Chapter 4 Junius Seven
"History is much like an endless waltz. The three beats of war, peace and revolution continue on forever."
Marimeia Khushrenada
Kira was perplexed and shocked, he vaguely recognised the woman in front of him and she definitely recognised him, but he could not place her. That covered perplexed, as for shocked, she knew about his friendship with Athrun, who was in ZAFT now, something he just knew was going to get him in even more trouble.
"You don't recognise me do you?" she said smiling as she floated close enough to ruffle his hair.
"Uh... kind of," he replied hesitantly, not wanting to appear rude. This just seemed to amuse her even more.
"Imoto," called Mr Lowe, as he drifted over to the pair.
Kira blinked; did Mr Lowe just call her little sister? He knew a bit of Japanese, it was Orbs national language, even if English was the one everyone used on Heliopolis much to his relief when he first arrived.
"Ani," she said smiling, plucking the smaller man out of the air as he arrived, and confirming their sibling relationship.
"I see you have met Kira," said the as-yet-unnamed woman.
Mr Lowe looked at her strangely, "affirmative."
"You are really not much of a conversationalist are you? Well, good to see you again Kira, say hello to your mother if she's around, from me ok?" And with that the unnamed woman catapulted herself to the pilots' locker room, Mr Lowe in tow.
Still baffled by the mysterious woman, he looked down at the Moebius, stencilled in black next to the hatch he had forced open, were the words 'Lt. M. Khushrenada. The name sounded familiar but Kira could not place it.
O0o0o0o0o0o0o
"You know Kira?" asked her ani.
Mariemaia smiled, "yes, his mother helped me walk again," or should I say his aunt, but you already know that and I am not about to say that anywhere someone might hear what advances we really have made in genetic engineering.
"I see," he said relaxing.
She would have to tell him what she knew later, when they were alone, she thought, as she undid her normal suit and hung it in a spare locker. Good thing she brought her own; the ones the quarter master normally had were too small for her. "The captain really let you pilot with one arm?" she asked as she straightened her uniform, hoping the quarter master had some spare.
"I have a cybernetic one, the Marines didn't let me take it," he said fiddling with his sleeve. That was typical of the Marines on MO2, the biggest dumping ground for problem officers. She had only known a handful that were worth their rifle, and that bastard had killed them and blamed it on her.
"I am glad to see you had a plan when you cut off your own arm!" she said sarcastically. She was not going to let him get away with making her believe he had died, her closest brother, the only one she thought would have made it out alive when her other brothers didn't; she had needed him then. At the time her mother had tried to comfort her by saying he had faked it, but for a long time she had thought her mother was lying to her to make her feel better; it hadn't. She felt manipulated again, as she had been, by that bastard of a grandfather before he had crippled her.
Anger, regret, apologetic, those were the emotions she expected to see in her ani's eyes. What she did see however, was fear, panic. She had to look again to make sure what she thought she was seeing, but it was no mistake; Gundam 01 was absolutely terrified, why?
"How..." her ani swallowed and started again, "how much do you know?" There was a definite tremor in his voice.
She chewed her lip, "more than I can say here," she said. This seemed to distress him further and he was trying to grab a hold of himself as if he was on the edge, but why? That had been 16 years ago, and she knew a lot more about him that was more dangerous, such as who he was, and what made him tick; that could get a whole country invaded. It wouldn't be like all that political manoeuvring the Alliance had been trying, only to find that the politician who suggested it had to sleep on the couch for a week. You were a no-one in politics until you introduced your spouse to Relena, and she knew every secret you had.
She made a move to put her hand on his shoulder but stopped; she was a brain surgeon by trade and had dealt with brain-damaged patients so she could read the signs that said her ani could become violent at any moment. It always hurt more than the physical pain would if the orderlies didn't restrain the patient. She knew they didn't want to hurt her; their minds were just so broken that they didn't know what was going on and were scared. Seeing that in her ani's eyes made her forgive him for abandoning her. She waited until it looked as if he was winning his inner battle before enveloping her aniin a hug. Damn, he was shaking, what the hell was going through that head of his? Screw the arm, her ani should be in a hospital not anywhere near a combat zone. She ran through his symptoms like any good med student. There was not much to go on, but if she had to guess right now it would be PTSD or post traumatic stress disorder. That was the most common problem with ex-spec opps, and with his record he had plenty to be traumatised by, but she would need a psychologist to tell her for sure. Psychological problems needed a professional in the field, and she was just a brain surgeon.
Mariemaia felt guilty about tricking her ani in to ordering her to bug out in his currant state, even if it was for the greater good, it made her feel like she was no better than her bastard of a grandfather. She knew that he would never let anything happen to her, and to protect her, he would have to sortie in the new Gundam either defeating all enemies or ordering her to retreat. He didn't have a clear picture of what was happening outside the base as she did, so would have to presume the worst. If he had done something as crazy as taking out the ZAFT presence, then he would have ordered her to the rear to guard the Archangel, at which point she would have developed a fault and landed. Mu would probably catch on but she knew she could rely on one of her few true friends to back her up.
His breath seemed to steady so she released him, "come on, let's get your arm and talk to the captain," she said gently, leading him to the inner door; he didn't protest.
It didn't take them long to move to the crew quarters where the civilians were billeted. Her ani had been placed in a ratings bunk, not much, but there were plenty spare. All the time she watched him and the reactions of those around them; most people were relieved to see him, but wary of her, and they didn't look at her the same way. She scanned the crowd but didn't recognise any former OZ soldiers or their next of kin she might have met. Her ani's face was very revealing. Most people just saw the blank expression and thought he was an emotionless drone, but that was just a mask, and, like a mask, the eyes were the only visible part of the man beneath. To her his eyes were wary but not hostile, as if he wanted to keep his distance, however they would soften when he spotted a young child. This was not a green light on the mental health test, but he was not as uptight as he had been in the locker room.
"I better take you to see the captain, see what happens from here," her ani said as he slipped his arm back on. She could not find anything in his voice to hint at his thoughts, as he just used his usual emotionless flat tone.
She nodded her assent and followed him down the spacious corridors. Most ships were built around the concept of firepower, armour, and speed, with crew being an afterthought. Whoever dreamed up the Archangel however, had thought of the crew which was nice of them just as long as it didn't mean they skimped on any of her main components as a warship, especially armour as most ships had since the EVE war.
"Captain Lowe and Lieutenant Khushrenada to the briefing room," came a young girl's voice over the intercom, the same one which had directed her to land. Not the smoothest landing she had ever had, but the kid had been calm and when all hell was breaking loose, a calm voice was sometimes all you needed to get back home.
There was another thing she should not mention, 'Captain' Lowe was now 'Lieutenant Colonel' Lowe, due to being listed as KIA and receiving a two rank promotion as per normal traditions in the military. The funny thing was that being alive would not get him demoted as Captain John Geary found out after Grendel, where he had been a Lieutenant Colonel. Come to think of it her ge ge would be a one star General, if he was still alive that is.
Her ani got into a lift and pressed a button making the elevator ascend. She gave up trying to work out the route that they had taken, she would find out eventually but not now.
"Captain Lowe and Lieutenant Khushrenada reporting as ordered," said her ani not bothering to salute; that didn't mean she would forget the gesture, she needed to make a good and lasting impression.
The Captain looked up from a plot and returned her salute, "Captain Lowe you said you had experience with salvage, have you got any experience with mining equipment?"
"Affirmative," said her ani, his one word answer making her wonder what he did really know about mining; had that been where he had been hiding for all these years? Some former Winner Corporation mine now owned by a smaller consortium out on the fringes of UESA territory?
"Good, we didn't get resupplied by Artemis and we're running low on water. I will leave it up to you and the Chief," said the Captain looking back at the plot.
Warships used water as their main fuel; it didn't burn or react with anything worthwhile, which in a warship was a plus. However it could be broken down using electrolysis and turned into hydrogen and oxygen which could be reacted together or turned into Hydrogen peroxide and oxygen. It did the same job in the end of providing propulsion for a warship.
"This is the only place we can locate any water that's drifting in space," said Mu gravely.
"Do we have enough water to get there?" said her ani; even his eyes were unreadable.
"If we start rationing the crew's supply then we should be ok," said the Captain. That alarmed Mariemaia; normally when water was low in a ship the crew's supply was protected by recycling it and dehumidifying the air, but in extreme cases that would go into fuelling the ship. That was normally the last log on ghost ships.
"Very well Skipper is there anything else?" asked her ani, not giving out any clues that she could read.
"No, you're excused Captain Lowe, Lieutenant can you stay for a moment," said the Captain.
Mariemaia knew what this was about and was glad her ani was not there; he had enough to deal with without knowing what the government had been doing.
"We received your file when the soldiers linked the Archangel's computer with Artemis's mainframe. Is there anything you want to add?" asked the Captain tentatively. She knew why the Captain was careful; they were the same rank and discipline matters could be awkward under normal circumstances. It didn't help she had not been accused of some minor offence.
She wondered how that information had been downloaded, then remembered that just being allies didn't mean that their computers worked together. No doubt someone had hit the wrong button and started synching the ship's computer with the base rather than uploading the ships mainframe.
"System malfunction, Sir," she said simply. Saying she had been set up would be hard to prove, considering the man who had found out what had happened to her had officially died multiple times. Her mother had once said that heaven didn't want him and hell was too scared he would take it over and trick it into becoming heaven. He was trying to fix the former, but didn't deny the latter was plan B.
"In both the missile and manoeuvring computers?" asked Mu sceptically. He must have guessed that something was up, but she could not tell him now without weakening her case with the other two officers.
"You will see from the report I had punched out after losing control of my craft and the missile was fired after I was clear," she said. She didn't want to remember the hours she had spent floating there because the search and rescue craft had been too scared to come close. They had been afraid that her disabled Moebius might start shooting up another transport, as well as the one full of her only friends on the station.
"Very well you are assigned to Major La Flaga's wing until further notice. Your collaterals will be," said the Captain pausing to look at a data slate. That was strange, she had expected to have a fight on her hands. Was this another officer trying to get a quick promotion by gaining her favour?
"Medical; we don't have a proper ships doctor, we have a civilian doctor filling in the role right now, see what you can help with and," she paused again to look at her data slate. "How much experience did you gain from your penal duties?" She asked.
She had been made to work in a repair bay for long hours with a guard watching over her, not pleasant at the best of times, but it had been made worse when they had made her the one to clean out the wrecks of body parts from the previous occupants. There was one up side to it all, she had been able to learn about how to replace whole sections of her Moebius. She had wanted to rebuild her Moebius but her welding had forced her to rely on moonshine to get the shield and beam sabre added.
"I can do some basic repairs, my welding is substandard however," replied Mariemaia honestly. She needed this woman's cooperation, and honesty bread loyalty as well as trust. In the future she might need some freedom with her actions, so building trust with the 'Skipper' could only work to her advantage.
"Very well you can help out in the hangar, talk to Chief Murdoch. Unless there's anything you wish to add, that will be all. Talk to the quarter master about getting a bunk," said the Captain.
"Thank you Ma'm," she said saluting, and waited for a second before the Captain remembered that she was supposed to dismiss her.
0o0o0o0o
After Lieutenant Khushrenada left, Murrue turned around to face Major La Flaga and Ensign Badgiruel with a quizzical look. "So, what do you think?" It didn't really matter with the crew shortages, what anyone thought, they needed the man power and the Lieutenant came with her own boots.
"Don't worry about her, I told you she's always polite but a bit cool to most people in authority, too many of them are playing political games for her to trust any of them. As long as you treat her like everyone else then she won't be an issue. Word of warning, if she starts coming out with conspiracies, she's just trying to mess with you. Once she told me she knew who killed that pacifist colony leader, you know the one, Heero Yuy," said Major La Flagger smiling. His smile turned to a frown as if he had just caught onto something, then he waved it off as if it was nothing.
"I think we should look more carefully at her friendly fire incident," objected Ensign Badgiruel. She had stayed unusually silent during the interview, Murrue had learnt over the last few days since Heliopolis went down, that Badgiruel would speak her mind and stick to regs like they were the holy gospel of how the world was, rather than a guide line. Despite this the woman knew her job very well; Murrue suspected that she was on the fast track to getting her own command.
She had a right to object, that was too simple an answer for the loss of 15 Marines and a shuttles crew, and she didn't appear to show much remorse or grief over what had to have been a tragic accident at best.
"I will keep an eye on her and besides we don't have much choice in the matter with the number of officers we have," said Mu, the last part almost directed at her. Was that some sort of hint? If so, she had got it without the hint, so she could pat herself on the back. Murrue was getting a handle on the people side of being a ship's Captain, now all she needed to do was get the ship part of it right, and they could get to friendly territory and someone more experienced could takeover.
0o0o0o0o0o0
"Water! Water!"
"Oh boy," sighed Miriallia. He knew her name now, and everyone else's. The boy choking was Tolle, the redhead who had half deafened him was Flay Alster. Her father had worked alongside Relena before she had pulled the Sanc Kingdom out from the Alliance. The blonde boy getting food from the canteen was Sai Argyle her boyfriend, and the boy next to him was Kuzzey.
His imalto laughed as Miriallia gave her boyfriend her water who gulped it down and started coughing.
"It's not funny especially under the circumstances," said Sai as he sat down next to Flay.
"Who's joking? Give me a break," demanded Tolle doing a good imitation of Duo.
Lancaster just sighed; Duo was the only frame of reference he had for these kids, but even that had not prepared him for their maturity level.
"What's wrong? Is there a problem?" asked Sai. Lancaster looked up at the two teenagers in front of him that were now the centre of attention. He also noted that they were several seats down from where they had started.
"It's just, with all these water restrictions I was not allowed to take a shower yesterday," said Flay in a rush, her cheeks were red.
Lancaster groaned, nothing Duo had ever done could prepare him for this. Maybe if he and the others had had a normal childhood and life, he would be able to laugh and chat with these kids, but right now their antics just annoyed him. To think in a few days he would have to lead them out on a mining expedition to wherever that big ice berg was and get them back alive.
A tingling between his shoulders made him realise that everyone was looking at him.
"And just when did you last wash?" asked Flay in a clipped tone.
"Heliopolis," he replied.
"Phew," said his imalto holding her nose and waving a hand in front of her as if to word off the smell. "You can't half tell. At least you got changed, just where did you find a green tank top and shorts?"
"The gym; it's standard PT kit and there's plenty of it," Lancaster said. He knew from experience what stores on a ship had them; it saved money on getting clean clothes if he just procured them on site along with guns and ammo.
"And it just so happens to be the same as you wore during the EVE war," said his imalto doubtfully.
"PT kit has not changed since the EVE wars," he said not wanting to be reminded of the war.
"You have been wearing the same PT kit since the EVE war?" asked the Major as he entered the mess with Kira.
Ignoring the laughter of both the Major and his imalto, Lancaster looked around them to Kira, noting that Flay and Sai were now sitting next to one another. "Anything happen with the Strike?" he asked.
"The Chief shut down the wash bays, so I didn't get much done," said Kira.
Lancaster nodded, he knew it was coming and had already prepared for it. "Major, I am going to inform the Captain that the Strike is out of action until we can get water to clean it. There's too great a risk of something breaking otherwise. That means that your wing will be the only CAP we have."
"You didn't answer my question," said the Major seemingly oblivious to the gravity of the situation.
Lancaster glared at the Major as he clamped down on his anger. He was having enough trouble not being that monster without being reminded of the war. "Drop it," he said finally, surprised his glare had not breached the hull.
The Major smiled, "I will let it go if you tell me that story about how you helped Mariemaia's parents to meet."
Lancaster hid his expression; that had been the operation on which he had lost the nearest thing he had to a father. He might have gained a little sister but it was still a painful memory.
"Come on, it's a good war story, and its one you can tell without the government silencing you," said his imalto smiling at him in that way that had got her the sweet jar cunningly placed too high for her to reach.
Lancaster melted, he really didn't have a choice in the matter; she might be 27 now but when she did that, he saw her as the 8 year old girl he had taught to play basketball in a wheelchair.
"My father had a job on colony X-18999; some revolutionaries didn't have the expertise to pull off a coup, with the old Alliance command structure still intact. The revolutionary leader was a man named Quinze, the same Quinze who was second in command of the White Fang. Back then he was just as ambitious as he was in Fang, but not as competent. The only thing that stopped the coup from being a massacre, was the even worse state of the Alliance forces. The revolutionaries managed to steal eight Tragos, then split their forces to take multiple objectives. The only unit that didn't lose its head was a group of Special's cadets and their instructor, who got hold of some Leos and started a counter attack," Lancaster said, pausing to let his imolto step in.
"My father was in charge of that unit, and the girl running intel was a certain Lucrezia Noin, she was one of the best pilots OZ ever had second only to Zechs."
It had been a rather nasty surprise to hear that his friend had been his target, but they had been enemies back then, and she had forgiven him in a letter from Mars, the last message he had got from her before she had been killed. It was odd how someone had struck her and Zechs all the way out at Mars, at the same time as they had hit him and the others. Whoever was after them back then, had been big and very well organised; problem was that description didn't fit any group 16 years ago other than the UESA, which was being held together by her, so that ruled them out.
"The Specials cut off the rebel forces one by one, as they split to hit their objectives, or as they moved through the city using intelligence co-ordinated from their Forward Command Centre. It was obvious that the Specials Command Centre was the lynchpin of the whole defence. My father had his objective, the overall Commander of the Alliance forces, so I took the Specials," said Lancaster, pausing to take a bite of something blue and fairly tasteless.
"Hold on a minute," said the Major, "if this is before Mariemaia was born, then you must have been, what, ten?"
"Seven," Lancaster corrected, getting several surprised gasps from around the table.
"Seven," the Major corrected himself then continued, "and you took on an OZ Command Centre by yourself?"
"I could handle it," said Lancaster. Was the Major doubting his abilities?
"Well you're alive so you must of," Mu agreed grudgingly.
"I used smoke from the battle to get in range with a rocket launcher; I only had one shot, the ammo was too heavy for me to carry, and if I had missed it would be all over anyway. A Leo was far enough back to see what was going on; it didn't fire, not wanting to shoot a kid, or just out of ammo, I don't know. All I know is that he was good; he got between me and my target as I fired, and took the rocket on his frontal armour. At that range, there was no question of it not penetrating to the fighting compartment. I didn't stick around to see what had happened; the rebels were falling back in disarray, and the Alliance was finally starting to mobilise. It was time to cut our losses and run," Lancaster said, taking a sip of water to cover up that he didn't know how to continue. Sure, he could say that when he rendezvoused with his father, he was bleeding out on the floor from a gunshot wound to the chest, but he didn't want to go into that.
"Nice story, but I thought this was about how Mariemaia's parents met?" said the Major as he tried the blue thing on his plate.
His Imoto picked up there, somehow knowing he didn't know how to continue. "My father was the Leo pilot, he was in a bad way, those Leos didn't have the armour of a linear tank and tended to burn if hit by anything heavier than an old NATO round. Noin managed to keep enough of her wits about her to call an ambulance, but not enough to call in a CASEVAC. He ended up in a hospital run by the Barton Foundation where my mother was a nurse."
Lancaster ducked the unidentified blue object that flew past his head and impacted the wall behind him. "That's how Captain Lowe helped your parents to meet, by almost killing your dad with an RPG?" asked the Major after coughing up the rest of the blue food.
His imalto shrugged, "one of the most normal things that happened to my family; it took them two weeks to figure out that my father had been transferred to a civilian hospital, one of which he spent out like a light. When they did find out, they sent him back to earth for treatment."
"Well that's other thing that's still the same from OZ, admin still can't tell where its ass is," said the Major, giving his Imoto a curious look to which she nodded, causing him to burst out laughing. "No wonder my charm and stunning good looks didn't work on you!"
"Yes, well my mother did warn me about your type," she replied coolly.
"Must have been your other mother then, or she would have chased me off long ago," laughed the Major.
0o0o0o0o0
The briefing went better than expected, everyone knew the dangers of vacuum from living on a colony, and some had even passed their shuttle licences, or had played around with tugs and knew what to do. Paring the most inexperienced kid with senior enlisted, helped ensure they had someone on hand to keep an eye on them. It was just how they did things back at the mines; the experienced people guided those new to the environment, so they lived long enough to become experienced themselves and help other new arrivals.
This trip they would be surveying the area and grabbing some samples. They needed to see if there were any contaminants in the water. He also wanted to see how well his people would cope with the task.
"Tug one ready for launch," said Lancaster as he checked the status of the other tugs.
"Tug two, we are good to go," said Dalida.
"Tug three ready," said Romero.
"All tugs green light, exit the bay in order," said Miriallia as the catapult door opened. They were not going to use the catapult itself, but depressurising the whole hangar deck would have taken longer.
Outside the ship the small convoy met up with its escorts.
"Tallgeese IV holding hands," said his imalto, giving the call that she was in formation with the convoy. Nominally she was their escort, but her beam sabre would save time in cutting samples off the big ball of ice, as everyone was calling it. The beam sabre was originally based on mining equipment used to cut through asteroids, no-one had considered them a viable weapon until some miners rebelled against the old alliance and inflicted heavy casualties with their labourers. It had been child's play to tweak the settings to narrow the beam, and reduce the power output to something capable of cutting through water. He had done the same job on Heliopolis because someone had used the wrong setting for the rock they were cutting, again.
"Very cute, make sure your brother looks left and right before crossing the road," was the Major's response. He was out ahead and above the convoy weaving back and forth scanning for threats.
"I think someone is jealous," replied his Imalto.
"Not at all," said the Major in a light hearted tone that almost suggested the opposite. Lancaster had inquired about his Imalto's relationship with the Major, only to be told straight that the two where old friends and nothing more.
Morale was good if banter like that was being exchanged. They never had the time or the inclination during the EVE war, but back then stuff like morale was linked to morality and they each knew they were doing the right thing.
The debris belt was its usual hazardous self, formed from wrecked craft, spent rockets, dead satellites and waste illegally dumped. It was one of the worst areas to fly in, in space barring a fleet engagement or a gravity well.
"God in heaven," whispered his Imalto as they approached where the sensors had located 'the big ball of ice'.
"Say again, I didn't copy," said the Major.
Lancaster felt the cold of vacuum creep into the tug's hull as he saw what his Imalto had seen; a dead colony drifting in front of him, Junius Seven, the only PLANT class colony to be lost. He had speculated about what the big ball of ice was, water was too valuable to be something tossed out of an airlock. It could have been that water from damaged or destroyed ships had gathered here, as objects with large mass tended to do. He had never considered that it was a dead colony, because something that big would have been tracked in case someone rammed the Earth with it. That last thought seemed to freeze his lungs, what if they could not track it, what if the alliance scanning arrays had been hit by ZAFT during the war, would anyone in the alliance be watching out for meteors?
Lancaster undid his helmet clamps and got a barf bag out from under his seat, what if that was the whole point? After he and the others had alerted the earth to the threat of an attack like Meteor, it was impossible. That was unless you hit the orbital tracking system, and if you did, people would know why you had done it and start guarding all possible threats until the systems were back online. However if they had been hit during a war where enemy ship movements were more important, then who would be watching out for this?
The attack on the ESUN was to get those who might be aware of Meteor and stop it out of the picture. The point of the attack on Junius Seven was to acquire a large object to drop on the Earth, and the N-Jammer counter-attack was to blind the earth sensor net. All they now needed was five Gundams to wreak havoc on the earth, to take people's minds off space and closer to home. There were two spanners in the works, first She lived, and She knew more about Meteor than anyone else alive thanks to Lancaster, the second, the Gundams built were split between ZAFT and the earth, thanks to Kira.
"Mr. Lowe are you ok?" asked Kira next to him, concerned but pale himself.
"Affirmative," Lancaster replied, wiping his face. He could not freeze up now, he had a mission; lives depended on him.
"All teams, new course, up one three degrees, port five," Lancaster ordered over the radio.
"What's happening people?" asked the Major sounding concerned.
"Course correction was made to avoid Junius Seven," replied Lancaster.
The radio was silent for over a minute before the Major acknowledged the report.
Thankfully the water was located around the edge of the colony where it had vaporised then frozen. It had been super-heated by the nuclear fission and low pressure of space, then frozen as it cooled down in the shade of the colony. Lancaster didn't want to venture into the colony proper; there would be a lot of dead, 243,721 men, woman and children. The children would be the hardest to see, he didn't know if they would been frozen in place from the exposure to vacuum, burnt to a crisp by the nuclear initiation or covered in cancerous tumours from the radiation, but he would be having nightmares about it tonight. He knew what nuclear weapons did to their victims, he had been in charge of them sometimes. It had been mainly Chang's job, and Lancaster had been a bodyguard for his imalto or Her. However he had been trained up on their use, which had included desensitising him to their effects, that hadn't worked.
The work was done in silence, everyone caught up in their own thoughts. Some checked their Geiger counters normally used to measure how much radiation the user had got from the sun, periodically as if afraid of getting an overdose of radiation.
"Eh, sir, should we be doing this?" asked Kuzzey over the radio.
Lancaster was going to answer but hesitated, they shouldn't, this was a war grave, but if they didn't then they would run out of water and the alliance didn't have any ships nearby to resupply the Archangel.
The Major stepped in, saving Lancaster the dilemma of answering the question. "They won't be needing it and we need it to stay alive." He gave the excuse used by senior non-coms to strip bodies of water, ammo and bandages.
That seemed to mollify Kuzzey along with his imalto cutting off a section of the ice with her beam sabre.
0o0o0o0o
Kira felt ill, not because of the no doubt high dose of radiation he had just received from standing that close to where a nuclear bomb had been detonated, but because he had been that close to where a nuclear bomb had detonated. He knew Mr Lowe felt the same way, even worse, judging by the now full sick bag tied down behind their seat.
"This is zero, be advised I have a ship wreck; looks recent. Keep your eyes peeled for hostile contacts," said Mu over the radio.
"Tug one, confirm warning," said Mr Lowe, his voice devoid of all emotions.
"Tallgeese, I can't see all the tugs. The convoy is too spread out, can everyone bunch up?" asked Mariemaia. Kira still had no idea how she knew his name.
"Can't do anything about that, the debris is too thick," said Mr Lowe, he and Kira were in the middle of the convoy, ready to help out anyone in trouble. Romero was in front and Dalida was behind them.
"Roger that; got an id on the ship?" asked Dalida.
"Yeah it's the Silverwind, that cruise liner, my guess would be pirates. No-one is dumb enough to shoot at a Sanc Kindom vessel," said Mu.
"Shit, roger that. Mr Lowe you know anyone from home on her?" asked Dalida.
"Negative," replied Mr Lowe, apparently unmoved by the news, even though his eyes were darting around the instrument panel as if he was scared of something, but this was Mr Lowe, he didn't get scared.
"Just keep your eyes open people, and keep the chatter down to essentials. We don't want who ever shot up the Silverwind to find out there's someone else out here," said Mu.
"Eh sir, what is the Silverwind?" asked Kira, his curiosity getting the better of him.
"Was, it was a small cruise liner from Sanc with re-entry capabilities, 150 soles max including crew," said Mr Lowe listing the facts coldly like Wikipedia as he switched the radio to receive only.
After that is was quiet. Mr Lowe was not much of a conversationalist; the only time Kira had been able to find out anything about the man, was that story in the mess a few days ago. A child soldier who had been fighting since he was 7, Kira could not imagine what sort of life the man next to him had been through, but it had not been pleasant. The man's arm was the most visible reminder of that past. On the flip side, he must have got out of that life sometime ago. He didn't look like an alcoholic, nor someone who had a drug addiction, so maybe what happened in the past for Mr Lowe stayed in the past.
Kira was brought out of his musings by Mr Lowe stopping the tug next to a rock.
"Is something wrong?" asked Kira, confused as to why they had stopped.
"Affirmative," said Mr Lowe working the controls to extend one of the tug's arms out past the rock.
Kira reached over to the com panel that had been turned to receive only after Mu's last message. Mr Lowes hand shot out and grabbed his wrist in a vice-like grip, Kira knew it was the man's real arm, not his artificial one, because they had inhibitors in them to stop them from injuring people, or at least the ones his mother worked on did.
"Stay quiet," said Mr Lowe; his eyes were locked onto the screen that showed the camera from the tug's arm. Kira looked as well at first not seeing what had spooked the normally unflappable Mr Lowe, but then he saw it, a purple GINN with several antennae and a really big gun.
Kira tried to reach over to the com panel again but Mr Lowe's grip was too strong. "If we use the radio it will track us," said Mr Lowe his eye still watching the monitor.
The GINN was turning away as if to move on, but then stopped and turned around. The monitor didn't let Kira see what the Ginn had spotted, but the radio chirped into life with Kuzzey's voice. With a sudden realisation, Kira's stomach went into a hard ball. Kuzzey's tug had been behind them, but had caught up when they stopped. Kuzzey had also left his radio on, unheard by the others due to its low volume and interference kicked out by Junius Seven, and now he was close to the GINN, it had heard him.
The Ginn opened fire just as the Tug came into the monitor's field of view. Shots slammed into the trailer, spilling its cargo of large blocks of ice into space.
"Huh? What was that?" asked Kuzzey the question no doubt directed at Dalida, but it came over the radio none the less.
Kira made another lunge for the radio to warn his friend, but Mr Lowe's hand was still around his wrist. He tried to reach around with his other hand but found it was pinned to the armrest by Mr Lowe's elbow.
Kira watched in horror as the ZAFT GINN fired at Kuzzey's craft. Kuzzey was now screaming in panic as the realisation sank in that he was being shot at. He counted one, two, three, four, five, shots before the mobile suit paused. Kuzzey was still screaming in terror, but Mr Lowe still had his hand on Kira's wrist stopping him from calling out. What the bloody hell was he thinking? Kuzzey was in trouble; they needed to help him NOW!
The mobile suit spun to face what Kira perceived as up, firing off four rounds, each resulting in an explosion, one almost on top of the mobile suit. Through the remains of the last explosion, two shells from a Linear Gun burst into sight, only to bounce off of the mobile suit's front armour. This was followed closely by a Moebius that sped past in a blur of white, grey and pink. The GINN's head followed it as it was removed from its body.
Kira felt a jerk, and realised Mr Lowe was no longer holding him back, instead, he was working the controls of the utility craft and moving them out of cover, bringing them alongside Kuzzey's craft.
0o0o0o0o0o0
Mariemaia didn't release the throttle even when she was past the mobile suit. She had missed; she had been aiming for the centre of mass, nothing fancy like a head shot that would only annoy the pilot, and if she recognised the unit, the co-pilot as well.
She thought about turning around and having another shot with her beam sabre, but the rounds slamming into the debris around her made her decide otherwise.
"Tallgeese to Zero I am engaged by the Sliverwind, need back up ASAP."
"Roger, ETA 90 seconds, number and type?" requested Mu.
"One GINN looks like a long range recon type."
"Can you lose him?"
She thought about that for a split second; it was wishful thinking on both their parts. A Moebius maybe small and nimble, but a mobile suit had a better mass to thrust ratio, and were therefore more manoeuvrable and better at acceleration, top speed didn't matter in space. Her Moebius was not a regular line issue, but had been originally four Moebius and the Tallgeese, which didn't help here as it was heavier than the standard craft and didn't have the thrusters to offset its additional weight. The suit on her tail was gaining slowly, it had a lot of ground to catch up, but it was starting to close the distance, which meant she had lost all her advantages in this fight.
"Negative," she said, willing more power out of her craft.
"Ok I can see you, head straight for Junius Seven," said Mu.
"Roger," she said, not looking around for Mu's position. He was a professional and a damn good pilot, so she trusted his ability to set up an ambush. Instead of worrying about what Mu was up to, she concentrated on the threat behind her, and avoiding debris like the large rock in front of her.
She pulled back on the stick to clear the obstacle, and as she passed it she fired a grappling wire, and used the debris to sling-shot herself onto the course to which Mu had directed her.
0o0o0o0o0o0o
Iwa Roimata cursed as the Moebius pulled off an unexpected manoeuvre that trashed her shot, and made her almost lose track of it. These damn fucking pirates scum were going to die. They had stumbled onto this little operation near the corpse of Junius Seven, those bastards must have been going through the pockets of the dead or looting a bank, pathetic but that was pirates for you.
It was now obvious what had happened to the Sliverwind. They had stumbled upon this merry band of pirates mid-operation, and had been attacked; so much for using a neutral ship. Not everyone cared about such things. The damage was consistent with ship-base weapons used by the Alliance. That also fitted, as the desertion rates amongst the Alliance was rising, due to combat casualties, but not many ended up in ZAFT's custody, preferring to be pirates. She had once heard about an Agamemnon-class being used as a pirate ship by its former crew, complete with fighter escort, but she had thought that was propaganda, now she was not sure.
It didn't matter who these guys were, the commander was going to cut them to ribbons when he heard what had happened, like that time some rating had thought he could have his way with the POWs. That had been bloody, and the poor girl had been more traumatised by the level of violence shown to her would-be rapist than by what he had tried to do to her.
"There's another one out there somewhere, can't get a fix on them with all this junk and background radiation," said her Co-pilot Murphy. He was a good kid, but he was a kid, as green as they come and ready to prove that he could take on the world single handed, that's why the Commander had given her the job of looking out for him, until he realised that he was not the Commander. Neither of them got the joke.
"Jam him," she said. They needed to take out their eyes before they could extract. These pirates had done one of the dumbest things she had ever seen, they had turned a Moebius into an AWACS by putting a big dish onto its side. However, despite being the least well-suited craft imaginable for that task, they needed to kill it or get bounced on the way out by its buddies.
Iwa cursed, that Moebius had just spoofed her targeting computer with chaffs and flares, although these would not have been enough to fool her sensor suite, the unusual mass distribution of the Moebius made it turn faster to one side and neither had she nor the computer compensated for it.
"Six o'clock!" was her only warning from Murphy. She didn't think, just reacted kicking the rudder to yaw sideways, and throwing the stick hard right to turn the suit round to take any fire on her front armour. At the same time, below her, Murphy would be using his box of tricks to spoof the enemy's lock. She spotted two orange gun-barrels in front of her, but could not comprehend what they were until she was kicked from behind, as the rear armour was penetrated.
The mobile suit's computer registered the penetration by the two tungsten rounds and catalogued the havoc they wrought on the inside of the suit as they failed to over penetrate, rather they bounced around the inside of the suit, creating a large amount of shrapnel. Sensors around the fuel tanks indicated multiple leaks in both, the fuel temperature sensor spiked, indicating that the leaking fuel had been ignited. The main battery sensors showed damage, along with a power fluctuation that indicated the battery acid was on fire, or was about to catch fire despite the lack of oxygen in the mix, which suggested the oxygen-rich fuel had made contact with the batteries. This data was processed in less than a 100th of a second, and ticked all but the box for fighting compartment breached, in the check list of mobile suit beyond recovery. The problem the computer faced was that it detected both pilots still within the craft and decided to solve this by blowing the hatch, and ejecting both occupants without bothering to check if they were in their normal suits, as it was too late for that. After completing this function, it continued to monitor the damage reports as it activated fire extinguishers to slow down the fire's progress as its program dictated. If it had been ZERO or any sort of AI it would have asked why bother? But it was as far as computers go, dumb, so just followed its programming. If the computer had been any brighter Iwa would have empted a magazine into the tower with the words "DIE YOU MONSTER."
Iwa orientated herself quickly as she detached from her ejector seat; she needed to move fast before the suit blew. Damn it where was the kid? There he was below her and to the right; he had orientated himself, that was good, now they just needed to find some cover before the suit blew either from a self-detonator, or from whatever the computer had perceived to be so bad it had kicked them out automatically.
Scanning her surroundings, Iwa was surprised to see the Moebius from before coming in for a pass. At first she thought the pilot would open fire, she had seen that before. But he didn't, instead it came to a relative stop within ten metres of her. The gesture was obvious; she was given the opportunity to surrender and become a hostage, the alternative was death when her mobile suit blew up. Pirates didn't harm hostages as long as the ransom was paid, and they didn't do anything stupid. So she hooked up.
Murphy tried to run when the Moebius approached him, dumb kid. Iwa grabbed his belt, uncoiled the safety line and hooked him up.
As her suit finally blew, Iwa was able to see the name of the pilot highlighted by the fireball, as sensitive ZAFT equipment burned, 'Lt. M Kushrenada'. Iwa's only coherent thought was of a little red-haired girl in a wheelchair being shepherded around by the commander to keep her from starting another revolution.
0o0o0o0
Lancaster opened the throttle and ditched the load; they could come back for it later. Now they needed to move fast, and get back to the ship before someone else came along.
"Tug two are you ok?" asked Lancaster as he pulled his tug in alongside the other craft.
"Yeah we are fine, they missed the main hull, just got the cargo," said Dalida.
"Warning shots," Lancaster muttered.
"WARNING SHOTS? THEY BLOODY HIT US-" screamed Kuzzey. Lancaster interrupted him as he started babbling. The kid was scared, being shot at for the first time in your life, where the other guy was out to kill you, not just a ship or base, but you, would do that to people. Only way to stop the kid from being scared was to give him orders and get him moving.
"You can't hear shots fired in space, and pirates kept claiming they did not see the warning shots or hear the broadcast to surrender, in court and got away with it. Dalida are you mobile?" asked Lancaster.
"We are, but I can't drop our load," said Dalida. He sounded calm, which was good if the man had been just as panicky as Kuzzey, then one of them might try and do something stupid.
"Roger; I will get it. Kira, keep an eye out for more hostiles," said Lancaster, as he moved the manipulators to snap the offending coupling.
Tug three called in; it still had its cargo and was almost clear of the debris field.
"There!" yelled Kira.
Lancaster reacted by swinging around to face towards where Kira was pointing. He armed the twin 40mm Gatlin guns as the tug manoeuvred to face Kira's target; rather stupid, as they would bounce off a tug's hull and only give a mobile suit a nice sand-blast. In the process he snapped the coupling that connected tug two with its cargo. At first he didn't see any targets, nothing big enough to be a mobile suit, then he spotted what Kira had seen, a life pod. He was going to have to chew the kid out after this. It dawned on him that the pod was of Sanc design, and there was only one, not a cluster. One very important person had been evacuated whilst the crew fought to save them, or rather her. Lancaster could only think of one person the Sancs would fight for, her!
"We are clear," said Dalida over the radio, but Lancaster ignored him.
With a tap on the throttle, he was in range to grab the pod. If she was really in here, he would be in trouble, but he was not going to just leave her drifting. He had royally messed up at the lunar conference. He didn't even know something was going to happen, and she had almost died, only being saved by going out to take a phone call. So much for 'I will always protect you'. He owed whoever had called her big time.
The manipulators of his Tug grab the pod.
0o0o0o0o0o0o
"Sir, communication from the Nataku," said the Communication Station Operator. Immediately the FAITH operative was standing over him.
"The legged ship has her," was the message on the display. The operator knew better than to blurt out whatever it said.
Rather than the dread this message should have brought her, she felt relieved. Lacus was alive, and the alliance would find out why picking on the weak was more commonly known as suicide, when one of the boys was around. No; calling him a boy now was rather stupid, as he was in his thirties, but old habits die hard. It would be better if he rescued her, rather than waiting for the Le Creuset team to botch it up again.
She had thought him lost, back when someone had called in an airstrike on the negotiations he had been involved with. But she had found him again, single-handedly holding together a group of suits, tanks and crunches cut off during the First Battle of Victoria. He had been bawling out reds, greens and blacks to rally them, and take charge in the process, all whilst appearing to be a 'junior green pilot'.
She had contacted him asking what he needed to break back through to friendly lines, only for him to say "I DON'T NEED ANY HELP AGAINST WEAKLINGS LIKE THIS!" which he didn't. According to the official reports he had made Quad Ace in one day, which didn't make a dent in his kill count, but for the first time he got a medal for it. It was funny how no one associated the name with a man who should have died all those years ago; even the Alliance knew his name, and no doubt had photos to go with it, but he had too much stubborn pride to change it.
They had been the last ones out, providing cover for the retreat against an armoured counter-attack. She was technically the last suit out, only because he was dragging her after the legs of her suit had been shot out from under her.
"Send a reply confirming our acknowledgement," she said, flicking out her data slate. She was looking over the intel gathered by the Le Creuset team, on the new battleship the Alliance had built in Heliopolis, when she had been called over. She needed proof for her friends in the council, to get that over-aggressive idiot demoted out of a position where he could do damage. Orb was one step away from all-out war against ZAFT, and he had almost lost all the new Gundams, taking on a pilot trained to handle the new suits.
Suffice it to say Le Creuset had not given a complete report to the council, using their lack of military expertise to perform a Dog and Pony show that had rallied the fence sitters to Zala's side. Unfortunately for him, she had been talking to an old friend at the docks, and had agreed to give him a bottle of Famous Grouse if he would pull all the ships' log data. Thankfully, that had included the logs from both ships and all of the new mobile suits, which had let her construct an OZ-style spec of the Strike.
Fighting ability was somewhere between 140 and 180, but she could not tell if that was pilot ability or not. The quick swap out of weapons would tend towards the higher end of the scale.
Weapon ability was 130 for the sword, 140 for the rifle and shield. Above that of OZ suits and most ZAFT suits, however it could change load-out faster than a ZAFT suit, with what she was calling 'Striker packs'. She made a note to find out if there were any other 'Striker packs' on file for the Strike, possibly a long-range one.
Speed was 140 with the sword, and 160 with the rifle. It was notably faster with the rifle and shield pack, but she would need a lab to figure that out.
Power level was 10, batteries killed the power output and with the energy-heavy load-out of all the striker packs, she figured that the Strike was equipped with a fusion generator, or more likely was running at the edge of its endurance, and would not survive in a prolonged fight.
Armour ability was 200, giving it a better armour rating than a Gundam; that was going to upset the 'boys', but Gundanium could be penetrated by kinetic rounds. Unfortunately, this protection bled off to 40 when facing beam weapons. You wanted to be as electromagnetically neutral as possible, so running a current through the armour made it more susceptible to damage from beam weapons. Only problem was, because of the expense of beam weapons and the lack of any threat worth the cost, they were only used in small numbers outside of warships, and then mainly as anti-ship ordinance. She ignored the fact that if you pushed five times as much energy into the armour at the point of contact as the energy weapon's output, it would block the shot. That would require the power output of a very large fusion reactor which was far too rare and valuable to be used for such an application. If the Alliance deployed these things in numbers, she would recommend breaking out the anti-ship weapons.
Other than that, she had found that the electronics had been built to civilian standards, and were of poor quality at that. They were also susceptible to EMP, a rather poor oversight, but who was she to complain about dumb decisions made by her enemies?
She stopped over the data relating to the Strike; there were several video transmission logs. Had the pilot of the Strike talked to the Le Creuset team? He was a bigger fool than that Le Creuset; well she could use his identity to bribe or blackmail him.
"Athrun?"
"Kira?"
She paused the recording; the first voice was new to her, but the second was Athrun Zala's, and he knew the pilot of the Strike. She could make Mr Zala's life hell, she just needed to find out who that boy was, he looked sort of familiar in the way that a man in the supermarket looks like a old friend, but just has the same hair style and a similar facial structure.
She put the name 'Kira' into a search, as well as the image, hoping he was in their database. While that was running, she picked out the last recording and started watching, this one had been received during the battle where Le Creuset had almost lost the rest of his squadron.
The eyes that bore back at her, were as cold as vacuum, and made her blood turn to ice as if she had just been spaced. She watched the whole thing then watched it again, a buzz told her the search had found a match, but she ignored it for now, watching the recording for a 3rd time. She was going to have to call the Chairman; this was too big for her to handle alone.
"Captain, I need to schedule a high-security communication with the Chairman, top priority," she told the Captain of her flagship before leaving the bridge. She needed to have a full report ready for him, no need for the whole 'your daughter is worth more alive and unharmed to them' speech, at least. Closing the recording, her data slate brought up the search results,
Kira Yamato, coordinator, age 16, last known residence Heliopolis. She stopped reading, after all nothing else was real, she had made sure of that when she had forged their records. She knew why he was fighting again; he had sacrificed too much for Kira, to let that boy end up like him.
This was going to end badly, unless she brought overwhelming force to bear, fast! This could not wait for the Chairman's approval. That's what FAITH did; an independent command that made the hard decisions when contacting high command for approval would take too long. This was a godsend in a navy with a command structure that was so poorly defined; that it often lead to confusion about who was in charge.
She sent a quick message to the rest of task force Twilight-fairy, as she entered her state room, to prepare to get underway immediately, and a second to her flagship's Captain to plot a course to intercept the Nataku.
This was going to be one of those days, like the time some kid broke out of Morgenroete hospital by parachuting out of a 70th floor window... Why was it always one of those days when he was around?
The Captain sent confirmation of his orders, as well as a note that made her curse violently; there was another ZAFT ship that would reach the area ahead of them, even if she left the Laurasia class behind, it was the Vesalius under Le Creuset's command.
A/N
Sorry for the long update, as I have put on my page I am dyslexic, so spelling is a big problem for me, as such I need someone to go over my work before posting, this time our schedule did not fit for some time and nothing happened with this story. So sorry, however I have written parts of the next chapter before this one was completed so next chapter should be a bit faster.
I got a copy of the Gundam Wing Technical Manual, although you can get almost every bit of information online I find it a nice guide and things from it will make its way into the story the OZ style performance ratings was one idea I got when reading it. Don't take Sally's figures to be accurate because I have not worked out how to apply the rating system to all seed suits and she has not got the suit in front of her to test, and some of it will be influenced by the pilots abilities witch throw such a scale off. It also does not help that the scale is rather odd in some of its values such as Epyon and wing have a weapon score of 140 when the wing has a gun, a very big gun. what you should get from the rating is despite the Strikes faults, it's overall better than the old gundams, and if wing popped back up it would get hammered.
As always I would appreciate feedback on what I have done, the good and the bad. The fight seen was easy this time as I went for more of an air to air dogfight than a mobile suit fight in space, so I am hoping that people could follow it but if not please say.