I'm going to shoot for 4 weekly updates in September at the very least, but I'm hoping to make it to the end of the Waltfeld battle as possible.

The higher casualties of the battles in this arc so far is why there's fewer battles. Both sides are taking longer to lick their wounds, so to speak.

Anyway, enjoy! Plot's thickening.


Chapter Thirty-One: Walk

Elle clung to me for the rest of the day, not that I was surprised by that. Even when she was being treated for the mild burn to her head by Hilda's gun, she didn't want me to let go of her hand.

"No, don't let go of me! Don't leave me here alone! Cagalli, please!"

Her voice was so heartbreaking that I stayed right there, holding her hand, as Elle was treated and eventually released.

What a poor girl. How much suffering could a young girl take before it was just too much? I had a feeling that the thing that would push Elle over was my own death. As long as I stayed alive, Elle would be okay. At least until we finally, somehow, got back to Orb.

I didn't know what would happen to Melanie after that. I assumed that she had relatives of some kind that had to still be alive. She would probably go live with them. But who knew? Maybe she'd demand to live with me and my parents. That wouldn't surprise me at all, though I doubt it would be possible if Elle didn't have extended family willing to take her in.

As we left Jacqueline Grumman's office again, Elle maintained her death grip on my left hand. She didn't say a word to me, but I knew what she felt like. And I, being her savior and basically her caretaker, was the only person left who could protect her.

"Feeling better?" I asked, finally.

"No," Elle replied. "Not inside."

"I know. It's-"

"Cagalli, please. I don't want to talk about it."

"I'm just trying to-"

"I don't want to talk about it!"

She would want to. In time, she would want to. She was just a little kid. But I knew better than to push her on this. After all, I didn't want to talk about things either.

"All right. It's okay, Elle. I won't let anything like this happen to you again."

"Please," was all Elle said to that.

I knew she wouldn't want to go back to our old room. Not after what just happened. I was going to need to see the captain about a new place to sleep. One, perhaps, closer to the bridge or to the hangar, if possible. Where there were more people around. Where Elle would always be surrounded by people even if I was not around.

I started walking towards the bridge, but then I saw Murrue Ramius herself.

She was glancing at a datapad, using a stylus to navigate some holographic display as we walked up to each other, but she wasn;'t so immersed that she forgot to look up. She spotted me as we were only a few feet apart and smiled. "Cagalli. I'm so glad you're safe."

"I've had a rough day," I managed.

Ramius pocketed the datapad and stylus. "I know. You and Elle there."

Elle's weight was shifting, and I realized she was hiding behind me, just a little. When even Murrue Ramius was scaring the girl, I knew this was not ordinary fear. This was trauma. And it was going to affect Elle for a long time.

Damn Hilda.

"I just . . . I just wish there wouldn't have to be any more fighting," I said. "I'm done with it all."

"Like it or not, the war's going to continue," Ramius replied. "Lieutenant Badgiruel was talking about going with the resistance fighters to purchase supplies off the black market so the Archangel as well as Desert Dawn stay supplied."

"Count me out of that mission," I said.

"I wasn't even going to ask you," Ramius replied.

I thought about Badgiruel and that made me chuckle out loud. "Badgiruel wouldn't let me come along even if I wanted to anyway. I'm too valuable. What happened today proves it. I'm a target."

"Probably the target," Ramius replied. "So yes, I would think you wouldn't participate in anything requiring stealth or infiltration. You're just too valuable to put at risk in those kinds of situations."

"Nice to know I still mean something," I said.

Ramius sighed. "Cagalli, I'm honestly amazed you haven't broken down after everything you've been through. Just try to stay positive if you can. We are the difference-makers in this conflict. If anyone can defeat the Desert Tiger, it's us."

"The only way I think we can beat him is force him into direct combat and blow him up," I say.

Ramius chuckled. "Easier said than done, I'm afraid."

"I don't want to hear this anymore," Elle said softly behind me.

Ramius sighed again. "I understand Elle's feelings. Just keep her by your friends for right now, Cagalli. We are in the process of re-arranging your sleeping quarters right now."

"Thank you," I said, gratified that I was finally going to have time for myself.

But as Ramius walked past me, she put an arm on my shoulder. "You are working incredibly hard, Cagalli. Trust me, I understand this. I understand what you've been through. Just don't give up. I'm here if you need to talk about something. Anything."

"Okay," I said, kind of surprised she would say something like that. Murrue Ramius was no ordinary captain.

"Thank you. For that and for everything you've done so far," Ramius replied, and she walked away.

We were alone in the hallway, with nothing but complete silence. Finally, Elle spoke. "She's a nice lady. Why can't more people be like her?"

How can I explain this to a little kid?

"Because every person is different," I finally say. "Some are like Captain Ramius, and other people are not. It's what makes the world the way it is."

"Okay," Elle says, with a tone that suggests she doesn't want me to talk about this anymore either. It's something I was happy to oblige.

But someday, I was not going to be able to avoid the tough discussions with Elle, or anyone else for that matter.

What would I say then?


The old phrase "war is boredom broken up by moments of terror" proved true for the next few days. The front quieted down, ZAFT wasn't making many moves, and we were all too happy to stand pat and try to figure out what to do next. Every time I was on the bridge, Ramius, La Flaga, and Badgiruel were all pouring over their battle plans with Sahib Ashman. There were not a lot of offensive plans being drawn up. Mostly, it was defensive, to try to find a way to trap the Desert Tiger and destroy him. I wasn't invited to take part, and honestly, I didn't want to. I didn't want to think of the war despite my uniform and environment, I was all too happy to take in these days of relative peace after all of the violence I had been through.

Flay continued to obsess over the training simulator, and I noticed she was starting to earn "C" ranks. She wasn't just getting the "D" rank for merely surviving a mission or completing an objective and getting shot down. She was starting to achieve mission objectives and landing her Mobile Armor successfully. She was developing her skills, and on one hand, that was admirable. On the other hand, it was scaring me. The old Flay, the facetious Flay, in all of her superfluous obsession over materialism and boys, was continuing to fade with each moment I saw her. It was getting to the point where she and Sai seemed to be spending more time apart than together.

My friends and I shared some small talk, but nothing truly involving. I must have seemed different to them, in some way. I wasn't the same person I was before this whole thing started. Kira was right. The Tassill fighting had changed me. I had some darker, edgier persona or something, or perhaps I had finally gotten the fabled "thousand-yard stare". I don't know. I couldn't see it on my face when I looked in the mirror. But maybe it's something that I was blind to, willingly or unwillingly.

Miriallia, for her part, was willing to keep an eye on Elle when I simply could not keep an eye on her anymore. Petty Officer Kojiro Murdoch made it clear he didn't want Elle running around the hangar with all of its machinery, and that meant whenever I needed to meet with Kira, Elle had to stay behind.

Kira, for his part, was mostly doing small adjustments. He had managed to configure the settings well enough that I was in a comfort zone when I did simulated missions. The young man was a miracle worker, in my honest opinion. I would have been lost without his help.

But after five days, I was growing restless. The boredom part of the battlefield lull was leaving, and I was only getting stress in place of the boredom. I knew this wasn't going to last forever. I knew that at some point the Desert Tiger and I were going to have to face each other. Likely personally. I had a strong feeling that I was goin gto have to be the pilot who took care of the Tiger once and for all.

But then, my thoughts began turning to a person. The person surprised even me.

Hilda.

I wanted to see Hilda.

I knew she was being interrogated. Why wouldn't she? She had to know what the Tiger's battle plans were. But Hilda was maintaining a stern silence. It was only a matter of time before the techniques were going to get coercive, and there was an easy target of opportunity: Hilda's right eye. She had to know it too.

I wanted to talk to her. I didn't know why. Maybe it was because she was the only Coordinator on this ship other than me. Maybe it was because she just seemed to knowsomething that I didn't. Like, maybe about me. Her interest in me before she had tried to kill me had been creepy before, and now seemed to set off alarm bells now.

Why? Why had she been interested in me?

I ran over to Captain Ramius the moment this popped into my head. Thankfully, it was a moment of solitude on the bridge. She was just sitting in her seat, staring at the midday sky, looking like she was a million miles away mentally.

"Captain Ramius," I said.

She stood up and turned towards me, and smiled. "Ensign Yamato. You've been scarce lately."

"I, uh, needed to be scarce," I said, feeling my face heat up as I spoke. I immediately felt embarrassed, small, in comparison to this woman. And I knew why.

"You shouldn't be ashamed," Ramius said, a kind smile etching itself across her face. "I understand why."

"It doesn't make it right," I said. "But this isn't about me. It's about Hilda Harken."

The smile faded. "What about her?"

"I need to talk to her."

Ramius' eyes hardened. "I think that is a very risky idea, Ensign."

"I-I know. But . . . I think I can get her to say something. About why she was here. What the ZAFT's plans are. I'm a Coordinator, remember?"

Ramius sighs. "Cagalli, if there's one thing I know you're not capable of, it is maintaining a masquerade. You are not a good liar. Your emotions and intentions show on your face and voice far too easily. She will never buy it, not in a million years."

Oh boy, she used my first name. She did that on purpose. She was letting me know that she knew me all too well. And I knew it too.

"I'm not talking about deceiving her or trying to seem sympathetic," I say. "I'm talking about just being myself. Up close, direct, and personal. No games."

Ramius raises an eyebrow. "Okay?"

"I know it seems weird, but I think I might be able to get her to say something, even if it's just a token, by just talking to her directly and not doing typical interrogation tactics. Remember, I made Hilda give up, Captain."

"You did. I'm still amazed that you succeeded," Ramius said.

"I think I can do it again, Captain," I said. "Just by appealing to her emotions and morals and whatever, just like I did over Elle. It's not going to help that Sahib Ashman and his people are looming over her head."

Ramius sighs. "She has an almost irrational fear of them. I can understand up to the point. ZAFT has not won themselves many favors from Ashman's forces. The cultural differences don't help either."

"Then that's our ploy," I say. "Have the guards watching over her casually mention that some of Ashman's men are coming to interrogate her, give her a little while to sweat, but then I come in. She'll be nice and freaked out."

A smirk must have crossed my face, because Ramius' response wasn't what I was expecting. "Natarle Badgiruel would be proud, Ensign."

"Huh?"

Ramius' smile looked almost sad, as if I was some old friend about to walk away forever. "That's something like she would suggest. But in this case it would probably work, wouldn't it? I'll have the instructions passed down."

What was that supposed to mean? Before I could ask, Ramius sat back down in her chair. "You're excused, Ensign. Someone or I will let you know when it's time to execute your phase."

"Uh . . . yes, Captain Ramius." I couldn't help but feel like I had said or done something really wrong with my suggestion, but when I left the room, I realized why.

Badgiruel and Ramius did not get along. They were very different people. Ramius was honest, straightforward, and trustworthy. Badgiruel was ruthless, manipulative, and forceful. What I had done was suggest something out of Badgiruel's playbook to Ramius. Worse, I had said it so convincingly that Ramius couldn't come up with a good response to it.

I had studied human behavior extensively in my studies. It had never occurred to me how good of a manipulator I could be before.

And this was an example of how easily I could twist and bend people to suit my own plans.

For the first time since my initial space sickness, I felt bile rise in my throat and I nearly vomited right in front of the door to the bridge.

What was I turning into? Hilda . . . Hilda was a human being. What I had suggested doing to her was nothing more than torture. Psychological torture.

Badgiruel would be proud, all right.

No, I told myself. No. You're not going to turn into this person. You can't.

I wanted to march back onto that bridge and tell Ramius I had changed my mind, I didn't want to do it anymore. But my legs couldn't move.

The realization that what I had done was the only way to figure out why ZAFT wanted me so bad was stronger than the moral arguments.

No more, I thought. No more. This is the only time I'm going to do this. Ever.

I walked away from the bridge, hoping that the idle chatter I had suggested would be interpreted by Hilda as idle chatter, and nothing more.


That night, I was summoned by a couple of the soldiers who had been on Artemis, judging by their accents and different insignia. I was brought down into the brig, which held just one person, Hilda Harken. The brig was not a large facility, but there being only one occupant made the place seem bigger, and more eerie, than it should have seemed.

One of the guards told me "We have a recording device installed above her cell. You don't need to wear a wire. Just go in, do what you can. She has no concept of time in there, and don't give her any. We'll decide when to pull you out if you don't pull out by your own decision."

"Okay," I say, feeling sick to my stomach. The only thing that was keeping me from wanting to throw up was my self-assurance that Hilda was a soldier. A special-forces type. She wouldn't be broken so easily, would she?

"Good luck."

I walked out into the brig, and made a beeline for Hilda's cell.

There she was, staring into space. Confirming my worst fears, despair was etched on her face, a solemn resignation that made it seem like she was ready to burst into tears at any moment. Her only good eye turned and looked at me, and her lips trembling as she saw me made me realize that my hopes were useless. Hilda was already broken, by me. Doing what I had done had just made it worse.

"Ensign Yamato," she said, her voice soft, distant.

"Hi," I said. That sounded lame even to myself. "At least they've managed to keep your bandages clean."

"Yes, they have," Hilda said. "Luckily, my retina was not cut. My eyesight can be restored if I have emergency surgery. Unfortunately, my eye has been damaged for so long that there's no way to restore it unless I wind up under PLANT care. They have the technology to save my eye, Earth doesn't."

"I'm glad," I say. "That means you have hope."

"Hope?" Hilda asked, her voice growing even more softer. "What hope? I have no hope here."

"Ashman?" I asked.

"ZAFT, before Waltfeld came in and knocked some order into the troops, did not treat the locals here with much respect. Disdain at best, utter loathing at worst. The troops don't understand the Islam religion these people follow, they fear it, but then most of PLANT is-"

"'A nation of atheists', right?" I interrupted.

"Yes," Hilda said with a soft sigh. "I . . . I wish that Waltfeld had been in command from the start. If he had, perhaps Northern Africa would have followed the rest of Africa in supporting PLANT."

Most of Africa had opted to ally itself with the Coordinators. The reason was simple: Power. Africa lacked it. The Coordinators promised it. Africa was finally looking forward to rising, while the Western and Eastern worlds were looking to take an epic fall if PLANT won the war.

"I don't think what happened to Tassil will help any," I say.

"No. I don't think so," Hilda replies.

"What's Waltfeld planning?" I ask. "He has to have something up this sleeve to put Tassil behind him."

Hilda sighs. "You have a wire on you, don't you?"

"I don't. I am just worried. Worried that-"

"Then you have something in the ceiling listening in," Hilda says.

Before I can reply, she chuckles. "But it's okay. I don't know what Waltfeld is planning. I was not part of his unit, and not acting on his orders. My orders came from the highest echelons of PLANT itself."

"Wait, what?" I ask. "That far up?"

"You have no idea how badly PLANT wants you out of this war. You have not only destroyed a lot of expensive vehicles and killed some top pilots, but you are a public relations disaster waiting to happen, Cagalli Yamato."

I briefly wondered how PLANT would know who I was, and then I remembered. Athrun. Even if he didn't intend to leak the information out, his wingmates definitely knew who I was, and neither Yzak or Dearka had seemed like nice people and could've done a report behind Athrun's back. Or even if they hadn't, either their commander Rau Le Creuset or someone associated with him could have done it. This all stemmed from Athrun knowing who I was and blabbing it on public channels. ZAFT basically controlled PLANT at this point so it would take little time and effort for anything ZAFT knew to reach what essentially is a puppet government at this point, no matter how Siegel Clyne tried to persuade people otherwise.

"I break their 'unifed front' message, don't I?" I asked.

"You do," Hilda says. "Patrick Zala is really not pleased."

"Patrick Zala?" He was on the PLANT Supreme Council, a rival to Siegel Clyne. And Athrun's father.

Hilda looks at me sympathetically. "He is . . . let's just say unhappy with his son."

Well, if I were Athrun's father, I wouldn't be happy either. Athrun had done a multitude of crazy, unprofessional things trying to bring me over to his side. If I were the father, I'd kick Athrun's ass! But at the same time, from my own perspective, Athrun's actions did have some merit. Who wanted to fight someone he so deeply cared about?

"But it's more than that," Hilda continued. "Patrick Zala is eyeing Chairmanship. He's trying to usurp Siegel Clyne right now. The fact that his son has been trying to romance you back is well-known on the Council. You can imagine how embarrassing that is for Patrick Zala, especially with him taking the lead in forcing the marriage between his son and Lacus Clyne."

What Hilda was seeming to imply hit me all at once. "You're saying that Patrick Zala personally is trying to have me killed?"

"Chances are pretty high," Hilda said. "Either him or an ally on the Council. You represent a crack in the hard-liners' narrative, of all Coordinators uniting as a whole against the Naturals. Even before Zala began trying to take over the Council, it was a powerful narrative, one that Siegel Clyne adapted himself. Even Coordinators who had lived on Earth their whole lives, served in the Earth Forces, they have gone to the PLANTs almost as one besides some anti-war neutrals. Blood is stronger than planet, I suppose."

But then Hilda leaned in, almost so she was touching the force field between her and I. "But it's not just your political consequences, Cagalli Yamato. Zala in particular is scared of you. You've pulled off some incredible feats. Especially in your escape from Tassil. You gave everyone on the Supreme Council a collective heart attack, rhetorically speaking."

"So what?" I asked.

"You have no idea how special you are, Cagalli Yamato," Hilda says. "But then, neither do I. I only have an inkling."

"How much do you know?" I asked. "What are you talking about? "

"I said, that's all I know," Hilda says. "But don't think I'll be the last one to try to remove you by subterfuge means. I would be very careful until this war is over, even if this ship makes it to Orb."

It was all hitting me all at once. All of Hilda's odd behavior and mannerisms around me before she revealed who she was. The way Athrun had seemed to be getting more desperate by the encounter to get me over onto ZAFT's side. I was a priority target. One of the greatest threats to ZAFT in the whole war. And Athrun knew it, but didn't want to tell me so. He liked me, even loved me, but wasn't at the point of martyring himself for me.

"This explains everything," I said. "You've been waiting to kill me ever since you got onboard this ship."

"Well, my orders were that if I could convince a betrayal out of you, or at least get you out of the Strike, that would take precedence over outright killing you," Hilda says. But she shakes her head. "But I saw immediately that you don't have an ounce of treachery in you. You're too fiercely loyal to your beliefs and your friendships, to what you believe are your responsibilities. I respect that. I honestly do."

Her remaining good eye shimmered for a second. "I wish I was like you, to be honest. I did not want to betray the Earth Forces, but I felt that our kind was going to ultimately win the war. I knew there would be nothing for a blood traitor in the new Coordinator-dominated world, the same way Neanderthals were gradually exterminated when the type of humans now known as Naturals took over the Earth. So I gave up everything to show our kind, our race, that I deserve a spot in the new world."

The admission was moving, in a way. But also infuriating. Here was a woman who had compromised her entire life for a belief she didn't wholeheartedly agree with. No wonder she failed!

It also helped me connect the dots even further. It was clear now how Hilda had managed to infiltrate the Atlantic Federation. She had been a member of it all along.

"So you tried to kill me instead," I said.

"Yes. Or try to get my hands on Prince Kira Yeley Athha," Hilda replied.

"Is the Supreme Council aware that he's on this ship?" I asked.

"No," Hilda said. "I was unable to report it to them."

She was telling the truth. There was nothing wavering or careful about her response. At least that was one bit of good news.

But it was clear I was not going to get anything out of her regarding Waltfeld. "So . . . this was all about me, wasn't it? What do you mean by 'special'?"

"I don't know. It was something offhand I heard during my debriefing. Something about your birth parents and how you were born."

This was the first time I had heard an inkling about my birth parents. Ever. They had been a total mystery to me my whole life. They gave me apparently nothing but my first name. Even my family name was based off of my adoptive parents'. I didn't know their names, what they looked like, what they did for a living, none of it.

All of a sudden, I wanted to know everything. It's natural, I guess, when you know you're adopted, to want to know where you come from.

"How much did you hear? What about my birth parents? How are they involved in this? Are they even still alive? Hilda!"

"I told you everything I know," Hilda said. "I'm sorry. I mean it when I say it's just an offhanded remark."

So PLANT was more aware of my past than I was. And that had unfortunate implications. Horrifying ones.

"They've been spying on me my whole life, haven't they?" I asked. "Watching me. Because I'm 'special', whatever the hell that's supposed to mean."

"I wouldn't be shocked," Hilda said. "That's what I mean when I say 'be careful'. I will likely not be the last infiltrator. I wouldn't even be shocked if PLANT has an agent who's been watching you the whole time, and is watching you right now."

The thought was sobering, and more realistic than you'd expect. ZAFT, after all, knew about what was going on at Heliopolis. The agent, or agents, they used to spy on Morgenroete's construction of the GUNDAM machines, and the manufacturing of the Archangel, could've been used on metoo. Maybe one of them was on this ship too, just watching, waiting.

"What the hell am I?" I asked, not to anyone in particular.

"I don't know. You could be an ordinary Coordinator for all I know, but the Council sure seems to think you're not. Though it could all come down to your independent line in the end," Hilda said.

No. I'm not ordinary. I wish I was but I'm not. The seed was proof enough. It was not something anyone normal, whether Natural or Coordinator, could see. I was the only one.

Damn it, I just wanted to collapse in front of Hilda's cell. It took everything I had to turn and just start walking away.

"Thank you," I managed.

"Please . . . I hope it's enough to keep Ashman's men away from me," Hilda says.

"I hope it is," I say, not particularly caring that I was confirming Hilda's assumptions right then and there.

I forced myself to walk away, feeling worse than I had before this whole conversation started.

"Special". I was "special".

The seed. That had something to do with it, wasn't it? Was it some kind of program put into me? What if my birth parents weren't ordinary people, or had given me to people who were anything but? What if something was done to me?

The only gratifying part about all of this was that I was no ticking time bomb. If I was, I should've gone off by now. It only made sense.

But that was a small thing, that barely healed any of the wounds Hilda had just inflicted on me without meaning to.

Now all I was left with was questions about myself, about what I was.

Because, in the end . . .

There was no telling who or what I truly was.

But I knew one thing. I was going to find out eventually, whether I found out tomorrow or if it took decades. It was inevitable now.

And I had a feeling I was not going to like it.