It made sense to Kira that the briefing room to be packed; the people wanted to hear it straight from the horse's mouth. Mu, the so-called horse, was watching the video feed of the Archangel slowly, leaving Copernicus, seemingly oblivious to the quiet tension blanketing the room. He then turned to address the crew and cleared his throat. "We're leaving because we've received the deployment order," he said.

Kira noticed Mu glanced at Flay, who was standing by Kira's side.

"It has nothing to do with the operation a few days ago," Mu continued. As expected, the man received disbelieving looks from many people present.

"How about those Drake-class waiting to prevent us from running away?" Kojiro asked, hands on hips.

"This?" Mu fiddled with the control and the screen displayed two ships. "Dolfin, if you will?"

Kira turned toward Flay with eyebrows raised. She nodded at him while her hand brushed against his. She then addressed the room, "As Light Weight, sorry, Feather Lite said, Archangel has been assigned to take part in a campaign. NAGI will also participate in the said campaign as a civilian contractor. The so-called escorts are NAGI's McIntosh-class, McIntosh and Henry Bake,"

"You people have gunships?" Kojiro asked incredulously.

"Those two are not gunships. They are what you call line-layers, with each capable of deploying enough Croix du Nord units to cover a small colony. And a little correction, Archangel is the escort of the two, not the other way around,"

"Go on, Missy," Kojiro said when he noticed that Flay didn't continue her explanation. Even though the two weren't gunships, their presence meant something big was going to happen.

Flay gave Mu a pointed look. "I prefer fewer bullet holes in my corpse. Feather Lite?"

"Higher ups hired Dolfin and her people to provide connections for Link-16," Mu said.

Link-16 was a secure, jam-resistant, high-speed digital data link used by the Atlantic Federation military forces, and later, by Oppose Militancy and Neutralize Invasion allied forces. The '16' in its name was in reference to the 16 gigabits channel used to exchange information. However, the deployment of N-Jammers had resulted in the system's operation to be severely hampered.

Mu then explained that Archangel's battle records had shown fighting with higher situational awareness had allowed the ship's complement of one mobile armor and two mobile suits to defeat numerically superior opponents. The records were transmitted to the Alliance headquarters, where some military planners took notice of them and came up with the current mission.

"Basically, what you're saying is, they allowed the eggheads to conduct an on-field experiment by risking our lives, for science?" Kojiro asked.

"This one's bigger," Flay said while pointing to the floor. "Didn't hear you complaining,"

"Touché, Missy."

What Kira understood from the brief exchange was Flay implied Archangel and its Gundams are part of a bigger and riskier experiment and Kojiro was being a hypocrite by not complaining about it, which the man owned up.

"My job's done. Back to you, Feather Lite,"

"Alright, people, bottom line front up is we will be involved in an operation to suppress an outpost to reduce ZAFT's ability to respond to future operations in a timely manner. While the details for the future operations are still on a need-to-know basis, I'm allowed to tell you the both the Eurasian Confederation and the Atlantic Federation would be involved,"

"Permission to speak, Commander?" Neumann interrupted.

"Go ahead, Ensign Neumann,"

"You got it backward, sir. It's supposed to be Atlantic Federation first," Neumann stated.

"No, I didn't," Mu said before putting on a wry grin. "Wir sind der Gegner, Herr Neumann. Sorry if I butchered the pronunciations,"

"We're the adversary?" Neumann repeated.

"Yup. As part of the Eurasian Confederation military, Atlantic Federation is our adversary,"

Instantly, murmurs broke out in the room.

"I don't recall us signing up to join the Eurasian," Kojiro said.

A video of Kojiro signing something on a tablet appeared on the screen. "Jogged your memory yet?" Mu asked.

"Wait! I remember that moment," Kojiro said in protest. "They asked me to fill the dinner form in case I wanted to have steak for dinner instead of the normal crap…" he trailed while his expression turned ashen. "I didn't read the stupid fine print, did I?"

Kojiro's video was replaced with some still photos of other crew members doing the same. "A pound of steak for a kilogram of allegiance, eh?" Mu said. "Not that I can complain about it, since my situation's worse."

"How about the ship?" someone asked.

"They said that it's Eurasians by the principle of pedis… ah heck, I think it's 'finders, keepers',"

"I don't think this bullshit situation would fly," Kojiro said.

"No complaint from Ptolemaeus when Captain Murrue checked with them. A lawyer or two could poke holes in the whole thing. But I'm sure they're still tied up with all those war crimes and compliance of humanitarian laws to care for something small, like a ship and its crew being annexed by an ally. Or maybe they sold us off, for a lot of money," Mu said sarcastically.

Tolle raised his hand. "Um… How about us?"

"Monarch, you people are now part of a special French Foreign Legion detachment, which is permanently attached to this ship. You will receive your commitment letters at the museum of Aubagne later. Exemption from recruit training, no need to learn French, unless you want to hand in the citizenship form. There's no need to join the annual wooden hand parade, unless you're like Lieutenant Badgiruel and want to march around wearing your dashing uniform."

"Commander!" Natarle said, scandalized. "I never said that!"

"You're not denying it either. Back to my explanation, on the downside, for the next 36 months, you're not allowed to leave the legion, not allowed to marry, and not allowed to have children. During formal events, you must wear those weird tall hats. That covers the basic ones. Others are in the packets sent to your online accounts,"

Tolle lowered his hand slowly with a shocked expression on his face.

"Any more questions about us being Eurasians, people?" Mu looked at everyone one by one. "No? Then I'll get on with our briefing. This operation's code name is 'Pinocchio',"

The whole briefing went without a hitch, smoothly even. Kira would have been horrified with himself accepting military briefing as part of his everyday life, if not for him being distracted by the bombshell Mu dropped. The surreal feeling surrounding the announcement continued to hound his thoughts for the next few days, and it finally got noticed.

"Kira, what's wrong?" Flay asked.

"Hm? What do you mean?"

"You've been distracted all this while,"

"I'm not. I'm just going through Strike's maintenance,"

"Entering the same command ten times wouldn't make the maintenance ten times faster," Flay pointed out. "Just like changing the text color to red wouldn't make compiling and execution three times faster,"

Kira looked down and saw that he was indeed reentering the same command again and again. "I was distracted, wasn't I?" he admitted.

"You were. Why don't you tell me what's wrong?"

"It just hit me I'm now in the Foreign Legion,"

"Kira, you were part of the AF's Volunteer Corp. What's wrong with you being in the Foreign Legion?"

"I can't marry you for three years!" Kira blurted out, before realizing he had made a mistake.

However, the damage was done as Flay turned beet red as the hangar echoed with whistles and catcalls.

"I'm sorr…"

"Shut up," Flay said as she buried her face in his chest. Kira wanted to say that it was a mistake, but then Flay continued, "Just shut up and don't say anything stupid that will spoil this moment,"

Without the chance to say anything to correct the situation, Kira did what came to his mind and put his arms around her lithe body. Meanwhile, the logical and cynical part of him pointed out that the Atlantic Federation's Volunteer Corp had a similar stipulation. That cynical part of him also mentioned that the rules didn't prevent him from getting lucky with her.

"Get a room, you two!" someone called out, ruining the mood going on between the two of them.

Despite hundreds of hours in the simulator, Tolle couldn't help feeling nervous; it was his first mission, or 'sortie' as Mu put it. The hours he had invested in the simulations had paid dividends as his body mechanically went through the motion of maneuvering Buster into the assigned position above Archangel's port side hangar entrance. "In position," he announced, more to himself rather than to his girlfriend, who was manning the CIC.

"You're doing okay, Monarch," Kira said encouragingly.

"Easy for you to say, since you're not flying slowly and on the Endangered List," Tolle complained.

"Um, can you repeat that? You sound a bit muffled,"

"It's the hood, I tell you," Tolle said before contacting Archangel. "Signal Wolf, permission to remove flash gear, over,"

Miriallia's face appeared, frowning. "Negative, Saber Fouer . You're not allowed to remove it. I say again, do not remove the flash gear. Do you copy? Over," His girlfriend took it upon herself to refer to Commander Fllaga's mobile armor, Strike, Aegis and Buster as a flight, reasoning that the four would have to operate with other flights in the future and should get used to the convention.

"Saber Fouer, will comply, over," Tolle said before sighing. While he understood that wearing the fire-resistant hood would afford his face and neck some protection from a fire hazard, he was wearing them underneath his flight suit, making the latter more uncomfortable.

"You were saying?" Kira asked, redirecting the conversation back to his call sign.

"I'm as fragile as a Monarch butterfly. Weak," Tolle said. The nickname didn't come from him behaving regally or exhibiting overwhelming piloting skills. He was given that moniker because someone had remarked that his cautious way of piloting evoked the image of a Monarch butterfly that flapped its wings slower than other butterflies. Someone else also had to jinx Tolle by saying that unless he improves his way of flying, he would end up on the same endangered list the butterfly was on. "I'm going to prove to them I'm floating like a butterfly, sting like a bee," Tolle said, recalling the documentary he had watched regarding a famous boxer of the previous era who used the phrase to describe his way of fighting.

"Okay…" came the confused remark.

Kira really need to have a more diverse range of hobbies and favorite people, but Tolle was sceptical that he could change that; not that Tolle really wanted to. However, Tolle may have to put together a plan to cure his friend's tendency to put his foot in his mouth. Even he and Miriallia were embarrassed by what happened at the hangar the day prior. Kira's action made everyone in the group look like horny teenagers, even though Tolle was sure his friend wasn't a lusty pervert.

While Tolle and Miriallia were in the same situation, regarding not being able to marry each other for 3 years, Tolle was wise enough not to say anything. They were too young to get married. Yes, they shouldn't put love aside even though a world war was currently ongoing, but that didn't mean they have to rush to sign the papers and book a session with a pastor.

The system beeped, as Buster's foots were secured to the ship. "Signal Wolf, this is Saber Fouer. Position secured, over,"

"Saber Fouer, initiate merger, over," Miriallia said.

"Roger. Initiating merger," Buster combined its 350mm Gun Launcher and 94mm High-energy Rifle to form the Hyper Impulse Long-Range Sniper Rifle and then put it on a tripod fixed to the ship. "Both generators are operating at nominal capacity, over," he said.

"Roger, Monarch,"

"See, it's a cool name," Kira said diplomatically. "Just like Assassin,"

Sai groaned. "I don't care for the name. Yours sucks but at least the backstory is cool,"

"Thanks, I guess?"

Tolle couldn't help smiling as Aegis moved to Buster's back. The red mobile suit then connected a large cable to his mobile suit. "Power connection nominal, at 87.4 percent current flow rate," he said as the other mobile suit worked to connect another cable to the sniper rifle Buster was carrying. "Coolant cable is connected and cooling capacity is at 91.8 percent. Thanks, Assasin. I'm glad you have my back," he said, not missing the chance to rib his teammate a little.

"Foxtrot Uniform, Monarch," As expected, Sai was still sore about the name. Sai got the name when he accidentally killed his allies during simulations. Kojiro, who was annoyed by what happened, asked Sai bluntly whether he was being an ass on purpose. Then the man said that 'going blue on blue' is one of the biggest sins for a soldier. While Kojiro didn't mean to assign a nickname to Sai, there was a joker nearby when it happened, and he christened Sai as 'Assasin', as a dubious reminder for his teammates to watch their backs.

"Alright, cut the cursing and chatter, old barrels. Assassin, move away from the blast radius," Mu said in a serious tone.

"Roger," Sai said, as Aegis moved away from Buster's rear.

"Dolfin, status," Mu said.

"I have targeting. Response lag at 57 milliseconds, over," Flay said.

While normally Tolle as Buster's pilot would be in charge of targeting and firing its weapons, she was managing the system from a control room onboard Henry Bake. He hadn't seen the inside of the control room, but from outside, it resembled like a giant metallic pill located right behind the ship's bridge.

"Status, Monarch?" Mu asked.

A window appeared on Buster's screen, showing the place where Flay was aiming. Tolle swallowed his saliva and willed his body to relax. "Ready, over,"

"Signal Wolf?"

"Ready,"

"Dolfin, weapons free, fire at will," Mu said, issuing the order.

"Roger. Guns, guns, guns,"

Tolle felt the whole cockpit shaking while warning lights and sirens came to live as Buster charged the sniper rifle at three times its normal capacity, but Tolle ensured the weapon remained trained at the target by adjusting Buster's mechanical servos. The shaking and warnings got even worse when the rifle discharged its short, but Tolle persevered, correcting Buster's position to account for the enormous amount of recoil. The shot traveled far, but hit the target with minimal divergence, punching a hole through it. A few seconds later, a flash appeared on the target as it exploded. Tolle barely registered the sight as his attention was more focused on Buster and the weapon that it was carrying. Blue vapor came out of the rifle's barrel as the coolant used to cool it evaporated, preventing overheating. While the systems stated that both gun launcher and beam rifle were operating normally, Tolle didn't dare use the two weapons until he could get someone to examine them.

"Great shot, Monarch," Flay complimented.

"Thanks," Tolle replied. Flay wasn't lying when she stated Mu was giving him a heavier responsibility to ensure the weapon remained aimed at the target, both literally and figuratively.

"We detect six hostiles on interception vectors. GINNs," Miriallia announced.

"Okay, Saber Two, Saber Three. On me, two each,"

"Roger," both Kira and Sai replied.

"Saber Fouer, stand by,"

"Stand by?"

"They're going to aim at you since you're the obvious shooter. So, we'll take advantage of that. But if they get near, feel free to shoot or scoot," Commander Fllaga was considering the possibility that Buster and its weapons were damaged from the shot.

"Saber Fouer, roger,"

As the space in front of him became alive because of the ensuing dogfights between his flight and the ZAFT defenders, Tolle let himself sink a bit into the pilot seat. While it was brief, the excitement that he had just experienced was enough to drain him of his energy. "Is this normal?" he asked, seemingly to no one.

"For the first few, yes," Flay answered.

"I'm afraid of that. You got all that data?"

"Yes, and more. We need to tune it a bit, but we'll customize the response and feedback based on your profile,"

Flay's answer meant he would become Buster's de facto pilot. "Thanks,"

"You must straighten up your body from now on. Signal Wolf is worried that Buster would slouch too,"

"I don't slouch,"

"You do, even though you're supposed to be ramrod straight," Miriallia said.

Tolle watched the ongoing battle on the main screen. His flight had destroyed four GINNs, with Aegis taking out one of them. He had finally understood what Kira had felt all the while; the responsibility indeed felt heavy. But despite that, he would still do it in the future. "Thanks, girls," he said, expressing his appreciation of their attempts to console him.

The moment Athrun saw the expression on Yzak's face, he knew that the so-called reunion wouldn't go smoothly.

"What do we have here?" Yzak said. "A bunch of losers,"

"Don't put yourself down," Dearka, who entered the room just after Athrun and Miguel, said. "I have the greatest respect for all of you despite what happened,"

Yzak simply scoffed at the jovial sounding but obvious provocation. "Unlike all of you, I still have Duel,"

"See, at least there's something to be proud of," Dearka said as he went to an empty three-seater sofa and sat in the middle, crossing his legs, and hanging his arms on the left and right headrests. "But you may regret not losing it,"

"What do you mean?"

"We, the losers who lose the Gundams," Dearka tilted his head toward Miguel to signal that he was being included in the grouping, "would be assigned to field test the GuAIZ,"

Athrun understood where Dearka was going with the statement. The newly inducted model was currently undergoing heavy modification because of the data gained from the stolen prototypes. While the GuAIZ was originally designed to carry projectile weapons, efforts were underway to equip it with beam weapons intended to defeat the Phase Shift armor equipped on the prototypes. Athrun knew Miguel was testing the prototype beam rifle and from what he gleaned from the reports, the weapon was ready for mass production with slight modification.

Based on what he could see, eventually both ZAFT and Earth Alliance would field beam weapons. This development would render the power-hungry Phase Shift armor obsolete, effectively turning one of Duel's strength into a weakness since there was no way of turning off the armor without major re-engineering work. There's also maintaining and even upgrading Duel. Being a single mobile suit with exotic technologies and systems, maintaining its readiness level was already prohibitively expensive. While modifying and upgrading GuAIZ wasn't cheap either, the exercise made sense since it was to be ZAFT's successor to the ZGMF-1017 GINN and the ZGMF-515 CGUE mass produced units.

"So what?" Yzak said.

Athrun resisted shaking his head, knowing that the action would rile Yzak. The logical thing to do in the situation for the man was to keep an open mind and ask for a GuAIZ to be assigned to him as well. However, his pride as the only one with Gundam would make him less receptive to the idea. Maybe he would change his mind once GuAIZ's continual development may cause it to be on par or even exceed Duel's performance.

Dearka wanted to say something, but before he could do so, the door opened and Creuset entered.

"At ease," Creuset said upon seeing that everyone in the room was about to salute him. "This is an informal meeting and off record because I want your personal opinions,"

Athrun looked at the man suspiciously since he knew Creuset received his father's support; the Heliopolis incident was a testament to that.

As if knowing what Athrun was thinking, Creuset smiled. "I don't agree with your father all the time, Athrun. What I'm about to tell you is something that I disagree with him," The man moved toward a nearby screen, took out a memory card from his pocket and enter it in a slot. "I take it all of you know about the attacks on our outposts recently?"

Athrun and the three of them nodded.

Creuset showed a map of the Earth sphere with marked locations. "Do you see any pattern?"

"The Earth Alliance is systematically attacking our posts in certain sectors," Miguel said. "It's as if they're telling us they will launch an attack aimed at Januarius,"

"That makes sense, doesn't it? A successful attack would drastically impact the development of GuAIZ, And that's what the analysts concluded, especially because of this," The map changed to show pictures of four damaged bases. "Seems familiar?"

"That looks like a beam from a ship… or Buster's Hyper Impulse rifle," Dearka said.

Creuset nodded. "Reports suggest the same except that the output is higher than what we previously knew about it,"

Dearka cursed. "They got Buster repaired and upgraded, even though I trashed it badly,"

"Why are you surprised? Unlike us, the ship had access to the spare parts and the support of the industrial base,"

"Could it be someone else, Commander?" Athrun asked curiously.

"No, it's them," Creuset said as he played a video recording of Aegis beam saber heading toward the camera, followed by another video showing the pilot trying to shoot down a Moebius Zero before the screen became dark. "I also have some footages of Strike and sensor readings of Archangel,"

"They're serious, aren't they?" Dearka said.

"It would be a good propaganda for the prototypes to lead the attack, don't you think?" Creuset mused. "That is why I'm here talking to you. Chairman Zala is convinced that PLANTs in under no imminent danger, but I think otherwise and feel that they are pose an actual threat to us,"

"You're asking us to join a team to fight them," Miguel concluded.

"Yes. If you volunteer, I will do what I can to get you assigned to the team; under my supervision, of course,"

"And how about that coward?" Yzak asked.

"Nicol is being reassigned to research, so he wouldn't be able to join. But you may end up protecting him, since he's in Januarius right now,"

Yzak clicked his tongue. "I'm in. If I ended up saving his butt, all the better,"

"Me too," Dearka said. "Not because I worship Nicol's ass unlike Mr. Macho here,"

"So am I," Miguel said, before Yzak could retort.

Creuset turned his attention to Athrun. "How about you?"

Athrun's first impulse was to agree to the suggestion. However, his gut was telling him that something was wrong. "Is the team's primary aim to defend PLANT, or to engage the Gundams?"

"It is the former, but of course, taking care of the Gundams is an important task best handled by people experienced piloting or fighting against them. May I ask why?"

"Do you have the timing of attacks?"

"I do,"

"Can you bring the map with the outposts again?"

Creuset did as he was told.

"The timing of all attacks, and highlight the four locations,"

The map was updated with the requested information. "Is this okay, Athrun?"

Athrun gazed at the map before making his conclusion known. "It is a feint," he declared. "They're trying to get us to concentrate our forces to protect Januarius."

"What makes you say that?" Creuset said.

"Look at the timings," Athrun said. "The other attacks were carried out by other teams, so I can't comment on them. However, the Gundams's attacks showed they were actually moving away from PLANTs,"

In Athrun's opinion, it would be better for the Alliance to silent the outposts without using the Gundams and instead use them during the actual assault on Januarius. That way, ZAFT would be less prepared to face them, ensuring their effectiveness. But the way the attacks were carried out, the Alliance wanted ZAFT to know and prepare for the Gundams.

"The attack wouldn't involve the Gundam. So what?" Yzak said.

"No, Yzak," Athrun said. "I believe there would be an attack, but somewhere else, and it would involve them,"

"While I admire and respect your opinion, Athrun, it's admittedly concerning," Creuset said. "Most planners agree Januarius would be attacked, and the debate that's taking place right now is how much reinforcement we should send to the sector. I advocate for more, whereas your father believes we can do with less. But you're saying they will attack somewhere else. Where?"

Athrun pointed at a spot.

"There?" Creuset asked to confirm.

"There,"

Creuset contemplated the location. "The location is certainly strategic, but lightly guarded. If they attack there as you predicted, we may lose the sector,"

"That means we'll send reinforcement there?" Miguel asked.

"That would be difficult, even for me, since only you made that assertion, with no supporting evidence. You understand that, don't you?"

Suddenly, the door opened, and Nicol entered, much to the surprise of everyone.

"Gentlemen, Mr. Beautiful Ass himself has arrived," Dearka said while grinning.

"I'm sure I locked the door behind me, Nicol," Creuset said seriously, ignoring Dearka's attempt to lighten the mood. "And I certainly didn't intend to involve you in this meeting,"

"As of now, I'm involved," Nicol said simply while staring at the screen. "Who came up with this conclusion? Yza… Dearka… no, is it Miguel's? Or is it you, Commander?"

"Unfortunately, the credit is Athrun's. And you have yet to explain your presence, Nicol,"

"I'm here because we believe the sector will be attacked," Nicol went to the screen and replaced Creuset's memory card with his own. Athrun and everyone else watched as the screen changed to show a diagram of a cylindrical device that resembled a battery with a text "Antevorta," next to it.

"Goddess of future?" Yzak asked, referring to the Roman goddess, together with her sister Postverta, were believed to be protectors of childbirth. "So, what is it? A fat robotic stork?"

"We don't know," Nicol replied while shaking his head. "The official information that we have is that the Earth Alliance will field test this weapon during the attack,"

The screen changed to display a document showing an order addressed to all of them from PLANTs' National Defense Committee. They would be involved in an operation code-named 'Lares Praesidium'.

Athrun could see the mission's planners picked the name as a foil to the Alliance's weapon. Lares was an ancient Roman guardian deity believed to protect everyone inside its area of influence. The Latin word 'Praesidium', which meant 'protection', reflected this. However, the nature of the mission contradicted its name.

"We are to prevent the weapon's activation, if possible, destroy it and take out its operators, with extreme prejudice," Creuset said as he read through the order. "These take precedence even over securing the sector or engaging the prototypes. Even though we don't know what it is?"

"We're to follow the order to the letter," Nicol insisted with a guarded look.

"That's why I find it strange, for you to show such an attitude,"

The observation that Creuset made about Nicol's strange behavior was something Athrun noticed too. Nicol was not a war hawk and was more of a pacifist, preferring not to fight if another way was available. It was an anomaly for him to be proactive in such missions. Athrun reconsidered his evaluation. He had thought that Nicol was angry about the whole thing but he was wrong; it was fear, not anger clear in his friend's eyes. "You know something about the whole thing," Athrun said. "Something that was purposely left out of the order,"

"I didn't lie when I said that ZAFT doesn't know what it is," Nicol said.

"You didn't. However, Representative Amalfi probably has an opinion about the weapon's true nature. That is why the order was co-signed by him, Representative Clyne, and to my surprise, Representative Elsman," Creuset said while smiling. "Is it wise to include Athrun and Yzak in this?"

Athrun looked again at the order and noticed that his father and Yzak's mother weren't involved in its issuance. While the order was still valid, there's a chance that both of them didn't know about it. From the way Creuset was interacting with Nicol, the masked man had grasped the mission's secrets.

"Everyone here is bound not to say anything about the whole thing," Nicol said.

"Nicol, responding to a threat at this level would involve ZAFT mobilizing a significant amount of assets and personnel. But we couldn't do that, because the intelligence may be incorrect. Then again, the information may be correct, but we will risk our forces if we deploy them. That's why the three are co-opting this team for the mission," Creuset said before clapping his hands, "Well done. The decision is correct. We're bound by the order. However, it would improve everyone's motivation if you share with us Representative Amalfi's suspicion?"

Nicol hesitated for a moment before agreeing. "We believe the weapon can neutralize N-Jammers,"

1

A/N

1. Angus McIntosh was a British linguist and academic of Scottish descent. He specialized in historical linguistic.

2. Henry Bake was one of the Najavo code talkers who served in World War II. Najavo code talkers played crucial roles in transmitting orders securely without having to encrypt and decrypt them.

3. The Bottom Line Front Up is the approach where 'urgent and need to know' details are presented first, followed by 'need to know', 'good to know' and finally 'nice to know'. There are some variations to the methodology and approach, depending on the people and organization doing it.

4. Pedis possessio is the principle of stepping onto something such as land, mobile suit, or a ship to claim possession. However, this principle doesn't automatically grant the claimant the rights to it.

5. Link-16 is inspired by a real-world NATO system to exchange information securely through heavily jammed environment. The '16' in its name refers to the system's transfer rate of 16kilobits/second as opposed to 16gigabits transfer rate used by Croix du Nod and similar systems in this story.

6. Monarch and Assassin are references to the Project Wingman game.

7. 'Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee' is one of Muhammad Ali's more memorable phrase.

8. The ZAFT pilots involved in the reentry in the first episode wore flash gears. That's why they have white clothing covering their faces, even though they're wearing pilot helmets as well.

9. 'Guns, guns, guns' is a brevity code for a pilot to announce an engagement using guns / shots. In this chapter, it was used to highlight that Buster was firing a special shot compared to normal engagement in earlier chapters where everyone simply shoot away.