-scene break-
For years there had been some discontent within the ranks, even after the Federation had split apart giving rise to various nations. Too much had been lost for the so called 'progress' that had been made, there was simply too much in the way of history that peopled remembered. That was how a lot of people in China felt, too much Chinese territory had been lost.
Despite the advent, or even in spite of the advent of float technology, knightmare combat remained a very ground oriented affair. The surprise attack on Fukouka base by the Lancelot during the attempted invasion of Kyushu years ago had proven that you could had a good chance of draining an enemy's batteries if they relied too much on high energy systems. Fukouka, despite the historical success of the Lancelot in critical battles, was the outlier and no general would have expected such an outcome. 'Realistically' Fukuoka should have been a drawn out conflict requiring a knock down drag out fight. It should have been months. Instead, Zero, and Suzaku Kurrugi had together shown up in seventh generation frames and won the battle in a day. No one had seen it coming.
The General in charge of the fleet didn't expect any such miracles. The first shots by the horribly outdated ships had been a series of two and half inch shells. Ironically the old coast guard cutter was a ship bought from its way from the scrap yards. It had been a stop gap measure while the Philipines had tried to buy upgrades of its military.
Five years wasn't near enough time. Of course no body, nationally at least, had the budget to really splurge on upgrade programs, at least in the Pacific. Britannian and the EU could afford to an extent, but that was a much more recent development. Neither Britannia or the EU were involved in this dispute either.
The general adjusted his helmet nervously. The Chinese Navy had never been all that, certainly not compared to the EU or Britannia which was odd considering they to had continental ranges to defend. Of course the Chinese defense strategy had always been one of scorched Earth. The EU and Britannia only indulged such plans when fighting in Africa.
This kind of insult couldn't stand. The initial attack had been uncoridinated, but the speed boats laden with explosives that hadn't been. If it had just been the initial burst of shells maybe this could have been avoided, Maybe the captain of that one ship, which had already been out of formation to start with had been disobeying orders, but it didn't matter now. "What is our status?" The speedboats laden with explosives were something unorthodox. Without a major conflict training and doctrine for non conventional threats, such as those employed by resistance groups had fallen in disuse. The techniques were drilled maybe every few months, which now clearly a major problem.
"We have offloaded the gun rus. They are in the water."
The General nodded, he could see that fact. It was on the ground where the battle would be decided today. Neither side had any real air assest that they could bring into play... officially. The Ikaruga-class ship was merely 'observing'. It was true that the ship might have been relaying certain bits of information, but was that not observing after all. Certainly he would have preferred the use of their hadron cannons, but it could not be helped. Just because the- the ship abruptly was filled with the sound of ringing of klaxons.
"In bound collision warning torpedoes in the water,"
PT boats most likely probably using one of the smaller islands as cover from sonar, submarines were unlikely and they had seen little but a handful of coast guard cutters. "Tell the knightmares to hurry up," The ships couldn't maneuver at this depth, they'd risk running aground, or hit their own knightmares. It was true the old gun rus were amphibious capable, but there was a limit.
"Counter measures deployed, detonations." There were a series of explosions across the surface, and then collossion warnings as the second wave of attack came. Shoulder mounted missiles from cheap little boats. Whomever was organizing these guys was good.
In the water, with the gun rus, the vibrations were like a thousand times worse. It simply just wasn't worth the cost, both monetary or from an effectiveness standpoint, to try and blow up the Gun Rus with the torpedoes. General Han Fei were already making the track to the shoreline at best possible speed so the only option was to get through the field of fire.
It was obvious the Philipine forces had some kind of foreign support. Outdated as the missiles, and torpedoes may have been they were were still French made, which meant a foreign supplier at some point in the supply. Outdated didn't however mean ineffective as one of the foilage covers gave way to a French built MM38 Exocet anti ship missile. The source became readily clear as the first of several fast attack missile boats spead out from the foilage cover.
They were by an large to late to get clear as hundreds of rounds from Chinese tertiary guns opened up, soaking the area in high explosive radio frequency detonated shells. Two boats went up in explosive fireballs immediately, while a third still managed to deploy another anti ship missile before crack in half from an overstressed hull.
It wasn't unheard of. The EU had sold much of its outdated stocks after the war, both as a part of the UFN encouraged draw down on arms, and to simply get rid of outdated systems. The newly independent Republic of the Philipines just happened to be in the market, and were UFN sanctioned buyers. Of course a handful of Excot missiles and some old Fast Attack Craft were one thing, even a single Gefjon disturber unit was another matter entirely. China had made damned sure, to the point it had been one of Li's final acts, to make sure all submarines equipped with the systems were firmly under Chinese control. That meant that outside of the Britannians, Japan, or possibly China that India was the only one likely to be able to produce the technology.
From the shore line Philipine controlled Gun Ru, distinguished by their blue color scheme lined up and waited. They'd have the advantage, well for a handful of bloody minutes. If the Chinese remaining surface ships could get in range they could attempt to bombard them.
-scene break-
Lelouch clicked the sattelite footage off. He'd shrugged off his double breasted coat earlier, at the very start of the meeting. Expecting Lihua to resolve this would be expecting too much. This was one of the few situation was conflicted about Li being dead. The Chinese general had been walking affront to Lelouch's ego. That had been in part because it'd been like the Chinese had taken him and Suzaku and some how managed to combine the two. The man had been a positively obnoxious nightmare both on and off the battlefield.
Naturally it had been idealistic for peace to last. Sooner or later a regional conflict would have flared up, but had Li still been alive... well this brazen stupidity wouldn't have happened. Of course if Li had lived longer there would likely have been other problems. Lelouch had no doubts about that. Li was dead though, and that was the truth for all its problems, and all the problems it spared him of having to deal with.
As it was though he wanted to throttle the entire continental delegation. India had its own problems independence from the Federation hadn't changed that, but it was the pacific rim that was the problem. China in the modern era had never been particularly keen on the navy. Of course had they been had their first series of Lihua's ancestors been interested it was likely Lelouch's ancestors would have quickly 'cured' them of such a notion.
Lelouch knew his history well, there was a reason he was the 99th Emperor of Britannia. Britannia might have dated its ascent to the defeat of ancient Roman invaders, but Richard von Britannia had been the first emperor in America, and the absolutism of the monarchy had often required military committment. The advent of mass produced fire arms meant the death of many young emperors during their conquests, and of course there was always the threat of assassination. The start of the Chinese modernization period starting in 1911 had occured while Britannia and Europe were too busy snapping at each other over Africa.
He had very good idea how his ancestors felt now. He wanted to throttle all of them. It was obvious why this was happening the Federation had managed to keep all the little small countries together, but now they were independent... and now China had shown a bit of teeth, and the rest were nervously watching their border, and squawking loudly. It was like he'd patched things up with the EU just for another fire to start somewhere else... and when he found whoever had supplied gefjon disturbers they were going to be shot...
All of that though was for later, for now he needed to deal with that matter at hand. A part of the major draw down under his regime had been the phasing out of older ships, and replacing them with air vessels. It had helped that he'd already been planning for the end of the war once Schneziel had shown his face. Once they'd taken Damocles it had been very easy to accelerate those plans to decomission ships and resettle people. It had been part of that where some people just disappeared from the records. Now though, "Nearest submarine task group?" Lelouch asked, a dozen ocean going supercarriers carriers that should have been plenty to cover the planet, especially during peace time. Britannia covered two continents in full twelve should have been enough to cover that and their island territories without a problem. In practice it covered the homeland pretty well, but no one expected to have to deal with this. The response was not what he wanted to hear, "Fine just forget it,"
"Forget it?" Cornelia hissed,
He didn't liked that tone at all, "Yes Cornelia forget it," He was already considering his other options. Lihua resolving this without exasperating the situation, by causing problems for at least one or more of the political groups involved in this cock up, was not going to happen with out some kind of interference. Kaguya probably couldn't fix this either, just because she was seen as too close to Lihua. There were solutions to this, but first they needed to stop the fighting.
They'd tried to simply give the order to stop fighting, but the Chinese had already landed. To add to that everytime some kind of agreement went into place it got ruined by someone breaking it. So simply ordering both sides to lay down their weapons wasn't going to work. In truth it was looking more and more likely they'd just have to wait till both sides ran out of ammo... or fuel.
"What about the UFN?"
Lelouch turned a calculating eye, "They're not really doing anything are they?" That Ikaruga-class all by its lonesome self wouldn't be able to do much anyway. "Perhaps you'd like to suggest a method they could be helpful."
"Ogi can organize humanitarian relief, he's actually good at it," Kallen wondered for a minute if Lelouch was really serious about his whole plan regarding peacekeeping.
He waved a hand, "Then go ahead and see if he can." He needed to talk to the European Council anyway transparency was a necessity to prevent things from becoming any more complicated. The idea of detente worked on open lines of communication after all. The Europeans were already familiar with his tactic of orbital insertion... especially considering he'd invaded Paris using it in the last war. Still it was the best tactic, there would be no way to see his forces approach, and no way to intercept, and with it he could deploy forces much larger than either side could bring to the battle.
Ogi though was another issue. Realistically Kallen had a point the UFN might not be able to keep the peace but their humanitarian budget did often get put to good use.
Cornelia at least had the decency to wait until Kallen was out of the room, "You have agents inside the UFN,"
"Of course not everyone took the coup well," Lelouch admitted, in all blutness admitting that killing Ogi would have been easy, if not particularly helpful to his goals, wouldn't have helped the situation. Even Kallen had been disatisfied with the sudden betrayal on the Ikaruga, but after everything was said and done it'd ended up being a festering cancer inside inside the Black Knights, and people wondered how Suzaku ended up dying. Those security mistakes hadn't been accidents at all, and that had been when Lelouch realized just how dangerous a bunch of rogue loyalist elements could be. "After the betrayal the disgruntled started to gather, without any real leadership. It was small groups here and there, it took time to reasert centralized authority."
She sniffed irritably, "The charismatic terrorist mastermind again?" There were times Cornelia wished they'd found Lelouch years ago, that he'd never been exiled, just so Britannia could have had him running their spy networks. "So what? How does having agents in the UFN help us, we could put elements on the ground."
"We could," It wouldn't be worth it, the Philipines would oppose a Britannian prescence just as much as a Chinese one, or a European one. There simply was too much of a historical animosity, and too much nationalist pride. The UFN that was a different story. The Philipines National Council honestly considered itself a part of the UFN as an equal member. It was an exploitable weakness in their sensibilities, finding out who was supplying them was rather important. "Given the surprising amount of hardware they have access to its better to keep a low profile until necessary."
Cornelia knew he meant the Gefjon technology, the missiles and the knightmares didn't mean anything to Lelouch, but the stealth technology. Rakshata's design was rugged, it had to be given the situations during the uprising. "Is it India?"
"Possibly, it could be Britannian as well, or even the UFN." The two sat there for several minutes it was possible, there were plenty of parties who were discontent over the resolution of the war, and the modern situation. There always would be. It was human nature after all, for all the people apart of one of the large camps there were plenty apart of fringe groups spouting ultranationalist ideas, or other notions that were beyond the mainstream. "A show of force though risks the misinterpretation that we favor one side over the other," It was precisely why lashing out immediately without determing all factors was open to repercussions... but waiting too long, Lelouch frowned, well that would have its own problems. "To add of course to our problems is that Jeremiah, and Anya are occupied in Southern Africa. Recalling them isn't an item I would like to enact at the moment," that and realistically Britannian simply had to many areas it needed to concern itself with protecting to risk directly interfering somewhere else, "much as I dislike having to work through Ogi's networks to get this done its better than the regular army..." Cornelia's army.
She got the subtext, but that wasn't the important detail, "Eventually you'll have to reform the Imperial Guard,"
"Have to?" He would, but admitting to having to do it grated on him, "I will eventually, the world is simply teetering on the edge right now for now simply integrating troops into a conventional alliance works, but yes eventually." Everyone needed stability right now, but life didn't always give you what one needed. "There is a UFN summit in Tokyo planned, it had already been on the books before Lelouch had selected to host the orbital discourse summit." One that Ogi and the UFN armed forces would be insistent on being in charge of security for, which was fine since it'd hopefully keep both sides from throttling each other. He certainly wasn't going to be able to keep the delegations in line here in Britannian without undue stimulus. That was just the way things were.
From a purely geopolitical world view both Royals recognized the problems that existed. Whether they wanted to admit it or not Kallen, who was already past the security check point down the hall got it as well.
Lelouch might have been acting like an ass, in her opinion, but then again Ogi was being just as bullheaded about working together with the Empire just as Lelouch was about working with them... of course Lelouch had an excuse. That whole 'you guys stabbed in the back just because my brother told you to' was pretty compelling as far as excuses to not like people went. That was certainly the way a large chunk of the population saw it.
There were a couple of Black Knights, that was to say UFN members, waiting in the outer lobby for her. Given the looks they were giving, and were on the receiving end of her timing was probably pretty good. Most, though not all, of Lelouch's Loyalist Black Knights had Imperial Guard identifiers of some kind, and well it made the members of the UFN peacekeepers distinctly uncomfortable.
Kallen rolled her eyes. Cornelia's Glaston Knights had been one thing, but the whole rivarly between factions was getting ridiculous. Where as Cornelia reforming the Glaston Knights hadn't really altered the strategic situation... well Lelouch's changes did. The Imperial Guard were reformed in all but name, and Ogi certainly wasn't going to take the loyalist factions well at all, and with good reason.
Some people figured that Lelouch was reforming the order to one up Ogi, and Cornelia, Kallen doubted that being the only reason. Lelouch had been able to supply uniforms, and organization to the Black Knights at the very beginning of the Rebellion, uniforms that were nearly identical to the supposed loyalists. The UFN armed forces uniforms had changed only a little in their own right, but not so much that you had to look the markings. Loyalists didn't wear the Britannian flag, or any national flag, where as UFN BK day uniforms had a UFN flag patch. No doubt Lelouch intended to make some philosophical bit of wittiness with the difference, but that wasn't important.
What was important was that Takashi, and Wen were getting glared down at by a pair of guys with Imperial Pins on their lapels.
"Knock it off guys," Kallen grunted, and they did. The two guys backed off and saluted, and all that military stuff... no it was all very military. The original BK had been paramilitary this was ... all the earmarks of a professional special forces... that was why the markings were familiar, "31st?"
"Yes ma'am,"
She rolled her eyes, Cornelia must have been thoroughly pissed at Lelouch over this. She, Wen and Takashi were outside when Noboru pulled up with the car, "Minami picked up on it a while ago actually," Noboru said after she told him, though he agreed that Cornelia probably had been mad about it." Back in the End War Lelouch had folded Royalist Britannian Special Forces together, which had been all put a meager collection of Special troops who had made the mistake of joining the noble uprising. Then he'd gone and divided them into new formations. Lelouch took all the best bits of the military and made sure they knew where their loyalty should be, or that was the idea at least during the war. "We're already planning for the next summit," That had been the UFN's principle job for the last couple years running security for the constant stream of summits.
She made a vague grunt in the back of her throat.
"We finally got eyes on Gottwald though," He continued on as he weaved through traffic on the way to the secure hotel where Kaguya was staying. Noboru didn't even seem to pay attention to her startled look, "yep him and the tyke bomb too."
Kallen's attention was now entirely on the discussion that was going on. It wasn't like there was anything else they could do about their present problems right now, but at least they knew where Orange was. Knowing where him, and Anya, were was a good thing, "Any technical info, I mean I'm sure Lelouch has given them both new frames?"
"Not that we've seen," Noboru answered, "Minami," and Ogi, "agree with that expectation, Lelouch has probably given them new knightmares, but we haven't seen any proof yet." The Emperor of the world had returned. His return was heralded by chaos, and more chaos followed at his heels. "Still its going to get worse before it gets any better."
There were grunts, and other acknowledgements of the truth of that statement as they continued to weave through Pendragon traffic towards the hotel.
-scene break-
Most people, or at least the one's responsible for Nunnally, probably wouldn't have assumed anything about the Royal Crest, after all it had been Nunnally who'd been the one it had been addressed to. Marriane vi Britannia had vanished from a secure hospital ward and hadn't been seen since, and it wouldn't have been that odd for Cornelia or someone else affiliated with the vi Britannia line to use it. It might have been inappropriate for other people to use it, but there were some who legally could, Lelouch's will had authorized Milly to, but the blonde had to her knowledge never done such a thing.
"You shouldn't have done it," CC berated, "What were you thinking?"
Marriane shrugged, "Lelouch really is a lot like his father, well a younger Charles, and without the annoying little troll for a brother constantly nagging him, but then he had you didn't he." She teased at her companion looking over the stony shore of the lake house. Truthfully she didn't mind the exile, certainly it was preferable to death, or imprisonment or some other equally bad punishment, but it did have its down sides. She didn't know whether Charles was... dead or what. She'd figured Lelouch was alive fairly quickly though. He'd fried the network, those ancient ruins they were gone now, or as gone as Lelouch's men could make them. He was thorough in his planning, just like Charles. Too much like him, but Nunnally was still her little girl.
"Thats exactly the problem!" CC protested irritably, "and now he's strutting around like," She stopped irritably, and Marriane wasn't sure what annoyed the immortal more about all of this, "and then you go and send his sister a letter, and now you want to visit?" The green haired immortal was exasperated. Visit after Lelouch had made his big return. CC had a reason to be exasperated, Lelouch was staying away to keep Nunnally out of this, out of all of this. For exactly the same reasons that he'd never told her about the Black Knights... if Lelouch caught them he'd be absolutely furious she was willing to bet all the pizza in the world for a whole year on it. Lelouch was going to string them up if they got caught. Marriane though wasn't going to listen to reason, but why did it have to be now of all times... oh realistically she understood why.
Marriane shrugged running a hand through her closely cropped hair, it was amazing how many people didn't recognize you when all you did was change your clothes and get a different hair cut, well both were rather extreme changes. Not that she really needed it in their little hideaway, but for shopping that was another story. "We're not going to get caught relax,"
"Cornelia, and Lelouch both will want us both locked up, and you want to go walking-" CC stared oh sure Marianne's geass was impressive, and more to the point useful for this kind of thing, but really...
The flash grinned, her geass might not have been the best for modern mechanized combat, but she made up for that in raw skill in a knightmare... and practice. She had plenty of practice on a modern- ish frame now too. "Wells thats the beauty of it," She presents another letter, marked again with the vi Britannia seal.
Marriane's geass allowed to overwhelm another's conciousness. It had limits. It was no where near the raw abusability that Lelouch's power of the king could wield, particularly because of its time constraints, but it was powerful.
"Are you going to risk it?"
There was always the chance that Lelouch was suspicious, and Cornelia certainly would be. Both of them knew about Geass as well, and there was always the chance they had some kind of system... well maybe. CC had no idea whether Lelouch could replicate the geass directorate's technology, and she doubted Cornelia could... but Jeremiah had a working device. Once upon a time Jeremiah could have, was her creature, but he'd marched to war with her son.
Ogi had stabbed Lelouch in the back, and the only reason Ogi was stil breathing was because Jeremiah hadn't managed to get his hands on him. Jeremiah Gottwald, Marquis Orange, was Knight of One. Jeremiah was loyal to the one true Emperor of the world... or whatever, but that was how it was.
CC wasn't so keen about risking that chance. It wasn't likely there were a whole lot of spares, but at the same time Lelouch had a habit of having prepared for absurd situations... and after Mao, and Rolo for that matter. CC also knew it was patently unlikely for Lelouch to make a contract with anyone.
All of the planning though stopped abruptly when the alarm went off. They were wide scale proximity alarms, good ones to. CC had taken them from Rakshata's facility before well the chaos of the requiem had been completely dispursed. It had helped Lelouch's contigency purged massive amounts of records, and listed tons of material as destroyed as part of post war disarmament. As a result it had been easy to add material to those lists, and walk, or rather drive away with the equipment. No body had noticed, or maybe people had just assumed that it was all part of some plan that they just hadn't needed to know about.
CC hadn't been one to not take precautions even if VV was dead... very dead... actually she'd never gotten around to thanking Cornelia for detonating the final charges that had buried the whole facility. Not that that had necessarily been what had killed VV for the final time, but it was as good a guess as any given the damage.
Lelouch had eventually had the facility dug up and then destroyed for good by one of the recently acquired warheads from the freshly taken Damocles Fortress. Lelouch had wanted nothing to remain of the Geass directorate. His Imperial Guard had made sure of it, and then moved on to the next battlefield in the war. That had all been years ago.
'He's reformed them in all but name' that was the critique that people made, but CC wasn't that nervous about them... per se. She was however moving very quickly on the hand held computer just in case this unexpected something was going to be bad.
Mariane peaked over her shoulder. Luckily the computer system took them directly to the sets of footage that was the cause for the alarm. "Doesn't look like Lelouch does it?" She asked.
"No probably not," CC agreed, though it probably wasn't much better. "Its not Cornelia either," That was not to say... "We must have slipped up somewhere."
Lelouch's mother nodded, "The Foundation does have a dearth of resources," It was a little hard not to with the patronage of two consecutive monarchs, of course originally Cornelia's support had been tenous at first. These days though well the large yellow and black helicopter heading their way.
He had always been totally insufferable at times, but Millie wondered if his self imposed exile off planet had actually made it worse. In a way he'd always been worse than how she'd known Cornelia had been when they had all been children. After Lelouch had left though, well Cornelia had been the one with the power to claim the throne, and Lelouch's loyalists hadn't challenged her position for whatever reason that had been. Cornelia becoming Empress of Britannia hadn't been popular with everyone, and Cornelia hadn't liked being questioned about her rule.
She sighed, Marriane vi Britannia and Lelouch's green haired girl had picked a great hiding spot tucked away from the world. Millie would admit that. "Take us down here," She instructed, "They'll be waiting for us," It'd been years since she'd seen CC, and even longer since she'd seen Marriane and the blonde wondered what kind of reunion this was going to be.
-scene break-