Beginning of the Last War Arc
"What's this?" Mr. Argyle looked at the white envelope that had appeared between stacks of the ever present bills he got on a weekly basis. Even with his company in ruins, the bills never stopped coming. He'd thought he and his wife might have a moment's peace since they were living at his grandfather's house in Colorado. But that hope had been dashed long ago and he'd grown resigned to this weekly ritual. He picked up the odd white envelope. It wasn't like most of the mail he received, this looked to be printed on mass produced paper of quite rough quality. It looked almost sloppy to tell the truth. There was a large blurry globe printed on the front in black ink. It took Mr. Argyle almost a minute to recognize the symbol as the one the Earth Alliance used for its military forces.
He tore open the envelope and shook out the letter inside. He slipped on his reading glasses and held the paper up to the light. The ink was very light and the script was a bit odd, making it hard to make out. Clearly this had been produced in haste. "To whom it may concern… blah blah, blah blah." Mr. Argyle scanned through the letter, muttering under his breath. It was mostly gibberish, as far as he could tell. The only phrase that really caught his eye was near the end. That phrase stopped him cold and left him trembling. He reached out for his coffee cup and knocked it to the floor, where it shattered.
"… do officially conscript those it concerns into the armed forces of the Earth Alliance." He whispered. "What the HELL is this!"
"Dear?" Mrs. Argyle asked, coming downstairs in her sleeping robe. She looked at the coffee on the floor in surprise. "Is something wrong?"
"I'll say there is!" he replied. He shook the letter at her. "Do you know what this is?" His wife shook her head. "It's a goddamned conscription notice! I've been drafted!"
"Let me see that!" Mrs. Argyle demanded. She practically ripped the document from his hand. She put on glasses of her own and studied it intently. Slowly the expression on her face changed from shocked incredulity to horror. The letter slipped from her suddenly numb fingers.
"What's wrong?" Mr. Argyle asked, alarmed.
"Didn't you read the letter?" she asked.
"I glanced through it."
"Did you see the part where it talks about "to whom this may concern"?"
"Yes."
"Don't you realize what that means?" she started trembling. "This letter isn't to you. It's to both of us. We've both been drafted!"
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"That's ridiculous!" Mr. Haw snorted, looking up from his newspaper at his wife.
"We're citizens of Orb; the Earth Alliance can't draft us!"
"Not anymore, dear. Remember, as of two weeks and one day ago, Orb is a protectorate of the Earth Alliance nation the Atlantic Federation. I'm afraid this is perfectly legal." His wife replied sadly.
"It's a travesty!" Mr. Haw protested. "How can the leaders of Orb allow them to do this? It's not even conscription into the Orb military. That I could understand, if not like. But to allow their tax paying citizens to be conscripted into the armed forces of a foreign nation? It's an outrage!"
"That doesn't change the fact that we've been drafted. If we don't report to the mustering port by three days from now, we'll be considered deserters and hunted down as criminals." Mrs. Haw replied.
"This can't be happening!" Mr. Haw cried, pounding the table with his fist. "First Miriallia goes missing and we have no word for months and now we have to go fight a war that shouldn't be fought!"
Mrs. Haw could only make soothing noises she couldn't put much heart into. She was just as incensed as he husband. But there was little they could do besides accept it.
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"You've got mail, Kuzzey!" Mrs. Buskirk shouted, her voice cutting through the music Kuzzey was listening to via headphones up in his room.
"I'll be right down Mom!" he called back. "What could that be? My friends don't send me paper mail and it's too early for class lists." He muttered to himself. He took off his headphones and paused his playlist. The sudden discordant sound of plates breaking below had him down the stairs and in the kitchen before another three seconds had passed. "What's wrong, Mom?"
His mother was as white as a sheet. She held a funny looking coarse paper envelope in one hand, it had been opened. Her other hand held a sheet of what looked like computer paper, with faint lettering on it. "H-here. Read this. I need to call your father." She said, handing him the paper. Kuzzey was puzzled. What could have upset his Mom so much? He glanced through the letter and felt the bottom drop out of his stomach.
"Conscripted? But I quit the military!" he complained. He looked at the letter again. "Wait… this letter isn't to me… it's to "whom it may concern", that means it's just a generic thing."
"That's right, ALL OF US!" Mrs. Buskirk shouted into the phone in the next room. "WE'VE ALL BEEN DRAFTED!"
Kuzzey looked at the letter like it was a poisonous serpent. His world was crashing down in flames. He thought back to when he left the Archangel just before the destruction of Orb's mass driver. He'd thought he was out for good after that. The military just wasn't for him. JOSH-A had proven that to him. Death was just too scary for him. Now though, it looked like he was going to be going through a much tougher wringer than the Archangel. Conscripts were grunts, cannon fodder really. He'd get a few weeks of training and then he'd get handed a gun and pressed into some desperate battle to fight until he was killed.
"Yes, it's probably to make up for their losses in Washington." His mom said into the phone, calmer now.
Washington had been a tough fight for the Alliance, by everything Kuzzey had read. ZAFT's sneak attack two weeks ago had caught the Alliance with their pants down. Washington DC hadn't been destroyed, but the fighting had been long and intense and the current ZAFT pullout was widely considered to be a mere calm before the storm, the next push was expected within the next week. Luckily, Kuzzey wouldn't have to fight in that battle, but he doubted that would be the end of the war. He'd be thrown into the more intense battles that were sure to happen later. If his time on the Archangel had taught him anything, it was that wars only got worse, not better.
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"You've got mail." Ysak's portable computer dinged happily when he logged on. He glared sourly at the screen. The announcement song was a legacy of Chanel's tampering with his computer during recent days. She'd decided the simple "ping" noise he had wasn't good enough for her tastes and had downloaded this too cheerful by far song sung in some language he couldn't understand but which Chanel assured him was French.
I wonder what that is. I haven't had mail since Switzerland. Ysak wondered. He opened his mail program. "ZAFT Defense Headquarters. I wonder what they want with me, the war criminal?" Ysak said bitterly. He opened the email and read through it once, then twice, just to make sure he hadn't misunderstood something. He sat back in his chair and shook his head in disbelief. I hate political wars. He groused mentally. He rose to a knocking at his door in Alkire's safe house in Hawaii. The flight from Orb had been pretty brutal; he wasn't used to spending so long in the cockpit, especially with no bathroom.
Alkire had gotten everyone else out with only slight problems. Apparently the facility had been invaded by quite a few Earth Alliance soldiers during the battle outside, but during a dashing and dangerous train battle that Ysak still hadn't gotten many details on, Alkire and company had managed to emerge victorious. It was a little hard to believe only five commandos and what amounted to seven armed civilians had managed to defeat more than sixty trained soldiers, but the results were unimpeachable, since Alkire and everyone had arrived in Hawaii safe and sound and several hours ahead of Ysak and the rest of the Gundam pilots.
"I'm coming." Ysak said when the knocking continued unabated. It wasn't Katie or Chanel; they would have barged in by now since they knew he no longer bothered to lock the door. Plus they never knocked in the first place. There was no position he could be in that would embarrass them, so they never worried about announcing their presence. It still bugged him, but he'd learned that there was nothing he could do about it and so he just dealt with it, like he did for a great many things. He opened the door to find Dearka standing there. "What?" Ysak asked flatly. He was on personal "me time", any interruption not named Katie or Chanel was most unwelcome.
"Did you get one too?" Dearka asked seriously. "A recall notice?"
Ysak sighed. "I was just looking at it. Ballsy of them, to declare me a war criminal and then ask for… no… order me to return for muster and reassignment like nothing had ever happened. They even want me to bring "any war material or resources I happen to possess", which means they were paying attention to that fracas in Orb two weeks ago. They know we've got new Mobile Suits and they want them."
"Well, they also want us too. We are two of their top pilots after all." Dearka replied, with a touch of his old arrogance.
"So what did you tell them?" Ysak asked.
"What do you think? I told them to go sit on a Cyclops system. I'm perfectly happy where I am now, on the side of peace."
"Don't you mean Miriallia's side?" Ysak snickered. Dearka eyed him frankly.
"You mean it hasn't influenced you at all that Katie and Chanel are on this side?"
Ysak remained silent. Dearka smiled in triumph. "As I thought. Well, I just thought I should inform you in case you didn't know."
"Yeah, sure. Thanks. In the future, just barge in. Everyone else does."
"You okay?" Dearka asked, surprised at the weariness in his friend's voice. "You sound odd."
"I'm just… well; you know how I was between battles before. I'm so restless I'm wearing myself out. I'll be okay after the next fight."
"Whenever that is. We decided not to go to Washington and there won't be any more fighting except that for the next week or so. ZAFT is still marshalling its troops after the failed knockout punch and the Earth Alliance is still reeling and frantically trying to get a proper defense organized."
"You make me so much happier." Ysak said with a slight smile. "Now go away and play with your girlfriend or something. "You're on "me time" and it's at a premium these days."
"Good idea. Have a fun time by yourself; I'm off to seek beautiful feminine company."
Ysak shook his head and closed the door. Maybe he'd try and get some sleep or something.
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"So what is the situation?" Cervantes asked Asmodeus, turning his office chair to face out the window. It wasn't an actual window, since his office was securely buried in a Colorado mountaintop, but the video screen was of such high definition that there was little visual difference between it and a clear pane of glass out to the outside world.
"The defense lines in Washington are solidifying. They're starting to fortify the other bases as well. The general staff has pulled their heads from their asses and realized that after Washington, ZAFT could attack anywhere and so they need to have a mobile response team ready. The world is a big place to defend, even with a military as large as the Alliance has."
"Will the defenses in Washington be enough?"
"Not by my reckoning. The generals say their forces are positioned well enough to hold off any attack until reinforcements arrive, but they are lying through their teeth. ZAFT has too many new mobile suits and the Earth Alliance too few Strike Crusaders to deal with them equally. The Daggers are outclassed and it shows during every fight. Even being dug in no longer conveys enough of an advantage to equalize the battle. Of course, that is a good thing for CWM, orders for Strike Crusaders have increased by a factor of ten, we can barely keep up actually."
"Still, a show of support is necessary. You'll be taking the BCPU's to Washington before the next attack. I don't expect you to fight off the attack or anything else pointless like that. Just use the battle to showcase the power of our BCPU's and their prototypes. How about the other situations?"
"The Judgment is just over 60 percent completed. The Fury has been completely restored, luckily the Doc kept a backup copy of its OS. All the BCPU machines have been fitted with extra EMP shielding to deal with the Liberty's special weapon in the future. Frost has also recovered completely. He seems to be recovering faster and faster these days. The Doc says it has something to do with the enhancements becoming more familiar with his biologic structure."
"Well and good, but the good Doc is a crazy man. Who knows what is actually happening. We'll just have to keep a sharper eye on Frost in the future. Any luck finding our slippery band of fugitives?"
"Their base is somewhere between Orb and Alaska." Asmodeus replied unhelpfully. "Though it could also be a ship or submersible of some type, that's just as likely at this point as a land base."
"You mean you didn't track the mobile suits to their destination?"
"Not so much didn't as couldn't. The N-Jammers are still around and satellite surveillance isn't what it used to be. We lost track of them about one thousand miles south of Hawaii. Also, most of the Alliances resources were being directed to Washington at the time and that crippled the search effort right from the start."
"What about Kisaka or this Simmons woman?"
"Both are believed to still be in Orb. They have enormous public support, even though the public has grown smart enough to keep it under tight wraps. The last wave of conscriptions was most unpopular."
"They're part of the Alliance now; they don't get to sit this war out." Cervantes said without sympathy.
"Precisely, sir. Other than that, CWM profits are up 17 percent because of war demand and let's see… oh yes, Vanai's pregnancy is starting to show. I've assigned her several experienced nurses to watch over her most carefully. Sai is of course ecstatic, but he also continues to resist Blue Cosmos doctrine about the extermination of Coordinators."
"I wouldn't respect him so much if he wasn't one stubborn son of a bitch. Maybe if his parents get killed in the war he'll change his mind. Any way we can arrange that?"
"I'll see what I can do. I might be able to get them posted to a high priority base once they get out of draftee camp. Maybe Gibraltar or Victoria, some place ZAFT is sure to hit hard as soon as possible."
"Excellent. Any more news?"
Asmodeus pursed his lips in thought. "No, nothing else for now sir. I'll get in contact with the Doc and have him send the BCPU's and their support teams to our building outside Washington. I'll head there as well to make sure we're ready for the demonstration during the next battle. I do have your permission to retreat once I feel we've shown off enough though, right? Washington cannot be saved, even with us there."
"Abandon it as soon as you make an impression." Cervantes directed.
"Thank you, sir." Asmodeus saluted and then left. Cervantes tented his fingers and leaned forward. Things were going according to plan, except for the little fugitives and their game, but that would soon enough be dealt with.