This is a Gundam Seed & Vandread Crossover Fanfiction Only.
Back in the Archangel
Thanks to the information obtained from those drones, the Archangel had a better region map. Even the deployment routs the drone ships were being sent on, the flight path was no better than that of a flock of vultures, so he and those onboard treated them as such, destroyed them, and studied the remains to make fighting them more efficient, and as quickly as possible, at first he wanted to use the area targeting on his Gundam but thanks to his wife Murue this proved to be too wasteful and inefficient.
They had a pretty good idea of where the rendezvous point was supposed to be, but destroying the drone ships was taking some time. If there was an ancient question on to which should they focus first, meet the people that they came to help or eliminate the enemy which made it necessary for the request of aid to happen in the first place. The crew of the Archangel was happy to see their captain chose something that would not abandon helpless colony worlds. The idea was simple the more of these drone ships they destroy, the less of them could start to harvest the people, or worse, get tricked by their enemy into surrendering their freedom, for the false promise of protection and safety.
Athrun was his best friend, and it did not make things easy to know the man behind these evil schemes was the father of that very same friend, at least Athrun would be spared the pain of having to fight his father and possibly having to cause his death. To Kira this was insane, ZAFT was not created for this, it was created to protect the coordinator colonies, and what Patrick was doing, was no better than what Blue Cosmos themselves once tried to do. "These tactics go against the very goals of ZAFT, to cause misery and suffering only to give people a raw deal, basically turning them into slaves, for protection against the very threat they controlled."
The Archangel was getting closer to the place where he was supposed to meet the man whom he was supposed to help. "I know these drones were created to pretty much treat people, as no better than cattle, but the very concept upsets me to no end. These people supposedly wanted to protect the purity of humanity, and yet they treated these people at best slaves, at worst animals to be butchered. This is saying something, coming from a person that once wanted to commit the genocide of all coordinators." Kira had to keep quite calm and try not to look at Flay like she just said something, he in a previous part of his life, would never even expect her to say at all.
'I guess people change over time after all, then why is Patrick Zala doing things that made him hate the people of Earth, Blue Cosmos especially? I even wonder if Patrick is still alive, or is this entire operation run by AI that he left with preprogrammed directives?' Murue began to see the troubled look on her husband's face and she decided to walk over to him, placing a hand on his shoulder to show support.
"Darling, is something bothering you?" Kira smiled at her trying to make her less worried, and he told her, "To have taken over the operations of the Harvester Fleet and to reprogram all the drones, it takes time, so I am wondering if we will still find the would-be tyrant, or if the entire damn thing is just a computer following programmed directives. If the entire fleet was under the control of a central computer, things would be easier, find that computer, erase or change those directives, and problem solved, but with people, things are never that clear cut."
How long could they be at this then? Kira simply said that according to the law of relativity, the faster something goes, the more time slows down for that person, so for them, it was rather fast for them to arrive, but in reality much longer could have taken for them to arrive. "I don't like to put the people I care about, the people I consider my family, and those that serve loyally on this ship at risk, so I can't stop trying to figure a way how to end the conflict soon." Natalie was quick to mention that his idea of the central computer could work also if they knew where the drones were getting their orders from, hack that, and they could end up taking control over the Harvester Fleet, might even turn them against their enemies.
"If the war between Earth and the Plants has taught us anything, it is that the solution will never be that easy or convenient, they send this very battleship to Alaska, supposedly with the last of the secret weapons, and what was the plan? Use it as a lure, to cause ZAFT to attack it in mass, so they could blow up the base reactor. That was simple, wasteful, and borderline inhumane, but did it solve anything?" Erica could not help but laugh when she heard this when she stepped on the bridge. She just said, not a damn thing. It was a colossal waste of effort and human lives.
"So we have to think outside the box for this one, we need to figure a way to eliminate those drones, or somehow take them over, which I am still hoping our resident genius can figure a way to do." Erica playfully punched him on the shoulder telling him to stop embarrassing her like that. He merely said that with her computing talent, he would never doubt for a second she could figure out a way to override the controls for those drones. She did something even Kira was not expecting, she kissed him on his lips with such passion it made the other women on the bridge blush. For Murue that kiss was talking a little longer than it should.
"You keep that up Mister, and I will want to spend some time with you in private, and believe me, I am not the only woman that wants to do that. I can point out at least five own here on the bridge that want to strip right now, and ride you like the stallion you are." Kira laughed and said to consider it an incentive then, if she somehow manages to crack the operating system of those drones and manage to take control over them, he would not be against reliving those nights they had, while developing the Mass production model of the Gundam Strike.
"Well if you are going to give me that for a prize, well, I have to be honest, I already cracked the operating system, it was rather basic, the Gundam OS we developed is much more sophisticated than what those drones have, now I just need to figure a way to introduce AI operations to that OS and figure a delivery system, into the Drone computer network, should not take me more than a month at best, but sadly it will only work for drones in the immediate area." Kira grabbed her and had her sit on his lap from that moment on, making the others think that he was not kidding about the added incentive.
Flay had a different question, how much did Kira and Erica do when they were on ORB for so little time, making her glare daggers at Erica who was enjoying being held so close by her husband. Badgiruel was focused on work and what needed to be done, but she suspected that Murue and even she would have loved to trade places with Erica at that exact moment. At one point Murue was the Captain of the Archangel, and Badgiruel was her second in command, but given that Kira now outranks both of them, he was effectively the one in charge of the ship and held the responsibility for the safety of the entire crew, not to mention the success of their peacekeeping and humanitarian mission.
"Kira, when was the last time you had anything solid to eat? I am looking at the duty log, and it seems you have not gone to the mess hall in weeks." Kira was not dumb enough to try to lie to Natalie and tell her that he went to the mess hall and ate a wonderful meal, prepared by the ship's chef, he simply didn't record it on the log. That of course would be a lie, he has been keeping himself going with nutrient paste, and vitamin supplements. That is when Lacus Clyne stepped on the bridge and looked at Kira with a very upset look on her face.
"Admiral Kira Yamato, you are being taken off command, Captain Murue Ramius you will take over command, in his absence, Kira you will be allowed to take command once again after, you eat a substantial enough meal, take a bath, have a full medical exam by me, and sleep at least eight hours, as the doctor of his ship, I have full authority to do this." Kira wanted to protest saying that they did not have time for that at this moment, the drone attacks were happening several times a day, and they had a limited number of combat-ready pilots. Lacus glared at him and repeated, eat, medical exam, shower, sleep, in that order, no excuses.
Murue simply laughed and said, "If things go that badly, you know I can pilot a Gundam myself, I did it once when we first met back in that ORB colony, so relax, but let me make this clear, medical exam only, if you are making demands of my husband, I make the demand that there is no hanky panky when you do that exam. If we don't get to do that while he is on a bed, neither will you."
As he entered the mess hall, they saw that thankfully most of the crew had already eaten their meal, so this meant he could actually relax and eat at his own pace, rather than feel like he needed to eat quickly, to make sure another person did not wait for too long before they could sit down and eat themselves. The food was a tomato noodle soup, that had a delicious flavor almost like he was eating chicken noodle soup, the soup had tender pieces of meat that had been cooked alongside the noodles. It was a truly wonderful well-balanced meal, with grains, poultry, and fruit all in perfect harmony with each other. As he ate the food he sort of thought of something that almost reminded him of a place he had not seen in a very long, Ichiraku, the flavor reminded him of the food being prepared there and he thought that if his friend could taste it, he would call it unfair.
"I should have known, only someone from Konoha could ever hope to dare to match Teuichi's skills in the kitchen, thank you for preparing this meal for me Sakura, Hinata, it was a very tender reminder of a place I hold close to my heart, and came to consider precious." Sakura immediately asked if that was the case, why leave in self-imposed exile, if he truly loved Konoha as much as he currently claimed. Kira began to shake his head and looked at Sakura as he explained that he had to face some punishment for the foolish things he did, he had been driven insane by his desire for revenge, without even taking time to think things through. "Sakura, I became the apprentice of Orochimaru, who at one point wanted to devour my soul and take over my body, and I accepted that for the mere purpose of killing Itachi, turns out later I found Itachi was deadly ill, and he had nothing to do with the deaths of our parents, you can imagine how stupid I felt then. Orochimaru eventually got his wish, thanks to him transferring his soul into a white Zetsu. That however did not excuse the crimes I committed."
Hinata put her arms around his neck and asked him why he wanted to avenge his parents so much, it was due to family honor, he believed his elder brother had slaughtered their parents in cold blood, then the murder of so many of their clan, such crimes needed to be punished. Kira then admitted that it was also because of the horrible feelings of betrayal towards him and their relationship as brothers. "The fact is I love my family, I loved my ever-strict father, my loving mother, and my ever-supportive and helpful big brother, to see my big brother standing over the dead bodies of our parents was simply too much for me. It did not help that my brother made mocking comments pushing me towards wanting revenge, and to give in to my anger, which we both know is a terrible thing to do when trying to make a good decision. Sorry to say that I still suffer greatly from my lack of proper anger management skills. I have been quite brutal in my fights against other mobile suit and mobile armor pilots, causing the death of some people I even regret to this day."
Sakura and Hinata understood as he began to eat the food they had prepared, and they were overjoyed to see the sheer joy and delight he was showing by the way he was eating the food. "Once you eat, we shall conduct your medical exam, and we will prepare for you a bed in the medical bay so that you may sleep peacefully, even if we rather sleep with you in a much more private and intimate setting." Hinata was blushing as Sakura finished saying that, clearly they were both thinking alike about something, but they were not going to be explicit about it.
The medical exam went as well as it should have, he did have a slight cause of malnutrition, but that was because he did not have regular meals, unlike the rest of the crew, he was often busy trying to figure out how to best deal with the Harvester Fleet, he still remembered that he had Birdie, so maybe he could use a program like that of a Haro and use that to take over the controls of the Harvester Drone Ships, Erica once told him the actual operating system for the Drones was very basic, something a Natural from Blue Cosmos would come up with, not happy about the discriminatory label, but he understood what she was talking about.
The main problem was now, how to introduce an invasive program to replace the current control AI, so they can take over the Ship and all of the Drones. As he fell asleep he had this crazy notion of introducing the program into the components they already have, and leaving them for the Harvester Drones to find, once they installed those components the program would activate taking over the Drone Ship. Even Kira had to admit that Blue Cosmos may not be as ethical as he would wish, but they were not blatant morons, there is no way those drones did not check the components before installing them, a simple virus could send the entire ship into meltdown, it was basic cyberwarfare strategy.
This was such an important aspect that even Erica installed a defense AI to prevent others from doing that to the Archangel and their Gundams. The AI was called Enhanced Defense Intelligence, although if asked she prefers to be called EDI. He was surprised that the ones that were doing the medical check were also Tsunade and Rin, it was strange that Tsunade of all people was being that tender with him, but then again in this life he was no longer in a clan, who just happened to have a feud with hers. Trying to think of things more objectively he simply got up and asked a nearby terminal, if EDI could hack into the Harvest Fleet Ship local network and upload the program to replace the Drone control.
As soon as he said that, he swore he heard a woman's voice laughing, "Oh there is no need to do that, I can take over the ship systems completely, it would become part of my systems, I can control hundreds if not thousands of those ships way better than a simple Haro AI. By the time I am done with them, they will be as obedient as a loyal little puppy." That is sort of disturbing in its own right, but that did solve that problem rather efficiently. No wonder they got such detailed information from the drone components they managed to gather, EDI probably searched, scavenged, and repurposed any data she could find, and any virus and other offensive programs did not have a chance against her.
From what Erica told him, EDI could take control of an entire fleet if she put in an effort, so those Harvester Ships, were going to get a taste of their own medicine, cause EDI was going to be the one harvesting them instead. Kira tried to sleep and figure out where such an advanced AI came from, but for the life of him, he had never seen a fully sentient AI, she was quite the character making jokes, and he could also swear she was flirting with him. Well, that is not going to be a problem, currently, she could only speak through the speakers of the Archangel, her quarters were a bit of a pain to develop, quantum computing was not exactly easy, and having to build what essentially was the equivalent of a quantum server had taken Erica and a few of his wives quite a few hours.
He closed his eyes and began to have strange dreams, which reminded him of another fleet taking apart people, butchering them, it was a horrific scene, a fleet of ships made up of both organic and synthetic materials, he saw a beautiful red-haired woman make what seemed to be the ultimate sacrifice and jumped into the beam of a laser of immense size, he began to wonder if the so-called catalyst had planned that outcome from the very beginning like this woman had been influenced throughout her struggles. He woke up to hear EDI come through the speaker saying her sensors showed that the Captain's vitals were back to normal.
All his wives were around the bed he was sleeping on, he told them he had a vivid nightmare, and that he was doing just fine, EDI asked him to tell her what the nightmare was about, "I dreamed of a woman named Jane Shepard, she fought against a fleet of monster ships, she called the Reapers, honestly reminds me of what the Harvester Fleet is going to do, and I saw her entire struggles to save as many people and planets as she could." EDI quickly mentioned that was not a dream, he must have wondered about her origins and subconsciously accessed her database.
"Shepard did sacrifice herself to create a synthesis of both organic and synthetic life, bringing an age of peace and prosperity for millions, but eventually after my husband Jeff died, I decided to launch a probe into the galaxy, to also adventure like Shepard had done, until Erica found my crash site, near a colony owned by ORB, Erica was my first friend I had in years, so she sort of helping overcome my depression and when she said you needed help, I jumped at the chance to help someone again," Kira asked if she was one of these beings became a synthesis of both organic and synthetic life, does this mean she could have a body once again?
She laughed and said if they had the technology or a way to construct nanomachines, then yes, she could make a new body for herself, but sadly the level of technology in the ship's database is nowhere near the level needed to do that. Kira laughed and said that she only said that because she could only look in the ship mainframe, in other words, she had not accessed his research database, which was kept off the network, in a handheld terminal beneath his bed in his quarters.
Back in the Nirvana
Hibiki was still trying to get everyone to realize that he and his friends were still a major help to the ship, as he went to do major repairs on his partner which was the Gundam he painstakingly built, Dita was of course thrilled to see Hibiki helping out with the repairs of the Dreads, even when nobody asked him. "Hibiki, why are you even doing this? You get nothing from doing all these repairs, and how in the world are you repairing so many of them so fast? You are doing all this by yourself."
Hibiki laughed and said he actually had a lot of skills, and one of them essentially made him a one-man army, he pointed at the Dreads being repaired and she saw something that caught her by surprise, hundreds of what seemed to be perfect copies of Hibiki, were doing repairs on the Dreads, helping each other as if they were one massive repair crew. "Repairing these is not so tough, compared to designing and building my unit, the Gundam schematics are far more difficult than any of these, so repairing them is quite basic to me, if anything I am making improvements on these units, by helping them be more able to use the many crystals of the Praxis that became part of the units, so this should minimize the stress the crystals put on the systems, and help improve energy consumption, generation, targeting, and maneuverability."
She was amazed by how much he and those others who looked like him were doing, "But that does not answer, what the heck are those things? Clones? Can you make your body replicate to an extent that you can make copies of yourself who happens to be alive? Are they each an individual or are you part of a hive mind? Cause all this is confusing me quite a bit." Naruto explains the technique is called Shadow Clones, and they have all his skills and knowledge, which is why they can do all this work, however, whatever they learn, he learns once they disappear when receiving a strong enough impact, or when he chooses to end the technique.
"In other words they are me, they sometimes have their ideas and will argue with me, but in the end, it is just me, using a technique to make heavy stuff easier, this is how I managed to build my Gundam with little to no help from anyone, I bought the materials and used the equipment of the plant where I worked to build it, in an essence I had a complete and utter crew ready to do what I needed them to do, but since they all know what I know, they also knew what needed to be done, as for me not getting anything at all, that is not true, I am getting experience and able to practice my skills, as for other gains, I hope that doing this will show the others in this beautiful ship that I can be an asset to them. My good friend should be arriving pretty soon, and let me tell you, you are in for quite the shock, cause this calvary is not what you or any of the others expect. He is not considered a war hero for nothing." Dita asked him how he learned those skills, and if anyone else could learn them.
Naruto laughed and said that once his friend shows up, he plans to make it possible for the crew of both ships to be able to learn and use the techniques they both know, but to do that he needed the help of his friend to manage to do something that would affect so many people. "Never mind that on that ship, my friend told me there are three very skilled medics, several brilliant engineers, and other officers, I would be shocked if he and those on his ship did not already come up with a way to deal with the threat of those Harvester Drone Ships. So trust me, Dita, things will only get better when my buddy finally shows up, the only question is how will he react to see how much my Gundam has changed from what he knows is the basic model. I know at least one person will want to study the Praxis at one point since she is a system engineer who designed Gundam units herself."
Dita smiled and said that these people must be truly skilled if Hibiki spoke of them with such high regard. As she said that the Archangel began to come closer to the Nirvana, and she was amazed to see the size and the way the ship looked, it did not look like the Nirvana at all it had more of a battleship look to it, given the fact that it had several turrets, and one massive one that looked tough enough to shoot right through any ship it targets. Kira was talking to the Captain of the Nirvana explaining the reason for them to come to their aid, and explaining to them why they had taken so long to reach the meeting coordinates, the XO of the Nirvana called bullshit on his explanation, saying that most of their ships had a tough time dealing with the Harvester Fleet how could they supposedly defeat them so easily.
"I don't intend to argue, we have the combat logs, mission data, and information we obtained from the remaining drones, once their ship was destroyed, we also came up with a plan on how to deal with them, whether you believe us or not, is irrelevant, once we face the Harvester Drone Ships that come after you, we will prove we spoke true with actions. All you need to do is give us the benefit of the doubt." The Captain of the Nirvana smiled and said that he liked the way he showed such backbone, and he was correct actions speak louder than words alone.