"We have a transmission from Minerva," Abby said. "The captain requests for an encrypted channel."

"Put her on," Murrue issued her order.

A second later, Talia's face appeared on the screen. "Good afternoon, Captain Murrue."

"Good afternoon."

"Today is a rather good weather, isn't it? DSSD's meteorological satellite EPS1 predicted that the sky will be clear in the Indian Ocean."

"Oh, thank you for the information."

"Are you saying that you've not been accessing the satellite service?" Talia smiled. "Hmm? As expected, you have kept clear of information network to reduce transmission. But I didn't expect you to actually avoid open access network."

Being a neutral party in the conflict, Deep Space Survey & Development organization provided satellite services to every faction; services would have disrupted due to the war such as weather forecasting and Earthsphere Positioning System. However, to ensure complete transparency as well as ensure complete privacy, DSSD would not keep any information that could be used to identify the user of its services, be it military, private or civilians sectors. For example, if a request had been put to acquire meteorological information for a particular location, the network would simply process the request and then immediately purge any record of the transmission upon completion of the request. No statistical data are available even to the researches involved.

Murrue shrugged. "Well, no one could be too careful these days."

"Agreed."

"So, apart from delivering the weather report, do you have any other reason for contacting me?" The Archangel had an idea about why Talia contacted her but would use the opportunity to stall for time as well as think of the strategy to counteract whatever plan Talia might have.

"Of course not. I would not be doing something without a good reason. The Captain of Minerva crossed her fingers in front of her face and stared at the screen. "You do realize that a good weather means aircrafts can move about freely, don't you?"

"Are you saying…"

"Yes. Our units are already airborne and are coming your way. Heh, it looks like you really should be paying attention to weather report in the first place."

Murrue could feel a sweat rolling down the side of her head even though the bridge was air conditioned. Still, she smiled, trying to hide her nervousness. "Our mistake. But you're warning us of your attack. What is your game?"

"Game?" Talia asked. "I told you earlier: I wouldn't do something without a good reason. Despite not accessing information networks, I'm sure you have received terrestrial broadcasts of your so-called terrorist activities."

"Our involvement is greatly exaggerated."

"Of course, we know that. However, you would be a fool to think that we will not take advantage of this situation. Please look at the following declaration."

"We have received a document attachment," Abby reported.

"Put it on another screen," Murrue responded. When it appeared on the other screen, she read it. It was a joint statement from the majority of nations in Earthsphere condemning the group of terrorists that hijacked an Alliance' ship and use it to commit terrorist acts all over the world. Of course, the declaration was referring to Archangel and its crew members. "So, we're being wanted by the whole world. So what do you expect from us?"

"A full unconditional surrender of Archangel and Prometheus."

"Prometheus?"

"The white prototype."

It took Murrue all she can to maintain a straight face. She remembered that Flay had mentioned something like that way back. If that was the case, then Flay must have known more about the prototype than she let on. However, Talia seemed to possess new information about it as well. What the hell had happened in such a short time? "In return?"

"We will treat you are war prisoners in accordance to Corsica Treaty as well as Geneva Convention. Failure to comply will of course mean we will treat you as terrorists and react accordingly."

"You're sure you want to do that? You do know about Spectrum or Prometheus, do you?"

"Enough to know that we can blow it sky high and not having to worry a thing."

Things looked rather bleak as Talia had already possessed verified information on Spectrum.

"In case you're wondering, we also don't have to worry about destroying Archangel. After all, no nation would claim connection with an established terrorist group. We give you time to consider our demand until our mobile suits get range of the ship. Any notable hostile movement on your part or negative response or even lack of any response at will be interpreted as non-compliance and will replied with appropriate military action. Have a good day." Talia said before signing off.

"Abby, sound the general quarters," Murrue said.

"Yes, ma'am," Abby responded while pressing the button that would cause alarm to blare throughout the ship.

Talia raised her eyebrows at the dissatisfaction being shown by her Executive Officer. "Do you have anything to say, Arthur?"

"Permission to speak freely, ma'am."

"Granted."

"Why are we being chivalrous and call Archangel to warn them about our upcoming attack? After all, they are terrorists!"

Talia shook her head. "Arthur, Arthur. Sometimes you make me wonder… "

"About what, ma'am?"

"Whether I annoyed the higher-ups that they send you here to make my life more complicated than it's supposed to be. They are terrorists, but only in name. They were not behind the attacks and you know that."

"Still, we shouldn't have wasted our chance to launch a surprise attack on the ship. You know that even if we offer surrender to the ship, it wouldn't accept it."

Talia sighed. "You haven't been paying attention to my words. I told the Archangel's Captain that I don't like to do something without a good reason. I already know Archangel probably wouldn't surrender. If the captain had considered surrendering, she would have counter-offered with something, anything that would show an effort to negotiate."

"But you told her that we will not negotiate."

"Of course there would be negotiation if she's really interested. After all, we have the advantage here, but the advantage is not really an overwhelming one: both of us know that."

"Wait," Arthur said, becoming confused. "You're saying that you know that Archangel wouldn't surrender."

"Even from the very beginning."

"Then why did you call Archangel?"

"It is like I told you; I don't do something without a good reason. The other reason is because I personally would like to be proven wrong." Talia turned toward Meyrin. "Was it enough?"

"Yes, captain," the 'Success' operator reported from her console. "In fact, you managed to do it with a lot of time to spare."

"Good." It was as Talia had predicted: the Archangel's captain wasn't really experienced in warfare tactics and she intended to take advantage of that.

Kira arrived at the locker room only to see Flay was checking her flight suit. "What are you doing here?"

"Isn't it obvious? Minerva is launching an attack and I'm prepping up."

"Can't we reason with them? Besides, Athrun..."

Suddenly, Kira found himself being slammed into a locker with surprising force by the woman. He was about to protest but found himself silenced by the cold stare she gave him. "Look, Kira. You may not notice this but we're in a war right now, a war that had cost many lives and will continue to do so. And your best friend who likes macadamia and pecan ice cream when he was small now happens to be piloting a mobile suit on the opposite side, or have you forgotten the fact that right now we have been declared terrorists?"

Kira grabbed her hand and pushed it away slowly from his chest. "I haven't forgotten that."

"I know that. But are you willing to fight your own friend?"

"I…"

"Are you willing to pull the trigger?"

"…"

"As I suspected." Flay withdrew her hand. "Actually, there is one way to avoid fighting but I don't think everyone will agree with it."

"What do you mean?"

"We have a hostage onboard the ship, a rather valuable one at that."

"You mean Lacus?"

The woman nodded and then raised her hand to stop Kira for saying anything more. "I know that you're going to say that it's not right and Captain Murrue will not go with the plan; it just hypothetical idea. Besides, even if we managed to barter our way with Minerva by surrendering her to ensure our safe passage, we will screw up the whole PLANTs political system and with it screw everything else. No, that move is so dangerous that even I can't imagine following through it."

"Then, what should we do?"

"I told you earlier, we have to fight or else Murrue would have decided on other options. Even surrender is not an option, not unless you suggest we kill Clyne and hide her body before they arrive onboard." Flay was about to continue but stopped. "Must resist making that remark," she looked away and muttered. She then turned back to Kira. "Look, I want you to fight. Murrue, no matter how she denies it, would be assured if you fight. However, we know that we shouldn't force you and Murrue will stop me from forcing you. However, one thing for sure, if you go out there," she motioned heavenward, "there's no hesitation, no trying to parlay with the enemy. In fact, I will stop you if I think that you're going repeat what you did during the attack by the Atlantic Federation's CSG; there's no point in going out there if you only want to become a moving target instead of fighting back."

When she started walking toward the hangar, she didn't know the reason why but Lacus finally understood it when she saw Kira walking briskly toward the place. "Kira?"

The said man stopped and turned toward her. "Lacus?"

She wasn't sure why but she had to say something to him, "You're going?"

Kira fisted his hand and nodded.

"But I thought that you're not part of military."

"I'm not." He stared toward something in the distance. "I was assigned to do routine patrols but yet ended up fighting." He then smiled at her; the smile being a thin one but one of honesty. "But if I didn't, I wouldn't have met you."

"You rescued me after all."

"But I don't like the feeling of not doing anything while everyone else is fighting." He sighed. "Perhaps I'm contradicting myself but I wish to know the answer whether this is the correct path.

"Still no sign of surrender from Archangel?" Talia asked.

"No," Meyrin reported.

Talia let out a disappointed breath. "I guess it all boils down to this after all."

"Are you sure about this?" Flay asked.

"I will fight," Kira, seated back to back with her said solemnly.

"No. I was talking about the risk we will face."

"I don't understand. Didn't you say that the mobile suit is safe?"

"I lied, in a way. It is dangerous, but at least it is safer than being killed by the enemy. Can you keep a secret?"

"Huh? We don't have time for this."

"We have. Promise me."

"Okay, okay, I promise.

"Good. You're informed of Spectrum's alternate 'mode'?"

"Yes. The part where it reconfigures some of its body parts as well as have color lines run through it."

"We will probably engage the system."

"But I thought you said that the activation is random!"

"It's not and can be activated by the pilot. However, due to some reasons, one of the pilots that can activate it is you."

Kira swallowed hard, remembering the first time he went inside Spectrum's cockpit and tinkered with the computer. He must have accidentally fumbled with the security settings.

"If the system is engaged, I want to make it clear that it is important you keep calm at all time."

"What happen if I don't?"

"Trust me, you don't want to know. Also, the system's activation may cause you to see hallucinations. You must remember not to fall for it. If that happens, it's the end of us."

"I understand."

"Okay, let's get going." Spectrum began walking toward the linear catapult system when suddenly the hangar became dark.

Suddenly, the main display in the bridge went haywire as the alarm became silent. It was followed by the main light switching off, leaving only emergency light to illuminate the suddenly cavernous structure.

Murrue stood up. "What the hell happened?"

"I'm not sure," Nuemann answered. "The helm's control is temporarily offline."

"The radar is acting up," Romario added. He knocked on the radar console a few times. "A second there's fifty targets entering radar range and suddenly there's none!"

"Mirage Colloid?" Murrue asked.

"Er, no! Twenty more suddenly appeared twelve kilometers bow side… and they've shifted to stern! No, portside!"

Murrue palmed her face in an effort to calm herself. "Abby, please check how many systems are still operational."

After few moments, the CIC operator answered, "Basic life supports are still functioning. However all other functions are offline except for the communication module."

"They really got us this time," Murrue said in a frustrated manner.

"What are you mean?" Abby asked.

"Activation of Trojan payload is successful," Meyrin reported. "Archangel's computer system is broadcasting confirmation signal. Apart from that, secondary hacking attack through the normal communication network is successful."

Talia adjusted her cap while smiling. "So, how much control do we have over Archangel? Can we get the computer to automatically raise a white flag?"

"No, the capability to do that is beyond the scope of the attack. However, at the very least we're able to disable the ship's offensive as well as defense subroutines for approximately thirty minutes and three seconds before their inoculation countermeasures will purge the whole attack vectors and restore nominal operations."

Talia was joking about raising the white flag and so didn't expect her SCCS officer to take it literally. But still, the attack was successful and as a result, Archangel was had been crippled by a mere computer worm. Honestly, she couldn't see any chance for the ship to mount defense and was disappointed with its captain who was too hardheaded to realize the precarious situation it was in. "Commence with the attack."

"Are you sure we don't have to be sea skimming this time?" Dearka asked. All of the mobile suits had fallen into a formation with Aegis leading it.

"You didn't ask that question the last time," Lunamaria replied.

"That's because we didn't know better," Nicol answered.

"Well, unlike last time we don't need to hide as Archangel knows that we're coming. Besides, Captain Talia has given us the go-ahead without any revision to the plan, so that means we have succeeded in disrupting the ship's main computer and with it, the radar capability as well."

"Wait a minute… if they know we're coming wouldn't it be disadvantageous for us?"

"Normally," Lunamaria replied, "but this is anything but normal."

Flay looked at the person in her screen. "So you're telling me Archangel had been hacked while Murrue is talking to Minerva's captain, and so that's why the linear catapult is not working?"

Abby nodded. "We believe that they also implanted a computer worm inside the attachment they sent us."

There was a long sigh. "So what's still working right now?"

"Apart from basic life support, we're lucky to have communication system is online."

"The communication system is online because the enemy wants us to surrender, not because we're lucky or anything." There was another reason for the communication system to be online and that was the hacker wanted to know the current situation onboard Archangel as well as allowing him or her to conduct more attacks if the situation required. Revealing that 'tiny' piece information to Murrue wasn't suitable because the captain might order for the communication system to be switched off and there was no other nasty surprise the computer worm currently infesting throughout the ship would pop up should the system be brought offline. "In fact, they're probably monitoring our transmission even as we speak so we shouldn't say anything of secretive nature while on air."

"Huh?"

"They managed to open the hangar door manually," Kira announced.

Flay's attention shifted toward the structure. "Initiate launch sequence. She then returned to Abby. "We'll try to intercept them in order to buy some time for the Spitfires and Skygrasper to launch. Also, please tell Murrue not to be a stick in the mud if we're to have a chance to make it through."

Abby turned toward Murrue. "And that's what she said."

Before Murrue could ask further about Flay's statement, a creaking sound caught her attention. The door to the bridge was being opened slowly. When the opening was large enough for a person to enter, a person slipped through. "You!"

"Um, yeah," Lacus said nervously, her right hand behind her head while her left hand holding Haro.

The pink princess then stepped aside, revealing Murdoch's head peering through the opening. "Yamato had sent Missy here to help."

"Help? What do you mean?" Murrue waved around her. "The system is currently offline so we have to wait until the backup system to kick in."

"Um, there's where Flay said I can help," Lacus offered.

The meaning of Flay's words hit Murrue; if she was to ensure that her ship has a chance of escaping, she would have to use Lacus. But rather than telling her about it through transmission and risk revealing it to any eavesdropping ZAFT, Flay sent Lacus to the bridge to tell her in person.

"Even though I can't fight in a battle, at least I can try to inoculate the system," Lacus added, thinking that the captain's silence as doubt to her ability, pointing to the small mechatronic besides her. "After all, I have Haro here."

Murrue didn't understand how such a small thing could be useful but she was willing to consider everything. "Very well."

"Huh?"

"What is it, Meyrin?" Talia asked.

"Someone is attempting a system clean," Meyrin neutrally answered even as her hands were busy entering attempts commands into her console.

"Threat to the whole operation?"

"The programmer seem to have a capability to tend to respond to my simultaneous attacks." The statement implied that however the person that was trying to clean Archangel's network was either highly skilled or a Coordinator.

"Will it compromise the mission?"

"I'm not sure. What I can say is Archangel's downtime may be reduced. However, I will try to slow down the defender action by conducting more attacks."

Talia knew from Meyrin's voice that her adversary wasn't a match to begin. However, there was something else that seemed to bothering the latter. "What's wrong?"

"From my attempts to overflow the network buffer as well as mount a denial of service attack, I conclude that the person is using a powerful portable mainframe."

"HARO! HARO!" The spherical thing uttered while flapping it ears. However, it didn't move around as it usually did and instead remained stationary to prevent a cable linking it and Archangel main computer from becoming disconnected.

Murrue closed her eyes.

"HARO! HARO! HARO! HARO!" It eyes flashed a few times.

She could feel her jaw tightened.

"HARO! HARO! HARO! HARO! HARO! HARO! HARO! HARO! HARO! HARO! HARO! HARO!"

"Look, Lacus," she began slowly. "I really appreciate your helping us."

"HARO! HARO! HARO! HARO! HARO! HARO! HARO! HARO! HARO!

"but is there any way you can switch off that sound?"

"I'm sorry," Lacus apologized amid her pet making the weird sound. "My fianc, err, the person who built Haro has programmed that behavior into its basic subroutine. Every time it uses significant processing power, it would make such that sound as well as flap its ears."

"But it also makes the sound even while jumping around," Abby, who had gave her seat to Lacus in order to allow the latter to work on the computer, said.

"Of course. After all jumping around requires a rather significant processing power to do it."

"I hope I have the chance to meet your friend one day," Romario said.

"Really?"

"Yes. I really would like to deck him for making such a senseless 'improvement'."

Athrun cleared his throat.

"Rather a strange time to be catching a virus, even though it's not supposed to be feasible," Dearka remarked. DNA manipulation meant almost everyone's immune system had been boosted, including Naturals to the effect that common colds had been reduced to uncommon colds.

"Focus," Yzak reminded.

"Full energy airborne radar detected," Lunamaria announced. "As predicted."

"Thank you, Luna. Please identify the signature of the mobile suit we're facing."

"Roger."

Even before Luna replied, Athrun knew the answer. The mobile suit they have identified as Prometheus, probably being piloted by his friend.

"It's the white no-face jackass Prometheus."

Everything was as Captain Talia predicted. Rather than launching a similar surprise attack like the last time, the current strategy was to contact Archangel under the guise of issuing an ultimatum and then use the opportunity to launch an electronic attack to hamper the ship's electronic system. With it being successful, his team had to achieve one of the following two goals: defeat Prometheus or capture Archangel; if push came to shove, they were to destroy the ship.

A long range visual of Prometheus popped up as their group got closer and closer to it.

"What should we do now?" Kira asked.

"We wait until they enter our weapons' range. Since they are obviously conserving their energy and at the same time baiting us to go away from Archangel, we should remain where we are." Flay answered. "I never thought that they would find a way to integrate a Striker pack with another prototype."

"What do you mean?" Kira asked as he watched the mobile suit that was being piloted by his best friend. Or could it be considered as his former best friend?

"When the Strike mobile suit frame was being developed, it was envisaged that eventually, it would be able to change its weapons and equipment on the fly, in effect becoming the first truly versatile mobile suit, something that GINN failed to achieved. But during testing, the same problem cropped up. You want to have an artillery mobile suit, it's not sufficient to simply slap it with some high powered weapons and hope for the best. There are some other requirements such as targeting computer, suitable fire control system as well as extra cooling system. Same thing with if you want to have a transformable, just like Zala's. Eventually, instead of fifteen planned units of the same prototype, we have five different ones, with the extremely high cost of development causing the other ten to be shelved."

"Wow, you really know a lot."

"Basic economics. It is cheaper to come up with similar units rather than come up with different units."

"No, what I mean is about the mobile suit's development."

Flay was silenced for a few seconds. "Well, I was in the intelligence circle, so we always know about this kind of things."

"I see."

"Should we proceed with the current strategy?" Rey asked.

"Do you think we can keep it and the other defenders busy while two of our mobile suits make dash toward the ship?" Athrun questioned back, addressing everyone instead.

"I think so," Lunamaria answered.

"Same here." Yzak added. Both he and Lunamaria were given the task to attack Archangel.

"So, we'll continue with the current plan."

Dearka shrugged. "The 'dynamic duo'," he said while grinning, referring to the animosity between the two of them, "think that they can work together so I'm in."

"Me too," Nicol replied.

"So we're to continue with Tactic A-12," Athrun concluded.

"Prometheus is changing color," Lunamaria reported.

Even though he had seen it a few times, Athrun still couldn't understand the reasoning behind the transformation as well as the trimming's color change. Unlike ZAFT's five, or accurately four, prototypes, the color change didn't seem to have anything to do with Phase Shift armor. If that was the case, what was the purpose of color change? For example, the green trimming that appeared along with the transformation had to mean something.

"Prometheus is drawing its two beam rifles," Luna continued reporting as it held the two weapons by its sides.

Dearka chuckled. "What, it's going to fire, despite blooming?"

It was a well-known fact that beam weapons had smaller range in atmosphere due to the blooming effect. A beam would energize the air molecules where it traveled, creating plasma breakdown from atmospheric air. The process dissipated a lot of energy from the beam itself, thereby reducing its penetration power. An almost similar effect was the reason behind beam weapon's ineffectiveness when used underwater. Because of that, even though greater strides had been made in the field, beam weapons had yet to replace projectile based weaponries

"I don't like it," Yzak said. "If they know that we know, why bother?"

"Ranged Engagement mode has achieved nominal operation. Fire Control System had been synchronized with Pandora Key's neural network at 75.23% efficiency."

Kira wasn't sure what the computer was referring too but he could feel the effect of it. He could only perceive what was in front of Spectrum but richness of the information flooding inside him was on another level compared to when he was fighting in Assault mode. He remembered reading a memoir of a sniper where the sniper described that when he was targeting his mark just before pulling the trigger, everything else ceased to exist, leaving the two of them. However what Kira was feeling at that time, if it was to be describe, was everything else exist only to accentuate his opponents' existence and thus made it easier to target them.

He picked two targets to aim and fired.

"Impossible!" Rey uttered when he realized that the white mobile suit had fired at them.

"ALL UNITS, SCATTER!" Athrun ordered.

However, even as they moved away from the shots, their reactions were already too late. The shots hit the wing of Lunamaria's DINN and pierced the Guul unit that was carrying Dearka's Buster.

"I'm losing altitude!" Lunamaria reported. "I'm trying to regain control."

"I am also losing some power," Dearka reported as well.

Athrun stared at Prometheus, wondering whether it was Kira who had fired at them. Even though he was leading the attack on Archangel, he couldn't help but felt a sense of betrayal for the shots. He stomped his feelings down. "Minerva. We require anti-air support at position 54-23-12. Mission tactic has been changed to F-7. "

"Okay," Meyrin acknowledged.

Prometheus must have expended a lot of energy to fire off the two shots, so there was no way it could have recovered immediately. Besides, even if it could indeed recover its energy, it fire immediately because the shots should have produced tremendous amount of heat that the beam rifles should cooled first before they could be reuse. That small span of time would enough for his team to approach it. Athrun glanced at Lunamaria. She managed to recover but it seemed that her stabilizer had damaged. "Dearka. Get Lunamaria's DINN and return home."

"What?"

"You're just a liability if you continue on," Yzak explained on Athrun's behalf.

"Order's an order," Dearka said as his Buster caught hold of Lunamaria's DINN and the two shared the rather cramped platform with the latter's mobile suit provided thrust to render it almost weightless. "Let's head off to the sunset, princess."

He stood on the platform overlooking the deactivated mobile suit.

"The test run is progressing perfectly, isn't it?" a voice asked.

He glanced at the voice before turning back to see the mobile suit. "Yes. The armor's optimization is at ninety percent."

"That's good to know."

"So? Is there any reason for the famous Creuset to come and visit me?"

"No, just a friendly visit." The masked man moved to a spot next to him and leaned on the railing. "After all, you and I, we're completely different but at the same time similar in fate. If I may say so, we're like twin."

"I don't want such a gross comparison."

"Sorry about that," the man said while chuckling. Then suddenly the chuckle broke down and he began to cough uncontrollably.

Kira merely kept quiet until the cough had abated.

"It looks like I'm quite unsightly today," Creuset apologized.

"I don't mind. After all, that's why you're wearing a mask, isn't it?"

The man chuckled again; this time the chuckle was restrained, "As mean as always. It's good thing you're not a doctor or else you would have killed your patient with your mouth."

"I was, during '55 outbreak of Type S2."

"You realize that this is the third time you said that to me?"

"And that's because you said the same thing to me three times."

"You're right." Creuset was silent for a while. "They will be coming for you in the morning."

"I know. They've putting me under surveillance from the very beginning of this project. I would assume that they haven't found about my recovery or else they would have pulled me out."

"True."

"And the reason why you're allowed here at this critical moment is because they don't see you as a threat."

"I will cease to be, soon. Right now I'm already at the terminal stage so by the time you wake up I wouldn't be there to see you." Creuset smiled turned toward him and smiled. "This is the first time and the last time I will admit to you. When I came to know you, I was jealous. My 'father', when his son was born, found out the child was 'diluted' and didn't inherit his 'superior' genes and so conspired with the monster by the name of Hibiki to create me, to fashion a clone out of his own image. Hibiki, in his haste to siphon money for his own selfish project, manage to create me but not perfectly. When I finally have the chance to kill the two of them, I really took my time to savor it. However, when comparing my situation with your so-called your fake 'immortality', I realized that in a way, I'm better off than you."

"You're the one who said that people could only understand the world from their own experience and senses."

"True." Creuset turned to walk away. "Well, it's been interesting to know you in all your 'incarnations'." He then stopped. "Oh, I remembered something I've been meaning to ask. You have been around since both of them; or even earlier. Will you support Durandal's idea, or Glenn's?"

"I wonder which one is dumber. But how about you? What is your opinion on the matter?"

"I simply think humanity cannot be saved from eventual destruction by its own greed and hubris. You and I are perfect example of that."

Kira smiled forlornly. "Perhaps your path is the correct one."

"I wonder about that myself, but it's not I have the power to do what needs to be done." Creuset began to walk. "Since this is the last time we will meet, I'm here just to say that it's been nice knowing you."

"Kira!" Flay's voice called out, ending his reverie. "Snap out of it! The missiles are coming our way!"