Phase 26: Andrew Waltfeld
Blue Cosmos terrorists attacked while Kira and Cagalli were having lunch. The two ended up fighting for their lives, aided by an annoying mayonnaise-loving stranger. Meanwhile, Kira's friends were still trying to come to terms with their involvement in the whole conflict. All these will lead to the eventual showdown in the desert between Archangel and ZAFT.
Kira was looking to his right for something to drink when he saw a flash off the shop's window.
"GET DOWN!" he shouted as he got up. Meanwhile, his right hand reached for the handgun in his pocket, disengaged the safety, took aim at the projectile travelling at their position and fired.
The rocket-propelled grenade had barely left its launcher tube when it exploded, taking out the shooter in the process. However, even though the explosion was far away, the blast knocked Kira toward the wall, and he crumpled, dropping to the floor.
"Are you alright?" the mayonnaise-loving promoter asked him.
Kira shook his daze away. While he had destroyed the missile, the man had turned their table as a makeshift barricade, with Cagalli huddled close to him. "Affirmative," he said as he approached them as the man brought out a personal defense weapon. "Sitrep?"
"FOR THE PRESERVATION OF OUR…"
The mayonnaise lover shot the man before he could finish his words. "Maybe you're pissing them off?" he said.
"Never saw them before," Kira said as he looked at the gun, which was still in his hand. Even if he had never used a pistol in an actual battle before, Mu had drilled into him and his friends during their training on firearms handling so that they couldn't be knocked away easily.
"Still, a great shot, kid,"
"I'm her bodyguard," Kira gestured toward Cagalli.
"No complaints there. Hold on tight,"
"DIE, COORDINATOR!" someone shouted as he ran toward their table. "YOU SPACE MONSTERS KILLED OUR DOLPHINS AND WHALES!"
"KINGDOMS OF SCANDINAVIA AND ORB ARE THE ONES HUNTING THEM FOR RESEARCH, ASSHOLES!" the other man shouted back while firing at the man, hitting the man in the head. "GET THE FACTS RIGHT!" he continued, even though the man was already falling to the ground, dead.
"FOR THE PRESERVATION OF OUR PURE AND BLUE WORLD!" another shouted while spraying and praying, firing his weapon in the fully automatic but uncoordinated manner. Even though his unpredictability made him dangerous, he emptied his magazine in just a few seconds and was quickly killed off as well.
In the midst of this, a man with an assault rifle appeared from a corner nearby, taking aim at Kira and the others. In response, Kira shot three times. The first shot hit the rifle, causing the aim to veer away. The subsequent shots hit the man's hand, holding the pistol grip and the shoulder area, causing the man to drop the rifle.
"IT'S OVER!" someone announced as the shooting ceased.
"Great way to disarm someone," the mayonnaise man said as he walked toward the terrorist, who was clutching his wounded shoulder in pain.
"Thank…" Kira's words died on his lips, and he cringed as the man shot the terrorist in the head.
A man in ZAFT's green uniform ran to the mayonnaise man, saluted, and asked, "Commander, are you alright?"
"I'm alright, thanks to them," he said while gesturing toward Kira and Cagalli. With an exaggerated flourish, he removed his hat and sunglasses and grinned, as if he was performing a prank on them.
It got what he expected when Cagalli gasped, "Andrew Waltfeld... the Desert Tiger,"
The mayonnaise lover whom Cagalli identified as Andrew Waltfeld walked toward them.
"Thank you for your help. Sorry about your clothing though," he said as he looked at Cagalli, whose clothing had some stains on it. "I would like to invite the two of you to our base," he said before grinning, "and I wouldn't take a 'no' for an answer,"
There was a knock on the door of the simulator and Tolle sighed as he opened it.
Sai was standing in front of it, a hand on his hip. "Alright, slow down on the sessions before you break this,"
"But…"
"Nothing's doing," Sai said, "You know how insufferable the Air Boss can be,"
Tolle still liked his hearing intact and wouldn't it to go off prematurely due to Kojiro's whining. Reluctantly, he shut down the system and got out. "Buster?"
Sai tilted his head toward the said mobile suit.
Tolle could see there was only one mechanic working at it, compared to a full team a few hours prior. In comparison, there were at least ten people working on Strike.
"Anyway, Kuzzey's probably sleeping, but Mir should finish her duty soon. Let's grab her and hit the mess,"
"That's a good idea,"
The two of them went to the bridge and saw that Miriallia was at her station, gazing at the screen. Meanwhile, a woman around their age sat at the executive officer's chair, one that Lieutenant Natarle had vacated when the latter was transferred off the ship. Despite her seating arrangement, the woman wore the rank of Lieutenant Junior Grade.
They both saluted her, and she saluted back.
"Good afternoon, Lieutenant Janina," Sai greeted.
"Same to you, Sai, Tolle," the woman named Janina thumbed in Miriallia's direction, "Wait a moment until the handover is complete,"
"Handover?"
Before Janina could answer, Miriallia put down her earpiece and groaned, before stretching her upper body. She got up, saluted Janina, and moved toward the door. "Alright, let go, guys," she said before she exited.
Tolle and Sai saluted the officer before chasing after Mirriallia. The two then quickly caught up to her. "What were you doing just now?" he asked.
"That? I was serving as a spoke for a MALE UAS from Valenzia, Spain, to test the C5ISR,"
Tolle and Sai shared a look. "In English?" the latter tested.
"The Command is conducting a test to see whether it can send drones over a large distance for recon. Our ship's role as a secondary ground control station is to take control for a while, and then release control and ensure it is flying back in the right direction. Hopefully it will arrive home without much problem and the recording will be of use,"
"The way Mu said, it's as if it is a new capability," Tolle said. "Don't they… we have it all this time?"
"I know that even our country had such capability before," Sai replied. "Morgenroete was ahead in that field's Research and Development,"
"Now, everyone doesn't. That's why HQ is experimenting with a Croix du Nord variant to provide control and data transmission over long distance,"
"It must have been very exciting to control the drone," Tolle said.
Miriallia rolled her eyes. "Yeah, for the first hour. Then it got boring pretty fast, but I still have to maintain my watch for another 7 hours. The only good thing is they pretty let me pilot it to everywhere I want as long as I keep it between 3000 to 6000 feet,"
"Reason being?"
"Above 2000 makes it difficult to see and hear it; below 6000 makes it harder to be detected by radar,"
"So, did you try to scope the city?" Sai asked.
"I did, and it's in the mission parameter. Saw what I believed to be Kira and Princess Cagalli earlier, though I couldn't be sure,"
"Anything else out of place?"
"It's normal for an occupied area. There's a ZAFT base with a lot of assets, with slums surrounding it, but people are going around doing their business. There's some smoke in one section, but the time's up and I had to recall the drone,"
"Probably a fire," Sai said.
"If so, hopefully the fire fighters can quickly put them out,"
"Anyway," Tolle said, "How do you find your new colleagues?"
"They're okay,"
When Archangel was transferred to the Eurasian, the headquarters began retraining some available personnel not actively assigned to other ships to be deployed on it. However, despite bludgeoning through the normal procedures to speed up the crew's training, it was only deemed adequately ready just before the ship was supposed to leave for the current mission. Nevertheless, desperate times required desperate measures and Tolle couldn't complain much about the arrangement. While he and the rest of the pilots didn't have replacements due to there being no simulators or training assets available, Archangel shared a lot of commonalities with the Eurasian assets that they could now have an almost full crew manning the Archangel bridge around the clock. Still, the arrangement was not perfect and saw Lieutenant Janina serve as the Officer of the Deck, in charge of running Archangel whenever Captain Murrue was resting or doing something else. This position was on top of her responsibility as the ship's CIC commander.
Miriallia looked around them before continuing, "Though Lieutenant Jan's a bit weird. I think she's in a cult,"
"A cult?"
"You know how Lieutenant Junior Grade and above get their own bunk?"
"Yeah," Tolle said, recalling Kira having his own.
"I saw the inside of hers, and she had a prayer altar inside,"
"That's out of the ordinary, but I don't see the problem," Sai said.
"It was dark, but she had a figurine wearing a white Alliance uniform on it,"
"It's a hobby?"
"Too obsessive that it's no different from being a cultist,"
Tolle said nothing, but he had passed the Lieutenant's room and saw her praying to the said alter, mumbling something about Zettai Ryouiki' and how Archangel's ship 'true name' was 'Nadesico', the emissary of the Goddess. It was a passing glance, so he didn't really have a good look at it, but the figurine did look familiar. Maybe one of those popular figurines on sale. Also, thinking about the Lieutenant more carefully, the circumstances regarding her transfer were a bit sketchy. While the situation about her transfer was sketchy, when Colonel Pogba was onboard recently, he had referred to her as a snowflake, whatever that meant. His musing was broken when he felt two hands on his back.
"Alright, get in there," Miriallia said as she pushed him into the mess.
"Say again?"
"Sai told me what you had been up to, and I say screw to that!" Miriallia said with determination in her eyes. "I'm going to make sure you get enough food and sleep, and bathe as well while we're at it,"
Tolle gave Sai a betrayed look. His friend shrugged. "Mir cares about you. You have it good. Don't complain and be grateful,"
Even though Miriallia took the next seat and force Tolle to eat by feeding him with food, he really appreciated her fussing over him. The previous battle with Waltfeld's team had left him shaken and feeling unable to do anything. As he and Buster stood helplessly, Kira had to protect him against enemy attacks again and again. In the end, it was only because of the timely intervention of the Desert Dawn resistance group that they got out of the situation.
"Are you okay, Tolle?" Miriallia asked.
"I'm scared," Tolle said as he clenched and unclenched his fist. Even though he, Sai and Kira were involved in many fights before, the recent attack was the first time he felt utterly useless. Facing the onslaught of ZAFT mobile suits, he tried to get Buster to stand straight, but it kept losing its footing. Kira ended up defending him against the attacks. The experience was a sobering one, reminding Tolle that even with Phase Shift armor, his mobile suit wasn't invincible and could be defeated with the right tactics and weapons. "I couldn't do anything during the battle,"
"Buster couldn't get up because of sand," Sai said.
"Strike could,"
"Because Kira reprogrammed it,"
"Yeah," Tolle said.
"You know that's not what I meant about him," Sai said. "I didn't really care about that,"
"I know, it's just that…I want to do more,"
"And you can, Tolle. Buster and Aegis's Decree had been updated accordingly based on information Buster collected," Mirriallia said, putting her hand on top of his.
Tolle nodded, trying to make himself feel better.
As the vehicle moved toward what seemed to be ZAFT's headquarters, Kira marveled at the number of quadrupedal, beast-like mobile suits guarding the place. As his first encounter with them was on the battlefield, he didn't have the time to marvel at the piece of engineering that went into design. The four legs design already allowed lower center of gravity and a more even weight distribution, allowing the mobile suit to be more stable when standing on sands. A tank would provide better stability and be harder to attack, but the BeCUE had the advantage of mobility, as the legs allowed it to traverse through the more challenging topography.
Meanwhile, Andrew observed him and Cagalli through the rear window.
They finally arrived at the headquarters where Andrew's girlfriend, Aisha, greeted them, took a look at Cagalli, and quickly sequestered her away. Meanwhile, Andrew brought Kira to the reception room. "Well, I'm quite confident in my coffee making skills," he said as he started his preparation.
"Ah!" Kira said as a memory hit him. "A fake tiger species that's actually a coffee-pooping civet!" he uttered. "You're that civet!"
Andrew frowned. "I'm a coffee-pooping civet, you say?"
"I'm not the one who came up with that!"
"Then who did?" Andrew approached and glared at Kira for a few seconds, waiting for his answer. After getting none, he withdrew and poured coffee for himself. "Still, you got the balls to say that to my face," The man gestured toward a sofa. "Make yourself comfortable,"
Instead of going to the sofa, the young man moved near the shelf that had a replica of a fossil.
"Evidence 01. It's a souvenir they're selling for an arm and a leg, but the missus wanted it so 'Yes, Ma'am', and it's there ever since," Andrew said as he approached Kira with a cup of espresso in each of his hands.
"Oh,"
"Never to the exhibition, I guess?"
"No,"
"They call it a whale stone, but I have no idea why. Does it look like a whale with all those wings?" Andrew said as he handed a cup to Kira.
"Well," Kira said as he took the offered cup, "They said this is supposed to be proof that we have celestial visitors,"
"Just call them aliens. But still, why whale?"
"Do you have another name in mind?"
Andrew smirked. "Maybe magna coniuratio cetus?"
"What does that mean?"
"Nothing important," he looked at Kira holding the cup with a mixed expression. "Right, too strong for you, eh?" he said." Sit down while I got you some milk,"
"Thanks,"
While frothing the milk, he said, "To me, it's just a big slab of trouble,"
"Trouble?"
"They say Glenn found it so provide impetus for more Coordinators to be made, because we as a human species must progress to the next stage. But at the end, we have this war," he said as he handed Kira the frothed milk and a bigger cup with two packets of sugar on the saucer. "Pour the espresso into the bigger cup, followed by the milk,"
After Kira made himself a basic cappuccino, the two passed the time by talking idly until the door to the room opened, and Aisha presented Cagalli in a beautiful green dress. Cagalli joined them, and Andrew served her a cappuccino as well. "The dress looks good on you," Andrew said.
"Whatever," Cagalli said.
"And all that lion skin is wasted, just because you open your mouth," Andrew said, referring to the story in Aesop fables about a donkey finding a lion's skin and using it to masquerade itself as lion, which was successful, until it sang.
From Cagalli's expression, it seemed she understood what he implied. "And you're in a position to say that, since you're the Desert Tiger. Are you making a habit of fooling around?"
"Fooling around?"
"Making me wear this dress," Cagalli said while gesturing to the green dress she was wearing.
"That's Aisha's hobby. I had no say in that, as well as many other matters unrelated to work,"
"How about going around the city undercover? Conquering this region? She didn't put you up for this, did she?"
"Trying to provoke me. That's interesting," Andrew said before turning to Kira, "See, this is how you're supposed to react to me,"
"Huh?"
"React strongly since we're on the opposing sides. You're one of the pilots, aren't you? Probably the Strike,"
"How do you know about that?" Cagalli asked as she stood.
Andrew laughed and got up. "You're too straightforward and honest. That kind of behavior only makes people want to use you. But to answer your question, the Strike's pilot responded very fast to the battlefield condition and exhibited a very strong dynamic visual acuity. When I saw Kira shoot that RPG round just now, I knew that you're its pilot."
"He is trained to be a good shot since he's my bodyguard," Cagalli said.
Andrew shook his head. "Those words he used. That can only come from Alliance's training. The fact he's a Coordinator is a surprise, but that explains a lot of things,"
Cagalli turned toward Kira in surprise.
"But a threat is a threat after all," Andrew then moved to the nearby drawer behind him and drew a gun, pointing it at Cagalli who tensed, and then at Kira, who was still seated. "You're so calm. Unlike your lady friend here,"
"I'm not calm. I'm very nervous, actually," Kira admitted. "I was just trying to remember my ID number and the information I'm allowed to tell,"
"Name, rank, service number, and date of birth,"
"Right, Kira Yamato, Lieutenant Junior Grade, L01X00T47, 15 March 55,"
"Oh, you're the same age as I am!" Cagalli said in amazement.
Andrew groaned as he put the gun back into the drawer and then sat again in his seat. "This is stupid," he said in exasperation before giving the still standing Cagalli a look. "Chili sauce I can forgive, despite how barbaric it is. But Marmite and likening me to the civet? I don't even drink luwak coffee! Your friend here is just mean,"
"When we first met, he tossed me into a rescue pod like I'm garbage. Heard he got his best friend involved in a car accident," Cagalli said evenly while her eyes darted to the drawer where Andrew had stored his gun.
"No! It's not a… car accident," Kira finished lamely.
"And I had prepared a dummy gun just for this kind of occasion, along with the speech and posture, only to have Kira here to give me a droll reply while hardly responding,"
"Dummy gun?" Cagalli asked.
"Hey, even if I'm the base commander, I follow the rules too,"
"All weapons are to be kept at the armory and to be checked out only when needed," Kira said.
"What the regulation-following jerk said,"
"What about the attack downtown just now?" Cagalli demanded. "You were carrying a weapon,"
"I was authorized to do so while going into an unsafe area. Besides, it was a sting operation to trap the Blue Cosmos terrorists,"
Kira nodded. "Other patrons were disguised ZAFT soldiers who quickly responded to the attack by the terrorists. There's also the fact the tables were reinforced to protect them from assault rifle rounds which would have gone through any normal table."
"That's why there's not many people around the place and your force quickly got there fast," Cagalli concluded.
"Yes. We've been planning for this for months. And on the actual day, lo-and-behold, we saw a pair of out-of-place teenagers buying a lot of things. Pretty suspicious, and we thought there's a possibility that you are Alliance's intel operatives, before you talked about putting chili sauce on your kebab, and this guy…" Andrew snorted in disgust.
"I don't get it," Cagalli said as she retakes her place next to Kira.
"Operatives want to avoid attention on them as much as possible. So, no weird and noticeable tendencies such as putting improper things on kebabs, since you know, people would get weirded out. And suicide bombers wouldn't do such things as well,"
"That's why you were being a busybody!" Cagalli said. "You were checking the bags in case we put bombs inside there!"
"Yeah, since both of you dressed comfortably, and none of your hands is holding a detonator. But, just to be safe, I sat at the seat just in case you scream 'Chili Sauce is Great!' and reach into one of the bags to explode a bomb inside it,"
Cagalli's face reddened in anger. "Damn you! You sat with us knowing well the Blue Cosmos were aiming to kill you! What would you do if something happened to us?"
"At most, a line about collateral damages due to the terrorist attack," Andrew said before holding up his hands placatingly upon seeing Cagalli's expression darkened. "It's not that we can tell you to go away without revealing our plan to the attackers. Besides, I was there beside the two of you when it happened, right?"
"Right, but still…"
"Look at it from my point of view. I was taking a big risk. If you're part of them, you could have used that chance to stick a knife in me or shoot me at point blank,"
"You're right," Cagalli said, relenting. "Thank you for protecting us," she said reluctantly.
"Oh?"
"You said that you were wary of us, but you didn't want a couple of teenagers to be involved, did you?"
Andrew smiled ruefully. "But Kira here is already involved, and I'm sure you are too," he rubbed his chin. "Judging from my luck, probably a big shot since they have a habit of appearing in front of me, not that I'm complaining... But I digress. Since you asked, let me ask you back. How will the war end, Cagalli? There are no rules in war, unlike sports. How do you determine the winner and losers then?"
Cagalli frowned, but Kira merely narrowed his eyebrows. "Why are you asking us, people who are younger than you a question that you can't answer yourself?"
The reply caught Andrew by surprise. "Maybe it's because you may have the answer?"
"Even if it is adults like you who started it?"
"Even if us adults started it,"
"That's contradictory," Cagalli sniffed.
"Contradictory?"
"You people are the ones who are making the decisions,"
"And," Kira said, "You said that there are no rules in war, even though they are,"
"But those rules didn't prevent Junius Seven from happening and didn't stop our side from committing our own war crime," Andrew leaned forward and crossed his fingers. "What happens if one side decides not to play by the rules? Or do all sides decide to do away with such a thing?"
"Then, eventually, there wouldn't be any humanity left in the war, and the war is simply reduced into an act of violence perpetrated by animals." Kira then explained the laws and rules were introduced because there were pragmatic reasons. No one side would like to be identified as the 'evil' side, especially if it would lose in the war. Therefore, adhering to the laws would allow it a saving grace if it lost. On the flip side of the coin, the winning side would be seek to enhance its reputation as much as possible. Being responsible for a mass murder would certainly influence that, even if the maxim 'History Is Written by the Victors' remained true. The other reason he gave was that the laws not only served as moral anchors but also restraints what a side would do. One side would be more inclined to do something that would affect the whole world if the other side was hell-bent on committing a genocide to wipe it off.
"Kira, you really put a lot of thought into this," Cagalli said in amazement.
"It's more than what I expect them to teach you," Andrew said in agreement. "Taking what you said in consideration, it's not in Naturals' interest to exterminate Coordinators because then Coordinators would think of the same thing, and things would then degenerate into who can wipe out the other first, and vice versa, correct?"
Kira nodded.
"That is logical, but we don't think logically,"
"Because we're human," Kira said.
Andrew didn't say anything, but his eyes widened.
Cagalli huffed. "That's why we must continue to communicate,"
"Continue to communicate?" Andrew asked back.
"Isn't this why you bring us here? To have this conversation? Logically, chili sauce is a better condiment with its concentration of umami, yet you go against the normal logic,"
"Just as I was about to praise you, you sneaked in a low blow," Andrew got up and approached the table and pressed a button. "Martin, come in here" He then turned toward the two of them. "Even tough it's just a short time, I enjoyed our talk,"
The door opened and Martin saluted Andrew.
"Get a ride for the folks back to the city," Just as Kira and Cagalli were about to go through of the door, he added, "War is not a sport,"
The two stopped, but it was Kira who replied. "It's not. War is a tragedy,"
1
DEFINITION
Magna: Big
Coniuratio: Conspiracy
Cetus: Sea animal
Luwak: A civet known for eating coffee cherries and defecated them partially digested. The popped coffee has a unique taste profile some drinkers like, making it one of the highly sought-after coffees.
Sitrep: Situation report.
MALE: Medium Attitude Long Endurance.
UAS: Unmanned Aerial System.
C5ISR: Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance.
A/N
1. This chapter is an alternate version of Kira and Cagalli meeting Andrew Waltfeld. Of course, the topic about 'playing by the rules in war' cropped up, just like in the episode. After I finished the segment, the conflict between Israel and Palestine cropped up. Thought about it and decided to keep it in. This follows my decision to maintain the story when the one in Ukraine popped up. After all, even earlier on I never missed the Natural and Coordinator concept not limited to non-GMO and GMO, but also refers to the Palestine-Israel conflict. That's how it was, and this story is not going to change Gundam Seed's foundation, even if I write differently. Besides, Gundam Seed Momentus is a war story after all.
2. Zettai Ryouiki means 'absolute territory' and was used to refer to a force field in Neon Genesis Evangelion anime that nullifies enemy attack. However, the term evolved to refer to the area of bare skin in the gap between overknee socks and a miniskirt.
3. In the 2000s when Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny came out, Norway and Japan, and Iceland are among very few countries actively hunting whale. Even as of 2023, they still are. Interestingly, both countries were represented by the Scandinavian and Orb Kingdoms in the series, respectively, the only two countries that pure good. Other countries are evil to differing degrees because they don't hunt whales.
4. There are no tigers living in desert. Depending on how Andrew got his nickname, it could be construed as a praise, or an insult. Foxes, however, can be found in deserts.