(Phase 04: Water Dragons, Waffling, and a BDU)
The disarming humility that the four from ZAFT had showed was certainly not expected by the Archangel staff, and was even less expected by Natarle. It was almost as obvious as a coal pile on the launch deck that she was looking for some ungodly excuse to throw all four of them in the brig and be done with them. Except, either despite their ZAFT origin or because of it (take your guess), they were very helpful with maintenance on the ship and the mobile weapons. That much had earned them some tepid respect from the known dissenters; most everyone else didn't care or were kind of amused by the matter.
Even the three girls had decided to throw in as well as ride along. Despite their unfamiliarity with warship systems, they were still trying desperately to help to repay the transit, as if anyone wanted to bill the three people most likely to be their saviors. The admonition that the possible Magic Knights would be drawn from the three girls, the four ZAFT pilots, and the Earth Alliance personnel left a lot of open territory…and a lot of betting. Strangely enough, in the lead was the 'leader' of the ZAFT pilots, followed by Kira, the three girls (the order depended on who you asked), the Blitz Pilot (Nicol) and Mu La Flaga.
And then there was Mokona. And the three girls themselves.
"You say so." Nicol retorts rather acidly to Dearka's latest jibes. After the door closed, he sighed. "They really need to grow up."
"Something up?"
"Oh, hi Kira. Just…a difference of opinions with Dearka and Yzak. What're you up to?"
There was a bit of hesitation in his demeanor, as well as a partial grimace. "Oh, Murrue asked me to the Hangar for some reason. You up to something?"
"Yeah, the chief mechanic…what's his name?"
"Murdoch. Good guy."
"Well, he wants me down in the bay to do a movement and articulation test on the Blitz."
"Oh, okay, well c'mon then." Kira leads the way down to the bay, though Nicol could tell they were being followed (stalked would be more appropriate).
It was only two bends from the ZAFT Pilot quarters to the hangar. Right now, there were about twenty mechanics on hand, the mysterious girl that hangs all over Kira was up on one of the catwalks, hanging out with one of the bridge personnel and the three girls from Tokyo. And then there was the Captain here as well.
"Kira, glad you came as well." Murrue nods to the pilot of the Strike. "I need you to set up the Strike on the starboard catapult. You're on alert until further notice." Something about her tone set off a major red flag in Nicol's mind, likely as well in Kira's mind. "Here," and she passes him a small radio, likely only good for a few hundred meters, "I don't care if you're in the crapper, you're on alert at all times, clear, Ensign?" Nicol knew there was something afoot, as Murrue almost never called Kira by his rank. "Nicol, right?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"Murdoch wants you for something. Over there." Her physical indication was at the legs of the Blitz, unsurprisingly.
"Understood, thank you, ma'am." Nicol moves over to the mechanic, who was doing some last-minute adjustments inside the left leg of his Gundam. They still had the IMMs and IPCs (1) for the four captured Gundams, and could easily do maintenance on them from available stores. Any gaps or ZAFT mods the pilots helped out with.
"Hey, kid, nothin' to it today, just take 'er down the bay and back, and test out the arms articulation to make sure we got everything reconnected right." Despite the ease of the maintenance routine, this was the first time that Nicol would sortie the Blitz since that day. The Mechanic had also gone up with him on the man-lift. Like usual, Nicol got in and strapped himself in as proper, despite being without a pilot suit right now. "The OS calibrations are right, right?"
"I dunno, yet. Give me a moment to fire it up." Nicol begins throwing switches, which activated the main modules of the Blitz, except for the targeting and tracking systems. "Okay, everything looks green from here. I'll have to do some pinpoint drills to verify everything."
"Listen, kid, and don't speak. The cap'n knows shit's gonna go down. In your seat is a pistol. Sneak it back to yer quarters and keep it on ya. Most the BC pricks were killed when you guys hit Heliopolis, but not all. The others will get a piece as well. Just be ready. Kira'll relay anything else. Now get to it, we ain't got all day, we gotta check out all five machines before our next mission." The last sentence was a bit slower and louder than the first.
"All right, stand back, I'm gonna seal the cockpit." Nicol says. He knew the layout of the inside of his own Gundam intimately, and so far he could not see anything inside the cockpit that was not supposed to be there. He also called up a special ESM program that checked his suit out passively for transmitted electronic waves, and it returned no results. He was completely stealthed, except for the fact that Mirage Colloid was not turned on. He flicks his external speakers on. "All right, all personnel stand clear of main taxiway," which was warning to get out of the yellow striped zones so he could walk. They did as ordered, and his Gundam's eyes flicked blue as he began to take the first step.
While walking, he did a full range of arm motion checks as well as looked back and forth with the head of his Gundam, to verify that all the actuators were working properly and his optical systems were in good condition. He did note that Trikeros, the weapon shield of his Gundam, as well as Gleipnir, were missing but he had a full load of Vulcan ammo. 75mm rounds with 3 AP slugs, 1 HEAP slug, and 1 Tracer per five rounds. "Control, this is Blitz in Hangar, over."
"Blitz, control, how's your machine looking?" If anything, the Mobile Suit controller had turned out to be an incredibly civil person, especially when Kira let on that the three ZAFT pilots were friends of his friend, Athrun.
"I've tested everything short of Trikeros, Gleipnir, and my CIWS; everything appears to be nominal. Which brings me to my question, any way I can talk you guys into opening one of the launch hatches so I can test my Vulcans on a random tree? If I can calibrate for my Vulcans, the rest should follow or be close enough."
"Roger that, wait one." The link goes into 'hold' mode. "Blitz, you are authorized by the Captain on the port-side catapult. We're over a light forest right now, so finding a good target should not be hard, over."
He was standing in front of the door when it opened. There wasn't really much of an escape hazard to begin with, since Nicol wouldn't abandon his friends and he only had the Vulcans anyway. Without Trikeros, he was little more than a target and everyone knew it. And he would not risk having his friends screwed by his attempting to flee.
As he looked over the edge of the leg, he saw what she meant by light forest. There were trees everywhere; he put his sights on one in the distance, and waited until it was in range, then rattled off ten from each side. The slugs went wide left, shredding a tree three away from what he was intending, but even a miss was an impressive feat in the end. "Well, that tree was not the one I was targeting."
"Understood. Recalibrate and try again," Miriallia says in a bored fashion. Nicol entered several shell commands and the sights recalibrated to a new deflection and azimuth, even though there was no visible change on his screen.
"Stand by, firing in three." After three seconds, Nicol puts another score of rounds downrange, and this time the pattern was centered on the tree he aimed at but they were scattered badly. "Well, it's an improvement, but the gun's stabilizers aren't working."
"Is that going to be a problem?" Miriallia asks.
"Well, it might be nice to actually hit what I aim at if I have to fight."
"Understood, Blitz. Rack it and report your issue to the mechanics."
"Roger, Ops. Blitz is clear of port launch deck."
Nicol walks his Gundam back to the bay he was assigned, though the girls had followed him from the catwalks and watched what he did. Nicol still couldn't help but feel a bit strange about them all, especially since they were genuinely nice people dropped into a genuinely bad situation. That even applied to the remainder of the crew of the Archangel, though he figured he had a couple pegged that seemed like Blue Cosmos supporters. As he parked it, he came to the conclusion that the outcome of the war would likely not have been in the Zala Team favor, much less in ZAFT's favor. It was not that the ship was lethally competent, per se, but the drive they had to live was well beyond what one would normally expect, and this was combined with some very creative thinkers and do-ers in their ranks. It only took Nicol about five minutes to come to the conclusion that Kira was incredibly driven; Athrun had been right, when he put his mind to it, kiss your arse goodbye. And he was very easily underestimated because when he wasn't acting driven, he was doing the classic airhead routine, up to and including spacing out at random.
Nicol had to admit, he wasn't far behind in the airhead department. In his combination reverie of understanding Kira and staring at the girls, he had managed to walk his Gundam backwards into the bulkhead, which was a helluva rude shock to him. To compound the embarrassment, at least three of the girls had a good laugh at his mistake.
"Hey, pilot, what're you doing?" Murdoch asks on the radio.
"I haven't figured that out myself." More laughing from the girls in the distance; Nicol could just barely make out a radio in Umi's right hand. He takes one step forward and then takes the zip-line down to the floor. "Well I didn't hit the bulkhead hard enough to cause damage, but the only issue I still have is the stabilizers on the Vulcans are not working. Four hundred meters, CEP of half." (2)
"Holy. That's bad. I'll get two on it right now." Murdoch had a very shrill whistle when he needed it, and he used it. He gave a hand signal for two, and two of the techs got off the Lightning Striker pack and came toward. "You two, work over the Vulcan Stabilizers on the Blitz. The Lightning Striker can wait."
"Yessir."
"Everything else all right?"
"All is in order." Nicol says, which definitely didn't count as his normal phrasing, which told Murdoch that he had the pistol spirited away in his clothes somewhere. Murdoch couldn't tell offhand, so he wasn't too worried about his ability to conceal.
"Man, what is this all about?" Yzak asks abruptly as Nicol began to walk toward the hatch out.
"All right, hotshot. Here's the copy Kira made of your old OS, get it set up and prepare for a move test." Murdoch, as he did with Nicol, followed Yzak up to the cockpit.
Murdoch was reasonably sure that nobody had tampered with the cockpits and bugged them, because his personnel had kept an almost continuous eye on them, unless one of his guys was a mole…
-x-x-x-
The bridge personnel were taking a rather amused tact about the puff-ball called Mokona, who was bouncing from console to console, observing what each person was doing. The only person that took exception to it was Natarle, who shooed it away rather coldly. Mokona simply didn't go near Natarle's station again. In contrast, Mokona seemed to take a favor to Miriallia and even some to the drama queen of the ship, Flay.
Umi was on the bridge at present, and quite amazed by the view out the forward windows. She was even more amazed that such a massive warship could exist; it beat the hell out of anything in a science-fiction show she'd ever seen, with the possible exception of Star Trek. She didn't watch too much of that show, since it seemed past the point of ludicrous, but she did know the ship was amazing. The catch was the Enterprise was not capable of flying through the atmosphere; the Archangel was.
Mokona passed on to Umi that they were near their destination, and indicated that it was underwater. Umi relayed this to Murrue, who brought the ship to a stop about 100 meters away from the cliff edge. She could have sworn that something felt like an ambush…
"So, what's the oplan, Captain?" Natarle's tone indicated to the whole of the bridge that she thought the matter was bullshit, regardless of what she had heard and regardless of the statue that was secured in the hangar right now.
Kiss my ass, Natarle, Murrue thought but did not say out loud. It would have shocked her to know that just about everyone on the bridge, including Mokona and Umi, had the same thought. Natarle had not earned any brownie points with the crew at large over the preceding four days, and probably succeeded in digging herself a good rut for general purposes (read: replacement for a normal grave). Whether or not she realized this was in doubt.
"Miss Umi, I gather the shrine is underwater from Mokona's pointing?" Murrue asks.
"Yes, it seems so."
"Very well." She picks up the ship intercom phone. "Attention all hands, this is Captain Ramius. We have arrived at the first of the locations for the Rune Gods. All pilots and the three Lady Knights are to report to the pilot's briefing room in ten minutes. Quartermaster personnel are to break out infantry gear for ten persons and load mags. Thirty minutes to deploy. That is all."
The derived term Lady Knights had actually perked up from the enlisted ranks to the status of general use in the past two days, since the matter of who was and was not a Magic Knight was still up in the air. It was fitting, really, as Hikaru, Fuu, and Umi were the perfect showing of what it meant to be a knight: honorable, reserved, dutiful, willing to do the right thing at the cost of their own lives. It reminded Murrue a lot of Kira and Athrun, actually, despite their incessant arguing about procedure.
And betting was still running in Kira's favor, but only marginally.
They would find out as to who is the first of the three in very short order, or if they needed to find someone else on this miserable planet. Murrue was desperately beginning to hope the former, since she doubted she would have the heart to search for the personnel in question. And Natarle would not stomach such a search even in Murrue's wildest dreams; any such attempt would incite an almost-instantaneous mutiny.
Murrue was first in the briefing room, giving her enough time to set up a pot of coffee for the caffeine freaks in her ranks (herself, Mu, Athrun, Dearka). There was a ship's electrician working on one of the outlets in the room; it was known to be a pain in the ass when trying to use demonstration equipment, so Murrue ignored him politely while mentally going over what she wanted to say.
Mu was first in the room, and availed himself of a cup of coffee. As was customary for their briefings, he took a seat in the middle of the room, directly across from her podium. By her reckoning, it only took about ten seconds: "You're thinking something."
"Do you think I'm crazy, doing all this just on the off-chance that we can get home, or on the off-chance that not doing anything could kill us?"
"Better we do something and find out we screwed up, than do nothing and find out that was a screwup." The next entrant says, being Athrun. He was quickly followed by Yzak, Nicol, and Dearka, all in their pilot suits and ready. Kira was not far behind them, and the Lady Knights were the last in, just a moment after Tolle, who was also in his pilot suit. Given Murrue releasing the Gundams back to their initial pilots, Tolle and Mu had been demoted back to the Skygraspers. In the end, they would probably be needed; the concept of fire support was something the Lady Knights did not quite grasp yet, but they would come to like having friends in high places…
"All right, everyone, let's get settled in," Murrue requests, and the room becomes eerily silent. "First off, in response to the very frequent monster attacks we've had over the past few days and the possibility that Zagato may send another lackey to try and sink our ship, I am going to have the Gundams on a deck guard pattern. Kira's machine will always be on standby on the starboard catapult until further notice, and that is 24/7 until I say otherwise. The four ZAFT Gundams will institute a pattern by which one of you will be on the foredeck at all times, two of you on duty per 12 hours, trading duty on the deck every two hours. Clear?"
"Yes, ma'am!" Yzak says. The prospect of actually being able to see the outside world was almost enthralling to the four pilots from ZAFT.
"When your partner for that 12 is on the deck, you are to be within one minute of your Gundam, basically on alert status." The ZAFT officers had no issue with that, since the Laurasia-class ships followed the same principles for deploy duty. "Other than that, you guys are allowed usual crew restrictions and activity in the ship proper. You are not limited to your quarters, after all."
"Any questions?"
"Yeah, if the last is true, why did the Lieutenant Commander order us confined to quarters?"
"Good question. I'll have to take this issue up with her." Murrue notes rather coldly. It was then that the electrician, after having reassembled the electrical outlet, left the room with a sharp salute to the Captain.
Kira gave a hand gesture that signaled that Murrue should 'cut it off'. Murrue nodded acknowledgement.
"All right, now that that is settled, we'll get down to the real deal for the day. Mokona has confirmed that we are nearby the first of the shrines. It is underwater, somewhere off shore in this area." Murrue had a rather crude computer-generated map of the area to show them where it was, though nobody was expecting GPS coordinates for the target area.
"Thankfully, this ship can operate underwater, so we'll be all right going below to get to it. If we can, we'll land the ship in the Shrine and go it on foot, but if we can't land in the facility we will have to go in with just the Gundams. If that is the case, we will deploy all five Gundams, and you guys can sort out who carries who along for the tour. And I am going to say this once and only once," and Murrue's expression quite clearly told them to stay silent, "Natarle will be going with and has command on the ground. Clear?"
"Crystal clear, ma'am." Yzak says through gritted teeth.
"All right, you have your orders. Draw arms from the quartermaster, partner up, and…and may all of you come back alive."
"Attention!" Mu half-shouts as everyone bolts to their feet and salutes the Captain, including the Lady Knights.
"Dismissed." Murrue says as she returns the salute.
-x-x-x-
Athrun was leading off right now, since he had Hikaru and Mokona in his Gundam. Natarle was in the Strike, Fuu was in the Blitz (and Nicol had said precisely nothing since they boarded), Tolle was in the Buster, and Umi (much to both their consternation) was in the Duel. They had come upon the location of the shrine; it was just about ten meters too small to fit the Archangel in, and they would not chance damaging the facility, so the Archangel had fallen back and launched the Gundam team to do the journeying.
Yzak had to admit that the fact that they all had guns (except the girls, who had magic) would mean that if Natarle tried anything while they were OAA, she would get mulched. Period. And Yzak wasn't above dropping the hammer on someone that was only notionally an ally, especially if she gave him enough cause to. He even had an EA G59 Assault Rifle to use on her if needed. He had asked for an anti-tank rocket, but no…
The demarc between the ocean and the shrine was quite spectacular, a wall of water kept outside the shrine by some invisible and otherwise permeable force, likely magic. That included the water in Yzak's canteen, as when he opened it after landing and kneeling his Gundam it was bone dry. He slung the empty canteen aside and listened to it bounce into the small gap behind his chair, and only then did he notice the disapproving look from Umi. "What?" Yzak asks defensively, but not with hostility. Without answering, she looks away.
"All right, break it down and start searching." Natarle notes over the open radio frequency. All five of the cockpits open up at relatively the same time and ten persons plus one puff-ball hit the ground. In a move not calculated to make Natarle feel any better about her Captain's orders and policy, Dearka, Yzak, Tolle, Kira, and Athrun all load their rifles, yank back on the bolt to arm them, and lock the safety on. Natarle, after hearing the echoing sounds of five assault rifles being loaded at once, adjusts herself into the combat sling on her own assault rifle, trying to not look too nervous; she knew she was one lamb standing in the middle of a pride of lions, and the only thing saving her arse from 'ventilation' was a thin, unspoken order not to.
Yzak followed in the direction that Umi was going, Nicol, Tolle, and Dearka had gone with Fuu headed toward the north half of the chamber, leaving Mokona, Hikaru, Athrun, Kira, and Natarle to form a third group and go south. The three groups diverged, and soon not even footsteps could be heard from the others.
"One question, Athrun," Kira prompts.
"Sure."
"Why'd you get involved?"
The answer only took a second, likely as Athrun had to decipher the true bent of the question. "My mother was on Junius Seven when it was…hit."
"Oh. Sorry."
"Then the drive to stop the Archangel just became worse and worse as events happened. My best friend through the academy, Rusty, was killed by one of the guards on the Strike. When you took it over, two of the GINN units you took down were also close friends of mine: Olor and Miguel. Then that insane trek through Artemis, the Seventh Fleet, the Waltfeld Team, the Morrasim Team, then outside Aube, you and that ship have blazed a trail through some of ZAFT's best. Thus, they sent ZAFT's best to stop you. And even we failed." There was a tone of grim humor to his voice on the last note. "Though, after all is said and done I think we all lost on this one, the three Lady Knights more than the rest of us."
"Huh? What do you mean?" Hikaru asks.
"You said you were on a field trip to Tokyo Tower for your school classes before this happened to you. I'm having enough of a problem dealing with this, and I'm a trained soldier. I couldn't begin to imagine what it's like being torn from a normal urban life and dropped somewhere out in a screwed up wilderness on a totally different world."
"I'm doing all right with it…I think." Hikaru had to stop and think about that one.
"Think about it, Hikaru. All of us are doing 'all right'. We've got the basics: food, water, shelter, protection, and someone to watch our backs. Except, 'doing well' is a long way off for us all, much less 'at home' or 'comfortable'."
"Yeah, I guess you're right. I never really thought of it that way."
"It's easy enough to forget that;" Natarle says, "Where we are when compared to where we want to be."
"Where do you want to be, Lieutenant Commander?"
"Home, really, to see the lake that I grew up next to would be nice." She sighs. "For now, I'll settle for anywhere where I'm not at risk for a quick and strange demise."
A tortured roar drew attention back toward the centerline of the chamber, followed by a three-round burst of assault rifle. Without any words spoken, Hikaru drew her sword from the glove on her left arm, and the three military personnel shouldered their weapons and took general aim in the direction of the threat. Their movements were silent, slow, considered, every step they swept back and forth over the sights of the rifles, their movements flowing from one pillar to the next.
More screaming, more shots. This time, from echo patterns they could tell more rifles were now in play, as well as what appeared to be a magic chant from Fuu. A loud roar, and a sound of heavy winds came through the chamber; a burst of rifle rounds, one of the shots striking a column and embedding itself into, with maybe six inches clearance from Kira's head.
"Kira, Athrun, move left and inward. But be careful, don't get into a crossfire situation." Natarle gestures for their axis of advance, and they do so silently. Natarle went mostly straight toward the centroid of the roaring sound, helped by the fact that the enemy in question appeared to have a glowing green gem in its forehead. As they got closer, they could begin to tell more details, like it was about as tall as one of their Gundams, carried a buckler (3) bigger than they were tall, and could smash one of the columns in the room with just one strike.
Natarle was the first from her group to shoot, putting a three round burst into its head. Even with armor-piercing ammunition, she got no notable result except a dirty look from the tango. The tango refocused on her, followed by the blast of wind attack that sprawled Natarle out, knocked Athrun backwards into a column, put Hikaru on her back, and caused Kira to have to center himself behind a column.
Fire came in from the left, near the center walkway that Yzak and Umi had gone down, and again the enemy was just too large, too thick for even .30-caliber armor piercing ammunition to work right, but it got the enemy to shift aimpoint. That accomplished, Natarle could stand up and reassess the situation, and change her plan. "Kira, Athrun!" She shouts over the echoing of assault rifles.
"Yeah?" Kira shouts back as he centers his sights…
"Catch!" Natarle throws an object to each of the pilots…
"Holy shit!" Athrun had caught it, a Mk.27 fragmentation grenade. Kira caught the same a moment later.
"Toss 'em under that thing at the same time!" She shifts to her right, looking away from the pilots. "Hikaru, when the monster hits the ground, run in and strike that glowing gem with your sword!"
"Right!"
"Athrun, Kira, do it!" They nod, release the safety clips on the 'nades, pull the prototypical safety pin, and ready. Athrun nods to Kira, and they both throw the grenades out at the same time, bouncing once and skidding to a stop right between its legs.
"FRAG OUT!" Natarle shouts and makes damn sure she was covered behind the column. In the moment thereafter she could faintly hear Fuu in the distance squealing, likely as one of the pilots pulled her to safety.
It only took two seconds. The sound of the explosion was beyond deafening, being inside a closed space, it was painful. They could feel the ground shake as the monster went to both knees, now unable to stand properly because of the fragments lanced up and down the insides of its legs and crotch. There were some cheers from the pilots, but now it was time for Hikaru to act, who did. She charged in before the monster could regain its composure and slashed the gem.
Bypassing Natarle's belief that this magic shit was bullshit, the results of the attack on the gem were impossible to ignore. After being fractured by Hikaru, it shattered and revealed a person that looked about ten years old…maybe. Natarle was not quite sure how young he was supposed to be, especially given that he had complete control over the monster while in that gem…
"Damn you! You injured my friend!" Yep, sounds like a little kid, as well, and thinks like one. Natarle ceased being impressed, now just disgusted. Who would count a monster like that as a friend, and who would wager their 'friend' in battle? "C'mon! Get up! You have to—wah!" The midget bolts back as the Monster stands up on bleeding legs, gives a massive roar, and charges for a set of massive doors. Several shots rung out, but it doesn't stop, instead punching into the door without reserve; Natarle could hear the door straining but slowly failing. With a shoulder smash it was inside the chamber, and so were the other personnel, ahead of it.
The monster had stopped, to stare at the same thing that Natarle had. After the fact, she had to admit that the Pilot's discipline was greater than hers in this situation. "Guard the Knight! Final Protective Fire!" Yzak shouts, crouches down, centers his assault rifle on the head of the enemy, and starts firing. The others with assault rifles weren't far behind. In response to the ordinance overload, the monster swept-kicked them all, scattering the loose semi-circle in four different directions and injuring each rather badly.
"I won't!" Umi charges forward, toward the monster; "If it means I have to give up my friends, I don't need a Rune God!" She was standing between the monster and the scattered warriors, her sword held in classic fencing forward guard and aimed right at the center of the monster's chest. It reared back to punch her…
"Young lady from another world, thou hast proven unto me the strength of thine heart, the heart that cares for thine comrades. I shall now show unto you my true form." The blinding blue-white flash from behind the group, where the blue dragon was once haunched, gave way to the form of some mechanized unit that matched the size and general characteristics of the Gundams but had a decidedly draconic cut to it. After its true form was manifest, it banged its fists together in front of its chest, and the resulting power wave obliterated the monster. "Magic Knights, know that there are links between you all at many levels, and though thou art of separate worlds, aims, and allegiances thine hearts must be united in purpose or thou shalt fall in battle. Many of thine rank are linked close to another, and that which is borne by one is shared among others of your order."
"I don't really get it, but…" Nicol says.
"Thine hearts are worthy, yet thou art not ready to encompass all that I am at this time. I shall accompany thee until such a time as thou are in need of my services."
The easiest way to explain what happened next was the Rune God took on an energy form, condensed itself down to about a meter-wide ball of energy, and absorbed itself into the center gem on Umi's armor. All eyes were on the Magic Knight as her armor changed form to something a bit heavier and better coverage. Hers was not the only change in the room, however…
"Huh? What the…hell…huh?" From Yzak; he was staring at his left hand as if someone had just cut it off and it was still moving. "How did I…"
"Wow, I guess when the Rune God said we were linked, he wasn't kidding," Nicol says. "Even matches the one Umi has."
"I hope they don't expect me to trade in the Duel," Yzak says testily.
"I wonder if anyone else was so linked," Natarle asks. "Still, we're done here. Let's go."
"I hear that," Athrun says as he starts off toward the Gundams. Before he left, he could not help but look around and wonder: what is the connection between the Rune Gods, the Pillar, the lands they traveled, and us?
"Hey, Natarle," Yzak prompts in a sort-of-calm fashion.
"Yes?" She had a half-second to react and catch the assault rifle he had just tossed to her. "What the—"
"Next time I ask for an anti-tank rocket, cough one up." He takes the lead in returning to the Gundams.
-x-x-x-
A piece of paper tape was attached to the frame of Natarle's door. It was a flag, a notice that the others in her conspiracy were ready to operate. Six hours prior, she would have rejoiced that they were ready to begin.
She stepped into her quarters, and pulled out the trinket. Part of her thought she would never be part of any other world except the Earth Alliance Military, but she knew now that the fate given to the Archangel was inescapable, and she was ass-deep in denial about it. Highly unprofessional conduct, she realized; she had been ignoring the grim reality that she didn't know for the grim reality that she wanted to be in.
She could do nothing, let them sort it out themselves, but the honest part of her soul knew that she had to do something. If she did something, it would mean actually renouncing the Earth Alliance ethos of exterminating coordinators, but in the end that wasn't such a bad thing, was it? Lacus Clyne had not been a bad person, Kira Yamato was one of the nicest persons she had ever met, and even the ZAFT officers didn't seem bad if you ignored their status vis-à-vis the war.
Her career was already toast; this much she knew intrinsically, even reporting everything honestly would get her drummed out of the service, and more than likely shot for it. Part of her knew that her mission was to get the Archangel to Alaska, and anything else was immemorial to that. The rest of her knew that getting there would likely not be all that welcome; the whole existence of the Archangel and its involvement with Morgenroete was a massive embarrassment for both countries. Why it was that way, well...
They would probably try to silence the embarrassment, or at least bury it and any witnesses. The Earth Alliance was well known for realpolitik, and the fate of the Archangel that kept coming to Natarle's mind was a case study therein. If not outright destroyed, the ship would be forced into a battle it could not hope to win on a very good day and probably even with all five Gundams, like attack Boaz. There's a hopeless assault in three words.
Blue Cosmos had to lose the war, but so did the PLANTs, for there to be anything left at the end. How do you force both sides to a failure condition with there are only two sides in a war? After a few minutes, Natarle knew she would take a long time to grasp a proper answer to that question.
For now, she drew her pistol, broke it down over the desk in her quarters, and began cleaning it. She had not fired it in a long time, but they still required periodic maintenance. That took thirty minutes. After she was done and assured that the weapon was smooth and ready for action, she dug around in the storage bin under her bed. In there, she found her personal stash undisturbed, an officer's gun belt with four fragmentation grenades, a holster for her pistol, a Mag-Lite flashlight, and six spare magazines for her pistol.
Their plan was to begin the ops at 2300 hours, with the ship planned 'secure' at 0100. Right.
Author's Chapter Afterword:
In response to a standing question from a review, the lack of Ferio in the story stems from the fact that early on, he saw what happened to the Cyclops that assaulted the Archangel, and decided he wanted no part of a…whatever-the-hell-it-is…that could chunk a Cyclops. It is also unstated but understood that Ferio is/was capable of holding pace with the Magic Knights. That doesn't apply here, right now since the Magic Knights are aboard the Archangel, which is pretty fast compared to most nominal forms of transport on Cephiro. Oh, he will show up in later ops, but will figure into it far less than he did in MKR. And he will factor a bit more into the MKR Season 2 section of the story (hint, hint: after the final battle, the Archangel isn't done with Cephiro…yet.) For the record, though, the Magic Knights did have the first encounter with him (where they attacked the magic stone in the Forest of Silence), but immediately thereafter they encountered Athrun and Yzak, separate from Ferio.
So, this chapter beckons the question: whose side is Natarle on? Her own, the dissenters? I'll leave that much up to your imagination, for the time being; the real answer will come soon enough. And when time for the Archangel Audit comes, who's paying the butcher bill? Life can be so confusing at times when you have the echoes of someone else's race war applied to a three-way situation.
It's unstated that before Ascot fled when his monster went psycho, Yzak almost had a bead on him and was planning to drop a three-round burst of thirty-caliber into the midget with the monster control. Just barely missed the opportunity, though; can't win them all. When they go head-to-head once again, Yzak is going to have some choice words for the Summoner, especially after that bullshit spiel about 'hurting his friends'.
I'm not going to say anything about the Link issue between Yzak and Umi, there will come more of that in the next chapter. Plenty more link action, trust me.
Next up: Tin-foil-hat-crew, please stand up and be recognized. The conspiracy is about to go down in a very bloody fashion, and yer all invited to watch it. Plus some character involvement that makes the prior chapters look a bit wimpy…
Footnotes:
(1): IMM Illustrated Maintenance Manual, IPC Illustrated Parts Catalog. Despite the 'manism' that you don't need the manuals, any real mechanic or technician of something that costs more than $20,000 will tell you that you always check your documents. Period.
(2): CEP Circular Error Probable. Basically means what amount of ordinance will land within a given hit circle. In this case, a CEP of half meant that half his shots landed within a 1 meter circle; I would say it probable that at 500 meters, the Vulcans used should have a CEP of 90 percent to 95 percent. A CEP of half would only be appropriate above 1000 meters, and that on a bad day.
(3): A buckler is a type of (relatively) small shield. Normal bucklers for a human are about 18 inches (1/2 meter) diameter, weigh only a couple pounds, and are fashioned of hardwood and rimmed with an iron or steel band. In this case, the monster is using a five-meter steel disc that is equivalent, but could probably stand up to the CIWS used by the Gundams for a little while…