Respect between Enemies – The BetanWerecat

Gundam Seed: "Descending Sword" and after. OCs with appearances by canon characters. The actions of Kira, Athrun, and the others have far reaching effects. Not all things that begin as acts of war must stay such. Rated T for language and openly acknowledged but off screen activity. (Reviews are welcomed but not required. This is written only for my own enjoyment. Flaming me will get you ignored.)

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed.

"Ito! What the hell is that damn Natural doing?"

Adrian was braking his GINN and dropping like a stone as his teammate shouted to him. He snorted. Was Baki nearsighted? How obvious could it get? The Alliance pilot was making one hell of a try at getting out alive.

"He's trying to put the ship down, what do you think he's doing?" Adrian snapped. "The shape that thing's in I'm amazed it's still flying let alone answering its helm."

"Well, can you hit it? I don't want that one getting away!"

"Not from this angle." Adrian lied. "In a few more seconds I'll have a clean shot at him."

"He'll be down by then!"

"So what if he is? You think he's gonna be clear of the ship that fast? He's a Natural, Lon. How fast do you think he can run?"

His only answer was a dissatisfied sounding grunt. He could understand Lon's point of view. This was one very dangerous Natural. He'd taken out at least two atmospheric DINNs before Adrian had started chasing him. He'd put Holman into the ocean – and the idiot was so lucky there was a submarine carrier close by when he hit or he'd have drowned. Then he'd tossed off his damaged gun pods and managed to knock Lubbek out of the fight as well. But he was worth respecting. And he was out of the fight now with no way to get back in. It was stupid and he knew it but Adrian was honestly reluctant to just butcher the guy. He deserved something better. Damned if one Lt. Ito could figure out what that better should be but the guy deserved it anyhow.

He turned his suit midair to follow the enemy as the failing mobile armor headed for a landing at what was definitely too high a speed. No, it looked like the Alliance pilot's luck had finally run out. He was only twenty meters above the ground now and still going at over three hundred k. It was going to be fast and messy but it should only last for instants if he hit the ground like this.

And then he saw the canopy fly off and the ejection seat explode upward. Seconds, and a couple hundred meters later, the ship slammed into the rocky ground and huge gouts of smoke and flame covered the area. But his tracking gear had no trouble following the ejection seat and the life signs of the pilot as they sailed clear of the wreckage to land hard but not fatally near the rim of the cliff.

"Well, took care of himself for us." Baki noted bluntly.

"The ship ran out of sky." Adrian agreed truthfully, glad Lon didn't seem to have his own tracking gear turned on.

"I'm heading for the main gate. I always wanted to see what an Earth Alliance main Headquarters looks like."

"All right." Adrian agreed. "I'll just make sure we haven't missed anything here. This isn't a guy we want coming back like a cat with nine lives."

"Suit yourself." Baki replied indifferently as he turned his GUUL toward the broken gate. He did head far enough inland to avoid the battle around the legged ship. Adrian grinned. Trust Lon to go exploring rather than fighting if he could.

Adrian put full braking power on to bring his GINN down safely near the ejection seat, very mindful of the damage to the left leg. The landing was as gentle as he could manage, even so, the suit wobbled ever so slightly. He couldn't be sure if it was from the damage or just the uneven terrain though.

There were no Alliance combat troops or fighter craft in the immediate area so it was safe enough to land. The closest action was all around the legged ship a couple k's up the bay. That fight was drifting his way; he would not have a lot of time here to check things out.

He flipped the magnification up to study the pilot still strapped into the ejection seat. The seat itself was surrounded now by its deflated landing balloons. The Natural had gotten out alive alright, and according to his sensors, pretty much undamaged too. The angle of view wasn't very good. He couldn't see much beyond the left arm and leg. Then they moved. The man was conscious.

Adrian watched closely as the enemy very carefully untangled himself from the safety gear that had saved his life. He pushed the top shock bar up and lifted his helmet off. A wave of blue-black hair cascaded to his shoulders. Slowly and carefully, like it hurt to move, the pilot staggered to his feet, staring at the burning wreckage of his mobile armor and apparently unaware of the massive GINN standing silently behind him. Him? Adrian looked again.

Ah, since when did any guy come with hips like that? Or a sharply defined waist like this Alliance pilot had. And that hair, which fell below the shoulder blades when the pilot stood up, was way too long for any male in the EA to get away with. Adrian Ito felt his jaw go slack. This damn hot shot top gun Natural pilot was a girl?

Then she turned around and saw his GINN. The eyes went wide with shock. Adrian felt like something had just kicked him in the gut. She was beautiful. And it wasn't the designed beauty so common in the Plants either. This was something much older, the unplanned results of genetic accident. Even back home where physical attractiveness was the norm, this girl would catch eyes everywhere she went.

Rich, red-bronze skin. High, wide cheekbones. Pure, vivid emerald eyes. A strong nose and a generous mouth. The heart shaped face came to a neatly rounded point at the end of the rather sharply tapered jaw. She was tall measured against the ejection seat. Probably almost as tall as he was. Lean too. But definitely a girl. Oh yeah, the way she filled out that flight suit; most definitely female. Killing her would be a criminal waste. It required absolutely no imagination to come up with much better things to do with a girl like this.

The ride down happened so fast Kayla didn't have time to be frightened. There was too much to do and too little time to get it all done. The Zero was failing under her as it dropped and was harder and harder to control the closer the ground got. Then the earth was flashing past only yards below. It was time and past time to get out!

The canopy popped immediately as she hit the eject button. The incredible compression of the jets boosting the seat clear of the Zero smashed her body into a tight wad in the bottom of the support harness. Without that harness, the power of the ejection would probably have broken bones. As it was, there were long seconds when no air could enter her lungs because her muscles weren't strong enough to force the lungs open against the pressure. She grayed out as all the blood was driven into the lowest points in her body by the g-forces.

Then there was no pressure at all as she hit the top of the arc and went from crushing pressure to near weightlessness in an instant. Air whooped back into her lungs then and her body straightened abruptly. Now the seat was falling. Instead of being compressed, she was being stretched. Every bone, muscle and nerve protested this abuse. Her head felt like it was going to explode as the blood came roaring back, drawn up by the same kind of g-force that had been pulling it down only moments ago.

There was a vicious slam, then she was bouncing across the landscape. One, two, three, four times the seat and its protective landing balloons smacked into the rocky Alaskan ground. Each hit was softer than the one before it. The forth and last time the seat hit and stuck, rocked savagely for a second before the balloons deflated, then there was one final bump before all motion stopped.

Kayla was dizzy and almost sick. It was easier to let her eyes close than to try to move. The universe got very dark for some unknown time.

It was the sound of a major fire close at hand that caught her attention solidly enough to drag her back to wakefulness. She pried her eyes open and tried to make them focus. The first attempts were questionable in their success but eventually she recognized the rolling clouds of darkness and redness as her burning Zero. A few more blinks and the whole picture came into focus.

Her wrecked ship was a good three hundred yards off. By the look of it, it would burn out very soon now. There really wasn't all that much that was flammable on a space ship. So she'd only been out of it for few minutes at the most or it would already have burned down to near ash. She needed to see if she could stand and if she could walk once she got upright. That fire might attract ZAFT attention. No, it would attract it. The only question was when they would check it out. She didn't want to be here when they arrived. ZAFT didn't often take prisoners. She was down alive, she'd like to stay that way.

Moving hurt. It reminded her that ejection was considered a last ditch emergency procedure for a reason. Fortunately the safety harness release was working and it let her out readily. She felt like an arthritic turtle, she was sure she was moving slower than one. Pushing the upper safety bar of the seat back was a challenge. Yet for all that it really only took her a minute or so to get straightened around enough to be able to pull her helmet off.

Oh, did the crisp fresh air feel good! It stank of course. A burning space ship was not a bed of roses. But it was cool, mostly clean, and didn't reek of bad recycler filters. The quality of stenches was all relative after all. She dropped the now useless helmet and used the sturdy frame of the ejection seat to stagger to her feet.

Once on her feet, Kayla could see a bit further. There was no immediate sign of any ZAFT ground units moving in to check on the fire, which was good. There was also no road up here, which was bad. She had nothing with her but the small emergency kit stashed under the seat and the gear she was wearing. Alaska was not a good place even in this day and age for just setting out on a casual cross country hike without a plan and proper equipment.

The height of the cliff she was on let her see a good way. Josh-A was not fully visible, it was at least eight or nine miles off, but it was clear even from this distance that the battle was effectively over. There was almost nothing but ZAFT mobile suits up in the sky anymore. There was a huge column of smoke coming from over near the area where the main gate was so it was probably taken.

There was still a battle raging behind her though. She turned to see who the holdout was, a mental bet giving long odds to it being the Archangel. Yeah, the new battleship was still hanging in there. Then something a lot closer registered and she could feel her eyes widening.

A GINN, there was a GINN standing only about twenty yards behind her. Her eyes ran over the battered machine, noting the damage, finally settling on a rather nasty chunk missing from the lower left leg. She swallowed once. Ok, she knew just which GINN this was now. So it was going to be the Elder's kind of day after all.

She didn't run. Maybe she couldn't, maybe she just wouldn't. She did pull herself up to nearly at attention straight and then she just stood there, waiting for him to do whatever he was going to do.

Ok, so, now he had to decide what he was going to do. Captain Thoms would be very, very pissed if he just brought in some Natural prisoner with no better reason than he wanted to. He might understand if he told him all about how skilled a pilot she was. Yeah, and he might enquire why she wasn't already dead if she was that dangerous. Or, Adrian thought very slowly, he could try Grandfather's idea on his Captain.

He stopped himself right there. That, . . . . . . . , was not a good thought. Grandfather's idea of what to do with Naturals was not a civilized thing. Nor did the fact that it had full Council approval make it any better in his mind. Point of fact, that approval made the Supreme Council a whole lot worse in his view.

Uncivilized yes, but it was an idea the Team could go along with. It definitely would keep them from slaughtering the girl out of hand. And, barbaric or not, it was genetically sound. It made a lot more sense than Chairman Zala's utterly wasteful, completely nutso idea of mass genocide did too.

He glanced at the display of the battle around the legged ship just in time to see a GINN finally manage to get set up in front of their bridge. Ah, that was too bad as well in a way. The legged ship's people had been gallant enemies. They would be a real loss in more ways than one.

The bolt that cut the GINN's weapon apart came from directly above it. Adrian's eyes tried to track it but the mobile suit moved too quickly as it raced in, beheading the GINN who's pilot was too slow to react and taking a position directly in front of the legged ship's bridge. Once it stopped moving, he could only stare at it. What the hell was it? And who had built it? He'd never seen a mobile suit like this before!

The mostly white machine had blue wings edged in deep gray that obviously housed weapons, touches of blue and red about the body and limbs and a more of that same deep gray on the torso and knee joint area. A shield was mounted on the left arm. It carried a heavy beam gun in the right hand. It was a gorgeous thing. It was armed to the teeth too if his sensors weren't lying.

Then it shot up above the legged ship, paused and fired. Adrian stared in shock. How many weapons had it fired simultaneously? At least three major beam/energy weapons on both side! And unless he was reading everything dead wrong, every shot had hit! What the hell was this thing? And who the hell had the skill to fly it? It was defending the legged ship, so it had to be an EA suit, but where and how had the Naturals ever built one with capabilities like this?

His headset suddenly crackled to life. A youthful but very determined voice rang in his ears.

"Attention ZAFT and Earth Alliance forces! Any moment now the Cyclops system will activate and the Alaska base will self-destruct! Both sides, please cease firing and withdraw from this area immediately! I repeat, the Cyclops system will activate and the base will self-destruct. Both sides, cease firing and withdraw immediately!"

Adrian Ito suddenly couldn't breath. He could see the whole logic instantly. They had already withdrawn the best of their troops and the majority of their equipment from the area to Panama. What was here, with the exception of the legged ship and individual soldiers like the Zero pilot, were all older forces with outdated gear. Troops a callous commander who thought only in terms of how many enemies he could kill would consider readily expendable. Blue Cosmos made most of the decisions for the Atlantic Federation now; everyone knew it. They were rabid dogs. They would spend whatever and whoever they had to kill Coordinators.

He looked back at the girl. She was gaping at the new mobile suit. He couldn't blame her for that. A Cyclops bomb, he shook his head, unsure if he was more mad or scared. That could destroy an area many kilometers across. He looked at the girl again, struck once more by her beauty. Damn it! Her bastard commanders weren't killing this one!