Chapter 30

CE 74, January 14th, Mannheim Base underground, Germany, Eurasian Federation

Afternoon 14 37

Ray Feric winced as the cell doors opened, harsh light from outside framing the officer than now stood in the doorway, flanked by four armed guards.

The officer crossed his arms. "Get up. We're shipping you out of this cozy little cell."

The past few days had seen Ray being beaten, slapped, pushed, and doused with water as the officers that had rapidly arrived on-site after the rebellion was crushed took their turns with him. They kept up with a barrage of similar questions; the Gulnahan data, his prior deployments, his relations with members of the former Sinai Base, his role in this rebellion.

He had given them the same answer across all questions: silence. They made sure to assure him, through their physical actions, that they were determined to prove that his lack of voice was not of ignorance, but of noncompliance.

Ray's sanity was kept intact by his reasoning that there was no answer that would have satisfied them. He did not know much of what Nain had kept in the data unit that he had held on up to now, he had no way to decrypt it, and he had zero contact with his former comrades since their split-up.

Not that that has ever stopped an interrogation, Ray thought wryly.

The soldiers dragged him outside the cell with all the subtlety of street thugs to where the officer was waiting; all of them wore the unit patch of the 81st.

As he was unceremoniously forced forward, rifle barrels digging into his bruised back with each deliberated poke, he passed by a similarly battered-looking Kaguya and her security contingent.

"Looking great, eh?" Ray managed.

"Same to you too, handsome," Kaguya replied.

Ray's ghost of a smirk vanished as the officer leading his contingent turned around to drive his fist into his stomach, leaving him doubled over and gasping for air. "Don't push your luck, filthy bastard. If you thought we were being gentle for the past few days, wait 'til when we get to Heaven's Base."

Beside him, Kaguya was similarly sent reeling by a blow from her contingent's leading officer, a tough-looking specimen whose glare could only be best described as "murderous". The officer clenched her left fist, dragging Kaguya's head up by her hair with her right. "You'll do well not to answer him. You have enough reasons on our list to die many times over - too bad we'll have to settle for less, since you can only die once. Don't worry, we'll stretch your endurance value for as long as we can."

Kaguya kept her gaze, but remained silent. The officer let go of Kaguya and motioned to both groups of accompanying soldiers. "Get them moving."

As the two prisoners were escorted from the prison cells underneath Mannheim Base to the surface, Ray took his chance to look around. Everywhere he turned, however, the emblem of the Atlantic Federation Expeditionary Forces kept intruding into his sight. A pair of soldiers were hotly debating missing medical gear and clothing from a new shipment as the contingent passed them by.

The few Eurasian Federation crew he could sight kept their eyes downcast; a few Atlantic Federation members who had been posted to Mannheim prior to the whole debacle behaved similarly, well aware that the unit patches on their uniform offered little protection from troops backed by the ideology of Blue Cosmos.

That the predominantly-Eurasian facility was now staffed by Atlantic replacements was something that churned Ray's stomach incessantly as the contingent finally made their way outside the base, the grey clouds common to this time of the year still dominating the skyscape. Cold winds struck Ray's face as the group made their way towards a line of heavy troop/cargo transport aircrafts, their engines running; Ray couldn't help but notice the escort squadron of Jet Windams a distance away, waiting for their turn to take off. Inside the aircraft, a few other soldiers were seated.

All around that he could see were the colours of the Atlantic Federation. It was becoming harder and harder to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut. As Ray boarded the leading troop transport and the rear bay doors of the aircraft closed, Ray felt the path to his future snap shut as well.

CE 74, January 14th, en-route to Heaven's Base, over Eurasian Federation continental airspace

Afternoon 15 37

Sheryl held her breath as she pinched her nose hard. Despite her full-set winter gear, her surroundings offered little to no insulation. At over ten thousand meters in the air, she was just a few Celsius short of sitting in a warehouse freezer as far as her body was concerned. She brushed past the field rebreather she had stolen, just in case; even through winter gloves, she could feel that the small oxygen tank attached to it was piercingly cold to the touch. One can was worth a half-hour of oxygen, 45 minutes if she stretched it by not doing any strenuous action.

Spare oxygen cans were stowed in a backpack now lying at her feet, as were her sparse extra clothing; she shuddered just thinking about touching the cans with her bare hands. Other items included a stolen ID card she had "liberated" from a passing crewmember whom she left tied up under a bed in an empty bunk, as well as a pistol and a submachinegun, both silenced and with two spare magazines respectively. The last two had been exceedingly harder to obtain than everything else.

Sheryl hoped that her bluff with Guy, when they both pretended to not care about being within earshot of their onetime prisoner to hear about their 'escape' from Mannheim towards the south, as well as their mobile suits sitting at the outskirts of the base, abandoned, was enough to throw any potential pursuers off their tracks for their chosen transport to take off. If not… Sheryl pushed the emergent thoughts out of her mind.

She glanced beside her where Guy was seated, dressed, and suffering similarly. "You're mad bonkers," she finally whispered, courtesy on a back seat in light of the absurdity of the whole situation. "If it turns out that this convoy is a branching flight and we end up in Laos or something..." her voice trailed off.

"So are you for following," Guy managed, his breath collecting in a wispy, misty cloud. "Besides, we triple-checked the manifesto we snatched. This whole shit train is bound for the lion's den."

"We couldn't pick one with people sharing space with cargo?" Sheryl managed through her breaths. "At least the heater would be on."

"Unless you'd like to be in a crate for the duration of the journey, no," Guy replied with difficulty, drawing a long breath before he continued. "You saw the contingent following them. I've stopped counting the number of times we were almost smoked, and that was just from hiding on a base that we're familiar with. I'd like to save some luck for when we actually reach Heaven's Base."

They were both silent for a moment, before Sheryl started chuckling. "Oh, Kim is going to be so jealous of us."

Guy joined in short order, their quiet mirth muffled by the shackled crates and boxes all around them. With the heater off in the cargo bay, there was little reason for the aircraft's crew to come around back unless they suspected that the lashings had come loose, in which case the stowaways were liable to be flattened before being found. Both Guy and Sheryl had settled themselves at the close end of the bay once the doors were sealed; unless the crew walked right up to the controls for the rear cargo doors, they would never be discovered.

CE 74, January 14th, Block B Supercomplex, Heaven's Base, Iceland, Atlantic Federation

Afternoon 19 29

As the hours passed, the two took turns to sleep as best as they could, acutely aware that the moment the plane touched down they would have to ready themselves for action. Both were awake as the transport landed along with its compatriot aircraft; wiping light frost from the viewports, Sheryl and Guy glazed upon a large airport lighted up and bustling with activity, servicing several heavy air transports at the same time, their aircraft being one of them. Guide haulers pulled heavy aircraft to and from service zones; Sheryl briefly glimpsed the silhouettes of an entire line of Jet Windams arrayed on the ground as the plane passed by them, too quickly for her to count them all.

The transport aircraft moved into an empty service zone; from the viewports, both of them could see hauler vehicles drive up towards the rear doors of their aircraft. Both of them moved towards the middle.

The aircraft's cargo bay lighted up as one of the crewmembers entered the bay and turned on a switch. Low-intensity orange light flooded the area, but to Sheyl and Guy's relief, the crew member did not do a full walking check, absolving them the need to play a dangerous game of visual chicken with the crewmember amongst the crates. Both of them heard a sneeze as the door linking the front cabin to the cargo bay slammed shut.

Saved by laziness, Guy thought.

Both of them kept an ear out for the moving patterns of the hauler drivers. As the cargo thinned out towards the middle, Guy and Sheryl moved themselves into a crate they had prepared hours earlier.

"I hope nobody finds the stuff we emptied out back at the warehouse in Mannheim," Sheryl whispered.

Guy could only shrug as both of them braced themselves against the interior of the crate; despite its relative size, it was still a tight fit for them. Their surroundings shook as the latest hauler to approach grasped the pallet that their batch of cargo was affixed to; in short order, both of them felt themselves moving down a ramp and across open ground. The whining intensified on two other occasions; Sheryl and Guy took those to be the other haulers of the cargo team passing theirs by.

Both of them sat still for a little while longer as they felt the cargo being placed on the ground; the receding whine of the hauler engine coming and going as they sat still. On the third time, both of them popped the side panel of their crate, emerging into the temporary storehouse of the service zone.

Quickly locating and moving through a service door, both of them emerged into the cavernous, connected interior of the service zone for the entire airbase in this section, abuzz with activity as crew and haulers catalogued, rearranged, and sent cargo to other sections of the base. They kept to the side as vehicles passed them by.

Their packs were lighter; both of them agreed that the rebreathers and their assorted spare cans were something they could afford to part with. Air transport was no longer an option; any outbound flight would be ordered to turn back once an alarm was raised and neither were confident that they could execute a silent rescue; not one that could last long, anyways. Threatening a flight crew would only end in interceptor flights shooting them down.

There were only two ways they could get off Heaven's Base; if it wasn't by sea, already a risky proposition by itself, they would have to smash their way out with mobile suits and head for the northern shores of Europe.

Both of them continued deeper into the base; the working crew spared them little attention. Passing through the interior service zone into an administrative one, the action was slightly less intense; there were fewer personnel around, but this just heightened Guy and Sheryl's sense of danger. Less action meant more opportunities for random soldiers to stop and make small talk. More interaction meant greater chance of discovery.

"We need to find a computer terminal," Sheryl whispered, as they rounded a corner into a empty corridor leading to closed office rooms and a dead end. "Without it, we won't even know which block of the base we're in, let alone where the prison block is."

Guy stopped to glance at the wall signs. "This is tough. Local terminals should be near barrack areas, but we're probably wandering around the administrative block for this part of the base right now." He looked around, first in the office, then, as he cracked a grin, peered over the corner. A moment of realization hit Sheryl as she saw his objective.

The key-keeper, a middle-aged lady with the rank of Master Sergeant manning the counter, looked up as a man and a woman approached. "I'm sorry, we're in a bit of a pickle here," Guy gestured towards one of the office rooms. "I'm new here and just moved in today, and I accidentally left my ID card here. I just want to sign out the key to Room A-2 so I can get my stuff."

"Too busy to sit down properly, eh?" the key-keeper replied. "And you, miss?"

"Oh, I'm just accompanying him," Sheryl said, putting up a broad, open smile. "They say that it's easier to tough through the food in a new base if you do it with a friend!"

The key-keeper smirked. "Oh, you'll find this place well-stocked, alright," she said, handing over the key for the office. "Put in your details here," the key-keeper added, pushing a large book onto the counter.

Guy filled in his false " details", finishing off with a signature, under a list of those that had taken keys for the day. Key in hand, Guy entered the office. "That should hold up for a day or two. Too bad these computers are no-go. The more places we have to detour too, the higher our odds are."

"Jay Reon," Sheryl said, chuckling as she read the name of the card out loud. "What is this, a cosmic comedy? He looks nothing like you though."

"Good enough, I'll tape a spare photo of my handsome mug over that face once we get some free time," Guy said, exiting the office.

Returning the key, the two of them set off again, trying as hard as they could to act natural. Both of them had been to many bases during their service term; then again, neither of them had been to a new base as an armed stowaway, possibly with a warrant out for them, with a stolen ID, and the threat of a possible fate worse than death hanging over them, should they fail.

Two hours later, both of them were huddled over a terminal in a recreation room. Sheryl sighed, inwardly cursing herself for jinxing their dinner; the taste of the vegetable stir-fry in the cafeteria was doing its best to remain in her mouth. There wasn't enough sauce; there wasn't enough variety, merely different colours of bell peppers and onions; and worst of all, the vegetables were cut in chunks too large to be cooked thoroughly without effort and now the remaining raw taste was a potent reminder of it all.

Shoving her thoughts into the back of her mind, she continued searching the map layout for the base. They had found detention blocks on the map and were hard at work marking them down; however, something else tugged at Sheryl's mind, namely that there were a lot of rooms marked for seemingly random and innocuous purposes.

She had confided with Guy, but in a public area with other soldiers around, there was little they could exchange without arousing suspicions. Nearing lights-out timing for the base's day shift members, the room was only just beginning to empty; night shift crew wouldn't dawdle in a recreation room with less than an hour to spare before going on-duty - Sheryl knew from experience that the night coffee break at the cafeteria would be of higher priority to most.

With her mind split three-way around her worry for Ray and Kaguya, the record-breaking taste of her recent dinner, and her own tension, she didn't notice the soldier behind her.

"For technicians, you guys are awfully hard at work memorizing the layout," a female voice said.

Sheryl started, putting all her willpower into not whirling around and drawing out the pistol she had from the holster underneath her military jacket. Turning around, she faced a woman who looked no older than herself, perhaps even younger; a mop of curly blonde hair kept short was arranged all over her head. Green eyes peered past Sheryl to regard the map with slight curiosity. Dressed in a blue shirt and black shorts, Sheryl recognized her wear as standard off-duty clothing for MS pilots.

"We need to be nimble. Logistics is a storm sometimes, and the more we know, the faster we get used to this base, the less time we spend asking for directions, and the less time spent for vital cargo in transit," Sheryl said, quickly priming her psyche for small talk. "You're a pilot?"

"2nd Lieutenant Linda Calis, 71st Armored Tactics Battalion, 295th Squadron Machete," Linda replied cheerfully. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, um..."

"Just call me Jane," Sheryl said, discretely shifting her body to keep the nametag on her uniform as hidden as possible, her mind tugging at a sense of familiarity with Linda's name.

"Miss Jane!" Linda cheerfully finished. "Pleased to meet you. "

Shaking her hand, Sheryl's mind finally made the connection - she had the same last name as the battalion commander they had fought in Mannheim, Major Vienna Calis. Fighting the urge to throw off Linda, she turned away from her computer; hopefully this self-sacrificial distraction would give Guy more leeway in his searches. "You're a newcomer here as well?"

"Just made the transfer two days ago," Linda replied cheerfully. "It's quite a honor to be serving at the HQ of OMNI!"

Does she not know? Sheryl thought, moments later correcting her own train of thought. She had been with Ray and reading in-between the lines for so long that she had forgotten what it was like to be a fresh officer; very few of them knew of the undercurrent of power that Blue Cosmos held over their military. The bigotry of their supporters usually remained hidden from the rank-and-file unless they had their targets in sight; if Linda had been a new pilot, it would be natural that she would only see the posting to Heaven's Base, now the new joint HQ of OMNI, as a top-class honor.

Deciding to go big or go home, Sheryl pressed on. "Those pilot wings of yours must have been tough to earn."

Linda smiled. "Oh, not at all. I just did what I had to do. But there was this time during training, when I was on an aggressor team, that I..."

The next hour to lights-out timing passed in a flash, with Linda gushing enthusiastically about her past training and Sheryl keeping up a semblance of interest. Sometime within, Sheryl introduced Guy as simply "Jay"; Linda greeted him with the same enthusiasm. The two continued their chatting until Linda remembered to look at her watch.

As Linda parted with Sheryl, Guy took a moment to glance in her direction for the first time since the young pilot had approached them.

"So?" Sheryl asked. "What do you have?"

"Nothing more than yours," Guy replied. "We have places to check, but I doubt that we'll actually find anything in short order. What about you?"

"Me?" Sheryl said.

"She's the sister of that Major whose troops we fought against back then, isn't it?" Guy said, packing in the scraps of paper he used for notes. "You nearly came to blows with Major Calis, yet you made such ambient conversation with Linda; and so easily, at that."

Sheryl sighed. "Ray made it clear that she wasn't to be blamed, as much as I think he's being soft on a former acquaintance. Besides, her sister has got nothing to do with this. To top it off, she's so ignorant of her current state of affairs that it hurts to just look at her." Sheryl got off her chair. "She's like the bunch of nuggets we left back in Mannheim. At least, from her countenance, I'll say it's highly unlikely that Major Calis is dead. Or maybe the news hasn't reached her yet."

"Good for her, but she's gonna have to fend for herself when the time comes," Guy said. "And we won't want to be staying long."

"We're starting the search now?" Sheryl asked, as they moved out of the recreation room.

"Better get the disappointment out of the way," Guy replied. "I have a feeling our search will largely be fruitless."

CE 74, January 15th, Block C Supercomplex, Heaven's Base, Iceland, Atlantic Federation

Morning 05 57

Sheryl woke with a start, her hands reaching for her concealed pistol. Glancing to her side, she saw Guy, still awake; they exchanged looks, then prepared to move off.

The both of them had taken refuge in the second level of a storage block building, on an open-air corridor and out of sight of the patrolling guards below or any cameras they could see. Out in the open, only their winter wear gave them any respite at all. They had taken two-hour sentry shifts, with Guy on the last watch before sunrise.

Their search had been fruitless. The "prison cells" were little more than the brig for those who had committed minor offences; each segment had a list of current occupants, thankfully saving them the trouble of a dedicated search, and one supervisor, but the holding cells were almost always empty. Their search had brought them to Block C; Sheryl gave a small thanks that Block A was entirely devoted to administration.

Still, at their current rate of search, the ID card they kept on hand for getting through hallway doors and access to the public terminals would quickly oust them as intruders once people started noticing their "Jay Reon" being in two places at once - and that was assuming that the reports of a lost ID card would not set off a far bigger response than they anticipated. They had to complete Block D, E, and F within the next two days, or their chances of being discovered would rise dramatically - and if they dragged time all the way to when their victim got a replacement card, then the gig was as good as up.

Unfortunately, day restricted their access; Guy and Sheryl spent most of it pretending to be working, moving in-between segments of Block C, occasionally alone, occasionally together. The toilets turned out to be a fortuitous place to hide; smell aside, nobody would stay long enough to suspect a closed stall where one of them could catch some shut-eye in, and one or two occupied cubicles for baths at odd hours were masked by the presence of a sizable night shift in Heaven's Base. The sheer number of personnel moving about made it easy for Guy and Sheryl to blend in effortlessly during meal hours, and with technician uniforms, they were able to present a visual excuse for their wide-ranging movements.

Despite their successful deceit, the search was a different story. The second night turned out to be as fruitless as the first. Sheryl awoke to their third day, taking the last sentry shift; she watched the sun rise over a snow-covered landscape of concrete and the mountains that framed the base's rear, the life-giving star of the Sol System apathetic to the precarious situation the two OMNI renegades were trapped in.

CE 74, January 16th, Block D Supercomplex, Heaven's Base, Iceland, Atlantic Federation

Night 21 11

Their tight schedule in clothing was one issue, but Sheryl could take mildly-damp wear from a quick and furtive wash-and-spin in a far-off corner bunk's toiletry facilities far better than lousy food, an example of which she was now looking at, Guy seated opposite her in the main cafeteria hall of Block D of Heaven's Base.

"The cafeterias in all the blocks seriously need to buck up, they're as terrible as each other," Sheryl groused. "How can you screw up fried chicken?! Toss the bird bits into hot oil, it practically cooks itself! Just check the time!" She huffed again. "I never want to taste meat that dry ever again."

"At least we're not scarfing down combat rations," Guy replied. "Not like we'll be able to get any without raising suspicions or stealing and getting caught."

"At this point those shitty rations might be a better option," Sheryl snapped. "I swear, if we stay long enough to see them mess up an omelette, I'll just steal an MS and burn the whole place down."

"Well, you better hope we get lucky this time around then," Guy said. "We're going to reach the server hub room soon."

Their location was a pointed decision they made together; it had rapidly become clear that neither Kaguya nor Ray would simply be tossed into a cell block in any mere brig or detention barracks. The only likely explanation was that there was a segment, or several, of the base that was kept hidden - and by getting into a server room, even just a secondary one, Guy and Sheryl hoped to gain access to information that would never have been intended for the light of day otherwise; Sheryl hoped that obtaining a password would come more easily than they both expected, but if push came to shove, she would be ready to snag someone they could threaten.

Both of them rounded a corner into a dead-ended corridor to catch sight of something that they would have never imagined seeing - an OMNI security trooper had already opened the server room door and was about to enter. For a brief moment, time seemingly froze as the two parties stared at each other.

Sheryl was the first to draw, the barrel of her silenced pistol up before the trooper even got his front leg through the server door. "Don't move," she warned. "I want an explanation for this."

The last thing she expected was for the soldier to grin. "So do I. Do you know how much extra work the two of you have given me? Although this at least saves me the trouble of setting up an encounter."

Sheryl maintained her aim. "Odd of you to be expecting us."

"I didn't. Not at first, anyways." The trooper replied. "But if you think a stolen card could have lasted you this long, you're sorely mistaken."

The trooper nodded towards the entrance of the server room. "I've tweaked the schedules to ensure that no one would have a reason to round this corner for the next couple of hours. The camera feeds are frozen as well. What say we get in and continue our casual talk?"

"Seems like none of us are what we're supposed to be," Guy said; weapon in hand, he gestured at the server room. "Very well; I think it's prudent that we continue our discussion inside."

Sheryl advanced, placing herself behind the man. Reliving him of his rifle and throwing it to Guy, she nudged him forward. "You first. Twitch the wrong way and I'll coat the server racks with your brains.

The soldier stepped into the room, Sheryl following close behind. Guy glanced up and down the corridor once, straining to hear anything; sufficiently satisfied that no one was watching, he stepped through the doorway as well, and closed the doors. There was a mechanical click as the door locked itself as an automatic precaution, rendering it inaccessible to any inappropriately-authorized outsiders.

"So you've been meddling with our stolen access records since the first day?" Sheryl asked.

"The first day was when they found out," the trooper replied. "Thankfully, I caught wind of the incident and "made it my business", so to say, before it could be given to someone else. You really think they wouldn't have a unified keycard access record?"

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend, or so it goes," Guy said, regarding the soldier in the dim, soft blue lighting of the room with a cautious glare. "So you've been fudging records in our favour?"

"If I let you run up an alarm, the whole base will tighten up security." the soldier said. "A moment of hard work is little compared to the troubles I'd be saddled with if the two of you get caught." He paused to eye the two of them. "I think I deserve to know your story, at least."

"Suffice to say we're OMNI still," Sheryl replied. "But we'll start with your story first or we'll start with none at all."

The soldier shrugged. "Not much of a choice if you put it that way." He paused for a moment. "What do you people know about Blue Cosmos?"

Sheryl made a sound of discontent, but said nothing. She glanced at Guy, who shook his head once.

"Far more than we're comfortable with knowing," Guy replied. "Odd question to be coming from someone stationed in their stronghold."

"Good, good," the soldier replied. "That's what I want to hear. You'll need new ID cards and a more permanent place of lodging, yes?"

"How did you-" Sheryl started.

"Well, I don't know how you guys sneaked into here, at least, although I can guess," the soldier replied. "But if recent restricted records are of any indication, I can better tell what you're here for. Forget scouring the detention barracks, you won't find anything. What they have is hidden far more deeper than the vast majority of the people on this base know of."

"You seem to know more than them, at least," Guy said. "Hell, you seem to know more than us."

"If anything, we're here for a common goal," the soldier replied. "So can I at least turn around?"

Sheryl stepped back. "Go on."

The soldier turned, pulling off his helmet at the same time. Light blonde hair that curled on their ends framed his head, and his blue eyes moved back and forth. "To whom does a mere trooper owe the pleasure of speaking to? Or maybe you'd like to keep the paper-bag name disguises up for the time being?"

"Trooper, huh? I think "spy" is a better fit." Sheryl said. "This is the heart of OMNI now, black as it may be, and ZAFT has no need to put spies around. Maybe you're from Orb."

"We'll hold for now," Guy interjected. "Elaborate on what you said previously."

"Well, for starters, trying to break people out now is suicide," the soldier replied. "Empty outbound flights are aplenty, but you'll never make it past security even if you manage to break into their hidden areas."

The soldier leaned forward, typing on a nearby control terminal. "You're looking for this."

Sheryl and Guy took in the sight; a schematic of a linked underground complex below Blocks B and D.

"So that's their torture dungeon," Sheryl whispered. She turned to look at the soldier. "You must have a pretty good idea of their security if you're telling us the bad news off the bat."

"It's not pretty," the soldier replied. "Which is why it is imperative that I share data with the two of you, unknown as you are to me even now. If you guys get caught now, it will be far harder for me to seize any opportunities in the future."

"What do you suggest we do?" Guy asked.

"Live on this base as actual personnel," the soldier replied. "I can get you the minimum to blend in. When the chance comes, we'll bust out, hopefully with minimal trouble."

"So we sit here and wait for a diversion to do our job for us?" Sheryl asked. "Shit, they could be doing all sorts of things to the prisoners below-"

"They aren't," the soldier replied. "Blue Cosmos... learnt, from the last war, that permanently injuring their captives during physical torture will give them nothing. They will, however, play pain games to hell and back. Whatever sensitive data you might have wanted to keep under wraps, you might want to consider it gone."

"Will they still be sane after all that?" Sheryl said.

"That depends," the soldier replied. "I know my target probably will, at least."

"I suppose this will have to do," Guy replied. "What an unlikely alliance to make tonight."

"It may well prove to be the only tenable alliance left on this planet," the soldier replied grimly.

Afterword:

"!"

*cue original Metal Gear encounter theme*

While the previous chapters tied the Manhunters in to region-wide instances, this chapter returns them to more close-in encounters. In-series the Berlin attack was regarded as the tipping point; I hope to with this new arc present the continuing journey of the Manhunters, as well as some of the evolving military situation as "on the side" plot that would eventually lead to the Heaven's Base attack, from what is at least an attempt at an OMNI/Earth Alliance POV.