Chapter 4: Lost and Found
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It had been a few days since their escape from the Artemis installation escape, with the ship only getting a few amenities from the installation before making its run. Aboard the ship, things had been tense, as they had expected to be chased by Rau's forces, but so far they were in the clear, amidst the chaos of the exploding station, it seemed as though they had lost the pursuing ZAFT force.
As for Artemis itself, it seemed as though the installation was nearly destroyed, but it was hard to say, the explosion caused by the damage caused, seemed to have created an area wide obscurity. In any case, the ship's crew had found time to relax, albeit briefly, during this time, they had been trying to prepare for future encounters, and not to mention familiarise themselves with the ship.
There was also the case of training them, seeing as most had never dealt with any physical education or experience. This idea was originally met with some apprehension, mainly because they were kids, and because they weren't expected to actually go out and fight, aside from Kira, but Ray made a compelling argument.
"They're not kids anymore, seeing as how they've gotten involved with the ship, they're stuck with us, and I'd prefer if they got some measure of training, to keep them on their toes, as well as maintain discipline."
"While I do admit they've been thrown into an unexpected situation, getting them used to the regular drills might be good, besides, we don't have an abundance of personnel available now do we?"
Natarle actually agreed with this sentiment, mostly from a practical point of view, and so the motion was passed to begin training the kids as soon as possible,
The kids gathered in the mess hall after Ray had taken them through the drills, it wasn't particularly fun, as it involved making laps around the ship's axial circuit, which was fun for about a minute before they started to get tired. The legwork was a lot harder than they imagined, in any event, they had been asked to get used to the drills as much as possible.
"I feel like my legs are made of lead."
"Yeah, I know, we all feel like that."
"Except Kira."
Thanks to Kira being a coordinator, his body wasn't nearly as worn down from 5 minutes of continuous jogging along the axial circuit, of course that said, he wasn't used to running as much, so he did get worn down. He was given special attention by Ray in terms of training himself physically and mentally.
Ray had to train Kira in operating for intense battles, one such method was in simulated dogfight, and the other was through repetitive combat drills, this was mostly intended to help in improving his aim, seeing as how much he exhausted from firing so much. He needed to conserve his energy in fights like that or he'd run out fast.
Another aim of the whole training was to get him used to fighting, something which he had some issue with. Kira arrived down in the mess hall his pilot suit haphazardly still attached, but the front wide open thanks to morning drills. He sat down next to Tolle, who greeted him.
"Hey, Kira, you look like hell, what happened?"
"Training, we decided to go onto intermediate work in close combat, I never imagined how difficult trying to move around in an asteroid field could be." Kira commented as he rolled his shoulders from the stiffness.
"I feel for you, these drills are murder on my body." Kuzzey said while he rolled his arms sorely.
"Hey be glad you aren't going over fire drills, I've got carpel tunnel syndrome from having to read the display monitors and make sure I did a full tracking of hostile silhouettes again and again, Lieutenant Badgiruel grilled me over the mistakes. I had to repeat it until I got it right."
"Hey, what's going on?" Miriallia asked as she came back with Flay and the meals.
Miriallia had grabbed extra food for Kira and Flay had gotten Sai's plate, as they set it down for them to tuck into, Tolle explained.
"Not much, just going over the training regimen, and how much it was murder."
"Tell me about it, my shoulders are sore from having to check the CIWS systems and from switching from manual to automated fire control, it was a pain trying to meek munitions monitors within acceptable parameters, I never realised how much ammo those guns used up just for defence." She said as she recalled her experience.
"Well I don't think we're quite expecting a lot of time off yet, but I'm sure it'll be addressed later, we just have to endure this for the time being. Besides, I'm sure they've got good reason for training us like this."
"Maintaining discipline and getting us familiar with how things work on the ship, man this is going to be tiring."
"Well we did end up volunteering, no point in crying over it now."
"Hey Flay, what's the matter?" He asked the girl who continued to move away from him.
The girl shied away embarrassed before stating. "Umm, I haven't showered properly in a few days now."
The others seemed to understand this very easily, as almost all of them hadn't had a good shower in days now, and it was starting to show, with Kuzzey's greasy hair and Tolle's sweaty smelling body odour. The girls didn't want to talk about it as much, but the others did.
"Right, we've got a water shortage." Tolle said as he looked over his food with the meagre cup of water.
"We're the only ones which got somewhat better rations, mainly because we got priority, immediate risks of a ZAFT attack pending; it's all up in the air on whether or not this is a good idea." Sai said to the others.
"Hopefully the Captain and the others find a solution." Miriallia said with a hopeful comment.
"If not, the smell is going to be least of our problems." Tolle added as they continued to eat their breakfast.
Kira noted the tone by which Tolle spoke about, their situation was growing dire, and sooner or later it had to be addressed, but between training and getting himself familiar with his machine, his mind continued to drift into the issue of whether or not the situation he and his friends were in, was particularly good.
There was just so much going on these days, he couldn't imagine what else could complicate things further.
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At that very moment the ship's senior officers were gathered, discussing the situation at length, they were going over the charts and the recorded layout of the region. So far they had come to a very disparaging set of conclusions; they didn't have enough water to reach either destination for certain.
"So what are our options?" Murrue inquired as she looked to the gathered officers.
"Either head to Luna HQ or going to Earth, it's all problematic, mainly because we barely have enough water to reach Luna HQ with what we have." Mu explained as he looked over the rationing and the expected flight plan.
"What about our resupply that Ray secured us?" Murrue asked.
"No good, Garcia worked in the opposite way, he loaded munitions and utilities first, not water, and we were at the station for about the span of 6 hours, so only a portion of our supplies got on board." Mu reported.
This was grim news; they lost their only other chance for a resupply and lost it, which meant they were almost back to where they had started. But they couldn't just magically change the fact that they needed to make the distance and fast, but that wasn't possible, they'd be at serious risk should they encounter any danger while running low on water trying to reach HQ.
"So what do we do?"
"I do have a suggestion." Ray said promptly.
"Another suggestion?"
"Hey since when are my suggestions bad?" Ray said defensively.
"It's not that your suggestions are bad, but they're reckless."
"But they have proven useful getting us going."
"You gave classified information for a mobile suit project even we didn't know existed, and an natural OS to the Eurasian Federation."
"And accurately predicted an attack by ZAFT and think three steps ahead by scrambling all the data given to the Eurasian Federation, and allowed us a safe exit before ZAFT could chase after the ship. But hey, we're still alive."
"That's enough, look, I need options and fast, even as reckless as they might be." Murrue said clearly not wanting to go through another argument over Ray's conduct.
Ray continued as he explained his plan. "Thank you captain, to put things bluntly, we can't risk a run to Luna HQ, not in our condition, and with the looming threat of ZAFT's picket fleet's no doubt sweeping the area between the moon and potential trajectories, we can only go one other way."
"The debris belt?" She said perplexed.
"A belt of garbage and refuse left behind after the years of exploration of space, junk left over from numerous wars and failed colonisation efforts, all caught in the gravity belt around Earth."
"It's a flight hazard, but it's also a repository of sorts."
"Huh?"
"It's filled with refuse, including ship wrecks right?" Ray asked them clearly building to something obvious.
"You aren't suggesting, we go into the debris belt and look for water?" Natarle said uncertain of such a course of action.
"It's not as if we've got much option, the water reclamation system won't hold out for another 3 or 4 days, and rationing further will hit hard. So our best choice is to get whatever water we can find, and continue going until we reach a viable approach vector for landing on Earth." Ray stated his examination of their situation.
Mu nodded in agreement.
"It's a risky proposition, but it sounds possible, though it'll be tricky trying to locate the appropriate sort of wreckage which might carry enough water for use, it'll definitely give us the supplies necessary to continue on."
"Seeing as we don't have much choice, we'll proceed through the debris belt, hopefully something of use can be found." Murrue concluded.
"Thank you captain, I'll prepare salvage teams for search and recovery." Ray said as he gestured to Mu.
The two officers departed in short order, getting the crew prepared for salvage operations, as unappealing as a task it might seem, it certainly would prove important if they wanted to survive long enough to get to safety.
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As Ray had exited the bridge, he was going over the work crew logs; he knew that they'd been an assortment of personnel to get this done quickly, he conferred with Mu on who they should take for salvage operations. They were quick to get a few of the bridge crew to help out, along with some of the kids, who they knew had skills in operating small space craft.
As they completed preliminary work crew rosters, Ray and Mu headed off to their quarters to get readied for their excursion into the debris field. This was also because they had also planned to get some practical training done with Kira, the kid needed it for whatever it was worth. They didn't have many opportunities to leave the ship, so this was good for that as well.
As for the water shortage issue, it was honestly a bit surprising; for all intents and purposes, Ray would have thought that a ship like the Archangel would have more water efficient systems to provide the crew with the means to survive. It seemed odd that it was so difficult for them to think ahead, and to be perfectly honest, the world where he came from had thought ahead.
Ray had managed to keep himself clean through a miraculous piece of medicine, a special towel soaked in a substance which could be applied and then wiped off, which would kill most germs and clean the body. The towel was reusable, but required a special treatment in a washer and dryer before being able to be reused.
As for brushing his teeth, he had a special disposable dental cleaner that could achieve the same effect as cleaning with a toothbrush. He was able to keep himself clean with little to no water, which was probably expected considering that he and other military personnel in the field didn't have the luxury of getting back to base to wash down, and water was a very valuable commodity, wasting it was a bad idea.
Why no such development came into this universe was honestly a rather confusing aspect, considering that this was the future. He did ask the crew as to why nothing like that had been developed but he got stonewalled with 'commercial costs to military', apparently it was more expensive for military personnel to afford the cleaning towels, probably a resource constraint or someone figured to act like an ass and make it expensive.
They were now getting closer to the no stopping point and Ray knew that they were discussing their next approach, the Earth. First he knew that they'd encounter the ZAFT patrol unit in the debris belt, leaving this up to Kira would be the most appropriate course of action, even if the kid was unwilling to kill so readily, he knew that Kira would need to learn a lot in the coming days.
Ray go changed, and informed Alice of his plans for the day, the AI promptly inquiring whether or not he'd expect a great deal of trouble, he gave her no assurances, and asked to keep on the lookout for potential threats. Besides that, he prepared for the coming events, he had no allusions as to what would happen once they entered the debris field, and with the impending encounter with Rau and the other Gundams again.
His mind drifted to the situations he would soon encounter with Flay's father, and he was weighing in his options to save the poor bastard or let him burn. Saving him would have unimaginable consequences, and might drastically affect change. But there might be some redeeming elements, such as Flay not going all murderous crazy.
This of course was offset by the fact that her father was a member or had connections to Blue Cosmos, which was bad for obvious reasons, and the potential fallout of what would occur if the foreign minister survived. He wasn't the one to shy away from encouraging the persecution of coordinators, but he was also not someone who'd be so eager for a fight.
His perception could change, but this was also an issue which couldn't be addressed right away, he didn't know the man well enough, this was a factor he was going to have to deal with differently. In the meantime, he knew he had to partake in dealing with one issue after the next, one such trouble being the water shortage, which would be resolved soon.
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Sometime later after Ray was fully suited up, he went down to meet with the kids, who should have been preparing in the locker rooms, he was greeted by the gang, most were dressed, aside from Sai and Miriallia who would be required to stay on the ship to help operations, the others were all fully suited up.
"Hey kids, I assume you've been given the work detail?" Ray said cheerfully as he greeted them in the hallway.
"We got word that we're being sent out as part of the search and recovery salvage operation, what's going on?" Tolle asked.
"We need to find water and soon, we're going to be passing through the Earth's debris belt, and the captain has agreed to send recovery units out to look for water, including you." Mu informed the group.
"Us?" Kuzzey said perplexed, clearly he didn't seem to understand the necessity of helping out.
"Kira's going to be patrolling along with me and Mu; meanwhile you're searching for fresh water, though we've also got a scheduled training session, not a long one, but one which I'm sure you'll benefit from." Ray explained to the young man.
"This'll be a learning experience kid, while we're out there I'll be taking you through live practice drills, so remember to prepare." Mu told him.
"Ah, yes sir." Kira replied hastily.
This was going to be a long day for the kids, they weren't going to get a break anytime soon, but at least they got to get outside the ship for once, and do something which wasn't on the bridge. Of course this didn't mean they liked the idea of going scavenging through a debris field of garbage that people had left behind along with countless graves.
But beggars can't be choosers, and in this case, they really couldn't, with the potential for water lingering so close, they had to allocate as many able bodied people they could for finding a suitable source of water they could use for the ship. They couldn't fault this method of searching and they were running out of time.
So in the end, they had to make do, meanwhile Ray took Kira down to the hangar with Mu getting suited up for the sortie, Ray explained what he expected in the drills and wanted Kira to have confidence in his abilities. They had a lot to deal with before the day was over, and there was still a fair distance before they found any modicum of safety.
As Ray and KIra got into their units, Ray did one last check up on Alice.
"Have you completed the unit I asked for?" He said to the AI.
"Nearly complete, the compact module will be fully functional within the next 3 hours." The AI informed him.
"Good, then we're on schedule." Ray commented as he sealed his helmet.
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Looking for a sufficient amount of clean water wasn't easy, especially in space, the debris belt was littered with ships from all eras, space projects long over or failed colonisation efforts, but at times it could be difficult to find water viable for use in sustaining a crew of people. For the Archangel, it had limited supplies in terms of water, and had to make do looking for whatever it could.
Their expectations weren't what they were hoping for, but it seemed as though they got lucky, if you could say that. The destroyed continent of Junius Seven left a lot of water floating about which they could dig out.
"Look we aren't happy with this decision; we're not all jumping for joy at the thought of digging out the frozen water from the continent, and the place is a graveyard for thousands of people. But we're alive, and if we want to keep living we have to do this."
The others weren't quite comfortable with the idea, but they supported the action, they knew that Mu and Ray were right, the situation was bad enough, and they couldn't ignore the fact that principle doesn't work in situations of survival. They were alive, and if they wanted to keep alive, they would have to make certain exceptions with their consciousness.
This wasn't malice or disregard for the dead, but if they wanted to live to see another day, it was going to be their only other choice. It was a necessary aspect of survival for them in the long run, and speaking of survival, the scheduled training regimen the Warrant Officer and Lieutenant had given to Kira was in process.
In the debris field further away from the search parties, the Strike carefully navigated its way through the debris, making quick and short adjustments to its movements while manoeuvring around the debris. The suit was doing its utmost to minimise movement and avoid detection while keeping itself concealed from potential fire.
Of course it didn't help that Kira was playing this against Ray who could predict movements somewhat, as a beam shot suddenly struck the debris he was hiding behind, the impact being powerful enough to scorch the debris but also send it rocking away into Kira. The young man immediately manoeuvred out of the way before quickly locating another hiding spot.
Kira peered around for the corner and attempted to locate the source of the shot, his vision was obscured by particulate matter which drifted around the area. His suit's sensors couldn't penetrate the mass of particles, but he could tell that Ray was certainly hiding in this place, as he pushed the Strike off with a gentle nudge; he throttled the accelerator and made his move through the field, intent to locate cover and move from position to position.
This was to cover his approach around the debris field, and allow him to sneak around Ray's Eventide, which wouldn't be able to manoeuvre easily through this field. His efforts were rewarded with a solid contact moving through the field, from a high axis adjacent to his position. Kira pulled the Strike from the cover and then locked his rifle onto the target before letting loose.
His shots were on the mark, but his beam impact caused the target to explode violently, despite the fact that it was on a very low intensity setting for training. The area was suddenly illuminated by the flash and the particles around the Strike were wiped clear. Kira instinctively attempted to push away from the blast, knowing it was likely a decoy.
But his move came too late, and he backed himself into a corner, quite literally seeing as the debris field was constantly moving, his escape was cut off, it was then he was suddenly struck by a beam impact. The simulated battle ended with another victory for Ray, Kira had been getting practice from these war games, but they covered mostly the general idea of tactics, also helped to try and sharpen Kira's situational awareness.
"Dead again, but this time, you at least thought ahead more steps than before." Ray critiqued on Kira's performance. "You might want to think of potential escape routes or rethink your approach to an attack; you might never know when someone might pull a fast one on you." Ray said as he flew out from his anchored position overlooking the area.
"Is that a wrap?" Mu asked as he showed himself.
"Yeah it's a wrap, we don't have more time to spare right now, we've got escort duties to undertake." Ray commented as he signalled Kira to follow.
The trio of pilots regrouped within the search area, a wide area which was rich with large amounts of debris, mostly from ships, either destroyed in battle of ruins from discarded colonies. The bad news was that most of the materials available were utterly useless, none held sufficient amounts of water, either due to the ship being breached and everything getting spaced, or there just wasn't enough.
Their search turned up something of interest though; 'interest' may have been putting it mildly, more like shocking, for the crew and the ship. As for Ray, he remained in stoic silence as he looked upon the scene lain before him,
"It can't be, is that?" Murrue said whilst looking through the transmitted image.
"Junius seven, what the hell is it doing here?" Dalida said in shock.
"Looks like it drifted here, probably thanks to the explosion which destroyed it, it got knocked into the Earth's gravity well and pulled into orbit." Ray said while he examined the continent.
"Damn." Mu said while he looked at his monitor.
The colony continent drifted amidst this field of refuse, like a lone island in the middle of nowhere, debris from the destroyed colony as well as the floating garbage made it seem like the colony was a sort of snow globe, just with a hellishly twisted amount of crap jumbling about aimlessly. This was certainly a sight which Ray would remember for years to come.
As they settled upon the frozen continent sized crypt, teams were dispatched to begin looking for soluble sources of water which they could use. Of course there was also some effort to search the area, much to their horror, the search crews ended up going into whole gravesites of bodies, many civilians who managed to flee only to suffocate or die from the cold vacuum inside the colony.
Miriallia had to return back to the ship, after they had a run in with a dead mother and child, frozen in the interior of the colony. Meanwhile Kira and the other remaining members continued to scour the sections of the colony for water sources. Ray on the other hand had already gone over the colony himself.
He had spent enough time in the presence of death to already appreciate the sheer scale of loss on his own; he opted to remain in Eventide patrolling the area for the time being and wait for the others to finish their search. Alice asked him a rather deep hitting question.
"Does death affect you?"
Ray was actually surprised that the AI would be able to ask him such a question, his response was one he wasn't sure of, seeing as how long he had served in the Australian MAF corps, Sentinel Special Operations force.
"There's a lot that I've grown indifferent to, death is just one of those things, I've seen more than my fair share than I'd care to admit."
"Does that mean you feel your life amidst all this death and carnage has it taken something away from you?"
"Would it be alright if I said no?" He said promptly as he looked over the frozen fields of the colony.
Alice was an odd one, she wasn't like an AI most would associate with, being based upon the original ALICE from the EX-S Gundam and an amalgamation of the AI he had used as a simple support OS was something he wasn't sure about. Alice was clearly aware of Ray's existence, she didn't need as much time to develop, she was calm and composed, but the nature of her program had clearly changed.
This was going to be something he'd need to address later.
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After they spent most of the afternoon scouring the area for water, Kira and Ray cycled their patrols, Kira taking the opportunity to overwatch the area around the destroyed continent. His mind was drifting between the search operation and his own personal issues, one being his perspective on the entire war.
The concept of peace lasting was a remote thing, there had always been wars, and most of them were brutal, even without mobile suits, it was a nightmare to imagine how much bloodier this would have ultimately been. For Kira, he was someone standing at a crossroads of sorts, his effect on the grand scheme of things; he was one person at the wrong place, but at the right time.
His actions had now effected not only himself, but everyone around him, and the potential for more lingered within reach, either this was going to lead to some potentially good outcomes, or very horrible ones. He sighed as he waited, he was placed in a very difficult position, and he knew it, his responsibility in the midst of all of this was his own, despite circumstances.
As he scanned a sector around the debris field, he noticed something moving, at first he thought it was nothing, but then his sensors alerted him to a distinct energy signature, albeit skewered thanks to the debris filed. He moved the Strike in a more concealed position, keeping his eyes open for whatever was moving.
He didn't need to wait particularly long, as a mobile suit appeared, more specifically a GINN recon type unit with enhanced sensory package. Kira immediately drew his beam rifle out and got the targeting system ready, zeroing in on the machine, he was lucky that the unit didn't seem to notice him.
As he watched the suit, he realised that it was looking for something, not the Archangel that was for sure, but something of particular interest, it was scanning a destroyed ship, clearly searching for survivors. After a few minutes of examining the wreck, the suit seemed to lose interest; clearly whatever it was looking for it wasn't there.
Kira had involuntarily held his breath whilst waiting for the suit to leave, as it seemed to do so, he breathed a sigh of relief. Of course he did this at the worst time, as he forgot to signal the rest of the work crews what was going on, and the Mistral work loader which had stores of ice on its back appeared.
The work craft immediately drew the attention of the suit, which turned around and opened up with its elongated rifle. In the fire, the craft was struck by a glancing impact, and he could hear Dalida and Kuzzey screaming out in panic as they were attacked, Kira reacted immediately, zeroing in. In a moment, he fired, an emerald beam spitting out and lancing the suit on the left side and blowing off an arm.
He realised that he forgot to adjust for drift and missed the centre mass, the suit realising the immediate threat attempted to aim at him. Kira corrected his aim, he pulled the trigger as the suit attempted to fire at him, his second shot managed to land an impact and it blew clean through the midsection of the machine, engulfing the cockpit as well.
The suit didn't explode all the way, but the ignition of the air inside and other parts caused it to burst into halves, the machine now dead, began to drift aimlessly, joining the debris field. For a moment Kira sat there, his mind racing, adrenaline pumping, he felt so focused though, his mind was clear.
"Kira, thanks you saved us." He heard Kuzzy said with relief.
"Uh? Oh, yeah…" Kira replied a little uneasily.
"Is that all of them?" Dalida asked as he looked around.
"I think so, you better get going." Kira told them hastily.
"Alright, we'll report back."
Kira was uncertain as to feeling about killing people like this, but Ray and Mu had told him before, surviving isn't easy, regardless of how they looked at it, but if he wanted his friends and himself to survive, he had to pull the trigger, even if it meant taking a person's life away. It wasn't like a game, as he was fighting for his life, but it was necessary.
He had saved his friends who were trying to survive like he was, but it didn't sit well with him, because he knew that he was killing people. This was something he was still having difficulty coming to terms with, but as Ray had told him before, it wasn't like he wanted to go around killing people, but it's something that he had to accept or he'd die.
As the destroyed mobile suit drifted off into space, Kira was left there looking at his handiwork, his action felt wrong, but he had begun to accept it, not like something he was feeling distraught about, his mind going over his action. He then noticed something on his visual sensor, a faint glowing of an emergency signal. His attention was drawn to the source of the signal, a small escape pod, sitting in the middle of the debris field.
"What is that?" Kira noticed the blinking lights of an emergency escape pod.
In one swift motion, he managed to get the Strike over to it and retrieve the escape pod; whoever was inside must have been from the PLANTs, considering the design. His mind was still racing from before, but now his attention was drawn to the escape pod, with life potentially aboard, he determined to take it back.
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Ray knew what had happened long before everyone else did, Eventide's sensors were good enough to detect movement from extended distances even with particle jamming thanks to Alice tweaking the suit's particle dispersion system, he could use it to track things within a certain radius, but it was better than being blind.
As Kira returned to the ship, he knew what the kid was carrying, an escape pod, Ray landed on the ship as Kira did, making their way over to the docking berth for his Eventide. He exited to see the crew preparing to open up the escape pod; no doubt Murrue was getting a headache from Kira's habit of picking up discarded items.
Ray was greeted by Mu who stood patiently besides the captain.
"Yo, what's going on?"
"Oh, hey, kid's gone and brought us another surprise." Mu said with a tone of sarcasm.
"So I see." Ray replied as he and the rest of the crew watched intently.
Murrue signalled to the technician to open up the pod, at that moment the doors slid open and the guards tensed up waiting for something to happen, what they got wasn't what they had expected. A round red ball drifted out, its eyes flashed and its sides opened up like flaps, it chirruped.
"Haro, hello, how are you?"
"Huh?" The blonde haired lieutenant uttered in surprise.
It was then a girl came out from within the pod, her long pink hair flowing behind her in a non-existent breeze, she was adorned in a large white dress gown with purple trimming.
"Ah! Could someone help me?" She asked as she drifted away.
Ray was about to step in when Kira did, the young man closer to the girl pulled her back to the deck.
"Oh thank you." The girl replied grateful for the assistance.
"Ah no problem." Kira replied.
It was at that moment the girl then examined the crew and then said in a surprised voice.
"Oh my, this isn't a ZAFT vessel is it?"
That statement pretty much confirmed the girl's situation and the crew reacted in mixed fashions, Mu simply face palming at the sheer luck that they had picked up a civilian from the PLANTs. Murrue looked genuinely exhausted by this sudden inclusion of another complication, and everyone looked around uncertain of what to do.
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It wasn't long before they got their new guest squared away along with her robot companion, the captain and the senior officers had the girl taken to a private quarter down in the ship, there they were busy trying to get information from the girl. Not a particularly difficult thing to do, seeing as this was a young girl and not some hardened ZAFT vet.
Ray stood in the room, patiently waiting on the bed with an eager eye, listening in as things played out. He was the first to confirm that she was indeed Sigel Clyne's daughter, and much to the dismay of Murrue, she was a walking bargaining chip, one which would prove to be quite a headache for them, dragging her all the way into Alliance hands.
Lacus Clyne, the supposed to be like the Lin Minmay figure of the Gundam SEED universe, and one who faced a lot of flak in Destiny for a lot of different reasons, then again the original run and the anniversary really didn't do so well in trying to fix a lot of characterisation issues. In the revamp series thankfully someone addressed this, but whether or not it'd make a feature was still to be seen.
This was one of the few characters he was rather impartial to, but he did admit she had a very good singing voice, thanks to her voice actor being an actual singer. In any case, she seemed naively aware of the danger she was in, an unfortunate side effect of living within the colonies sheltered by her father who was a political figure.
She would no doubt break from this shell as she learnt more about the circumstances within the PLANTs and the effect the war was having on the social developments. But for now, she was vaguely aware of the serious ongoing issues within the political spectrum of the PLANTs, or what was going to happen soon.
As the senior officers reconvened their meeting elsewhere in Murrue's quarters, they sat down and discussed their current situation.
"So what do we do?"
"I guess we'll have to take her along with us, as much as I'd rather not drag a young girl into this mess."
"That young girl is Sigel Clyne's daughter might I remind you, and she's not some nobody."
"She's a figure of peace and prosperity within the PLANTs, and she's very influential, she just doesn't know it as much. As for her status, she is by definition a non-com Lieutenant, and I'd rather we remember that, the rules of war might not exist, but we abide by the same principles. I'd rather not drag this girl into a mess she doesn't deserve to be dragged into."
"What makes you think-."
"I've seen my fair share of exchanges; I've made some tough calls, don't test me on this one, and don't drag this girl into this." He said darkly.
The look in his eyes were fierce, so much so that Natarle looked at a very different person, not Ray, but someone else, standing before her, the expression he held seemed to cause her great discomfort. Murrue and La Flaga were both concerned when they saw how Ray reacted, but he changed his expression back to his passive one.
"To put this into an easier context, her status as a citizen of an opposing faction doesn't apply here, her status by definition is civilian, regardless of origin, so we act accordingly. If something were to happen, she'd be treated as a civilian all the same, that is my stance on this matter. I'd rather not drag someone into a cluster fuck of interplanetary politics."
"Did something happen to you Ray?" Mu asked intently.
Ray replied a little dismissive at first. "I've had my fair share of utter fuck ups Mu, some worse than others, but dragging kids into the spotlight of politics, especially between warring nations isn't something I'd like to repeat. I've had my taste of that shit, and I'm done with it."
This new piece of information certainly surprised Mu, he didn't know of many organisations which participated in the use of civilians for political leverage or for negotiations, whatever Ray experienced, it must have been quite hushed. But regardless, this certainly told him that Ray had more than his fair share of bad memories, and experiences.
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The seasoned veteran had a lot on his mind, flushed with the memories of his past, and the current affairs he was participating in; he couldn't help but feel a little shaken from his own reaction with the Lieutenant.
As Ray had remembered his bitter days back in his own world dealing with political parties and the trade of human lives; none of it was particularly pleasant. His experience was the botched hostage crisis situation which he ended up getting involved in, the mess that had left was bad enough for him, and he just got sick of it.
He knew that Lacus was valuable to the Earth Alliance, no doubt on that, but he hated the idea of dragging the poor girl into the same mess he saw another young girl get dragged into. Thankfully he knew that Kira's principles would override his sense of duty and he'd go and save this poor girl from this mess.
Now the trouble he had to deal with everything before that happened, and he knew that there was quite a lot on the way. He also had plans to sow the seeds of utter hell with Rau's plan, but first he needed to get the right tools.
"Alice, have you compiled the platform for use?"
"I've begun finishing the last details; do you require the module asynchronous?"
"Preferably, this is going to be my ace in the hole after all." Ray said with the utmost confidence.
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Kira and Lacus had shared a meal together after they had encountered one another in the mess hall, ultimately this was spoiled by the impetuous Flay would ended up spewing on a bigoted rant on Lacus and her apparent appreciation for Kira despite having said resentment for coordinators. This little incident had caused the young man to suddenly rethink his position amidst all of this.
The two shared their feelings on the war and asked each other about personal matters, with Kira going over the issues of his old friend Athrun. The two of them continued to discuss their feelings about the people they knew, and as they did, Kira seemed to embrace a moment of peace, for whatever it granted him.
"Is there something wrong?" Lacus inquired her voice a gentle breeze in the solemn silence.
Kira's face was impassive, he was dealing with a lot of emotions, all of this had caught up to him, the war, his friends, and those people who he had killed, and everything seemed to be coming to an unexpected head. And with that he felt like crying, which by any other definition this was normal, but he knew he couldn't be crying all the time, there was still a long road ahead.
Amidst the exchange, Ray had listened in only briefly, mostly out of respect for the young man and also because he knew where this conversation led. Besides at this point, he knew that there were greater issues which he had to attend to, some of which he knew couldn't be ignored if his plans to alter this timeline was to proceed.
But as he left, he heard the distinct singing from the girl. The 'Fields of Hope', a song which he recalled from his childhood, a haunting melody which he heard in remixes and covers, when it was done right, it was beautiful, and at times truly haunting, as how it spoke of peace and harmony amidst a time of war and death.
Truly it was poetic.
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Later that evening, Ray had prepared his ace in the hole for the SEED universe, the innocuous item which could topple Rau's plans for good and probably reshape the outcome of SEED, as to where it goes from there, it would be determined as to how much would be changed by his actions. Ray entered into Lacus' room, minding the door; he was greeted by the pink haired girl on her own, he greeted the girl.
"Mind if I come on Ms Clyne?" He asked gentlemen like as he stood in the doorway.
"It is nice of you to make a sudden appearance Ray."
"Sorry about that, I've got something I'm sure you'd like to see." He said producing a small white and blue Haro.
"Hana, say hello."
"Hello, I'm Hana!" The white and blue Haro chirruped.
"Oh my, this is rather unexpected, who is this?"
"Hana, she's a Haro I constructed on my own." Ray explained in a cheerful fashion.
"Do you know how to create Haros as well?"
"Yes, I've seen the originals, this is a custom built one I made from scratch, I figured she'd be a great addition for you."
"Thank you very much; this is such a lovely Haro." She said as she held the little ball robot.
Hana's ears popped up and the Haro chimed.
"Hana sees you!"
"I see you to." She replied to the robot's remark.
"Hana's a specially built model, I figured she'd be of great use, but please don't tell anyone I made this for you, if anyone asks, you got this from a dedicated fan. I'd like to keep my existence to a minimal, for professional and personal reasons." He told the young woman.
Lacus let Hana roll to the floor, so she could play with Mr Red.
"Haro?"
"Hello, how are you?"
"I'm Hana, how are you?"
"I'm Haro, how are you?"
The two little robots chased each other around the room.
"These two are getting along nicely."
"Is this all you wished to give me?"
"Well that and I wanted to ask you about a certain topic." Ray said to the girl.
"What might that be?" She asked clearly intrigued.
"The potential future for a ceasefire between the PLANTs and the Earth Alliance, I know there's a lot going on, but if you could speak to your father, I'd like for you to convey my personal gratitude to his efforts in trying to reach a resolution to ending the war. And I'd like for you to send him a warning…"
The girl looked up at him rather confused; she wasn't sure what sort of warning he could give her.
"There are many unforeseen consequences to our actions, our interactions are relative, but we affect one another, even in the smallest ways, keep your eyes and ears open." He paused before adding. "Nothing is at it seems."
The words certainly got the girl wondering what he was talking about, she didn't have a serious grasp of the politics surrounding the PLANTs Supreme Council, but the words which Ray convened were certainly very serious.
"Is there a particular message which you intended to convey?"
"It's just as I said, I cannot reveal anything else right now. In any event, I do wish for his safety as well as yours." He said with some effort to reassure her.
Lacus wasn't sure about how she felt about his warning, in any regard, the warning was meant to be cryptic for the purpose of avoiding a serious continuity issue, that and also avoid dragging Sigel Clyne into an increasingly dangerous game of politics. The man didn't know how far Patrick Zala's influence spread, and he didn't know of the nascent infiltrators in his party who'd been selling information out to Zala's allies.
This was actually something that SEED failed to touch on was real world politics, at least in anime, the Light Novels on the other hand went into some depth of the inner working of the Supreme Council, those who supposed the Zala and Clyne families. Though there were others, and Durandal's faction which had been playing the neutral card while Zala and Clyne butted heads repeatedly.
It could be said that Durandal's rise could be associated with him playing Zala against Clyne's party, something that wasn't well known at the time, as Durandal had various agents working behind the scene for him. One being a well-respected member of a company associated in the development of technologies, including the N-Jammer Canceller technology.
But onto the matter at hand, Lacus was widely unaware of the ongoing issues within the PLANTs, and this would probably put them on alert, if not give Ray a little bit of a foot in the proverbial doorway. He could then use this to leverage support from Clyne's faction later, assuming the Chairman survived, if not, then Lacus would be able to help out in whatever way she could with the gift Ray had provided.
The gift being the Haro, which contained a lot of detailed information, some of which revealed a little about the future of events to the young woman, of course he had it hard coded, meant to only reveal this information to Lacus when she needed to know, special efforts were made to avoid revealing too much detail or data.
To make absolutely certain that the data wasn't revealed; he had the information encoded into crystalline layers, hidden within the eye sensors of the Haro so that it would be overlooked by anyone who attempted to access it without authorisation. He made a few additional alterations into the Haro so that it could provide Lacus with all the information she needed in the coming months.
He also prepared a contingency for future events, but for now, he settled on making sure that Hana would give him a much needed lifeline to Lacus. From her, he could give her advanced warnings about potential attacks of schemes taking place, and give her hints on where to look regarding information ascertaining to Rau La Creuset.
All in all, this would help dismantle the blonde haired psychopath's dream of human genocide. He just hoped that nothing went horribly wrong in the midst of all of this, or he would be faced with an ever increasing number of shits to deal with. The man drifted from the room, letting Lacus play with her new companion, unaware of the sheer secrets that it could reveal.
"Alice, does the connection system with Hana work?"
"It's operational."
"Good, we have another piece in place." He said as he headed to his billet.
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Later that evening, once the ship had finished the salvage run, they were heading back out of the debris field. The crew had time to indulge a little more into their water rations, now that they could afford to, Ray being on board with getting Kira back to training on drills with the others, and getting prepared for the next inevitable clash with ZAFT.
The bridge crew was changing shifts, when they suddenly received a buzz. Romero who was manning the communications stations called in.
"Captain, we're receiving a long range transmission, Alliance frequency."
"Can you put it through?"
"I'll try."
"Archangel, this is the 8th Fleet, patrol group sierra under the command of -, if you're receiving this message, please respond in priority decryption Theta."
"Respond on priority decryption Theta."
"Aye ma'am." The operator replied promptly.
"This is Earth Alliance Vessel 'Law', Archangel are you receiving us?"
"Yes, this is the Archangel, we're receiving you loud and clear." Murrue said with gratitude.
"Our scouts reported potential activity in the region, and we dispatched search ships, it's good to hear you Archangel."
"It's been a lengthy trip, but we're here."
"Good, we have to cut this short, we're transmitting you a set of coordinates, we'll rendezvous there within the next day." The captain of the Law said.
Amidst this, they also received word of the fleet preparing to circle around orbit, much relief spraed throughout the ship, with everyone eager to finally get to safety.
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However, this seeming gift of relief was only the calm before the storm, the real storm…
Back in the PLANTs, at that very moment another matter was being brought to attention, inside the interior of the PLANT's armoury station, Rau La Creuset was being briefed upon a recent development, one which was to certainly give him a much needed edge.
"May I present to you the ZGMF-YX605 Altair, Experimental Wire Guided Modular Weapon System, the first and only prototype, developed from the wrecks of the Alliance's Mobile Armour, Moebius Zeros." The engineer announced proudly to Rau.
The white suit stood out tall, its frame looked almost exactly the same, albeit, the massive pack which was now situated behind it, two large protruding pylons now attached, added venrir boosters and a new shield. Rau remarked content.
"It's perfect."
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(IMPORTANT HEADS UP)
AN: And that's a wrap for now, I'm sorry, but I've been down with a cold and it's hard to think about proper interactions, this entire chapter was originally going to be built around more than this, but I'd have to double the entire length to fit in all the additional characters, not to mention the character build up for the others.
Flay was going to have a prominent role in this with Lacus, and Kira was supposed to have a sort of personal moment between him and Lacus. But I couldn't get around to doing it all.I'm going to be bogged down for a while, but I'll see what I can do about posting the next chapter, which is going to have a lot of action, you'll see how ugly it all gets.
