Phase 27: Tolle the Sand Cuckoo.

The unavoidable clash between the Archangel and Wartfeld's team had started, with the former taking the initiative, and Tolle the Sand Cuckoo being the central figure. But even as the path diverges, would it still converge on the eventual showdown, as preordained?


As expected, Kira and Cagalli's late return to return to Archangel caused the two of them to be bombarded with a lot of questions by everyone wanting to know what had happened. Even the somewhat stoic man named Kisaka was showing his concern, asking Cagalli whether she was all right. The two told them about the attack by Blue Cosmos on Andrew Wartfeld and how they got involved in the altercation. Most of the people were incredulous when Cagalli told them of how the two of them were invited by Andrew himself to the ZAFT's base for some coffee before being let go even though the man knew who they were. In the end, their involvement was not due to their fault, and they got back to Archangel safely, the matter was dropped.

To Ahmed's consternation, Sahib requested for Cagalli to be relocated to Archangel for her protection. The person herself protested the move, but the man would not have any of it. Besides, Kisaka also supported it, making it a foregone conclusion. Captain Murrue had assigned Kira to help Kisaka moved her things to an empty room. Afterwards, Kira and Cagalli went to the cafeteria while Kisaka excused himself, saying that he had some unfinished business with Mu and Sahib.

"I've been wondering," Kira said as he set his food tray on the table facing Cagalli, "How did you end up here? Last time I saw you was at the colony,"

"You didn't know what happened?"

"I know there was a rescue, but that's all,"

Cagalli then told him of how Orb sent a fleet to rescue the rescue pods, recovering most of them. That revelation filled him with some regret as there was probably no reason to save the one Flay was on, which in turned led to her current comatose condition, but there was no use crying over spilt milk. He decided to ask her what happened next, and Cagalli replied that she relocated back to Earth just as the aftermath of Heliopolis' destruction reverberated throughout the Kingdom, forcing her father to abdicate his position to take responsibility.

"Forgive me for being rude, but to me it looks like he simply transferred that position to Representative Homura, which I have to point out is his brother and your uncle," Kira said, recalling the events Sai had figuratively beaten into his head.

"He didn't foist that on Uncle Homura. And before you say anything, he's giving advice to assist Uncle Homura in his day-to-day work,"

"And this uncle follows the advice given?"

"Yes, most of the time,"

"Not that I'm complaining or anything, but isn't your uncle a puppet ruler of your father?"

"How rude!"

Kira bit his words. "What I'm trying to say is…"

"Of course not! He's not a puppet ruler!"

"But didn't your father have a team of advisors when he was the Chief Representative? If your uncle did not set up a team of his own, couldn't your father ask his team to advise your uncle directly, instead of, you know, ensuring all ideas go through him first, before he advises your uncle?"

"I don't know," Cagalli admitted.

"Right…"

"I don't like that tone of yours and the nodding action,"

"As the saying goes, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck…"

Cagalli wanted to respond to the statement, but in the end, she sighed loudly. "Fine. But that doesn't mean there's no good reason for that,"

"Never said that in the first place,"

In the end, Kira wasn't interested in politics to really care about whether Cagalli's father or her uncle was the one in charge of Orb. He was more concerned about himself becoming more and more involved in the war, which seemingly had no end in sight. Kira being in the briefing room together with his friends for a mission briefing had become regular occurrences that he had become numb to what used to be a tense situation. The brunette looked around the room. Some Desert Dawn members were also present. That implied their participation in the next operation.

"Alright," Mu said as he addressed the assembled mobile suit pilots and the crew. "Let's hear what Sahib…" upon seeing that the said man had no intent to go to the front, Mu turned toward Cagalli, "or rather our princess here has to say."

Cagalli moved to the front. "Here's the situation…"


The night hung heavy with an oppressive silence, broken only by the occasional wind. Private Aissa Tchiani of the African Community military force stood vigilant at the sentry post, looking at his surrounding with boredom. It was his first posting after being drafted by the government to join the military to fight against the evil Earth Alliance's oppression, especially the Eurasian Confederation and Atlantic Federation. When he attended school during his youth, Aissa learned that the Eurasians and Atlanticians had sent colonize various parts of the world, including Africa, under the guise of spreading civilization. That wasn't the real reason, though, as they were only interested in robbing resources from the colonized countries. In the end, the local populations rose and chased them off the continent with their tails between their legs.

Speaking of tails, Aissa looked at a mongrel approaching his sentry post. The scruffy and forlorn approached cautiously, eyes wary, its tail between its legs. Aissa looked around for anyone else in the area before he went inside the post, rummaged through his backpack, and brought out a brown paper bag. He unwrapped it, revealing a piece of meat. Aissa then put the meat near the dog. The stray dog hesitates for a moment, then sniffs the offering before gingerly accepting it. Aissa chuckled, watching as the dog devoured the morsel with gratitude. He kneeled near the dog and tentatively rubbed its head, smiling as it continued eating. It looked like the dog had finally warmed up to him.

When the dog strayed into the area a few nights ago, it was a break from the usual monotony for Aissa, whose only job was to guard his post alone throughout the night. It was easy to get bored as all he did was stand there, at the back entrance to a facility whose function he didn't even know. All his commanding officer told him was that the buildings were doing something top-secret, and he must stake his life to protect them from a possible attack. Even though he was initially elated by him being selected to do such an important task, that feeling soon gave way to disappointment as he quickly found how mundane it was. To add salt to the injury, his bunk mate at the academy was already promoted to the rank of lieutenant; him being the son of a general probably had something to do with the promotion.

"You and I were thrown to this god-forsaken place, aren't we, buddy?" he said as he continued rubbing the dog's head as it wagged its tail, a gesture of appreciation and camaraderie.

It was then an explosion took place, and a piece of metal narrowly missed Aissa's head. Instinct taking over, Aissa clasped his hands behind his neck and dropped to the ground, facing away from the source of the explosion. He then risked a look. The building housing the radar was burning, and a few seconds later, another building exploded. Aissa looked forward, not wanting to risk his face being hit by the debris flying away.

Another explosion, then another, then another. In what he estimated as three minutes, five explosions erupted. Aissa waited for a few minutes before looking back at the compound. The whole place was burning, and the firefighting crew was already at the scene, trying to put out the fire. Forgetting about the fright he felt for a moment, Aissa stood and watched the blaze with awe. He absently wondered whether he should remain at his post or search for his superiors for his next order. The academy didn't teach him what to do in such a situation.

Meanwhile, the mongrel stood by his side, licking his sweaty hand, as if trying to calm him down.

After a while, Aissa looked down at the dog and rubbed its head fondly. He should ask around to see whether he can keep the lucky animal as a pet.


Andrew Waltfeld pushed down the plunger on his French press coffee pot, forcing the coarse grinds of coffee to the bottom of the pot before pouring the filtered coffee into his mug. He would have preferred using his favorite siphon coffee maker, but the matter was urgent and required his utmost attention. He took a sip and frowned. "It's bad," he said softly with displeasure.

"Yes, sir. The buildings were heavily damaged," Martin reported.

"Maybe I should remake it?" Andrew said before turning toward his adjutant. "Have we sent out our people to investigate?"

"Yes, sir. Upon notification, I sent out a squad of BeCUEs and a flight of Agiles to the location. Should I have waited for you?"

"No, that's fine. No need to waste a good grind," Andrew said before drinking half of his drink and set the mug on the table. He then took the document Martin had prepared for him and flipped through it. "It's one of ours? This is unexpected. And working on nuclear fission some more? Why didn't they ask me? I have a spare nuclear warhead or two in my backyard back at PLANTs."

The expression on Martin's face remained serious despite Andrew's attempt to joke. "Second last page, sir."

Andrew looked at him, and then back at the document. A frown marred his face. "They're testing a device that can circumvent the existing field that impedes nuclear fission," he said while pointing at a paragraph. "Did I read it wrong? The lab is working on something to counter N-Jammer?"

"That's what I understand as well. They're going to try it on a Community's nuclear reactor in Rabat,"

Andrew wasn't sure where the place was, but he recalled reading about the nuclear reactor in a briefing note; it was located in the western part of Morocco facing the Atlantic Ocean. "Extent of damage?"

Martin shook his head. "

"Now lost, of course. And what kind of munitions used?"

"They're still analyzing the fragments, but believe they were artillery shells."

"And the facility's CIWS didn't detect them even at a close range?"

"That's the thing, sir. The radar only detected the shell approaching it 2 seconds before impact. And once it was taken out, the whole system was down,"

"Mirage Colloid? Or is it RAM?" Andrew said, thinking out loud. While it could have been Mirage Colloid, as the Alliance had a considerable lead in researching the compound, Andrew was skeptical it had managed to miniaturize the system and put it on something like a shell. Then, there were practical problems to be considered, such as how the system could survive the impact and sudden massive acceleration when the shell was fired. Even if it could address all of them, the cost would have been prohibitively expensive. Perhaps if it put on a bomb, or at worst, a nuclear bomb, then he could have understood, but a single shell? It would have been way cheaper to saturate the facility with an artillery barrage, like they had been doing all the while. A more economical approach was to coat the shell with radar absorbent material, which could contain a mixture of ferromagnetic particles, rubber, carbon nanotubes and other materials he didn't care to think about. "Get our people to sweep around 200 meters radius, in case of they find anything."

"Yes, sir."

Still, Andrew couldn't put his fingers on the matter, but he knew he was missing something. There was a nagging feeling behind his mind that somehow the Archangel was behind the attack. But there wasn't any sighting of the ship or its assets.

Thinking back to the attack on the research facility, was the enemy's attack aimed at hampering the research on nuclear fission technology? Despite all the words being said during press conferences and statements being recorded in media releases, Andrew knew that the PLANT Supreme Council was apprehensive of the catastrophe that was the Operation Uroboros or known as April's Fool Crisis. The nuclear strike on Junius Seven was unprovoked and an act of terrorism of severe barbarity. However, the collateral damage caused by Operation Uroboros was a hundred times worse. That was the reason there was a sped-up effort to come up with something to reverse the N-Jammer's effects to at least allow nuclear power stations to be used again.

It seemed someone on the Earth Alliance's side didn't want that research to come to fruition. Strangely, Andrew found the idea of Blue Cosmos to be behind the attack to be possible, despite the ramifications. Many of its members were against nuclear power plants due to how the power source was supposedly bad for the environment.

But his gut told him it wasn't the case.

"Connect me to PLANTs immediately."


Cagalli, Sahib, Kisaka, and Ahmed trudged through the sands, their steady steps leaving imprints that would give away their presence. However, despite the personal risks they were taking, they weren't worried as they made their movement in the middle of a night, right after a sandstorm had subsided. Getting detected at that point in time wasn't really the biggest concern, as they were fixated on their main objective.

As they ascended near the top of one dune, Sahib slipped, but Cagalli quickly extended her hand. Sahib caught hold of her hand and stabilized himself.

"Sorry, Cagalli," the man softly "I didn't expect the sand here to be less compressed,"

"No problem," Cagalli said, "Kisaka,"

The man nodded and brought out a device to set on the dune.

"Do you think they can see it?" Ahmed asked as he watched Kisaka do his work.

Cagalli, who was looking straight ahead using a binocular, replied, "From what I can see, it's very clear, so that's not a problem. The question is whether they can do it or not."

Around fifty kilometers away, the Archangel fired its thrusters and slowly rose to a predetermined altitude.

"Signal Wolf, Monarch. Painted target on scope," Tolle reported as the target that Kisaka had targeted using his laser designator filled half of his screen. Meanwhile, on top of Archangel's bow side, Buster was lying prone, its 350mm gun launcher in front of it, stabilized by a tripod. Inside its cockpit, Tolle looked at the altimeter on the screen of him. 1000 feet, which was a bit more than 300 meters. It was a pet peeve that he had with the system. Everything else used the metric system, but for aviation, he had to use feet. Sure, the computer assisted in conversion, but since he was the one making the adjustment in the end, he still had to be extra careful. Despite the slight shaking, the target on the screen was visible over the horizon. "Signal Wolf, request Archangel to maintain zero vector. Coming up with a firing solution, over,

"Copy. Relaying the request,"

"Copy," Miriallia has confirmed that Archangel, would be maintaining its current altitude and not moving around, which was important for Buster's next action. He set the reticule dead on the center of the target. "Coffee Pod, talk to me."

"Target 48 klick. Wind heading… er… 220, speed… 9 knots," Strike was kneeling next to Buster, using the modified DSSD sensor, which was mounted to a makeshift tripod the ship's crew had fashioned from unused platform parts.

Due to Earth's curvature, they had to be above 300 meters to get a visual on something located 50 kilometers away. The target was directly south of Buster's location, or 180, as Kira would have reported it. The strong wind toward the southwest meant that if Tolle was to shoot directly at the target, the bullet would eventually veer a bit to its right, missing everything altogether.

A bead of sweat trickled down his temple, but Tolle's focus remained unbroken. Unlike the previous night's attack, the current mission required him to be very calm as timing and accuracy were paramount. He adjusted his aim, accounting for distance, elevation, and wind speed and direction. He even threw in both Earth's rotational speed and gravitational pull into the calculation, just to be sure. "I think the spotter is supposed to crunch the numbers and the guy with the gun just press the trigger," he muttered to himself, not realizing that his voice was being transmitted over the communication channel.

"Sorry, I'm not that good with that," Kira said.

"Buster's the only one that has the ability to stabilize the shot," Miriallia replied. "Exchanging mobile suits would be more chaotic, right?"

"Point made," Tolle was very sure he wouldn't be able to control Strike as good as Kira. And knowing his friend, letting him pilot Buster, was just asking for trouble. Kira would certainly tinker with Buster's control, making it unusable for Tolle. Despite complaining about it, Tolle was secretly happy with the situation. As a Coordinator, Kira was gifted in a lot of things. However, while Kira's analytical and methodical personality made him a very excellent computer programmer, he was too engrossed in the details. Even if Kira could program an application by himself, Tolle and Mir would be the ones to tune the system, and Sai would work on the user interface so that it could be used by any normal person not named Kira Yamato. The targeting computer beeped, showing that the firing solution was ready. "Signal Wolf, ready,"

"Your call."

Tolle took a deep breath, waiting patiently as Archangel's vibrations kept throwing off his aim. After a few seconds, the crosshair was where it was supposed to be. "Guns, guns, guns," The whole cockpit shook as Buster fired off its gun, propelling a high explosive round at 2500 meters per second, over Mach 6, toward its target. Simultaneously, vapors escaped the gun as its cooling system worked double time to bring the temperature down. Tolle felt the urge to zoom out to get a better view of the impending fireworks, but suppressed it, not wanting to reset his setup.

"Relocating," Mirriallia announced. The deck shook as the Archangel moved toward the next location while Tolle maintained his targeting on the area. Because of that, he could see the resulting explosion when it happened twenty seconds later. It was a sight to watch.

"First target hit. Almost dead center," Kira said.

Tolle finally let out his breath. "CIWS online?"

"No response." Kira said.

Either there weren't any CIWS protecting the target, or the attack was too fast to intercept using CIWS. The current attack his team was carrying out at the moment was special since it was done by firing directly toward the target using Buster's rail gun. They could have used the easier and less complex method of indirect fire using artillery. However, the highly parabolic trajectory and slower travelling speed of the artillery shell made it easier to take down using the CIWS. Not only did the defensive radar, hampered by N-Jammer, have its range greatly reduced, but upon detecting the attack, had a very small window to react.

"Taking another shot."

"Copy," Miriallia acknowledged.

Two more targets remained. He aimed at the second target and pressed the trigger.

In less than a hundred twenty seconds, all three targets were eliminated, and the Archangel quickly moved away.

At the same time, as Sai piloted Aegis to follow Mu's Skygraspers as both mobile armors were flying in nap-of-the-earth maneuvers, he could see the bright light straight ahead. Buster should have taken its target and caused chaos and confusion at the camp.

"Alcon alcon alcon. This is Saber One. Silence lifted. Operation Last Straw is a go. I say again, silence lifted. Operation Last Straw is a go. Saber Three, proceed to Point Kilo 3. Weapons free, over."

"Wilco,"

There were multiple explosions up ahead. The rest of the Desert Dawn fighters began their attack on the ZAFT outpost as planned. "Light them up!"

"Copy that," Aegis reconfigured into its mobile suit mode, landed on the ground, took its rifle, and shot an ammunition depot. The depot exploded, taking out some buildings, assets, and people nearby.

Aegis increased its speed and altitude until it was near the outpost, reconfigured into its attack mode and fired its "Scylla" energy cannon at a hangar. The beam tore through the entire width of the building, destroying the three BuCUEs inside it before anyone could even get close to the building.

"Kill those grounded birds,"

"Wilco," Sai said to the new order and focused his sight on one of them. A fraction of a second later, the computer had locked on target and identified what it was, an Agile helicopter. It then drew the reticle on the helicopter's weakest spot while directing Aegis' right arm to aim the beam rifle at said target. A press on the trigger button and the helicopter became a smoldering piece of wreck. Sai then repeated the whole process a few times until all the parked helicopters were destroyed. Meanwhile, the Skygrasper attacked a hostile position where a group of sentries was engaging in a firefight with his Desert Dawn allies. A few more minutes had passed, and more and more ZAFT assets were destroyed as the base defenders were taken out. It would just be a matter of time before the base would fall.

"Bravo Zulu, Saber Three. Burner RTB,"

"But…"

"I say again, Saber Three, burner RTB. Do you copy?"

"Lima Charlie. Burner RTB,"Sai said reluctantly as Aegis turned, reconfigured back into its mobile armor cruise mode, and returned to Archangel at maximum speed. While Mu was quite relaxed whenever he's not in the cockpit, the man was very serious whenever he's in one. Rather than allow Sai to remain in the current operation area, Mu ordered him to return to the Archangel at once. When he returned to Archangel and landed, he finally understood why Mu ordered him to return when he saw all the people working on Aegis. For every hour of operation, it required many hours of maintenance to ensure that it would be ready for the next one. It can be launched in an emergency like what Kira did in Strike during the ambush in space, but that would cause more maintenance to be required.

While not wrong, the reason Mu sent Sai back wasn't primarily because the former wanted to reserve Aegis for future operation. Even from his vantage position high in the sky, he could see the deaths and destruction being wrought on the site. It was as Sahib had told him; the resistance group would use Archangel and its team for its benefits, just like Eurasian Confederation was using its resistance activities to cause chaos in ZAFT's African backyard. The previous night's attack on ZAFT's research facility was ordered by HQ to force ZAFT to divert some of its resources to guard it as well as other soft targets, leaving its military installations more vulnerable. That was why the current outpost had only half of its original strength and couldn't mount an effective defense.

A warning buzzer broke him out of his muse. An anti-air missile was fired at him from the ground. Mu quickly shot down the missile and sought its source. A brave soldier had fired at him using a MANPAD. Brave but foolish as Mu quickly took him out.

If Aegis had remained, then Sai would have to start shooting at soldiers. Mu knew he was a hypocrite. Sai, Tolle, and Kira, especially Kira, had killed, especially since they were involved in many operations that it was a pointless effort. But he and Murrue would still try to minimize them having to do that as much as possible, to assuage their guilts for getting the three innocent young men involved in what Mu privately admitted as a stupid war.

Using onboard camera, he watched as a few of the resistance approached two surrendering ZAFT soldiers who had surrendered and shot them dead from the back. Mu gritted his teeth in anger and clucked his tongue in annoyance. Sahib told him that the resistance group didn't trust the Archangel and its personnel. But trust goes both ways. The man clearly had problems on his hands since he couldn't reign control of his men. Their killing, no, murdering, ZAFT prisoners who had surrendered was a big crime, one that would come to bite them in the ass.

Without announcing to the group, he maneuvered his Skygrasper to leave the area, not wanting to be an accessory to what the group would do next.

In those kinds of situations, he found himself missing Natarle. Her replacement was alright, but simply being a Coordinator neither made Jan an expert in military law nor did she have the interest in learning about it, as alluded by her excuse of being swamped by her work as the CIC leader. Murrue was genuinely busy, and Mu didn't want to squander his chance with her by getting her busier to even notice his attempt to woo her. Bereft of any choice, the task fell to his lap in the end to prepare the report that will exonerate Archangel of any involvement with the war crimes the Desert Dawn group committed.

On the plus side, the mission was over and he would talk to Murrue to start the next mission, which was to bring the wayward princess home to Orb before she get captured, as requested by her father to the Eurasian HQ.


1


TERMINOLOGY

Alcon: All concerned.

Bravo Zulu: "Well done", or "Well executed"

Bird: Helicopter

Burner: Engage afterburner for maximum speed.

Cuckoo: A slang for sniper. The slang probably originated from how a sniper would disguise himself and shoot from on top of a tree, which how some Finnish Winter War snipers and the World War II German snipers did.

Lima Charlie: Loud and clear.

Murder: A criminal act of ending a life.

RTB: Return to Base

Silence Lifted: Order to end radio silence

Soft targets: Target vulnerable to attacks using simple tactics and readily available weapons.


A/N

1. This chapter went through multiple to make it tighter and presents the viewpoints from various people, hence it taking time to finish.

2. I'm aware there are many slangs for sniper, but decided to go with the cuckoo, as in Tolle the Sand Cuckoo as continuation of the Andrew Waltfeld the Desert Tiger joke.

3. Beginning this chapter, I'm putting the current phase' description before the start for later reference since I don't want to repeat the similar description in later chapters.