Disclaimer: I do not own anything that is related in anyway with the popular Japanese Anime known as Mobile Suit Gundam SEED, including its sequel Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny. I only own my own story, the plot of said story, and any characters that I have created. So please no lawyers I have no money to give them.
Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Resolution
A Mobile Suit Gundam SEED AU Novella
Written and brought to you,
by William R. Woods
aka "Deathzealot"
With input and ideas from SethMKlein
Chapter BGM is Somebody Save Me from Krypteria
Phase Three: The Aftereffects
During the last stages of the Bloody Valentine War, both of the main sides started to introduce new designs, as well as building up their respective militaries. On the side of the Earth Alliance they started to build up their numbers of Mobile Suits, and perfecting mobile suit operating techniques. While ZAFT started to cut-back on some of their pilot training courses to start producing pilots faster, and starting to producing more mobile suits, both of the new GuAIZ model and the older GINN variants. Also included would be new ship designs like the Saratoga and Atlantica Class carriers which were built to carry more mobile suit into battle then ever before. Meanwhile the Peacekeeper Faction started to gather allies and resources so they go against the far larger ZAFT and Alliance forces. All three of these factions knew that the end of the war was coming and fast…
- Taken from the Campaign of Chaos: The Last Months of the Bloody Valentine War
Written by Captain Irwin Badigruel (Retired) & Rear Admiral Helena Chase (Retired)
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Main Meeting Hall
The Factory
Deep L4 Zone
July 22, CE71
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The next morning found the entire gathered command staff of the Peacekeeper Faction seated around the hall's circular meeting table. Every member of the staff from the lowest ship captain to the overall commanders of the individual sub-factions of the larger main faction, all looked tired and restless thanks to the long night many of them had. A few did look rested but that was a very small minority, no many could even sleep after the excitement of the battle the previous day. Many had been up and about since the battle ended running errands, helping wounded, securing prisoners, repairing what had been damaged during the battle, and lastly attending to the dead. It was same after every battle no matter the people or faction, while the Faction overall had blissfully few casualties, both wounded and dead, it was still tiring work to clean up after a battle. The staff where now just reviewing everything before being sent along to get some rest, food and some much needed relaxation. With that thought in mind Admiral Henry Gloval, commander of the Peacekeeper Faction, was having a final discussion with Jose Weaver who while not officially part of the overall Peacekeeper Faction was a key ally of the group and the one who hosted the entire Faction. After a more moments of discussion between the two men, Admiral Gloval turned to address his command staff waiting impatiently for the final say in the review.
"Thank you all for waiting. Mister Weaver has reported that any repairs on the ships, mobile suits and the Factory herself are on track, and won't take longer then a week. As for our casualties we lost five pilots of the Factory's Defensive Force, and one from the Susanoo Squadron, while three crewmen from the Gates were killed during the attack on her. We only have about eleven wounded and a single death overall with the ships, mostly from the Gates with the others, including the death, from the single hit The Factory took during the battle. Now we also managed to take around ninety prisoners from the new escape pods ZAFT has introduced on their new ships and various escape launches, for now they are hold up in one of the Factory's secondary hangers, but Mister Weaver believes his crews could put up a proper POW Prison together in the new few days. For now they are being watched by a combined force drawn from the Dominion's Marines and The Factory's own small security force. Now I must say we were lucky that we didn't lose anymore people then we did, granted we outnumbered them severely in both numbers, and firepower, but that most likely will not happen again for the rest of the war. I do believe we have given both sides a clear message not to underestimate us anymore. Now with all that out of the way, does anyone have any final questions or requests?" the Admiral asked with a frown looking over the gathered command staff who did indeed look as tired as he both looked and felt, for he had been at the forefront of the battles clean-up.
"Yes Admiral, I am shocked at the large number of prisoners we took. How in the world did that happen? For during the early battles of the war neither side took many prisoners, since there was none to take. The few that did get taken were exchanged or held at a neutral location like Copernicus City. Is this because of new technologies introduced since then or just poor dumb luck again?" Commander Andrew Waltfield asked with a frown that was copied by many of the officers who had like the Commander fought since the early days of the war like Commander Mu La Flagga and Captain Vince Grant of the Loki. The Admiral chuckled at this before looking around looking pointedly at Kira Yamato who sat next to his exhausted girlfriend Lacus Clyne who helped many of the wounded personal, cheering them up or getting them food, she even did so for the few wounded ZAFT prisoners.
"Well the majority of the prisoners were saved by the new escape pods, they are a blessing and I would love to see about putting something similar on own ships. For thanks to them crew don't have to run for a hanger to get to an escape launch, instead they just run to the nearest escape pod hatch making it faster to escape a dying ship. However about twenty-six of the prisoners were taken from their disabled mobile suits, which had been disabled by Lord Kira or other veteran ZAFT pilots who decided to disable their opponents over killing them," the Admiral reported with a small smile at the young Freedom pilot who blinked surprise at that news but only shrugged at this, though he did scowl at his new noble rank. Ever since the majority of the Peacekeeper Faction, mostly the Orb personal, learned that he is the brother to their new leader Lady Cagalli they started to call him Lord or Master. As for his little habit no one at the table said anything about his tendency to disable enemy mobile suits instead of killing them for all knew his recent history therefore said nothing. He never received the strict military training of the others around the table, so many didn't really say anything about this habit but in fact some even encouraged it.
"That is interesting, especially in the age of beam weapons which goes through most armor types like tissue paper. Anyways I do believe I saw that flagship of theirs take on a few Escape Launches, along with a dozen or so of the Escape Pods before they left. That is not even the most interesting of the bunch; I realized that every single surviving mobile suit carried at least one escape pod. There was even a GINN towing two lines behind it which had dozens of normal suited crew hold on the lines for dear life," reported Lieutenant Commander James Focker as he looked around at the group of officers who blinked at this report but nodded.
"Yeah I forgot about that. I saw that too," Lieutenant Commander Mu La Flagga mentioned with a frown, before suddenly getting a crafty look as he looked over at the two captains of the Archangel Class ships.
"Though I don't think many got off those two poor ships the Dominion and the Archangel nuked with their Lohengrins. Gives a whole new prospective on the old adage of 'There really is no fury like women scorned,' doesn't it," the Strike pilot mentioned with a small smile on his face that made a few of the male officers snort or chuckle at this, while the two mentioned ship captains only glared at him but soon were chuckling along with the rest of the officers around them. While the destruction of two ships with all hands was something that really shouldn't joked about like this, it did raise some spirits around the room which is what Mu really wanted it to do with his little crack. Of course there was a few who wanted to add to the overall joke, that should have been stopped right there.
"I don't mind because they don't matter, now that they have been annihilated by antimatter," Commander Focker mentioned with a snort that made the others blink in confusion for a few moments before a few got it and choked or shook their head at what the other pilot said.
"Alright that sucked, even from you James," Mu mentioned with a frown looking over at his fellow Lieutenant Commander, who only shrugged at the other man.
"Couldn't resist saying that it was just too good to pass up," James responded with a small smile on his face with the others only shook their head at their little discussion, while Mu started to get ready to say something in return.
"Alright that is enough of that. Is there any other questions, comments, or requests from anyone?" Admiral Gloval asked the officers after glaring at the two so-called senior officers. After a few moments of silence Gloval nodded before looking around a final time at the gathered officers.
"Very well this meeting is now over, and our next meeting will be tomorrow afternoon to discuss our next actions we want to take," Admiral Gloval finally said as the gathered officers started to get up and leave the hall behind, many to get some much-needed rest and relaxation, others just to sleep for the rest of the day before long found the meeting hall empty of all personal or officers.
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Eden Park
Factory City-Block
(aka Mulciber City)
The Factory
Deep L4 Zone
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In a small park named after one of the destroyed colonies of the L4 Region, which by itself was named after the Garden of Eden from biblical scriptures, a young man in a simple uniform of a dark green vest and dark gray pants, with a simple black shirt underneath the vest, sat on one of the many benches surrounding the park. The park was one of several around that small city that made up the Factory's City-Block. Which for now was called Mulciber City after the official name of the Factory, but there was some debate on renaming the small city to something else but that would take some time. This young man in question looked around the small park with almost sightless and sad eyes. He didn't really see the impressive sight of the city around him, cramped into a small three-hundred meter long rotating cylinder located in the middle of the large mobile dock known as the Factory. The city took up the interior walls of the rotating cylinder so similar to a larger colony cylinder itself. While that was kind of small for a city, the vast majority of the city residence was large eight to ten story apartment buildings with a few odd private residences here and there around the city. While the city's own factories took up the center of the cylinder were there was no gravity. There were also plenty of commercial sites like restaurants, bars, and stores around the city. There also happened to be a large farm like section which occupies a layer underneath the City-Block allowing the residents of the city to have plenty of fresh vegetables, fruit, and even wheat for bread. While the factories provided other things for the city like simple furniture and appliances as well as advanced stuff like computers and small electric cars to get around with. However the small city was only lit by several large lights mounted along the center spire and factories, which dimmed during the simulated nighttime. Unlike larger colony cylinders which had mirrors to direct actual sun-light into the colony. The rest of the Factory had little or no gravity, which was good for the more delicate factory-shops and shipyards. There are some small factory-shops that took up sections of the second layer for more specialist products, there even one small factory-shop that could produce a full mobile suit if needed. Though in the past it only produced spare parts of the handful of mobile suits the Factory had, but if needed it could produce a handful of machines just not really mass produce them as any other factory would be able to. In fact previously the Junk Guild has started to build their own version of the Worker GINN at this Factory-Shop for a while before they managed to start building them at a larger factory located at Barnacle Space Dock at LaGrange Two. Currently it had been taken over by Chief Erica Simmons and her crew from Morgenroete who were now gearing it up to produce new MBF-M1 Astray Mobile Suits to replace any losses for the Faction. However none of this was on the mind of the young man who was currently just staring at across the park almost in a daze, and this how Elena Mackenzie, David Hunter, Maximilian Sterling, Diana Sterling, and Marcus Rush of Skull Squadron, with their special guest Diana, found the young man as they walked around the park just hanging out before heading off to get drunk in a bar. The group exchanged looks before as one the group gathered around the sitting young man.
"James? You alright?" Diana asked with a frown squatting down to look at the other's face, one James Duke who was chosen to be the overall commander of the Factory's own mobile suit defense squadron. James was a long-time Mobile Pod pilot during his time growing up on Genesis Colony one of the colonies located here at L4 that was destroyed during the Battle of Nova, he along with the rest of his family moved to the Factory when it was started to be build in early days of the war out of an un-finished colony which only had the end-cap finished. Once on the yet unfinished Factory he transferred to piloting GINN Workers and helped build the Factory. When the Faction arrived at the Factory and gave several Astrays to the crew of the Factory, James along with many of the former Pod and Worker pilots volunteered to pilot these mobile suits to defend their new home. James had been chosen to lead the group of them, thanks to his leadership abilities during his time as a Worker Pilot. When Diana had arrived with the Virgo at the Factory Diana as the single remaining GINN pilot on board had been given a Space Astray and transferred to work with the Factory Pilots to help with their training. During the training that took up the weeks after the Peacekeeper Faction was formed Diana and James became good friends. Later during the Battle of the Factory Diana was James' wing-mate and watched his back throughout the battle. Now Diana was worried about her new friend and wondered what had happened to make him like this, the last she heard he had volunteered to notify the families of the lost pilots of his command. Thankfully as if wakening from the dream James came to and looked down at her squatting form before he shook his head to clear it.
"Sorry Diana what did you ask?" he asked with sadness and pain lacing his voice that made the others close their eyes in sorrow at this..
"I asked if you are alright?" she asked again more softly this time, James only sighed before handing her a small jewelry box that made the two girls of the group blink in surprise.
"As you know I volunteered to notify the families of the lost pilots of their deaths, all of them were painful, but I had saved the worst one for last. The family of Kylie Wong my fiancée, her brother had been one of the pilots one Nathan Wong, when I got to their apartment I saw my Father walking out of the house with crying coming from the opened door already. My old man had tears in his eyes and when he saw me he simply laid his hand on my shoulder before mentioning he would see me later and he had to get back to work. I then found out Kylie was the only tech to be killed from that single hit the Factory took during the battle. Both Nathan and Kylie have died along with a few of my other friends, it was to much for me and I just ran from the apartment after finding that out. I ended up here. That was the engagement ring I gave Kylie a week ago, and now I will never see her again," James said in a pain-filled voice that made the rest of pilots close their eyes in pain and sorrow at the poor guy sitting in front of them. Diana had tears in her eyes, but only took her friends hand and place the small box into his hand before closing the fingers around the box.
"James you are not alone, you know of my story. I lost many of my friends during my time on the Virgo when she had been attacked by pirates. I lost more friends when ZAFT attacked the ship before she made it here. But I will tell you the same thing Captain Voltaire and others have told me after all that happened: you need to live on in their memories, don't let their deaths be in vain. I may not have know Kylie at all, or even you all that much now that I think about it but I do know that she would not want you to go on like this. Yes she is dead you can't change that no matter how much you want too, but you can keep going on in the name of her memory. Maybe you will find another girl that will capture yet another piece of your heart, for Kylie will always live on in that one part of it she herself captured. Now if you want you can join us and hit the bars here. For Elena, David, and Markus here have yet to try out the bars here and we need a local guide you interested?" she asked as she got up from squatting in front of the bench that James sat on. James for a long moment just stared at the small, tiny box that had once held the ring he had put on the finger of the girl he had loved like no other, but Diana was right he needed to continue on for Kylie wouldn't want him to mope about her. With a sigh he got up and wipes his face free of tears before slipping the box into the pocket of his uniform vest for he would always keep it to remember her with. Maybe one day he may give the same ring to another girl, for now it would serve as a reminder of the love he had for Kylie. After another moment taking a few breaths, he turned to look over at the group of pilots and smiled.
"Yes you guys would most likely find a piss-poor place without some local help, I know of a place that will knock your socks off. My sister is a bartender there and it's a great place to unwind and relax," he mentioned as he threw an arm around the shoulders of David and Marcus who only laughed at his comment. Diana only smiled lightly before joining the group as they started to walk out of the park towards the main part of the city.
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Factory-Shop 2-A1
The Factory
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In one of the smaller factories that took up the second layer of the Habitat Cylinder Chief Erica Simmons of Mogernroete looked down at the factory floor from the large cat-walk suspended over it and the four mobile suits under various stages of construction on the factory floor. Three of the mobile suits are regular MBF-M1 Astray Mobile Suits, while the fourth was a far better MBF-M1C Astray Commando. Erica was quite pleased with having a factory like this to herself for it was far bigger then machine shop on the Izumo Class Battleship Kusanagi which she had to work with before they made it to the Factory, though smaller then the main Morgenroete Factory on the Orb Mainland. She also was pleased at the pace her crew was building these new mobile suits, for unlike the week or so after the Orb Remnant Fleet arrival at the Factory were they had been busy putting together disassembled mobile suits, these were entirely newly produced machines.
"Chief Simmons how is the work coming along?" a voice asked behind her making the engineer turn to see Jose Weaver himself walking along the catwalk towards her. With a smile she set her clip-board aside and hugged the man warmly, before waving a finger in the amused man's face.
"What have I told you Jose Weaver about calling me by my name?" she asked him angrily waving her finger underneath other engineer's nose. For like the Junk Guild's Professor both Jose and Erica had been friends during their days in university. The man in charge of the Factory only chuckled before waving her down.
"Very well Erica I apologize, so how is work coming along?" he asked again with a smile leaning over the bar to look at the mobile suits. Erica only rolled her eyes before leaning on the bar as well looking down at the under construction machines.
"They shall be finished in only a few more days. One of them would go to the Susanoo to replace her the machine she lost during the battle, the other two would go to replace your Defense Squad losses," she reported looking the Astrays over with a critical eye, making Jose nod before he looked over a the Commando with a frown.
"What about that Commando there?" he asked with the same frown looking over at his friend who only smiled at his question before nodding at the mentioned mobile suit.
"That is for one of our new recruits, one Jean Carrey. I had promised him a new machine after he joined up, while he did take a spare Astray to fight in the Battle yesterday he wanted to see about getting a Commando so that is his after its finished. In fact he is down there helping with its construction for he is pretty good engineer himself, in fact he is one who improved the Astray's movement speed by 7% with his magnetic joint coating he produced," Erica reported with a smile on her face motioning to one of the workers on the floor with blond hair who was typing away at a lap top. Jose whistles in surprise at this for the increase in the movement speed allowed the Astrays to respond faster to orders from the pilot in the cockpit. It was something never before done and was a vital new tool in the arsenal of the Peacekeeper Faction.
"Whoa! That is impressive. I have heard of him but I never meet him," Jose responded with a shake of his head.
"Anyways is there any source to get more mobile suits for we may need something more as the war continues on?" Jose asked with a frown looking not at the floor itself but at the wall and his thoughts. Erica only frowned as well before looking over at her friend and sighing over the question.
"Yes Orb's Ame-No-Mihashira Space Station is able to produce mobile suits as well, though not as fast I could here. For they have no convenient nearby sources of resources they can use to build mobile suits, they have to ship in resources which is kind of a hassle really compared to here with resources all around us. Thankfully it does have about six Space Astrays ready to ship to us if we need them or when we can send a ship for them, since mainly the factory there produces Space Astrays, though it can produce regular Astrays if required. Morgenroete does have a small facility located at Copernicus City but it is mainly used towards research then building stuff like mobile suits, though we also own the Dawn Civilian Shipyards located at Copernicus as well. They are the builders of the Izumo Class ships," Erica reported with another sigh as she eyed her friend who nodded at her words before continuing to stare at the wall and his own thoughts.
"Yes I heard about the Space Station of yours, and I also heard some trouble they had there a week or so ago. What happened?" he asked curiously after a few moments of silence between the two friends. Erica blinked in surprise at the question but shrugged and looked over at Jose with a shake of her head.
"It was something really stupid; Ronda Gina Sahaku the overall person in charge of the station had mainly sided with the Alliance over everything and took off with his followers, including the Izumo herself, to help the Alliance in a few missions. One of this missions was supporting them during the Third Battle of Victoria, later he and his men would attack a ZAFT convoy destroying it entirely. Eventually Rondo personally went up against Lowe Guele a Junk Tech who has helped me in the past, and our very own Serpent Tail mercenary pilot Gai Murakumo. The two managed to kill him during a battle between the three, and now his sister Rondo Mina Sahaku is in charge. She thankfully has returned to Ame-No-Mihashira and took control of it once more, and now supports us fully. In fact she was suite surprised that Lady Cagalli personally sent her a message stating that her new role and mission is to protect the Orb refugees gathered at the Space Station. It was something Lady Mina was pleased to take on and she already led a defense of the station a few days before our own battle with ZAFT. I felt sorry for the poor Alliance fools who were ordered to attack the Station, for its defenses are pretty good," Erica replied with a small tight smile on her face. Jose blinked in surprise before shaking her head at the story.
"So that is why that Mercenary asked me to use of one of the high-speed transports I have," he said with a shake of his head and a smile on his face. Erica could smile in response before she looked down at her watch and was in turn surprised at the time before she looked over at Jose.
"Anyways Jose looks like I have to get home and get ready for dinner. Speaking of that you want to join us Jose, for I do believe Ryuta would want to see his Uncle Jose again?" she asked with a smile one that Jose copied with one of his own.
"Sure why not I haven't seen little Ryuta in a while and Densuke is always a good buddy to chat with. After you dear lady," he responded with waving for Erica to lead, which Erica did gladly after yelling out a few orders for her crew on the factory floor before she left with Jose.
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Main Dock
The Factory
July 23, CE71
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The next day found a pair of aging Marseille III Class transports making their approach onto the Factory's Main Dock. One of the transports had the emblem of the Junk Guild proudly displayed on her hull while the other was painted in a light gray and silver paint scheme. With careful precision the two transports slipped into the large main dock area and finished docking in the two docking slips set aside for them. After a moment docking tubes extended to transports and locked onto the access points of the ships. With a hiss of pressure the tubes and the ships equalized pressure and dozens of uniformed personal started to float out of both transport's docking tubes and into the transport hub of the Factory. Watching all of this was Admiral Gloval from a large observation booth sitting above the main control room of the dock. Standing along both sides of the Admiral was Colonel Ledonir Kisaka commander of the Kusanagi and Jose Weaver the commander of the Factory itself.
"So how many men did Lady Mina send us Colonel?" Admiral Gloval asked after a few moments of silence between the three men, nodding at the light gray painted transport that was now unloading his cargo from the main cargo bay. The younger man standing alongside him frowned at the mention of Lady Mina before looking over at the Admiral.
"I believe there is about almost a hundred personal, twenty of them are pilots that Lady Mina said she could spare," the big Orb colonel reported to the older man with a nod of his head pleased that Lady Mina was serious about supporting the Peacekeeper Faction. Admiral Gloval nodded at this pleased at this before turning his attention back to the Junk Guild transport which not only disgorged various uniformed personal but several who looked to be civilians.
"Combined with the men that the Junk Guild kindly helped to smuggle out of the Alliance hands, it should give us enough personal to replace any losses we may take as well as crew any new ships we acquire or build. This shall take care of our personal problems for a while," the Admiral mentioned with a nod of his head. For thanks to the Junk Guild Admiral Gloval finally managed to smuggle out the rest of his people from the Valkyrie Faction. He had been pleased to hear that no one was really molested or arrested after the Loki's flight from the Herschel Shipyards. He did manage to destroy all records of the Valkyrie Faction's activities and members before he left, but he did manage to still worry about his people. He once again sighed in relief at this and again thanked the Junk Guild. For they also managed to get a few of his men's families out as well, some got moved to Copernicus City, while others got moved here to the Factory. Of course not all of the families of his men supported the Peacekeeper Faction; some didn't even know that their son, daughter, mother, or father joined the Peacekeeper Faction. Hopefully that would stay that way till the war ended.
"I need to really thank you Jose for helping with this, if I didn't have your support I don't think I would have been able to convince the Junk Guild to help smuggle my men out of that hellhole," he said after a few more moments of thoughtful silence.
"It was nothing Admiral, we needed all the men we could get and I know how much leaving your people behind hurt you," Jose mentioned with a smile at his old captain. Gloval nodded at the engineer before starting to say something but was distracted when one of Jose's men ran up to the trio and handed over a message to Jose.
"Sir this information was given to us by the Captain of the Harvest, he said he got it from one of his sources in the Alliance," the man reported before after a nod from Jose left his boss and the two military officers alone once more. With a frown Jose opened the message and read the short, but terse message written on the piece of paper. Jose only blinked in surprise before handing over to Admiral Gloval who read as it well before smiling.
"Well it looks like we can get ourselves another ally," the Admiral mentioned a small grin on his face as he looked down at the continuing unloading of the transports.
"I believe it is time for the Peacekeeper Faction's first dedicated mission," he continued with a nod before slipping the paper into a pocket of his black jump suit. With another look at the duel transports the three men left the observation room behind, and back into the Factory proper.
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Rouge Ship Ortigia
LaGrange One
July 28, CE71
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On the bridge of the modified Agamemnon Class Carrier Ortigia the crew of the rouge ship watched in silence as a several contacts march across their tactical screen. In the captain's chair of the bridge Captain Meriol Pristis, the commander of the ship looked on in silence, while the black haired young man who floated alongside her left could only shift restlessly around as the convoy they were waiting for continue to come ever closer to their trap. Another older man floated to the right of the command chair could only roll his eyes at the restless nature of his so-called commander. Both men wore flight suits with the young man wearing a black and silver colored one, and the older man wore a typical blue and white one. After a few more moments the Captain only nodded and turned to look at her crew.
"Now!" she ordered and the two main guns of the ship opened fire while at the same time the attachment on the front of the ship closed its four prongs showing the convoy the ship now opening fire on the convoy ships. The battle for Convoy AA-170 had now begun.
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Post Chapters:
/Stretches/ Finally! I managed to get this out! Jeez! I thought it would take forever. Anyways I hope everyone will enjoy this chapter for I do believe it is one of my best personally. I just loved the second scene and its shows the true aftermath of a battle. I actually cried when I wrote it, and that is very rare folks.
Anyhow moving on, I am sure some are wondering about the so-called Escape Pods mentioned in the first scene. Allow me to explain; basically we never really see anything that could be called Escape Pods in any of the Gundam series, unlike in Star Wars or Star Trek. In fact they use the Personal Launches to escape a dying ship, this seen really well during the evocation of the Dominion in SEED and the destruction of the White Base during the original series. Granted there a few rare occurrences like the Silverwind's escape pod which carried Lacus into the Archangel, these are mainly for VIPs or commanders only. Therefore I decided to add the new addition of escape pods to the world of SEED; however they are very new at the time of the Battle of the Factory. In fact only the newly built or refitted Nazca Class ships have them. The Eternal and Atlantica Classes would of course have them as well. These pods are small enough to be carried by retreating mobile suits which makes recovery a lot easier, while ships themselves can easily use something like tow cables or something similar to grab floating escape pods.
Going hand in hand with this is that the Faction has captured ZAFT prisoners, or just POWs, thanks to this. We never really see in Gundam fleets in space taking prisoners from the hulks of dead ships after a battle. We only really see it when General Revil is captured by the Black Tri-Stars un Gundam UC, which really doesn't happen in the series itself. Here I have it happening, and also a mentioning of Kira's little habit of disabling mobile suits while flying the Freedom. These prisoners would stay on the Factory for the rest of the War, and then they shall be handed back over to ZAFT. I was going to throw in Talia as one of the prisoners but decided against it, though we shall see her during Jachin Due, didn't really want to remove her from the overall battle.
Next up, the Factory's ability to produce more mobile suits, some may find this hard to swallow but it is really quite simple. Basically the Factory is holed up in the center of a large debris field where debris can be easy to retrieve and recycled to be used again. This how Jose gets the resources to not only build the Sheppard Class ships, but the Factory as well. However the Factory can not really mass produce mobile suits as much as a real full length factory like those that had been destroyed by Uzumi after the Battle of Orb. Therefore that particular factory-shop can only produce around four machines at time not including any spares the mobile suits of the Peacekeeper Faction may need. In turn the Space Station of Ame-No-Mihashira can not really produce many mobile suits as well due to them have to ship in resources from say Copernicus or Barnacle Space Dock, that for those who had read Divergence would know is the center of resource asteroid mining, however unlike during the Manga though the Space Station will be producing regular M1 Astrays as well as Space Astrays, which shall give the Peacekeeper Faction another production site for mobile suits. As for the Erica or another engineer trying to produce ZAFT mobile suits, well sadly the Clyne Faction didn't really manage to get the full blue prints for any ZAFT mobile suit like their GuAIZ Customs, speaking of those machines have I actually post the specs for those yet. Anyways that is about it for that.
Now the extra personal that arrived at the Factory, this continues the first scene from last chapter and Gloval's worries over crewing his ships. This shall partly sooth not only his worries over personal shortage but his people that he had leave behind during his flight in Divergence, for much of them have been smuggled to the Factory by the helpful Junk Guild. This brings much of the personal from the old Valkyrie Faction into the fold of the Peacekeeper Faction. Some have brought their families, and for realism sake not all of the families of the Valkyrie Faction personal supported the idea of the Peacekeeper Faction.
As for the City-Block I decided to explore it a bit since we only have seen it mentioned a couple times but have not really have had any further info on it. The City-Block as mentioned in the story is basically a miniature version of an O'Neill Colony Cylinder that has the city along the walls of the cylinder which rotates to generate gravity in the cylinder. The wall of the cylinder also sports a second layer underneath the main city block which sports farms, and small factories that require at least some gravity to produce stuff. Other factories take up a center spire similar to that of Heliopolis. These factories are different from the larger factories that are further into the Factory itself, they are geared more towards production of every day items for the Cities inhabitants.
Finally I would like to mention that from now on battles for the Peacekeepers will be harder, and they will be outnumbered a lot during these battles. They will also take casualties and lose mobile suits, hence my reasoning of them building more to replace them. I have a few more battles planned for the Peacekeepers to be part of before everything goes down for Boaz and Jachin Due. Though no worries only about two more battles are ahead, one right in the next chapter and the other will be in a few chapters. I am going to cut things close timeline wise but I think I can fit in both of my planned battles with some time to repair and relax at the Factory in between. Yes the Factory shall remain the Faction primary base of operations for the rest of the war and sometime after as well.
That is about folks (I think?) so please take a seat and wait for the next chapter. Till then I bid you a fond farewell and hope you enjoy this Omake. Ciao!
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Omake #4
Shopping Spree
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In the City-Block of the Factory two young women browsed through a clothing store together, while two young men stood respectfully back against a wall watching the girls go about their shopping. With a sigh one of the young men looked over at this friend to see him eying his girlfriend with a small smile on his face.
"You know I really hate all this shopping. I would think Cagalli different from other girls and their so-called shopping past-time, but no she is just as much a shopper as Lacus," Athrun Zala complained with an almost pathetic whine in his voice. Kira Yamato his friend only shrugged before eying his girlfriend Lacus Clyne once more.
"Well Athrun just imagine the result of this shopping spree," Kira mentioned with a goofy grin on his face, one that was soon copied by Athrun as he imagined his girl in something. The two young men continued to be like this for the next few minutes not noticing that the girls had finished looking and had taken their stuff to the dressing rooms, and had now returned.
"Athrun! Kira! What do you guys think?" Cagalli Yula Attha asked angrily eying both her brother and boyfriend who looked to be a daydream. Thankfully the two young men quickly shook off their stupor and looked up at their girlfriends, and almost as one both of their jaws dropped in shock. For Lacus wore the picture perfect version of a punk-girl instead of her usual dresses and flowing shirts, while Cagalli had the opposite wearing a dress of high-born lady that she should be. Both guys after a few moments of shock shook their heads and started chuckling in humor at their outfits. Kira recovered first and threw his arms around the two girls with a grin.
"Alright whose idea was to switch like this?" he asked with a grin eying his girlfriend in the punk-girl clothes so favored by his sister. Both girls blushed and only shook their heads as they eyed their outfits with distaste.
"It was Miss Flay who first suggested we try it out, and I guess we managed to do it," Lacus responded with a small frown eying the pants she wore with distain and distaste. She never really wore pants before since she only wore skirts and dresses for as long as she could remember. SO this was a first.
"Well both of you look great, let's get those outfits and show Flay later. Maybe you guys can return the favor to her and dress her up," Kira said with a small smile as he saw the two girls frown turned to evil grins.
"Yes lets do that shall we," Cagalli said with a small cackle and rushed back into the dressing room along with Lacus.
"Oh boy! Flay is going to regret this," Kira mentioned before shrugging and making his way to the cashier to buy the mentioned outfits and whatever else the girls wanted.
-o-Omake End-o-
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