Crossover Fan Fiction / Gundam SEED Fan Fiction / Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Crossing Barriers ❯ Plan, Attack, and First Reactions ( Chapter 13 )

Crossing Barriers

 

Gundam Wing and Gundam Seed are the sole property of their creators and distributing studios. I have no financial interest in either series. Nor am I receiving any financial gain from this fan fiction work. I do however own all plot elements not part of the original and all self-created characters. Thank you. Enjoy.

 

Special note: Yaoi (homosexual pairings) is a plot element of this story. There will be NO explicit material but there will be sections where it is reasonably clear that sex is happening or has happened.

 

Beta Reader: T'Amara

 

 

Plans, Attack, and First Reactions

 

Her face a study in icy neutrality, Ilene Terasawa leaned back in the comfortable chair the Blue Cosmos bastard had provided. Warily, she watched the meeting unfold around her, while she sat quite still, arms cross, allowing nothing but her eyes to move. The grandiosely self-titled Commander Hannam hadn't come across with much data so far. But you'd think he'd dropped a library's worth to listen to those three fools babble. How the hell did they ever get anyone to follow them?

 

No, she wasn't doing the bastard justice. Hannam was good, damn good. He could make most politicians look like little kids scrabbling in the sandbox. And if she hadn't grown up in the house of an even twister bastard, she'd likely be just as taken in as the rest of `em.

 

But she was Jun Yat Moon's illegitimate daughter and there had been no one better at word play in a hundred years than her publicly pious, lying, two-faced, fuck-anything-that-moved father. The worthless shit had claimed descent from another religious Moon, and he'd built a personal faith cult around himself on that baseless allegation that he'd kept going almost sixty years before one betrayed girl finally got even. If she'd learned nothing else growing up in the shadows of his house, she'd sure had it hammered into her just how easily people could be swayed by well-chosen words. The social services saps had bought his smooth, merciless lies about Mother for twelve endless years!

 

Hannam wasn't quite in the old man's league but he wasn't far from it. And his target audience, herself excepted, really wasn't all that sharp either. Vicious, fine fighters, excellent killers, but not over-inclined to seriously analyze a situation before they barreled into it.

 

Admiral Yuki Terasawa's daughter on the other hand analyzed everything. And what she was getting out of this meeting was not making her comfortable. Hannam was not lying to them, at least not that she could detect, but she was sure there were some very important holes in the data he was dribbling out.

 

“The next round of meetings will be held at the Aube orbital station Ame-no-Mihashira.” Commander Hannam said evenly. “The visit to the L-4 colonies will take place before that set of meeting begins. Unfortunately, there is still considerable argument about when and who will go. The more radical elements in the PLANTs are dragging their heels, trying to reduce the escort to a regular ZAFT forces Team. The Foreign Minister of course, is not pleased with this. Other planetary governments have been expressing reservations as well, seeing the situation as a potential slight to their representatives as well.”

 

“Big fucking deal, some coddled diplomat's insulted.” Captain Napci growled. “I don't give a shit about them and their `inconveniences', got that?”

 

“He's got a point.” Dieter Ruhde spoke up for the first time in nearly an hour. “All this talk hasn't told us the important thing; when do we strike? I have five crews drawing pay and getting bored waiting for this mission to come off. And I haven't had anything else to distract them with for two weeks. Old grudges are starting to surface and past offences are being recalled. I can't afford much more stationary time.”

 

“Too true, too true!” Captain Boothe offered. “This isn't like the days of wet-water piracy when a Captain could send a crew ashore to burn it off for a while. There are no ports where we're welcome or could pass unnoticed. There's been too much war and too many colonies abandoned or lost. The ones that were deteriorating, that would have been our natural playgrounds; they were the first casualties of the fighting. No, Hannam, we need either a firm date for the big ambush or something with real juice in it to tide our people over.”

 

Yes, with their sloppy recruiting strategies she was sure they did. Ruhde was probably understating the tensions on his ships too. She knew for a fact that he hired for skills and didn't pay enough attention to backgrounds, allowing Eurasian, Alliance, Oceanic, and neutral nations personnel to mix without regard to how any of the individuals might feel about the other groups. Oh, yes, he likely had some very explosive combinations getting dangerously heated right about now. And the other two weren't all that much more careful; they would be having similar issues.

 

Even her people were beginning to get a bit restless and she handpicked her crews carefully. All of hers came from eastern Eurasia, shared a language, a culture, and her cold hatred of Coordinators. Her people were united with her on a mission. Humans had made these creatures and humans must get rid of them. Failure to do so would eventually see true humans reduced to nothing more than slaves for the freaks; their blindly foolish designers had built them too well for there to be any other outcome. They had to be disposed of before their numbers became overwhelming!

 

Commander Hannam leaned forward thoughtfully. “I understand your situation gentlemen, madam. Unfortunately, I have no power to move the decision process forward. The next round of meetings will start in two months. This round ends in two weeks. The fly-by will have to take place sometime after the end of the current round and before the next but that is all I can be positive of at this moment. I would expect it to happen fairly soon after the close of the last meeting though as I would not expect Foreign Minister Pearson to linger in the PLANTs. He is neither comfortable nor welcome there.”

 

Right. He did know something. Fine, let him keep his secret for the moment. She had something she wanted to accomplish though and the restlessness of the other Captains' fleets made this the perfect time to see if she couldn't force their `ally' to cough up a bit more in the way of supplies. It was the ideal moment to make a constructive suggestion.

 

“Two weeks minimum before the main show you say?” Ilene Terasawa leaned forward with a small, cold smile. “Then why don't we make sure we won't have anyone showing up unexpectedly to interrupt the key event when it does happen. Between us, we've got more than enough forces to take out those two new stations Aube and the Alliance have moved into the area. Neither one is fully manned yet but the little birds tell me they're already pretty well supplied. And I could use what they have in their storerooms.”

 

“Are you nuts?” Napci stared at her. “You want to draw attention to the area?”

 

“Yes, I do. And then I want another incident set up to go off no more than twenty-four hours before the ambush to pull all those forces that this first strike will draw into the area away to chase the new threat,” she said icily. “Think with something besides your damn dick for once. Those two new stations will be very close to fully online in a couple of weeks. They will put significant military force in the immediate vicinity of our target zone. If Yamato can hold out for any time at all, they will be able to get there to back him up. Smash them and he's on his own.”

 

He jerked back, insulted. But the others were giving the idea serious consideration. Hannam especially seemed interested. Good!

 

“They're both in bad areas,” Ruhde said thoughtfully. “They won't be easy to approach.”

 

“Oh, they're a lot more vulnerable than shielded, believe me. I did the scout for our ambush. I can supply everyone with current data on both stations immediate space that will allow us to get very close very fast. Much faster than they'll expect us to be able to for sure.”

 

“The lady has a point there,” Commander Hannam noted calmly. “And these are not low profile targets either.”

 

Ah yes, trust the Blue Cosmos sneak to appeal to male vanity! He'd played that well last meeting too. She gave him an approving, if vicious, smile. She had a reputation of her own to maintain here. A rabid killer of questionable sanity must reward those who agree with her after all.

 

That got the discussion rolling though. And it was very quickly obvious that none of her `compatriots' were really opposed to it. They had to be in worse shape trying to control their people than she'd imagined, a lot worse to agree so eagerly to this!

 

Hammering out a plan to hit both stations at the same time took hours. She discovered Hannam was quite the diplomat when he wanted to be. He could switch from that to hard-nosed son-of-a-bitch instantly too. Since she wasn't supposed to be a tactical genius, she kept her suggestions to a minimum and let him do most of the real planning. He did a smart job of it, and managed to make it look like most of the ideas were coming from Ruhde. She liked that trick. If this blew up in their faces at all, it was going to be blamed on the arrogant German.

 

Best of all, the four of them weaseled full combat loads out of the Blue Cosmos stores. She could see how badly it hurt Hannam to have to hand over the supplies. But even he had to admit they couldn't tackle armed military stations, even undermanned ones, unless they were ready to fight a pitched battle themselves. And since they'd also had to agree that the majority of their mobile suits were going to have to be reserved for the real show, they were going to have to do it primarily with ship based missile and beam weaponry. She shuttled back to the Starving Vulture a reasonably pleased woman.

 

Mickey met her when she exited the shuttle. “How'd it go, Captain?”

 

“They bought it, hook, line, and sinker.” She grinned savagely.

 

“Both parts?” Mickey's eyebrows rose toward her hairline in surprise.

 

“No, I didn't try for the second target at this time. There will be an opportunity to suggest it when we load supplies. Since we still don't have a firm date for the ambush, we have to be a little careful here. Overplaying our hand will not be smart.” She swept a carefully casual glance around the landing bay, noting too many eyes and ears for comfort. “I'd like your report on the sweeps. I'll meet you in my cabin in fifteen minutes.”

 

“Yes Ma'am!”

 

She was reasonably certain of the loyalty of her crew but only reasonably. And she knew any pirate could be bought. That little discussion, while it would displease the others, wouldn't really tell them much if it was reported. What she and Mickey needed to go over now though would get them all killed.

 

So she spent the time between her arrival and her first officer's sweeping the cabin for all forms of spy gear. As always, it came up clean. She was setting the last test unit back in its case when Peters knocked at the hatch.

 

She locked it behind the other woman and then helped her spread her maps out on the big desk. “What did you manage to get?”

 

“They maintain a very high comm traffic but the majority of it seems to be bogus.” Peters told her. “Whoever sets their stuff up is running short on imagination because they're using the same message patterns repeatedly over about a seven hour window. We can't get a real good lock from here but the genuine stuff seems to be going in only five directions, three destinations on Earth and two in space.”

 

“You're sure about this? Only two space destinations?”

 

Mickey smiled tightly. “Oh yeah, just two. I can give you rough areas but since both are in the Debris Belt, they won't be all that much immediate help.”

 

No, not an immediate help but they would allow her to close in on the bases over time. And if there honestly were just the two left; she smiled, an expression that would have cost Albert Hannam his bladder control. For Ilene Terasawa was as much an enemy of Blue Cosmos as she was of Coordinators. Those narrow, mind-locked bigots would hold back the human race for centuries if they weren't eliminated. They were just like her father. And like him, they had to be cleansed from the face of the Earth. She turned glittering eyes to the maps her second laid out before her.

 

* * * * * * *

 

There were times when Zechs Merquise was a very sharp man. No, that was not honest. Zechs was sharp, period. Heero wasn't sure he valued that at this particular moment in time. But there was no getting around the fact that the man had been right on the money when he'd forced them all to sit down and have that damned uncomfortable talk their second day out on the Chariot. They'd been here close to three weeks now and if they hadn't set up a few basic rules and cleared the air on some issues there would likely have been a nasty fight or two by this time.

 

It was the biggest `safe house' he'd ever stayed in really. But it was confined completely unto itself too. There was no larger world outside the door where anyone could go to calm down when someone said something tactless or did something offensive. Oh they'd explored it thoroughly by now and discovered it was larger than J and G had known but still, even with the extra rooms, it was finite.

 

They passed the time playing some of the staggering array of games the Maganac had packed on Quatre's orders. Preparing meals became something of an exercise in creativity for Noin, Quatre, Trowa and Wu Fei. They all studied the local language and watched the recordings J had supplied them with to fill in their sketchy knowledge of recent history, places, and people. And in three short weeks, it wasn't enough.

 

He didn't know of anyone who had used the access into the building that would let them into the colony interior more than once. You didn't need Quatre's gift to know there had been a lot of negative things done there. It had been too uncomfortable for even his relatively non-receptive nature to take. Poor Quatre had passed out in the doorway.

 

The only one of them who could get out of here was Duo, whose Gundam in full stealth mode was invisible. Since Duo and his restless energy were one of the problems with the confined nature of this particular safe house, he and Deathscythe were doing a lot of scouting. This had dangers of its own of course but Maxwell wasn't quite the crazy kid of the Eve Wars any longer. He was still taking chances, but he took them with a lot more thought behind his moves now. And he was enabling them to build an extremely detailed map of their immediate space and the colony surface. If they ever had to move outside, at least they wouldn't be doing it blindly.

 

Heero himself did most of his hiding out right where he was now, in the guts of Wing Zero, finding things to tweak in the systems or tiny repairs he didn't think J had done quite well enough. Three weeks of this was beginning to run him out of easily fixed things though. This adjustment on the n-jammer canceller was just about the last project he'd been able to come up with.

 

There was a sharp bang as someone threw the hatch between the mobile suit bay and the living quarters open with more force than necessary. Heero didn't look up. He was fairly sure he knew who it was.

 

“Trowa!”

 

“I don't want to talk about it.”

 

“But . . . .”

 

“You let her hang all over you! No! I can't deal with this right now. Please, just go.”

 

“I . . . . . . . . . Very well. But we won't resolve anything with silence.”

 

Quatre moved lightly enough that Heero didn't hear him go. But he did hear the hatch close, much more gently than it had opened. Barton stalked past Wing Zero to Heavyarms. Heero heard the hatch open and shut.

 

And there was their other major issue. Out of nowhere, Quatre had found himself becoming friends with Dorothy Catalonia. The girl's mental stability was open to question, she'd made a sincere effort to kill him once, but Quatre, generous Quatre, was ignoring that. And Trowa was wildly jealous.

 

To give all three of them credit, none of them were trying to rub anything in anyone else's face here. Quatre was doing his level best to balance his time shared between his friends. Dorothy was genuinely polite to Trowa and no one had caught her saying anything nasty behind his back. Trowa was civil to Dorothy and kept his knives to himself.

 

Heero let the wrench rest on his knee for a minute as he considered the subject of Dorothy. Of all of them, she'd changed the most since the Eve Wars. She was still not what he'd call rock stable but she wasn't teetering on the edge of insanity any longer by a long shot. She had an acidly sarcastic tongue when she wanted to but it wasn't a constant thing now. He smiled wryly; she definitely hadn't given up manipulating people and situations around her. But now she reminded him of her late cousin Treize Khushrenada a lot more than she did a rabid weasel. And the exaggerated manners of the old days were largely gone, pulled out now only to make a quick point and immediately hustled out of sight again. It was not hard for him to see why the ever sociable Quatre would befriend this new version of Dorothy Catalonia.

 

He was having more trouble understanding Trowa's rampant jealousy. It wasn't as though the woman could take Quatre from him. While he clearly admired her in some ways, he just as clearly didn't see her as anything close to being the physical, emotional, or combat equal of a Gundam Pilot. And until he did, Dorothy would get nothing more from Quatre than his cheerful company over a chess board. Heero could not see what there was in games of chess to be so upset about. He picked up the wrench and went back to work on the last of the connections.

 

He tightened the very last of the redesigned links between the n-jammer canceller and the nuclear engine that powered Zero with quiet satisfaction. J had gotten the canceller to work but he'd been rushed and hadn't gotten the best efficiency out of it. Heero had tweaked the thing until the coverage was perfect and it would hold off an n-jammer field at least three times what it was rated for. He'd talk to the others and start getting the other Gundams set up like this tomorrow.

 

The air pressure in the bay abruptly dropped noticeably, not seriously, but noticeably. Duo must be cycling back in from his latest scouting run. He got the back plate mounted and secured over the access port for the canceller before the Deathscythe Hell settled into its bay and Duo bounced out of the hatch.

 

“How did it go?” Heero asked as he stepped out to meet the braided menace.

 

“Good run.” Duo nodded, waving the discs in his hand. “Went up toward the colony nose this trip. I've got another twenty-six hundred square meters of the surface fully detailed and sixty-one hundred roughed in. Found one of the main ports too! Didn't get too close though. There was a pretty competent looking warship sitting inside and they had their active array on and pointed right out the port mouth.”

 

“Markings?”

 

“That funny looking fishy thing. That would be the merc team, what, Serpent Tail, right?”

 

“Yes. According to J's records, they seem to find this colony a useful place to base occasionally. We will need to be very careful while they are here. I'm glad you discovered them.”

 

“So does this mean we have to stop our hacking on the colony mainframe?”

 

“No, but it does mean we will have to move our caution level to Alpha One. And we will need to direct our search toward some means of learning how to tell when they've left.”

 

“Yeah, that'd be nice to know.”

 

The hatch to the living area banged open for a second time in an hour. But this time it was Mariemaia who'd pushed it so hard. She almost tripped as the hatch swung away from her, she'd hit it with so much force. Then she caught herself on the railing and was looking around wildly.

 

“Heero! Duo!” She screamed when she spotted them. “Come quick! Someone's attacking the two forts on each side of this colony cluster! Where's Trowa? He should come too!”

 

“What the fuck?” Duo stared at her, shocked.

 

“Go with her!” Heero pushed him. “I'll get Trowa.”

 

“I thought we came here to avoid a goddamn war!” Duo snarled as he took off.

 

“We did.” Heero muttered as he dashed for the Heavyarms. “But it seems war does not wish to avoid us.”

 

Fortunately for the future of their team, Trowa wasn't so lost to reason that he refused to come out of his Gundam. So they really weren't all that far behind Duo in reaching the surprisingly well set up communications room they'd found behind a doorway cleverly hidden at the end of the hallway that split the dining room and the lounge. Zechs already had all nine of the large monitoring screens up, and yes, there were a pair of serious fights going on.

 

There were different views of the two stations, six of the Aube station and three of the Alliance base, all from space. Both stations were in the process of being shot to shit. As Heero watched he realized they weren't doing much damage in return. It looked like they couldn't bring many weapons to bear on their enemies. Unfortunately, there was nothing obvious to tell him what the problem was.

 

He gave the situation a careful study and came up with ten enemy ships per base. None of the ships carried markings from any legitimate government they knew of. In fact, these were so individualized; he was willing to bet they were pirates. But when did pirates start striking government facilities like this?

 

“Ah,” Trowa said quietly, “Singapore Defense Syndrome.” No wonder they're in such trouble.”

 

“Huh?” Duo grunted.

 

“Singapore Defense Syndrome,” Trowa repeated. “It's named for the city-state of Singapore on Earth. Back in the twentieth century, during one of the major wars, the city was considered impregnable. But it was attacked from an unexpected direction and fell quickly. These forts seem to have the vast majority of their weapons set up to guard specific traffic lanes. They don't seem to be able to adjust them either. Just like the guns that guarded Singapore. And like the attackers at Singapore, their enemy is hitting them on their unguarded side. Someone did some very serious scouting before this strike.”

 

As they watched, three of the enemy ships managed to force locks onto the Alliance station. It wasn't long before what guns the base had been able to fire began to cease and more of the pirates were able to close and board. By the time the last ship locked on, there was no more visible resistance. It took longer but the Aube station met the same fate.

 

“They aren't leaving.” Mariemaia sounded both scared and angry.

 

“No.” Zechs agreed grimly. “I would guess they are stripping the base stores of everything useful to them.”

 

“So that story Dr. J intercepted about the dangers of a growing pirate confederacy is true,” Dorothy said quietly. “I wonder if there is anything on this wreck of a colony that would draw them here.”

 

“We'll hope not,” Noin replied unhappily. “There isn't anything here to stop them.”

 

“Duo found a Serpent Tail warship docked in port,” Heero told them. “But they're mercs and I would not expect them to fight twenty pirate ships for no reward.”

 

“I would doubt it,” Zechs agreed.

 

“Did anyone else notice that there didn't seem to be many mobile suits out there?” Quatre asked suddenly. “Dr. J's report made special notice of how very many mobile suits the pirates seemed to have. Yet I don't think I saw two dozen between both attacks. This was almost a pure ship assault. Where are those mobile suits, and what are they being held back for?”

 

“Oh, good questions Q-man!” Duo had moved to one of the side stations and was beginning to sort the recordings this site seemed to automatically make. “Lemme see if I can get us a count of how many there actually were.”

 

“See if the database will give you anything on the ships while you're at it,” Wu Fei ordered. “The more information we have, the better off we should be.”

 

“Yeah, yeah!” the American snapped. “Make yourself useful and take over the monitoring board why don't ya? We'll wanna know what the various governments are gonna be doing about this. It's a safe bet they'll be sending in some serious forces. Be nice to know how many and when to expect `em!”

 

“Quatre,” Zechs voice suddenly carried a command tone that made all the pilots jump slightly, “set up a watch rotation for the monitoring board. Four hour watches, full twenty-four hour coverage. Include everyone. Mariemaia can handle this kind of task as readily as Heero can. Set up a second rotation for two hour daily language training. We've all been working on it fairly well and we can all understand enough to be able to recognize when something major is happening, which is why we can include everyone on the monitoring watch. But it now appears we may be in a physical area of space that could become a battleground on very little notice. We all need to be much more fluent than we are.”

 

“Right,” Quatre nodded sharply, cutting off any argument any of the rest of them might have made with his ready agreement.

 

Zechs turned to Duo. “Maxwell, you and Quatre get together this evening and lay out a grid for your scouting. I want a place to move to if we have to evacuate this location. I'll put in a call to J to see if he had any other place on this colony scouted as well.”

 

“Yeah, I can do that,” Duo agreed.

 

“Before he does, I need to work on his Gundam,” Heero said flatly. “I've found a way to boost the effectiveness of the n-jammer cancellers and strengthen them at the same time. If we have to go out and fight, or especially if Duo has to take Deathscythe out near a battle, that could be critical.”

 

“How long will the job take?” Zechs asked.

 

“I don't know,” Heero replied honestly. “I don't know how J and G rebuilt each of our machines or jury rigged the cancellers into each one. But once I figured it out, it took me about three hours to get Wing reworked.”

 

“Quatre,” Relena suddenly spoke up, “since you're the one getting stuck making up rotation lists, there is another pair that are going to be important and that must not interfere with the first two you are setting up. Please set up the cooking roster and the clean up roster as well. And you can include everyone on those too. I've learned that Mariemaia is an excellent cook and of course, we all can do dishes.”

 

“Ah, Relena, are you honestly sure you want to eat something Duo made?” Quatre asked.

 

“If his first efforts are not good, well, it will give him incentive to learn, won't it?”

 

“She's scaring me,” Duo said warily.

 

Relena just smiled sweetly at him. Heero faded back slightly, dead sure he never wanted her smiling at him like that. There was serious steel behind all that sweetness and he knew Duo saw it too. There was a definite nervousness in his eyes and the smile he was giving her back wasn't real steady. Relena recognized his understanding, sweetened her smile a bit more, then left to make them all lunch.

 

“I trust you will learn to cook in a hurry, Maxwell,” Zechs said calmly. “I don't think you'll enjoy the alternative.”

 

“We got hot dogs,” Duo told him. “I'm good.”

 

Merquise chose not to comment on that.

 

They could do nothing but watch as the pirates stripped out what they wanted and left. Duo managed to isolate images of seventeen distinctly individual mobile suits, eight with the attack on the Aube station and nine involved in taking the Alliance base. He also got enough clean ship pictures to allow them to verify and identify four different pirate groups as being involved.

 

About eight hours after the pirates had gone, both bases erupted in massive internal explosions. Neither was completely shattered but if there had been any survivors, they were gone now. Someone was making some very viciously brutal statements here.

 

Heero was upside down in the back of Sandrock, having already finished the Deathscythe and the Altron, when Wu Fei came to report the latest of the pirate's gestures. He just nodded. There was something going on. This had been a challenge. He just wished he knew who they were after.

 

* * * * * *

 

Kira rolled sharply to his left as a bright bolt of energy seared past Strike-Freedom's right shoulder. A fast turn and he snapped off a single shot back, having the satisfaction of seeing it splash directly in the center of the other's shield. Then he was doing an instant back flip to avoid the return fire. This time though, he felt the shot graze his suit. Damn it, Yzak was getting good with that blasted rifle! And even with all their weapons cut to one-quarter power, he was still scratching the paint!

 

“Can't dodge forever Yamato!” Joule crowed.

 

“Of course not.” Kira agreed, completing the flip, putting the rifle back on its hip mount, hitting the thrusters very hard and drawing the beam saber all at the same time.

 

“Yaaah!” Yzak hadn't quite been ready for that. But he did get the shield up in time, stopping Kira's attack. And he was quick enough drawing his own saber. The exercise continued as a saber duel for another fifteen minutes before Dearka called time.

 

“Well, Commander Joule, that was a solid eleven percent improvement in performance over two days ago,” Dearka reported as the trainer analysis came up. “You just posted a combat efficiency of ninety-two percent!”

 

“Wow, that's great Yzak.” Kira grinned broadly. “Considering you just picked up the Command Duel a week ago, it's spectacular!”

 

“Not as much as you might think,” Yzak denied. “It really is set up almost exactly like the Duel was. There are a few more bells and whistles and the power is exponentially greater, but the handling characteristics are amazingly similar. It's like renewing an old friendship.”

 

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Dearka said quietly. “The techs have been letting Shiho and me familiarize ourselves with our Blitz-Raider's cockpits. Its almost scary how much like the Buster it is.”

 

“How does Shiho like hers?” Kira asked.

 

“Well, it isn't DEEP Arms,” Dearka grinned. “But I think she's getting over that. She's as good as admitted the controls are laid out better and that they're easier to handle. She likes the balance in the weapons load-out too. DEEP Arms is a good combat suit but it's pretty much a one trick pony as far as major weapons goes. The Blitz-Raider is a lot more versatile all the way around. And Shiho is a girl who appreciates being able to change the game without notice. Once we actually get our hands on them and can test their real maneuverability, I think she'll be content to let the old suit go.”

 

“Have you two decided how you're going to personalize your suits yet?” Kira wondered.

 

“Yeah. We gave it a lot of thought too. You had a real valid point there the other day, about how it's useful if the enemy can't readily tell them apart. So we've decided to keep the differences fairly subtle. She's going to use a blue that matches DEEP Arms as an emphasis color. I'll be using a deep green in the same tone family. We've worked with the Armory One techs to set up the pattern for the colors to cause the least disturbance to the Mirage Colloid that's already in place and we will be using matching patterns for both suits. They will be different all right, but it won't hit you in the face in combat.”

 

He chuckled. “Shiho figured it'd also lead to confused enemy pilots who, not knowing who was who, would either over or under estimate us based on which one they thought they were facing too.”

 

Kira didn't laugh. “She's right you know. Oh, it won't happen all the time but there will be times when it will. And those times could well save your lives. The two of you have done a very smart thing there with your relatively close colors and choosing to use matching patterns.”

 

“You know Kira; we just might want to set up the rest of the Team along those same lines,” Yzak said thoughtfully. “We pick a base color and have all the suits painted the same. Then we decide on two to four individualizing patterns and no more than a dozen colors and let the pilots pick from those. If we keep the patterns simple and their scope limited while making sure the colors are all fairly subtle against our base choice, we'll be able to recognize everyone but the enemy won't.”

 

Kira thought about it for several minutes, turning the idea over to look at it from several angles. “I like it. Our base color should be a medium to charcoal gray.”

 

“Why?” Dearka and Yzak were both taken aback. “That's dead dull.”

 

“Yes, but it's also the color ZAFT and the people of the PLANTs associate with service personnel. What color are aide's uniforms, eh?” He leaned back in his seat, a small frown of concentration on his face as he tried to make them understand what he was going for here. “This Team we are going to attach to FAITH Command, have you given any thought to how you want the members to see themselves? Or to how you want the people of the PLANTs to see them?”

 

Yzak's eyes widened in abrupt understanding. “No, I hadn't. And you're right, I should have.”

 

Dearka caught on then and shook his head, exasperated with himself. “Oh brother, could have made one huge and real permanent mistake here, couldn't we?”

 

Commander Yamato simply nodded. He didn't need to say anything more. They had the idea now and he was curious to see what they'd do with it.

 

“So the image you want is service?” Dearka asked.

 

“Not exactly,” Kira said slowly.

 

“No,” Yzak snapped, “we don't want an image, we want a mindset. This Team isn't going to be about glory, or fame, or getting your picture on the news. We will go from the outset with the idea that the goal here is to be the first responders for the PLANTs. That we are our nation's servants, nothing more but definitely nothing less. If we do this right, Strike-Freedom will be seen as an anomaly, a special circumstance allowed into the unit because it was the personal suit of the first Deputy Commander of the Reformed FAITH. The muted colors will become their own statement of service to the whole over advancement of the individual.”

 

He gave Yamato a long stare. “They really did teach exceptionally odd classes in that computer engineering program you were in.”

 

Kira returned a small grin. “Nope, I keep telling you, I learned all this being dragged around the political parties at Aube. You haven't lived until you've watched a Serin, a Sahaku, an Athha, and a couple representatives from the Atlantic Federation all make polite conversation while trying to kill each other over oysters and Champaign.”

 

“The thought gives me hives,” Yzak muttered.

 

“Just hives?” Dearka asked. “I'd expect full color nightmares at the very least.”

 

“It wasn't fun,” Kira agreed drily. “But I must admit it was a remarkable form of education all the same. Scary too. That much hate up close and that personal is very, very disturbing.”

 

“I'll bet!” Dearka said feelingly.

 

Kira shook his head. “Honest, the most terrible thing about it was the way they all failed to see past their own shells. None of them, not even Cagalli that day, was willing to look past their own rigid image of `how things should be' to see what anyone else might be seeing. I could see the Second Valentine War in that one meeting. I could see it coming, knew it would happen, and knew there was nothing anyone could do to prevent it. It was the future in one embittered nutshell with overpriced bubbles brought along to disguise what was really happening. It drove home Reverend Malchio's lessons about honestly listening to everyone who speaks to you like nothing else ever could have.”

 

“So that's why you always seem so focused when someone talks to you,” Dearka said quietly.

 

“Pretty much, yeah.”

 

“And you got this charcoal gray idea out of listening did you?” Joule asked.

 

“Ah, no, that was more just watching how people behaved. It's really interesting but people mostly do seem to tend to behave in the way society expects. And in PLANT society, a gray uniform indicates one of two statuses: ship captain, where service, competence, loyalty, and leadership are expected, or officer's aide, where the expectations are service, competence and loyalty. Notice any overlap there?”

 

“Damn it, Yzak! Why don't we see these things first?” Elsman was not happy.

 

“Because we're too close to them,” Commander Joule didn't sound disturbed at all. “This is exactly why I more or less trapped him into the job, Dearka. He has a completely outsiders viewpoint. He didn't grow up here. Our conventions aren't so much a part of him that he can't see them any more. He's going to notice and remark on a great many things that are simply background to us. And we'll end up a stronger, much more aware organization for it.”

 

There were several minutes of silence, then Kira Yamato suddenly remarked quietly, “You know, I think I appreciate the honesty there.”

 

“Thank you,” Yzak replied with simple dignity. “I will try to never lie to you. Your hearing is too sharp for it to start with and I think you'd stop sharing your observations if you ever caught me doing that to you.”

 

“You're right, I would.”

 

That flat response might have set off another uncomfortable silence but it didn't get the chance. All three of their suit comms chimed at the same time. Shiho appeared on the viewscreen, the exercise/practice being close enough to Aprilius City to allow for real-time communications. Her grim eyes were a kick-to-the-gut warning.

 

“Commander, we've just received word from Aube that there has been an attack on their new defense station at L-4 West. The report is preliminary but the initial indication is that the base was completely wiped out. No survivors were reported.”

 

“WHAT?” Yzak shouted.

 

“The base is gone,” Shiho repeated evenly. “Perhaps even more telling, it seems the new Alliance defensive station at L-4 East was similarly eliminated, apparently at the same time. No survivors reported there either.”

 

“Any idea who it was?” Kira asked neutrally.

 

“Oh yes. They made no effort to hide their identities or to destroy the security records. It was the Red Swords, all seven ships worth and Terasawa's three Vultures. They slaughtered everyone they found, then stripped the place of all military supplies. Only after they had those loaded did they go back for some general looting. The Alliance has supplied no specific data on who hit their base other than it was a confederation of pirates with at least ten ships.”

 

“Ten ships for each base then,” Dearka noted, eyes narrowed. “Something's up.”

 

“What's ZAFT's response so far?” Yzak demanded.

 

“Seven Nazca's and six Laurasia class ships have left our lunar facility, headed for the site of the Aube base. They should get there by early day after tomorrow. We know a significant fleet has left the Alliance's lunar base going to their ruined station as well. It should arrive about the same time.”

 

“Kira, Dearka, we're going into base!” Yzak snapped. “There's nothing effective we can do out here.”

 

“Right,” Kira agreed and turned Strike-Freedom toward the mobile suit base on the `lower' half of the hour-glass that was Aprilius City. Dearka's GOUF was right behind him while the Command Duel held tail-guard. They raced for the base at the best speed the GOUF could sustain, which was well below what the two Gundams could have maintained.

 

As they cut across the sky, Kira gave serious thought to seeing about upgrading the GOUF units of their new command with both extra thrusters and nuclear engines. He didn't want to either have to wait for them or leave them behind in a battle just because the four Gundams would be so much faster. But that was not going to be a popular idea at all; he would have to be very careful about when and how he introduced it. And at the moment he had more important things to worry about.

 

 

 

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