Helltanz's notes: Generic disclaimer (and this applies also in particular to PtB, and Dark Prince) I edited this chapter to remove a 1200 word scene because of this shit fest over here in the states. As it is though those kind of scenes are important to the story telling techno thriller war aspect of the story so just FYI some of those scenes for Arc 2 I'm not going to remove later on. That being said this is fairly realistic on the bad shit front of things when it comes to espionage, and behind the lines attacks so you're forewarned.
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Lelouch stared at the disfigured skin of the scar on his chest. The Requiem memento... his eyes glowed in the dark. There was no need to conceal his completed geass here. The Black Knights Citadel may have been incomplete at the start of the war, but the realities of nuclear conflict ... and of course that the work was already paid for had resulted in its completion as the primary shipyard of Britannian in the continental homeland. The base was Cornelia's though it housed the facilities which produced her Aggravain, which were an interesting development to be sure.
Jeremiah was still in Africa of course, and of course the UFN was talking about that, but for now it was Britannia which was the center of his focus. Jeremiah being in Africa didn't affect that. As it was his Knight of One would be there for a while. A light flashed on indicating someone was proceeding through the security checkpoints... slowly he reached for the contacts. The glowing eyes unnerving Cornelia might have been useful, but that was a time and place for that, and now was not it.
It took Cornelia several minutes to finally get waved through the final security checkpoint, and she'd been Britannia's monarch for years now. Her brother was half sprawled across a sofa in the inner sanctum reading what another report was no doubt. His voice though caught her short, "Your adaption to the Gawain design family was impressive."
"What's it matter to you?" She groused taking the unoffered seat. Cornelia didn't expect him to order her to stand, pettiness was rarely on his agenda, but as of late didn't make him any less annoying at time. "Are you wasting time with something like that?"
He raised an eyebrow, "Wasting time," There was a bit more edge in his voice, than he'd originally intended. "The Gawain was mine." Oh Schneziel might have built it, but it had been his knightmare. Schneziel though was another issue. "And you took it and built the Gareths, and I took them, and seized Paris in hours." There was pride in Lelouch's voice. The battle for Paris had been a military success on a magnitude rarely seen. With good reason the Gareths which had been in the hands of his Imperial Guard who had been both the scalpel and the hammer depending on the situation during the war. "Rakshata was terribly jealous of course,"
"It's outdated compared to your-"
A hand flicked, and he was standing. Lelouch would never have the broad body Charles possessed not now or ever. He'd always be lithe, but they shared a similar commanding force of presence, and personality, "And that is precisely the point," He put the file in her hand, "of course, after all our opposition is on the rebound desperately attempting to match our innate supremacy," He commented. Lelouch didn't buy into Social Darwinism, but if it helped get into Cornelia's head so what if he borrowed a phrase from Charles or two. As it was the UFN were working out new treaties with the Chinese, and the Indian states. Rakshata already had a wildly successful company to help develop things, which was problematic. She, by herself at least, wouldn't be able to figure out nuclear power, but knightmare design that was something she could do, and with three regional powers financing her that would be unpleasant, "And then there are the Europeans of course I'm sure sooner or later that will come to a head. For now I have rebels to deal with, which leaves you to prepare the army as your good at, and you have enough of my knights to be kept safe until yours have something more modern."
The reality was he was probably right. Inside the file was a data stick, and actual printed pages estimates... on nuclear systems. Sakuradite wasn't the only way, and there were more common elements you could use. There had been briefings about nuclear weapons, and of course without using Sakuradite, which had its own problems, there would be issues. Space would also marginalize concerns over destruction was also another matter.
It was Lelouch's holographic display that was more telling. When he'd dissolved the Area system, and subsequently put down the Noble Insurrection (or Jeremiah had) Lelouch had instituted a new form of direct rule with a caveat that allowed transition to self-rule by native population.
That had been wildly popular for self-rule reasons in realms that had known Britannia's rule for a generation or less. In the older colonies the move was popular for another reason, it was why they hadn't separated in full from the Empire after the fact. The military had been a presence during the war but economics was how Lelouch had set the foundation for good relations. Economic rebuilding on a massive scale, and well it didn't hurt he might have tweaked the history books issued to be a little more flattering.
"These are the most prominent Federal States in the Republic of India, notably Bombay here is the basis for Rakshata's laboratory complex." Lelouch remarked barely looking at the map of the Asian continent, "Lihua's factories in Northern China of course are also marked, and of course the production facilities on the isle of Honshu in Japan," In short the regions most tied to UFN knightmare research and development in the continent, but that wasn't all.
China had never been particularly naval minded, nor had India, and Japan's interest in rebuilding was nonexistent. In part that was because of airships, and now the prompting of space travel. One day airships would lead to spaceships, which would quickly transition to military vessels if they didn't start that way to begin with. In the wake of Schneziel's defeat it had been clear that Area 10 would leave the empire as well once things were settled. Indochina simply wasn't the same as older regions and they wanted a chance at independence from colonial powers, including China.
Cornelia had been hearing rumors though that Lelouch intended to re-annex, dressed up of course as voluntary re-admission, into the empire several of the older territories. Of course given that those same rumors had originally be back tracked to sources that weren't Lelouch's immediate staff the truth to them was dubious, especially given the UFN was talking about it the most. The EU Foreign Minister might have been talking about, but in truth it politically benefitted the EU not to object too much to the move if it happened. After all if Britannia was allowed to do it, why not Europe.
An hour later Cornelia was sitting several sub levels above the command center. Located in the heart of Britannia the shipyard was effectively untouchable, added to the fact that its slips were built under the protection of massive blast doors designed to shield against an attack by a nuclear weapon... in theory, it was one of the safest facilities in the world. "So did he give you the stuff. I'm proud of how you've managed to hold things together speech?" The knight of the round asked.
"I got a lecture about the Aggravain," Cornelia responded as she sorted through the files on the thumb drive she'd been given. It was a sidelining project obviously. Lelouch did want her to handle the military but it was clear he was already reforming the Imperial Guard given he was already moving to remove Special Operation Command from the normal hierarchy. The banner of Strength and Loyalty with a crown over the words had been hung from more than a few entryways, as had variations of the phrase each in different colors had. "What about you Nonnette?"
The other woman signed on to the terminal next to her, "Oh I thought he liked those, well I guess you did nick them from the Imperial Guard R&D program," She rapidly logged into to the Imperial Guard database, and turned the flat screen, "It's the Gywar," She announced pleased gesturing to the war machine presented in engineering wireframe. "It's not finished yet, but it'll probably be for you since I've since I've seen his." She laughed, "and it's certainly not for the red or green queens, and Jerry has this monstrous war machine of his own."
Cornelia scooted her chair over to look it over. Oh it resembled the Gawain, "does he have a mass production variant of this?" Well he wanted her to update the equipment her knights were using, and the probably planned on rolling out something better so why not jump ahead of his plan. Lelouch's true fancy, Cornelia knew, were ships, and space. They were what he called the future, and given the figures that one class of spaceship could mine a hundred thousand plus tonne's of material an hour he might just have a point... processing the material was vastly more time consuming but that was to be assuming. It at the same time wasn't stopping him from ordering more terrestrial shipyards in the Britannian homeland's Midwest. Eventually they would have to expand the shipyards, and make new ones. Lelouch was talking about new ones in orbit as well, but for political, and economic reasons ground shipyards were also on the docket.
Lelouch watched them both carefully, accompanied by one of his intelligence officers. "Telling her will not be easy." He muttered. The news was the absolute last thing he wanted to share. Letting Schneziel live had been one thing, but now he was either loose on his own, or in enemy hands. In truth he wasn't sure which of these the worst possibility was. Either way, he would need to tell her sooner rather than later. As if he didn't have enough to deal with. The question was to find out who took Schneziel, and where he was.
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A Gloucester took its position "B5 here eight hundred meters out, L5 Anti Armor Gun ready!" The pilot announced over the radio," South Africa was not exactly the bleeding edge of military hardware. It had never had been, but a solid supporting industry had existed during its long tenure as an Area. Building support vehicles like armored vehicles like APCs was a vital military asset to a military force. It was also certainly also true that you had to equip infantry to do things that a knightmare or a tank couldn't handle.
Jeremiah surveyed all beneath him. The Emperor's plan was fairly mundane at this stage. In truth Africa, this far south at least, was unlikely to be terribly threatened by Europe. India, and China might have business interests in the region, but revitalized or not after the Eunuchs had been deposed the latter weren't terribly eager to cross this far in force. Economics though bored Jeremiah and the Defense Force's training exercise was only a partial alleviation of that boredom.
A man stepped in beside him, "Second battalion is crossing the live fire line now," He announced as the digital display confirmed the same information. The live fire proving ground was a massive hundred kilometer stretch of territory near the old Free State. It even involved stretching into the Drakensberg Mountains for training infantry in alpine operations. Turning the former colonial troops into what Lelouch needed them to be was going to be a pain in the ass. Even more when he'd have to do it while having the whole world scrutinize his every move, but Jeremiah was always up for a challenge.
Completely retraining the conscripts who were originally slated to graduate in a few weeks was going to be a pain in the ass, and that was even taking into consideration it would only be a select handful of them. Sooner or later the UFN would piece together that the graduating conscripts were being divided into two separate groups, and the smaller section were being funneled to Imperial Militias for Peacekeeping. Jeremiah wasn't immensely pleased that most of his new troops had barely even seen a knightmare up close, and a handful hadn't even seen one at all. Integrating green boys with experienced soldiers was going to be a right mess.
"How long do we have?" One of the regimental colonels asked. Cornelia might have controlled the Army, heart and soul, but the Imperial Guard had been Lelouch's creation. Lelouch was spreading his surviving regiments, and the ones he was reconstituting, around. There were other problems though... politically especially.
Jeremiah made a show of gritting his teeth, "Less than I'd like," He spat. The EU had already announced a proposed restructuring of several of their major industrial firms, and proceeded to layout the plan for an EU facility at L1. While it was still a pipe dream, and existed only on the drawing board the European Hyperion Project was the first, highly, publicized non Britannian initiative. Which naturally would force the UFN to fast track their own initiative. "The Empire will have to fast track our modernization initiative," which meant people clamoring for the Emperor's focus, "and..." Jeremiah stopped as the harmonic rattling began. All eyes turned towards the sky as the massive ships descended. "Have them begin the drills of loading their equipment into the ships."
Each landing ship might have resembled the assault ships that during the last war had leaded the final assault on Frankfurt. In fact they were effectively identical to those ships, save paint scheme, and the ones that had been used in other orbit to surface landing assaults. Even after six years there hadn't been any need to truly change the design that had been procured from Schneziel. Eventually they'd have to be replaced, but that would be later.
Jeremiah Gottwald, the Knight of One, left behind the assembled officers. Lelouch was right of course eventually the war was going to come. Even the EU wasn't sure where it was going to go from here, and only the Emperor's abrupt return had quieted dissent in the Eastern EU. It had done nothing of course about the colonial fringe of the EU, but then why would it. Lelouch's War Preparation plans were already undergoing distribution to regional commands. The Army, and assorted Armed Forces could prepare but logistics were Lelouch was putting his focus.
... it was a colossally bad idea... Milly knew it, CC knew it and the only one who didn't seem to recognize that this was a bad idea was Marriane herself. Jeremiah was preparing troops for the inevitable conflict of what was sure to be a nuclear age... and they were calling him up. Lelouch or Cornelia would have been irate, but Jeremiah wasn't. That didn't make him any less confused though about this. "Lady Ashford," It took him a moment longer to greet the green haired immortal witch... and then ... the former Empress Marrianne.
"We've rendered the orange speechless," CC murmured, and grunted as Marianne elbowed her in the ribs in a 'be quiet' gesture.
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Kaguya wanted to groan. The major news networks had been going on about the EU's new Hyperion initiative declaration for more than a week... and current intelligence put that proposed design as very similar to some of the discarded plans from the Toromo Institute records. As if that wasn't enough Lelouch, and Cornelia had taken a long weekend, which no one could adequately explain to her.
Kallen couldn't even explain it to here. "All I know is they left Thursday morning," and it was almost lunch time on Tuesday now. So the question was where were they, and why. That the EU were planning something based on Toromo files wasn't that much of an issue, it was more that they were pressing ahead so soon. Rakshata yawned, whether from being bored, or just from legitimately being tired from another all-nighter.
"Well its not as if we're much further," She commented. The modified Pyramid hull was well under way to completion but the additional lift section was another matter entirely.
Ohgi grimaced. The standardization of the Ikaruga-class had been one thing, and well the cruisers had become the back bone of rebuilding Japan's industry, but even they hadn't been on this scale. There wasn't any word on a definitive launch date, except sometime in April, which some of the other scientists still said was too soon as it was. Just last week though Ohgi had laid out precisely why they couldn't afford to wait. The pictures of a HV Light Dock system floating over Guam accommodating three ships had been enough to light a fire under accounting, and the political backers who supported the Black Knights. "What are we going to do about this then?" There were too many things going on. Even Kallen couldn't explain where and why Lelouch and Cornelia had disappeared off to. The latest intelligence from the EU was giving Tokyo a clearer idea of about evolving KMF programs in the second power bloc.
"What can we do?" He muttered, "Rakshata is still putting those last touches on the demonstrator for the knightmare." The idea was for the moment to make a stop gap. There was no telling how far the EU were going to take their program. Evidence suggested that they were favoring armor, and heavy conventional weapons. "We've got them beat a close quarters, we think," Unlike with the old Daimler-Benz Panzer Hummel though there was a clear capacity for melee if need be. Nothing quite to the extent of Aggravain that Cornelia had demonstrated recently, but that was to be expected. The EU could have reproduced MVS weapons, but for the moment they were choosing not to. Ironically when the war did break out the thermal weapons that the Djinn, and Avatar series war machines used utilized the same technology as common EU knightmare melee weapons. That those same weapons were utilized onboard the Morganna as well did little to help rumors of collaboration between vi Britannia, and the EU.
The chairwoman sighed, "Well I would hope we can encourage a detente between all involved parties, but for now go ahead and see about the intelligence we have." Noboru saluted as Ohgi, and Minami left the room. "What can you tell me Kallen?"
The red head sighed, and waved her hand at the window, "Lelouch up and left without a word, as far as I know Cornelia was supposed to go with them. Gottwald's supposed to be training troops down in Africa, and he's got Anya with him, but we knew that. Lelouch's Knight of Five is supposed to be heading to Malaysia, or at least that's what I heard,"
"That's not good," Kaguya admitted, "The truth is Cornelia is more likely to support a return to territorial ambition than I'd like." Cornelia ultimately supported a policy of Imperialism, and expansion of Britannia, by force of arms if necessary. "An invasion of Japan isn't likely, but that in itself may not help us." Not with popular support for Zero being an issue. Then there were the reports from the EU... they were already alarming, but "Britannia's draw down of its armed force most involved putting things in storage." In truth a lot of larger weapons of war, such as ships, or even tanks had simply been stored, with older equipment being sold off to newly independent nations at bargain rates. "So did the EU," Mind you that had been to a lesser extent as they had lost the last war to Lelouch, but even then a sizable amount of material had survived. "If either went to war footing, they could reactivate thousands of tons of material rapidly," which would of course force the other to do the same... then they'd be back at brinkmanship. That was the last thing she wanted.
"We need to find Lelouch maybe negotiate a reactivation of some of the decommissioned air ships, demilitarized of course." Talks of an Outer Space Treaty had already fallen through. Britannia would never ratify it, and their population and sphere of influence made the point moot to try and raise it at a general assembly... not with Lelouch back. "and try and keep him from focusing exclusively on Britannia's sphere." She paused, as Kallen was a knight of the round, she probably shouldn't be asking, but "The new frames are going to need to be tested," The pilots were going to have get used to the new systems obviously, "If we could find Nagisa-san this would be such an issue.-"
"But since we have no idea where she is I'm the best pilot available. Does Rakshata plan to make any new modifications to the Gurren?" As it turned out Rakshata wasn't, for once, the actual plan was to finish the research she was working on and start designing a new Gurren. "That'll be good it might give us a chance to learn things from Nonette's frame, or even Jeremiah's Knightmare," In truth she had yet to see the war machine. "But there probably both nuclear powered,"
Kaguya nodded, "I don't think Lelouch would just hand over one of his reactors." That was the kind of thing that might make catching up so much easier.
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A couple hours later Ohgi was taking his coffee looking through the latest pictures. There wasn't much to do about Lelouch and he knew it. There wasn't much he could do about the European Space program. He could however prepare for the knightmares. Conventional ground forces, and even regular armies would be a lot easier to prepare for planning wise. Kallen could handle training the pilots on the new machines too.
Tamaki leaned back in the office chair that he'd taken without any prompting, and was busy spinning as he waited for his laptop to load... stupid lag. "Finally!" He grunted, "So Rakhshata thinks this new stuff will help. See this," Tamaki was already pressing a finger to the larger flight pack, "It is based off of the Air Glide system we normally use, but this new power system will let us stay flying longer, and accelerate better."
"Yeah, bolt on light weight composites, extra weapons it should help." Sugiyama remarked, of course it'd take weeks to retrofit even a handful of New Days with these attachment systems. There were concerns about the extra weight straining the supports of the frame, leading to extra maintenance, but if it even the odds even a little bit Ohgi was willing to take it. The biggest benefit was most the systems weren't actually terribly radical. Detachable rapid reloadable missile pods were nothing new, as Britannia and the EU had used them well before the Black Rebellion had begun. The flight system modifications though were a lot more in depth. "We're still only going to get a two three hours max of flight time, and chances are they're going to be faster."
Minami turned to his coworker, "Probably, but that's not going to be that much of an issue. They're not jet fighters. They're just not that aerodynamic. If we pick where we fight, and maximize cover we'll be better off. Speaking of Rakshata has the test prototype ready for demonstration if you want to go see it boss."
"That's sounds good, if she ready for the tests lets go on." Chances were she was, and probably poured a number of sleepless nights on preparing the knightmares for the test. Ohgi lead the way to the lobby via the elevator. It dinged open just in time. The television screen had just now flashed with an emergency interruption. Ohgi caught the faintest flashes of thick black smoke on the screen rising from a skyscraper. He didn't have time to make out the location, or even any other details as time seemed to slow down. Shouting blurred as security detachment personnel rushed forward to the front entrance. One bang, from a handgun, was eclipsed by a much larger shattering explosion. A rattling, and then the glass blew outwards.
Kaname Ohgi's final coherent thoughts before being knocked unconscious, were surprisingly coherent, but it probably had to do with the fact he was up the interior stairs when the blast detonated. Traitors, someone must have brought the explosives through the security checkpoint or even the armory. Lelouch, he had to be the one.
It made sense to suspect the emperor. After all he'd been missing for almost a week now. Ohgi just regretted not being able to order the mobilization. This wasn't even the first attack, or the second, but in a minute it was all over the news. First across eastern Asia, and then joining other attacks worldwide.
Rogue agents might have been popular literary themes, but nations hated dealing with them. It made them look incompetent. Losing control of a loose cannon was almost as bad as losing your grip on a calculated methodical killer. It would take Lelouch almost ninety minutes before the transmission, about the attack in Tokyo, reached him. In that time the Gurren, along with the bulk of the Black Knights', those aligned with the UFN, knightmares had already scrambled.
The Manhunt had just begun, but already finger pointing and accusations had begun as soon as the press had gotten word of the first strike.
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