File this chapter title under the "could not resist" pile.
Chapter Eighty-Three: The Final Countdown
I received the call a few days later, just as I heard, and my father predicted.
Arnold Neumann, who seemed to be Badgiruel's personal facilitator at this point, was the one who gave me the call. "Morning, Cagalli. While this isn't an emergency, they are issuing an order for all hands on deck. I think we're going to be leaving soon."
I felt both fear and a bit of relief. Fear due to knowing that I would be charging into the final battle. But also relief, because that meant my secret wouldn't be out until after the battle.
I wasn't sure how to feel when I left my sleeping family behind, writing down a quick note promising I would be back when I could. It was another jerk maneuver from me, just like abandoning them and (in a sense) betraying Stellar, but I wasn't sure if I could face them one more time before leaving. If I did, I would be tempted to reveal the truth to them, and I wouldn't be able to make myself leave.
Of course, it was my fault in the first place. If I hadn't lost control of my emotions or desires, I wouldn't have been in this position.
When I got to the bridge of the Archangel, things were getting hectic, with people running everywhere. But when I saw all of the principal officials and top pilots clustered around the bridge, I knew what was happening, especially with Kira in the center.
They had drawn up the battle plan, and now the rest of us were going to learn it.
"We have received word that the Earth Alliance fleet has begun to make its move. We have been informed of this by our field officers within their ranks, and images taken by our satellites seem to confirm the movements," Badgiruel said firmly. "It seems probable that the Earth Alliance movement is to achieve nothing less than the total obliteration of the PLANTs."
Kisaka spoke next. He stood alone among these other officials with his Orb uniform. "The only way to get to the PLANTs is by going through the Boaz asteroid fortress strategically positioned directly in front of them. Every other path is clogged with debris and likely guarded by sniper squads that would make mincemeat out of the Earth Alliance before they could get within range of the PLANTs. And regardless, it would be difficult to get past the other fortress, Jachin Due, after sustaining heavy losses either by going through Boaz or going around it."
Badgiruel nodded. "Correct. However, as we know, Rau Le Creuset transmitted the N-Jammer Canceller data directly to the Earth Alliance, and that will allow them to use nuclear weapons if they so choose."
"It would have been so easy to just use the data to solve the energy crisis," Kira said softly. "But there's been no sign of it being used to allow nuclear energy to be used on Earth again."
"That's what leads us to believe that they've attached Cancellers to nuclear warheads, and that is why they are making a frontal assault on Boaz," Badgiruel replied. Considering how much talking she was doing compared to Noami Misora, it seemed she had won the political war against the admiral. It probably helped she was a much closer associate of Kira's than Naomi Misora could ever hope to be.
"Blow Boaz to kingdom come and the door to the PLANTs and Jachin Due is wide open," Kisaka replied.
"Correct. Which is why our battle plan is not to let it come to that," Kira replied. "We have drawn up a plan involving thirty of our ships with the remainder in reserve to protect L4 from any Earth Alliance traps."
"Thirty ships can't fight both fleets!" exclaimed an Earth captain.
"No, they can't. That is why we're bringing our entire GUNDAM force with us," Kira replied. "And we have a plan that will execute itself in layers depending on accomplishing our main battle objectives, if you will let me explain."
The Earth captain looked like he was biting back a retort, but he stayed silent and yielded the floor to Kira.
"Thank you. We've identified two shatterpoints. One is the Dominion. Fear of the Dominion and the Blue Cosmos chairman, Muruta Azrael, is cajoling many of the Earth forces who would otherwise not be inclined to follow these orders. If we destroy the Dominion, along with any nuclear weapons we have, we've received assurances of many Earth Alliance officers of defection, mutiny, or at least a withdrawal from the battle line. That will be of significant help to us, and will remove the Earth Alliance from the equation. That will only leave ZAFT, and I believe Captain Gladys or Mr. Durandal, depending on who wants to speak, would be better qualified than I am to explain this part of the plan."
There was a moment of hesitation, but then Gladys took the floor. "Right. Well, the Dominion is meant to trigger a domino effect. We have a force ready to mutiny in Boaz, but they will not go through with it until the Dominion is destroyed. Once the mutiny begins, they will need help from us because they are outnumbered, so we will be deploying landing craft and marines to help take Boaz from the outside."
She then pointed towards Jachin Due. "In the PLANTs, Eileen Canaver has positioned herself as the head of the resistance to Patrick Zala's rule. If we manage to take Boaz and eliminate the Earth Alliance, we will be the ones approaching the PLANTs instead. Eileen Canaver will initiate her coup d'etat against Zala as we approach. Ideally, we won't have to fire a shot after taking Boaz."
She looked at Athrun and Mu La Flaga then. "La Flaga, you are in command of all Mobile Suit and Mobile Armors. Zala, your GUNDAM team will be crucial to the battle. If the nuclear weapons are fired, it will be up to you and Yamato to engage your METEOR systems to launch a series of tracking missiles to shoot them down before they strike Boaz. However, while you do this, you all will be engaging the Dominion with the objective being to destroy it, before circling back and assisting in the capture of Boaz."
She had started looking at me when she was mentioning 'destroying' the Dominion. It was a clear warning to me to not to try to save Murrue.
I knew she was right, but to abandon my first captain, to just kill her…
I said nothing. I knew if I did I'd make matters worse for myself. Especially since I knew it was the only thing that could be done. This was war, after all.
It was getting to me, that the only way I was going to be able to participate in the battle was to stay silent. Not reveal any emotion at all. It was exactly being like a soldier, except I wasn't a soldier. Fighting to enforce a peace is still participating in an act of war, after all.
"We can handle that," Athrun replied firmly. He was always resolute like this; it made me understand why, time and time again, people would follow him into battle.
I and he being on the same side had erased his uncertainty, and now he was ready to do what was right. He was still haunted by having to face his father. But there was something strong about the way he had been since I had joined him after leaving Orb. His principal conflict was fighting me. Now that it was no longer the case, he was more at peace with himself.
"We will send out more specific instructions to every captain and Mobile Suit/Mobile Armor team," Kira said. "But our final order of business is… we're going to need to fight under a banner, and dole out military rankings so the chain of command is not disrupted. There's a possibility that even if we win, we won't be able to go home. We need a banner to fight under."
That caused a silence to enter the room, but it wasn't long before Badgiruel turned to Kira. "You are the one who brought most of these people here, Kira. I think it would make sense if we fought under Orb's banner, and that you are our leader and Commander-in-Chief."
"What?" Kira asked, clearly shocked by the suggestion. I barely could hide my smile. My brother, the leader of this whole thing. Who would have thought it?
"She's right," Talia Gladys replied. "For this battle, at the absolute least, we will fight under Orb's flag."
I watched as everyone else swore their allegiance to Orb, for this battle if nothing else, and that's when it hit me.
Orb was an occupied country now on Earth. Even if we did win, there was no guarantee we'd be able to return to it. Who says the Earth Alliance would step aside and let us have our country back?
The chances were looking pretty good that, at least for some of us, there was no returning home. We'd only have one home now, and it would be L4.
Or, as it was going to be from now on, Orb.
Before we were going to sortie, Athrun and I were going to have to transfer to the Eternal because of the Freedom and Justice being there. We had already launched from Mendel, but there would be a brief bit of time before we would be in battle conditions. We also were prepared to turn around and head back if the Earth Alliance did have a secret plan for L4, but all of the intelligence reports indicated that Muruta Azrael was acting as predicted: throwing everything at the PLANTs, and then come back around to deal with us.
It was then that I got to see Feldt Grace one more time, along with my brother. Feldt turned around and looked at me, and smiled. "Hi, Cagalli."
"Hey." I floated up to the both of them. "That was an eventful meeting, wasn't it?"
"I'm not ready for this," Kira said, his face flushing red.
"We'll worry about governing and that stuff later. It doesn't mean anything if we don't win the battle and put a stop to this war." I looked over at Feldt. "You up for this?"
"I am. I know why I am here… I know half of the people who know about me think I'm crazy, if not more, but… I know I'm in this position because I'm needed. I'll make this battle a lot easier by allowing a combat pilot do her job," Feldt replied.
"You think Feldt's crazy?" I asked Kira.
"No, but I do think we'll need to do some digging to find out what's truly going on, and why the exploits of 'Celestial Being' were erased," Kira replied.
It was a diplomatic answer. Find evidence to prove it, or any of her contentions mean nothing.
"That's what I'm going to do once this battle is over, try to find out what happened, and why there has been such a cover-up," Feldt replied. She smiled in a fatalistic way, as if she was expecting a bad answer from me then. "I know that this is selfish of me, but… I was hoping to have assistance in researching the Reconstruction War and find out who is truly behind the creation of Cosmic Era. I think that is the true source of our issues, and why an avoidable conflict like the Bloody Valentine War wound up happening."
I knew that I was the top of her list of people to trust, and that is why she wanted me to help her. And I knew I would have to.
"I will, but I think after this battle, we'll all need some time to rest before we could possibly even think of doing this," I replied. "Considering you were found in Mendel, I think we could even make a lot of gains just by searching the various parts of the colony for information."
Feldt nodded. "That makes sense. It seems L4 was a site for a lot of questionable experiments."
I almost laughed out a 'no shit' response and bit it back. "You have no idea," I said instead.
"I would like to have an idea, and ideally even more," Feldt replied. "My future, my purpose, my reason for being, and everything I have done, it's all been stolen from me. I am going to find those thieves, and I'm going to take from them far more than they could possibly fathom."
Kira laughed awkwardly. "Wow, the mood got dark fast."
He wasn't wrong. Feldt seemed to be neck-deep in the five stages of grief, and she was entering her angry phase. Hopefully it would blow over before we started the battle, otherwise it was just going to be organized chaos like what happened in the battle around Mendel.
"I'm sorry," Feldt said, calming down. "I shouldn't be talking about this, it shouldn't be my concern. It means nothing if we don't win this battle."
That seemed to lift the tension from the air, just a little bit. I wanted to sigh in relief. At least we weren't going to continue down this road.
I admit that I had ulterior motives, though. I knew that Feldt's path could potentially put her right in the teeth of a greater enemy, if one did exist. I could not face that enemy, not when I had a positive pregnancy test hanging over my head. And definitely not with my family potentially being in danger too.
But this was something we would need to uncover, together. We only had colonized a small part of L4; there was a lot of open space left inside that colony uncharted. Even with a pregnancy, I could help Feldt at least search the rest of Mendel for clues as to what happened, and decide if any information discovered could be acted upon.
I just hoped that when Feldt got her answers, or if she didn't, it wouldn't drive her to do anything crazy. The ZAFT personnel allied with us were intending to go back home when this was over, assuming that Eileen Canaver's rule would protect them. Depending on what happened with Earth, a lot of the Alliance refugees and soldiers weren't going to stick around either.
Our mighty fleet might shrink down to just a couple of ships and whatever GUNDAMs were left. If that happened, there'd be no way to defend ourselves in a war triggered by Feldt rummaging around.
And then we'd be the same position she was, wondering what it was we fought for and why when the outcome was the same, just on a delay.
Even with the battle, and this current war, over with, we could all just be puppets in an even larger war behind the scenes.
If it came down to that, we were going to have to win that one too.
I just wasn't sure if any of us were ready for it.
We were going to sortie in the next few minutes, but for this final moment before the battle, it was just Athrun and me, looking at our GUNDAMs standing resolutely in front of us.
"Hard to believe this is it," Athrun said softly.
There was still so much awkwardness between us. It was difficult for us to start a conversation with each other because we both knew what we did, although Athrun wasn't aware of the consequences yet.
"I hope that they thought through this battle as they made it look," I replied. "We're getting the tough job."
"We have the best equipment, we get the toughest job. That's how it always works," Athrun said with a humorless chuckle. "You saw how it happened when we fought together in ZAFT."
"I did," I replied, though I didn't want to remember it because Panama kept trying to flash into my head.
"Cagalli," Athrun said, and I quickly realized by his tone of voice and his body language that he was about to make a big mistake.
"No promises," I said before he could even begin his spiel.
"But-" Yup, just as I thought, he was going to make a promise or make a proposal or something else idealistic and foolhardy like all men do in these situations.
"No promises, Athrun. We're going to dive headlong into a battle where there will be two sides against us, and we're going to have the toughest job of all," I replied. "Don't make someone a promise if you can't guarantee you can keep it. Especially before a battle like this."
Athrun smiled thinly, but also knowingly. "I kind of expected you to say that."
"Well, it's true. The last thing we need before going into a battle, especially a final one, is to make some sort of stupid promise that will get broken because somebody's luck finally runs out," I replied.
Athrun didn't say anything, he turned his head and looked towards the Justice, as if the Mobile Suit could give him answers.
"The best laid plans always go awry," Athrun finally said.
"The plan for us is to go right into the teeth of the Earth Alliance and attack any vessel carrying nuclear weapons, and to ultimately attack and destroy the Dominion," I replied. "The only three GUNDAMs we know are left will be in the way."
"We outnumber them now," Athrun replied. "Six against three. Seven if we count La Flaga and the Strike."
"Commander La Flaga," I corrected, noting his new rank.
"Right, Lieutenant," Athrun replied to me almost playfully.
"Don't lord your Lieutenant-Commander status over me," I replied, giving him a soft push with one of my hands.
We laughed briefly. It was nice. It was natural. For a few seconds, I forgot there was a war we were rushing into.
I looked up at the Freedom. "Look, my point is that I don't think the whole team is going to make it through this. That's why we can't make each other the kinds of promises that you want to make right now. And honestly, I have promises I want to make too."
"Well, then, can I at least give you something before we go?"
"Athrun, I-" It turned into to be a kiss, a deep one that weakened my knees.
I didn't want him to let go of me.
When we separated, I felt fearful that it would be my last kiss with him. I almost told him in that moment. Almost. I just barely bit it back, knowing that I would be breaking my own vow, contradicting my own principles, by telling him.
"Thank you," I finally said.
"You're welcome," Athrun said with a smile, as he rifled his hand through my bangs just for a moment, before he turned around.
"Let's kick some ass out there," I said.
"That's what we're trained to do," Athrun replied. "See you in space."
"Yeah," I replied. And I better see you when this is over with, which was what I kept to myself.
I hoped that I wouldn't regret not saying anything more to him.
The Justice had already taken off when it was my turn to launch. There was a lot of chatter over our allied airwaves, so I cut them down to just Feldt on the Archangel, my teammates, and the Eternal. Otherwise I just would have gone insane.
Our approach was definitely noticed, but we were approaching in such a way that sandwiched the Earth Alliance forces between us and Boaz. So we wouldn't be encountering ZAFT forces right away, instead putting us face to face with Azrael and his group.
The Earth Alliance had only just begun to engage. It wouldn't be long before they fired their nuclear weapons, however they had them assembled. The sooner we were all out there and fighting, the better.
It was DeCosta supervising my launch. I wondered if he noted the irony in that he was supporting someone he once opposed and even tried to capture or kill. He had never made those feelings known.
"We're going to launch you, and then turn over command to the Archangel," DeCosta said.
"Copy that. I'm all set," I replied.
"Excellent. Good luck out there. Don't let them get a single missile off at Boaz."
"I don't plan to." The launch engaged then, and a countdown went off in my head.
I hoped it would be the final countdown I would ever have to deal with as a pilot.
Five. Four. Three. Two. One.
The lights came on and I felt everything primed for launch.
"This is Cagalli Yamato, piloting Freedom! Let's do this!"
I hit the acceleration and blasted out of the Eternal, just in time to see the distant flashes of a final showdown beginning to commence.
My hands tightened on the controls.
One more time.
Hard to believe we've made it to this point, the final battle in Gundam SEED Bloodlines. This is going to take several chapters to wrap up, however. And things will not be as easy as you might think even though the good guys have serious advantages this time. As Athrun says, the best laid plans always go awry.
We have seven chapters to go before the end, speaking of final countdowns. I hope they live up to the long, long wait to get there.
If you made it this far, congratulations. If you have been following this fic for the 5+ years it's been going, you are made of iron. Sorry for jerking you around for so long with the delays. If things had gone according to plan we would have wrapped this fic up in 2013.
Better late than never, I guess...
