The ZAFT patrol was picking it's way lightly through the forest... well as lightly as a pair of BuCue's could anyway. Which was surprisingly stealthily, the big four legged machines managed to move through the thinly spaced trees with a modicrum of decorm, crushing only the occasional bush and knocking only a few limbs from their trunks. Of course it helped that the undergrowth down in the valley was much lighter than the near jungle that carpeted the slopes, which did a much better job of hiding the stationary and in some cases prone Strike Daggers and Strike Crusaders that made up the 15th detached mobile division of the Earth Alliance armed forces special operations unit. Painted in forest camouflage colors and outfitted with the latest in vehicle stealth systems, the twenty five mobile suit unit was one of the most elite mobile suit units the Earth Alliance could field, equivalent to the Moebius Zero squadrons of the last war. Each and every pilot in the 15th had at least two confirmed ZAFT kills, some made with mobile armors but most with mobile suits.
The unit as a whole had never participated in a losing engagement, though they had been out of rotation during the battle of GENESIS. After the lunar fleet was mostly wiped out by GENESIS they were one of the most veteran units in the entirity of the Earth Alliance Military. They were set up in ambush positions on both sides of the mountain valley, deep within the mountains of Northeastern Eurasia. However, for this mission they would not be ambushing a mere patrol... they were the advance unit for a major offensive that was due to be launched on the ZAFT prefabricated base that had been dropped from low orbit during the first few days of the war. The base had been sited, for unknown reasons, within a sheltered and isolated valley near the center of the range, near an abandoned and dug out mining facility. Tacticians had initially designated the base a supply depot, but an unusual amount of activity was noticed by observers. Far more troops and much more material was going into the base than was going out. Finally, an infiltration team of EFSOU operatives had penetrated the base's security and learned the truth.
ZAFT had long possessed scale technology... a technology which utilized the vibration and motion of tiny scale like flanges on the bottom and sides of vehicles to propel them through water or soft sand or mud or the like. The technology was most famous in its utilization by the Lessups class land battleships, but ZAFT submarine carriers and lesser land ships also used the same system. However, until recently vehicles equipped with the technology had been limited to water or regions of very loose sediment... more firm terrain stymied the scale vibrations and slowed the vehicles considerably, even stopping them altogether in locations with lots of stone. But the EFSOU team discovered that ZAFT scientists had managed to come up with an improved new scale system that worked on solid rock, even hard igneous rock like granite and basalt, much like the old system worked on water. Combined with massive drills and laser borering machines, massive transports had been built that could carry five mobile suits each comfortably under the ground to target points before bursting from the ground like deadly moles to unleash their deadly cargo. The Earth Alliance had no counter... the very idea of giant burrowing war machines was somewhat ludicrous even after their existence was verified... and so it was determined that the machines needed to be destroyed and the project halted before it could go any further before ZAFT could utilize either.
And of course it would significantly reduce ZAFT's forces in the area as well, making the diversionary assaults planned to coincide with the Australian Maneuver due to take place in two weeks time. The Australian Maneuver was the talk of the unit, like it was for pretty much the entire military. An offensive of the scale that the operation was rumored to be had not been seen for hundreds of years. rumor said entire divisions and fleets were being consolidated into one giant hammer to smash ZAFT right off their main base, Carpentaria. After this mission, the 15th was due to muster in India for that assault. They were going in at the head of the wave and they were looking forward to it. But first they had to provide yet another distraction... they would attack the base while another EFSOU unit slipped in from the other side of the mountains and broke into the mines, stealing any data possible and leaving behind a man portable thermonuclear bomb. Once the bomb was in place the 15th would withdraw and let the ZAFT base and its tunneling machines go up in a huge atomic fireball.
The 15th's commander looked at his watch and compared it to the mission chronometer display of his Strike Crusader. Both were perfectly synchronized and both were indicating the same thing. Mission Go. he looked down at the valley... the ZAFT patrol was a good two kilometers away and receding... far enough away that they would not be able to immediately flank his unit. "All units... Go code. We want this loud and flashy. Keep their eyes on us... then we can watch the big time loud and flashy from the transports." He then opened a channel to the EFSOU team across the base. "The raven flies at midnight." he radioed, the code words that would start the team on its infiltration.
"The raven flies at midnight?" Alkire said, incredulous. "Who the hell makes up that sort of crap? Their dispatcher must be watching too many cheap spy thrillers." He was wearing the headset rig that had formerly belonged to the leader of the EFSOU team he and the members of TEMPEST had intercepted two hours previously. The Archangel was lying in wait about a day's hard hike away, though only ten minutes flight time, hidden as well as a three hundred and fifty meter warship could be in the mountains. They had heard reports through Andrew Waltfeld that ZAFT was conducting a major buildup at this seemingly isolated base and so they had decided to drop by and see what was up. Well, Captain Ramius decided... with a great deal of advice from Kira and Lacus. Alkire thought with a mental sigh and shake of his head. He respected the good captain... her survival record was impeccable, something he always found reassuring in a commander, but she had her faults too. One of which was a humanitarian streak wider than her ship which synched almost perfectly with the ideals of Lacus and Kira. She was a crusading idealist in Alkire's opinion, always spouting off about trust and working together and a bunch of other bullshit that would have been real nice to listen to before the war broke out, when it might have actually made a difference.
But she was also the captain of the warship and so what she said went. But Alkire had had enough when Kira and Lacus decided that they should merely observe from a distance and make sure nothing went wrong... the EA was sure to come in hard and heavy on such a tempting ZAFT target in their own backyard and Kira was worried they might try nukes again... the area was isolated and scarcely populated enough that Alkire could see the reasoning for that. If he was in charge he might have done something of the sort. But Kira had flat refused to do more than watch until trouble started... and that didn't sit well with Alkire. Nothing good ever came of waiting for the enemy to act first. So he had asked permission to take TEMPEST out on a scouting mission to "investigate the base for obvious weaknesses". In truth he would have gone anyway, but it was best to operate with your "superiors" at least believing they were in control. Tended to foster a greater sense of trust and comraderie. Things which were in short supply on the Archangel.
It wasn't that the kids weren't fitting in, or that the Desert Dawn guys and the regular Orb soldiers weren't getting along... no they were getting along together just fine. They all worked together with the sort of clockwork precision found in only the most elite and highly motivated units. Morale was sky high and everyone was happy. Except for TEMPEST. Vlad's explanation of himself to Waltfeld had of course been heard by most of the bridge crew present and despite strict orders from Ramius to keep things low key, the story had spread around the ship with lightning speed. Pretty soon Vlad found himself getting quite the cold shoulder... few wanted to pal around with a mass murderer. A few of the more Coordinator rights type people had even tried to provoke fistfights with him. All of which he had ignored or done his best to talk his way out of. Of course, Vlad never was the best with his words and a fight had broken out anyway. Vlad versus three mechanics. Then Vlad vs four master at arms who had shown up to break up the fight. Then Vlad vs about half the hanger bay who decided to jump in to help their friends. Vlad had done his best to restrain himself... it would hardly be fair to go all out against untrained enemies... especially when the enemies were allies.
He didn't kill anyone, though a few of the more persistent attackers had been laid up in the infirmary for more than a week now nursing multiple broken bones. Alkire had been impressed, in a similar situation he was sure he would have been forced to kill at least four or five assaliants in order to walk out victorious. Ramius, Kira and Lacus had been less impressed. And much more angry. Though the incident was provably not Vlad's fault they still ruled on isolating him from the rest of the crew. For his own safety of course. More likely the safety of the crew but Alkire hadn't had the energy for an argument at the time. Things since then had been tense between TEMPEST and pretty much everyone else. Alkire still hadn't patched things up with Kira and Lacus and it didn't look like things were going to get better for waiting either. The other TEMPEST members had also been having their own problems fitting in with everyone else... James was too outgoing in his boasting about missions undertaken, especially the attack on Victoria, which most everyone else considered a terrible battle that should never have been fought... Victor brought his usual cutting sarcasm and general unfriendliness to the table... and Raine had broken four of a man's fingers and three of his toes when he made a pass at her in the gym.
Ysak was fitting in reasonably well, on the plus side. He was a surly bastard, but everyone already knew that and besides... he was Kira and Lacus's friend, wasn't he? The crew gave him a wide berth and a big kudos just from that. They helped out with maintenance on the Duelist when they could and obediantly scampered off when Ysak wanted to do his own work. Chanel and Katie were also big hits... as expected from two beautiful teenage girls on a ship full of war tense soldiers. A few crewmembers had made passes of their own at them, often just for fun, but after Ysak nearly trashed a fellow and Katie dislocated another's shoulder, that sort of thing died down. It was now a well known fact that Katie and Chanel were with Ysak... both of them, unfair as some of the younger crewmembers thought that was. Anyone who wanted different could bring it up with them... but better have a few friends to carry his limp body to the infirmary afterwards. Kira and Lacus of course fitted right in like hands in a custom glove. The crew loved them both like cherished children or siblings. They wouldn't hear a bad word spoken about them and considered their words to have almost golden weight and gravity. It had initially annoyed Alkire, but after a few days he had just stopped trying to care.
Now it was with almost bitter joy that he considered the carefully concealed mustering point around him. Joy because of a mission well done. Bitter because Kira was going to get pissed at him again and so the ship would too. "Why did you have to kill them all?" Kira would ask. "You should have just come back and warned us so we could have stopped them without any loss of life. No one needed to die today." Alkire found his lip twisting. The kid didn't learn. The world around them was not in synch with what he wanted it to be. Why did Alkire and TEMPEST kill the EFSOU team? General principle but also because they were obviously planning harm to the ZAFT forces in the base. The big metal case Victor was currently working on disarming was obviously, even from first sight, a bomb of considerable power. A man carried nuke, Victor had identified it after the shooting stopped. What exactly a mobile suit would be used to do to prevent a carried and remotely detonated bomb from exploding Alkire didn't know and he strongly suspected Kira would be strapped for an answer too.
Ambushing the EFSOU team had been surprisingly easy. Even with only a few hours knowledge of the terrain Alkire and Vladimir had deduced which route the enemy was most likely going to take across the mountains for a flanking attack. Of course, Alkire had served in EFSOU, so he knew well their mission parameters and usual formations... he hadn't specifically known that there would be a team in place for an operation but he would have been very shocked to find that the base was under no observation at all. With satellite observation a thing of the past accurate intelligence was back in the ball court of the special forces... both sides likely had teams of watchers in round the clock observation of all major bases of the other side, so they could try to find out about any troop movements or events which might provide a very slight edge... or more than a slight edge in some cases... in the future. Alkire had brought TEMPEST towards the base on the path he would have taken if he were really sneaking in to observe the base and lo and behold, within a few minutes they had stumbled upon very faint traces of recent passage. Less than a hunted animal would leave, but Vladimir could track like few other men alive could even conceive of.
It helped of course that the EFSOU guys had been lugging the big bomb... such a heavy and bulky object would not normally be carried by an observation or insertion team and it had both slowed their progress and increased their travel sign. After four hours of alert quick march Vladimir had located the EFSOU camp-blind-rest area and the rest had been tactics. EFSOU had been nervous, alert as only troops deep within enemy territory without close support and with a vital mission could be. They were elite soldiers, among the best produced by the special forces schools of Eurasia and the Atlantic Federation, or else mercenaries hardened by lifetimes of such missions. There were twelve of them, all heavily armed with the latest EFSOU gear. Each was easily the match of a Coordinator or even several Coordinators depending on their level of training. None had stood more chance than a campfire in a blizzard.
Vlad and his garrote had removed the three rear sentries with only a few minutes work. He would pop down from a tree branch and slip the metal noose around their necks and with a quick heave they would be up in the boughs with him, head already half severed by the wire loop. Only once did one even manage to twitch before being killed. None likely ever figured out what happened. With their rear exposed the fight had pretty much been over. Raine had set up in another tree with a good line of fire and had picked off the man carrying the bomb detonator right off the bat. James had flushed them out with a long machine gun burst and Victor had taken most of them down with a well placed shaped charge mine he'd had Vlad plant in the middle of the camp. Alkire and Raine had mopped up the remaining surprised and disoriented survivors in less than a minute.
From the first sentry killed to the last shot fired the entire ambush had taken less than five minutes... most of which was taken up by Vladimir moving positions while killing the sentries. Now they were done policing the site for all expended brass and Victor looked to be nearly done with his demo work... as Alkire watched he slipped a few satchel charges into the bomb container, twisted a timer dial and then shoved it into the mallable plastic explosive. "We're done here. In fifteen minutes there will be one less nuke in the arsenal of the EA." Victor reported sharply. Alkire nodded... no need to question Victor on explosive matters. Some might have worried that the explosives destroying the bomb would have also set it off, but if Victor wasn't worried about that then neither would Alkire be. He looked around. Everyone else was packing up and prepared to move out.
"Maybe we should keep this little party to ourselves? An uneventful patrol?" Alkire said, half joking.
"I'm fine with that. What the kids don't know won't hurt them." Raine replied. Vlad just shrugged. Victor nodded agreement as well.
"I suppose I can keep quiet about it... I kinda get the feeling the rest of the crew isn't real big on my stories anyhow." James put in.
Alkire smiled. "This is how prevention should be handled... quietly, permanently and without any fuss. Nobody but us and the Alliance high command is ever going to know about this little mission and how it failed. Perfect deniability for both sides... everyone goes away happy."
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And so it went... for the next three weeks the crews of the Archangel and Kusanagi went to war against war itself. It wasn't an easy struggle by any means. By comparison, escaping from Heliopolis and being pursued to Earth was a walk in a summer park. But they prevailed upon themselves to put forth the effort. They did, after all, have the people of the world and indeed the fate of the world hanging in the balance. Of course, things did not all go their way. Indeed, it could easily be said that most things did not go their way. They were just two ships and a handful of mobile suits all together... they made an impact, strong and positive, wherever and whenever they showed up... but they could only show up in so many places at once. Each ship and indeed each pilot had their own plan for how the war against war was to be fought and while for the most part these ideas meshed, there was inevitable friction. Most notably between Kira, Lacus and the members of TEMPEST, but everyone had little fights now and again. And the fights did not come merely on the battlefield either... being in a war, even as non full time combatants, put stress on every aspect of life... most especially the romantic side.
When potentially every mission was a hit or die fight against weapons of mass destruction people tended to cling to each other more desperately in between missions and have short tempers as well. Everyone had to perform at their absolute best every time or everyone might die. When the inevitable happened and some people did not meet expectations, often harsh words were exchanged. even blows, a few times, though most physical altercations were quickly brought under control. They could ill afford open conflict within their own ranks, try as it might to manifest itself at times. If they were divided against themselves they could hardly hope to stop a divided world from plunging into darkness, could they? And the world was indeed plunging... every battle was more hair raising than the last, involving more soldiers, more weapons, more new technology and all applied with less restraint each time as well. Everything was building to a dangerously explosive head for when the Australian Maneuver was due to be executed... no one knew when, not even the highest ranking members of the Alliance, but everyone knew it was soon. And that when it happened it would not be insignificant, no matter what it actually was intended to do.
Of the couples, Kira and Lacus were perhaps the most stable during this time, perhaps not surprising considering their shared conviction that what they were doing really was in the best interest of the world as a whole. No situation was too grim, no battle too hopeless for Kira to intervene in and he often wore himself out, flying from battle zone to battle zone to battle zone in what Ysak half jokingly called "Liberty Binges", desperately trying to save as much of the world as he could. Though it pained her to see Kira pushing himself so hard, Lacus had little enough space to worry... while the love of her life risked his neck and her heart on a daily basis on the ever shifting battlefields, she spent each day sequestered for long hours in a conference room aboard the Archangel, holding press meetings via teleconference and meeting with supporters of the peace efforts both worldwide and in space in a similar manner. She was risking something far more precious to their mission than just her life... she was risking her good image with the people of the PLANTS, who were, as a majority, behind the continuation of the war as it currently was, unlike last time.
She was still immensely popular of course and her words carried a great deal of weight with a generation that had grown up idolizing and trusting her, but she could only do so much from the Earth aboard the Archangel... words did not have as much impact when delievered from a TV screen and it was much harder to get across the depth of her concerns through a radio. Things were much worse on Earth, where the government reacted with nearly violent action against her broadcasts, jamming them whenever possible and starting their own public rally's against her and her followers. There were even terrorist incidents in which people who supported Lacus Clyne were killed with police standing by, doing nothing. It was depressing, even to Lacus's nearly indomitable spirit. But whenever she felt down, Kira was always there to lift her up again, just like she was always there to calm him after the nightmares that were returning with greater frequency and greater impact every night. There was nothing wrong with their relationship, which only grew stronger and stronger with each passing trial and tribulation they were forced to endure. It was plain to anyone who saw them together that there were few people more suited for and deserving of each other than them.
Athrun and Cagalli were less stable, perhaps not surprising considering their more aggressive personalities. Cagalli could not help but want to spend most of her time protecting her nation,Orb from taking any more damage than necessary. However, while Kisaka was in charge of the Kusanagi and would listen to her arguments, which were more like demands veiled in fragments of logic, even Cagalli would admit, Athrun was in charge of when the mobile suits actually deployed. And while he of course sympathized with her completely, his tactical sense and sense of responsibilty to the rest of the world would not allow him to always protect Orb first. Which led to several very heated arguments, both in public and in private. One such quarrel actually ended up with a bloody nose and cheek palm print for Athrun and a twisted wrist and forehead scrape for Cagalli, earned when she'd slapped him for denying her launch clearance and then followed it up with a sucker punch.
He'd been forced to restrain her by twisting her arm behind her back and pinning her against a bulkhead to keep her from trying to take off anyway. When they learned that the battle she had wanted to intervene in had ended up with heavy Orb losses, she had tossed him out of their room for three days before relenting and acknowledging that even if they had been there the outcome would have been little different... ZAFT had come in with overwhelming force and hadn't used WMD's, so even she would have had a tough time justifying intervening once she was actually there. Of course, their ups more than made up for the down spots and they too grew much closer together both as a couple and as members of a fighting team. It soon became a byword on both sides of the battlefield that if a pair of bright red mobile suits showed up, you might as well just surrender since you weren't going to win. And god help you if you actually attacked one.
Dearka and Miriallia had a few problems... Dearka almost proposed at least four times... once before each major battle they participated in, but chickened out each time and left Miriallia hanging each time. Finally, she grew so fed up with the practice that she actually left him. For a period of exactly four days, seven hours, thirteen minutes and forty six seconds. Then, after finding herself unable to get to sleep because of thinking about him and thus run ragged, much less able to operate effectively in the shared cockpit, she had proposed to him. Dumbfounded but secretly happy that someone had found the balls to do it, Dearka had accepted, glad Ysak was halfway across the world and unable to witness the event, since he never would have heard the end of it. Dearka kept meaning to buy a ring or two, but never found the time... after accepting the proposal he found the battles just seemed to keep coming one right after the other. And not all the battles were fought outside the cockpit. Miriallia was a patient girl, with nearly limitless tolerance for the idosyncrasies of others and a good handle on dealing with both her's and other people's emotions.
Dearka was a witty and kind hearted guy who would risk anything to help out his friends or advance the cause he believed in. After the first ten minutes of their first battle together, even before the proposal they had almost stopped talking to each other out of frustration. Both saw why dual person mobile suits were so rare... it was tough enough handling the stresses of combat when it was just you alone in a cockpit... it was infinitely worse when there was someone else in there with you, able to hear you yelp and scream and curse and make comments. But they were persistent... they worked their way slowly through the problem... Dearka learned not to swear quite so violently when avoiding enemy fire and Miriallia learned how to stifle a scream of alarm whenever she saw an ally get hit. Neither had yet managed to get a grasp on keeping their opinions entirely to themselves when they were hit themselves, but they were working on it. And truth be told, their combat effectiveness was quite alarming to their enemies, espcially teamed with Athrun and Cagalli... no battle that all four of them participated in ever resulted in anything but an optimum scenario for their side... few casualties and no WMD's used for both the Alliance and ZAFT.
Ysak's relationships with Chanel and Katie were... well, stable wasn't ever a word that could be applied, but ceasefire would be a good way of putting it. The girls were used to having Ysak's undivided attention whenever they wanted it and now they did not have it. Ysak may not have bought in to the whole crusading to save the world idea, but he was more than happy to fight whenever the opportunity presented itself, to hone his skills if nothing else. And if he stopped a few WMD's in the process, well so much the better. He made up a large portion of the gap that seperated his skills from Kira's during this time and while he never could seem to master the berserker mode Kira could slip into at need, he felt he was a match for the purple eyed softy any other time. He never managed to actually find out, since Kira wasn't in to the whole fighting for fun or even training thing... and they were much too busy most of the time anyway. When he was in Katie and Chanel's good graces and they were in his... an conflux of events that was rarer than he liked... he allowed them to serve as auxilary mechanics for the Duelist, teaching them what he knew about mobile suit maintenance, with Chief Murdoch's gruff help.
Else they would teach him more things about unarmed combat or even noncombat oriented things. They were still teenage girls, if abnormal ones to say the least. Chanel had a passion for music and was reasonably good at playing the violin while Katie nursed a love of drawing and art, perferring manga style drawings like those found in oriental comics. Her favorite subject was of course, Ysak, whom she drew in a bewildering variety of outfits and expressions, few of which Ysak found better than fanciful. Though it was a well kept secret that he pinned a few of the better drawn ones up in his cockpit and inside his uniform locker. However, such blissful moments were rare... as Dearka could readily tell anyone, Ysak did not take long to get on almost everyone's nerves and he even snapped at Chanel and Katie several times. Especially whenever they tried to bring up a particularly heartfelt and sore subject for them, which Ysak flat out refused to listen to. They wanted desperately to tell him all about why they were so special, why they acted the way they did, but every time they started to tell him he just ignored them, or worse made a joke of it. He just didn't want to hear anything about how they had found or avoided him at the beach in Orb. It was the one stain of darkness on an otherwise shining relationship... but it was a stain that was growing with every day and could not be swept under the carpet forever. All three of them knew that eventually things were going to come bursting out from one corner of the triangle and none of them knew what would happen after that.
TEMPEST got along well within its own group and with a few select other people... notably Ysak. Their philosophy clashed with pretty much everyone else's they were around, and so did their methods. They never participated in any large scale battles, but whenever a juicy piece of information would surface about a ZAFT buildup or a new Alliance technology was being utilized they would "borrow" a transport and disappear for a day or two... returning with weary smiles, much lighter ammunition belts and sometimes wounds. No one managed to find out exactly where they went or what they did when the got there, but usually an Alliance general or ZAFT elite pilot would show up dead a few days later, or a supply base would be blown up when they were gone or a transport ship would sink in the middle of a harbor or some other event that spoke of an unseen hand or hands at work. No one could deny that what they were doing was effective... one such transport ship sunk had a cargo of nuclear missiles aboard that would have likely been used against ZAFT. But no one liked it much either... especially when senior military and even civilian goverment officials would turn up dead, with bullets in their heads or stab wounds in their backs or worst of all, garrote marks on their necks.
Vladimir was always given a wide berth... and often a casual spit behind the back when they thought he wasn't aware. He didn't mind, since he knew he deserved it. And if they wanted to hate him for the things they found out about, he didn't begrudge them. Better that than for the things they didn't know about... the morale caravans ambushed and wiped out, the soldiers killed sleeping in their barracks, the poisoned food and water, the booby trapped medical supplies and the random victims of attacks of opportunity. The Archangel and the news of the world only found out about maybe one in three or four things TEMPEST was actually up to... but Blue Cosmos certainly felt the sting... so did ZAFT, the few times it had been necessary to attack them. When not out on missions TEMPEST worked to help out as much as possible, each in their own way. Alkire made himself available for planning and strategy sessions, though his advice was not called on often. He also traine dup on piloting the skygrasper, though he had yet to pilot it into battle. Raine taught marksmanship and unarmed combat to anyone who wanted to learn and had plenty of time extra to spend with her adopted little sisters. Victor taught Ysak a little bit of fencing, though neither put much heart into it. James actually struck up at least a partial friendship with Murdoch, who was unable to dislike the giant, friendly and outspoken commando, even though he did not approve of what the man did. They may not have fit in, but TEMPEST definitely made their presence known and their worth felt.
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On the other side of the battlefield Cervantes Zunnichi schemed and planned and shouted and preached and did everything within all his power to expand his influence over the war, quite successfully too, so that by the time the Australian Maneuver was nigh, he had operational control over nearly 90 percent of the EA military. He was the Joint Chief of Staff for the military in all but title... more supreme commander than the president of the Atlantic Federation was. He orchestrated every major attack leading up to his knockout punch, and a good deal of the minor ones too. Blue Cosmos expanded its influence to epic proportions during this time... soldiers had even taken to wearing Blue Cosmos pins openly on their uniforms in many units. Coordinator rights groups and pacifist organizations were firebombed, terrorized and destroyed without mercy or succor from the law, until such a time no one dared publicaly speak out against Blue Cosmos's policies, and those who spoke privately did so very softly. Orb was the focal point for Coordinator rights and pacifist groups and was in a near constant state of martial law, with police teams and Blue Cosmos mobs haunting the streets after dark, looking for "lawbreakers"... ie, anyone not part of Blue Cosmos or the EA military.
Of course, all this activity did not come without cost to Cervantes himself... his hair was already grey but care lines were being etched into his face with almost visible speed and for the first time in his life he was acquiring a slight hunch from being crouched over his desk so much. He hated it but accepted it as the price for finally getting his wishes to come true. He kept a constant close watch upon project JIHAD's progress, riding on the Doc hard... something which neither man liked at all. Of course, Cervantes' humor was lighter during this time because the BCPU's were much more effective when deployed against regular soldiers. Ashino was like a precision tool of death... point him at the enemy, give him his orders and those orders would be carried out with a minimum of fuss and collateral damage... no matter how hectic the fight was. He was impeccable in his timing and an artist with the details... Cervantes even found himself liking the dimunitive redhead pilot at times, even though he found the downtime after each battle during which Ashino became almost catatonically introverted most annoying.
Cray Thresher on the other hand was a man not suited for individual mission objectives. Cervantes simply had him thrown into the midst of as many enemies as possible and then waited for the dust to settle. The lanky blond pilot never earned any favor with Cervantes... he was a tool and he did what tools do... their job... nothing more, nothing less, with no distinctions. Frost was the ultimate weapon of terror... ZAFT knew the short mobile suit in red and green very well... it was said that their top aces would rather spend time in the brig for mutiny than sortie when it was rumored to be in the field. To Frost's mixed frustration and elation, ZAFT would often retreat the moment he showed up, denying him the opportunity to fight. So instead he killed his handlers... Cervantes was forced to rotate in a new team of guards and doctors after almost every mission, so often that he had three extra teams on constant standby in case of rapid back to back battles.
Unwittingly racing against the doomsday clock in the PLANTS were George and Jeremiah Borander, heading up the Pulsar project. The prototype mobile suit was taking much longer to produce than even George had allowed for and the ZAFT military was screaming its head off about it, especially as casualties against the BCPU's on Earth mounted steadily. The mobile suit was only 73 percent complete coming into the week before Cervantes intended to launch the Australian Maneuver... the body was done, the skeleton made, the armor and thrusters attached, the cockpit systems loaded... but the weapons had yet to be put in and the experimental fusion pulse reactor was causing problems. It was smaller than a nuclear reactor and produced over fifty times the power, but produced a staggering amount of heat, even operating in microsecond long pulses like it was designed to. George and Jeremiah and their design team had been forced to rennovate the basic design and shape of the mobile suit in order to add a dozen fold out cooling vanes to help radiate heat from the reactor in order to prevent it from melting out through the chest of the Pulsar during operations.
Only six of the vanes were strictly required, but George believed in safety and redundancy first and foremost, especially when dealing with a vital system of such incredible potency. If the reactor were to overheat and overload, it would detonate with the force of a hundred fusion bombs... several gigatons of force... not something he wanted to happen anywhere near the PLANTS. They were currently installing the primary defenisve mechanism of the Pulsar... besides its almost supernatural agility. The Pulsar did not have phase shift armor... it did not need it, though it was coated with a phase shift like paint that greatly reduced the friction caused by the movement of the armor through air or other medium. Instead, mounted into the palm of each hand was a highly advanced piece of technology based loosely upon the positron antimatter cannons carried by heavy warships and some mobile suits. Such cannons created high intensity ion beams which quite literally disintegrated their targets when they hit, the positive positrons annihilating with the negative electrons in matter.
Whan the palms mounted was a positron shield emitter... a device that projected a magnetically contained spread of positrons in a roughly circular formation wherever the project was pointed. When normal matter and even energy encountered the positron field, it was annihilated in an antimatter reaction that manifested as a very bright flash of light. The positron field used up a great deal of power, but the fusion pulse reactor was more than capable of sustaining both at strength levels sufficient to withstand a direct hit from the GENESS laser cannon, assuming such a weapon wouldn't just saturate the entire area around the mobile suit and destroy it that way. Of course the downside to the shields was that since they were in the palms it was very difficult to attack when the shields were up, and they worked both ways... when the shields were blocking attacks in they were also preventing attacks out from the Pulsar.
Meanwhile, back on Earth, Sai and Vanai were having a few problems of their own. Mostly related to Sai's reluctance to condone the actions of Blue Cosmos worldwide. Sai was of course a member of Blue Cosmos, in fact as the man who was widely expected to soon become Cervantes's heir, he wielded wide influence in both public and secret parts of the organization. But he found he could not agree with the pogroms and injustice he saw them perpetuating world wide. He knew well that such actions had only one inevitable consequence... lashback, from a populace that was sick of being mistreated. The solution to the war was not to destroy the enemy... such wars were never won because if the enemy had nothing to lose they would always fight on to live. But if the war were being fought to subdue, to defeat the PLANTS and force them to sign treaties that would forever seperate Naturals and Coordinators... well, that was a much better idea, in his opinion. He had even managed to bring around quite a few Blue Cosmos members, even influential ones.
People who had been yelling and shouting for blood at the beginning of the war but now were sick of the hypocrisy and death and violence they found commonplace. He hadn't yet challenged Cervantes on any decisions he had made, but Sai had a gut feeling he would at some point in time have to step in and attempt to curb his father in law's excesses. Vanai knew what her love was planning and it distressed her... she'd grown up believing her father and his friends were always right, that Coordinators were evil monsters who deserved nothing more than an unmarked grave. She still tried to cling to that opinion, but found it harder and harder each day... the cold, implacable contempt and not kind but not merciless view of Sai appealed to her much better on a personal level. She did not want all Coordinators to die, she just wanted them to go away and stop bothering the world with their existence. They could have space... it was cold and empty and dreary. Let the humans have Earth and the space monsters space.
She found herself agreeing with her husband to be more and more every time they spoke. They had arguments about it of course, but Vanai was unable to muster more than rhetoric spouted by her father and Asmodeus and she knew she was losing the fight. She was also beginning to show serious signs of pregnacy, though she was still in the first term. She had mood swings, diet variations and all the other crap she had read about in magazines. She hated it, but there was nothing to be done... the very idea of having a surrogate mother bear the child, though attractive at times, was unthinkable to the daughter of the ultimate human purist, Cervantes Zunnichi. Nothing would mess with the entirely natural birth of her child. The wedding was scheduled for three days hence... unknown to Sai and Vanai, Cervantes had planned the Australian Maneuver to take place two mornings after their wedding... a sort of wedding gift to them... the end of the war, with all luck. It was as Sai was preparing for the wedding that he realized that he didn't have any friends coming.
He struggled with himself for a long time... he had left Kira and the others behind without much thought before, but now... now he wanted them to be there. For the happiest day of his life, he wanted his friends to share it with him. Of course, he'd advise them to come in disguise or something... it wouldn't do for Lacus to show up at the same time as Cervantes and Asmodeus. Sai quickly hopped onto a computer and sent a warm hearted email to Kira's email, inviting him and Lacus and all their friends to the wedding, specifying the date and time. Hopefully Kira would get it... Sai missed his old friend, now that he thought of it.