Chapter 7: ZAFT
On the bridge of the Archangel, Murrue kept a small screen on the arm of her chair, which showed the cameras in the hangar that could be switched to various cameras within the hallways of the Archangel if they left the hangar.
Since no proof could be found that Heero was indeed the hacker, they were unable to throw them out of the ship without sullying the humanitarian name the Earth Forces were trying to build amidst the turmoil with ZAFT. Instead, they were forced to monitor their every move, which meant long boring hours of watching them do nothing but work diligently on repairing their Gundams.
"I wonder what they intend to do once they're done…" Murrue jumped as Mwu leaned on the back of her chair and stared at the monitor.
"I wish you'd stop doing that." She said once she got herself calmed down.
"Sorry about that… So what do you think they'll do once they're finished?"
"I don't know." Murrue said thoughtfully. "I do know there are several people on this ship who would be happy to see them leave."
Mwu nodded in understanding. "That's true, but I don't see that happening any time soon. A few of them seem like good guys, they'll probably convince the others to stick around and help out in repayment."
"I just hope no trouble comes of them. We don't even know how well they can fight. We know they can repair the suits, but they could have just been mechanics that were accidentally thrown off a ship or something." Murrue said worriedly.
Mwu shook his head. "They're definitely not novices. I don't know the extent of their skills, but they aren't simply mechanics. I hesitate to use this term, but they're essentially pure-bred pilots. Those are the best, yet also the worst, kind to meet in battle."
"What do you mean by 'pure-bred'?" Miriallia asked with a frown.
"They were trained to be the perfect soldiers and the perfect mobile suit pilots. They're obviously extremely familiar with their mobile suits, so they must not pilot other suits except when needed, and they can do anything they're required to depending on the situation they're faced with. I don't know how they were trained or for what reason, but they would be extremely dangerous if we forced them into a corner and they were forced to join ZAFT…" Mwu cautioned before walking out of the bridge.
"Do you believe him, ma'am?" Tolle asked worriedly.
Before Murrue could answer, the bridge's alarms went off.
"Ma'am, there are several ZAFT BuCUE units approaching at a rapid speed!" Sai yelled.
"All hands, level one battle stations!" She snapped as the ship-wide alert was sent out to all the crew members.
Kira was wandering the ship with Birdy his mechanical pet bird sitting on his shoulder contentedly, wondering what he should do about the strange events that had been happening lately, when the alert sounded.
"All hands, report to level one battle stations immediately!" Miriallia's voice rang out, causing him to look at the nearest speaker in concern.
"What could be going on now…?" He muttered before running to the change room with his pet bird close behind.
As he ran, he encountered Mwu, who was also heading for the change room.
"What's going on?"
"It's more than likely ZAFT, kid. You know they wouldn't give us much of a break."
"I didn't think the SkyGraspers were ready yet…"
"I won't know for certain until I talk to Murdoch, but it's better to be prepared just in case they are."
Kira nodded in understanding as they entered the change room.
"I'm going to see if I can find Murdoch, so get to the Strike and get out there!" Mwu ordered as he ran off in the direction of where the SkyGraspers were restrained.
Kira didn't have a chance to respond as he ran to the Strike, passing the others as they appeared to be scrambling to finish whatever repairs they were making.
We don't need them to fight… I can handle a few BuCUEs…
He thought coolly as he entered the Strike's cockpit.
Once the Strike was loaded on the launch catapult and fitted with the Aile Striker Pack, he told Miriallia he was going out as the catapult activated and threw the Aile Strike out of the Archangel to meet the ZAFT Forces.
The pilots watched as the Strike marched past them to the catapult hangar.
Once the roar of the catapult died down, Heero stood and threw the unneeded tools off the Wing Zero. Thankfully, none of the mechanics were around to hear the noise. "Who's finished?" He yelled at the others.
"Right… about… now!" Duo said with one last twist of the tool he was using.
As the others agreed that they were finished, Heero glanced at them. "So what do we do with these newly repaired Gundams?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Trowa asked simply.
"The question is: is the Wing Zero's transformation system repaired?" Duo asked worriedly.
"Well if we head out, we'll find out, won't we?" Wufei asked with a bit of snap in his tone.
Heero moved over to a control panel and worked on it for a few moments before heading back over to the Wing Zero.
The restraint system holding all five machines suddenly activated and the restraints were removed from them.
"Then let's get moving before they can stop us. I don't know what we'll find when we get out there, but it's better than sitting in here and going crazy." Heero said as he climbed into the Wing Zero's cockpit.
"That's the last thing we need: Heero with cabin fever." Duo said with a shake of his head as he leapt into the Deathscythe Hell.
Trowa and Quatre couldn't help but chuckle in amusement as they jumped into their respective suits.
Wufei simply rolled his eyes as he climbed into the Altron.
"Ready?" Heero asked as the roar of the five Gundams activating resounded through the hangar.
"Lead the way." Trowa said simply as the Wing Zero rolled towards the catapult hangar, the gates separating the two regions opening as it got close.
Once in the catapult hangar, the Wing Zero's thrusters roared to life and it shot from the open launch wing. The Deathscythe Hell, Heavyarms, Sandrock and Altron followed behind quickly as the launch wing closed.
"How'd you figure their system out?" Quatre asked Heero.
"I watched them. They were testing one of those planes last night and I was in the hangar checking the Wing Zero's control panels. They never knew I was there. I simply entered what I saw them enter to override the bridge's control and open the hangar."
Duo let out an impressed whistle. "Now does the Wing Zero transform?" He asked.
"There's only one way to know for sure…"
The Wing Zero hovered for a few moments as the others landed on top of the Archangel's launch wing to wait. A few shrieks of metal grinding on metal greeted them, forcing them to cover their ears as the sound resounded in their cockpits, before the Wing Zero suddenly returned to its robot mode.
Cheers and relieved sighs were heard from the others before the suits turned towards the battle that had begun raging a short distance away from the Archangel.
"Duo, check the Deathscythe Hell's stealth systems. We'll use it to our advantage." Heero ordered.
"I figured you'd ask for that, good thing I fixed it!" Duo replied as the Deathscythe Hell suddenly vanished.
"Remember to adjust your Gundam's weight for the sandy conditions or else the sand will take you down faster than those mobile suits will…" Quatre warned the others as he began making the adjustments to the Sandrock.
"All right, let's go have some fun." Wufei said as the Altron's thrusters roared to life after he made his adjustments.
"Hey Heero, are you going to just use the twin buster rifle the entire time?" Trowa asked curiously.
Heero smirked in cold amusement. "Of course I'm not… if I did, that wouldn't leave much fun for the rest of you, now would it?"
Trowa and the others chuckled in amusement.
"All right then, since Heero's giving us some to play with: whoever brings the most enemies down doesn't have to do any repairs to his suit for a month!" Duo challenged the others.
They quickly agreed to the challenge, knowing it was meant as motivation for all of them to return from the foreign battlefield, under unknown conditions, alive. Soon all five Gundams took off and headed for the battlefield for the first time since they were created only a few months prior.
Murrue was distracted by issuing orders to the Archangel's crew, so she didn't notice any of the activity that was shown on her small monitor.
"Ma'am! Those Gundams are gone!" Sai said suddenly.
"What?!" Murrue yelled in shock before looking at the monitor. "Where are they headed?"
"It looks like they're going towards the battlefield!"
"Tell them to get back to the ship!" She snapped.
"We can't! We don't know their communication codes or what kind of system they're using!" Sai said with a shake of his head.
"Where's Lieutenant La Flaga?"
"He's in SkyGrasper 1 waiting for the okay to launch!" Chandra said quickly.
"Call him back to the bridge…" Murrue said with a sigh of defeat.
"But why? He should be on the battlefield assisting Kira, especially if those other five are enemies that were waiting for an attack signal!" Natarle protested.
Murrue shook her head. "He wouldn't stand a chance out there, he even said it himself." She said grimly.
"So we're just going to leave Kira to die by an ambush?" Kuzzey asked worriedly.
"We don't know their motivations! They could be going to help him. We have to take the wait and see approach… as much as that pains me. Aim some of the ship's guns at them just in case." Murrue said grimly as she ignored the protests from Mwu over the communication line.
Kira… just please be careful out there… We can only hope you can handle yourself…
She thought as she stared out at the battle.
Kira frowned as four new signals appeared on the radar, heading straight for the battlefield. His radar registered them as four of the five Gundams he had helped rescue.
Why are they coming with their Gundams in such rough shape…?
As he was distracted by the new arrivals, a BuCUE managed to get in close enough to avoid the Aile Strike's long range weapons without there being enough time for it to pull out any of its close ranged weapons.
Kira's eyes widened in horror as he saw the BuCUE's head-mounted beam sabres take aim at the Strike's cockpit.
A powerful long range blast destroyed the incoming BuCUE with ease, along with several others that happened to be nearby.
Kira stared at the strange Gundam that was leading the charge of the new suits. He quickly realized that the Wing Zero was a transforming Gundam, much like the Aegis was.
"You really are a novice if you let a little distraction like a few incoming signals break your concentration in a life or death battle." Heero snapped icily as the Wing Zero blasted past, switching its twin buster rifle for its beam sabre.
"Ouch. Heero? Giving out advice? That's really bad, kid. Get your act together before he kills you by 'accident'" Duo said as the Deathscythe Hell appeared, apparently out of thin air, and slashed at another BuCUE that had launched at Kira from behind.
"Don't just stand there looking like a statue or else you'll die! We're not here to protect your weak hide!" Wufei yelled in irritation as the Altron's Dragon Claws struck home, destroying two BuCUEs.
The Heavyarms stayed back and launched a barrage from its Gatling gun, resulting in a stream of explosions wherever it was fired. Kira quickly snapped out of it and rejoined the fray.
"The God of Death is back on the battlefield!" Duo roared as the Deathscythe Hell destroyed several suits with one swing.
Kira started to worry as the others started making comments about Duo's nickname; he wondered what Duo had done to garner such a nickname.
For every one the Strike brought down, it seemed as though the others were destroying far more.
What the hell are they…?
The potential answers that he came up with greatly worried him.
After a few moments of fighting, he finally realized that the amount of BuCUEs attacking was unusually large considering they were attacking a single Gundam and a weakened ship.
Kira quickly became secretly grateful for their aid, even if it came with some annoying tips and less-than-friendly pieces of advice from the older and more experienced Gundam pilots.
Author's Notes: Sorry to fans of Birdy, but this is one of the only times it appears in the story. And yes, I had to throw in Duo's self-proclaimed status at least once in the story. And no, I will never refer to him as The Great Destroyer. That's just silly.
As for those wondering about what production-models the story Gundams are based off of: each Gundam has been designed to maintain their best performance in any environment without sacrificing certain weapons that had been sacrificed in previous incarnations. The creators of these Gundams have taken the greatest strengths of each of their incarnations (from the original five all the way up to the Customs) and melded them into one Gundam. Yeah. Be afraid.
The Deathscythe Hell is using the Custom's "wing" design because it's more appropriate for the Gundam. It wields the Custom's beam scythe and it retains the buster shield with the beam blade to use as a mid-ranged weapon.
As you can already tell, the Wing Zero takes its design from the original incarnation, but it does have several elements that made the Custom more dangerous, like the complex sensor arrays mounted to the forearms to increase the Twin Buster Rifle's accuracy.
The Heavyarms' arsenal is a combination of Heavyarms Kai and Custom, but it still retains the army knife for close-ranged combat. In fact, I've even increased that: both arms contain an army knife to increase its effectiveness.
The Sandrock regains its Cross Crusher, even though it's use doesn't explicitly happen in this story. It's actually one of the least changed Gundams.
The Altron's Dragon Claws mix the increased range and flexibility of Custom's renditions, while keeping the ability to use the flamethrowers from the original suit.
All of the suits (for the most part) retain the designs from their series incarnations. I know that this should have probably been posted in the first chapter, but I hadn't really thought about it in great detail until now. I hope that helps everyone!