Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam SEED or any of its characters. Ensign Roger Doolittle, Captain Roland Harris, Security Officer Erin Stroud, Squadron Commander Javier Sabato, Jason Pryce, Richard Kane and Dr. Elizabeth Sanford are my own creations.
Chapter 9: Calm
September 27, CE 72, Lagrange Point 5, Martius 4
The PLANTs were very different from Heliopolis, Flay decided as she stared out of the elevator. While there was the obvious difference in geometry, as Heliopolis had been cylindrical and the PLANTs were hourglass-shaped, what really struck her was how much unsettled space existed in these colonies. The elevator was traveling down the central shaft, allowing an unobstructed view of the massive flat area below. While a great landmass occupied the center of the area, the earth was interspersed with rivers and lakes, complete with small islands in them. It even seemed that a vast sea stretched away in all directions, although Flay imagined this to be some sort of optical illusion. They were, after all, in a contained space.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Turning, Flay found Lacus standing beside her, admiring the view.
"Yeah," she replied. "It is." Flay had never been to the PLANTs before, although she had heard Athrun talk about them quite a bit. The young Coordinator's descriptions, however, were nothing compared to the reality of the space colonies.
"It seems like kind of a waste of space, though," Roger said, taking a step closer to the windows. "I mean, if they want people to live in space, is it really a good idea to leave so much of the colony empty like this?" Lacus smiled and shook her head.
"A lot of the colony is made to be wild deliberately," she said. "Entire generations spend their whole lives in here, so they need it to feel as Earth-like as possible. That involves a certain amount of wilderness as well as cities." Roger thought, and then nodded slightly, acknowledging the logic. There was a moment of silence as all simply watched the landscape outside. Flay saw Athrun smile and laugh softly.
"It's amazing," he said, "but being in here, it's easy to forget what's going on outside." Flay glanced back at Roger and saw him look away for a moment. While she hadn't known the Astray pilot they'd lost just outside the PLANTs, Flay knew that Roger had been friends with her. He was handling it very well, but it was obviously still upsetting for him. Wanting to give him something else to think about, the redhead broke the silence.
"Well, it will be nice to get some time off," she said. It wasn't merely a distraction for Roger; she genuinely was looking forward to spending time with Kira and the others. The brunette himself had taken another elevator down to the habitation area, along with his sister and Captain Waltfeld.
"Yeah, it will," Roger said, finally smiling, "although I do have one more errand to run." Flay looked at him questioningly, as did Athrun. "I have to contact my superiors for a debriefing. The Alliance has to know that the Advent Faction is a very real threat to Naturals."
"And to anyone who stands in their way," Athrun added. "They're not terribly fond of me, if you remember." Roger chuckled.
"Right," he said, "because you 'betrayed' ZAFT." Athrun nodded.
"Speaking of ZAFT," Lacus said, "Martius is the center of its aerospace program. The Archangel's mechanics are working with some of our best minds on repairing your ship. They must be honored."
"Honored" was about the last thing Kojiro Murdoch was feeling right now.
The Archangel was currently encased in one of the docking and repair frames arrayed around the ZAFT military station. Eager to see the famous ship, several of ZAFT's best and brightest had volunteered to help with repairs.
At the moment, those same best and brightest were volunteering suggestions on how the Orb warship could be "improved."
"You see," one of them said, gesturing along the length of the ship. "If we just removed this superfluous capacitor bank here, we could cut down on the overall mass and increase the ship's acceleration by ten percent, on par with that of a Nazca-class."
"You can't do that!" Murdoch said. If it weren't for the space suit he was wearing for working on the Archangel's outer hull, he probably would have been pulling his hair out by now. "That 'superfluous' capacitor is what lets the portside Valiant fire!" The ZAFT engineer waved a hand dismissively.
"This ship already has more than enough weapons," he said. "What it really needs is to be as light as possible."
"Would you people stop trying to ZAFT-ify my ship!?" Murdoch exploded. After receiving a surprised look from the engineer, he reined in his frustration and attempted a calmer response. "Look, if you want to work these design ideas into a ZAFT ship, then do it. This vessel, however, is property of the Orb Navy. We just want it back in working order." The ZAFT tech just shrugged.
"Alright," he said, "but don't complain to me when our new battleship class outperforms you." Murdoch rolled his eyes.
"I won't," he said. "Besides, you're going to need everything you've got to be ready for what's coming." The ZAFT engineer's light purple eyes acquired a hint of worry.
"Is it really that bad?" he asked. "I mean, I know they gave you guys trouble, but you're just one ship. If we have the numerical advantage, a splinter faction shouldn't be too hard to handle." Murdoch hesitated for a moment before answering.
"I hope you're right."
Space station Azathoth
"What exactly do you mean by 'our supplies won't be arriving'?" Elizabeth Sanford asked, arching a brow. The young soldier who'd brought her the message hesitated.
"Well," he said, "the problem is due to pirate activity."
"I was under the impression that we owned the pirates," Sanford replied with a hint of irritation. Her work had been set back far enough by Orb's interference, and having common thugs attacking their supply shipments certainly didn't help.
"We don't own these pirates…" the young man said.
"What exactly are you playing at?" the scientist asked. Before the soldier could answer, however, Sanford figured it out herself, and she sighed with irritation. "The Vanguard?" The soldier nodded, wincing, just as a nearby door opened and Sabato walked into the infusion room. The former ZAFT officer stopped, sensing the mood in the room.
"What's going on?" he asked. Sanford shrugged.
"It seems our latest shipment was hit by the Crossbone Vanguard," she said. Sabato looked at the soldier, who nodded.
"Vessels bearing the crest of the Vanguard fell on the supply ship just as it reached turnover and…well, you know their reputation," he clarified. "The ship was sent drifting into a holding pattern outside of L3. No one was killed, but all of the equipment was taken."
"Was this a targeted attack or just their usual random raids?" Sabato asked thoughtfully. Sanford resisted rolling her eyes. By now, it didn't matter if the attack had been random or not.
"We think it was random, Sir, but it won't be now," the young soldier said, echoing Sanford's thoughts. "Most people couldn't begin to comprehend what we would do with that kind of cargo, but the Vanguard aren't most people."
"Brown especially," Sanford added. "He, more than anyone else, may reasonably be expected to deduce what we're up to. He's also likely to take exception to it, given his nature, so we can probably expect interference from the Vanguard in the future." Sabato shrugged.
"Couldn't that work in our favor, though?" he asked. "If we engaged and captured them, you could surely use Brown's nanotechnology to further your research. If we do that, we may not even need to recapture Yamato." Sanford cocked her head slightly.
"At what point did I suggest that I merely wanted to create super-soldiers?" she asked. "What I'm doing is far more important than that, and it's going to require a lot more than micro-machines." Sabato's expression darkened, and he took a step closer to the red-eyed woman.
"Remember our deal," he said. "I deliver Yamato to you, and you give me my army." Sanford's expression remained neutral, but inwardly she rolled her eyes. For all his skill as a military commander, Javier Sabato was annoyingly shortsighted, far too focused on his immediate goals.
"Indeed," she said. "The control systems for your new mobile suits are coming along smoothly. I've linked them to the simulators you provided, so assuming that the machines are up to the level of their simulations…" Sabato nodded.
"Absolutely," he said. "We have completed two-hundred-thirty units and expect to have the remaining twenty finished within a week. My manufacturing teams assure me that the mobile suits meet their specifications in all areas."
"Good," Sanford replied. "Now, as for Brown, I'd imagine we can at least keep him busy?" Sabato nodded.
"I'll relay new turnover coordinates to our suppliers and have the transports change their routes. The escort ships can be scrapped as well, since they'll only slow things down and won't help out in an actual Vanguard attack."
"Very well," Sanford replied. "Now, about Kira Yamato…"
"Surely you're not suggesting that we attack the PLANTs," Sabato said incredulously. Sanford just shook her head.
"No," she replied. "In fact, if we hadn't used the station's thrusters to move it, the PLANTs would no doubt be attacking us right now. As for the boy, he will return to us. It should take just over one week." Sabato's brow furrowed.
"Why would he come back?" Sanford gave one of her signature cold smiles.
"I took out a little insurance," she said. "I'll explain in due time, so go about your business. I have the reacquisition of Yamato under control."
Martius 4
Roger sighed. The habitation area of a PLANT was small, at least compared to many cities on Earth, so why was it so ridiculously hard to find anything here? Before doing anything else, he needed to reach Arzachel and let High Command know what was going on out here. In order to do that, he'd have to reach the colony's communications center.
Of course, it would help if the communications center was actually on the map.
"What are you doing here?" Roger started at the voice, and lowered the map from its position in front of his face. He had wandered into a commons of sorts: an open area with a fairly appealing look. The ground was covered with white tiles of some sort, and a fountain graced the center of the area. The whole place was dressed with greenery.
There was a group positioned by the fountain. Four young men and a blonde girl, all in their late teens, eyed Roger. The voice that had interrupted him had been female, which meant the blonde.
"I'm looking for the communications center for this colony," he said by way of explanation. "It just doesn't seem to be on the map." The blonde rose from her seat on the edge of the fountain and approached Roger.
"No," she said, reaching arm's length and fixing Roger with bright pink eyes. "I meant what's a piece of Earth slime doing here in the PLANTs?" Apparently, she was the leader of this little band, since the four young men moved closer as well, following her lead.
"Here to make sure Coordinators can't live in peace?" One of the guys said. Since he was on official business, Roger was wearing his OMNI Enforcer uniform, and it seemed they weren't pleased with that.
"You apes just have to persecute anybody different from yourselves," another one added. The blonde smiled, and Roger barely managed to suppress a grimace.
"Look," he said, "if you have something against Naturals…" The blonde snorted derisively.
"Don't talk like we're being biased, Goebbels," she spat. This time, Roger didn't suppress his frown.
"You're going to compare me to a Nazi?" the Alliance soldier asked incredulously. The blonde shrugged.
"Nazis, Earth Alliance soldiers, you're all soulless bastards."
"You might want to have a little more respect for someone wearing the uniform," he said firmly, which prompted a laugh.
"Goebbels, that only applies when your uniform stands for something other than genocide and bigotry." Roger wouldn't have minded decking the girl at that point, but the fact was that he was an unofficial representative of the Atlantic Federation here, and he had to act accordingly.
Not to mention how the media would handle any kind of scuffle, he thought. I can see the headline now: "Alliance Soldier Violently Assaults PLANT Civilians!" As luck would have it, the situation didn't progress any further.
"Ensign Doolittle?" a voice called from behind, and Roger turned to see an older man in a green ZAFT uniform standing at the entrance to the courtyard. The new arrival was somewhere in his forties, with a thin build, blue eyes and brown hair.
"Yes?" Roger replied, perhaps with a bit more hostility than he intended.
"I'm Erin Stroud, Chief Security Officer for this PLANT," the newcomer replied. "Captain Ramius informed us that there was an Earth Forces soldier searching for our communications center, and I felt it would be easier for everyone involved if I simply escorted you there." Roger was so relieved at not having to deal with the courtyard gang anymore that he almost laughed.
"Yeah," he said. "That would be great." He turned back to the five courtyard punks. "I'm terribly sorry, but Goebbels has to go now; we'll have to continue this discussion later. Auf wiedersehen!" Roger saluted sharply and goose-stepped out of the courtyard. The ZAFT security officer, Erin, had a puzzled look on his face as he led Roger to his car.
"I take it your exchange with our local activists was unpleasant," he said as the vehicle started moving. Roger laughed.
"Yeah, you could say that," he replied. Erin smiled slightly.
"It's stunning how disrespectful 'peace' activists can be," he said, "although you can't blame them for their viewpoints." Roger shifted uncomfortably at that.
"Well, I can understand them not liking the Alliance, but seriously…Nazi comparisons?" Erin, or perhaps Roger should think of him as "Officer Stroud" now, shrugged.
"Your nation waged a war with the specific intent of exterminating my people," he said. "My daughter turned ten last month, and she wouldn't have lived to see that birthday if your country had succeeded in destroying the PLANTs one year ago."
Out of the frying pan and into the God-damned fire, Roger thought. Now, instead of thugs insulting him, he had an intellectual doing it.
"Yeah, and I happen to have two parents who wouldn't still be alive if your country had succeeded in burning the Earth," the Earth Forces soldier said. Watching Stroud wince, Roger decided this kind of thing wouldn't do any good. "Look, just because our government was taken over by terrorists doesn't mean we're all like that." Stroud raised his hands and shook his head quickly.
"No, no, I wouldn't make such a drastic generalization," he said. "I'm only saying that your government, not you personally but your government, has a history of officially sanctioned atrocities and human rights violations, from prohibiting the PLANTs from growing our own food, to the Mandelbrot incident, the Battle of JOSH-A and the Second Battle of Jachin Due, and that's leaving out recently declassified projects like the Combat Coordinator Program. Aside from Zala, the government of the PLANTs has been relatively innocent. These aren't the opinions of a ZAFT soldier, they are historical fact." Roger pursed his lips and did his best to calm himself before replying.
"That's true," he admitted, "but as I recall, ZAFT isn't exactly as pure as the driven snow." Stroud pulled the car to a stop in front of an entrance to the massive complex of elevators that ran up the colony's central shaft. Roger and he exited the vehicle and walked through a sliding door and into a crowded lobby area. From there, Stroud picked out a specific elevator they needed to use, and the two soldiers stepped into it and waited as it began its long trek to the PLANT's axis of rotation. After a few minutes, Stroud spoke again.
"I'm sorry if I seemed overly accusatory," he said. "Just because I criticize your government doesn't mean I have anything against you personally." After a moment's hesitation, Roger sighed and shrugged.
"Can't be helped," he said. "You'd hardly be getting a warm welcome on Earth." This drew a wry chuckle from Stroud. Silence followed. Their opinions weren't going to match any time soon, so the unspoken "agree to disagree" viewpoint was probably a good place to stop the conversation.
Ten minutes later, the elevator arrived at the center of the PLANT, and Stroud led Roger down a series of unassuming, grey metal hallways, stopping at a door labeled "Central Communications Hub." The door opened into a large room dominated by banks of computer consoles, manned by personnel in ZAFT green. Behind the console banks was a large set of double doors that read "Server Room."
"You have another room for more computers?" Roger asked. Stroud nodded.
"The vast majority of the transmissions we get aren't handled here," he said. "Instead, they're forwarded to their destinations somewhere in the habitation cones. The servers manage and route those transmissions. At any rate, priority communications, like government ones, are done from the consoles in this room. You'll want to contact your superiors from in here." After directing Roger to an empty seat, Stroud pushed off and floated a distance away to give the Alliance soldier some privacy, although he didn't leave the room.
Roger pulled a small card from his pocket, slipped it into a slot on the console in front of him and dialed the number he had been assigned before starting the mission. Atlantic Federation high command didn't want just anyone catching wind of what was going on, and the card Roger had used contained programming for encrypting the message, keeping civilians or the press from listening in. After a moment, the static on the screen disappeared, replaced with the face of Roger's commanding officer, Captain Roland Harris.
"Ensign Roger Doolittle, reporting, Sir," Roger said, saluting. The PLANTs and the Moon were over 384,000 kilometers from each other, so there was a time delay of a little over a second before Roger's salute was visible to Harris. About two and a half seconds after Roger saluted, the Harris on the screen in front of him chuckled.
"You're acting rather formal today," the older man said. Roger shrugged and threw a glance at the ZAFT officers in the room, although Harris wouldn't be able to see them.
"I can't be too friendly in front of ZAFT," he said. Harris was right, of course. Roger wasn't normally too formal with him. He valued the man as a friend and as a mentor, and he quite literally owed Harris his life.
The captain himself was in his early sixties, but had aged well; the wrinkles on his face portrayed age without suggesting infirmity. His short beard and the mustache that merged with it were white, and Roger knew the hair under his beret was the same color.
"Well, then, Ensign Doolittle," Harris said, "what is your analysis of the threat posed by the kidnapping group?" Roger shook his head and sighed.
"I'd say it's a high-level threat, Sir," he said. "The radicals call themselves the Advent Faction and appear to be primarily ZAFT deserters, fanatically devoted to the ideals of Patrick Zala. They have at least three Laurasia-class frigates and at least one Nazca-class destroyer. They have access to black market Earth Forces technology as well as plenty of ZAFT machines. I saw them using GINNs and some CGUEs, but they've got plenty of GuAIZs as well. What's more, they seem to be capable of building G-weapons." On the screen, Harris's brows rose.
"How many do they have?" the older officer asked.
"Hard to be sure," Roger answered. "I've seen one, but there could be more." Captain Harris nodded solemnly.
"Very well," he said. "Continue your mission for now and find out everything you can about this group. I'll pass your information on to Command."
"Aye, Sir," Roger said. "Doolittle out."
September 28, CE 72
"What was it you called this group?" Shiho asked, writing on a notepad as she listened to Kira.
"They called themselves the Advent Faction," the boy replied. They were standing outside of a hangar in one of several ZAFT military facilities in the habitation area. Athrun and Dearka were inside the hangar, taking a look at something, although Kira didn't know exactly what. "I didn't meet many of them, but the person who was around me the most was a scientist. She identified herself as Elizabeth Sanford, and there were several soldiers: Kane, I think his first name was Richard, and a Jason Pryce." Shiho went pale at Kane's name. "You know who he is?" Kira asked. The redcoat nodded.
"Richard Kane was a serial killer in Aprilius," she said. "He killed women mostly; killed them with a knife, over the course of about an hour." She shuddered, and Kira felt a distinct skin-crawling sensation at how close he had been to the man. "We caught him eventually, but someone broke him out of prison about six months ago." Kira nodded.
"I guess we know who did it now," he said. Shiho nodded and went back to her notepad.
"What did you say the other soldier's name was?" she asked.
"Jason Pryce," Kira replied, "and there was another one that Sanford mentioned. I don't remember the name, but it ended in '-ato,' almost like 'Mr. Roboto' as weird as that sounds." Shiho's brow furrowed.
"Was it 'Sabato'?" Kira nodded.
"That's it," he said. Shiho gave a nod of her own.
"You're talking about the Missing Squadron," she said. "After the Second Battle of Jachin Due, when ZAFT was figuring out who we had left, there was a squadron of five ships that we couldn't account for. None of the debris could be positively matched to their ships, so we couldn't call them KIA. The overall commander was one Javier Sabato. The guy was known to be extremely anti-Natural and was a passionate supporter of Patrick Zala. It fits with that decal your friends reported on that command GuAIZ."
"Yeah," Kira said thoughtfully. "Athrun said it was a snake swallowing its own tail." Shiho nodded.
"That's a symbol of Uroboros," she said. "It has a lot of psychological and symbolic meanings, but it's also the name of the operation ZAFT launched when we dropped the N-Jammers on the Earth. A commander…" she clicked the pad's touch screen a few times and scrolled down "…Alexander Stanton, who belonged to the Missing Squadron, decorated his mobile suit with the Uroboros symbol in memory of our first real strike against Earth. Anyway, I think Jason Pryce was a ZAFT redcoat in the same squadron, although I can't say for sure off the top of my head." Kira nodded.
"Do you know anything about Sanford?" he asked.
"No," Shiho replied. "I'll pass the information along and see if someone else knows who she is."
"Alright," Kira said. "I'm going to go see what Athrun is doing in there." Shiho nodded and walked away. Kira walked in through the large hangar doors and proceeded forward until he found Athrun and Dearka. The building's walls were lined with resting mobile suits, and Dearka was pointing to several of them.
"We took out the extensional arrestors and replaced them with the Porcus IX folding railguns, removed the wing thrusters and added thrusters on the rear skirt armor, which allowed us to reduce the mobile suit's cross section and not lose speed. We also tweaked the shield a bit. It's still a composite, but the MA-MV05 has one beam saber, while the MA-MV03 had the two beam claws."
"So it's still basically a GuAIZ," Athrun replied. Dearka nodded.
"Pretty much," he said. "The model number is ZGMF-601R and we flat-out call it a 'GuAIZ R'."
"What's the R for?" Kira asked. Dearka shrugged.
"I don't know," he said.
"I was just curious about what ZAFT has been doing mobile suit-wise since I left," Athrun said by way of explanation.
"Oh, speaking of that," Dearka said, "take a look at this." The redcoat led Kira and Athrun to the very back of the hangar, where a large grey mobile suit stood.
"A Gundam?" Kira asked. Dearka seemed a little puzzled by the term, but turned back to the machine instead of asking further.
"This is the ZGMF-X18 Diligence," he said. "It's a new G-weapon that's an attempt at a true transforming machine. No other new technology, just the best of what we have now." The mobile suit stood over eighteen meters tall, and was crowned with the V-fin characteristic of Gundams. Wings were visible on its back, and the barrel of some spinal mount weapon projected upwards from behind its head. The Diligence held a beam rifle in one hand, and a shield similar to that of the GuAIZ Rs was mounted on its other arm.
"It's certainly impressive," Athrun said. "What's the power source?"
"I'm not sure if it was ever meant to be nuclear, but it isn't now," Dearka replied. "The Junius Treaty took that option off the table."
"Is it going to be fielded?" Kira asked. Dearka shrugged.
"I don't know. I think it's more of a testbed, although it would probably do pretty well if you took it into combat."
"Dearka!" All three Coordinators turned to see Yzak entering the hangar.
"What's up?" the blonde responded.
"The reconnaissance GINNs we sent after the terrorists just reentered communication range."
"Yeah, and you have a nice day too," Roger said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He'd just finished his second video conference with Captain Harris, and instead of Stroud, he'd had some anonymous ZAFT soldiers who hadn't been shy about expressing their distaste for him. So now, as he made his way through the ZAFT complex to meet up with Kira and Athrun, he was not in the best of moods. According to Captain Harris, a Special Forces team would be en route from Arzachel in a few days, along with a small Eurasian force, but that really wasn't helping him right now.
I swear, if one more self-righteous ZAFT elitist decides to tell me how evil my country is, this war is going to start all over again, right here, right n—
And Roger collided with someone as he turned the next corner, the impact knocking both of them to the ground. As he pulled himself to a sitting position, he saw that he had run into a young man in a variant of the ZAFT green uniform, albeit lacking any markings and in pastel colors, no more than fifteen years old, with black hair that hung forward, almost down to his crimson eyes.
"Sorry," the boy said, standing up.
"It's fine," Roger said, perhaps a little too harshly. He moved to stand himself, before seeing a hand stretched out to help him up. Taking it, he found that it was attached to an incredibly beautiful young girl, about the same age as the boy. She was wearing a pink version of the boy's pastel uniform, and had neck length red hair and deep blue eyes. After she helped him to his feet, Roger just stared at her for a second, prompting the boy to roll his eyes.
"I'll leave you two alone, then," he said, walking off. The girl made an irritated face.
"Shinn!" she said, and then turned back to Roger, shaking her head. "Sorry about that. I'm Lunamaria, but my friends just call me Luna. What's your name?" Something about the inquisitive smile that accompanied that question made Roger grin too.
"I'm…er…I'm…" He fumbled a couple times, causing her eyebrows to rise and her smile to turn mischievous.
"Are you always this talkative?" she asked.
"Erm…God, I used to know this…Roger! I'm Roger Doolittle." Luna laughed at this.
"Well, it's nice to meet you," she said. "I'm guessing by the uniform that you're not from around here." Roger chuckled and shook his head.
"No, I'm not," he said. "You know the Orb ship that's docked here?"
"Yeah," Luna said, some excitement creeping into her voice, "the famous one from the war, right?"
"I'm helping them out on their current mission," Roger answered.
"Cool," Luna replied, before her expression turned a bit more embarrassed. "I'm still in training."
"Nothing wrong with that," Roger said supportively. "It's a necessary thing. So, I know this is kind of off-topic, but are you doing anything later?"
"What?" Yzak asked. "Are you sure they were at the coordinates we specified?"
"Absolutely, Commander Joule," Shiho replied. "There was evidence of recent activity, though. Some of the larger pieces of debris appeared to have had pieces cut out of them, almost like small-scale mining."
"But the space station isn't there?" Athrun joined in.
"According to the pilots, it was gone," the girl replied. Kira shook his head in confusion.
"How do you move an entire space station?" Dearka asked.
"Well," Kira said, "I don't know about the PLANTs, but Heliopolis and other colonies like it had huge thrusters mounted on the outer hull. The whole colony could be moved if it was necessary."
"Damn it!" Yzak growled. "Once again, we come away with nothing."
"Speak for yourselves," a new voice said. Kira looked over to see Roger walking towards them, waving a piece of paper.
"Is that intelligence?" Kira asked.
"Better," Roger said. "It's that ZAFT chick's phone number!"
The next week passed relatively uneventfully. The PLANT mechanical team worked on repairs for the Archangel, the crewmembers relaxed among the locals, and ZAFT reconnaissance teams made further searches for Azathoth.
It was now October 5, CE 72, and the group of friends had gathered at a local restaurant that specialized in, of all things, seafood. Kira, Flay to his right, sat on one side of the table, with Athrun and Cagalli at the other. Lacus sat to Kira's left, and Roger and Luna were seated on Kira's right. Luna was enjoying some off time, and Roger had invited her to dinner.
"It almost makes me want to laugh," Athrun said. "A passionate ZAFT cadet and an extremely patriotic Earth Forces soldier actually going out." Roger swallowed the mouthful of crab cake he had been chewing and spoke.
"Do you have to bring that up on our first date?" he asked, but was stopped by Luna waving her hands dismissively.
"Roger seems like a good guy, so I'm not going to bother him about what country he's from unless it's really important," she said. Roger smiled at this.
"It's not like we're any more normal," Kira added, prompting small laughs from Athrun, Cagalli, Lacus and Flay. Luna took a bite of her dinner and leaned forward.
"So how did you all get to know each other?" she asked. Athrun took the lead on the explanation.
"Kira and I have known each other forever," he said, "at least since we were, what, five?" Kira winced momentarily as an uncomfortable sensation passed through his stomach, but regained his composure and nodded.
"Around five or six," he said. "Athrun is the closest thing I've had to a brother. Anyway, we were friends for about seven years, until Athrun left Copernicus to go back to the PLANTs. We ran into each other again three years later, only we were on opposite sides of the battlefield…" Luna winced at this, and Roger had a similar reaction.
"Dude, that had to suck," he said, prompting Athrun to chuckle and Kira to nod.
"We were on the same side by the end of the war," the brunette said. "Athrun met Cagalli in a strange way too." All eyes turned to the other pair now.
"We were stranded on an island together," Cagalli explained somewhat reluctantly.
"That is so sweet!" Luna exclaimed, causing Athrun to laugh and Cagalli to blush.
"Don't make a big deal out of it," she muttered. This only caused Roger to laugh harder.
"Alright," he said, calming down. "What about you two?" Kira shrugged.
"Flay and I went to the same school at Heliopolis," he said. His stomach lurched again, and he decided he'd have to remember to stay away from the chowder. "I…well, I liked her for a while, but I was always too scared to say anything to her."
"I'll vouch for that," Flay said. "Whenever I caught him looking at me, he'd turn away as fast as he could." Everyone laughed at that.
"Anyway," Kira said, "we ended up on the Archangel after Heliopolis was destroyed, and later, well…" Kira trailed off when he noticed Flay shifting uncomfortably in her chair. "I was in pretty bad shape and Flay really helped me out. I probably wouldn't have lived through our time in the desert if it wasn't for her." All eyes turned to Lacus.
"Well," she said, "I was originally betrothed to Athrun, but we…went our separate ways, and I later met Kira when he was injured and was being cared for in the PLANTs. We're all really good friends now." Kira knew that Lacus was leaving a lot of details out, and it seemed Flay knew it too, since her expression darkened with guilt. Kira moved to say something, but was cut off by a sudden burst of static. Everyone's attention shifted to the television set mounted in the corner of the room. After a moment, the static cleared and was replaced with the face of a man in a white ZAFT commander's uniform. He was somewhere in his late thirties or early forties, and had a dark complexion and a goatee.
"My name is Javier Sabato," the man said. "I am a soldier of ZAFT."
"Can we go back to the news?" one of the other customers asked. A waiter attempted to change the station, to no avail.
"This is on every channel," the man said, somewhat nervous now.
"When I speak of ZAFT," Sabato continued, "I do not refer to the weak-willed organization that claims to defend your freedom. No, that is not ZAFT. Things, unfortunately, are far worse." Uneasy murmurs were now drifting through the crowd.
"This man is with the Advent Faction, I assume" Lacus asked. Her normally serene face had taken on a much harsher countenance as she watched the man on the screen.
"Yeah," Kira said. "The girl on the Joule Team, Shiho, said this guy was probably the leader."
"The treaty presented at the remains of Junius Seven is a lie, signed by traitors, and does not deserve to be recognized by any just nation! Remember, comrades, why the war began. We Coordinators wished only to live in peace, and in response to our desire, what was done? Coordinators were tormented on Earth, and when we fled to space, the hatred of the Naturals knew no bounds, and they came after us! The Bloody Valentine War was fought for the true freedom of all Coordinators: the freedom from our persecution at the hands of the Naturals!
The men and women who call themselves your leaders hide from this truth. They have abandoned the just cause of the Coordinators; forgotten it, but we have not forgotten! We will fight to ensure that Coordinators have a future, a future where Naturals are no longer free to commit their atrocities!
Before our detractors raise the issue, let no man call us terrorists. Terrorists blow up buses, take hostages and fire on civilians at random. Terrorists shoot down ships carrying food supplies. Terrorists attack civilians with nuclear weapons! To my mind, terrorists have forfeited the right to be considered people at all; the only reason to take them alive is for interrogation. Terrorists are vermin in need of extermination, AND WE ARE THE EXTERMINATORS!
We are the Advent Faction, and as our name implies, we are a new dawn for Coordinators. Those who suffer under the oppression wrought by the Naturals, seek us out. Those who would persecute Coordinators out of envy…you will learn to fear us."
With that, the transmission ended and the news broadcast from before resumed.
"Son of a bitch," Roger said. Kira moved to stand up, but the sickening feeling rose in his stomach again. He waited, but this time it didn't pass, only growing stronger with each passing second. Kira felt Flay reach over and grasp his shoulder, and then the feeling reached a breaking point, and he bent over and vomited onto the floor.
Space station Azathoth
"Well, well," Sanford said as Sabato entered the infusion room. "That was quite the speech." Sabato gave a faint smile.
"It was inevitable that this moment would come," he said. "Our enemies must know that they do not stand unchallenged, and the soldiers among ZAFT who may still join us need to know they have that choice." Sanford nodded.
"As for my contribution…" The scientist tossed a small object to Sabato, who caught it and turned it over in his hand, examining it. The object in question was a small vial filled with pale yellow liquid.
"What is it?" the soldier asked. Sanford displayed one of her trademark unnerving smiles.
"It's called Proteus," she said. "It's a virus I built specifically to defeat the Coordinator immune system." Sabato almost laughed.
"That's impossible," he said. "Coordinators don't catch deadly diseases, ever." Sanford merely shook her head.
"That was true back when Coordinators first appeared, but bacteria and especially viruses evolve very fast, and Coordinator illnesses started appearing in the mid fifties or sixties at the latest. Generally speaking, Coordinators who fall seriously ill are quarantined until either a cure is found or they die, and the cases are usually kept quiet, leaving the public with their precious illusion of invulnerability. The fact is that the doctors at the PLANTs aren't as good at treating infectious diseases as Naturals are, since Coordinators shrug off most illnesses with their 'perfect' immune systems." Sabato kept his expression calm and composed, doing his best to hide his disquiet at Sanford's words.
"Why did you engineer this?" he asked.
"Political assassinations, mostly," was the answer. "Infect your target, and he dies perhaps a week and a half later, with little or no evidence of how he caught the disease. As you might suspect, Proteus is one of my best selling creations." Sabato knew that much of the Advent Faction's funding came from the sale of Dr. Sanford's bio-weapons, but he hadn't known precisely what she sold.
"You infected Yamato with this?" he asked.
"Correct," Sanford answered. "When I discovered that the Archangel was on its way to the station, I added a small amount of Proteus to Yamato's intravenous drip. The virus contains DNA coding for upwards of one hundred different protein coats. I can assure you that Yamato's immune system won't be able to keep up." Sabato nodded in understanding.
"Then I believe it is time to make our operation a mobile one," he said. "I'll begin emptying the station and moving out all personnel."
Archangel escape shuttle
Flay's hands shook as she tapped at the shuttle's controls, and she took a deep breath, blew it out and did her best to steady herself.
If this worked, Kira would be alright. If it didn't…
"He has some sort of infection we've never seen before," Dr. Morino said, standing with them all outside the Archangel's infirmary. "He's not contagious; it looks like the disease isn't airborne, but it's also showing no signs of slowing down."
"Well, can't you just make a vaccine?" Cagalli chimed in. Flay nodded, seconding the question. The medical professional shook her head.
"I can't and neither can the PLANT doctors," she said. "We can design a vaccine to neutralize one type of virus based on its protein coat, but we found at least five in the first blood sample we took. By the time I'd shipped a sample to the Martius doctors, there were two more strains in the sample. This thing is either mutating incredibly fast or it has a genetic code like I've never seen before." Flay's heart sank.
"How long does he have?" Athrun asked. Dr. Morino, Kari, shrugged helplessly.
"At the rate the symptoms are progressing now, I'd say three more days; four at the most." Athrun's gaze dropped to the floor, Cagalli gritted her teeth, and it was all Flay could do not to cry.
Bracing herself for the acceleration, Flay pulled on the shuttle's throttle, jolting back in her seat as the small craft burst from one of the tiny ports on the Archangel's bow. They would notice her departure, and they would follow, but it would take the big ship a while to come fully online, and Flay knew there had to be regulations to be followed before they could leave the dock.
She had a good head start, and she continued accelerating for a while longer, ensuring she was moving at several miles per second before cutting thrust and letting the shuttle move with its own inertia. She paused to look back into the passenger compartment, where Kira lay along one of the seats, sleeping for the moment.
After Athrun and Cagalli left, Flay walked into the infirmary and sat down beside Kira's bed. He had to be exhausted, but he was still awake, staring at the ceiling. A bedpan lay near the foot of the bed. It was just a precaution, though; Kira had long since emptied his stomach. Flay reached out and put a hand on his forehead, feeling his temperature.
"You should try to sleep," the redhead said. Kira shook his head.
"I can't," he said. He didn't elaborate, and that made Flay even more nervous.
"Please tell me what's wrong," she said, but the Coordinator shook his head.
"I'll be okay," was all he said, and the uncertainty and fear in his voice caused tears to well up in Flay's eyes.
"No secrets, Kira," she said, doing her best to keep her voice calm and level. "I know you want to be strong for me, but you don't have to be." Flay saw Kira's own eyes glistening with tears as he answered.
"I've never been sick before, Flay," he said. "There was that time in the desert, but I've never really been sick…and I…I'm scared. I'm scared of it, Flay." He did start crying then, and Flay pulled him to her, covered his face with gentle kisses, and rocked him back and forth, repeating to him that she loved him, and that everything was going to be alright.
Everything is going to be alright, she thought as she operated the shuttle's communications controls. I'm not going to let you die, Kira.
Tuning in to the International Rescue Channel, Flay put the headset on and spoke into the microphone.
"This is an escape shuttle off the Archangel calling any Advent Faction forces in range. I have Kira Yamato on board. I repeat: I have Kira Yamato on board." For a moment, there was nothing. The video screen remained blank and nothing but static was audible in the headset. She was opening her mouth to repeat the call when the static cut off and the image of a red-eyed woman, with long black hair and skin almost as pale as the lab coat she wore, appeared on the screen.
"This is Doctor Elizabeth Sanford," the woman said. "You have Yamato aboard that shuttle?" Flay nodded.
"Did you make him sick?" the redhead asked. Sanford's reply was quick and simple.
"Yes," she said, not so much as batting an eye. Anger at the woman boiled up inside of Flay, but she clamped down on it. She had to stay calm for Kira.
"If I bring him to you," Flay said, "can you fix it?"
"Absolutely," Sanford replied. Flay nodded.
"Send me the coordinates."
Author's Note: This fic is not dead and neither am I! My apologies to everyone who thought this chapter was going to be up yesterday. In my defense, I thought it was going to be up yesterday too.
The title of this chapter comes from the title of a Blue Gender episode, although the chapter and the episode are not otherwise related.
Before anybody asks, this is not turning into any sort of weird Gundam SEED/Gundam F91 crossover. The Crossbone Vanguard inclusion is a reference to another author (Stormturmoil) who is writing a CE Crossbone Vanguard story. This was both a shout-out and a quasi-cameo for his main OC.
In case anyone's curious, the R in GuAIZ R stands for Reinforced.
Those of you who are UC fans will probably have noticed this already, but Sabato's speech is meant to reference the one made by Aiguille Delaz, particularly the "the treaty is a lie" bit. While I started writing this story before I ever saw Stardust Memory, when I did watch it I was struck by the similarities between the Delaz Fleet and the Advent Faction, and at least wanted to make a nod to that here.
On a further note, when Dr. Sanford talks about Coordinator diseases appearing in the "fifties and sixties", she is talking about the CE 50's and 60's, not about anyone's age.
The last scene was kind of a narrative experiment for me, jumping back and forth between what Flay's doing now and what happened in sickbay several hours earlier. I hope that wasn't too confusing.
Finally, I apologize if it seems that the story is going back to where it started. Rest assured that is not true. While we are returning to the space station, things are going to be quite different.
Next Chapter: The Archangel heads for Azathoth once more, but this time it's not alone.