The Golden Age: Chaotic Cosmos

by Maderfole

Book 1 of The Golden Age trilogy. Peace is attained, but even worse chaos lurks just below the surface, waiting to consume the entire Seed cosmos in a war to dwarf all previous wars. The beginning of the epic story. FINISHED. Continued in Eden Disaster.

66. The Aftermath

Noah looked expectantly up at the five assorted enginners, mechanics and technicians working at the outside hatch control mechanisms of the Pulsar. After destroying the Alliance fleet with their own missiles, Jeremiah had limped the Pulsar home to the Carnot, keeping the machine well within tolerances more in spec for the Elementals... he felt he'd stressed the prototype more than enough with his little stunt with the missiles. And besides just that, he was actually hurting quite a bit... his tongue had been seared and he'd spent more than twenty minutes surrounded by gel on all sides that was currently still more than one hundred twenty degrees fahrenheight... not the most humanly comfortable environment, especially when you were breathing that gel too. In truth, he'd barely been able to get the Pulsar into the hanger without crashing... his lungs were screaming at him and he had a headache like he could barely believe. It was so bad it was actively affecting his ability to pilot... making his movements jerky and unresponsive. A possible side effect of the NIC system... but probably it had more to do with the steaming hot environment... if he wasn't dehydrated he knew nothing about anatomy. Jeremiah waited impatiently as the gel slowly leaked down through the floor drains back into the holding tanks, where it would be swapped out for fresh fluid later. Technically the same fluid could be recycled and used by the Pulsar time and time again... up to fifty times in a row... but that grew progressively nastier and wasn't something Jeremiah saw fit to subject himself to. He choked and coughed and spat up the gel in his lungs as the gel level descended past his neck... his entire chest ached with the suddenly felt effort of breathing a substance not only thicker than air, but significantly thicker than water... despite his training specifically for that purpose, he still felt like he'd just run a marathon uphill.

Down below, near the still too hot to touch foot of the Pulsar, Noah tapped his foot impatiently. He could feel how exhausted his uncle was... Jeremiah's mind was usually a bright pulsing flare of energy when Noah looked for it... now he could barely make it out. A slightly disturbing image was that the Pulsar was also dimly glowing with the mental presence of his uncle... a feeling which faded as the NIC shut down... but still something to remember. Noah unconsciously hefted his portable computer tighter under his arm... he'd gotten some really good data with his brainwave recorder... enough to make a significant start on the basic programs for his AI mobile suit pilot. Of course, the test wasn't perfect... the Pulsar had yet to be equipped with its array of weapons, and Noah doubted he'd really get the best patterns until he could record his uncle using the armaments... but it was enough for now. A very tiny part of Noah's mind breathed a big sigh of relief that not only was his uncle Jeremiah relatively okay, but the PLANTS were safe once again from the spectre of nuclear annihilation. For the meanwhile anyway. However, that part of Noah was so small even he barely acknowledged it... his relief was completely undetectable to the people around him. To the crew he looked almost petulant or disappointed, like a child denied a promised treat or gift. His computer beeped lazily in his arms. Noah wasted no time in slinking off a few paces for privacy and opening the computer back up... he recognized the signal as one of many he used to signify a message from someone in his network. Most people would have found the idea that Noah even had a spy network at all, much less one that was as far reaching in its way as both ZAFT and the EA military intelligence forces, to be fanciful at best. But it was true... of course, most of his network had no idea they were passing information on to a ten year old... they just knew him as a frighteningly intelligent man with a thirst for power and an agenda so far reaching none of them could comprehend even the small pieces they were part of. Computer comms made everything so easy... appearance changing and speech modifying programs weren't that hard to make.

The message was from one of his most effective pairs of agents... an old friend of his family, Jean Dylan... a recent Levansworth escapee... a mutineer, traitor and general scoundrel from the dregs of the EA military... and a newer recruit, fresh from a private intensive care hospital run privately by the Boranders for their top valued employees, where he had been recovering from serious third degree burns over more than seventy percent of his body as well as undergoing treatment for the flash blinding his eyes had suffered during his injuring. Aireg Randolf was not known to be alive by more than a very few people... less than could be counted on one hand... and of those few people... only Noah and the doctor who treated him would still be among the living by the end of the month. Noah didn't like ordering the deaths of fellow Coordinators... but Aireg was now an essential part of the Eden plan... and the Eden plan ALWAYS took priority. Dylan, who had a sleazy network of "buddies" in the darker parts of nearly every city on Earth, was one of Noah's top agents... one of the few whom he had actually graced with his presence and who knew at least a little bit about the greater goals of the Eden plan. Normally he'd hardly trust a Natural so much... but Dylan was a special case... Noah had so much dirt on him that if he so much as breathed wrong, Noah could have him executed a dozen times over... by either the EA or ZAFT. Dylan had not made many friends on either side when he'd sold the data on the JOSH-A cyclops system to Rau Le Creuste in the last war... his EA commanders considered him a traitor and ZAFT thought he intentionally led them into an ambush, since Rau of course declined to share the information. The older clone may have been totally off his rocker... but Noah had always liked him anyway... he could emphazise with how Rau felt about Naturals. They were just... so... bothersome, sometimes. They never knew what they wanted... and they always made things worse when they tried to fix things... it would be far better if they were all Coordinators instead. As for Randolf... the man was driven by an obsessive desire for revenge... as long as Noah promised to help him accomplish that revenge, Aireg Randolf would do whatever was necessary. Thinking of Rau reminded Noah that he needed to take his medicine again soon or he get cramps... damn his clone flaw but not even his mother had yet found a way to cure his terminal condition.

Randolf and Dylan were going to Earth, to Orb, on Noah's orders. He'd anticipated that the EA would regroup at Orb after the battle at Carpentaria... no matter which way the fight had gone, Orb was the closest friendly nation with the facilities to cope with the damage the EA would have had to have suffered... and did suffer... during the battle. Also, Orb was a simmering pool of anti-war resentment... even in victory a strong military presence would likely have been required to maintain peace and order. And despite what the EA networks were already broadcasting, few people would see the results of the battle as anything close to a victory for the EA... they'd lost a fleet in space, gotten kicked out of Carpentaria... and generally hadn't accomplished anything besides beat the bloody snot out of ZAFT while taking a similar beating. In defeat, Orb would likely become an even hotter bed of protests and even riots... Noah checked his other, lower priority email while he scanned Dylan's report, his incredible mind easily able to take in four different pages of text at once. Yes... other agents were already reporting stirrings in the Orb underground resistance established by Colonel Ledonir Kisaka before he left Orb for the Kusanagi... word was getting out on the streets that the Alliance had just gotten its ass handed to itself wrapped up in a bright pink bow. People were already starting to gather and plainly some people had been waiting for something like this to happen, because invitations to pro-peace organizations across the world to gather in Orb for a massive protest were already flooding the nets. Noah smirked... as if the EA response wasn't completely obvious... after Cervantes Zunnichi seduced Orb into the Alliance, he wouldn't let it host such an inflammatory and demoralizing event quietly... oh no... blood would be spilled in Orb... and soon... before the month was out, probably. That was why Dylan and Randolf were there... they were to observe the Alliance response and recovery... and continue their primary mission... to continue to search out more potential recruits for the Eden plan.

Noah looked up as the medical teams rushed his protesting uncle away to the infirmary... in truth, Jeremiah wasn't doing all that much protesting... he looked like shit and he had to be feeling at least twice as bad, given how he was staggering even in zero G. As soon as the pilot was out of the way, a swarm of technicians descended upon the slowly cooling Pulsar... repairing, refueling and more often, taking readings on various aspects of its performance. Noah could have saved them all hours of work by showing them the data he had been beamed from the onboard computers during the fight... but that would also include showing them the brainwave patterns, among several other very hard to explain things, like a constantly updating video link from inside the ZAFT Director of Military Intelligence's private office... so Noah kept out of the way. He knew what they would conclude... the Pulsar had performed beyond the rather conservative limits they had thought up and had come through not only relatively intact, but almost pristine. The coolant system would need an overhaul, but that took less than a half day... not a bad first mission, all told. The Elementals had also performed up to Borander specifications... if not a little beyond as well. Noah had no doubt the design would be gobbled up hungrily by ZAFT, especially now. Short on troops, technological advantage was all ZAFT had to counteract the massive military might of the EA. The funding for the continued development of the Pulsar was a given... after stopping two nuclear missiles with its bare hands within sight of tens of thousands of PLANT citizens, ZAFT leaders would be castrated and hung out to bleed to death if they didn't show the public more of the incredible mobile suit. Noah typed rapidly at his specially modified keyboard with both hands... it wasn't any bigger than a normal keyboard and had the same number of keys, but by depressing a switch on one side, he could type on it like he was using two seperate keyboards at once. It was a little hard to explain... but basically he was typing two different documents at the same time on the same keyboard... his left hand hitting the keys in the normal pattern, his right hand hitting the keys in a coded pattern that translated them into regular words on the second document. It had taken him almost a month to build the computer and program the keyboard for this special use... but for someone with as much brain processing power as him, a single keyboard was just too slow and multiple keyboards were bulky and unwieldy. If he was in a more private location, he'd have been dictating a third document with a voice command system, but in the hanger that was impractical. Within five minutes he'd finished his updated orders and sent them off to his network... the next few weeks would be... interesting, to say the least.

Back on Earth, Kira had made it to the rendevous point with no further trouble. He'd been aggravated by passing over a huge section of ocean awash in tides of burning oil and pitifully few life rafts as he overflew the point where the retreating infantry transports had encountered the returning ZAFT submarine force... very few transport ships would be returning to port, from the look of things. But there was nothing for him to do... by the time he arrived the fighting had been over for ten minutes or more and given his current damaged mobile suit and battered condition, he doubted if he'd have been much help anyway. Lacus was waiting for him in the hanger of the Archangel... she tackled him before he'd even fully lowered himself to the floor, nearly sending them both tumbling ignominously to the ground in a heap. Neither of them cared. Normally when Lacus threw herself on him... a rare occassion in and of itself, Kira could catch her easily enough... she really wasn't that heavy... but given that he'd gone for what felt like a full day with no rest, much of it in SEED mode and in life and death combat no less... a stiff breeze could have blown him over and his legs buckled underneath him when he tried to walk. Lacus wasn't in much better shape... she'd fainted and gotten a few hours sleep, yes, but unconsciousness wasn't real sleep, especially when it was helped along by a drug. He tugged his helmet off and dropped it to roll with a dull thud along the metal deck as Lacus sought his face with hers. Normally they constrained themselves in public... but now was not the time for modesty, both decided. They didn't have to say anything to each other... just with touch and looks they could communicate just fine. A few minutes later Alkire trudged in, clad in sweat soaked jumpsuit from where he'd removed his flightsuit. The older man didn't look like he had much more energy than Kira himself... Kira noted a slowly spreading blood stain along Alkire's hip region, about where he'd been shot during the wedding, but given as Alkire himself seemed to be doing his best to ignore it, Kira decided not to say anything either. He winced as the back of his hands flared with pain... the burn marks finally reasserting their control over his nervous system's pain centers.

"You did a good job out there, kid." Alkire said quietly. "I always thought you were a bit of a pain in the ass before... but now I think I see why the good captain and company keep you around... it's like having an entire extra company of mobile suits on the battlefield with you."

"Ah, and here I was, thinking they had me around because they liked my personality." Kira smiled, holding Lacus close as she silently worked through her emotional high. He looked at Alkire. "You didn't do so bad yourself, for your first time in a Skygrasper." Alkire shurgged it away.

"You fly one fighter jet, you've flown em all. I'll admit, I like the thing... but in truth I'd prefer to do my fighting on the ground." Alkire replied.

"Hopefully we won't have to do any of that for a while." Kira said wearily. "Right now I feel like I could sleep for a week."

"I hear that..." Alkire slowly sank down on his haunches with his back against the hanger wall and then sat fully down with legs outstretched. As he slid down the wall, his blood soaked lower shirt left a trail on the wall. Alkire reach up and tapped a few keys on an intercomm interface board. "Ello the bridge... this is Alkire speaking... we're down in the hanger... could use some help... techs are all busy... nothing serious... just need some help walking back to our rooms."

"Understood, Alkire. I'll send some people to give you a lift shortly." Murrue replied. There was a pause. "Welcome back... and thank you. Both of you." The comm clicked off and Alkire breathed a muted laugh.

"Must have cost her a bit to say that last bit... me and mine aren't exactly the most popular group of soldiers on this ship."

"Captain Ramius may not like you or your methods... much as I don't particularly like you or your methods..." Lacus cut in. "But that doesn't prevent either of us from respecting and valuing your commitment and courage in helping the cause of peace. I wish to extend my thanks as well. Kira can take care of himself on the battlefield, but your intervention with the sonic boom was related to me as well."

"Ahh... damn... now what do I do? Everyone's being all grateful... I don't know how to deal with it." Alkire smiled crookedly. "I don't suppose this means I get a promotion?"

"Yeah... you get to go from tired old man to well used bedwarmer. That's more than a few steps up." Raine said with a wicked twinkle in her eyes as she and James walked into the hanger bay from behind Alkire. "Having a little trouble walking, Alkire? You should have known better... flying into combat with a still healing wound... I oughta leave you here to teach you a lesson."

"But I'll get all stiff..." Alkire complained. Raine leaned down and whispered something in his ear, quietly enough that James could not hear. Lacus and Kira still managed to overhear though.

"I'm planning on you getting stiff as it is. Well... at least a few parts of you anyway." Raine breathed. Alkire's eyes widened and he looked slightly more dazed than before.

"But I'm wounded... I'm bleeding... and not just a little either." He whispered back.

"You can sleep alone for the next two weeks..."

"When do we leave?" Alkire said, reaching up an arm. He flushed a little and looked at Kira, who had a huge grin on his face. "I've felt this sudden burst of energy." Alkire forced himself to frown. "Oh yeah... laugh it up, kid and kiddess... what are you two planning on doing tonight, eh?" He noted their identical flushes. "Yeah... I wouldn't make fun, if you live in a glass house too." Raine reached down and pulled Alkire to his feet, draping one arm over her shoulder and holding him tightly around the waist with both arms... ignoring the wet cloth and the stains it left on her arms.

"Come on now, Alkire. You've embarrassed them enough."

"I've embarrassed them? YOU started this... ouch!" Akire winced as Raine tightened her encircling arms. "I can't believe you're taking advantage of my wound to... ouch... to cut me... OUCH... off!"

Raine shook her head as she guided him up and away, towards the rooms TEMPEST used as berthing. "You'd think he'd learn. I'm a commando too... I'm always willing to take advantage to get what I want."

"Aaannnd on that cheery note!" James said awkwardly, having missed the whispered conversation and so had little idea what was going on... besides that everyone else was getting all flushed and embarrassed looking, which meant that he'd missed something amusing. "Let's get you both off to a more comfortable location. You both look like you're ready to hibernate for the next winter... and maybe the one after that too." James stepped over to them and did not bother to disengage Lacus from Kira's arms. He just picked them both up in one large bundle by lifting Kira, who clutched Lacus securely to his front and carried them both like a huge sack of grain. "Sorry if this is awkward... phh... pink hair in my eyes... phh... phh... phh... darn it." He moved fast... if Alkire's last comment was anything to go by, Kira had a rather important and probably enjoyable task ahead of him that neither he nor Lacus would want delayed any more than necessary. If James had been in his spot, he would have moved heaven and earth to... begin the festivities... even a few seconds sooner. Especially with a damned cute looker like Lacus. James had to say, he'd seen more beautiful young girls in the past few months than he had in the entire rest of his life combined... what was it about crisis situations that demanded that the girls be hot as hell as well as important? It was almost like something out of an old movie. It was too bad they were all too young for him... and all spoken for besides that. And spoken for by some of the scariest people James had ever met... people that he did not want coming after him, commando training or no commando training. Within minutes he had reached their room. He nudged the door control with one shoulder and deposited them together on the single bed, keeping his eyes straight ahead and not wandering around the privacy of their room. "Uh... ah... have a good night then."

"I... we... will, thank you." Lacus said.

"Yeah." Kira said supportively, momentarily berefit of the ability to use multisyllable words. He found this difficulty with speech did not ease with time... rather, as soon as James shut and considerately locked their door, he found that even completing single syllable words to be highly difficult. But certainly enjoyable. He allowed himself to forget all about the rest of the world for the next hour or two... all that mattered to him was contained in the single room aboard the Archangel. Unfortunately for the rest of the ship, the night did not pass so blissfully for all. Murrue and Waltfeld stayed up well past midnight in a conference call with Kisaka, hammering out a general plan on what to do next. Now that they had recovered their pilots, they could play a much more active role in supressing the war... once the pilots had a few days or a week off to recuperate from their ordeals of course. They had the time to spare... it would be a miracle of the highest order if either ZAFT or the EA could even think about mobilizing an offensive operation for at least a month. Kisaka revealed to Murrue and Waltfeld the news from the resistance movement he had set up in Orb before leaving for the Kusanagi... a huge peace protest was being planned to occur in Orb in the next few weeks. The projected goal was a ten million person march and sit in on the Orb Government plaza... completely peaceful of course. Barely a few hours past the end of the Third Battle of Carpentaria more than fifty organizations representing more than six million people around the world had already agreed to the protest. If things kept up like this, they might have to revise the plan a little... only so many people could fit into the Orb Government plaza, after all. The warship commander's weren't the only people working late into the night... maintenance and repair crews on both warships worked rotating shifts in order to fix up the ships and the Liberty as quickly as possible. The current threat level may have been small, but no one wanted to take any chances all the same... their position was too precarious.

For the first two weeks after the Third Battle of Carpentaria, the world stage stayed empty and inactive. All sides were hunkering down, regrouping and healing up behind the strongest defenses they could muster. The Earth Alliance had lost more than four hundred mobile suits, six hundred and thirty plus fighter-bombers, thirty plus Skygraspers, dozens of warships and transports and more than eighty five thousand soldiers all told, in just that one battle. Barely a fourth of the initial attacking forces were left to limp back to Orb... those with the least casualties were the Orb Defense forces themselves, which made the citizenry of the island nation happier, at least. A good tenth of the entire terrestrial Alliance forces were just plain gone. Up in space, with the near total loss of the Twelth Lunar Fleet, the EA space forces had lost fifteen percent of their combat capable ships in one blow... a staggering amount not surpassed since the loss of the 8th fleet or the destruction of the Ptolmaus base. The Earth Alliance casualties did not stop there... though the additional losses never made their way into any news report on either side... the only people that noted these almost equally staggering losses were the highest members of Blue Cosmos. JIHAD, the manufacturing and research heart of Blue Cosmos, was little more than a ruin. The independent Crusader production line was slag... the specialized Gundam production lines were twisted wreckage... and the BCPU program was buried under thousands of tons of seared stone. Fortunately, much of the data on the designs and projects at JIHAD was backed up in Asmodeus's central computer system at CWM headquarters in the Rocky Mountains... but data by itself did little good without the technicians and scientists and facilities to utilize that data. Looking at it from a business standpoint, the entire venture was a write off... a one hundred twenty billion dollar write off mark in the red column. Of course there were secondary projects... Cervantes wasn't stupid enough to place all his eggs in one basket... but the goose that laid the golden eggs was dead and his backup projects were more than a year from becoming even slightly productive. He was not happy. To put it very lightly.

The three remaining BCPU's recovered in Panama while the EA struggled to get back onto its feet. Ashino was hurt the least and he bounced back after only a day or two of rest. He was kept busy while his two compatriots recovered by running endless escort patrols around Panama and any other area that looked especially vulnerable at the moment. They were mind numbing exercises... ZAFT wasn't going to attack so soon... but they gave him plenty of time to think. To think and research and plan and think some more. Ashino didn't want to be a part of the EA any more... well, he didn't want to be a part of Blue Cosmos any more... his burgeoning philosophies and the organizations did not mesh... the Coordinator was the enemy... but genocide was not the answer. He found comfort and a kindred spirit on one online forum... actually a front forum for a Blue Cosmos web community... this writer, named Sai Argyle, was apparently someone pretty important, judging from how everyone flattered him at every chance they got. But his message had some real substance to it. Like Ashino himself, Sai did not want to kill all the Coordinators. He wanted to win the war and then force a treaty on them... an Isolation treaty. Humans would remain on the moon and on the Earth for their population centers... the Coordinators would have their PLANTS in space. There would be no contact between the races... this would require a massive peacekeeping force and defensive installations to be built, but it was not unfeasible... only by maintaining no contact would war and conflict be avoided. Ashino liked that... it had a few holes... like what the Naturals would do for resources once the Moon and Earth started running low... but overall he felt much the same way... why waste the effort killing the Coordinators when you could just send them away and ignore them... everyone would be happier. Ashino started putting some serious thought into how he might slip away and meet with this Sai... unfortunatly, his conditioning kept getting in the way and he couldn't find a loophole that would let him desert, no mater how hard he tried.

Cray took longer to recover, but recover he did... much faster than a Natural would of course. There was tell tale scarring from the burns... he was marked for life... but most of them were hidden by clothing or his flight suit... and Cray had never really relied on his looks anyway. When he wanted a girl he took her by force... that was his way... there was no wooing or courting with looks involved. This was a practice the first three nurses assigned to him had cause to regret... the first two committed suicide, their minds destroyed by his warped desires... the third was consigned to a mental hospital in a drug induced coma in order to kepp her from a similar fate. Cray was assigned only male caretakers after that... he'd become... eviller... during his injuring. He was becoming obsessed with revenge... revenge on Kira... revenge on Ysak... revenge on everyone who'd killed the Doc. The Merciless was given first repair priority and was actually ready to go, fully restored, before Cray was even allowed to leave the hospital for the first time. Cray spent his days after recovering alone, muttering hate laden phrases to himself and breaking small objects in his hands in order to keep himself still and less than homicidal. Frost took the longest to recover... his hair had mostly grown back by the time he first opened his eyes again. He too was scarred for life... most noticably on his right foot, which was clothed almost entirely in plastic synthetic flesh that felt real enough, but was always a bit cold, clammy and slightly off color. He wore thick boots most of the time, so it was not readily apparent. Frost did not mutter to himself... he did not break objects... he didn't even kill people... which was more than a little surprising to Ashino and Cray, who both commented on his placidity. He ignored them too... his mind was on other things. Bigger things. Mainly, his destiny and how he was going to bring it to fruition. The time was not yet right for him to break his so called shackles... he didn't have the power or the position to fufill his dreams just yet. But he was getting there... his keen mind had caught on something Ashino had let slip in passing... that the completed if disassembled Judgment was likely intact in the ruins of JIHAD somewhere... if it could be recovered that would boost his power significantly... he'd make sure he was chosen to be the pilot... even if he had to kill the others to be sure.

Up in space, BoranderCorp was rewarded with two huge new military contracts... one for a massive production run of Elementals and their support technologies and the other a continuation endorsement for the Pulsar project. BoranderCorp was publicaly thanked for its contributions to the wellfare of the PLANTS by high ranked ZAFT officials and the company's stock soared to ever greater heights... within the first week BoranderCorp profits and sales were totalling almost ten percent of the total PLANT economy. Maius City production facilities went into overtime shifts, round the clock producing Efreet's, Grendel's and the new Elemental's at the rate of more than twenty mobile suits of each type per day. ZAFT losses at Carpentaria had amounted to two hundred ninety seven land and air based mobile suits, four Nazca class warships, thirty two submersible mobile suits, one submarine carrier and almost eighty five percent of the total Oceania Union forces. The air and fleet facilities at Carpentaria were completely devastated and would be under reconstruction for months. Oceania Union civilian casualties were still being counted at the end of the first two weeks... the number was already more than thirty five million civilians dead in the nuclear firestorms. Tens of thousands more were already showing signs of extensive radiation exposure and sickness... what sort of effects this would have on the future of the Oceania Union were unknown, but dire in any observation. Medical aid was rushed down from the PLANTS... but the few thousand doctors and support personnel sent were lost like dust motes in a desert admist the calamity in Australia. All was not gloom and death though... indeed, in some of the Maius cities there was an almost festival air, even though people were working around the clock in many cases. Jeremiah Borander was declared to be the pilot of the wondrous mobile suit that had saved the Maius cities by physically catching two nuclear missiles and overwhelming their momentum. He was awarded a second Order of the Nebula... the first time such a thing had occured... and offered a cushy promotion to the general staff, which he declined politely, stating in a public address that he felt his destiny was out on the front lines, serving his people the best way he knew how. Jeremiah could not go out in public without being swarmed by the media and hundreds if not thousands of grateful civilians. He had become overnight the next biggest hero since Rau Le Creuste, Athrun Zala, or even, sacrilege of sacrileges, Lacus Clyne.

In truth, Jeremiah was glad for the public attention... but only inasmuch as it allowed him to gather even more funding to pour into the Pulsar development. He took Noah with him whenever he went... for some reason his nephew always seemed to be about whenever he was about to go somewhere, and Jeremiah always found himself letting the boy tag along. It wasn't like Noah was bad for publicity... on the contrary, he drew a few crowds himself. And Noah was rapidly becoming Jeremiah's go to source for ideas and information on the Pulsar... he had a design team of course, and there was also George's design team... but Noah was smarter than all of them. His ideas always seemed so... worthy and Jeremiah couldn't help but smile and ruffle his nephew's hair fondly whenever he came up with a good idea... even though Noah obviously detested having his hair ruffled. Jeremiah noticed several times that large portions of his private fundraising were actually being diverted from the Pulsar project coffers... to where he never could figure out... whenever he got to thinking about it, Noah would always come around and suggest some new good idea and Jeremiah would forget about the whole thing until he once again noticed something wrong with the project account books. The grant from the government and the not insubstantial donations from private foundations fueled a furious upgrading and refitting of the Pulsar... by the end of the first two weeks almost all the weapon systems had not only been designed but the first models were already created and being installed. All that was left to finalize the Pulsar prototype were a few odds and ends... tweaks mostly. Jeremiah looked at the combat specs at least once or twice a day and always found himself shaking his head in admiration. He could barely wait to go out on another test run. Because of it's extreme mobility and speed, Noah and Jeremiah had decided to focus primarily on melee and short ranged combat. The relatively smaller size of the melee weapons also helped reduce the amount of cooling required to operate them... in fact one weapon system even helped cool the Pulsar down as it was used.

The primary weapon of the upgraded Pulsar was a twenty meter long double edged anti-ship beam sword, much like a larger and double edged version of the sword carried by the Sword Strike. The sword featured both physical blades and activatable beam edges, allowing use both above and below water. The sword was heavy and would have been very unwieldy for most mobile suits... the blade was actually taller than the Pulsar was... but with the NIC system controls Jeremiah could wield it just like any other sword... which was far better than any mobile suit could hope to be. The secondary weapon system of the Pulsar was mounted in each wrist, actually extending up into a forearm storage unit that blended with the shape of the arm when not in use. When activated, a twenty five meter chain of half meter long triangular shaped metal links deployed from each wrist and forearm, by itself they were formidable weapons, capable of crushing armor like old fashioned flails (think the chain used by the Epyon in Gundam Wing, which is the inspiration). But the chain links were directly connected by conductors to the FPR cooling systems... the conducted heat caused the "heat whips" to glow cherry-red to white hot, enabling them to melt through even Phase Shift armor like soft cheese. Jeremiah had never wielded weapons like them before, certainly not two at a time, but Noah had programmed a workable subroutine into the NIC that at least kept him from hitting himself with them. Third in line for weapon systems, and the last in the line of melee weaponry, were five fold out mono-molecular claws, mounted one to a finger on each hand. Sharper and stronger than the swords and knives carried by early ZAFT mobile suits, the claws were each as long as the mobile suit's finger and could carve through anything short of phase shift armor with ease. The single ranged weapon was something of a peculiarity... it wasn't a hyper impulse cannon, railgun or beam rifle... no, it was railgun like, in that it used magnetic forces to propel its projectiles, but what it fired were rockets with beam sabers on their tips... it was more a beam crossbow than anything else. The Pulsar carried a quiver of twenty bolts for this weapon... clearly not a primary mode of attack. Finally, the last addition was defensive in nature... a result of Noah's own personal research into nanotechnology. A self repair system. It worked off ambient energy and heat from the FPR... slowly converting elements out of the surrounding space dust or atmosphere into hull material and other substances used to fix any damage the Pulsar might suffer. As long as the mobile suit remained operable and the torso area was intact, given enough time, the repair system could completely rebuild the mobile suit on its own... a process which would take more than a month... but it was still a fantastic accomplishment.

In Hawaii, Sai was having a few... women problems. He and Vanai had gotten along fine for the first week after their marriage. Well, maybe that wasn't saying much, considering the only time they left the bedroom was to eat or use the bathroom. But after that... excess... Sai had needed some time to himself. He'd finally managed to get a good look at the Third Battle of Carpentaria and he'd been horrified... the nuking of civilians was beyond countenance... beyond the remit of forgiveness. He was so incensed that he used his seldom utilized influence in the darker areas of Blue Cosmos to find out who ordered the firing of the missiles. When he got the answer, he found it surprised him more than it probably should have. He got along well enough with his father in law... but their ideals were just not on the same level. Sai was a sworn, card carrying member of Blue Cosmos... he did NOT like Coordinators. A few in particular he had extreme loathing for, but as a people they also sent shivers up and down his spine. But despite that, he didn't want to wipe them out... he didn't want to kill them all just because they were potentially smarter and tougher and faster and stronger. He just wanted them... out. Like a bad tenant or squatter... you didn't want to hurt them... but they couldn't be allowed to stay either. So what did you do... you called the police and had them evicted... you didn't buy an assualt rifle and gun them down in cold blood while their backs were turned. He published his views on the nets and found he had more than modest support... a lot of people were sick and tired of the war and appalled at the nuclear devastation wrought so pointlessly in Australia... Blue Cosmos members who had joined after Pearl Harbor or who were just not quite as fanatical as they had thought now that they could see the burnt cities for themselves... they were all very supportive of his views... his "Isolation Plan". He'd done a few calculations... nearly forty percent of Blue Cosmos looked more willing to support him than Cervantes. It was a heady feeling.

Basically the Isolation plan required four things. The first was a strong, centrally directed and commanded military and logistical force, which would remove all Coordinators from the Earth... dead or preferrably alive. Tactics would include direct military assualts upon military targets, and the compensated relocation of Coordinator citizens back to the PLANTS... expensive, but not even fractionally as much as the war. The second phase of the plan required the cessation of all hostilities once the Earth had been purged of Coordinators and their supporters, and the same accomplished for the Moon and close Earth orbit. During this phase a series of permanent treaties dividing up the solar system into Natural and Coordinator areas would either be hammered out or force fed to the Coordinators... preferring the diplomatic approach of course, since if the talks broke down, enforcing the Isolation would become that much harder. After stage two was complete, stage three would entail the construction and maintainence of a large peacekeeping/policing force that would maintain the Isolation... in both directions. No Naturals would go into Coordinator areas... no Coordinators would venture into Natural areas... the Coordinators would have much of space... the Natural's Earth, the Moon and a few other places. The construction of a permanent "Space Age Great Wall" would be mandated to prevent direct contact between the two races. All military buildup on both sides would be strictly regulated to purely defensive, static measures. With a strong enough defense, even if the other side used WMD's, you would likely still be victorious, as ZAFT had just proved at Carpentaria. The fourth and final step would be the construction of a new society... a purely Natural society on a blue and pure world. Sai acknowledged that his plan would not be easy to implement in its pure state... the temptation to use the military force or the peacekeepers to finish the war once and for all would be strong indeed... but with enough willpower and morality in the leaders of both sides... he believed it was more than just possible, but very workable.

Of course, the morality and willpower to resist temptation was currently the problem. As far as he could tell, his father in law lacked significantly in both categories... and while Cervantes was publicly just a highly placed figure in the Defense Ministry, Sai wasn't stupid... to be able to authorize the deployment of Nuclear weaponry on Earth, his father in law had to be the one really pulling the strings behind the EA military, if not the EA as a whole. He'd made the mistake of trying to enlist Vanai's help in order to present his views to Cervantes. Yeah... that had backfired. Badly. He'd been forced to physically flee the house while she raged at him and threw whatever she could get her hands on at him to punctuate her feelings. Vanai was very serious about Blue Cosmos... she had been raised in the organization... she'd been friends with the Azrael family and she had idolized her father all her life. Oh, sure, they had the standard father-daughter disagreements on a lot of things... boyfriends and sex and all that sort of stuff... but when it came down to it, she believed in her father and his goals for the world wholeheartedly. She'd thought Sai did too, after all he had suffered personally at Kira's and Athrun's hands. But Sai didn't let his personal hatreds taint his perspective on Coordinators as a whole... sure, he wouldn't mind finding a few of them facedown in the gutter with a hole in their heads, but not so for the children and mothers and elderly people up in the PLANTS. Vanai did not speak to him or let him into the bedroom for two whole days afterwards... days he actually spent rather productively, engaging in political debate with the members of his bodyguard unit... now that he knew the tricks for finding them. Having "appropriated" a thermal imaging detector prototype out of his own research facility had helped quite a bit... while he "home tested" the device, he could cut through the most sophisticated visual camouflage the Hellhound team could devise with the punch of a button... much to their disgruntlement. Some of them still managed to elude him... like Sergeant Major Glory and the Lieutenant... but the majority he was getting rather proficient at finding, even without the help of his sensor... he took lots of long exploratory walks around the private island and he was starting to get to know the signs of a blind or observation post.

Sai had found that all the members of the Hellhound team were not only quite talkative and literate, but very politically and technoloigcally astute as well. He was surprised to learn that this was required of them by Asmodeus, who saw little point in having an elite unit which did not understand the world they operated in to the fullest extent possible. He presented his Isolation Plan to them and found himself with more than a few tough arguments... they were soldiers, first and foremost... building up forces to them meant you were going to use them to attack, not defend. He countered that by pointing out that what then was the purpose of them bodyguarding him... surely they'd be more useful on the front line. Unless keeping him isolated from any threats was in fact more important than helping win the war. They were already serving as a modified third phase of his plan... keep the opposing forces seperate, but don't attack unless attacked, and even then only respond with enough force to dissuade further attacks. After every debate they always told him that he needed to talk to the Lieutenant... while they may have been partially convinced, they would wait for him to call it good or bad... he was the most astute of all of them in matters political. Sai had been dreading that debate for days... but when it finally came it was actually the easiest of them all. He'd been walking aimlesly through the forest, trying to figure out what sort of present would at least thaw the ice wall Vanai had thrown up against him, when the Lieutenant... Cyprus Finch, Sai forced himself to use the man's name... stepped casually out from behind a tree and cleared his throat. Sai had jumped... he'd been checking the sensor periodically and hadn't even gotten a hint of the man's presence... but of course, the Lieutenant was the Lieutenant, as his squad always said... best not to wonder... just believe.

"So... you think you've figured out a better way to fight and end this war?" Cyprus had asked him, eyes steadily on him, voice as dry and inflectionless as it always was.

"Yes, I do." Sai had replied, somewhat self consciously... this wasn't starting the way he had thought it would. He started to launch into his argument but Cyrpus simply held up a hand for quiet.

"Look me in eyes, Sai." Cyrpus said, a mote of command entering his voice. "Look me straight in the eyes and tell me without looking away that you believe your way is better than the current method." Sai had met Cyprus's gaze... and found he could barely breath... the stare was so intense... normally the Lieutenant was barely any presence at all... now that he was looking him directly in the eyes at arms length, he seemed to expand and fill the forest like a giant.

"I..." Sai gulped and forced himself to focus. He poured some fire into his own gaze and squared his shoulders. "My way is the only feasible method... a war of annihilation is all we currently have... I refuse to allow such an abomination to be executed. I have a better method. My Isolation plan..." the Lieutenant held up his hand for quiet again, cutting him off. Cyprus let him hang there for almost a minute, maintaining the gaze. Finally, he nodded, ever so slightly.

"I believe you. You've talked the particulars over with my men... I've discussed it with them... we'll need to work on the details a little bit... but, you have my support, sir. You have all of our support... Hellhound Team Alpha is yours to the core."

"Just like that?" Sai asked, almost afraid it was a dream. Cyprus smiled... actually smiled.

"You'd be surprised how very few people have been able to meet my direct gaze and declare their conviction like you did. Just about the only person besides you who has ever done so is Captain Asmodeus Sark. And that's one of the major reasons why I used to allow him to be my boss. But Asmodeus is no longer the man he used to be... he's been corrupted by his work for Cervantes... your father in law. I no longer believe he could restate his convictions and still meet my eyes... not after Carpentaria."

"Well... thanks, I guess. This didn't quite happen the way I thought it would. Now what am I supposed to do? I had this whole argument planned out!" Sai said, feeling odd footed.

"No plan survives contact with the enemy. Or with your allies either, all to often. This isn't going to be easy, sir... I've known Cervantes Zunnichi and Asmodeus Sark for a long time... most of my career. Neither of them will deal lightly with what they will see as a betrayal." The Lieutenant said firmly.

"I couldn't give less of a damn what my genocidal father in law and his henchman feel about this... we're talking about the future of the entire human race here... both Naturals AND Coordinators. If they're going to be shortsighted about this... then, to me, that just proves how unsuited they are for governing the fate of the world." Sai retorted instantly. "In truth, it wouldn't have mattered to me if you yourself didn't approve of my plan... I half thought you wouldn't, actually. I believe my Isolation Plan is just about the only thing that can ensure lasting peace, short of a divine miracle... and with or without the approval of the people around me, I will do all I can to show the world how to save itself." Sai paused. "Of course, I'd strongly desire the approval of the people I consider friends... You... Mr. Glory... the rest of team Alpha...Vanai... especially Vanai. I think she knows I'm in the right... its just very hard for her to go back against the rest of her life... she's always looked up to her father, just like I looked up to mine. She's so... young... I guess... that makes it hard. And I know, I'm not that much older than her."

"Not in years, no. Otherwise... there's a reason I call you sir, sir." The Lieutenant replied. He slowly melted backwards into the undergrowth. "Don't worry about the little stuff, sir... me and mine will take care of the everyday, while you focus on the grand scale." Sai blinked a few times and found he'd lost track of the Lieutenant behind a bush and now the man was nowhere to be seen. "And Vanai has always been fond of blue roses..." Sai forced himself not to jump at the whisper that came inexplicably from behind him. A bouquet of vibrant blue roses dropped neatly to the ground at his feet from the trees above. Sai grinned and shook his head... he doubted he'd ever figure out Cyprus. He shrugged and picked up the bouquet, a real smile crawling across his face for the first time in days... maybe this would work out okay after all. He set his path to make a beeline back to the house... why waste an opportunity?

Back aboard the Archangel and Kusanagi, things were... bittersweet, to use an euphanism. Kira, Lacus, Athrun, Cagalli and all the rest were recovering quicly enough from their injuries... faster from the physical wounds than the mental. It was a time for a lot of tears and rages and the desire to be left alone... but it was also a time of unprecedented closeness and camraderie... and often more than just camraderie. The crew of the Archangel quickly learned a few quick lessons in polite discretion and many acquired the ability to spontaneously ignore what the military called "public display's of affection" with a frown. Those who didn't and made a big deal about it often found themselves the subjects of a quiet talking to from either a member of TEMPEST... or once, more frightening still, from Commander Waltfeld. More than one little conference was never required. In truth, many members of the crew were more than approving of the "kids" as they were called... even though some members of the crew weren't all that much older than Dearka or Ysak. The crews were fully aware of just how difficult the jobs of the kids were and the magnitude of what they sacrificed for the world... the rumor mill was grinding twenty four seven with tales of what they had suffered in the Blue Cosmos facilities... and the rumors barely even scratched the true surface of that tragedy. It wasn't uncommon for an older member of the crew... someone who'd served on the Archangel or Kusanagi during the last war, like Chief Murdoch, to get a tear or two in their eyes whenever they passed one or a couple of the "kids" standing on the outdoor observation deck or performing some task in the hanger bay.

Kira and Lacus recovered the quickest... neither had been all that badly injured, at least compared to their friends. And as much as they liked to lie around all day in their room, not worrying about the world as a whole, both knew it wouldn't last very long... neither could stand to keep the world on hold for long. It wasn't in their nature to be still when the world still very badly needed their help. On the fourth day after Kira came back from the battlefield they both got out of bed at almost the same moment and got dressed... with hardly a word between them. There was little need for words between them... they each knew what the other was going to do... and they both knew they'd be there to back each other up when necessary. Kira spent a lot of time in the hanger, with the Liberty, tuning it back up to his most exacting standards and doing simulation runs... endless simulation runs. It became a favorite activity of off duty hanger crew to watch these simulations... they even hooked up a projector screen to the Liberty's combat computer so that a whole crowd of them could watch at once. Lacus's work was less physical but of far more reaching importance. After being informed of the peace gathering in Orb by Kisaka and Murrue, she spent almost all her days in the communications center, taking and making endless calls to her supporters both on Earth and in the PLANTS. She'd decided that she was going to give another performance, especially for the planned peace protest... live or recorded she had yet to decide. She'd also appointed herself as something of an emotional counsler for not only her friends, but any member of the crew who was having problems dealing with the war... everyone was stressed, not just her friends. This proved to be a wildly popular move... unlike standard military ships, the Archangel was crewed by volunteers... they had no guidance counseler positions per se. A lot of the crew had stress problems, and hadn't had anyone to speak them to... to cry with, as it came down to sometimes. And everyone trusted Lacus implicitly... it was almost impossible not to... to think of her betraying your trust was more painful than a heart attack and as ludicrous as gravity suddenly switching directions. For all that, some of her counseling was less well received by some than others. Athrun and Cagalli were both usually willing to talk, but they never brought up any deep issues. Dearka and Miriallia were a little more open, but both were still distant. Ysak and Katie never even showed up at all, to any invited appointments.

Athrun's injuries took almost a week and a half to heal... faster than the doctors expected, but still far too slowly for his taste. The moment they took the cast on his healed hand off he almost broke it again, slamming it against a wall in frustration when they told him he should still spend a few more days in bed to be sure. As soon as the doctors left he was of course up and out of bed, getting dressed. Cagalli had smirked... in truth she was tired of being cooped up in the room with him too... if he'd healed even a day slower she probably would have felt compelled to just toss him out and tell him to get better on his own. Athrun immediately set himself to the task of getting back into shape after his convalesence... he felt slow and uncoordinated from spending so long lying in only a select few positions. Well... maybe more than a few select positions... Cagalli tended to forget in... heated moments... that he wasn't supposed to be fully mobile. And who was he to deny her? Cagalli initially tagged along with him out of boredom, but after getting run to exhaustion after the first few hours of each exercise program, and bored with the endless repititions, she then started to only show up for the first hour or so, then wandered off to do her own thing... after warning him sternly each time not to exhaust himself to much... for her own reasons. She and Athrun were the cause of the most discomfort to the crew... she couldn't help it... her emotions just seemed to burn a lot closer to the surface than they did in others... and the same for Athrun, though he'd built up a lot more self control than her. Strangely though, that self control had a funny way of excusing itself for a leave of absence whenever she whispered just so in his ear and cuddled up just right against his side... which led to the aforementioned uncomfortable moments for the people around them. When she wasn't causing scenes or wandering around, poking into other people's business to see if they were up to anything interesting, Cagalli likewise spent a lot of time with Lacus in the communications room. She was gladdened to learn of the Orb resistance Kisaka had organized, and spent much time talking with its leaders, including Erica Simmons. she learned that far from eliminating her popularity in Orb, Cervantes's rule had brought about a total resurgence... the people were waiting for the return of their princess eagerly. Her relationship with Athrun was mostly glossed over, but Cagalli tried not to let that bother her... explaining that to the public would take a lot of work and tact and time she currently couldn't spare, so she let sleeping beasts lie. She tried to help Lacus out with the guidance counseling, but she had a few problems. For one thing, anyone from Orb... i.e. more than half the crew... had real difficulty talking to her, their heriditary ruler, in a personal way. Second, while she was understanding and could be compassionate, she was also far more likely to shout and yell and make people uncomfortable with sharing personal matters with her... she wasn't afraid to call something stupid, even when it actually meant a lot to someone.

Dearka and Miriallia took the big step to round home plate at long last. It happened the second night after they both woke up after falling into exhausted slumber in the sick bay of the Archangel. It wasn't a planned or intentional thing... like many such events in the lives of teenage couples, deeply in love, it just sort of happened. One moment the standard kissing and cuddling... the next, clothes are all over the floor and one thing leads to another. Afterwards they lay side by side and stared up at the ceiling together until they both fell asleep. They next morning they both woke in something of a shock... but not the bad sort, like you get when you wake up from a blackout. In truth, they were both surprised they'd waited as long as they had... contrary to some belief, it wasn't something to be afraid of... it didn't change their relationship in a negative way... it actually helped provide a conduit for purging their emotional stress, which had risen to overwhelming levels for both of them without them quite realizing it. They didn't talk about it to any of their friends and it would have stayed private too if Cagalli hadn't accidently stopped by their room and pulled an "Ysak" by opening the door and sticking her head in to enquire why they weren't up yet. Bed plus couple minus bedsheet minus clothing can really only mean one or two things... and Cagalli felt she could safely discount the possibility of a tanning booth being secretly built into the bed. And while Cagalli would never trumpet the news about... well, not if her friends would be offended by it anyway... she also couldn't keep a juicy secret to save her life... much like Dearka himself, who was disgruntled to find himself on the opposite end of the rumor mill for once... maybe Ysak was right to get pissed at him sometimes, if this was what it was like. Miriallia handled the inevitable questions from her friends with the dignity and grace such a situation demanded... she played coy for about ten minutes and then was convinced to spill her guts. Which of course didn't help Dearka's rumor situation at all. Ysak took no end of enjoyment in needling his friend about the somewhat wild and crazy rumors... one of the few activites which actually brought a smile to Ysak's face after he got back.

Ysak had moved into Katie's room without a single comment, the moment she'd asked him to. Nobody had said anything... one look at either of them had been more than enough to convince any onlooker that this wasn't just a girlfriend looking for nooky... this was something serious, planned out and likely necessary for several people's well being. Initially there were a few rumors about what they might be up to... inevitable on a warship. Such rumors died like a man shot in the head when an unwise crewman made a snide remark within the hearing of both Ysak AND Katie. The poor guy suffered no permanent injuries, but while he was recuperating from two dislocated shoulders and a sprained neck, Vladimir paid him a midnight visit. The next morning there were no visible marks on the man... but from then on whenever he saw Ysak, Katie or Vlad he just turned pale and trembled and quickly left the area. The rumors died and no one brought up any scandalous ruminations while ANY of the kids or TEMPEST members were around... just to be sure. Ysak had recovered very quickly... faster even than Kira, since his injuries were mostly emotional and exhaustion related. Katie did not recover as fast, being a Natural, but given that she was in top condition for a Natural, she didn't spend long in bed either. But as quickly as they physically became active again, it was plain to see that their emotions were still a hideous mess. Katie was well known for being the mischevious, light hearted practical joker type... the kind of girl who could walk into a biker bar and give insults as well as she got them, or would grease the floor under your rack and get a picture of you falling when you got up. After she returned from JIHAD without Chanel, she barely even smiled any more... she became noncommunicative and withdrawn, though not inactive. Quite the opposite in fact... she spent hours and hours on the pistol practice range and in the gyms, working out her feelings as best she could on the equipment. It didn't help much, because not only was she coming to terms with the loss of someone who had almost been like her other half, but because due to Chanel's death, she'd been using a lot more of her Newtype powers as of late... not something she was fully comfortable with. Her powers were stronger than they used to be... and not just because they grew stronger with practice. Just like Ysak, she'd been changed a bit by being in her sister's head at the time of her death... it wasn't the first, or even the fifth Newtype death Echo Katie had ever heard... but it was the only one that had swept throuh her like a tide of fire and light like Chanel's had. It was like she'd absorbed a portion of her sister's power and memories somehow... just like Ysak had been changed into a Latent by his absorbtion of some of the Echo. That was another of the ticklish things they were dealing with right now... Ysak was very uncomfortable with Newtype powers, especially telepathy, while of course Katie was used to holding conversations on two levels, one out loud and the other mental, like she and Chanel always had.

While Katie had become more withdrawn, introspective and... intense... for lack of a better word, Ysak... who was already like that in a lot of respects... became grim. It was like a cloud of gloom and repressed anger than hung around him almost visibly. When he walked into a room, conversations automatically got quieter and people turned a wary eye to watch him... even though the conversations at hand had nothing to do with him. It was widely acknowledged that the pale haired and blue eyed Coordinator with the scar had become a ticking emotional time bomb... a time bomb no one knew how long had left on the timer. Nobody knew what would happen if and when Ysak snapped under the pressure of his grief and rage and... to be honest... hate. Lacus had tried to talk to him, to get him to open up a bit as the first step to recoverying his emotional balance. He'd brushed her off... politely, but very firmly, so much that not even Lacus could mistake the fact that he DID NOT want to talk about it. Not to her anyway. If he was talking to Katie about it, they kept it in strictest of confidence... she also politely but firmly kept Lacus at arms length. Kira had decided that maybe Ysak... who'd always had a somewhat funny perspective on girls and emotional openness... might open up better to a guy. Dearka had gotten wind of this and had told Kira not to be an idiot... Dearka had known him longer than anyone... Ysak was far less likely to open up to a guy than a girl... as for opening up to one of them... not going to happen. Kira had agreed... but said he had to try anyway, because it wouldn't be right as a friend to let Ysak continue stewing like this without even trying to help. Kira had confronted Ysak down in the hanger, after Ysak had spent about three hours tinkering around with the Duelist and flying some combat simulations of his own. At the time of the confrontation, Chanel's formal funeral ceremony was still two days away... Murrue hadn't been able to do much, but she'd been able to put together a formal military funeral, which was greatly appreciated by all.

"Hey... Ysak... you got a moment?" Kira asked, appearing from behind the pillar he'd been using as visual cover while Ysak worked. Ysak was just headed back towards the pilot changing room to organize his locker before heading to the gym for a joint martial arts session with Katie. Ysak glanced at him out of the corner of one eye... one hand trembled slightly... and he just kept walking. Undeterred, Kira had quickstepped up to where he was walking just behind Ysak. "Come on, Ysak... I know we've never been good friends... but we're all worried about you. The grief is eating you alive... I know what it's like... I lost someone I loved during the last war... she was helpless too... murdered by Rau Le Cruesete right in front of my eyes while I was unable to stop him. I know you aren't big on sharing how you feel... but there's no reason you can't at least talk to one of us about it... its not like we're going to make hurtful comments or anything... I won't even speak if you don't want me to. I know theres a mess inside your head and I want to help you clean it up... for your sake... and everyone elses too."

"You want me to tell you how I feel?" Ysak asked, his voice calm, his features neutral as he looked over his shoulder. He stopped walking and so did Kira. Ysak slowly turned. "I suppose I can do that. Thanks for asking."

"It's what friends are fo..." Kira started to say, cocking his head to the side with a slight smile. Or thats what he tried to do... Ysak sort of messed that up by planting a right hook right into his belly, hard enough to completely knock the breath out of him. "Ahhgy?" Kira gasped, confused. Ysak didn't give him time to recover, bringing his left hand around in a cross to Kira's jaw, snapping his head back spraying small drops of blood from crushed lips. Ysak kept the pressure on with a kick to Kira's left shin that made the entire limb go numb and useless. Kira started collapsing over towards that side but Ysak caught him by the neck and slammed him back against the wall, actually lifting the shorter Coordinator onto the tips of his toes by his neck.

"I've been meaning to do that for a while. Ever since you convinced us to go to that damn wedding." Ysak snarled, low and breathy, his face inches from Kira's. "And since you so politely offered... please... don't speak. If you do I don't know if I can restrain myself from shutting you up... by force. I trusted you Kira... hell, I still do... you're a good person. Too good a person. Your friend went missing after the Blue Cosmos attack in Switzerland... but you never thought anything of it when you saw him again... never thought that maybe he survived the trap by betraying the rest of us... going to his wedding... it was pure idiocy. Pure... trusting... childish... idiocy. You may be a terror on the battlefield... but honestly, it surprises me constantly what a moron you are in regular life. I suppose I shouldn't be that surprised... you're with Lacus Clyne after all... anybody who can get along as closely with her as you do would have to be a little detached from the usual views of the world people generally have. I don't blame you for your worldview though. No... I blame you because you enforce that worldview on other people... maybe not intentionally, but you're a leader, Kira. One a great many people respect... one I respect. When you make a decision... it has a lot of meaning... a lot of reprecussions. And your choice to go to your friend's wedding... I think it was just a bad choice, made in haste, fueled by your too trusting nature. And because of your choice and the limits of the situation at hand, Katie, Chanel and I came along to your friends wedding. Where we were captured by Blue Cosmos in a well laid trap that we might have uncovered if you hadn't been so trusting of Sai's good intentions. I lost a third of my heart in that place... Kira. What would you have done if Lacus had been the one to get executed? No... don't speak..." Ysak squeezed Kira's windpipe closed to prevent him from interrupting. "I know it isn't a fair question... how can someone say what they would have done in someone else place, given they haven't suffered the same? But bear this in mind when you speak to me in the future, Kira. How would you be to me if I caused Lacus's death... indirectly or not, as the result of a bad, hasty choice? Just like the soldiers back in the desert... you may not have pulled the triggers that killed them... but they died because of you all the same. That's two screwups you made because you let your emotions and trusting nature get the better of your judgment. I don't know if I'll allow you to survive a third strike. Do you understand me, Kira? I don't want to be enemies... we're on the same side, after all, fighting for the same thing. But don't for an instant think I'm not watching you... I'm not going to let anyone else get hurt like I did because of your flexible common sense. You're a good person... one of the best I've ever known... but you can be a serious danger to the people close to you... just like Lacus and Cagalli and Athrun are. Think on that for me... that's all I want." Ysak slowly let go of Kira's neck and turned away.

Kira let him get about halfway down the hall before he called after him. "I'll think on that, Ysak. You should think on this. You're not the only person who's ever lost someone you love. Me... I lost Flay. Lacus lost her father, as did Athrun and Cagalli. Mir lost Tolle. It hurts... it makes it feel like the world will never be the same again. And it won't be... but it doesn't necessarily mean the world has become a terrible place. The world is just the world... you shouldn't let tragedy ruin your life forever. If you do... you run the risk of becoming just like Asmodeus and Cervantes and all the people who perpetuate these wars. I don't want you to forget Chanel... but I don't want you to become a destroyer in her name either." Ysak stopped for a moment, but did not turn. He did not answer, and after a few moments, he continued walking again. Kira did not see Ysak again until the funeral and he did not mention the details of his little talk with Ysak to anyone else... though Lacus figured out that his well intentioned talk had backfired just a little, from his bloody lips if nothing else.

The morning of Chanel's funeral ceremony dawned bright and sunny and clear, the sun rising red as spilt wine. The air was moist and still, not warm but not cold either. There was a static tension in the air... a storm was coming. It wouldn't hit until later in the day, perhaps after dusk, but the meteorologist aboard the Kusanagi predicted a storm at least as powerful as a class one or two hurricane. The ceremony took place in the starboard hanger bay, with the doors open and the launch ramp extended as far as it could. The only people in attendance in the hanger itself were the kids, TEMPEST, Kisaka, Murrue and Waltfeld, while the ceremony was being watched by whatever crew on both ships had time off and an inclination to pay their respects. Which was to say... all of them... the funeral was even being covertly displayed in working areas of the ships... no one intended to miss out on saying farewell to a fellow supporter of peace... after all, if it was them who had died, they'd want their friends to be there for them too. Chanel's body remained in the lower levels of JIHAD... after the Archangel destroyed the base there was no chance of returning to recover her body. Instead, her most prized personal possessions had been loaded into the coffin along with mementoes from nearly everyone in attendance. Of them all, only Ysak and Katie had not contributed an item... and that was because they did not need to... they'd already said their goodbye, in a way, back in the cave. This was only a final confirmation.

Alkire was the first speaker. He stepped up to the podium constructed next to the casket... he opened his mouth but no words would come out. After starting and stopping, unable to say a word, three more times, he stepped back down, tears on his face, eyes downcast. Nobody said anything as he slowly took one more thing from a pocket of his dress uniform... resplendent with more than a doen medals and decorations for achievement and valor... and placed a small gold locket onto the casket, tying its chain around a handle to keep it there. He stepped back two paces and brought his hand up in a parade ground sharp salute. He stepped back and to the side, his features hard as stone as he warred for control of himself. Raine was the next speaker. She too stepped up to the podium and had a little trouble speaking, but after a few tries she found her voice, weak and choked though it may have been.

"Chanel was my little sister. She was my daughter... she was my friend. She was part of the reason why I went out every time... on all those missions. She was part of the reason I came back from those same missions. I'm not one for many words... good bye... little sister. My child. My friend. I know you're in a good place now, wanting for the rest of us to live happy and full lives so that when we join you we'll have no regrets. We all put our lives on the line for the sake of peace and you were called to pay the price for your convictions. You did so with honor, courage and dedication... there's nothing more that can be said. You did good... I'm proud of you... we all are. Thank you for being in our lives as long as you were. May you watch over us and grant us your blessing so that we may end this war as soon as possible. Thank you." Raine stepped back and saluted herself. Lacus stepped up next... she was the final speaker, by request from Ysak and Katie personally, which had somewhat surprised her... they'd kept her at arms length previously, making it quite obvious that she wasn't welcome in their personal matters. But then after Kira's talk with Ysak she'd received an email from them asking her to speak at the funeral... maybe Kira had accomplished something after all.

Lacus looked out at them all... her friends and companions and supporters, all gathered before her here at such a sad event. But despite the circumstances... despite the reason they were gathered here... they were all still with her... all still staunch members of the Clyne Faction, avidly pursuing peace for the world, even at the cost of their own lives. Chanel's death was a horrible, terrible tragedy... but it hadn't broken the resolve of a single person... quite the opposite in fact. It served as a red hot and pointed reminder of what they were all fighting for... the end of senseless death and pain, caused by those too shortsighted and fearful and downright insane to accept that there was a better way. A way that required sacrifice and hardship, yes... but everything required some sacrifice or it really wasn't worth having. Sometimes that sacrifice was hard labor and long working hours. Sometimes it was the life of a loved one, or even your own life. Chanel's death was completely unnessecary and totally avoidable... just like every other senseless death so far in this war. The people in the hanger... and the people throughout both ships... all knew this. Chanel's death may have impacted them personally but it was not a unique tragedy... she was one of millions... and maybe one of millions more if they did not achieve their goals. Lacus sought for the words to tell everyone how she was feeling... what she thought. She couldn't seem to get a speech straight in her head. Frustrated, she opened her mouth anyway. And began to sing. She didn't really pay attention to which song she was singing... she thought it was one of the new one's she'd been working on... "Fields of Hope"... but the words weren't the important part. Lacus focused on using her formerly unconscious newtype powers to convey exactly how she was feeling... grief... pain... love... understanding... gratefulness... all the medly of emotions that made life so complicated yet so worthwhile to live. When she finished the song, she found she'd closed her eyes sometime during the performance... she could feel hot tear tracks on her face... she'd been more than just projecting her emotions... she'd been fueling and stoking them to new heights. She cracked one eye and stared out at the hanger through blurry vision.

Alkire and the members of TEMPEST were still standing, as were Kisaka and Waltfeld... but they were all leaning on something or someone in order to keep themselves upright. The always steadfast and unemotional Kisaka had his face turned down and away as his chest hitched every so often... next to him, Waltfeld was staring off into the distance of the past, unaware of his trembling knees. Murrue was on the floor, weeping openly... her pain was the next freshest of the people here... it always lurked close to the surface and Lacus's song had torn the scab right open. They were good tears though... they didn't hurt... they just released. Mu's sacrifice had not been in vain... not when it had led to here... to this very moment. Vladimir was one of the most affected of all... his eyes were dry but staring and unseeing... plainly he too was lost in memories of the past. He was mumbling somthing repeatedly under his breath... to Lacus it sounded like "Sorry... so sorry... so many... sorry". Her now open eyes next feel on Athrun and Cagalli, who were among the least affected... they were staring at each other and clasping hands so tightly their knucles were white... but they'd both lost fathers to tragedies like this in the last war and they had mostly come to terms with those losses. Dearka and Miriallia were much the same... they'd suffered losses, but they had put them to rest a while ago and while their eyes were by no means dry, they weren't anywhere near as affected as Kisaka or Murrue. Or for that matter, as much as Ysak and Katie were. Katie was on her knees, holding her head in her hands in a mixture of released grief and agony as she struggled to deal with the images she'd inadvertantly picked up from Lacus's emotion infused song before she'd shielded her mind... to a Stump the emotion in the song had been heart pluckingly strong... to Katie, an Active Newtype, it had been like being beaten by hammers of emotional force, in a way stronger than any mental manipulation attack or hallucination she'd ever been the target of before. She was fortunate she knew how to shield her mind or else she might have fainted from the beating.

Ysak was not so fortunate... as a Latent he was dozens of times more sensitive to Lacus's song than even someone as emotionally charged as Murrue or Vladimir. He was gritting his teeth with the effort of stopping the tears he didn't even realize he was already crying. His mind was a whirlwind of grief and anger and confusion and love all blended together and amplified by Lacus's song until he couldn't even figure out what to do besides stand there and quiver. It was perhaps the most painful thing he'd ever experienced, far worse than the scarring of his face. It was also one of the most wonderful feelings he'd ever had... for perhaps the first time in his life he knew exactly what he was feeling, why and what he was going to do with it. He slowly lifted one foot and stepped forward, then repeated the process with the other foot. He staggered along at this pace until he reached the casket. His hand fell on the hande Alkire's locket was tied to. Ysak touched the locket briefly and felt the engraved words on the cover plate... "Welcome to the Family". Ysak did not open the locket... it was not his place to do such a thing. He stepped back after mumbling a few words so low not even Lacus could make them out and touched a control on the nearest wall. With a shriek of escaping steam and the scrape of metal on metal, the casket was launched by the Archangel's mobile suit catapult out of the hanger bay and out into the deep blue sea beyond. "Goodbye." Ysak said, loud enough for everyone to hear him this time. Lacus wasn't paying attention... her eyes were on Kira.

Kira was also a latent... but he'd not been affected to nearly the extent Ysak had been. Well... not at first glance anyway. He'd cried but his eyes were drying even as Lacus first brought her gaze over to him. His fists trembled a little and his face twitched once or twice as he choked back words or exclamations of some sort. But Lacus was looking at him with more than just her eyes now... Katie had taken some time each day... sometimes only ten or fifteen minutes, but usually at least an hour... to teach Lacus what she could about being an Active Newtype and some different ways to use her power. Chanel had seen minds as glowing stars of colored light. Katie saw them as colored cartoon animals when she used her mindsight. Lacus saw the minds of the people around her as stylized representations of that person's character. Or at least thats what she thought she saw... Katie had been less than clear on just what relation the image the mindsight showed you actually had to the person it represented. To her mindsight, Kira appeared dressed in pure white robes with outstretched hands covered in hundreds of bloody welts, a cup of refreshing water in one hand and a gleaming sword in the other; with a kind but sad smile on his face. Lacus was still working out what exactly that represented... Kira was complicated like that... not like Athrun, who was a knight in shining armor, broad shield raised to protect everyone around him... or Dearka, clad in stylish clothing with a mischevious smile on his face and a joker tattooed on his cheek. Right now there were spots of blood seeping through the white cloth of Kira's robes, right over his heart. The blood formed a pattern... the face of Flay Allster, her mouth open in either a cry of joy or scream of hate, Lacus could not decide. She forced herself to just look with normal eyes... she resolved to be much more careful with her songs in the future... she was terribly certain she'd just hurt Kira, entirely without meaning to, bringing to the fore memories that were much better off left buried.

"Goodbye, my love." Ysak said again, staring off into the bloody red rising sun for a moment. "Goodbye."

Author Note: if you haven't already, I'd recommend paying another visit to my personal page... it has a great video on it that shows that us Navy guys really do some crazy shit sometimes. I always enjoy it. Anyway, thanks for the continued reviews. More to come.