Chapter 2: Strange Appearances
A warship rested in the sands, trying to decide on its next course of action after surviving an attack from enemy forces the previous day.
Sai Argyle frowned as five unknown signals appeared on the radar. "Captain…?"
"What is it?" Murrue Ramius asked as she came over to him.
"We don't know. Five unknown signals just appeared out of nowhere."
Natarle Badgiruel joined them with a frown. "Are they from ZAFT?"
"We can't confirm that. If they are from ZAFT, and they have some sort of cloaking ability, I don't think they'd reappear just inside our radar range."
"Unless they have a long range weapon…" Natarle cautioned.
"They don't seem to be moving, and even long range weapons have their limits." Murrue glanced over her shoulder as Mwu La Flaga entered the bridge. "Lieutenant, I need your opinion…"
Mwu walked over to them curiously. "What is it?"
Sai quickly explained the situation again as Mwu frowned thoughtfully.
"Send out the kid and the Strike. It's better to be safe than sorry. If they're hostile, he can handle them. Remember what he did against those BuCUEs the other day?"
Murrue nodded.
"And if they're allies that have gotten stranded like us, we can help each other out."
"All right…" Murrue said, glancing at the girl who sat behind the Captain's chair. "Send him out."
Miriallia Haw nodded as she touched a button. "Kira Yamato: Report to the Strike hangar immediately."
"I'll leave the rest up to you." Mwu said, patting Murrue on the shoulder before leaving the bridge.
Kojiro Murdoch was wiping his hands on an oil-stained cloth when Kira arrived in the hangar.
"What's going on, Murdoch?"
Murdoch shook his head. "Your guess is as good as mine, kid. All I know is that you're being deployed, so you'd better get moving. You know it's always something serious if they're sending you out without any explanation… but, then again, it could also be a precaution since the rest of the crew isn't on alert."
Kira nodded in understanding and ran towards the lift to his mobile suit's cockpit.
As soon as the Strike was activated, Miriallia's voice came from his communication system. "Kira: five unidentified signals have appeared on the radar. They've been stationary since they appeared, but take no chances. We don't know if they're new ZAFT models, new Earth Forces models, or something else entirely. Please be careful out there."
"I got it." He replied as the Strike was fitted with one of its many different packs.
For the situation they were faced with, the Strike was fitted with its Aile Striker Pack just in case they were indeed facing a hostile situation.
As soon as the Aile Strike was launched, Natarle's voice was heard. "Ensign Yamato, depending on what they are, you are to capture one of them alive for interrogation. We'll need all the information we can get about what's happening in this region."
Kira balked at the thought of having to capture a fellow human for interrogating, but he knew he had no choice as the Aile Strike made its way towards the signals.
He was surprised by the sight that greeted him when he arrived at the area where the signals were coming from: a large crater held five smaller craters containing partially buried mobile weapons.
"What the heck…?" He muttered to himself as he hid the Aile Strike behind the wall of the sandy crater.
"This is Kira reporting in. It looks as though there are four mobile suits and a mobile armour. They seem to have crashed. I haven't seen any sign of movement, so I'm going in to take a closer look."
A few moments of silence greeted him before Miriallia's voice came through. "Understood, but please be careful Kira."
"I will." He said before cutting off communications and exiting his suit.
He was surprised at how solid the wall of sand was as he climbed it. "They must have been travelling very fast or generating a great deal of heat to cause the sand to solidify like this…" Kira muttered to himself as he finally made it to the top and peered over the rim of the crater cautiously, hoping against hope that nobody was in the buried suits.
To his surprise, two people crawled out of two of the buried suits, apparently unharmed. "They still have pilots?" He couldn't hide the shock from his voice before he remembered that the radar signals had only recently been picked up.
Both were wearing black outfits from his vantage point, but one had short brown hair, and the other had a long brown braid reaching to the small of his back.
With the quiet emptiness of the desert, their words drifted towards him loud and clear.
"Damnit!" The man with the braid yelled angrily as he held his head.
The short haired man jumped over to his suit so that conversing would be easier.
"Whose idea was it to go near that thing?" The man with the short hair looked at the other man, but Kira couldn't see his face well enough to see his reaction.
"If I remember correctly: it was yours." The icy tone of the man's voice sent a shiver down Kira's spine.
The man with the braid turned so that Kira could finally see that he was wearing an old priest's uniform. Confusion quickly took over in Kira's mind: the type of attire he was wearing had stopped being used several years before the Cosmic Era began.
He was muttering under his breath, but it was apparent that he was cursing. "Come on, we should see if the others are all right." He finally said before heading over to the red suit and opening the cockpit hatch.
Another man appeared, shaking his head as though to clear it as the priest helped him out of the suit.
"Are you all right?"
The new man nodded. He was easily taller than the other two as he straightened. "I'll be fine." He said as he made his way over to a white and blue suit.
A blonde man climbed out.
"Here, you're bleeding." The tall man said as he passed the blonde man a cloth.
"Thanks…" He looked around as the short haired man began to make his way to the green suit.
"I see you're all awake now." A voice called as another man with black hair in a ponytail appeared over the top of the crater.
"Where've you been?" The priest asked.
"I was checking out the area, but I don't have a clue where we are." He said as he slid down the crater wall to join them on the blonde man's suit.
The blonde man crept carefully over to the sand as though to examine it.
Kira stared at the suits in surprise. The parts that were visible made them similar in design to the five suits Heliopolis had been developing for the Earth Forces, yet vastly different at the same time. He was almost tempted to join them, but being unsure of their affiliation, he was forced to stay where he was.
"I believe we're in Africa…" The blonde man finally spoke as he stood.
The others looked at him in surprise. "How do you know that?"
"Before meeting up with the Maganacs, I studied the different compositions of sand in various deserts. You know: just in case I was stranded somewhere and needed to know where I was without the help of technology. This type of sand is most commonly found in Africa, especially Northern Africa."
"We can normally trust Quatre's judgement on this sort of thing, so I guess that means we're in Northern Africa." The tall man said as he looked around.
"I guess our appearance didn't go unnoticed by whoever is in this region: I saw a mobile suit touch down over there as I was looking around." The black haired man said as he pointed towards Kira's location.
"I guess that means we're being watched by whoever was in that suit. I thought I felt something familiar… the feeling of being watched isn't a feeling I've had to deal with in a long while…" The short haired man said, almost whimsically, as they looked in the direction the black haired man was pointing.
"Well then, let's go meet our welcoming committee." The priest said brightly.
The others nodded in agreement, knowing there was nothing else they could do.
Kira blinked in surprise as they carefully made their way off the blonde man's mobile suit. Moving quickly, he headed back to the Aile Strike to inform the Archangel of the situation.
"Kira Yamato! Where are you?" Natarle's impatient voice was the first thing Kira heard when he entered the cockpit and turned on the Strike's communication systems.
"I'm sorry I took so long. It turns out the mobile suits did crash and each had a pilot. They're all alive and mostly unhurt. It seems highly doubtful that they're with ZAFT; their outfits aren't exactly what a ZAFT soldier would wear… Uhm… one of them saw me coming in, so they're heading to my position now."
"You should learn to be more careful when dealing with an unknown situation!" Natarle's angry voice snapped, causing him to wince away from the sound-only screen on the side panel of his monitor.
"There's nothing that can be done about it now, just be careful. Just because they aren't wearing ZAFT uniforms, doesn't mean they aren't ZAFT operatives."
Kira blinked in surprise as Murrue's calm voice replaced Natarle's. "Yes ma'am, I will. If they need help, and they aren't from ZAFT, do I have permission to help them?" He almost regretted asking that question as he heard a muffled fight break out between Natarle and Murrue.
Miriallia must have had her hand on the system to try and stop Kira from hearing it. Silence reigned for a moment before a defeated sigh could be heard, but he couldn't be sure which woman's argument had been defeated.
"You have permission. We'll have to take extra precautions though. Make absolutely certain they aren't from ZAFT before you do anything."
"I have a feeling if they were from ZAFT, they would have recognized the Strike. However, I'll contact you in half an hour. If you don't hear from me by then, I've been captured by them and they were indeed ZAFT soldiers." He had a feeling Murrue was rolling her eyes in exasperation at his comments, but he couldn't be certain without being able to see her face.
"Understood… please be careful. We really can't stress that enough." Murrue warned.
Kira nodded as he left the Aile Strike to meet with the mysterious newcomers.
Author's Note: Next chapter will be the colliding of two Universes! For those of you who are curious as to what would have happened if ZAFT had been the ones to find the A. C. Universe pilots first, it would have been pretty much the same results, except with the A.C. pilots on the side of the "enemies". Kind of makes you glad the Archangel's crew found them first, hm?