well.
Wait. That didn't make sense.
Kira tried to recall the conspiracy theories that she had spouted during that altercation on the bridge. It then he arrived at a conclusion: Flay had expected the Gundams to be hijacked, but not by ZAFT but instead by Orb, or more specifically, Morgenroete. Someone in the corporation who had insider knowledge to the project purposely tipped off ZAFT about its existence and wanted to take advantage during the chaos to steal them. That would explain the poor security that allowed Athrun and his team to infiltrate Heliopolis. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on the people involved, the attempt wasn't successful since Archangel ended up with Strike, Buster, and Aegis while ZAFT still had Duel and Blitz.
He glanced at Buster' cockpit. Flay's agreement only included installing the Artificial Intelligence network needed to control the software but due to a lack of required hardware, Kira had to roped in to optimize the operating system, or in his word, make it not suck. It would happen later, after she was done. Kira looked at his watch and then at nodded Murdoch who gave an 'okay' sign. Kira put away all the tools and items and then moved to Buster's cockpit to pick up his conspiracy-loving, workaholic, self-serving, money-grubbing but beautiful potential future girlfriend.
From his position in the port, Yuri Amalfi could clearly see the glass space bridge connected to the ship where his son was supposed to disembark. He could have stayed inside a hotel room in the city or anywhere else except the port and would still be able to watch the whole event. However, he insisted on being physically near the place.
He glanced at the man who leaning against the glass window next to him, arms crossed. Yuri knew that the man was keeping quiet for his sake, even though the man probably had a lot to talk about.
The two of them remained that way for a half hour until the door of the ship finally opened. Yuri leaned toward the window, eager to have a better view and was rewarded with the sight of his son coming out of the door. He let out a long breath. Despite what happened, Nicol was fine. Even then, Yuri remained transfixed as his son made his way through the space bridge until the later disappeared into the main port building.
"I've shown a shameful side of me," Yuri said as he put on a stoic expression. The time for Yuri Amalfi the worried father to make way to the Yuri Amalfi, one of the leaders of the free colonies. "But you're hoping exactly for this development, aren't you?"
"I'm willing to be a monster for the people I love," the man replied. "Who am I to judge you, when we're the same?"
"I'm pretty sure we have a distinct set of moral principles, Gilbert," Yuri replied.
"Perhaps,"
"So, what do you want?" came the question both knew was forthcoming.
The man took out a small tablet from his breast jacket pocket and handed it to Yuri. "Have a look,"
Yuri read the document on the tablet and his expression changed from interest to puzzled before settling on anger. "You showed me this..." Yuri said as he waved the tablet agitatedly, "this 'Project Jormungand'? Do you want my cooperation in it?"
"Yes," Gilbert answered simply. "The name fits, don't you think?"
"Gilbert Durandal!" Yuri growled
"Calm done, Mr. Amalfi," the man answered calmly.
Yuri grabbed the man's coat. "You do understand what you're asking me to do?"
"I do,"
"Then you know my answer to this, don't you?"
"I can guess," Gilbert said as he gently pushed Yuri's hand away. When Yuri didn't release the hold, the man smiled politely, "Please, your hand,"
Yuri withdrew his hand as if it was bitten.
Gilbert adjusted the crumpled area around his coat. "I knew very well what I asked you to do. Otherwise, I wouldn't do so. You on the other hand, haven't realized the reason you will cooperate,"
"Do enlighten me,"
"Your family's wellbeing," Upon seeing the change of expression on Yuri, the man continued, "there's no reason for me to threaten your family's safety. I'm not that kind of a person. Besides, you are currently the biggest threat to their safety; your son ending like that," Gilbert gestured toward the port, "is an example. But at least, his capture and subsequent return by the Eurasian, created the opportunity for me to meet you away from prying eyes,"
"And I'm supposed to be grateful for that?"
"Tell me, Mr. Amalfi," Gilbert said, ignoring the barb aimed at him, "Don't you think that the rest of your colleagues are becoming more and more, how should I say this, irrational in this conflict?"
"Irrational?"
"Yes. Even from the very beginning, what all of you did was irrational,"
Yuri gave Gilbert the look that told the latter to continue.
"The PLANT Supreme Council could have ended the war almost instantly, culminating in a peace treaty but it didn't,"
"Did you forget about Junius Seven?"
Gilbert shook his head. "I do. Which is why it didn't make sense why we didn't launch a nuclear bomb on the Alliance's moon base in retaliation, deploy N-Jammers surrounding the perimeter of PLANTs and then negotiate for peace. We are more than capable of building a hundred of those weapons, enough to scare everyone under the threat of MAD,"
Reluctantly, Yuri had to admit that Gilbert had a point. If ZAFT retaliated using a nuclear weapon aimed at a military target, it would deter Alliance from attacking using nuclear missiles since it would ensure the complete annihilation of both sides. "We don't want to stoop to their level,"
"Which we wouldn't since it would be a military target. Perfectly justifiable. And then we can pursue for immediate peace since their space force would be severely weakened, and they would be wary of us having a nuclear attack capability and defense at the same time. The war would have ended in just few weeks. But now we're sending our soldiers against them in needless attrition battles. For what?"
That was a good question, one that Yuri didn't have the answer to.
"Admit it," Gilbert pressed. "When you and the rest created the N-Jammers on Earth and in space under the order of the Council, you never really thought about the repercussions. Just like how the mythical serpent grew so large that it was able to surround the Earth and grasp its own tail, the conflict is becoming too big and too hard to control,"
Yuri hated how the man was correct in his assessment. When ZAFT released N-Jammers all over Earth during Operation Uroboros, the devices had contaminated the planet and its surrounding with a field that prevent nuclear fission. While this retarded the deployment of nuclear weapons, thereby preventing them from being used, it also prevented energy generation for civilian purposes. At the same time, the field also disrupted radars and radio wave communication. Yuri and his team concluded that for the war to be settled in a satisfactory manner to both sides, there was a need to come up with a way to mitigate the jammers, at least for peaceful purposes. "But if we didn't spread the N-Jammer, we would have been accused of trying to take over the world,"
"We could have bombed their bases in space and on Earth to force the end of the war and then release the N-Jammers all over the place to kill those innocent civilians, just like you wanted so much,"
That comment was one below the belt. Yuri and his team didn't want to cause a world-wide starvation involving innocent people when they modified the N-Jammers to be used on Earth.
"Ouroboros was a spectacular failure, isn't it?" Gilbert concluded despite Yuri remaining silent.
Yuri put a hand on the nearest wall to support himself. "Why are you here? Why would a renown geneticist who declined the appointment to join the Council come to me with this crazy proposal?"
"Because I can't trust the rest," Gilbert said as he pointed at the tablet still in Yuri's hand. "I'm here to tell you that this current trajectory, the war will last for two more years and by that time, we will really lose," he said softly, but with steely determination.
Tolle peeked through the door and saw the three people who made up the skeletal 'second shift' crew. There was the Ensign Natarle who was wearing a captain's hat, Petty Officer 2nd Class Romero who sat in for Chief Petty Officer Arnold at the helm, and Flay who was sitting at the CIC system, working its console with a bored expression. From what he knew, ever since Aegis was damaged, she was forced to take the bridge duty in other to force her to rest and not overwork herself trying to get Buster up and running.
"Feather Lite, proceed to patrol sector Delta – Bravo – Green, over," Flay said to the console.
An irate looking Mu replied, "Hey, I told you not to call…"
"I repeat, Feather Lite, proceed to patrol sector Delta – Bravo – Green. Repeat the order, over."
"Sigh. This is Feather Lite, I will proceed to patrol sector Delta – Bravo – Green, over," Mu said with resignation in his voice before ending the call.
"I'm surprised that you can handle it well despite it being your first time," Natarle remarked.
"In a mission, CIC is the 'voice of God'. Even pulling ranks wouldn't get him anywhere and I have no rank for him to pull to begin with,"
Natarle chuckled. "That's not what I meant, but still, why didn't you tell your friend about that nugget of knowledge?"
"I may need to 'pull the rank' on her in the future. Don't need her to be knowledgeable that time," Flay said while shrugging.
"That's harsh," Romero chipped in.
Tolle decided to file that information for later and quietly left the bridge to meet his real target. As he had expected, Kira was hunched over a computer at a corner of the hangar. "Kira,"
His friend turned toward him even as the former's hands were actively typing on the keyboard. "What's up, Tolle?"
"Just in the neighborhood," Tolle closed the distance between the two of them. "So, what are you working on?"
"This? I'm hardcoding the parameters for Buster's operation. Since you're here, can you have a look?"
"Sure," Tolle said as he moved next to Kira. "This looks like the jackhammer subroutine," he commented, making a reference to the programming they came up for a remote-controlled drone equipped with a pneumatic hammer for use on Earth and Heliopolis.
"Yes," Kira said. "Buster's weapons have large recoils, which is similar to that,"
"That makes sense," Tolle said before pointing at a figure on the screen. "You got the ratio wrong for the three of them. 0.1 for, 1.0 for Heliopolis and 1.23 for Earth,"
"Ah, right," Kira said as he quickly made the corrections. "I kept thinking the absolute 9.8 per meter per second for Earth and then the 7.97 for the colony even though they're in ratio,"
"That's true but remember that we based it on Heliopolis and adjusted accordingly for space and Earth. You can change the constants to refer to the gravity. Better yet, let's make Earth as 1.0," Tolle thought for a moment, "get the figure for another colony and add another one for moon as well,"
"Yeah," Kira said before the two of them. Then the realization that they were talking about their destroyed colony in an offhand manner hit them hard, causing them to become quiet.
"I hope the rest are doing okay," Tolle said, referring to the rest of the colony's inhabitants.
"Me too,"
There was no way of knowing what happened to them until they came across other parties that had the information.
"Say, Kira," Tolle said, "Who would pilot Buster?"
"I'm not sure. Just that we're to have it ready, just in case,"
Tolle took a deep breath softly. When he first saw Kira pilot Strike, he had accepted the situation as Kira being a Coordinator and thus could master its operating without much difficulty. However, he knew for the fact that Flay was a Natural like the rest of them and yet she had piloted Aegis to a successful degree. "Would you put in a word for me so that I will be considered to pilot Buster?"
Kira turned toward him in surprise. "Say what?"
"We need more people to defend the ship, right?"
"You're right, but, Tolle," Kira said as he made a circular gesture. "This is an Alliance ship. Every time we," Kira fumbled for a second, "sortie, it's under the Alliance flag, particularly the Atlantic Federation,"
"But we're registered as a Eurasian ship,"
Kira rubbed his smooth chin thoughtfully. "I'm not sure what the actual status is but the important part is, it's not under Orb. I'm not sure if we're allowed to fight for another country. Is it legal?"
Tolle was about to said that it was correct but then it hit him that he didn't know either. The three did register them as militias of some sort to ensure that their helping the defense of Archangel was legitimate, but that was only in accordance with the Atlantic Federation law. "But you still do,"
"Yes, illegally, maybe?"
To think that Kira had to think about whether his action complied the national law as well as deal with having to kill on top of fighting against fellow Coordinator. Kira had more things on his plate than Tolle thought. "Flay does too..."
"She's not from Orb,"
"Oh right," The problem that Kira faced wasn't something that Flay had. "That's all the more reason to get me to join,"
"So that we can go to jail together?"
"Maybe we can ask for adjacent cells?"
Kira rolled his eyes. "Really, Tolle. That is a very demotivating reason for me to support you. Besides, it's hard to live everyday life with my body beaten to a pulp by Mir,"
"Come on, it will be great," Tolle said as he slapped Kira's back. "You and me, together, doing our best to defend Archangel. And in case Mir beat you, I promise I'll just stand by doing nothing and then tell Flay to nurse you back to health,"
"A comedian I have for a friend,"
"Thanks. But if not me, who else?"
"Mir? She had a better head on her than you,"
"Come on, she's already the permanent fixture at the CIC station. You don't want to be cruel to Miss Natarle," Tolle said despite what he had seen a few minutes prior. "Kuzzey's not cutting it and Sai, you know more about Flay's reaction to him being near her stuff,"
Kira gave a defeated sigh. "No promise but I'll talk to the Wise Ones,"
The pilot looked at her altimeter. At 39,915 feet above sea level, the squadron of sixteen F-7D Spearheads that she was commanding was so high up in the only way they could be detected was if an observer saw their infrared signatures. A year ago, she would have been worried that flying so high would only expose her squadron to any ground-based radar, but that had changed. "This is Halcon-1 to all flight leaders. We're approaching Waypoint 1. Assume formation Diamond Seven-A and start deploying Croix du Sod at Waypoint 2,"
She received short and crisp affirmatives from Halcon-5, Halcon-9 and Halcon-13 as their flights readjusted their positionings and started to fade from the radar screen as they exited its range. There was no going back from there on. Two minute later, her flight was on Waypoint 2. "Halcon Fouer, status report,"
"This is Halcon Fouer, both towed pods deployed, over," Halcon-4 replied.
No bad news was good news.
At Waypoint 3, she looked at the mission clock. Twenty seconds later than expected, which was close enough. Ignoring the cold sweat rolling down her left cheek, Halcon-1 punched in the activation command into the communication computer.
A second went through without anything happening. Then another, followed by another. However, just as she was about to announce to her flight that the mission was a failure, the flight belonging to Halcon-5 appeared on radar in the 4'Oclock direction. This was followed by Halcon-9 and Halcon-13 flights appearing, both in the 6 O'clock and 8 O'clock directions.
"This is Gaviota-One. We have you on radar. How do you read?"
Halcon-1's smile was splitting her face. The mere fact Airborne Early Warning, or simply referred to AEW, had detected them was proof that they have regained the situational awareness to a certain degree. "This is Halcon-One, copy loud and clear, over,"
"Roger. Halcon Squadron. Operation Rapunzel is a go, I say again, Operation Rapunzel is a go, over,"
"Roger and out." She then addressed her squadron. "You heard the man, ladies and gentlemen. Let's go and earn our pay day," Halcon-1 didn't care that she was communicating inappropriately during the mission. The proper thing to do in the mission was to send an actual airborne ground surveillance, battle management and command and control planes, not a squadron of expendable and cheaper fighter jets to do its job. "Deploying pods in... five," Five seconds later, the squadron begin dropping drones carrying signal booster pods to maintain connection between it and the AEW aircraft hundreds of kilometers behind it.
"Enemy base in sight, over," Halcon-2 reported.
"Maintain altitude and paint them," she said
"A flight of enemy DINNs has launched," Halcon-3 reported. "Permission to engage,"
Halcon-1 looked through the infrared search and track system and found the heat signatures corresponding to the mobile suits that was reported by Halcon-3. "Negative. Relay firing solution to Flight 2 and 3 and maintain laser illumination,"
"Roger," there was a trace a disappointment in the voice, but everyone was a professional who knew that they were there to do their job and do it well.
"Halcon Fiver, Halcon Niner, one salvo, weapons free,"
"Fox-2," Halcon-5 reported as his flight fired four infrared missiles at the DINNs.
"Fox-2," Halcon-9 said seconds later.
The missiles, guided by their infrared seekers screamed through the air at the speed of over 600 meters per second, well above Mach 2. In a brief time, they closed their distance with their targets. However, the DINNs managed to detect their approach and fired their machine guns at the missiles. Despite their speed, the missiles trajectories were easy to predict. All but one of the missiles were destroyed. The final one, however, hit a DINN's chest and exploded, destroying it.
While the attack took down only one mobile suit, that wasn't what Halcon-1 expected to achieve. The attack was intended to distract them and by that measure, it succeeded.
"A herd of charming princes inbound," Halcon-4 announced as a group of triangles appeared in the radar.
Halcon-1 looked down and saw multiple cruise missiles moving toward the base, leaving trails of smokes in their wake. Guided by their onboard terrain contour matching system, their computers compared the terrain they were traveling through with saved data and adjusted their navigations accordingly. Once they were close enough, the missiles' seekers detected lasers pointed by the Spearheads at multiple targets, and they moved in for the kills.
The missiles hit the base, triggering multiple explosions, caught on Halcon-1's recording system, giving her a perverse sense of vindication. Let ZAFT try to attack Victoria without a supply line and see how far those winged elephants can fly, and those roller-skating dogs can slide.
The DINNs finally noticed the squadron's presence and tried to fly toward them.
"Increase altitude to 45,000 feet," Halcon-1 commanded. With weights similar to transport planes', having aerodynamically challenged bodies, and not enough thrust to body ratio, the DINNs could only achieve the altitude of 20,000 feet; they could only dream of breaching the 30,000 feet mark.
The DINNs fired their machine guns and Halcon-1 chuckled at how useless the action was. While their machine guns were dangerous at close range, the vast difference of altitude between the Spearheads and the DINNs meant that the jets could fly with impunity.
Once upon a time, the jets had to fly lower to attack effectively due to the loss of situational awareness brought caused by N-Jammer's deployment. At that speed, it was a matter of a pilot's skill of surviving an encounter against a DINN as he would have to pit the Spearhead's speed against DINN's better armor, weapon and maneuverability. But now, with proper planning and use of the newly acquired equipment, there was no need to resort to such a crass tactic.
As far as Halcon-1 was concerned, the mission has been completed and it was time to return home. "Ladies and gentlemen, it's our turn to bully them. Halcon squadron, weapons free. Fox-2," she announced as she emptied her jet's pylon of infrared missiles. The whole squadron followed suit, launching their missiles in an enormous number to overwhelm the three defenders. By the time, the squadron returned home, all the DINNs were destroyed, and fire raged across of what used to be the ZAFT base.
Like her instructor told her, there was no kill like an overkill.
1
A/N
1. Jormungadr is an example of ouroboros, a serpent that eats its own tail, symbolising a never-ending circle of life. When Jormungadr releases the tail that is in its mouth, Ragnarok, analogous to the end of the world, begins.
2. F-7D fighter should weight ~20 tonnes (figures based on F-35), compared to ~37 tonnes for a DINN (excluding external ammunition, equipment, etc.). While this mean that it wouldn't have any armor, properly kitted, the F-7D should have more range, speed, and service ceiling.
3. F-7D was developed before Operation Ouroboros, which means it should have the capability to engage ground target from a very high altitude, just like a F16 or F-35 can.
4. Normal antiair gun can shoot up to 15,000 feet. With an assumption that the MMI-M7S 76mm heavy assault machine gun a DINN carries could double as an antiair gun, it's reasonable to expect that the maximum range of engagement is around 15,000 feet. But the 6-tube multipurpose launcher and MMI-M100 190mm anti-aircraft shotgun would have a much shorter range due to their designs.
5. Spanish : Gaviota - seagull, Halcon - hawk