Disclaimer: I hereby declare that I do not in any way own the rights to the anime known as Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, or anything else that falls under the Gundam meta-series itself, this includes story, plot, characters, and mecha. I only own what I have created for the purpose of this story including the story itself, characters, and mecha.
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED: Raising the Black Flag
An Alternative Universe Story, based on Mobile Suit Gundam SEED
Written by,
William R. Woods
Aka "Deathzealot"
Or, "Deathzealotzero"
With some ideas and support from,
Seth M. Klein
Aka "Persistent Dreamer"
Phase Four: Hephaestus
The large space station know as Hephaestus Station is the main facility of Madorna Workshop and had been built by the Workshop several years before in conjunction with the Junk Guild. At first it was only a large factory space station but around two or so years after the station was built it was decided to build a civilian block into the station so workers at the station could have their families live close. This would be helpful when the Bloody Valentine War started and refugees started to flee the war. One such haven for refugees is Hephaestus Station which does lead to the station and its crew to start construction of a second civilian block alongside the first one. Today it is one of the major third party port of calls and one of the only ones inside the Debris Belt.
- Taken from Space Stations and Colonies of the Earth Sphere
-o-o-o-
Bridge
Rouge Ship Archangel
Debris Belt, Earth Sphere
February 7, CE71
Over a week and an half later found the now rouge ship Archangel slowly entering the dangerous Debris Belt on a heading towards the Hephaestus Station hidden somewhere in the numerous debris fields that made up the Belt. The Debris Belt is a ring of debris that took up much of the central orbit of the planet and even brushed through the Lagrange One area. The very dense debris fields made it very hard for ships as large as the Archangel to traverse the Belt, therefore it was normally avoided by any official traffic between the planet and the different locations in space. It was only used by those that need to hide for some reason or another like pirates or others like them that needed to hide away for some reason or another. Even then the debris fields that made the belt still made things tedious to travel with for smaller ships but with some preparation it should be possible.
On the bridge of the ship Captain Murrue Ramius sat in her command chair as she observed her ship slowly making its way through the first debris fields and the GAT-X105 Strike G-Weapon that stood on the forward deck of the ship watching out for any large pieces of debris. A pair of Mistral Pods graced the ship's secondary forward decks which hid the ship's powerful main guns, the Gottfried turrets. Another pair of pods flanked the larger ship keeping an eye out to the sides of the ship for any debris. This was mostly due to the large amount of debris giving large amount of interference preventing from a ship's radar from detecting all the pieces of debris floating around. The Captain nodded pleased that the preparations they had made were working and made a mental note to thank Lieutenant La Flagga for coming up with the idea. Granted the man didn't come up with the idea himself for he mentioned the idea was actually what Junk Guild ships do in similar cases just modified for their purposes.
Speaking of the Lieutenant it wasn't Kira in the Strike currently but the Lieutenant himself. This was mostly due to the pilot training that had been done over the last several days and the Lieutenant wanting to do some time piloting the Strike itself. Which is also why the rest of the pilot trainees were piloting the four Mistrals basically getting used to piloting something in real time. Kira meanwhile was still onboard the ship putting some final touches on the Natural-Use Operating System they had managed to find earlier at Heliopolis.
"Captain more coffee?" a voice asked jolting her out of her thoughts making her turn to the side seeing Shinji Temura, oldest son of the ship's volunteer galley chef and the man reasonable for keeping the coffee flowing for the hardworking crew of the ship. However Shinji was more than just a simple coffee maker but once been a barista at one of the finest Coffee Shops on Heliopolis who made some of the best coffee Murrue had ever tasted. She had heard both Chief Neumann and Ensign Badergeuil joke that the young Barista could make the Coffee for the gods he was that good.
"Yes Shinji thank you," she replied with a smile to the young man handing over her now empty zero-gee thermos for a new full one. Shinji quickly bowed his head to her before moving onto the rest of the bridge crew. The Captain could only shake her head at this since they had a full bridge crew over the bare-bones one they had launched with at Heliopolis. The refugee volunteers easily sliding into their new roles with the young Mirai Yashima at the helm alongside Chief Petty Officer Neumann, Kuzzey Bunkirk at communications allowing Petty Officer Chandra to take over the ECM Station in CIC, Miriallia Haw as the mobile suit operator in CIC which allowed Ensign Badergueil to take the Combat Commander Position, and Sai Argle in the supporting ECCM Station along with Chandra. Then they had the Forward Gunnery Control Center manned which took off some pressure from the CIC and the Automatics, engineering sporting a small crew which made things a bit easier with someone watching over the engines, an enlarged hanger crew which had combined both the original Alliance hanger mechanics with the engineers from Morgenroete. They even had enough personnel to do a limited shift rotation instead of just enough crew for one real shift. Other personal manned other vital locations across the ship allowing the ship to perform far better than ever before. Granted there were still some spots on the ship which sported no dedicated crew but the automatics covered much of those non-crewed vital areas.
The Captain shook her head as she calmly sipped from the warm thermos of coffee in her hands as she watched the pieces of debris calmly flow past the ship while the four Mistral Pods taking care of any of the larger pieces before they could hit the ship. It looked like the pilot trainees were doing a good job in the pods with them constantly moving from one piece of debris to another with little excess movements saving fuel. As she watched she saw one of the flanking pods reach out with its manipulators and snagged a fair sized piece of debris before it could hit the ship.
"Major? You want one sir?" the voice of Shinji asked from behind her attracting her attention towards the hatch leading to the bridge where Shinji stood by a towering figure of a man who stood at attention by the hatch. This man happened to be Major Daguza Mackle commander of a platoon of Orb Self Defense Forces Special Operation troops that had been found in one of the lifeboats. They had been attached to the OSDF unit protecting the colony after the G-Project was started on the colony which provided the OSDF on Heliopolis with a highly skilled infantry unit to support their lightly armed security forces and the light armored company that made up the Heliopolis Defense Unit of the Orb Self Defense Forces. However during the Battle of Heliopolis the Special Operations Platoon were only used by the HDU Commander to help the security and law enforcement personnel to escort innocent civilians to shelters while other portions of the unit fought against ZAFT suffering almost total casualties.
Therefore the Archangel now had a unit of highly skilled special operations soldiers on board who have taken upon themselves to serve as the ship's marine compliment. This was quite weird for while Atlantic Federation Warships really never had full-on Marines onboard instead relying on properly trained crewmen who provided the needed security for the ship. Only large ships like carriers and flagships sported dedicated marine compliments. However Orb's policy on Marines, really regular OSDF Troops serving in that role, was quite different and had them providing a guard for the vital areas of the ship as well as a guard for the ship's captain including posting a guard outside the door of the Captain's Quarters. This personally flustered the former senior lieutenant when a pair of Guards that took position outside of her quarters. She like the rest of the former Atlantic Federation crew had only gotten used to having fully armed soldiers onboard.
Currently the bridge sported a single guard, the Major himself, at the main hatch for the bridge while a second man stood at the smaller hatch that lead into the CIC below the bridge. The platoon also had guards at engineering, the main cargo bay where the refugees had been quartered, main armory which now sported the armored hardsuits used by the troops, and the ship's brig.
"No Mister Temura I am fine, but thanks for asking though I am sure my guys will need some of that nice sweet coco your father makes after the game," the Major replied dragging her attention back to the present. Murrue smiled slightly to see the man smiling slightly which changed the man's entire face for he was usually was expressionless and hard but some of the civilians like the kids could make a smile appear on the tough Special Operation trooper's face.
"Speaking of that what's the score Mister Chandra?" the Major asked leaning into the bridge proper with a different more cocky smile on his face. Murrue shook her head for she never thought that a crew of warship like the Archangel starting to play sports especially something like Zero-Gee Basketball but it sort of happened. Mainly due to the civilian refugees needed some sort of entertainment to keep them occupied therefore someone mentioned zero-gee Basketball and before long the ship's crew had organized a few teams to play each other in one of the secondary cargo bays. This along with a whole middle school team that had been along the refugees. As far she knew the bridge crew sported a team with Chief Petty Officer Neumann leading a few others from the bridge crew, the pilots and pilot trainees sported a team, the engineering crew, the hangar crew, and the Orb troops.
"Fifteen to Three, Saint Gloria," Chandra mentioned a few moments later with a smug look on his face making the face of the tough trooper to fall in shock at this making the rest of the bridge crew to break out in laughter.
"It's that Mayu girl she has a great arm," Chief Neumann mentioned from his place at the helm making the rest of the bridge crew's team nod in agreement.
"My guys must be rusty it has been awhile since we played zero-gee ball," the Major managed to say after a few moments of shock. Another series of laughs spread across the bridge at his declaration while Chandra only shook his head.
"According to Chief Murdock who is currently watching the game Lieutenant Haagensen kind of got swindled by the girls teary eyed facades, for he had the team take it easy on them and ended up getting their butts kicked when the girls started to really play much to shock of the Orb's Guardians," Chandra reported with a small smile on his face making the older man's jaw drop in shock at this while chuckles emerged from a few members of the bridge crew. The Major cursed silently under his breath before huffing and retaking his post outside of the hatch now with large scowl on his face. However before anyone could say anything else the sensor station started to beep in an warning tone making the operator Petty Officer Jackie Tonomura looking down at this station in surprise before looking back up at the confused faces looking at him.
"Ma'am! Detecting three small heat sources rapidly approaching the ship! There're Mobile Suits!" the man reported making Murrue curse before turning to address Ensign Badgiruel down in the CIC when a strange noise attracted her attention to the forward viewport and seeing that the Strike was no longer standing on the forward deck but had boosted backwards and now was floating alongside the bridge with its hand on the side of the bridge.
"Skintalk communication link established with the Strike Captain," the voice of Kuzzey Buskirk reported making Murrue blink at this before remembering that the Archangel had been the only ship in the Atlantic Federation to be equipped with the capability for Skintalk communication which had been first developed by ZAFT to give their mobile suits and ships the capability to talk to one another in a battle area with heavy N-Jammer Interference blocking normal communication. Granted a Laser Communication System could be used but that could be intercepted by a unit in the path of the Laser where with Skintalk is impossible to intercept due to the direct link provided by Skin-to-skin link provided by Skintalk.
"No worries folks I think this is a welcoming committee from Hephaestus Station," the voice of Lieutenant La Flagga drawled over the speakers making Murrue turn her head to stare at the floating Strike with a frown.
"You think Lieutenant?" she asked with a worried tone in her voice which saw the man sigh in response.
"Yes ma'am I believe it is a squad from Hephaestus Station Security but we can't be totally sure till we get a better look at them for it still could be pirates but I highly doubt it," the Lieutenant replied with a deep frown in his voice.
"Speaking of that Ma'am I managed to get a solid identification on the contacts. The first is some sort of a GINN variant while the trailing contacts appear to be some form of the MWS-001 Boral Non-Combat Mobile Suit," Tonomura reported a moment later drawing Murrue's attention to the man with a frown however before she could say anything a sigh of relief could be heard over the speakers from the Strike.
"Good. That mix can only be a team from Hephaestus Station Security. That GINN Variant either has to be a GINN Marauder, which a series of popular custom variants introduced by Hephaestus, or another of their customized variants of the GINN, while those Borals have to be Boral Defenders, a variant developed by Hephaestus for defensive combat. That said let's wait till they contact us till we do anything," the Lieutenant replied over the skintalk link making the Captain nod in understanding at the Lieutenant's comment. She turned to look down at Ensign Badgiruel who only nodded at her look and started snapping out orders before the Captain could say anything making her blink before chuckling lightly.
"Mind Reader," she mentioned to the other woman with a small smile making Natarle only grin in reply before turning her attention to her own screens. Murrue did as well turning her attention to the veiwport watching as the Strike let go of the bridge which disconnected the Skintalk link and took position in front of the ship. The four Mistral Pods had gathered together behind the Strike while the ship's close in weapons the "Igellstungs" opened up and got ready. Before long the three mobile suits appeared through the dense debris field ahead of the ship and just like Tonomura mentioned earlier the lead machine was a GINN Variant while the other two mobile suits were quite different from they were expecting.
"It looks like they gave a Boral an armored vest and some sort of large funny-looking shoes along with a large gun," Chief Neumann mentioned with a snort of laughter for the other two mobile suits were indeed different from the basic Boral Non-Combat Mobile Suit looking exactly how he described it much to the amusement of Murrue and the others on the bridge. Suddenly Kuzzey looked up from his station and looked down at the Captain.
"I am getting a communication from the lead mobile suit ma'am should I put it up on the screen?" he asked Murrue who only nodded in answer and turned her attention to the large screen mounted above the viewport. The screen soon flashed a bit before it snapped on to show the helmeted face of the mobile suit's pilot.
"Approaching Unknown Ship this is the Hephaestus Station Security Force. You are now in territory claimed by Hephaestus Station. Therefore you are to identify yourself immediately or you will be fired upon," the man ordered with a frown which made Murrue nod at the standard challenge however before she could say anything at all to the man the screen beeped and once more a smaller window popped up in the corner of the screen showing the helmeted face of Lieutenant La Flagga. Unlike the other man who sported the normal full-face helmet visor the Lieutenant wore his normal helmet which only sported a thin visor over his eyes therefore they couldn't really see his face but by the twinkle in his eyes told everyone who knew him that other man was not only a friend but close to the Moebius Zero Pilot.
"No need to worry Old Man we are all friends here. That said Captain Ramius I like to introduce you to Flit Asuna, the Commander of the Mobile Suit Wing of Hephaestus Station Security. Flit I like to introduce you to Captain Murrue Ramius, Commander of the former Atlantic Federation Ship Archangel. With that I believe the introductions are out of the way and I shall get my people back onboard the ship," he mentioned much to the shock of the man leading the approaching mobile suit team. The smaller communication window then closed and outside the Strike could be seen rounding up the four Mistral Pods and into the now opening portside catapult. Murrue could only blink at this before shaking her head and turning her attention to this Flit character to see him shaking head with a frown on his face before sighing and turning his own her attention to her.
"Alright Captain Ramius like that damn Kid mentioned I am Flit Asuna and I guess you are here to request asylum with Hephaestus Station?" the man asked with a frown eying her through the communication link.
"Correct Commander Asuna we are requesting that you take us in for we have nowhere us to go really since we cannot go back to the Alliance after what happened. Not mentioned we are currently carrying a few hundred refugees from Heliopolis," Murrue replied with a nod her head making the man sigh and frown at her.
"Well Chief Madorna wouldn't mind taking in the Kid back in but the last thing he thought was he would bring back a top-of-the-line warship and its crew with him. Therefore I can let you dock, since you do have refugees onboard after all, but it would be up to the Chief to officially give you asylum after meeting with you and your officers," the man mentioned after a moment of thought making Murrue nod in understanding for it is what she had been expecting.
"Understood Commander that would be just fine," she replied with a small smile on her face making the man nod in return. He briefly looked off-screen for a moment before nodding and looking back at her with a thoughtful look on his face.
"That said I shall bring my team onboard your ship so we can get some of the stuff out of the way before we get to the station," he mentioned after a moment or two of thought which made Murrue blink in surprise before nodding and looking down at Ensign Baderguil who only nodded in return before turning to address Miriallia.
"That shall be just fine Commander. I look forward to meet you person and with that said sir I shall hand you over to the ship's Mobile Suit Operator for landing instructions," she replied with a nod over her shoulder at Kuzzey who quickly transferred the Commander over to Miriallia's Station down in CIC. That done she turned and watched as the three mobile suits one by one landing through the starboard catapult. She nodded at this before getting up from her chair to head to the hangar to meet up with Commander Asuna and exchanged nods with Natarle as the woman floated up from CIC to take over the bridge before stepping through the hatch and heading towards the hangar.
-o-o-o-
Nearspace
Hephaestus Station
Debris Belt, Earth Sphere
In a calm, open space of the debris belt a large space station was moored surrounded by large amount of traffic with much of it focused around the large vertical rotating cylinder that was being built onto the top of the station mirroring a similar cylinder that had been already built along the bottom of the station. Other traffic was going between the large docks that took up the front of the station which looked remarkably like the "legs" on the front of the Archangel which sported the ship's catapults and the main guns of the ship. This traffic were mainly small transports, and cargo shuttles carrying whatever cargo the station needed to stay in operation.
Holding station above all this traffic was several defensive mobile suits with many of them being the white-painted Boral Defenders while a handful were the newer armored Boral Guardians. A couple even being some sort of custom GINN Variants that were a bit different from any other variant in use by ZAFT. All were in position to protect the station and its environs along with the numerous transports and shuttles coming and going from the station.
It was through all this that the Archangel sailed towards the large station with several more white-painted Boral Defenders escorting it making sure none of the transports or shuttles got close to the larger ship. The appearance of the large former Atlantic Federation warship had shocked the station's security forces but with the person of Flit Asuna onboard it was quickly smoothed over and an express course to the one of the station's larger docking bays was plotted.
On the bridge of the white and red painted battleship Captain Ramius stood at the front of said bridge looking over the station with awe. For it was quite larger then she had imagined it for it was around similar size to a small colony. When she first heard about it she imagined as large as some other stations she seen like the Big Ring Station in Artic Orbit, or the Ame-No-Mirashara Space Station where she had to be sent to before the start of the G-Project to get her into Morgenroete properly. While she did admit Ame-No-Mirashara was quite close in size to Hephaestus it was still larger than the former base station for Orb's Orbital Elevator project.
Standing at the Captain's side is the figure of Commander Flit Asuna who looked quite amused at the shocked expressions on everyone's faces. He always liked seeing people's first reactions to his home for it was always was amusing to him. He looked around the bridge with a small smile on his face seeing all the other members of the ship's bridge crew shocked and awed at the sight of the Station. While Colonies like the PLANTs and Heliopolis were larger then Hephaestus but you expected colonies like that to be larger than anything else human-built in space.
"Commander how big is it? And what are those cylinders?" Murrue asked after a few moments of recovering from her shock and awe. The Commander chuckled at this before looking over the station eying the uncompleted top cylinder before turning his attention back to the Captain.
"The main body of the station from the tip of the docking arms to the rear factory section of the station is around three kilometers give or take. The twin cylinders are custom-built civilian sectors of the station since we are one of the few refugee havens in the Earth Sphere we have started construction on a second cylinder on top of the station due to the overcrowding in the lower cylinder. Each cylinder is capable of supporting around ten to twelve thousand people giving the station twenty to twenty-four thousand population when the cylinder is finished," the man reported with a nod of his head to the station.
"How in the world did you guys manage to build it?" the Captain asked after a few more moments watching as the station become ever closer as the ship got closer to the station.
"Oh! That is a story better told by the Chief ma'am for he loves telling it to anyone who asks, but from I understand it took hard work and some help from the Junk Guild to build it," the man replied with a shake of his head and a smile which made Murrue only nod in understanding at this before turning and watching as the Archangel moved past the large docking arms and towards a now opening hatch on top of the base of the arms.
"Alright here we go Captain," the man mentioned nodding to the opening hatch before turning his attention to the helm station while Murrue continued to watch as the hatch finished opening showing a lighted ramp leading further into the large station. So similar to those she had seen at some of the Earth Alliance controlled Moon Bases. With careful precision the she watched as the ship lowered itself towards the ramp before slowly heading down the ramp and into a large docking bay that sported nine dedicated ship docks, five of which were already taken. One of the empty docks that was in front of two of the occupied docks. She continued to watch as her ship lined up with the dock and with a deft touch the ship started to lower itself into the dock. She looked over at the helm and watched as her two helm officers very carefully eased the large ship into the dock.
A few moments later a loud thud was heard as the ship was grabbed by the docking clamps and with a loud whine the dock's scaffolding started to fold towards the Archangel. This was followed by a few smaller thumps as the dock's scaffolding locked onto the ship. Then finally the helm officers started to power down the ship's engines which deadened the low thrum that was a constant sound with the engines online. With that done they were officially docked with the station and officially no longer a ship but a docked ship. Already cheers could be heard throughout the ship while a few of the members of the bridge crew only sighed in relief while the two helms officer leaned against their seats before talking excitedly with one another.
"Well then Ma'am I like to be the first to officially welcome you to Hephaestus Station," Flit mentioned turning his attention back to her with a smile making Murrue only nod at the man and sighed hoping that the Station will take them in for she couldn't think of anywhere else to go that would be willing to take them in. However for now she could only present her case and hope the man in charge of the station will be willing to take them in. Till then she cannot fully relax for their future was still in doubt. With a final glance at the viewport and the bridge she turned to follow behind Flit as the man headed for the bridge hatch and eventually one of the exterior hatches.
-o-End-o-
Post Chapter Notes
Well here is the next chapter and we are introduced to Hephaestus Station which looks like a larger version of Madorna's Workshop Station seen in Gundam AGE. Honestly while I liked the station it seemed like it was smaller than the stated dimensions for the station. For it had the one ship dock between the two legs of the station which seemed to be quite smaller looking than it should be on a two kilometer long station. Then again I am not really the person to say anything about stuff like that but still it seemed to be quite smaller then it was intended to be. Therefore for the purpose of this story the Station is around three kilometers instead and the dock between the arms is no longer a single ship dock but a ramp leading into a larger dock which sports three vertical rows of three ship docks. This is basically a smaller, zero-gee, version of the underground docks seen in the Blue Steel anime. Also the docking arms are also a bit larger allowing small transports to dock in a similar docking bay to those found in the Colonies of AGE, the so-called "harbor" type which are the red "under-arms" seen underneath the regular arms. The smaller hangar bays on the top of the arms is still there and used by the smaller cargo shuttles and launches.
The station also sports the same vertical cylinder on the bottom of the station which for this story is a small colony cylinder that works similar to the cylinders seen in Gundam Unicorn's Palau Asteroid Facility. Also during the story a second cylinder is being built mirroring that of the first one just on top of the station. Speaking of that the panels that are spread out from the top of the station are relocated to the sides of the station. This gives the station the ability to support a small civilian population which is mainly thanks to my future plans for the station in this story.
That said moving on it seems like I have been mainly focusing on the Archangel as a whole instead of Kira therefore I do apologize for that but I am doing something similar to my Resolution story where I am focusing on the ship and its crew therefore the officers are POV characters. Kira will still have a large role in the story but he is joined by the likes of Mu and a couple other characters that have yet to be introduced.
Also yes I am foreshadowing that the Archangel is getting more mobile suits with them training a few more pilots which include Tolle as canon, along with Flay which I always liked as a mobile suit pilot, and a couple others with one being teased about in this chapter. As for mobile suits they are getting I can say it will not be the Boral (aka Recten) or a variant of said mobile suit. It will be a new mobile suit that isn't canon but based on another mobile suit from G-Reco that which those following the series will have a good idea on what I am going to be using for this new mobile suit.
With that said I believe I should wrap this up and say that I am sorry for the bit at the beginning of the chapter with the Zero-Gee Basketball but this story is my National Novel Writing Month Story which has me going to group write-ins where different games are played. One such game is basically taking plot ideas from a hat and using that idea in your story which gets a writer's brain thinking about the idea therefore more words being written. My plot idea I got was have some of your characters play a sport within the next ten minutes. This of course stumped me for the story is currently set on a space ship that doesn't sport artificially created gravity or anything like that therefore how in the world I was going to have my characters do a sport. I then had a Eureka moment and said what about some sort of new Zero-Gee Based Sport and then Zero-Gee Basketball was introduced. For those interested I must say I do not know how the game is played or anything just basically use your imagination to create it, but if someone comes up with a more through bit on the game let me know for I do plan on it being mentioned later on in the story for I think it is a good idea.
Alright I do believe that is it folks, and get working on the next chapter. Thanks for reading and I shall see you then.
