Celestial Being Chronicles - Chapter 61
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Gundam series, nor any of the various series which are used or referenced in my fic, so please point that damned lawsuit cannon at someone else, also, don't read this if you are not of legal age to read such material. The story contains possibly disturbing content and should not be read by close-minded people (i.e., people who are easily offended.) Everything in the story is fictional. I am also not responsible for any actions taken by people who read this story and society's problems. I do, however, own my original character; Hope Yamato.
Kira's conviction was that what Celestial Being was doing really was in the best interest of humanity. No situation was too grim, no battle too hopeless for him to intervene in. He often flew from battle zone to battle zone to battle zone, desperately trying to save as much of the world as he possibly could. Though it pained them to see Kira pushing himself so hard, Cagalli, Hope, Lacus, Mayu and Murrue had little time to worry. While the love of their lives risked his neck and their hearts on a daily basis on the ever shifting battlefields, they spent each day sequestered for long hours in a conference room aboard the Excalibur, holding press meetings via teleconference and meeting with supporters of the peace efforts both worldwide and in space in a similar manner. They was risking something far more precious to their mission than just their life...they was risking their good image with the leaders of the Earth and the PLANTs, who were, as a majority, behind the continuation of the war as it currently was, unlike last time.
Lacus Clyne was still immensely popular and her words carried a great deal of weight with a generation that had grown up idolizing and trusting her, but she could only do so much from the Earth aboard the Excalibur. Words did not have as much impact when delivered from a TV screen and it was much harder to get the depth of her concerns across through a communications line. Things were much worse on Earth, where the government reacted with nearly violent action against Celestial Being's broadcasts, jamming them whenever possible and starting their own public rallies against the private armed organization. There were even terrorist incidents in which people who supported Celestial Being were killed with police standing by, doing nothing. It was depressing, even to Lacus's nearly indomitable spirit. But whenever she felt down, either Kira or Cagalli were there to lift her up again, just like she was always there to calm them after the nightmares that were returning with greater frequency and greater impact every night.
The Divinity Gundam looked up, almost with dread as dozens of drop pods came pelting down through the atmosphere like giant glowing red hailstones. Barely five days had gone by since the Excalibur had arrived at Gibraltar for a complete refit, and as a result, the massive warship was temporarily unable to fight. The Divinity Gundam had been out on a recon patrol when the drop pods had been sighted, and the angelic machine was now screaming back towards the base, its wings of light brilliantly flaring as the blood red glow of Trans-Am lit up its armor.
The base was doomed and everyone knew it. Celestial Being barely had a full division emplaced at Gibraltar...and more than half of that was green troops. At the moment, fifty ZAKUs, twenty Murasames, ten Strike Daggers, ten Tauruses, five Freedom LPTs and five Freedom CGUEs defended the base, a total of only 100 mobile suits. Kira quickly scanned the drop pods, horrified to discover that the number of ZAFT mobile suits was at least 500...plus what ever infantry they chose to land. ZAFT infantry would be even more of a nightmare than their mobile suits.
Mobile suits went after big targets...infantry was a tertiary target at best. But ZAFT infantry...who were more like special forces soldiers, in terms of ability and training, would decimate their Celestial Being counterparts. Normally, ZAFT wouldn't dare to attack any of the bases held by Celestial Being, but with the fact that the private armed organization currently had only a few thousand members in total, only 500 of which were stationed at Gibraltar, the base was an obviously vulnerable target.
ZAFT hadn't employed many infantry attacks during the First Bloody Valentine War, but they wanted to reclaim this base...formerly one of their main strategic Earth bases, as quickly and efficiently as possible. Mobile suits were excellent at taking and holding ground. But they couldn't make an invasion solely by themselves...they'd run out of power or ammo eventually and be forced to retreat.
"Fuck." Kira muttered, as an all too familiar winged warship descended through the clouds, the bow of the ship aimed directly at the base as it followed the drop pods. "That's the Minerva."
A pair of reddish-blue beams of indescribable power...focused anti-matter particles...vomited forth from the Minerva's twin Tannhäuser cannons in explosions of light and sound. Less than a second later the Minerva vibrated and rocked backwards as dozens of anti ship missiles, two high caliber rail gun shots and four beams of intense heat energy joined the Tannhäuser blasts in flying towards the base.
The Tannhäuser blasts impacted first, a full twenty milliseconds ahead of the Tristan beam cannon blasts and almost a half second ahead of the Valiant shots...two seconds ahead of the missiles. The shots from both Tannhäusers washed through the huddle of vehicles and mobile suits on the ground like a blast of superheated steam through an ice sculpture, destroying ninety percent of the gathered forces in the blink of an eye. Not diminished in the slightest, the beam continued on to strike the base dead center. Positron particles reacted with their electron counterparts, ripping matter apart in a reaction of such intense power as to render nuclear weapons completely laughable.
The two Tannhäuser beams fully penetrated the seventy-five feet of concrete, steel and phase shift armor to the primary factory chamber and then continued on to burn through several cranes, two complete ZAKUs and four incomplete Freedom LPTs before finally impacting the bottom level and dissipating in a tremendous explosion of superheated air and secondary blasts from ignited fuel, severed electrical connections and damaged munitions. Before the blast wave had even struck the workers on the floor of the factory areas, the Tristan beams had followed the path of the Tannhäuser into the factory. Diverging slightly, each of the four beams went a slightly different path, burning through mobile suits, workstations, machinery and worst of all, power generators, which went up like bombs, some of the generators leaving clouds of glowing GN particles hanging in the air after their destruction.
With a thunderous explosion that blew leaves off trees more than five miles away, and a flash of light that drowned out the sun for nearly ten full seconds, the entire middle level of the base disintegrated in fire and rubble and smoke. Fire spread rapidly throughout the base, touching off fuel supplies and ammunition dumps in a continuing string of blasts, each which made the surrounding area visibly quiver. Structural integrity strained far beyond all tolerances, the top floors of the base broke up and crashed down into the middle levels, collapsing the floor and driving the whole multi-thousand ton mass of wreckage into the lower levels of the base and storage levels, utterly and irrevocably ruining the Freedom LPT and ZAKU production lines and demolishing a vast majority of mobile suit hangers in the base. Finally, the thousands of tons of debris slammed into the Excalibur's MCPS armored hull, causing the massive warship to violently shudder, but leaving the vessel completely undamaged.
"What the fuck is going on up there?" Murrue yelled, as her warship shuddered around her.
"The entire base has collapsed!" Lacus replied, even as Cagalli brought the Excalibur's engines to life, the massive dagger-shaped warship slowly rising through the debris of the base.
"Excalibur!" Kira's voice suddenly crackled through the communications line. "Please come in!"
"We're here, Kira." Lacus answered. "What's going on up there?"
"ZAFT has decided to be stupid!" Kira snarled, transforming the Divinity into its mobile suit mode while unleashing his DRAGOON units and firing beam blasts at any and all enemy mobile suits. He wasn't trying to kill his enemies, but his rage was slowly beginning to take hold, and a few of the blasts from his DRAGOON units did end up piercing the cockpits of the attacking ZAFT machines.
The first Celestial Being forces to arrive in response to the sudden attack were not mobile suits, but a wing of forty-four X-02A Wyvern superfighters. These Wyverns were mounted with detachable weapon modules based on the primary weapon systems of the original Freedom Gundam. In addition to the standard heavy beam machine guns and missile bays of a normal Wyvern, each of these ones mounted two plasma cannons overslung on the wings and a pair of rail guns underslung on the belly.
Piloted by the most experienced fighter pilots Celestial Being had to offer, the Wyverns came screaming into the battle zone in perfect formation, flying wingtip to wingtip in a two level wave, flying barely meters above the ground below them. As one person, all the pilots opened fire at once and held down the triggers for all they were worth.
"The landing sites have been secured." One of the ZAFT pilots announced.
"Launch the Gungnirs!" The captain of the Minerva ordered. "It's time to finish this."
The bottoms of the modified Laurasia-class ships opened, the ships having been placed in orbit above Gibraltar for this attack. Nine large pods were deployed from each of the ships, quickly descending upon Gibraltar.
A GINN loaded the final EMP caster into the Gungnir. "Right. Caster 12 is primed." The pilot said. "Now to–"
Suddenly, the last GINN covering him exploded. The pilot swore. He had to activate the Gungnir now. The GINN moved towards the Gungnir's control console. The GINN's quickly typed the activation code into the console. With the final Gungnir activated, the count down on all the Gungnirs started.
Thirty short seconds later, the Gungnirs fired, each releasing a powerful wave of energy. The waves spread out, consuming the entire area. The ZAFT mobile suits were unaffected but more than half of the Celestial Being machinery, save one vital warship and its own compliment of mobile suits, weren't so fortunate. The EMP waves fried the circuitry of the machines and computers. From tanks and gun emplacements to mobile suits, to the Gibraltar Base itself. The mass driver overloaded, sending a massive surge through the track, tearing the entire thing apart.
The Divinity Gundam, having been in the center of all nine of the now converging EMP blasts, was quickly overwhelmed by the unexpected amount of power. The angelic machine automatically rerouted all of its power to the EMP shielding systems, causing the DRAGOON units to quickly return to their docks on the Divinity's wings, even as the machine itself dropped out of Trans-Am, the wings of light vanishing and the thrusters going silent as the machine's MCPS armor reverted to the dull grey of its powered down state. In the cockpit, Kira Yamato snarled as he quickly merged with his machine, while using his more god-like abilities to reduce its size to that of an average human. An instant before the Divinity had completely powered down, Kira somehow managed to reactivate the hyper deuteron nuclear reactor and the holoshroud, surrounding the machine's armor with his own vestige. Finally, the amethyst-eyed man let out a mental sigh, closing his eyes as he quickly plummeted towards the ground.
The reinforced steel door sprung open with a shriek of metal on metal and four large and heavily armed soldiers charged into the room. They grabbed Kira by the upper arms and hustled him out of the cell. They didn't quite rough him up in the process...but they weren't gentle either and he got the impression that if he'd resisted even slightly they would have been more than glad to make him regret it. He did not resist in the slightest...he thought he could probably take out the four who grabbed him...they weren't the most alert people he'd seen. But they had lots of friends out in the hall...at least eight more guards were standing around with fingers on triggers or metal batons hefted in hand. Them he could not take. The guards did not waste time...without even saying a word he was dragged, or to be more accurate; carried down the hall and into a small room equipped with cameras hanging from the ceiling and an automated gun projecting from the wall.
The sentry gun tracked him closely...the barrel looking big enough to fit his thumb into. Something else to remember...this place was probably well equipped with similar sentry guns...it wouldn't be a good idea to go blindly running around corners in here. Athrun was hustled through another door into what looked like a dungeon, with a metal table and four metal chairs all bolted to the ground roughly in the middle. A plush armchair faced the bolted down chairs across the table. A small wooden table well stocked with water bottles stood at the side of the armchair. Athrun was pushed into one of the two chairs in the center of the room and was handcuffed arm and leg to the chair. The guards left, except for two who stood to either side of the door, watching him coldly. Athrun looked around the interrogation room.
The chair to his right held Shinn Asuka, and Athrun could already tell that his enemies not only wanted to keep them alive, they wanted them relatively unhurt as well...although that did bode ill for the reasons behind the generosity, such as it was.
Within minutes the guards were back in force, dragging Kira. The amethyst-eyed man looked slightly worse for the wear...he too had also not struggled but the guards seemed to regard him with a special sort of loathing. The guards indicated their displeasure at handling Kira by shoving him as roughly as possible, causing him to bang himself up more than a little as they secured him ruthlessly to the chair between Athrun and Shinn. Both Athrun and Shinn's restraints were tight enough to be uncomfortable, but Kira's were locked so tightly that they cut the flesh of his wrists and ankles.
"Not exactly how I wanted the day to turn out." Kira commented with a meager smile as the ZAFT guards, finally happy with his restraints, left the small cell which they had placed Athrun, Shinn and himself in. The door watchers glared at Kira fiercely but did not stop them from talking. "I'm sorry Athrun, Shinn...I was stupid to expect that my words alone could have gotten us out of this situation."
"Kira..." Athrun said sharply. Kira looked up from where he'd cast his eyes down in apology. "That isn't the issue right now. We can all agree on how stupid you were later. Preferably after we get out of here." Athrun ignored the amused snorts of the guards, who plainly didn't give much for their chance of escape. "I'm willing to forgive you...it wasn't all your fault. Once I can forgive and forget. If you put us into another situation like this through blind faith in your expectations of others...we'll have more than words. Much more."
"I understand. I can imagine that most everyone is pretty angry with me." Kira nodded. "No doubt there will be very harsh language directed at me once we escape."
"If that's all that's directed at you, you should count yourself very fortunate." Shinn muttered, and after a moment of silence, Athrun sighed. "I'm one of your best friends, Kira. And if I wasn't chained to this chair right now...I'd smack you. Hard...repeatedly. Think on that."
"Yeah, I get the picture. There's no need for threats." Kira retorted. "I'm not an idiot...I can figure out for myself that a lot of people are going to want to take a swing...or a shot...at me. I'll deal with it." Kira cranked his neck around to look Athrun in the eye. "If you need someone to blame you can blame me...sure. But smear some of the blame on yourself too. You're supposed to be more sensible than me, by all accounts. Why didn't you stop me?"
"Stop you? I would have had to punch your lights out to stop you." Athrun hissed.
"Then do that next time!" Kira snapped back.
"I will, thank you." Athrun paused. "Just remember you said that...I don't need every member of your little harem on my case just because you need a few ounces of common sense drilled fist-first into your head."
"Oh, like you've never needed that? What was with that little stunt in the Justice I heard about? I had asked you to protect Cagalli...I didn't ask you to blow yourself up. Or that trip to the PLANTs...even you said it was a stupid idea to go see your father. If Lacus and Andy hadn't rescued you, you would probably still be in jail or, more likely, dead by this point in time. I should have smacked you then, but you know me...always the nice guy." Kira shot back.
"Both of you, shut up." Shinn sighed, and an instant later, his head exploded into a shower of blood and gore for no apparent reason. The gory explosion spraying brainmatter through the room. Everyone's jaw dropped few seconds later, as the raven-haired man's head regenerated. "Ow." Shinn muttered, glaring heatedly at Kira. "That was quite unnecessary."
"Fine, that's how you want it, eh, Mr. Nice Guy? You got some nerve, bringing up stuff like that. Sure, I may have made some rash decisions...but they're nothing compared to the crap you do regularly. Don't talk to me about stupid ideas...you're the prince of stupid ideas."
"That's it...you are my friend, Athrun. My best friend. I can put up with a lot. But stop calling me stupid! I made my decisions because I thought they were the best thing to do at that time. If you've got a problem with that, we need to address it."
Athrun sighed heavily. "Let's just drop it...this isn't the time or the place." He said with a head shake. 'You brainless idiot.' He thought, and it wasn't until Athrun heard Kira draw a sharp intake of breath that he remembered that Kira was telepathic.
"Oh...I'm done. That is it! Once we get out of here...good and gone, all of us safe...I'm going to kick your ass, Athrun Zala. I've had it with everyone criticizing me for the things I've done! You aren't me...you don't know how hard making the decisions is. You may make hard decisions of your own that I don't understand...but I don't shove them in your face all the time!"
"Whatever, Kira. Personally, I'd really like to see you try to kick my ass, and frankly, I really don't think you can."
"We'll see about that."
"We will, won't we?"
They were cut off mid-argument by the sound of a man chuckling in honest amusement. They both looked around to the door, where a middle aged man with a thick mane of slightly curly black hair stood casually in the door. The man wore a business suit of fine make and carried a metal briefcase easily in one hand. "Teenagers and their tough talk. It never fails to amuse me...you always have to talk so much shit before you really get down and dirty and into the fight. An interesting psychological phenomenon but not currently relevant...you two have far more to worry about than a fist fight that will probably never take place."
"And who the fucking hell are you?" Kira spat, still very pissed off. It felt good to let his anger flow for once...usually he kept it under a fairly tight rein. It wasn't something he wanted to do often but right now his patience was gone. Maybe fighting wasn't the way to solve most problems...but some things just couldn't be resolved without fighting for them.
"My name is Timothy Vagne. Around here I am better known as Terrible Tim. For reasons which should become rapidly evident to you. I am the interrogator in charge of extracting every last scrap of potentially vital information from the two of you...before you are turned over to the science division for experiments. You two are very, very valuable intelligence assets...there is much that Mr. Hibiki can tell us about the workings of Orb and the Excalibur and an equal volume of things Mr. Zala has inside his head regarding the Celestial Being forces. I expect to be seeing a lot of you two...both together and individually...over the next few days or weeks. I certainly hope for the former...if you force me to take weeks to extract what I want to know...well, I'm Terrible Tim. I'll do terrible things to you." The man replied casually.
"Unlike most of the interrogators here, I prefer a more personal touch. The others utilize the talents of the guards...such as they are. But I find that people are much more willing to talk when their words actually might stop the blows of the man hitting them, rather than be forced to trust that they will appease someone slightly detached from it all. And the same applies to the more esoteric torture techniques as well...all of which I am sure I will be introducing to you three. You strike me as the sort who are loyal unto the end to their friends, their ideas and their morals. Too bad the rest of the world is not like you two, eh?"
"So you're going to try to torture information out of us...surely you know that is pointless. We certainly won't tell you anything. You must have studied us a little...you know my birth name after all. I find it difficult to believe that anything, even a casual perusal of our lives, would indicate that I...much less Athrun or Shinn, would be at all cooperative, no matter what you do to us." Kira said icily.
"There is truth in what you say. But it never hurts to try. Well...it never hurts me." Tim replied with a sadistic smile. "After all, we won't know what stimulus it takes to crack your defiant shell until it actually cracks and you spill everything I want to know, will we? And, distasteful as it is to an artist like myself, if you do prove as resilient as you think you are...why I can merely arrange for a special joint session with your lovers, Mr. Hibiki...maybe your tongues would loosen when it is them who is hooked up to the electric chair, hmm?"
"You would not want to do that." Kira, Athurn and Shinn said very firmly and in perfect unison.
"Oh...pray tell, why not?"
"Because if you hurt even a single hair upon their heads..." Kira snarled. "I would completely forget myself and kill you where you stood."
"And if he didn't, we would." Athrun and Shinn added, their voices deadly serious.
"You might find it hard to accomplish my death while chained to your chairs like you currently are."
"If you really believe that these chains would stop me if you hurt Lacus..." Kira trailed off, shaking his head in pity.
"Hmph." Tim shrugged, recovering as much poise as he could...he wasn't used to being so comprehensively threatened by his subjects...he was actually slightly intimidated by the monsters. They certainly made good threats...as someone who made threats for a living he could recognize quality when he heard it. "Why am I not dead now, then? I may not have touched them myself, but it is my understanding that the female prisoners underwent a group session with our very own clone of Lacus Clyne, whom we've honored by bestowing her with the name; Via Hibiki, several hours ago...and those who walk out of the clutches of Via tend to do so missing bits of themselves...and not in just the metaphorical sense."
"Lacus and the others weren't hurt...they were scared and confused but not hurt. Not even by the pain of others, which always hurts them as well. Honestly, she hasn't lived up to her reputation so far as I can see." Kira retorted calmly.
"How can you be so sure?" Tim growled wrathfully. To give in to this punk was the worst sin he could imagine. It was a fatal weakness no interrogator could ever afford to fall prey to. But there was no way that Kira Hibiki could possibly know of the outcome of the failed interrogation. Utterly no way.
"I would know if Lacus or the others were hurt. I'm certain of it." Kira replied.
"You sure?" Athrun muttered.
"Completely. I'm telepathic, after all, so if any of my lovers or the people around them were hurt I'd know about it. Trust me."
"Of course."
"Thanks."
"Okay...now that you're done male bonding. I suggest we get on with some metal to flesh bonding!" Tim snarled, angry at being ignored. He opened his briefcase and removed a heavy pair of gloves, which he donned, and then took out a heavy soldering iron, usually a tool he reserved for the endgame but right now; terrible things were going through his mind, very terrible things. He activated the tool and smiled tersely as he smelled the air heating up around the tip, even as he eyed Kira's hand meaningfully. "Where are the Excalibur and your remaining armed forces hiding? Where exactly is your primary base? Why can we not access the machine which you refer to as the Divinity Gundam? You have ten seconds to answer. Ten...nine...two...one...oh, out of time..." Tim strode forward. Kira just stared at him impassively, as did Athrun and Shinn. Tim grimaced. this wasn't any fun at all. He couldn't get into it if they didn't show fear. He gritted his teeth, this was not going to be a fun session.