Cagalli left Athrun holding himself up on the doorway into the hanger and helped Lacus start throwing the dust tarps off the aircraft that sat in the hanger. It wasn't much to look at... just a boxy passenger section between two wings fitted with VTOL engines and a tiny cockpit. There were no weapons and precious little armor... plainly it was designed for an extreme last resort... a determined soldier could probably shoot it down with a rifle, assuming he had the time to place his shots. But to Cagalli, tired, hungry, emotionally worn out, it looked nearly as good as the Archangel itself. She looked over her shoulder at Athrun. "Tell everyone to get their asses over here as fast as they can. I'm going to start a preflight and see if I can't get some feel for the controls on this thing... it can't be that complicated." Cagalli started to pull herself up into the cockpit... there was no ladder and she struggled a bit. She noticed Lacus entering the passenger compartment through a set of folding stairs at the back of the aircraft. "Hey... Lacus... what are you doing?" Cagalli called.
"I'm checking to see if this vehicle has a communication system... one would think an emergency escape vehicle would have something to call for help with." Lacus responded, her voice muffled from inside the passenger compartment, which was bare of comfort. Just ten bucket seats with nylon restraints, a plain metal floor and a single communications terminal tucked into the wall next to the hatch leading to the cockpit. Lacus opened this hatch in time to help Cagalli scramble up into the open cockpit... Cagalli muttered something under her breath about ladders and doors. Lacus wasn't paying attention, she was concentratiung on booting up the communication system. The aircraft was not new, and it hadn't been maintained in what looked like months, so it took it nearly fifteen seconds to warm up and turn on... almost an enternity to her perceptions, listing to the muted explosions and gunfire outside. She clicked frantically through the boot up options and finally managed to get to the long range communications program. She selected the international rescue channel... so what if the enemy could hear her too... they already knew they were out here... the Archangel didn't. She just hoped she could reach them... N-Jammer's were still embedded deep in the Earth's crust all over the planet and they played all sorts of havoc with radio and radar signals. She took a moment to compose herself and hit the transmit button, smiling slightly as she listen to Cagalli muttering curses to herself as she stumbled through turning the aircraft on and powering up its systems, including the ones that opened the roof of the hanger so they could fly out when the time came.
Ysak and Katie had finally managed to catch up with everyone else. They too ran past the hanger at first, until the roof opened up like a gaint clam, spilling dirt, debris and camouflage netting everywhere. They had been heading towards the recent double blast sound of multiple grenades detonating, but pulled up when they noticed the hanger. BEEP! I'll secure the hanger and our backtrail. You go help whoever is chucking the grenades. Katie's order appeared in his mind like water jetting from a fountain. Ysak shivered and gave her a very annoyed glance... he hoped she realized how strange he found being contacted by her mind. Why couldn't she just talk like a normal person, for chrissakes? BEEP! Because if I speak out loud someone else might overhear... we may have given Cray the slip, but I don't think we've lost him for good. Wouldn't want him to hear about us splitting our forces... we don't know how keen his hearing is. I want him to think he's facing both of us whenever he does show up... if nothing else he'll probably waste some firepower trying to take two people out at once, rather than just one. Ysak turned the glance into a smoldering glare... bad enough she had to talk to him telepathically... reading his thoughts before he could speak them... that really rubbed him the wrong way. BEEP! Stop grousing and get going... we can work on privacy and stuff like that later, assuming we survive. Love you. Katie turned and sprinted off towards the hanger without a backward glance or another word... err, thought. Ysak shook his head and noticed his vision was starting to blur a little... his body was starting to succumb to fatigue, even if he still felt fine. He'd have to watch it... it wouldn't do to just faint from exhaustion in the middle of a firefight.
Ysak didn't have far to go before he could make out Miriallia, Dearka and Kira standing in a rough triangle, each about fifteen or twenty meters from the next. Between them was a slowly clearing cloud of smoke, with scattered piles of burning wood chips all throughout the jungle around the smokey area. Obviously that was where the high explosive grenades had gone off. Then Ysak heard the laughter... the maniacal, hitching, stuttering freakish laughter of a former man who has suffered trials and tribulations and wounds beyond the understanding of most mortals having been recently pushed beyond an entirely new edge. Frost had taken the brunt of both grenade blasts and was quite the worse for the wear because of it. He wasn't dead... no, far from it, though he should have been lying around the jungle in little meaty pieces. But the first blast had freed his foot from its blade pin and he'd managed to roll with the second blast, negating much of its force. Most of his clothes hadn't been so lucky... what hadn't been ripped off from the blast waves had been mostly charred to ash, leaving him in threads and patches of a uniform. His skin was deeply bruised over ninety percent of his body and his chest, arms, legs, back and face sported large patches of shiny burned and blistering skin. A few places were even charred and smoking. Flesh had been almost entirely stripped from his right foot, leaving the muscle and bone exposed almost to the ankle, fully revealing the two inch wide hole bored through the top of the foot. There was little blood... most of the wounds were cauterized by the heat in the blasts, and the BCPU blood clotting forumla took care of the rest. Frost had lost most of his hair, burned off along with his eyebrows. His mouth was bleeding freely, his saliva interfering with the blood coagulant to keep it flowing, rich and wet, staining his teeth bright red and dripping down his jaw in a froth. His nose was crushed over to one side and deformed from some incredible impact. If Ysak had been him, he wouldn't have been standing... much less laughing. But Ysak reminded himself again, this foe in front of him was not human... not any more.
Frost was reveling in the agony... it burned so badly he almost felt sure he really was awake... a refreshing certainty for a man who could not tell psychotic delusion from reality most of the time. He was also inventoring his remaining weapons with one part of his mind, and evaluating his foes with another. He'd lost his combat knives in the explosions... his chainblades were likewise ruined. He'd lost his gun holsters when he'd lost his clothing... the guns were nearby but were probably jammed with dirt. His scythe was lying at his feet, handle charred but still strong. And he still wore the paired longswords on shoulder belts... the leather belts had resisted the blasts better than his polyester clothing. He'd never used the swords before, but he knew the basic idea... hit the other guy with the point or edge and watch them bleed to death very rapidly. Disregarding the scythe for the moment, Zacharis whipped out both swords, appreciating how the blades glimmered in the dim jungle light. He'd noticed Ysak's arrival and had particularly noted the three grenades the Coordinator possessed... fragmentation grenades by their look. Full of sharp metal bits that would shred even him and spread his gory remains over a large portion of the jungle nearby if he was too close when they went off. That was the priorty threat... the gun was on its last bit of ammo and the knife the Coordinator Ysak had was less than no threat... imagine, using a blade against him, Zacharis Frost! It was a ludicrous thought. He charged directly for Ysak, limping slightly on his ravaged foot... not from pain but becuase the shape of the foot had been altered by the damage, messing with his balance.
Dearka opened fire with measured shots, conserving his last clip as much as possible. He tried to shoot for the legs... one of Frost's biggest advantages was his speed and maneuverability... if Dearka could lame him the fight would become exponentially easier. But for all his hurts, Frost still managed to dredge up the gumption to twist and writhe his limbs and body out of the path of nearly every shot... and the few shots that did hit were merely grazes... one of them didn't even bleed. Kira had found a large, solid tree branch and was approaching Frost at an angle, hoping to at least throw him off balance again. Miriallia retreated towards the hanger, having no remaining weapons, she couldn't contribute to the fight and would only be a liability... a distraction to Dearka when he had to protect her against Frost. Ysak almost casually flipped a grenade into his hand and lobbed it underhand in an easy arc towards Frost. The grenade was aimed to land almost directly beneath Frost's legs. But one sword licked out and slammed the grenade away with a ring of metal on metal, with fat orange sparks jumping from the point of impact. The grenade didn't fly far before detonating... but it flew far enough to spare Frost more than minor damage from shrapnel. Barely anything at all compared to his current wounds. Ysak scrabbled for another grenade with one hand while he drew and held the suddenly tiny looking combat knife with his other hand. Thoughts flashed through his head. What exactly does one do when armed with only a knife and fighting a bona fide monster with two full sized swords? He has all the advantages... speed, strength, reach, blade length, blade weight... if I parry the knife will probably snap right in half and then the next blow will split me like a chicken on the block. Am I screwed this time? No... gotta think... there's a way out of this bind... there has to be. Have to... have to dodge the first couple attacks... got to let Kira catch up so we can double team him. Ah... fuck... I don't know if I can do that... well, no other option... here goes. Ysak clenched his fist around the unprimed grenade and threw it like a fastball directly at Frost, who was less than ten feet away. Again the metal sphere was batted away, but it did not explode... it just rolled off into the jungle underbrush and was quickly lost to sight.
However, that was just fine for Ysak. Frost had been forced to move one sword out of position to bat the grenade away and not even Frost was fast enough to bring it back into striking position in the three steps it took him to reach Ysak. Ysak judged his moment as carefully as only one with more than just his own life riding the line can and stuck his knife out just in time to deflect Frost's cleaving swing slightly... instead of cutting down through his left shoulder blade and lodging in his heart the sword blade just scraped a few layers of skin off his upper left arm, peeling it away like a potato peeler. Ysak reacted to trip Zacharis and immediately regretted it... the BCPU outweighed him by a significant margin, despite being much shorter than him... Ysak's shin was bulled out of the way and deeply bruised, while Zacharis barely even felt the collision as he thundered by. Kira breezed by not a moment later, throwing Ysak a significant look as he passed. Plainly they had been thinking along similar lines... alone they stood no chance in melee, but with two on one odds they had a smidgeon of a chance of emerging victorious. Frost turned on his ravaged foot with only hint of discomfort, to meet Kira's tree branch squarely with his jaw. Tooth chips flew and Frost's head snapped back like a balloon on a string, but he did not fall. Or even stagger. He just started giggling again, his face locked in a rictus that had nothing but death and rage on it. Frost's eyes were dull and unfocused... whatever human intelligence sometimes inhabited his mind was currently out for lunch. And maybe for dinner and breakfast the next morning too. Kira pulled his branch back for another try. Dearka was trying to get an angle for a final headshot, and Ysak was edging in, knife raised, to help Kira out.
Meanwhile, back at the hanger, Miriallia had returned with the news that Ysak, Kira and Dearka were engaged against a badly wounded Frost and had seemed to be holding their own last she saw. She entered the aircraft just as Lacus was starting her message. Athrun limped outside and passed Katie. "Where do you think you're going, Mr. Walking Wounded?" She asked him.
"I've got to get the word to Kira and Ysak and Dearka... the jet is ready to take off... once they board we can get the hell out of here." Athrun replied hurriedly, not stopping to look at her as he tried to orient himself on the sounds of combat.
"Don't worry about it... I've got it covered for you. I'll let Ysak know and he can tell the others. Hell, I'll also tell Kira." Katie assured him. She did not rise from her guarding position.
"Well... aren't you going to get up... I doubt they'll hear you shouting from her... oh, you meant you'll beepcall them, or whatever it's called, right?" Athrun slowly turned around and limped back towards the hanger entrance.
"You're not as conservative as you look, you know? I can see why Cagalli likes you... it's taking Ysak absolute ages to come to terms with my Newtype powers... but you, you speak of them like they're just like that." Katie tossed her head slightly. "Yeah, since Ysak and Kira are Latents, it'll be much easier for me to just beepcall them... much safer too. Won't even have to leave the hanger area. You should get yer hurt ass inside and into a chair... you won't do anyone any good as anything but a target out here."
"Good idea... I hurt all over." Athrun started to smile. His smile dropped away when he heard a whirring sound that was quite out of place... something beyond the faint noises of the VTOL aircraft warming up. This sound was much closer and louder... and it was coming from off in the jungle. It sounded like something spooling up to speed... Athrun didn't have to think of what that might mean. He dived at Katie and bore them both behind cover behind a very sturdy looking tree. Katie was just opening her mouth to shout a protest when Cray opened up with a long blurt from the gatling gun, sending shredded leaves and plant mulch flying like horizontal rain. He'd been delayed by having to go back to the hill to pick up his discarded weapons, and then he'd been further delayed by getting turned around in the forest for a few minutes. Having to tear his weapons free of entangling plants every few meters hadn't helped his progress or his mood. But then he'd seen the top of a mound of leaves lever up and away with a hydraulic whine and he knew he'd found them. He'd just kill the ones at the hanger and blow up the aircraft... that'd sure ruin their day. He raised the gatling gun in his right hand and braced the reloaded elephant gun in his left... he'd hose the area down for a bit and then use the elephant gun to blow them out of cover. A tremendous roaring noise reverberated down through the mountains, but Cray ignored it... thunder or something else inconsequential to the here and now.
Waltfeld nearly spit out his sip of calming coffee when Lacus's voice suddenly came blasting over the bridge speakers at a volume he would have found more at place at a heavy metal concert than on the bridge of a warship. A crewmember winced apologetically and dialled down the bridge speakers several notches. "This is Lacus Clyne speaking. Archangel, can you hear me? I repeat, this is Lacus Clyne speaking and this is an emergency. We have been captured by the enemy and have only recently managed to break loose. We are currently engaged by superior enemy forces... Zacharis Frost and another like him, plus Blue Cosmos is sure to have soldiers on the way as well. I don't know where we are... in some mountainous jungles. If you can hear me, please lock onto this signal and get here as fast as you can... we'll try to hold out as best we can. Our situation is dire, please hurry." The bridge was silent as a tomb... for a signal to come in so loud and clear they had to be practically on top of it. They were still several miles from the estimated position where Asmodeus's jet had landed and they hadn't expected the kids to break free on their own... none of them were trained in breakout procedures. Well, Athrun, Dearka and Ysak were, and Cagalli had some training, but they weren't tried and true experts like the TEMPEST members were.
"This is Lacus Clyne speaking. Archangel, can you hear me? I repeat, this is Lacus Clyne speaking and this is an emergency. We have been captured by the enemy and have only recently managed to break loose. We are currently engaged by superior enemy forces... " Lacus started to repeat herself just as the sound of rapid machine gun fire cut into the background of the transmission, along with the sound of Miriallia shrieking and Cagalli swearing.
"That's a gatling gun... 5mm by the sound." Alkire suddenly found his voice. He spun towards a random bridge member. "Where is the signal coming from?" he demanded. On the other side of the bridge, the communications specialist looked at Murrue. She nodded hurriedly.
"The computer estimates that the communication is coming from the next valley over, about a half mile ahead." The crewman replied calmly. "I've contacted the international channel... speak and she'll hear you."
Murrue snatched up the phone so fast she didn't even remember doing it. "Lacus, this is Murrue. We hear you loud and clear."
"Ms. Murrue? I wasn't expecting you to respond so quickly... the airwaves must have cleared more than I thought." Lacus sounded surprised. Gunfire still pounded in the background, the whine of the machine gun being cut off and replaced with two heavy explosions of noise, like small thunderclaps. Cagalli was still swearing, but Miriallia had apparently calmed herself, because she was no longer screaming.
"Sounds like a double action, single shot rifle of heavy caliber... a hunting weapon maybe? I don't know... that didn't sound like any gun I've ever heard before..." Alkire muttered to himself. Murrue spared him hardly a glance... all well and good that he could identify weapons by sound, but it currently wasn't important.
"We're actually in the area already... about half a mile away, just over the ridgeline. You should be able to hear our engines, assuming the gunfire stops for any length of time. We were on our way to a supposed Earth Alliance base in the area, to free you. Alkire and his friends broke out of their jail and traced Asmodeus Sark to this location. We met up with them and learned about what happened at the wedding. Then we came here with all possible speed. Hold on just a little longer... we'll be over your position in less than five minutes."
"We'll try... I think Athrun and Katie are fighting one of the BCPU's... Cray, I think... just outside the hanger. Kira, Ysak and Dearka are engaged with Frost some distance away... please hurry... we're nearly out of weapons and ammunition and we cannot fight these enemies unarmed. We've got a lot of walking wounded... I don't think a single one of us is unhurt in some fashion, some worse than others. Please have doctors standing by when we get on board... we're going to need treatment."
"I can imagine... being trapped in a Blue Cosmos stronghold for days, fighting a running, underdog battle through a mountain jungle afterwards... they're going to be hurt real bad. best tell those docs to have the intensive care ready." Alkire said grimly. "I'm going to go get a rescue party organized and prepped. Just put us over their position and we'll get to them. We'll bring them all back safe, as long as we get there in time." He walked briskly to the bridge elevator and stabbed the down button.
"Understood. Give those Blue Cosmos bastards hell for me." Murrue replied. She turned to the rest of the crew. "All hands to battle stations. I repeat, all hands to battle stations. CIC... any sign of the Earth Alliance base... it's probably buried in one of these mountains?"
"I don't... never mind that... I've got a runway... international jet sized. Looks like a civilian type airport, though it's only got the one runway. Wait... theres more... now I'm starting to get a whole bunch of stuff. Roads... power sources... heat sinks on the mountain sides... my god, this facility is massive... it's about half the size of JOSH-A! We've been within it's perimeter for the past three minutes! I'm getting a military airfield now... radar towers... large hangers... several roads leading into mountainsides... those must be factories... this place is a production facility of some sort."
"We're being scanned by radar. Power sources consitent with standard Alliance weapon emplacements are powering up. We've been targeted. Jets scrambling at the military airfield... I've got long range visuals on tanks and missile trucks pulling out of garages and heading our way." another crewperson cut in. "Wait one... mobile suit signatures confirmed. Multiple Strike Daggers and multiple Strike Crusaders powering up and inbound. We've stepped into a hornet's nest here, ma'am."
"Activate ECM and jamming gear. Bring power up to combat maximum. Activate the Iegelstellung and Valiants. Bring the Gottfried's up to full power and keep the targeting systems running hot." Waltfeld ordered. "Load all missile tubes with Sledgehammer anti-mobile suit missiles. I want the Helldarts set to volley fire... we have no allied units in the area and frankly I don't care about blasting up some mountains... we can't let them surround us. Lower hull Iegelstellung, go to manual control to support our troops on the ground. Valiant's target the vehicles, Gottfrieds and missile tubes concentrate on the mobile suits and base emplacements. Lets be sharp people... we can't afford mistakes."
"LOCK AND LOAD! We've got an emergency rescue mission! Get Hot GET HOT GET HOT!" Alkire cried as he charged into the meeting room where the other members of TEMPEST had been whittling away the hours inventorying what gear they had kept on the Archangel or what they could acquire from its weapon lockers, which was actually quite a lot. "The kid's are up to their nether regions in bloody war, they're outnumbered, out gunned and pinned down by superior foes. Unless we get there in the next five minutes ago, they're all probably going to go the way of the Alamo." He shrugged into a bulletproof vest as he talked. The members of TEMPEST did not ask questions... they trusted him to be serious about serious shit... they could easily hear the urgency in his voice and they knew this was no drill. James was already clad in armored vest and coveralls, he started helping Victor collect up his explosives and secure them to his body. Vladimir and Raine helped each other dress and don their weapon harnesses. Alkire buckled on his pistol belt and took a full bandoleer of grenades... mixed fire, smoke and frag. He strapped a portable med kit to one thigh... no reason to wait for the docs to start helping the wounded. Last he sheathed a combat knife in one boot and gathered up a replacement assault rifle with plenty of ammo. He then grabbed five bundles of long polymer rope and five sliding caribiners. "Muster in the cargo hold, at the ramp. We're doing a free fall deployment. You've got two minutes. Lives are on the line... Chanel's and Katie's lives, among others. We can't let them down."
One minute and twenty three seconds later they were all gathered at the top of the cargo ramp that would descned to allow vehicles bearing stores for the ship to drive up and onto the ship itself to deliver supplies during refueling and rest periods. James toted a spare squad level machine gun... not his beloved .50 cal, but the next best thing available. He also had an RPG launcher slung over one shoulder and a box of RPG's at his back, right next to his twin machine pistol holsters. Raine had her backup rifle strapped securely to her back and a assault rifle identical to Alkire's gripped to her chest... the battle would be fast paced, not a sniper fight in all likelyhood. Victor had two pistols and his sword, plus all sorts of grenades and satchel type charges. Vlad had a combat shotgun, plus his silenced pistol and garrotte. He also carried a medical kit. Everyone was armored and filled up with ammo. They each clipped a caribiner to their belt and ran the rope through the windings, attaching a manual brake a foot or two further up the line from the caribiner. The ropes were tied off to a support beam and each had more than three hundred feet of slack. Alkire hit the manual control for the cargo ramp after a brief consultation with the bridge... a conversation backlit by the hectic sounds of incoming fire and fast approaching enemies filtering around the bridge. The ramp opened and gave them a view of the impentrable jungle canopy below. There was a single slightly too regular patch of thinner growth... the location of the hanger where the kids were supposed to be. Alkire steped out into space and let himself fall, followed instants later by his friends.
Kira swung his wooden club at Frost's head again, but was blocked by a sword. Kira almost lost his hand to the other blade, he barely managed to pull back in time, throwing himself slightly off balance in the process. Frost raised his arms for the killstrokes, but was interrupted by a near simultaneous shot from Dearka and stab from Ysak. The stab glanced along the bone of his right arm, the shot tugged at his left shin, and combined it totally ruined his attack. Frost howled in rage... how many times would Yamato cheat righteous death? Frost chopped at Ysak, who danced back out of the way and deflected a bullet from Dearka with the other sword, the impact of which bent the blade slightly. The air filled with a roaring sound none of them had time to consider... a moments distraction was to invite death with open arms in this fight. Dearka had hit upon an idea and he fired a steady stream of bullets at Frost, expending his last ten bullets in less than three seconds. Frost deflected them all with his swords... but one finally snapped under the repeated high velocity impacts it was never designed to resist. Frost dropped the useless blade and threw the other at Dearka in a fit of thoughtless rage. Not weighted for throwing, the sword turned over and struck hilt first... popping a rib out of place and throwing Dearka backwards and to the ground as if he been yanked by a rope. His empty gun went flying from his suddenly nerveless fingers and he found himself breathless... and glad beyond belief that the sword had turned over, because otherwise he knew he'd have been a goner.
Kira recovered his balance and poked at Frost with his club. All his caution earned him was a splintered club as the infuriated Frost tore it in half with his hands and then tore the half he had into pieces in a frenzy. The three Coordinators looked at each other... the situation was becoming untenable... they were rapidly running out of weapons. Ysak brought his knife up into a defensive stance... damned if he wasn't going to go down fighting. The roaring noise overhead intensified to bone shaking levels, but the thick jungle canopy overhead blocked out all view of the sky and whatever it was up there making all the noise. Suddenly even the roaring was drowned out by the sound of large explosions, capital ship weapons fire and the afterburner coughs of jets moving at attack speed. It sounded like a small war starting right over their heads. There was so much noise it was impossible to hear anything but conflicting sounds. Ysak suddenly jerked his head slightly to the side, as if someone had surprised him by tapping him on the side of the head. Ysak quickly looked introspective, then flashed to triumphant. Kira tried to ask him what was up, but his voice was drowned out barely after it left his mouth. Suddenly it felt like someone had flicked him between the eyes. BEEP! Hello Kira, this is Katie. I must say, you're much easier to contact than I thought you would be... you'll have to work on shielding yourself more. I can show you how, later. But that's not what's important. What is important is that the terrible racket overhead is the Archangel fighting againstthe Blue Cosmos defenders of the base. Lacus put out a call for help and apparently they were already right on top of us. Get your butt back to the hanger with Ysak and Dearka so we can get the hell out of here. Oh, and be careful... Cray is prowling around the hanger and he's still armed to the teeth, despite having been engaged with Athrun and I for the past few minutes. Come fast but be careful... we don't need to lose anyone else right at the end. Seeya soon. Kira shook his head... he couldn't believe he'd just be contacted telepathically... it was just unreal. I mean, sure, he'd picked up a bit on what the Doc had said to Katie during their interrogation with him, but it was all a little... too much. Humans with mental powers... I mean, come on. But then again... ultimate Coordinators like him weren't exactly of the normal remit either... who ever heard of a child birthed entirely by artificial means, anyway?
Ysak was already in motion, hurling his knife at Frost and turning to sprint back towards the hanger. He waved at Dearka and pumped his fist in the signal for retreat they all learned during basic training. Dearka nodded and picked himself up off the ground. Being weaponless, retreat sounded like a very good idea to him. He wasted no time in making good time towards the hanger. Kira brought up the rear, noting how Ysak was starting to weave and stumble a little... it was about time too... Kira himself was feeling like he'd just run twenty miles up hill... he couldn't feel it yet but he could sense how deep and irregular his breathing was, and his clothes were soaked with sweat. He was getting dehydrated... he'd collapse soon if he didn't get some rest and some fluids. Ysak had to be in worse shape than him and Dearka still worse... he had injuries after all. Frost just stood there for a moment, having caught the knife in midair, he'd bent the blade into a U with his hands, disregarding the cuts he inflicted on himself in the process. A wolfish grin spread across his features... he'd almost forgotten about his last remaining weapon. He discarded the ruined knife and dashed off into the forest back towards where he'd been blasted by the grenades... back to collect his trusty scythe. The scythe that would reap the bodies and souls of his enemies at long last.
Athrun burrowed deeper into cover behind his third tree of the brief engagement with Cray. The first tree hadn't been nearly as solid as he'd thought... or maybe elephant guns just had that much penetrating power. He had no idea... he'd never even heard of the powerful hunting rifle outside of ancient movies... elephants had been extinct on Earth outside of zoo's for more than a century. The end result had been both heavy bullets blowing entirely through the tree, spraying him with splinters and gouts of gooey sap as he covered Katie with his body... if either bullet had been six inches lower he probably would have been torn in half. There had followed a brief lull in the firing as Cray stopped to reload and switch out his weapons. Katie had pushed him off her with a nodded thanks and rolled to a kneeling position. She fired off a burst of three rounds to keep Cray ducking and then started crawling towards a hummock of forest debris about fifteen feet to their left. Athrun had moved right, making a lot of noise as a distraction, and folded himself behind the second tree. And not three seconds too soon, because Cray had finished swapping out his guns and had sprayed the tree with scores of razor sharp flechette darts which made evil hissing noises as they buried themselves in the comparatively soft trunk of the tree. Katie started up to fire again but immediately threw herself flat as Cray opened back up with the last rounds of his gatling gun... he was perfectly capable of targeting them both at the same time, one weapon apiece. He even managed a tricky cross fire, crossing his weapons in front of him to put the flechettes on Katie's hummock and the gatling gun on Athrun's tree. Hundreds of low caliber but extremely high velocity bullets chewed into the second tree, chopping it in half about three feet off the ground. Athrun had ducked the first instant the bullets started to strike the tree, and so was unharmed, if quite shaken. One and a quarter seconds after felling the tree, the gatling gun ran dry for the final time and Cray tossed it away with a sigh of disgust.
Cray readjusted his flechette rifle aim and started alternating targets... he'd fire a few shots at Athrun to keep him pinned and then switch back over to Katie before she could pop up and fire at him. Silvery flechette darts decorated the forest like tinsel at christmas time, hundreds of the darts protruded from the thin metal walls of the hanger. Inside the hanger the sound of the jet powering up had not changed, so Athrun assumed it was unharmed, as were the people inside. Or so he fervently hoped and believed... he felt like he would have known somehow if Cagalli or Lacus had been injured or killed. "The Archangel!" Katie suddenly called over to him. "The Archangel is right over head. That's what the noise is!" Athrun could barely hear her over the sounds of the aerial battle going on just over their heads. It had been when he was moving to the first tree that the noise had started and it had only grown louder since it started. He had tried to get a look at what was causing it... it sounded like a capital ship flying very low and engaging multiple targets, but he'd not dared hope it was the Archangel... I mean, who could have expected help to arrive within minutes... he'd been expecting to have to hide out or flee for hours. Cray's flechette rifle had finally run out of ammunition as well, and like the gatling gun, it had been subsequently discarded. Katie had popped up and had fired several bursts at Cray, one of which actually struck him directly across the chest, all three shots striking home in small fountains of gore. One bullet hit his left hip, one his center chest and the last his right shoulder, right next to an earlier bullet wound. Athrun had been immensely cheered... for a moment. But Cray hadn't gone down... he must have been wearing ballistic clothing of some sort, in addition to his natural armoring. The bullet impact points were bloody, but not bleeding and they quickly scabbed over as Athrun watched. Cray moved slightly more stiffly, but it was barely noticable... he ignored the three deep bruises like they were just fly bites.
Cray had snatched his .45 caliber desert eagle pistol from their holsters and had gone gunslinger on their asses. Fingers pumping like pistons, he launched a torrent of bullets out of the gun's, reveling in the hammering recoil and blinding muzzle flashes of two of the heaviest and deadliest pistols ever made. He couldn't resist showing off a little, crossing his arms so his left gun was shooting right and his right gun left. He emptied the twelve round clips in four seconds each and ejected the empty clips with a practiced double thumb flick. Athrun was just peering around the corner of his newly ravaged tree... there were craters all over the side facing Cray, though no bullets had yet penetrated all the way through, when Cray slammed home two new clips from the quick loading harness attached to each holster. Katie made a running dive for the hanger door, just barely making it past eight rushed shots from Cray, none of which missed by more than half an inch. Athrun whipped back into cover and shrank down... he had to think of something... he couldn't make a running dive fast enough to avoid getting shot in his current condition... and if he stayed here much longer his tree was going to get shot full of holes, with him following shortly after. He heard people crashing through the brush towards the hanger... Kira and the others responding to Katie's telepathic call... she must have contacted them while she was pinned down by Cray. His mind was divided... he was glad not to be the only target any more, but unless he did something crazy his friends were going to get gunned down by Cray. Ignoring the burning in his chest Athrun burst for cover, shouting like a mad man and waving his arms. Cray had just been orienting towards the three approaching Coordinators when a target too tempting to ignore appeared before him. Smiling maliciously, he aimed both pistols at Athrun, tracking the notorious Coordinator through the forest with ease. There was about to be one less space monster. Just as he was pulling the trigger a flurry of gunshots shattered the air around the hanger. But they weren't from Cray.
Falling from the sky above, crashing through the foliage like falling stars were five figures dressed in black night camouflage uniforms, hanging onto ropes with one hand and firing weapons with the other. They seemed to be in free fall, not slowed at all by the ropes they were sliding down. Athrun gaped... he'd heard about this sort of thing from back in basic and elite training... this was a fast dismounting or deployment technique used by special forces on both sides when they didn't have time to land and no other method of insertion was feasible. The soldier was harnessed to a rope with a quick release catch, and held onto a manual handbrake with one hand. They then jumped out of their transport while it was still in the air... usually from several tens of feet in the air or more. Athrun had no idea how high the Archangel was, but he guessed more than a hundred feet... a long way to fall... a lot of momentum to kill with the handbrake. Stopping the fall was a matter of timing... start braking too soon and you'd be left hanging in midair... brake too late and you'd break your legs or die. But if you did it just right... like Alkire and the members of TEMPEST did... well, there were few things that looked smoother and more intimidating than five elite soldiers levitating down from the sky, giving accurate cover fire and spreading out like oil on water when they touched ground, almost in unison.
Cray swore and threw himself down and behind a fallen and rotting tree... if he hadn't had superhuman reflexes he probably would have been shot to pieces by those damn commandos. Where the fuck had they come from anyway? They just dropped out of the sky and started shooting at him, just at a moment of triumph. It wasn't fair. It pissed him off something fierce. He wouldn't let it continue. He felt raw adrenaline and gamma gliphetim pumping into his veins... just the sort of edge he'd need. The world seemed to become filled with clear glue... even sounds were slowing down. He reloaded both pistols as he rose, dropping the half full clips where he could find them later. Three of the commandos were approaching his position... one guy with brownish hair carrying a rifle, a big guy with a heavy machine gun, and a slim guy with black hair and a combat shotgun. The other two... the girl and the guy with the sword... were covering the four Coordinators as they hustled into the hanger. Cray was disappointed... Frost hadn't managed to bag even one... he had lost some respect for the little psycho. But then there was no time for thought... only for firing. He aimed at the big guy and the guy with the shotgun, blasting away with alternating guns... right left right left, never firing with the same gun at the same person twice in a row. He saw one bullet strike the big guy right in the gut, folding him up like a paper doll and dropping him to the ground. There was no blood, which meant the enemy was armored, of course. Which was fine... armor would only go so far. Vlad ducked and dived and rolled and came up blasting with his shotgun, which was loaded with alternating buckshot and deer slugs. Alkire meanwhile rolled the other way, firing controlled bursts from his assault rifle. Cray strafed towards Alkire, firing at james and vlad until he was out of bullets before reloading with his final two clips. James had recovered from the initial hit and the squad support weapon barked loudly, sending high velocity rifle rounds snapping through the air, tossing divots of mud and dirt more than a yard into the air as they impacted the ground around the almost blurry fast Cray.
Dropping into a kneeling spin, firing behind his back as he spun, Cray closed to within arms reach of Alkire. Dodging the thrust of the assault rifle butt with a flick of his head, Cray fired at point blank range, grazing Alkire once on each shoulder as the man fell backwards to get away. A machine gun bullet nicked Cray's leg, the impact of which he incorporated into a second spin, arms spread wide, jumping through the air like some olympic ice skater, spraying bullets like a sprinkler did water. Three bullets whined off the trees near James, four more almost eviscerated Vlad, throwing him back with his armor in tatters. Five bullets penetarted the thin walls of the hanger, one of which speared through the thin glass of the cockpit canopy, glancing off an instrument panel in a shower of sparks not four inches from Cagalli's head. Then both guns clicked empty and he discarded them in mid spin. Before he landed he was already flipping the 30mm cannon into his right hand and the reloaded elephant gun into his left. He dropped into a crouch upon landing and shoulder rolled behind a clump of trees... no since in getting shot now that he was starting to run out of ammo...he had one shell for the cannon left and four bullets for the elephant gun... then he was down to grenades and fists. He heard crashing and yelling from the brush behind him and he turned with a hopeful look on his face... maybe there was a straggler he could pick off. No such luck of course... Cray blanched and dived to the side as Frost barreled past him, a rictus grimace of hate on his bloody face and his scythe rotating above his head like a propeller blade.
Alkire saw what was bearing down on him and he got to his feet faster than he ever had in his life. "Bail! Bail BAIL BAIL! Bug the fuck out! Advance rearwards all full!" Alkire put words to action and sprinted for the hanger as if chsed by the very hounds of hell... or something worse... were on his tail. James fired a few desultory rounds of covering fire... totally ineffective as it turned out, because Frost either ignored them, letting them slide fractionally wide, or wove around them like they were slow motion spitballs. Vlad didn't even bother... after fighting this foe on more than one battlefield, he had come to the conclusion that gunfire was all but useless except at extremely long or extremely close range... with long range preferred, since if you let Frost get within arm's reach you were not long for the world. He popped a smoke grenade over his shoulder and made like a gazelle, his chest burning like fire as his gasping lungs stretched the four bullet bruises he sported on his chest under the armor. An enormous retort sounded from behind them and a massive shell parted the smoke cloud with a sound like a keg rolling across a wooden floor. The 30mm shell screamed past Vlad at shoulder height, less than an arms reach away, before penetrating the hanger wall and exploding, spraying the interior of the hanger with fire and metal fragments. Luckily the only damage sustained was to the cockpit canopy, which was cracked and dented so much it was almost impossible to see through the clouded glass. Alkire dropped two more smoke grenades, as did James. Victor raced out of the jet and gave covering fire with his pistols as they ducked past him into the hanger and onto the straining jet... which was loaded significantly past its usual maximum capacity. Victor hucked a pair of satchel charges on impact fuses out into the jungle and then hit a comm relay switch on the radio on his belt. The satchel charges each took out more than a fifty square foot section of jungle, felling trees and igniting foliage in twin firestorms that threw the BCPU's back like chaff in a hurricane. Cray had just recovered and was aiming the elephant gun at Victor's retreating back when the purpose of the comm signal became clear. The two underside Iegelstellung 75mm gatling CIWS systems of the Archangel opened fire on the sections of forest cleared by Victors blasts, raining hundreds of high explosive shells down from above in steady streams of blazing fire. Explosions gouted up in plumes of smoke and debris, until a cloud of grit and dust covered the jungle for more than a mile around. A rattling, straining and coughing VTOL jet limped out of the cloud of smoke and more than half crashed in one of the landing bays of the Archangel. Damage control crews and medical teams swarmed the aircraft the moment it stopped sliding.
Back on the bridge, things were getting tight. Very tight. The Archangel was a very well armed ship... far more heavily armed and armored than any other ship in the Alliance fleet to date. But it still wasn't designed to penetrate and assail a well constructed enemy base entirely on its own, without support from either other ships or its complement of fighters and mobile suits. Yet, since the pilots for those mobile suits and fighters were currently in no shape for flying, according to the initial reports from the medical crews down in the hanger, that was what they were being forced to do. So far they had been able to hold their own... mainly because the enemy response had been poorly organized and somewhat understrength. Tanks and missile trucks had rushed right in without waiting for gun emplacement or mobile suit support and so the vehicles had been decimated by the Archangel's CIWS systems and Valiants. Meanwhile the massive Gottfried high energy beam cannons had been systematically annihilating the missile and cannon emplacements rising out of the mountainsides all around them... the flaring green beams never required more than one shot per emplacement, in several cases a single shot took out several emplacements, often on entirely opposite sides of a mountain, by shooting straight through a ridgeline. When the mobile suit and jet fighter forces had finally mustered their formations enough to approach the Archangel, they were blasted away in disarray by volleys of Helldarts and the much bigger Sledgehammer missiles. All in all, Murrue was not impressed with the Blue Cosmos commander, whoever they were. She was starting to wonder if there even was a central command authority... the enemy forces were running around like chickens with their heads cut off... it shouldn't be nearly this easy to just waltz into a major base, like this one looked to be.
It's defenders aside, the base itself was impressive as hell. It looked to be built inside not just one but several mountains, all connected both by surface roads and underground tunnels of great size. One entire mountain seemed devoted to factory complexes, judging from the ground penetrating radar scans, another was living facilities and life support type systems, and a third was entirely for storage of raw materials. The living facility went down deeper than the sensors could detect, which was more than 300 meters below the Earth's surface... an astounding feat of construction, especially for a base that didn't officially exist for either the Alliance or ZAFT. There must have been at least five or six thousand people living and working there just in the factory, storage and living areas... nevermind the defending military forces. An amazing coup for Blue Cosmos to construct such a facility... truly, this must be the beating heart of the organization, if there ever was one. Murrue was contemplating what she wanted to do next during a brief lull in the fighting... they had recovered the people they came to rescue, all alive, if not well. But to just leave this Blue Cosmos base relatively intact when they for once actually had a chance to strike directly at the people who perpetuated the war... it didn't feel right. But neither could they stay long... calls for help had doubtlessly been issued to the Earth Alliance and the rest of Blue Cosmos... once reinforced and provided with leadership, the enemy would easily overwhelm the single warship. Murrue's musing was interrupted when the door to the bridge slid open and a long missed figure stepped forward.
On the ground below, Cray dragged Frost's limp form from underneath a charred tree trunk... one of hundreds that lay about like partially burned sticks tossed about by some petulant child... all that remained of the once lush jungle around the hidden hanger, due to the pounding delivered by the Archangel's CIWS guns. Cray himself was mostly unharmed... just a few scraps and the gunshot bruises and wounds he'd already sported. He looked at the Archangel bitterly as it hovered in the near distance, still engaged with the defenders of JIHAD. They would have had them... he would have had them... if that damn ship hadn't shown up out of nowhere and ruined everything. It was so totally unfair... the rage and hate he felt was burning him up so much inside it was hard to think straight. he was actually crying with anger, he was so pissed off. If it was the last thing he ever did, he would see that white ship burning in flames at his feet... preferrably with its crew still trapped inside. He turned to look at Frost, who was unconscious from the blasts... unlike Cray, he hadn't sought cover, he'd just stood there and screamed until explosions through him into some trees and buried him alive under them afterwards. Cray shuddered... he'd actually been able to hear that scream and it had chilled his bones until he expected to see ice forming on his skin... once again he was forcefully reminded that while he may have been a multiple murderer who enjoyed the work, there were still much worse people than him alive and walking around. Though that might be a problem for Frost for a while... his foot wasn't much more than bare bones and muscle tatters, and the rest of him was little better. Cray had seen much more attractive corpses... he'd even created a few... and that was after he worked them over with a shotgun and flamethrower. But Frost still breathed... Cray had felt him breathing when he dragged him out from under the trees. A sudden thought occured to him... he could change that little fact, if he felt like it. Yeah... he could pay Frost back for all the torment and terrorizing he'd inflicted on Cray and Amy over the years. All it would take was a few twists and he could break the little bastards neck. A few more after that and he could mount the head on the Merciless. He smiled... it was a great idea. He turned towards where he'd left Frost, homicidal grin filling up his face. The grin faded like a ghost in sunlight when he found Frost no longer lying comatose, but standing, eyes burning as he stared at the Archangel. Cray casually uncrooked his hands and let his arms drop to his sides... if whistling was one of his skills, he'd have been doing the casual whistle for all he was worth.
"I'm tougher than I look." Frost said, not looking at him. He sounded lucid again... like maybe he'd gone so far off the deep end he'd dropped from the sky into shallower waters again. "But I'm in no condition to travel back to the base... you'll have to carry me."
"What makes you think I'll..." Cray started to protest.
"Fear. I may not be able to move very far... but I can move far enough to tear your legs off and use them for crutches if I have to. And beyond that... because frankly you don't have any other friends but me. I know... we aren't friends... but we're the closest either of us is ever going to get. There are no two men more similar than you and me. And we're late for an even bigger battle than this one... I don't want to miss the mass death from the nuking of Australia and Carpentaria, do you?" Frost retorted, cutting him off.
"Similar might be going a bit far. But you have something of a point. Fine... I'll carry you... just you remember that I did." Cray replied. I can always drop him off a cliff or something on the way back too. He smiled. "What are friends for, eh?"
"And don't try to kill me either... you can bet that I'm faster than you and if you try to toss me off a cliff or something, you're coming down with me." Frost warned, hobbling over. Cray's face soured and he lifted the smaller BCPU much like a mother might carry a babe. Frost's fingers locked onto his upper arms so tightly Cray could feel them clenching around the bone... he wouldn't be throwing Frost anywhere unless he threw his own arms with him. "And step on it, will you? I want to get to the Fury before that damned ship drops half a mountain on it." Cray hadn't thought of that possibility yet. Worry creased his mind... what would he do if the Merciless got buried and ruined by falling derbis... it was powerful as all hell, but a mountainside was quite a trump card? He had to get back and get it out of its hanger before something happened. He turned and raced with all his might for the base entrance... his long limbs covering ground faster than a loping deer.
Inside JIHAD Ashino had managed to secure some basic first aid from an abandoned medical lab. Nothing more than a few bandages and some painkiller pills that barely affected his enhanced system, but it helped enough. He observed the guards and administrators running around in chaotic confusion... the Doc could not be contacted and both Asmodeus and Cervantes were out of touch because of enforced communication silence preceeding the Australian Maneuver, which was due to commence in a few hours. Nobody was clear on who was in charge of what and nobody could decide what needed to be done. Evacuation? Retaliation? Self Destruct? Call for help? No work was being done because of the hysteria...most of the people at the base were civilians, who never thought they'd actually be attacked by an enemy warship, much less something as powerful as the Archangel, which had proved more than a match for the defense forces so far. Ashino shook his head in distaste... he knew exactly what needed to be done, but as a BCPU he had no authority and would only be ignored. One of those little ironies he never expected to encounter but now had. He remained calm and headed down into the depths of the facility, away from the hustle and bustle of the disintegrating chain of command. The Doc was dead, he was sure of it, but no one had yet bothered to check sub level six personally, for what reason he could not fathom. Maybe they were afraid of the reputation the place had... monstrous things had happened down there in the past... guards and technicians would go down and come back up in body bags... or multiple smaller bags.
He'd reached sub level 3 before he encountered anyone... he chanced past an open door and spotted a group of four white lab coated BCPU instructors huddled around a communications terminal, trying without much success to contact the administrators above to find out what was going on. Explosions had been heard and felt, and the power had been flickering for nearly fifteen minutes now. Were they under attack, ridiculous as that sounded, since no one even knew where they were? Ashino had politely gotten their attention and informed them that he had orders from the Doc... something which made them almost visibly relieved. Ashino coughed up a few gouts of blood... he was going to have to lie and his conditioning was already making him pay the price. But it was for a good cause... this was the only way they were going to survive if the Archangel did what he was thinking it would do... it wouldn't take Lacus and her comrades long to convince the commander of the ship what an evil place JIHAD was. The instructors ignored his coughing... they probably assumed he had internal injuries of some sort, but he was only a BCPU and not even one they were responsible for, so they didn't even look twice. It rankled that his plot would save men and women like them too, but such was life... bittersweet to the end. Ashino told them the Doc wanted them to gather up all the BCPU's currently in training and all the BCPU canidates in the holding cells and take them down into sub level six in one big group. He would brief them there on what role they were to play in the defense of the base against the ships attacking them. If the Doc was not down there when they got there, they were to wait there for him to arrive... he would come by his secure personal elevator from his personal quarters if he wasn't already waiting for them. This was something that needed to be done both hastily and perfectly, Ashino told them... they could not afford to leave even one child behind, no matter how sickly or weak from surgery. He told them he would also be down there to help coordinate them later, but Ashino told them not to wait for him, he had a few other tasks he had to take care of first. The instructors nodded and thanked him, rushing off to unwittingly bring all the BCPU's and prospective BCPU's to the safest place for them in the entire mountain... the Doc's lab. If the Archangel destroyed the upper facility, they'd still be alive down here, able to survive on emergency supplies until Ashino could arrange for a rescue. ashino smirked slightly and headed for the hanger bays, where the Bane was berthed. Hopefully he would get there before the Archangel opened fire.
"Lacus! Oh my god, your leg!" Murrue cried, half getting up from her captain's chair. Or for that matter, the rest of you. I've never seen her look so worn before... never mind all the bllod and stuff on her... it's obviously not hers. But she looks terrible. Damn Blue Cosmos... what sort of hell did they put such an undeserving girl through?
"It's just a graze... it actually doesn't hurt all that much." Lacus replied with a soft smile. Well actually it hurts like fire burning me, but that isn't what is currently important. "I cannot tell you how glad i am to see you, Captain... I never dared imagine you would be so close by when I called for help. A good thing you were too... we wouldn't have lasted much longer by ourselves.
"Is everyone okay?" Waltfeld asked. "I mean, you escaped by yourselves, which none of us expected, no offense."
Lacus turned to look at him, the most serious expression she could muster on her face. "No... everyone is not all right. All of us have been tortured in one fashion or another, some worse than others. Kira has burns from a soldering iron on his hands... Ysak has bruises from being beaten by Cray Thresher during several fights and is exhausted to the point of unconsciousness besides. Cagalli was beaten by guards during our interrogation, as was Dearka during his, much worse than Cagalli was. Athrun fought Markov Ashino, another BCPU and defeated him, though he broke his hand and suffered greatly in the process. Worst of all, Chanel did not leave the mountain... she was executed on Asmodeus Sark's order, by the hand of Cray Thresher. So no... everyone is most definitely not okay."
"I had no idea..." Waltfeld whispered in replied, his fingers digging into his one palm hard enough to leave small cuts, while his remaining eye narrowed with fury. Murrue sat slowly back into her chair... her face white... she hadn't know Chanel very well, but the very idea of a teenage girl being executed in cold blood while being held a helpless captive cut her soul. Her lip quivered with pent up rage.
"What monsters they are... Blue Cosmos." Murrue whispered.
"You really have no idea... we met and had another interrogation with the leader of the project that this base was built for. I never learned his name... everyone called him the Doc. He is a Coordinator who is working for Blue Cosmos for a reason I cannot fathom... he is insane is all I can think of. He certainly possesses no morals or ethics I was able to discern... he brutally manipulates all the people around him, erasing the memories of children, augmenting them with mechanical and biological enhancements and conditioning them into brutal killing machines for the Alliance military." Lacus spilled forth, the words flowing like water from a burst dam, which is what her mind felt like... she was releasing all the negative emotions she had been holding back until that point.
"What sort of place is this?" Waltfeld hissed, trying to get his mind around what Lacus was saying.
"This is a den of true evil... where people without morals take children kidnapped off the streets and orphanage wards of the Earth and cut them open to add surgical enhancements no human was meant to have in order to turn them into unstoppable super soldiers. It's a place where those children are subjected to a training regime so brutal and dehumanizing that the ones who survive have no memories of their lives before they came here and... worst of all... those who survive do not even view themselves as humans any more, but instead as machines, mere interface cards for the Mobile Suits built for them. I heard such tales of horror that I don't know if I can repeat them... I saw such things... things I never want to remember but can't forget." Tears started beading in Lacus's eyes. "I experienced acts among the worst humans can inflict upon each other... observed people with such terrible psychoses that they cannot be allowed to further spread their taint to new people."
"What are you trying to say, Ms. Lacus?" Waltfeld asked gently.
"You all know my stance on war and killing." Lacus replied. She paused several breaths. "Despite that, for once, I think that there are just some things that cannot be allowed to exist. If you encounter a rabid animal you try to capture it and get it medical attention. But if someone is going around and injecting animals with rabies and chemical warfare agents... and indeed, goes so far as to inject themselves to prevent capture... well, then there really is only one choice. They have to be put down before they can do any more damage. For the good of all. This is a situation like that. Please believe me, I don't want to kill all those people in there... all those children who never had the chance to know any better... but we don't have the resourcs to save them right now... and if we don't do something now, later they will just relocate and begin anew and we'll never be rid of them. So please... destroy this base. Try to leave the living quarters intact if you can... but destroy this base at all costs. It's existence cannot be tolerated by moral people."
Murrue looked at Waltfeld, who thought briefly and nodded once. If Lacus Clyne felt a place had to be destroyed, then it should probably be damn well destroyed, in his opinion. Anything that could affect the merciful Lacus Clyne like this was too terrible for him to want to consider. Murrue nodded as well... in truth she had been going to follow the suggestion anyway... her blood was boiling and she knew she'd barely scratched the surface of the stories she'd no doubt hear from her young friends later. "Activate the Lohengrin. Coordinate with the Gottfried's and Valiants. Load all missile tubes with Wombat anti-ship missiles. I want those mountains gutted and I want it done properly."
"Activate the Lohengrin. Coordinate with Gottfried's and Valiants. Loading all tubes with Wombats, aye." Waltfeld replied. "Lohengrin one, target the factory mountain along with Gottfried one and two. Lohengrin two, target the facility mountain, along with Valiants and missile tubes. Second volley targets will be Lohengrin's one and two on the factory and facility mountains, and everything else on the storage mountain. Should a third volley be necessary, I will assign targets based on how the first two volleys went."
"Lohengrins activated and powering up. Three zero seconds to full power."
"Gottfried's and Valiant's targeted and locked on. Missile tubes will be loaded in four zero seconds."
"Helldart launchers at 45 percent ammunition, Iegelstellungs at 76 percent ammunition. The enemy has pulled back and is trying to regroup at the base of the factory mountain."
"Turning two degree's starboard to put the enemy in the line of fire. Maintaining minus three degree axial tilt. Engines idling at full power, all auxilary power connected to weapon's systems."
"Communications are clear... the enemy is trying to jam us but we have defeated them. Enemy communications are 35 percent jammed. No hits on the long range radar... we're still the only ship in the area."
"One zero seconds remaining until all weapons ready, captain. All targets locked in and the program is standing by to alternate to the second volley targets. Zero five seconds to weapon readiness."
"Very well, CIC." Murrue replied. She turned to Lacus. "Would you like to?"
"I'll take responsibility, yes, thank you." Lacus replied.
"That's not quite what I meant... I mean, would you like to purge a little of the ill feelings you have for this place? I'm captain here... this is my responsibility." Murrue whispered.
"I have no ill feelings for this place... just the people who run it and who built it... I'm destroying it in order to demonstrate to them that their cruelty and maliciousness will no longer be tolerated." Lacus replied, smiling ever so slightly again.
"Weapons are powered and ready, captain. Waiting on the order."
"Very well, CIC." Murrue acknowledged. "It's for you to do then."
"Very well, Captain Ramius." Lacus replied. She took a breath. "All weapons, open fire."