Gundam SEED Fan Fiction / Vandread Fan Fiction ❯ GunDread SEED- The Second Stage ❯ Part 2 Unexpected Encounter ( Chapter 19 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

As the Nirvana travels home after meeting the Resistance and gaining new weapons, they receive an urgent distress call and go to investigate.

The Harvesters are still out there, testing the will and resolve of the Resistance, as the leader of the Harvesters plans to visit yet another world of human colonists that has defied Earth and the Harvest.

What will be the outcome?

Anime/Manga: Gundam SEED Fan Fiction / Vandread Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Romance / Comedy / Action | Type: Crossover | Uploaded On: 12.16.2006 | Updated On: 02.28.2007 | Pages: 59 | Words: 83.0K | Visits: 1.2K | Status: Completed

GunDread SEED The Second Stage

Disclaimer: Gundam SEED is property of Sunrise and VanDread is the property of Gonzo, and I have no ties to either company so I am not making anything out of this in any way, shape or amount.

Chapter 9 Part 2

< >: Thoughts

Unexpected Encounter

*************

A year before the events of GunDread SEED…

On Khudan 7, a human inhabited world several tens of thousands of light years away from the sector where Talark and Megele were located, a lot was happening. The people of Khudan were among the hardiest people to have lived in isolation. They were descendants from another group of the massive fleet of colony ships sent from the planet Earth, nearly a hundred years before the Days of Despair incident that reduced the once verdant human home-world into a waste-planet, and the people that inhabited it into what were now immoral desperate beings struggling for life…willing to wipe out all others for their survival. The people of Khudan system, naming themselves the Khudani were among those who were given access to a good portion of the centuries old technology from Earth before the Cosmic Era of Reunification.

Their world was similar to the environment of Europe, and filled with considerable materials and resources…however, they had discovered a rare metal that while somewhat unremarkable at first use, but when it was forged in certain artificial conditions the metal alloy could become extremely durable and could withstand certain conditions, namely in combat that would break normal metals, though making it in large quantities was not a workable suggestion due to the expensive way it was refined and turned into the alloy it was. They also found abundant amounts of materials that would help improve their civilization.

In time the Khudani became a powerful force in their sector of the galaxy. Armed with a powerful fleet of ships, and many eager soldiers to defend their borders, it was hardly surprising that they had remained unknown from their fellow colonists for some time due to the distance between space sectors until they established several trade relations with other worlds.

All that however changed, when they discovered that their fellow humans were under ferocious attack by some unknown force, apparently aliens who used octopus like machines and odd weapons, that were nevertheless effective and brutal in what they were designed to do. The Khudani realized that this was a serious threat that had to be assessed though many of their kin believed that they should worry about their borders first.

That frame of thought changed when they had begun losing outer system patrols for a few months, no one knew what was happening to them and some suspected that something was wrong, some thought that the patrols and their pilots were kill by space phenomenon, simple mistakes, bad luck, and other factors, while others suspected that they were taken by the suspected alien attackers of the other human colonies. Many considered such a possibility to be remote at best.

It didn't take long for that one assumption to be changed as well. Their outer colonies were suddenly and viciously attacked by the same alien forces that were rumoured to be attacking other human worlds. They could not determine the origin of the attacks and decided that they would have gear for war. And war found hem…they discovered that the aliens were having a dark and brutal agenda, and that included harvesting them all, men, women, and children for their brains. The aliens seemed to see the Khudani people as nothing more than spare parts, cattle, or worse…food!

They fought back and for a time, they were able to beat back the enemy forces, and many thought that they could win and hold their own with the enemy they were facing despite their numbers.

But some of them in the military thought differently as they saw the results of every engagement of their forces against the aliens…they knew that they would have to do something drastic soon in order to survive this war since they saw that these were only test battles,, meaning that their victories meant nothing to the aliens since it was to gauge their strength, and thus, several members of their War Research and Development department decided that in order to protect their core worlds and someday take the fight to the enemy, they would have design machines that could surpass what the aliens had up their demented sleeves.

With that, several major defense companies and contractors banded together to pool their research. Just like the Alliance in the past, the Khudani were the first humans in their sector to revive the use of Mobile Suits long before the other worlds designed their own series of Mobile Suits, using the basis of the construction of their frames, the rare metal they called... Adamantine Alloy. (*)

They needed weapons that would prove the strength and will of their world, and they decided to keep it a secret, combining new and improved versions of the various technologies they had acquired from the past. They had discovered a less expensive and more innovative version of the old Phase Shift design and instead of using electric fields to give the Mobile Suit it was installed in protection from ballistic attacks, this version used sonic resonance fields that halted ballistic attacks by cushioning them and lessening the impact force created by ballistic weapons. While improving immensely the Phase Shift design, it was still following the determined weakness of the Phase Shift system which was with it's weakness to beam weapons. By theory, by providing unlimited power…even Phase Shift could resist or withstand direct beam attacks, but even with the development of advanced power plants and reactors, designing a Mobile Suit with a powerful reactor to provide that was too expensive, thus they discovered a secondary defensive system which involved a specially made form of conductive aluminium and a special tungsten ceramic, both of which could disperse beam fire, this was a good defensive system for the new generation of Mobile Suits built by the Khudani people. They knew that while very expensive, the Mobile Suits would be a valuable part of their world and people's resistance to the incoming alien forces, they still continued to find more design principles to further give them an edge in the soon to come war.

The Mobile Suit project was named…Project Helios and being done in a space colony named Station Prometheus 1.

“Sir…the latest test results show that the two prototypes will be ready in two more months for the test battles. We have just finished the last prep checks on them and field test them once more for any bugs we've missed in the process.”

An aide said as she walked up to the head of Project Helios. The leader was a tall man who looked to be oldest of the research team, but also the most intelligent of the group, and the one who didn't tire easily even at his age.

“Good, but have there been any difficulties with the Mobile Suit units?”

“Yes sire, there have been signs of autonomous operation by the first prototype in it's OS, it exhibits human-like characteristics and we believe that it could be either a positive or negative factor when the Mobile Suit becomes active in combat. The Delta Phase Shift system works fine, along with the secondary super conductive ceramic tungsten armour, this Mobile Suit will be very effective.”

“What of the other two?”

“The secondary prototype has no signs of erratic behaviour in it's OS, it's weapons are very much scoring high on test runs, and the rest of it will work fine. With both reactor, and the superconducting aluminium built into it will give it an edge in operating time with the ability to absorb and convert beam fire into energy…but we will have to limit the operation time…”

“Due to the massive strain on the cooling systems?”

“Yes, such high amounts of energy will create mass amounts of heat, that would cause severe damage to the Mobile Suit from the inside, and could severely injure or kill the pilot if it overheats to that point. Thus we still need to find ways into creating a cooling system that can handle the strain of the use of both reactor and the aluminium armour's power draining ability. There are some rare instances of OS autonomous actions, but that is about it.”

“Hmm…we'll need to keep working on them. Have us make contact with the routine supply ship and see if what the status of the war with the aliens is now.”

“Yes sir!”

Unknown to them all, the aliens had been able to capture the ship that was their routine supplier and had determined their location, and as the station's guard units were expecting the supply ship, they were shocked to suddenly see the ship explode, and out came the alien forces…the Harvesters, and this time they were in a massive strike force, now longer in small numbers.

The scientists knew would be the result if the aliens got hold of their weapons, then their Mobile Suits would be used to kill the very people they were designed to protect… and thus they decided to initiate a full seal of the section of the space station where the prototypes were still being held in dry dock. The section was released from the mother station using special locks and charges and as it left, the space station was overwhelmed by the Harvesters and thus was destroyed and all of it's personnel slain. But not before they purged all records of their work as is standard military procedure and the rest of the critical files were now installed in the OS of each of the prototypes.

The Mobile Suits were set adrift and were not heard of, as the Harvesters began to invade the home of the Khudani. Since it had been a black ops project, no one knew of who were involved in it or what the results of the project were...thus the project vanished from sight. As the Harvesters began their campaign to take the intestines of the people of the Khudan system, no one knew about the nearly completed Mobile Suits that were meant to help protect the people of the Khudan system.

*************

A year later…

In the void of space…

The mood on the Nirvana was tense…tense but excited, the pirates realized that in a few more weeks they would be back home in the world of their births…Megele. It had been a long and trying year for all of them… from the bridge crew to the engineering crew and the cleaning crew, they realized that they would finally be with their friends and comrades after so long…

They were going home!

The excitement wasn't limited to the women though, as the four Talark men also realized that they were soon going to set foot on the sands and dunes of their desert home-world, the lands they had not set foot on for nearly a whole year since the first flight of the Ikazuchi. Both brothers, Navigator, and combat instructor were happy to know that they now needed to only pass the magnetic storm and then they were home.

This excitement was tempered with some burdens however…

The first was the fact that they were ahead of a massive invasion fleet that had once been only after their respective home worlds and their people's organs…now the fleet would not just take the organs…but from what they have learned…would wipe them out and end the future of all the human colonies. The fleet of the Harvesters were apparently now moving at full force to conquer the human colonies, and the newly deployed fleet from Earth was the spear-head of the incoming invasion. It was still a big question as to how may ships that the Harvesters had already fielded out into the universe and if those said ships were still on route to Talark and Megele.

Despite this, the Nirvana's crew were in high spirits as they each chatted about what they were going to do once they got back to their base and got the chance to be with some old faces once more. It was hardly surprising that many of the crew could be found in pairs or groups chatting once in a while, and doing their duties at the same time. They were excited, that was for sure.

“We'll be home soon!”

“I can't wait! I want to take a break from all the fighting and relax.”

“No argument there!”

“I wonder how the others have been?”

The situation was the same on the rest of the ship, namely with the crew on the Bridge, where Amarone, Belvedere, and Celtic were looking warmly at Lacus who slept peacefully in her crib, and they also chatted warmly with Ezra who was busy preparing some food for her still growing baby daughter. The three women marvelled as Lacus slept and it was hardly surprising that they wished that they too would someday have children of their own when the Harvesters were dealt with and there was peace between their worlds.

“You planning to meet Rebecca when we get back Ezra?” Celtic asked as she was dressed in what appeared to be a nun's uniform, hood and all, including what appeared to be Roman Catholic Cross.

“Yes, I want her to meet our daughter. I hope that she's fine since it's been nearly a year since I last saw her.” Ezra said as she finished the bottle, just as Lacus woke up and cried for food, to which the crew parted and allowed Ezra to reach her daughter and giver the bottle as she held her child, allowing the Bridge crew to smile at the cuteness of Lacus as the baby smiled in contentment as she took in her break-fast.

“Don't worry Ezra, I'm sure Lacus' ohma is fine, you know that Rebecca's a former Megele fleet officer, she'll be fine.”

“I hope so.” Ezra answered as she looked at her baby.

*************

The rest of the crew on the other sections of the Nirvana were also excited with the prospect of finally coming home, and they too chatted about it.

In the Crusader Squadron briefing room…

“I can't wait to get back home, and I can't wait to show the others my Crusader Mobile Suit unit!”

“Me, I want to finally catch up on all those soap opera episodes I missed, you think they still have the sets I left behind?”

Sara and Mai were supposed to train the girls further on the use of their new machines, but for today, the leaders of the first all female Mobile Suit Squadron allowed them to take a break, they too needed one anyway, since they were also tired from using their own custom built Crusader Mobile Suits, so naturally they would join the discussion.

“What about you Sara? What's your plan when we get back home?” One fellow pilot asked her commander.

“I'm not so sure…maybe contact my family and see how they have been doing for the past year. I was going to call them after he raid we had….and we all know how that was resolved.”

All the women nodded as they knew that it was on that day that they along with two men of Talark and a stranger were sent to an unknown side of the galaxy. It however worked out for the best and they all knew it…speaking of men.

“Where's the Commander anyway? He's not been here as often as he could nowadays.”

“Well, we can't blame him for that, training Dita, Jura, Meia, Barnette, Max, and Duero how to pilot the Gundams they have since they will need it.” Sara answered as she brought with her some cocoa that she had taken from the cafeteria.

“Yeah, by the way Sara…when are you going to ask him out?”

Sara who was drinking some cocoa in a mug, naturally blushed bright red and did a spit-take as she looked at her fellow Crusader pilots all of whom seemed to be in a teasing mood and look at the young second in command. They all knew for a fact that Sara never went through those kinds of things, but they knew better.

“What?!”

One of the pilots smirked. “Come on, you've been the closest to him apart from Mai you know. And she's already asked him out on a date! When are you going to ask him out?”

“Yeah?”

“Well…I haven't ah…well…thought about it!”

“Come on Sara, you were the one who asked some of us if we would like to have Kyo as an ohma remember, and you're the only one here who's been very close to the Commander, Mai's date with him was fine and we're wondering how yours with him would be like. Don't tell us you weren't tempted in the least to TRY and ask the Commander out?”

Sara was blushing bright red and twiddling her fingers a bit, and she looked at them and sighed a bit.

“Let me decide if I will do it okay?”

All the girls nodded, but not before one of them smirked. “But if you have any problems, then you give us a call okay?”

Sara could only sigh as the girls looked at her with pleading eyes to ask them if she needed any help to set her up on a date with Kyo. She had heard that Mai had asked Kyo to a date after he lost to Gascogne, Mai's boss in the Register. She didn't plan on doing the same thing, planning instead to do it herself. Mai and her were friends, despite being rivals in a sense when wanting to get closer to Kyo, Mai told her that she did have a great time with Kyo several weeks before the battles with the Harvesters…and before the meeting with the Resistance. Like Mai said to her it was a friendly date and thus she was happy to know that nothing…suspicious happened yet between the Register girl and the Commander…so now she knew that she could take a shot on that…

But the challenge was how to do it, and if Kyo would agree to going out on a date with her.

However, she wasn't the ONLY woman in the Nirvana who was thinking about the men in their lives and minds.

*************

In another part of the Nirvana…

“Check the power conduits from level 3 to 6, the security teams said that some of the power conduits had to be replaced and we need to see if the connections were right!”

“Yes Ma'am!”

Parfet sighed as she looked at the Paeksis, making her rounds, her shift was on for another half hour and she was tired, but as the head of the engineering crew, she had to there until Chief came into take over her load so she could rest a bit. She then sat down and took a cup of tea, and then came her second in command who also joined her.

“I can't believe that in just a few more weeks we'll be home!” Chief sighed as she drank her hot tea. Parfet also nodded as she drank hers, happy at the thought of finally being back at the pirate base and getting the chance to be around old faces that she knew ever since her days in joining the pirates. She was hoping to show Duero around the base and getting him to be with her in some of her favorite places on the base of the pirates.

“Do you think we could have time to bring the others over to the base Chief?”

“What others? I mean we…oh you mean the men Parfet?”

“Yeah, I was hoping I could convince Duero to come with us so I can show him all the nice places there back home. You think I should?”

“I don't see what's not stopping you, but I hope that you do realize something Parfet and that is that Duero is no doubt homesick like the rest of us, and might want to go back to his home too, and well…I guess it's up to the two of you to work it out.”

“Yeah, you are right there Chief. I haven't thought about that part just yet.”

Parfet knew that her second in command spoke the truth, after all there was also the fact that the men of Duero's home-planet might take him back to their world. Parfet didn't want to be separated from Duero now, not after all they had gone through. Maybe they could try and find a way, but for now as long as she knew Duero was with them and safe from harm, that was the fact that warmed her heart the most.

“But I think that until we get back home I can just be happy that he's here with us, right?”

“Yeah, so Parfet…how was it?”

“How was what?”

“You know…when you helped Duero get to his room when we were still with the Resistance. He was tired out of his mind wasn't he? Did anything happen between you two, since it was several hours since we last heard from you?”

Parfet realized what Chief was implying and she tried to resist the urge to blush and twiddle her fingers at what had transpired in her room a few weeks before while the Nirvana was with the Resistance. The images of what happened between them flooded Parfet's mind and her blush reached to the roots of her hair and until her face could pass for a tomato.

This made Chief even more curious. “Parfet, are you all right?”

Parfet merely continued to blush harder as she recalled what they had done, and it took a lot of effort for her to resist the desire to try that again with Duero. The young engineer managed to calm herself enough to reply.

“Uh nothing happened! We just…ah…went to sleep on the bed and...”

Chief raised an eyebrow and Parfet realized that she let out a very important fact that she wished was hers alone. The second in command didn't know what that meant at first, and thankfully didn't but that certainly didn't mean that she was not going to give up on finding out what had happened.

“You and him did what Parfet? I promise I won't tell anyone.”

Parfet couldn't help but feel light headed and wished that Chief would stop reminding her of the very…PRIVATE moment between her and the object of her affections. She decided that after this is over, she could go to Kyo and maybe ask for his opinion on things.

Elsewhere…

Barnette was busy watching the repairs being done on her new Dread, rebuilt after the titanic fight she was in with the others when they encountered the Overlord Mobile Suits of the Harvesters. She also looked at her Gundam, the SwitchBlade Gundam as it was being rechecked and kept in prime operational condition to be deployed for use. Next to it was Max's own Templar Gundam and it too was in it's own paddock and was kept in reserve. Max right now was in the Medical Bay, helping his brother with the work-load and the research. He also helped out in the gathering of all the relevant information concerning their research into the looming sterility problem that was soon to befall both Megele and Talark.

Jura was there also, dressed in her normal clothes and was wearing a very sly grin bordering on scheming as the blonde walked over to her best friend. They had decided to spend time still, chatting about their experiences with the respective men they found themselves falling for. Jura was ahead of her since having the chance to finally be honest with her feelings with Kyo, and was very much intimate with Kyo in her bed-room, plus getting to be very close with her man, as she calls Kyo.

Barnette knew that today, they were going into another discussion. As they sat down to begin their discussion, Barnette decided to tell her best friend about her…little scene with Max. That got a smile from her friend and she grinned like a lioness after eating a good meal as Barnette slowly told her best friend about the events that transpired between her and Max when both of them woke up.

She smiled wider at the deep blush Barnette had on her face that was now similar to that of her Gundam's armour skin. They had the same experience and she could tell that what Barnette had experienced had left a very strong impression on her friend who used to hate men.

“So how did you feel?”

Barnette twiddled her finger, thankful that the two of them had taken a seat far away from the others. If any of her fellow crew-members found out about what she and Max had done, she doubted that she would ever be left alone once they began to ask her just how it felt to be intimate with a man.

“It was…I felt so alive…and it was like the…most beautiful thing I've ever done! Was it…like what you and Kyo…did?”

Jura gave her friend a bit of a sheepish grin, and blushed as she too thought about what she and Kyo had done a few months before.

“Well…not in too many words, but yes…it felt like I was alive and every fibre of me was tingling. So…what's your plan now that you've felt it?”

“I…I don't know…honestly I don't ever think anything could replace how it felt when we became closer and that intimate…Is that how men and women…really have kids?”

“Well…according to the Captain told me, yes it is. Though she didn't exactly tell me how it feels when you REALLY do it…she did have a child with a man, and a boy at that.”

That got Barnette's attention, she wasn't aware of their Captain's history and it was due to her being more concerned with the things she was doing, cooking, fighting the Harvesters, and just being the regular woman she was. Now that she had taken a deep interest in Max, she wanted to know what it was like for a woman to develop intimate feelings for a man, and to find out that Magno had already DONE it and got pregnant piqued Barnette's interest.

“Are you joking?! She had a child with…a man!? Where are they now?!”

Jura sighed and began to tell Barnette just what Magno told her about her past and as the friends began to chat about what they have learned about a bit of the past of men and women…they realized that it was just plain wrong for the men and women of their world to live separately, not just because of the need for them to ally in battling the Harvesters, but to also destroy the link between men and women and all they could do when they worked side by side, and thus they began to question the logic behind the separation of men and women, and the beliefs that they had lived with for the majority of their lives.

*************

Speaking of Kyo…

Kyo was in the gym, dressed only in a pair of exercise shorts and a sleeveless shirt, practicing his martial arts training. He went here to sharpen up and relax a bit since he rarely had a lot of free time. But for today he managed to get enough to re-sharpen his combat skills, he didn't plan on getting rusty anytime soon as he punched, kicked, and moved in the prescribed manner, along with making unconventional but very effective moves and attacks to cover up any open flaws in his movements and actions.

As he sweated, he then began to move more intensely as he went through his mind the many things that happened, and also he felt his memories were coming back slowly, but they were far longer this time and they became clearer for him to see this time. He saw his mother's face and that of his father's more clearly, along with his aunt's and uncle's…but he still couldn't place a name for them. It was a bit frustrating, to finally see their faces, but never know their names. His frustration began to affect his motions, so he quickly put that aside, no sense getting angry now.

As Kyo finished his exercise an hour later, he was sweating like hell and was tired and thus went to grab a water bottle and a towel. He then heard the door opened and in came Meia, who was bare of her normal shoulder/chest padding and was dressed in her flight suit…and was wearing her circlet. The aqua-haired girl saw him and smiled as she walked over to him.

“What are you doing here Kyo?”

“Oh, the usual, training to keep my physical skills up, there's no session between me and the Crusader Squadron right now and I'm pretty much free today…why do you ask?”

Meia blushed a bit and took a short while before answering Kyo's question.

“I was…I was wondering if…if you would like to spar with me?”

Kyo thought about it, he knew that she was one the best hand to hand combatants on the Nirvana, followed by Sara, Mai, and Gascogne…so it would be a bit of a test for his skills, granted, he HAD fought with Meia before, back when they were still not seeing eye to eye. The chance to fight her but not as an enemy was certainly welcome and showing her some new moves in combat would help her deal with some situations she might find herself in.

“Sure. If you'd like, I can show you some combat moves that I had learned when I was still wandering the cosmos?”

“I'd like that.”

As the two began to warm up once more with some stretches and flexing, the two also took the time to relax, since they had to be fully relaxed in order to make their coming sparring match interesting. As they began their match, Kyo focused his full attention into it, and so did Meia.

As they threw punches and kicks at one another, they moved in a fluid motion that was rather interesting to see. Meia used her training in some effective street fighting moves, using her fists, elbows, knees, and feet as her weapons, while Kyo blocked and dodged the attacks, while firing out blows of his own, which Meia blocked and dodged, making the fight a good one to see.

Kyo fired a punch, which Meia blocked and he blocked a kick from her, he then fired another punch which was a fake blow and kicked Meia with his left foot, making her block quickly. She back away and they continued to fight, the to were sweating once more, Kyo was once more drenched in sweat, while Meia was now also sweating, though not in the same way Kyo himself was previously.

The fight continued as the two fought on, not showing any stopping in their respective attacks, blocks, and movements. That is until Meia fired a punch that Kyo blocked, and with a quick Judo toss, landed Meia on the mat, but this time, Meia retaliated and grabbed him by his collar and dragged him downwards.

To say Kyo was caught off-guard was an understatement, apparently, Meia had been working on her combat moves a lot more since they last fought.

Meia smiled a bit as she realized that her off hours training had paid off when she finally managed to catch Kyo off guard. She had been training harder for some time after the first time she had attacked Kyo all those months before. Back then it had been a way to get even, now it was a way to surprise him…and surprise him it did.

Kyo was now on the floor and was a bit winded, after all, he had been training earlier and had just sparred with Meia, as he looked up he decided to congratulate Meia.

“Nicely done Meia, you got me there, and I wasn't expecting…that.”

Kyo's words were stopped as he realized that right now…he was in a very compromising situation with Meia Gisborn…with him being on the floor with her now on top of him….and due to the their respective activities…it made sense that the sweat would have an effect on one of them, in this case it was Kyo.

Kyo's sweat shirt was light cotton, and thus it made sense that it would stick to his torso and since that gave Meia a good view of his form, it was natural that both of them were stuck dumb. Meia HAD seen Kyo naked, but this was the closest she had been with him and it was starting to affect her…and him.

Kyo managed to break the tension by asking politely if she would mind letting him stand up. Meia, having been placed in a compromising situation, quickly agreed with the idea and got off of him, though very reluctantly.

“Sorry…”

“It's all right…you ready to take some time to learn a few new moves with me Meia?”

“Sure…what can you teach me?”

Kyo then began teaching her some of the martial arts he had learned in his travelling days and taught her some moves that could be incorporated into her own fighting style. The Megele military combat skills comprised mostly of several martial arts styles, namely tai chi, wushu, and kick boxing, and there were some other variants, though many women only learned it as part of training and physical education and most preferred to use laser weapons in battle, and though Meia preferred the lethal but easy to conceal laser ring that she normally had on her, she did take the time use those forms of combat and used some mean street fighting moves when she was still a thug before joining the pirates as the skills really helped her out back then.

Kyo's training touched on military CQC techniques, sword fighting, knife fighting, Taekwondo, Jujitsu, Karate, Aikido, and a few Boxing and Kem Po moves, plus other styles he personally picked up as part of his days as a wanderer, and an occasional soldier on the good side of a conflict. He didn't know where he learned the skills, but he certainly didn't complain as the skills helped him out immensely when the time came for them to be used in a fight where guns, knives, and swords were out of the question.

He began to teach her moves, attacks, counter moves, holds, and other methods as time passes. The kicking, punching, elbow strikes and other attacks were easy enough…but when it came to the holds and other moves that included close contact, they were very much on edge…but despite their closeness…namely in their sweat covered forms, they were able to finish the training session quickly enough.

Throughout the entire time when they were using the holds, and throws, both were very aware of the kind of situation they were currently in, as they would sometimes look at one another, hoping to have time to examine one another without being caught…

Meia admired the way the wet cloth hugged Kyo's frame, showing to her his muscled form and allowing her to see it flex and relax, she was being more open to herself and her feelings to her fellow Gundam pilot and she loved the way he moved…making her feel even warmer, and when they were close, it was even more intense, though she kept on her composure and followed Kyo's instructions as he guided her through the new throws and attacks he promised to show her.

Kyo on the other hand…

*************

Later…

<Damn! That was close!>

Kyo thought to himself as he was in the men's personal bathing area, in one of the showers, and naturally taking one VERY cold shower, trying to wipe away the heat of his vivid imaginings when he was in the gym with Meia. He was able to keep himself from acting out his hormonal charged ideas once more, and from what he could tell, would only delay the inevitable…sooner or later…he knew he was going to give into it. But with too many things hanging on his head as it is, he decided not to dwell too deeply on it before long.

The good news for him was that he had found a way to disable the cameras in the room…after the discovery of what had happened in the men's side of the bath, he had personally disabled the systems to give the men, including himself, some privacy, and to make it even more effective, he had installed a pass-word system that would give even Parfet a hard time to crack.

He then shook his head and allowed himself to relax a bit more in the shower, allowing the cold water to beat away the heat in him and prevent his imagination from being affected by his male hormones and nature. He hoped that soon he could at the very least find the chance to tell them how he felt, but how the girls who were close to him going to take it was the one thing that worried him to no end. There could be a thousand possible outcomes and all of them were both pleasant and NOT pleasant in his book, and right now, in a soldier's point of view…he could ill afford to get attached to anyone right now, until the war is over…though his male side reminded him about the facts that he wasn't immortal and that if he didn't come clean with how he felt, then he would be dying inside for the rest of his life….he had already told Jura his feelings, then Meia, both seemed to understand…but what kind of situation will come about once he spoke to either Meia, Sara, or Mai….how were THEY going to take it?

As he got out of his shower, he grabbed his towel and when that was done, he got into a fresh change of clothes and headed for the cafeteria to eat his break-fast. He had woken up rather early and had been in the gym for some time before Meia found him. Now it was time for him to get some food and maybe go out on patrol once more with the Dreads, his fellow Gundam pilots, the converted Harvester units, and also with the new Crusader units. Though they have not yet been tested in actual combat and namely against the new Overlord Mobile Suit series of the Harvesters, the Crusaders were proving to be quite a healthy add-on to the growing arsenals of the pirates.

As he made his way into the cafeteria, his mind wandered as to what was happening with not just his current troubles and his time with the Nirvana crew… but also with the rest of the Resistance. He hoped that they will have a chance in halting the ever encroaching Harvesters and he wondered what other world the Harvesters planned to capture this time.

*************

In deep space…

“Distance to the target sector?” The leader of the Harvesters asked one of the clone operators on his command ship as he checked the latest reports from the scout ships that he had sent ahead of the fleet. The leader knew that so far, the Resistance had put up an even greater fight.

He had seen reports from his scouting fleets that it appeared that the Resistance had acquired new combat technology and weapons as it was discovered that they now possessed Mobile Suit units that were able to give them an increased edge over his current forces, but he didn't seem to mind. The weapons may be new, but they were still piloted by human pilots who were still not used to fighting in Mobile Suits, since many worlds had not used any Mobile Suit units for quite some time, thinking that the age of Mobile Suits was at an end after the wars were over.

“It will be at least three weeks before we arrive at target destination my Lord.” The clone replied as it continued to work on the console assigned to it. “We have encountered greater amounts of the Resistance forces previously for the past week.”

“When can we expect contact with the 3rd Fleet?”

The 3rd Fleet was actually a pair of Harvester battle-cruisers that were not part of the assembled forces, and thus were parts of the original fleet, and still used Cube Fighters. The Council requested that all fleet ships be recalled and retrofitted with the new Mobile Suit units that had been developed. But he was against the idea for two reasons, the first being that there was no need to replace them since they were still very much serviceable machines…and the second was to keep the secrecy of the Harvester Mobile Suit series a surprise…which worked well since even with their own Mobile Suits, the Resistance were not yet used to adapting a full series of Mobile Suits in their new arsenals…having been used to fighting with interceptors and Mobile Armour units, though there were some worlds who's people relied on Mobile Suit units.

The leader of the Harvesters then reached a nearby computer panel and decided to be gin his study of just what sort of new toys the Resistance had made. The fleet pretty much was a military fortress in space…and a mobile one at that. The ships had been spread out in a normal defensive pattern to defend his command ship with him, his aides, and his personal Gundam…and had been attacked by drone forces, and there had been some losses, but not enough to totally defeat his fleet, and that was enough reason for him to relax, but not become stagnant.

He looked as some of the images played in front of him…and as he looked at the records…some ideas came into mind. The weapons will need to be tested, and what better place would they have their trial run than in the battle-field?

“The 3rd Fleet will be meeting up with us in a few hours my Lord. They have just attacked a nearby defense station and are in the process of recovering their losses and will be ready to fight in a matter of three hours maximum.”

The leader thought it over and gave a new order.

“Cancel that order, have the 3rd Fleet continue on with their combat operations and attack as planned once they have recovered their losses. If we allow them to take some breathing space, they will tighten their defences and we don't have the time to spend on them. Obliterate them if possible and if not…weaken them so they will not recover in time for us to finally hammer them into submission.”

“At once my Lord.”

“And hand me command of the manufacturing plants on the ship…we have some things to do.”

The clone merely replied in a monotone voice and began rerouting control of the manufacturing plants to it's master.

*************

Back with the pirates…

Kyo was busy running some data checks on Infinite Freedom before launching in the coming patrol wing before heading to the cafeteria for break-fast. The Gundam was in prime condition, but it had been some time since he cleaned out some of the lockers that were inside the Gundam. He had been so busy for nearly a year, it had been so long since he checked the lockers for anything he might need and what he might need to get rid of.

<Hmmm…>

As he looked at each locker, he found one that he hadn't opened in so long and when he did, out came the capsule he had nearly forgotten about. The capsule was still in good condition and the items inside of it were still in good condition. He then pressed the same password to allow the capsule to open. The Gundam pilot then looked at the items…and took out one of the items. It was actually a small container and when he opened it, the insides revealed another trinket, shaped like a hawk head with a halo of feathers near it. Looking at it suddenly made Kyo relapse into another memory…

Flashback to 400 years ago…

Kyo found himself back in front of a large building that resembled a university. He saw many students walking by, some female students were heading his way and just as he was about to try and get their attention, they…passed right through him…scaring the daylights out of the Gundam pilot…until he realized just what he was seeing.

“Kyo!!”

He turned and spotted a young man with blond hair running up to him, and like before, just as he was about to react, the young man merely passed him…but he felt as if he knew the guy from somewhere.

As he turned around, he spotted a younger version of himself who was reading a book while sitting on a nearby bench. The dream version of him appeared to be around his mid teens, namely at the age of 15, while the blonde was about two years older than he was. He walked over to his dream self and the young man as they chatted.

“Hey man…how are you holding up?”

Kyo's dream self looked at his companion and sighed.

“Just fine…man, these computer term papers are murder on the head.” His dream self sighed as he put down the book and creaked his neck to work out any kinks he developed from reading the book for so long.

The blonde laughed as he took out a pack of food and handed it to Kyo who smiled as both tore open the meal packs.

“You're telling me! It's hard enough and then there's the other subjects…I wish we were finally able to take summer vacation, it's almost the end of the semester.”

“Yeah, you and me both Mwu, once we do we can go see the latest shows and hang out with our folks…how's your mom by the way?”

Mwu drank his juice and nodded. “She's fine, still working hard and doing her level best while in the military…she still misses Dad even if it's…been so long. But at least she's feeling much better now. By the way…you mind handing this to Mira?”

Mwu then handed him the very same item that Kyo (the older version) had in his hand, he looked to it and then back to his dream self and Mwu. His dream self seemed to be amused at Mwu and replied.

“Still having a crush on my sister eh?”

Mwu scratched his head and nodded sheepishly. “Yeah, I still do…you mind?”

“Heck no…you two are getting closer right now…so why are you still asking me to deliver this to her? Can't you give them yourself?”

Mwu laughed. “Yeah, I could, but it wouldn't be any fun anymore. Besides…I will be coming there in your place to ask her out. I just want to make things more interesting between us.”

“You better not do something funny with my sister, Mwu, cause if you do, you KNOW I'm not going to let you get off that easy.”

“Of course I won't… I respect and like her too much to do otherwise. Besides, my mother would chew me out like mad if she found out I did something mean to Mira. Not to mention your brother and your parents, and you of course, I recall the last guy who tried to mislead your sister.”

Kyo's dream self laughed as both friends discussed the end of their school semester with enthusiasm. Making the older Yamato feel a bit more happy to see another memory, but also a bit sad on not being able to remember it all well.

The scene then shifted to that to his house, the one near the coast of his homeland from the way he felt at ease there. He spotted his dream self approaching his home's back yard and saw two pink haired women singing together, one was older and he recognized it to be his mother, though the name of his mother was still eluding him, though he could now see her face. The younger woman who was a mirror image of their mother must be his sister Mira, he recalled the item in his hands and went forward to give it to his sister…

“Commander?”

End of Flash-back…

Kyo shook his head and turned to his left, to find Sara looking at him with a worried expression on her face, making him realize that he had just been standing there the whole time.

“Commander, are you feeling all right?” The Elsman girl asked her superior officer and somewhat object of affections. She had spotted Kyo was about to approach him on asking the latest routes for security detail when he took out that strange metal object and suddenly seemed a thousand light years away…it had shocked her for a bit, the way Kyo stared out into space…and thus she spoke to cautiously, hoping to get his attention.

Kyo nodded as he looked at the emblem and then put it in his capsule, and sealed it.

“Just recovering memories once more, they're coming in a lot frequently this time, sometimes I lose all sense of time when I have them.”

“Uh…what do you recall now?”

Kyo sighed and looked at Sara.

“I saw my school…the place is still hazy…but I know I studied there when I was 15 years old. I even saw the boy-friend of my sister…Mira I think was her name.”

“You're sister had a boy-friend? I heard Misty say something about that, she even called you hers if I recall it right. What exactly IS a boy-friend?”

Kyo sighed as both he and his second in command for the Crusaders left the Hanger Bay to grab something to eat. He was now more open about the intricacies of male-female relationships, namely since he had been finally able to confess his attractions to Jura, and Dita. Along with that was all the lessons he learned during and before the trip they were in. He decided to tell his second in command just what exactly was a boy-friend when it came to having a co-gender relationship.

*************

In another section of the Nirvana…

Jura and Barnette were looking through several other media devices to pass the time before heading off to the cafeteria to eat, so they were still busy in discussion when Meia came into the room. The aqua-haired girl spotted both her comrades speaking in a way that seemed to get her very curious. The former Dread pilot knew that Jura was the one that the highest rate of being with Kyo among them with Dita being close behind. Not to mention that the rumour of her best friend Barnette having a relationship with Max, Duero's younger brother was certainly saying something. So it made sense that like Duero who was interested on the female gender, that the two women would now be looking for any information on the males.

Normally Meia disliked spying on her fellow crewmembers and desired to leave them to their own devices since it didn't concern her. But what she had heard of Jura being interested on how to get closer to men got her interest. Not to mention the fact that with the video equipment the two had, the way they were setting everything up, and the way they were engrossed on what they were preparing to watch made Meia curious.

“Are you sure this is a good idea Jura? I mean shouldn't this stuff be in your room after all?”

“I know, I wish we weren't here, but with the need for some cleaning in my room, the cleaning crews are hard at work.”

“Did you…try anything on Kyo when he stayed with you?”

THAT statement got Meia's attention as she continued to stay hidden. It had been a tough time adjusting to her room without Kyo there, the last night they had been together, he agreed to sleep in the bed with her. Nothing happened that would have been embarrassing to both of them, though ever since then…she found herself wishing something DID happen between her and the Gundam pilot.

“Not really…I want to wait a bit and see when he will finally let me and him…let's just say that I've found out that waiting can actually be rather interesting than going for it now. Besides…I can certainly use some more ideas on how to do it with Kyo.” The blonde said with a conspirator-style voice that made Meia suddenly rather jealous, though of what she had no idea.

But this time she was going to find out. She made a sound to announce that she was in the room and naturally that had a result as both Jura and Barnette were startled and turned…they paled a bit to see Meia looking at them with a very curious eye.

“What are you two doing here?” Meia asked calmly, as not to arouse suspicions to the fact that she had snuck into the room. Apart from being a street fighter and punk, Meia had picked up some techniques on how to slice through security locks and doors, though she rarely used them growing up in the mean streets, she did use them once in a while, but only if she had to, most of the time growing up after the tragedy that took her parents from her she fought for what she needed.

Jura and Barnette looked at one another for a possible answer, and were sweating a bit, so they decided to try and lie their way out of this one.

“Nothing…we were, just watching another video we got from the colony ship side of the Nirvana!”

“Yeah, you know…like the Christmas video we saw all those months before.”

Both girls hoped that Meia would nod and leave since when the previous video was shown she was on patrol and was hardly commenting about such things when she got back on the ship with Kyo all those months before.

However it seemed that Meia wasn't leaving anytime soon and spoke in a clear tone to the two pilots.

“You need to get ready to the briefing room to prepare for the latest patrol run, better grab your break-fast and get prepared…I'll be with you in a minute.”

Seeing that there was no way to convince Meia to go somewhere else, both the blonde and the emerald haired girl decided to agree and beat a hasty exit, despite the fact that the video equipment and cassettes they had were still in the room with the former Dread pilot.

As soon as they left the room…Meia gazed at the equipment and cassettes and wondered just what were the two friends were acting so secretively about. Since she heard Jura mention that she was going to learn more about how to get closer to Kyo, she thought these could be just like the Christmas video she herself had seen back during the time they all celebrated Christmas and the video had been seen by her and the crew. A part of her psyche wondered just what this batch of video cassettes were all about, and a part of her wondered if she could just leave the items there and get to the cafeteria, she was hungry after all.

*************

Jura and Barnette sighed in disappointment as they walked to the cafeteria, with Meia in the room, there was no way they could view the rest of the cassettes Jura had located back in the city where they had found the Morpheous and SwitchBlade Gundams and where they had located Aleck Koubayashi and Max McFile. Not to mention, that was also the same world where they had made some very important decisions and actions.

“Darn…I was so hoping to see the next one.” Jura complained as she walked to the cafeteria. After that episode with Kyo on the desert planet, she was dying to see if there were more things she could use to help her in getting Kyo to finally have sex with her and allow her to have a child, not to mention she wanted to show her love for him in the way men and women did…long before the splitting of the Ikazuchi.

Barnette was also in agreement with her long-time blonde friend as she too was looking forward to seeing the new video…she had seen one before and that was the one that showed her what to do when she was with Max and after that…very interesting day…she was keen on seeing what else she could try out.

That was when she realized something very important.

“Jura! We forgot to put the cassettes away!! What will Meia do if she sees them?!”

Jura also realized the same thing Barnette did when she brought that up. The blonde had also realized that since she was now able to assemble the cassette player far better than when she had started out, she knew how to make it work better. That was enough assure her, along with the fact that Meia was very much the sort that was concerned with a lot of things…despite her new and more open attitude with the others, namely with her affections for Kyo.

“I think Meia will not bother with that Barnette, she'll probably be more concerned with the coming patrol than what we were watching, we'll see her in the cafeteria later, that I can be sure of.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don't really know, but why would Meia be interested in that? I mean, I know she's after Kyo like me…and Dita, but I think she might consider the tapes like those we saw at Christmas time, she might just look away.”

“I hope so…cause I don't know if she's ready for what is in those tapes.”

<Neither was I…> Jura thought to herself when she recalled how she felt when she had seen the video. She wondered just what Meia would do if she saw it as well.

Had she managed to sneak back into the room she would have found out for sure.

*************

Back in the room…

Meia looked at the cassette and the cassette player attached to the monitor, apparently Jura had routed the video feed to this room's monitor only so as to prevent the crew from seeing the video…which somehow made no sense to the Gundam pilot.

Meia then decided to see for herself just what about relationships, both Barnette and Jura were trying to keep hidden.

She looked at the monitor as the screen came online and was a bit grainy at first and had static, but as she saw the screen clear she spotted a blonde woman sitting in a room, apparently a living room, and then in came a man holding a tray of food and as he sat down, both of them began to chat…it looked like a normal view of two people talking and bonding together.

<Hmmm…seems pretty normal so far. Just what is in this that Jura and Barnette wanted to hide it from the others?>

Meia got her answer as her eyes widened when the man and woman in the video began to kiss one another in a very arousing manner…and then…they began to…

*************

The hallway to where the room was, didn't have anyone in it since they were so busy, and getting break-fast…so no one was there to hear the sudden scream that came from the room…

*************

Later…

Kyo grabbed a plate filled with fried beef, and mashed potatoes with gravy for his break-fast, a bowl of carrot sticks and some grape juice and went to the table where he could eat, however he wasn't alone on the table as several females were with him, the girls in question being Jura, Dita, Sara, Mai, and Misty. Misty was not after him, but seemed to be more interested in being hi friend. That also meant that she was also trying to explain her points of view involving men and women, namely since a lot of the female crew had been asking her many questions as to how men and women could get along.

As he sat down…he noted something that seemed somewhat off. Meia wasn't with them. The aqua-haired girl normally didn't sit with a lot of people back then…but after all their travels, the young woman who was now 20 years old would sit with them, or when Dita, Sara, Mai, and Jura were not present, she would chat with him, and mostly about his life and experiences…showing to Kyo that she was taking a vested interest in getting to know him more. The Gundam pilot also grew more affectionate towards her, though he didn't make any moves on her. What he had done with Dita and Jura was a very strong thing, and both of them liked it, but he rather doubted that Meia would like it, since despite her blossoming nature, he still didn't know how Meia would react if he did make out with her.

Tabling those thoughts aside for the moment, he listened to the discussion brewing between Sara and Misty, the latter explaining the intricacies of boy-friend/girl-friend relationships to the Elsman girl.

“So…a boy-friend is a life partner?”

Misty grinned at that as she gulped some of her rice and when she was done, he continued to explain as patiently as possible. Despite not getting a chance to have one of her own, she certainly learned enough to advise others on the topic.

“You might say that, but there are two kinds. The first is just that, a man who is your best friend, you can chat with him about anyone under the sun, he will be there to help you when you need the help. And the other, is more like a closer version of the first, you share all your deepest feelings and in turn he gives them back to with his own, more or less, you go out on a few dates or more, depending on how close you are, and you…well becoming more intimate, both socially, personally, and well physically.”

“What does that mean?” Sara asked.

Misty blushed a bit and replied. “Well…to be honest with you, I haven't…well gotten that far myself, I didn't have a boy-friend myself, a few male friends, but never a serious one in a relationship, the best thing I could say is that it will be one heck of a time between the two of you.”

Sara Elsman thought about that and it seemed that even Mai was involved as well. Though the Register member and Crusader pilot didn't involve herself in the conversation in a direct way, that certainly didn't mean she failed to gain any information of significance as he smiled and glanced at Kyo.

It was then that Meia showed up on the scene, she looked calm, so many of the crew didn't mind her late arrival in the cafeteria and greeted her, she greeted them back and went for the food dishes on the conveyer belt. Though to the others, she seemed normal…Kyo wasn't fooled…something in the way Meia moved told him that she saw something that shocked and surprised her, not to mention that when she glanced at his direction, she did something that seemed off…she blushed furiously at him and tried to look away. Normally that happened on occasion, but the way Meia acted seemed to be off to the Gundam pilot.

He then called Meia over.

“Meia, you want to come and sit with us?”

The aqua-haired girl stood there for a moment, her meal of bacon, rice, and hard-boiled egg in her hands. She then walked over to the table and thanked Kyo, but she seemed so determined to finish eating, that Kyo realized she was in a rather serious hurry, he reached out and touched her left hand, stopping her cold and looking at her with worry.

“Meia, you need to slow down, relax a bit, there's no need to rush this.”

Meia nodded and began to eat more slowly and then seemed to relax just a bit, despite that, Kyo wondered why Meia seemed on the edge for some reason, which seemed to somehow involve him, considering the way she was acting while sitting in front of him. None of the other women seemed to notice the differences, as Dita spoke to Kyo about how it would be like for all of them to finally arrive in the pirate base and take a good, well deserved break for a change. Jura smiled at the thought of seeing her family again and letting them meet Kyo, though she did admit having some need to explain to her family just why she was attracted to a man, Sara smiled also at the thought of seeing her own family and telling them of their travels together, Mai thought likewise, and Misty decided to see what would be the result of this situation.

As soon as Meia was finished, she quickly got up and left the table, saying thanks to them all and quickly left the scene. Kyo didn't know just what was going on with Meia, and despite his feelings that it should be something best left to her to fix, he couldn't help but feel the need to find out what was troubling the young woman. As soon as he finished, he decided to find Meia.

Meia made a beeline for her room and as soon as she sat down on her bed she began to relax and try to recall just what she had seen previously. It had shocked her to the core…but to her amazement, the shock didn't make her feel disgusted….but excited. Despite her wish not to recall it all…she began to look back at what she had seen in the video in the room where Jura and Barnette were in previously. As the images went back into her mind, she felt the same feelings she felt when she saw it.

*************

Flashback…

Meia felt her heart race like a horse as she looked at the video. The kissing couple had started in a romantic one and before she could do anything, the couple's kiss became more and more heated and they seemed to be…stripping…much to the blue haired girl's shock. It didn't take long for the couple to finally be stripped of all their clothes and were now in the process of removing their…undergarments. That was when she saw the same…'tube' that she had heard of that Kyo a\had and she HAD seen. The couple began to do the most intimate things…

Woman: Oh yes…right there, ah!!!

Man: Mmmm, you taste so nice, I love it!!!

Meia gasped as the man went to the girl's chest and began to…and the whole time, the women was squealing and moaning in pleasure. The aqua-haired girl felt hot energy flow in her from her face to her chest, and to other unmentionable places in her body as she sat on a chair nearby. She watched the men and women continued their intimate actions, until the two sat once more on the couch.

She gasped as she saw the man get between the woman's legs and begin to do certain things to her.

Woman: Oh! Oh yes….YES!!!! Right there! Oh!!!

Man: You taste wonderful! I can do this for a while. Let me hear you cry out…

Woman: Ahhhhh!!!! YEEEES!!!!!

Meia could see how much in the feelings of pleasure the woman in the video was…and suddenly before she knew what was happening…she began to see herself IN the woman's place, and the man with her in the video was Kyo…doing just what the man was doing…

Woman: Oh yes…

Man: Ahhhh…..

Woman: I can't take it anymore, I want you…I WANT YOU!!!!

Man: Now?

Woman: YES!!! I WANT YOU NOW!!!!

Meia felt her mind go hot, along with her body as she felt her temperature rise and her heart beat faster as the man got on the couch with the woman an then they began to…

Woman: Oooooohhhhh….

Man: You are so hot….tight…

Meia gasped as she watched the whole thing and she suddenly felt VERY hot…and wet as the images of her in the woman's place, and Kyo in the man's place doing what she was seeing to her in her mind. Instead of being disgusted and horrified…she felt so aroused that she didn't know whether she was dreaming this whole thing up or not.

It was also at that exact time that the actions of the man and woman appeared to be reaching a fever pitch and then Meia's mouth opened and her eyes widened as the man and woman screamed out in ecstatic pleasure. Meia also screamed out, but not in horror as her body seemed to be on fire and a rather wet feeling began to make itself known to her. She then looked at the end of the video and saw the looks of utter bliss, pleasure, and happiness in the faces of the couple.

Meia didn't have any trouble imaging the same look on her face and on Kyo's…

She stayed closer as it seemed that yet more of the video was to be shown to her.

*************

End of Flashback…

Meia's thoughts were suddenly broken when she heard the door alarm of her room, telling her that there was someone asking to be allowed into her room. She managed to calm herself, though only partially…she planned to have to get her face cleaned up and have a quick shower in order to clean up her body from the sweat that she had released. However despite her attempts to calm herself, she still didn't get the image of her being the woman's place and Kyo being in the man's lace…she wondered if…she and Kyo…did THAT…would Kyo look so happy and blissful afterwards?

“Come in…”

As the door opened, who else would walk into the room, but Kyo himself, his face full of concern and worry. Meia looked up and saw him once more and before she could speak, images of her and Kyo doing IT suddenly bombarded her mind, making her body react in earnest. Her heart pounded even faster than before and she could hear Kyo's voice mimicking the words, moans, and more of the man in the video she saw…along with the expressions.

<Meia!!! GET A HOLD OF YOURSELF!!!>

It was then that Meia became aware of the looks of concern and impatience in Kyo, and then she heard him not saying the things she imagined him saying, like in the video she just saw, but instead sounded as if he was asking her a question.

“What were you asking me Kyo?”

Kyo sighed and shook his head a bit.

“I asked if you were feeling all right? I mean you had me worried somewhat, you seem more nervous than usual and when you saw me…you acted…I don't know, cautious, as if you think I might do something…strange. Are you feeling anything wrong today? You want me to accompany you to the Medical Bay?”

Meia saw the look of strong concern and worry in the face of the object of her growing affections and realized that maybe her past actions this morning had worried him dearly.

“No…I'm fine…just feeling the stress I think.”

Kyo thought about that and spoke. “If you don't mind, I think you need to get some rest.”

Meia shook her head and replied with a smile as she looked at the window.

“I'll be fine Kyo, please, I want to help everyone in the ship make it back home. I'll be fine, I promise.”

Kyo knew that Meia's mind was set on this goal, and he couldn't blame her. She seemed happy to finally be back on the road to her home, the place where she grew up. It was a bit saddening for him to still not know his full past, but he felt that soon, he would get his memories back. For now he was still concerned with Meia, she was tough, no doubts about that, but he still wanted to make sure she was fine. He reached out and held Meia's shoulder in a gentle grip and nodded.

“All right then, but if you feel tired or exhausted, give me a call, I'll do what I can to make you feel better, all right?”

Due to the situation, the words Kyo said could have a double meaning and after viewing that tape, Meia was aware of how the phrase would sound to her in a different way. She nodded while still somewhat blushing at Kyo.

“Thanks, I'll keep that in mind.”

As Kyo left her room, Meia calmed down once more and then began to think back at all the times she had been close to Kyo. There were times she felt this warmth and feelings when he was close, and like before they had grown so much since she first met him, but seeing the video had just ignited her feelings and desires to a whole new level. She began to recall the images and the sounds, but knowing what kind of mission they had to do; Meia reluctantly began to push those feelings aside and focus on her duties, but ever since the ambush she and the others escaped from many months before, she was not going to wait forever, she knew that she cared for Kyo too much to keep her feelings hidden. She had kept her feelings hidden when her fahma and ohma were no longer with her and it made her withdrawn and depressed, Kyo helped her overcome that and now, she wanted to pay him back and show that she loved him, and if…what she saw in that video was the way to do it…she was more than ready to give it a try.

Later…

“All right, we'll make a Long range patrol for today and we'll keep within the Nirvana's scanner range. The first thing we do is make sure not to get caught in a cross-fire with any Harvester units, even if they are not upgraded, since if we do, we'll attract the attention of the Harvesters, all clear on that?”

Kyo looked at his assembled team, namely the Crusader pilots and their own Crusader units, and the other Gundam pilots, in a few minutes, Meia showed up, decked in her new flight suit and had her helmet in her hand, ready to move out along with them. Kyo gave her a welcoming smile, to which Meia responded with a small smile of her own. This smile didn't escape the attention of the other women, namely Jura and Dita, who wondered what had happened between her and Kyo, they decided to ask Meia if anything happened between the two when Kyo had left the cafeteria to speak to her.

They all moved to their Mobile Suits, just as Barnette and Max came on the scene and the two parted company with smiles as Barnette headed off to fly her newly constructed Dread, while Max went to his Templar Gundam. Both pilots greeted the others as they entered their own machines.

As the Gundams and Crusaders came out from the Nirvana, the Dreads were soon to follow. The Dreads had been upgraded and given an increase in terms of armour, shielding, fire-power, speed, and more. Though they still lacked the ability to defend themselves in point blank range, the improvements were more than welcome for them, namely for their pilots. They were then followed by the converted Cube Fighters and as the Cube Fighters went ahead, followed by the Dreads, Gundams, and Crusaders, the pirates went on their recon mission.

*************

With the pirates' recon force…several hours later

Kyo was ahead of the recon patrol in his Gundam unit while Meia, Jura, Dita, and Max were nearby, the Paeksis powered Gundams would be the spear tip of the recon force as the Crusaders, Cube Fighters, and Dreads would be right there to lend them support when they would encounter the Harvesters. Kyo knew that it was time for the women to step up their training in thee tactics they had developed with the Dreads in conjunction with the Crusaders. The old Vanguard tactics still applied, but with the Crusaders and their respective variants, they made some important modifications to the formations and newer tactics since the introduction of the modified Form Packs that could be used by the Crusader variant based on the Morpheous, the Crusader variant armed with the HiMAT system based from the Templar Gundam, and the convertible Crusaders based on the SwitchBlade Gundam.

These new Crusaders required a change in tactics to make up for their new abilities and functions, and so far the changes were working well. When they were developed, Kyo made sure that the machines were placed on a rigorous testing regime while they were with the Resistance, and though simulated testes could do little to compare with real life combat conditions, Kyo was happy to see that with these units they at the very least had a fighting chance with the Overlords and Cube Fighters of the Harvesters.

He made sure however to focus the efforts of Dita, Jura, Meia, Barnette, Max, and himself, and if ever needed, Duero's on dealing with the Gundam units made by the Harvesters, and since it seemed that the Harvesters had made a machine totally like his own Infinite Freedom Gundam, he made it a point to go after that unit personally, the way that unit devastated the Melanos fleet before their world was glassed, made it clear that like the Dominion units built before his Gundam evolved into what it was now, this unit was made to equal his Infinite Freedom Gundam.

And if it was using power system that was similar to the one used by Dita, Jura and Meia's Gundams and naturally his own Gundam used in combat, it would be a very dangerous threat indeed and must not be looked own upon, neither by him or the pirates. He made that clear to them and they agreed to what he said.

As they went on scanning, they received a communiqué from a few of the forward Cube Fighter scouting units. The screens on all of their units flickered as it's report came on the screen.

“Look, one of the Cube Fighters has detected what appears to be remains of a space station, and one massive section that appears relatively intact.” Sara said as she read the data.

“It appears to be very old and the damage looks extensive, it don't detect ion signatures anywhere so there's no telling on how the station got totalled or on who was the ones who led the attack, there's too many debris to know for sure. “

Kyo thought about the significance of this. Though a ruined station was a virtual dead end than an intact one, something about the placed nagged at him, he however decided to check the wreckage out and see if there was anything worth salvaging. Since there were not that many warp-hole locations that bypassed the debris belt that surrounded the planet systems of Megele and Talark, the best route was also the worst, due to the need to go through the belt, which required dodging meteors and avoiding energy storms.

When he had snuck into Talark and Megele, the reason he was able to do so was the use of a hollowed out asteroid and his deactivation of all but the most basic life-support systems of his Gundam since he had reconnoitred the mine fields of Talark and decided to travel in the cover of the space debris, and thankfully, the mines didn't attack since their sensors didn't detect a transponder signal and missed him and once he was able to pass through the mines by taking flight-path that would allow him to fly past Talark, he broke free from his hiding place, well away from the mines and landed on Talark without attracting the attention of any of the male planet's orbital fleets. Thus that was how he came to Talark.

He doubted they could to that this time and he only hoped that his Talark borne male comrades knew the pass-words and codes to get past the mine-field. Despite their numbers, Kyo knew that the mines would be very valuable as a deterrent to the Harvesters and as a first wall off defense against their fleet.

He placed those thoughts aside as he and the others headed to where the station wreckage was located.

*************

On an unknown space station… a good distance away from the Nirvana…

“Sir! All available forces are ready to begin mass evacuation, the space port is still being held, but the last attack has rendered our main defences inoperable! We have no way to know when the next attack will begin! We merely need the order sir!”

A young female aide said as she looked at the scanners and then to her commander, a tall man with sliver streaked black hair and a well trimmed moustache on a hard face, made that way by months to nearly a year of intense fighting and command. The man was dressed in full officer's uniform and rank, but despite his fierce look, he had the looks of a man contemplating things of great importance.

The officer in question knew that what his subordinate had said was true, but it still wasn't easy. This space station was his post for a few months, but it has been part of his life. The Khudani officer had worked hard to defend his home-land from the alien forces had been attacking his station constantly. He recalled what had forced this defensive battle.

When the Khudani fought with the aliens (who naturally are the Harvesters), they were able to survive the initial strikes, thus the more militaristic members of the war council of their home-world said that they should not fear the oncoming invasion, but they were proven wrong when they were attacked by the aliens in much larger numbers, the skirmishes were merely probing attacks and before the military knew what was happening, colonial planets on the outer rim were lost, orbital cities were torn apart, trade convoy ships were also reported missing, military stations were lost and could not be contacted. The military then realized that they were not dealing with a weaker opponent, but something far worse than anything they have encountered in their whole lives.

The military had attempted to send a powerful expedition fleet to locate the alien's operational base and to either attack and defeat the alien forces, or if not, broker a peace treaty. It had been sent two months when the first serious attacks began. The military council of Khudan began gathering a considerable number of their soldiers, officers, pilots, diplomats, and support personnel, along with a large fleet of capital and medium class ships, with a large portion of their Mobile Armour units. The fleet was launched and either victory or a peace treaty seemed possible.

But it never happened…the fleet was not located months after it had been sent out…and it was only when one lone medium class battle-carrier returned, battered and functioning in barely optimal condition…it's crew half delirious and rambling. It had taken high command two weeks to finally make coherent sense of what had happened to their fleet from the men and women that had been confined in the trauma wards on their home planet.

The entire fleet encountered the aliens…and the council learned the horrifying fate of their fleet…all of them were wiped out, the aliens merely replied that they were to be used as parts and that they had no choice in the matter…and the fleet was attacked…all of the crew of the medium class carrier, named the `Flame Sabre' saw the battle and they were among those that had initially survived the encounter to retreat, but they were pursued by the aliens and were cut down…only they had escaped. That meant only one thing.

This war was going to last a very long time and there will be no quarter asked or given…

And now it seemed that their actions were not going to be enough, the reports coming from the still functional listening posts said that two alien battle class ships were now heading in their direction…from the video and audio records they had acquired concerning the behemoths and the support fleets only one would have…they were in serious danger.

The officer nodded and looked to all the soldiers and personnel via com-link. Many of them were children or grand children of members of the expedition fleet that were wiped out, asking for revenge, but now wasn't the time for any of them to have personal vendettas that would only lead to their deaths, they were needed to defend their homeland and thus could not afford to die in their desire for revenge, many have lost their lives and although they made heroic sacrifices that would not be forgotten either by him or the others, they could not afford and want anymore dead heroes.

What he had to announce would be difficult for many of them all to take, but it had to be done, to save lives and defend their homeland.

“This is Commander Arland Kashell, all personnel are to begin full scale evacuations…we are abandoning this station, combat protocol 002 is now in effective have all munitions, tools, utility equipment, spare parts, food and medical supplies stored and packed away, leave all non essential items behind. This is a direct order to all station personnel…we are abandoning the station.”

As the order was circulated, many soldiers and crew personnel, men and women went to accomplish what they knew must be done. Though some privately wished to remain and fight with the aliens, they knew better than try to be heroes and die, what would be the result if they did stay? They would die fighting, but then who would help defend their homeland? So despite their reservations, they went ahead to do what must be done.

*************

Back with the Nirvana…

“Captain…we are reaching the wreckage of the station, the Harvester battle-ship we converted is now using it's Mirage Colloid system to hide itself and is on recon patrol to make sure we can get an early warning if there are unknown forces in the area, and also to make sure we don't suddenly get attacked by the Harvesters, we also re-configured it to be able to locate any more of the Harvesters' recon ships.”

Magno nodded with Buzam as Celtic kept in contact with the CPU of the Harvester battle-ship to maintain a fix on the location of the converted ship. They were able to salvage enough material and information from the wrecks of the Marauder warships to know just what they were. The pirates then began to use the battle-ship's now modified sensors to locate any possible Marauders that could still be tracking them.

Buzam watched the activity in the command bridge and spoke to the crew.

“This will be a routine salvage operation, we've done this before, but that does not mean we become careless. I want routine sensor sweeps on regular intervals and nothing must be left to chance, those Dreads and Crusaders that are not involved with the salvage operation will take turns in security detail. Maintain communications with one another at all times.”

“Roger!”

She then got into contact with the current salvage team, comprising of the Gundam pilots, and Gascogne, along with Aleck who operated his GUiAZ with the others. The silver haired pirate officer then got into contact with Kyo who was leading the operation.

“Kyo, this is Buzam, can you read?”

Kyo's image came into the view screen as he was still in his Gundam's cockpit. The Gundam pilot was still controlling his Gundam and had not left the Mobile Suit.

“Go ahead Buzam, I read you loud and clear.”

“We'll maintain security while you and the others go ahead with the salvage operation, but are you sure that we can afford to spend time on the wreckage?”

“I'm not really sure, but from the scans, this station activated it's self destruction system…judging by the extensive damage inside several sections of the station…despite the outside damage…plus…I think we can get something out of what we are doing…I'm picking up images of the units that appeared to have attacked this place. It looks like our old friends were the ones that forced the people to either evacuate or activate the self-destruct system…Look.”

The crew, including the old captain looked and agreed. In front of them were wrecks of not just the station…but several familiar octopus like fighter units…

“Cube Fighters…”

“And a few Seed ships too.” The images then showed two to three desiccated hulks of the Seed Ships. “If this is the case, we might be near a system inhabited by people who are under siege from the Harvesters.”

“So we may find allies if they are still around…or.” Buzam replied.

Kyo nodded, knowing the other grim possibility Buzam was saying. “Either way, we might find something that can help us. Most of the station may be destroyed, but according to the scans, there are some sections that are relatively intact, I'll try and route some of my Gundam's own power into their systems and see what we can find, if there are some computer terminals in the sections, we can try and see what information we can get, namely on who owned it, what they were doing, when they were attacked…basic material, but we'll need all the help we can get here.”

Buzam nodded, it seemed the mission was now a go ahead.

*************

Elsewhere…

As the ships left the station, Commander Arland looked at the space station one last time, he wondered what fate would be left for his people, now that another station had fallen. He had no options left, the base was already breaking down from the many assaults of the aliens, half of his combat personnel were already dead, both men and women, recruit and veteran, the other half was wounded. His base's supplies were not enough anymore to maintain any form of practical defensive operations, half of their war machines were destroyed and it would take too long for new ones to be given to them by high command, and most of the station had been hit hard and it's defences were breaking down.

He knew that his actions of leaving the station behind will gain him the displeasure of the war hawks of the council, but he knew that for a long time. He never rose to the rank of Commander by being naïve and thick-headed, but he would have never gained the respect and loyalty of his troops by being cold and ruthless either. His soldiers' lives were important to him and that of his home-world and they were important, no matter what other said.

“Helmsman…prepare to deploy the message pods, coordinates to our home-world…it's time they knew what has happened.”

“Yes sir!”

As the ships an their fighter escorts moved out, one of the main screens in the control room of the station's command centre, began to reveal data, that namely of the powering up of the station's main reactor, the deletion of the station's data archives and stores, the setting of specific demolition charges and the removal of several critical safety features in the installation. This was part of the procedure in the activation of the station' self destruction to prevent it from being taken over by any hostile or unknown forces. However, Commander Arland had no intention of merely blowing the station, as he set in several command protocols and left the scanners of the station running. The protocols were simple…

Track any signal matching the alien ships and their units…and then activating the detonation device on silent mode to minimize the risk of the detonation procedures being detected by the aliens…and when the aliens were in the accepted detonation range…

Boom!

*************

The Harvester Invasion Fleet…

The leader watched as the weapons and equipment he had visualized, were being tested and trial run in a holographic screen, he knew that it would take time for the Overlords to be re-configured to handle the new weapons, there was a need to address the overall changes, but with the construction of the Overlords and the great possibility of upgrading their potential was there, but that had been shelved aside to produce the Overlord series. However, he had determined that the Overlords would need a few extra edges to win the war. And besides, any weapon that you could get will be helpful in the right situation…that much he had learned in all of his years in leading the Harvesters on Earth.

“Operator-00912.”

One of the clone operators turned and it's blank stare was directed to it's master as he listened to what it's creator would order it to accomplish.

“Yes Master?”

“I want you to begin locating us a large collection of planetary debris and asteroids. Once you have located them, I want them all scanned for possible sources of metals, minerals, and other needed resources for construction. If we have found many promising veins, then I want groups of Cube Fighters and Overlords to take them to be processed…is that understood?”

“Yes Master.”

“Do not forget to inform me of all the amounts of the gathered resources and material…we have work to do.”

“Yes Master.”

As the clone went back to work, the leader went back into seeing the new weapon ideas in simulated action, he looked over the design concepts and began to pick the most practical and effective ones and tested them in a simulated battle-scenario…though he preferred to see the weapons once they were completed in a practical live fire test…he had to wait as the materials had to be gathered, processed, and assembled for construction.

Several battle-ships broke off and began to deploy it's forces, both of Overlords and Cube Fighters, the forces began to move about and wait for the scanner work to finish so they can begin harvesting…but not for organs this time, but materials for the new weapons their leader had in mind.

*************

Back at the salvage operation of the pirates…

Kyo and the others were busy doing the needed procedures in salvaging the space station, the group of Gundam pilots watched one another as they began to fly through the desiccated remains of the station, while they were accompanied by a few of the Register girls, who were led by Gascogne as they were in their Megele space suits. The Register head had her shuttle, the Dreki nearby to act as the salvage collection and staging point.

The wreckage was extensive and they were busy hauling out what they could see were still usable…cables, wires, circuit boards, components, and anything of worth for the crews on the ship. When they got to other sections, they scanned them and found more supplies, many were destroyed and worthless…but there were some that were still usable and those would have to put to good use. The insides of the wreckage were scorched and pitted, both by explosions and by extreme heat.

Gascogne sighed as she looked at the wreckage as the chosen members of the Register were floating by taking supplies and parts to the Dreki to be taken and stored there, and then when the storage areas of the Dreki were filled, the ship would ferry the supplies to the Nirvana. The converted battle-ship still served as security, along with the gathered Cube Fighters.

“This thing is an absolute mess…whatever happened here, the people in this station were so serious in defending their secrets, they were willing to commit suicide to make sure they were never taken.”

The Register woman looked at the mess and helped many of her fellow Register workers whenever she could, they had managed to get enough salvage and workable materials, thus it wasn't a totally loss. The station's wreckage didn't have time to fully shatter but many large portions were left to drift a considerable distance away from the main body, most however were torn and badly damaged so it was a bit doubtful they could find out just what had made the people in this station willing to self destruct the station.

Kyo nodded as he began to scan through the wreckage and direct them to what they might see as worthy salvage material. That was when he picked up something on is scanners, the very much intact section of the station…heavily reinforced and well protected from the way it was still able to remain relatively intact. He looked at it through his Gundam's scanners and saw that it had not been affected too heavily by the explosion.

He was curious and began to break away, getting the attention of the rest of his group.

“Mr. Alien? Where are you going?” Dita asked as she followed Kyo's Gundam with her Azure Angel Gundam.

“There's something I think you all need to see.”

“What's that?” Meia asked as she and Jura came in their own Gundams, the Crimson Edge and the Silver Lightning.

As Kyo approached his target, he began to inform the others of what he had found.

“There's a section here that is heavily reinforced and relatively intact…so much in fact this seems to be rather different than the ones we have seen so far. The detonations around the edges show that the charges were designed to actually sever it from the rest of the station. And considering the armour plating it has on it…whatever was in this section was of too great importance to be left to the enemy…I think we might need to take a far closer look as to what this section would have inside of it that the inhabitant wanted to keep safe.”

The Register salvage crew came into the scene, escorted by the others, namely by Max, Barnette, Sara, Mai, and Aleck…all of whom were in their own Mobile Suits, while the Register crew and their boss were in the Dreki. They had paused in their salvage work when they heard Kyo's announcement of the find. The crew knew that this could be a great find compared to what they had located right now…but they decided to be careful…even if the station's inhabitants used their home's self destruction system, that didn't mean they would be lowering their guard.

Gascogne then reported to the girls that since the station section they were going to was depleted of power, they would have to hook up a power transfer cable into the Dreki's power reactor and then to a power port on the section to get it back online. The girls nodded and as soon as the Dreki came close, they went to work while being protected still by the rest of their forces.

Kyo took the time and contacted Gascogne that he would go into the section with them as back-up and to see just what they might find…he didn't know what they would find…but the way the section was released and reinforced, meant that there were deep secrets held by the former inhabitants and if they could use the weapons to fight with the Harvesters, then the pirates knew that their actions would be forgiven, the one thing that they disliked was to be picking things in a battle-zone where people died…this was evident when some of the Register girls gasped as they spotted bodies…and parts flying in the area. They were able to hold on to their breakfasts as they pushed the images aside and went to work.

The cable was brought out and one end was routed into the Dreki's power core…the Register crew then scanned the section for an outer power connector outlet. All stations, regardless of who built them were all designed with outer power outlets to allow workers in zero-gravity space suits to lock in tools and devices that need a constant flow of power, and were not able to gain power via built-in power packs. As they monitored the station, they were able to break the pass code to a nearby door and in they went, armed with laser rifles just to be sure.

Kyo then activated the power and oxygen supply of his uniform and got out of his Gundam's cockpit and followed the Register crew…he was armed with his pistol, rifle, and sword as soon as he got out of the cockpit of his Gundam. He used his uniform's small thrusters to manoeuvre himself and then he arrived and entered the section along with Gascogne and her crew.

The section was now restored of power and it seems that it was part of the research and development section of the station. The computers came back online and many of the systems were now ready to resume functions, but as several of the Register crew tried to use the computers to get some data, they came up to find that the computers had been purged of all their data.

Kyo and Gascogne noted that and knew that whatever it was the inhabitants were trying to protect must have been big, only high level military secrets would be hidden in the data drives for them to purged this effectively. As they looked about inside the section, they spotted yet another door. They went to work as they began to access the system and crack the codes to open the door, it took the Register head and the Gundam pilot nearly half an hour to crack the system, and when they did, they knew that they might have found what they needed…and as soon as they went inside the room, they turned on the lights and saw just what these people were protecting.

As Gascogne and Kyo looked at what they had found, the Register head contacted the Nirvana.

*************

In the Nirvana's command bridge…

“Buzam here.”

Buzam was busy managing the efforts of the Nirvana and her crew during the salvaging operation. She was concerned about this and hoped that while the pirates were on this operation, they were not being tracked by Marauder scout ships, and if they were, who knew that they might already be coordinating a battalion of Seed Ships to them, each carrying Cube Fighters or Overlords. They were not in the mood to have the Harvester come upon them all at a time like this.

“This is Gascogne…we'd better have Barnette ready another set of paddocks BC…we've got some extra cargo to carry this time.”

Buzam wondered what that meant and asked Gascogne directly.

“Why do we need to use three paddocks?”

Magno and the others in the bridge also asked the same question. The only time paddocks were needed was when they found materials of great importance or machines of the same degree.

“We found Mobile Suits…and from the looks of things…we have what appear to be Gundam Models this time.”

Buzam and the others were naturally surprised, and sighed that this might just be their real lucky day.

“Contact Parfait…have the paddocks ready once the others return.”

*************

Back with the Harvester Fleet…

The leader watched as the fleet was able to locate considerable amounts of resources, but hardly enough yet to satisfy him. The resources they had found would be used to create test beds of the new weapons and some of the Overlords had to be tested for the rate of compatibility with the new weapon systems, the last thing he wanted was to make such powerful weapons, waste time, power, supplies, and material to only find that due to various factors, such weapons would not work effectively enough and were deemed impractical.

The designs of such weapons needed test beds for them to work so as the materials were still being harvested, the leader of the Harvesters begins the process of making the needed changes and upgrades to the Overlords. As the factories began their work…he decided to check on the 3rd Fleet and see to their progress into the system they were assigned to take out.

The people in that system possessed a large amount of resources that he could easily put to far better use than the inhabitants. But for now, the resources, material, and organs of the people in question will just have to wait. The 3rd Fleet will be able to weaken or wipe them out and picking up the pieces would be different. But for now the leader put that aside as his fleet's scanners picked up more and more signs of extra resources to gather.

He then began to run the weapon systems once more through the simulation testing phase to make sure the designs were able to perform to the desired specifications and functions he had envisioned when he began to test the weapons and had them perform in his mind's eye in battle. He had eliminated other designs that would prove too time-consuming and would be filled with design problems and flaws. The ones he had would be scrutinized even more to be on the safe side and ensure that the weapons would work accordingly to the design specs.

Outside in space, the Cube Fighters are hard at work gathering what they could find from the asteroids, and planetary fragments as chunks of metals, minerals, and fuel sources were being gathered by the drones in a never ending line of units attacking asteroid and debris belts. The Harvesters didn't consider their losses from the operation, even if the losses will include their own units, whether they would be Cube Fighter units or Overlords. The units were all AI after all and could be easily replaced…the plans of their creator and master were all that mattered as they continued with their work.

*************

In the Nirvana…

Magno and Buzam looked at their latest finds and the old woman gave a long whistle as she gazed at the Mobile Suits they had been able to find in the station's wreckage. The section had been towed towards the Nirvana after anything that could be carried was salvaged, but the Mobile Suits that were found had to lifted out of the area. Kyo deactivated their restraints and then operated the release mechanisms for the hanger doors. Once the Mobile Suits were freed, they were taken into the Dreki and were then transported to the Nirvana. The remaining pirates did one more scan on the wreckage and came to the conclusion that they would not be able to find anymore salvageable materials and supplies from the station. Hey didn't destroy it, but left it as it was since it was in essence a graveyard for all the unfortunate people who had died by the hands of the Harvesters.

They were now concerned with the Mobile Suits they had been able to recover.

The machines seemed to share some design features and physical traits that resembled Max's own Templar Gundam. The first appeared to have been designed to take full advantage of power, weaponry, and strength, there seemed quite a large number of features that were not known to anyone, even to Kyo, though the Ultimate Coordinator was already busy running the basic diagnostics of the machines. The second was built for speed, fire power, and agility, while the third was kept in storage since it seemed to be kept in a hard case coffin, indicating that it was still under secret observation.

The pirate captain wondered a bit on as to who were the designers of these new models, though they did follow some patterns of the young McFile's Gundam she could tell that it had features of it's own…

Suddenly the Gundam powered itself up and took an dark blue, black, and silver scheme and began to scan it's surroundings and tried to move. The pirates who were nearby had to move as the paddock had to be lifted out of the way to prevent serious damage to both the Mobile Suit and the ship…not to mention some serious injuries. The Mobile Suit moved about for a few more minutes until it began to shut down and out from the cockpit came Kyo who swore and growled.

“Damn it!!! This OS is weird…anyone hurt down there?!”

The pirates shook their heads and showed that they were fine, as Kyo started up the Gundam once more and tried to move it back to the paddocks, the machine reactivated it's power systems and it's defensive modes, but began to move around erratically…making Kyo swear via com-link and when the Mobile Suit was now re-locked into the paddock, Kyo calmed down a bit and went back to work, trying to decipher just what made this Mobile Suit tick. It was only after another half hour that Kyo finally got out of the second Mobile Suit with a still irritated expression on his face.

“You all right? What happened back there?” Buzam asked as Kyo got to the ground as the Gundam he was piloting was now powered down.

The Gundam pilot shook his head and replied.

“That Mobile Suit's got a lot of black boxes installed in most of it's core systems. The fire-walls in the OS are not like anything I've ever come across and for some unknown reason, it's AI is not the normal kind.”

“You're Gundam has the ability to function without you in the cockpit Kyo…so at would make this one different?” Magno asked as she looked at the young man who was scratching his head as he had his laptop with him. The Gundam pilot had taken the device with him when he began to work on the new units they had gotten.

“My Gundam is linked to me by the Paeksis, though how that happened is still a mystery to me, plus it only activates it's auto-pilot if I am in danger…what I mean is that this Gundam's AI isn't the basic… AI class if you get my meaning.”

“Not really…what do you mean by that?”

Kyo explained. “On some worlds I had been to…many scientists wanted to create AI systems that can actually operate autonomously with little human input, to think on a level of humans, have the creativity and operational independence of humans on the field…in essence…'smart' AI that can function in a variety of fields similar to a human being.

“Like the AI of the Desert Fangs, Ogres, and the Harvester units?”

“Not entirely…every AI needs to follow a pattern that was installed into it, and it would need routine maintenance and updates in order to make up for possible changes in the systems or environment. The Harvesters CAN learn from battles, but they still need to update the units' AI constantly to make due with changes that may not fit the design functions and response of the currently installed AI. Same thing with the AI units we fought with on that desert planet a few months ago. This one however has an OS that is armed with human thought, action, and reaction patterns…this is what one might call a smart AI.”

“Smart AI, a smart Artificial Intelligence?”

“Actual Intelligence would be more like it. It might be possible that the machine was built using the copied neuro-electrical brain wave patterns of a human. This would mean that it can act and think like a living being…”

“Is that a permanent thing, and is it a beneficial feature or a negative one?” Magno asked. The idea of an actual thinking machine could be both a boon and a danger when the circumstances dictated the changes, and such an unpredictable situation could be a deadly one to all parties involved…namely theirs.

“As far as I can see…the design is somewhat flawed, but there's nothing I can do since the features are directly locked into the OS and the CPU of the unit…taking it would render some of the features of the Gundam offline and the features are very much an intricate part of the system. I can say that this could be a great danger in a fight when it becomes to hard to control. However the designers did hardwire a few control features into the systems to make sure it didn't act on the wrong situation, though the system is still somewhat locked out. I can't access them since whoever designed this certainly knew how to use a lock-out system. The Gundam's basic controls and functions, along with basic human actions are still present and can be used…however, since it has still been system locked…I can't do much until I get more data from who made this Mobile Suit.”

“What about the other Mobile Suit?” Buzam asked as she pointed to the other one still in it's own paddock.

Kyo looked at it and nodded.

“I still need to run some tests on it and see just what makes it work, but it will have to wait for now…I have to cook lunch…not to mention…I have to go meet up with someone.”

“Who?” Magno asked with smirk.

“Sara…she wanted to ask me something on lunch. Once I'm done with that, I'll get back to work on this model.”

As Kyo left the hanger…Buzam and Magno walked back to the bridge as their forces began to pull back and resume their return to the Megele/Talark system. The elder woman began to plan out what ground work had to be done in order to prepare both the men and women of their worlds to face the Harvester threat…but such things would have be rather drastic…the old woman knew well of the situation that had occurred after the Ikazuchi incident on Talark…the only thing she hoped for was that the seven original men could try and keep things calm…and she hoped her husband was still out there in the Council…still alive and keeping things calm. Magno sighed as she also thought of her son…she felt sad to know he was growing up without any influence from her…to know that for the past seventy five years she had never held him in her arms…fed him, bathed him, watched him become friendly with other children, see him play…all those things were so painful to her. Not to mention not being with her husband for just as long…she missed him…the first day she had spent on Megele without him was torture enough…and event hen…she was amazed in herself for living alone without her husband and son for the past seventy five years. She had nearly lost all hope of seeing them again…and just recalling them…was painful everyday.

Buzam noted the change in her captain and was worried a great deal…she knew that much of the old woman's life was private, and she respected the Captain's desire to keep her past to herself…but even she wished that someday the Captain would be free of her burden and live life…no matter how many years she might have left.

“Are you all right Captain?”

Magno turned and saw the looks of concern coming from her First Mate and sighed.

“It's nothing BC…just thinking about the old days…long before the whole incident that separated men and women on our systems…had we known about the Earth and the Harvest Fleet…we would have avoided this whole mess and men and women would live together…like in the past.”

“Captain…are you worried about what we will face once we return to our base? About what Max and his former instructor told us about what had happened on Talark?”

“Yes…we all have no time to dwell on the past BC…namely with all this before us. I know that the government on Megele would imprison us not just because we're pirates, but of what we will tell them…to align with the men to defeat the Harvesters. I know that the pride there on our world will be hard to break…I don't even want to guess how hard it will be to break the barriers on the men's world…but it has to be done BC. All that we have learned has to come out before it is too late, we have to save the future.”

Buzam nodded and then spoke. “Captain…I have sent another set of message pods to both Megele and Talark…without your permission…but I have gathered all the information we have gained…namely from the Resistance…and even copied the recording of the destruction of the Melanos home-world. I should have told you directly…but I knew that we have to warn them as best we can, I am sorry…”

Magno smiled as she walked on. “No need for that BC…you did what you had to do…and it was the right call, and you took the initiative to make the first move. We still have a lot to do though. I want the crew to relax a bit more, so we should be fine…but keep them ready, just in case.”

“Yes Captain.”

Magno then wondered if once she could be done with her duties on the bridge…she could ask Kyo to cook some food for her once she went to the galley…it had been a bit since she got to eat with the rest of the crew who were like her daughters, and the men who were like family to her.

She then chuckled a bit as she wondered just what the women on Megele and even in the pirate base would do if they found out that she and her fellow female pirates had men who were once their unwelcome prisoners, to their barely tolerated crew-members, and who were now inseparable members of their family and crew. She however beamed at the blooming relationships that were springing up and around the ship…

She namely wondered about several couples that were getting along rather well and wondered just what the future would bring to them.

*************

In one of the firing ranges in the Nirvana…

BLAM!!!

BANG!!!

Max sighed as the holographic targets vanished and his total score was revealed. He frowned a bit as he read the score.

14 hits

6 misses

<Hmmm…I'm getting rusty again…thank Grand-Pa Gunny isn't here.>

The younger brother of Duero McFile had just gotten back from the patrol and decided to help out in the Medical Bay, he then finished his duties but felt somewhat restless and distracted so he decided to go to the shooting range and fire some rounds. It did relax him, but he found out that due to so many months not being on the ground had decreased some of his skills. Barnette assured him that he would be fine once he had gotten some extra practice done.

He then realized that he was thinking of the green haired Dread pilot a lot more then usual recently. He then blushed as the reason came back…to when he was in a very physical encounter with her a few weeks before. He wondered why he did those things…sure he was attracted to Barnette and that showed to him that the feeling was mutual…but how much did he really know about her…he knew that she was once a Register girl under Gascogne…that she got her collection of guns from her father…and she was a great cook…but what else did he know of her?

As he wondered what else could he do to learn more about the woman he had a relationship with…who would come into the firing range than the woman in question?

“Hello Max.”

Max turned and smiled as Barnette came into the firing range…still in her normal clothes, and had one of her collection pieces with her, a 9mm Italian made Berretta, though after that incident…he found himself staring more and more at her than usual. He put those thoughts aside as he checked his rifle and checked the clip…and smiled as there were still enough bullets in the clip and reloaded the weapon with the clip.

“Hello Barnette, I'm just working on my shooting skills, it's been some time since I got to training with my personal combat skills…thankfully neither my Alpha and Gunny are here or else they would be berating me for getting rusty.”

Barnette was surprised…she knew Max was a good shooter, and she decided to see his score…she nodded as he was right about what he said.

“I see…well, if you don't mind, I can shoot with you since I need to practice a bit more myself…you don't mind do you?”

“No…of course not.”

The two then decided to restart the range and began to practice their shooting skills, the two began to relax a bit as they went on to do something they both liked to do as the shots rang out. The two went for a few rounds and then Max noted that now that he was bit more relaxed, he began to delve deeper into his older training regime from back home. All Talark military cadets, even medics like his brother and him were trained to be able to fight if circumstances dictated that they would have to serve as soldiers as well to defend the wounded. This was following an old tradition from Earth of medics being trained to use their weapons if it came to that…however, they were not use their weapons to assault enemy positions…but to defend their charges and themselves.

Talark men were all trained for war…but since they needed good medical specialists…medics were kept out of the battle-zone unless they were part of a strike team or were deep in enemy territory…they were tasked not to attack like their full time combat brethren, but to rescue wounded troopers/pilots and use their weapons only to defend themselves. This was a rule many medics lived by and both he and his brother were no exceptions. They were healers, soldiers, and pilots, all in one.

While they took a break, Max decided to tell Barnette the story of how they had become medics, both him and his brother, plus the training they had undergone…which naturally included the use of hand to hand combat and knife fighting…all for the use of defending themselves and their charges. He also said there was a lethal side to their training that if they were being attacked at close range, they had taken training on the human body and how to break it…

Just as they could save life by studying the body of living things…Talark Medical Corps students studied the body on ways to incapacitate or if totally unavoidable…take a life. This would have been frowned upon back on Earth in the old days…but the men made exceptions to that rule when they faced women, which was part of their training.

Barnette gulped a bit at that revelation as Max spoke calmly…after all…that was his life…this made Barnette wonder if there had been times when Max had to resort to the lethal side of his medical training when he was with women to deal with them when they got rowdy. He shook his head at that…

“I didn't use any lethal methods…merely blows that would not leave permanent injuries or marks, but enough to get my point across.”

“I see…say…can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

Barnette thought about what she was going to ask of him and decided to say it out now…rather than keep it hidden.

“Can you teach me how to fight without guns? Hand to hand combat stuff?”

Max wondered about that…he could tell that Barnette was physically well built and very much was capable as a hand to hand combatant.

“Sure I can…but why do you want me to teach you? Kyo can do that since he knows quite a bit of martial arts.”

“I know…but he teaches the Crusader pilots and he is always busy out on patrol…and I don't plan on intruding on him when he should be resting after all the things he's done…plus… I…well…feel more comfortable if it was you who was teaching me those techniques.”

“I don't know…”

Barnette gave him the dreaded sad puppy dog eyes to Max.

“Please…I won't use them for the wrong reasons Max…you have my word.”

Max thought about it and although the techniques of Talark martial arts involving knowledge of the human body and how injure or cripple it effectively was to be kept a close secret, he trusted Barnette enough to keep her word.

“All right then…meet me in the gym after lunch and we can start from there.”

Barnette smiled and hugged him. “Thanks!”

*************

In the galley…

“Okay…that should do it…all right, next order of boiled crab meat with celery sticks coming up!”

Kyo was busy as he could ever be while in the kitchen, alongside him were some members of the cooking staff and they were busy preparing an all rounder for the crew this time for lunch, which naturally meant that there was going to be a buffet style lunch today…meaning double shifts for him today as he cooked more dishes, this time, hot chicken soup with peas was on the next run, along with deep fried shrimp with dip sauce.

He however wasn't cooking all alone as the girls were nearby and helping him out with the workload and that made it a load easier for him to cook the food and move about more effectively in doing his duties as cook for today.

The crew were certainly lively as stories of family and friends were passed back and forth, along with the crew chatting about their plans once they arrived home…the whole scene reminded Kyo of a soon to come reunion…something that still caused him pain.

Back then…he hardly let his jealousy of the crew disturb him from his work as a pilot. The chatting of the crew when it came to their home, family and friends was a source of irritation and loss to him…mainly because unlike them before…he had no family, he hardly recalled his folks and his past life…he told them that much before he died the first time. Now…with his memories coming back…he let go of his jealousy and began to chat more openly when it came to family matters…though many of the crew knew that talking about his family caused him pain.

Kyo looked at them all and sighed to himself…

The Gundam pilot now cook put those thoughts aside as he went back to kitchen duty and sure enough he spotted several more arrive into the galley, namely a certain bespectacled engineer that seemed down somewhat. This got Kyo's attention as he walked over to place the newest meal for the girls to take. Seeing that he could let the kitchen staff handle the rest, he informed the head of the kitchen staff that he was going to eat himself and they let him be with a smile. He grabbed a plate filled with food, two actually, one filled with fried strips of beef, garlic rice, and diced vegetables. The other had fried chicken on it, plain steamed rice, with some beef siomai pieces, and carrots. He then placed both dishes on a tray along with some drinks, namely some cool lemon tea and a cold soft-drink. He then called out to Parfet…

“Parfet…you want to have this?”

The head engineer looked at Kyo and the food and drink he had and nodded, she was going to look for him and ask for some advice on something she wanted to discuss with Duero. She thanked Kyo and took the second plate and the tea and sat down as Kyo placed his meal and drink on the other table. Before he ate however he walked over to Parfet and spoke to her as she was about to speak to him.

“You want to ask me for some advice Parfet?”

The head engineer was surprised and was about to ask Kyo on how he figured that out, the Gundam pilot merely replied to her.

“I could tell you wanted to talk about something and since you seemed rather unsure about it, I guessed it was something you don't want the others to know…am I right?”

“Yeah…I hope you don't mind.”

Kyo shook his head and smiled as he sat down.

“Not at all…you're a good friend of mine and I'm willing to help all my friends…by the way…I have a feeling that this concerns Duero, am I right?”

Parfet's blush at the mention of Duero's name told Kyo that his guess was very much on the target. And he grinned at that…he recently noted that the two were becoming closer than ever and he was keen on seeing the outcome of their relationship since the two were so compatible with one another…he would have to be blind and dumb not to notice.

“Yeah…I wanted to ask advice on how I could…ahhh…get closer to him.”

Kyo sighed as he sat down…looks like it was time to play the relationship councillor once more.

*************

Later…

The crew were eating well and were now heading back to their duties, Kyo however was still there, cleaning up the place but he had a smile as he took the dishes and hauled them off.

He had finished his meal, once more in the company of Dita, Jura, Meia, Sara, and Mai and stayed behind while the girls went to rest a bit before going out on routine patrol. Before he had joined them though, he was able to learn what was troubling Parfet…and that was the possibility of her and Duero being separated once they got back to Talark and Megele…Kyo nodded solemnly and knew that it could happen, just as she said…she wanted to have Duero close and tour the pirate base but she doubted that the others would be as accepting of the Talark medic as the crew of the Nirvana were…she also wondered about how the men of Duero's world would act…along with the women of her world would act if they…knew about her deep affections and growing relationship with him.

Kyo was very aware of such a situation…he understood politics and even though Parfet was neutral on the matter of politics…she did too. The thought of a man from Talark and a woman from Megele having a relationship was unheard of and would be immediately considered heresy on either world…but a relationship based on love…just like that of Parfet and Duero…would have ignited a firestorm of denial, anger, and disbelief. Kyo knew that such a relationship would have been considered a sin on both worlds…but Parfet was insistent on making the relationship work out…so Kyo told her to talk to Duero and see how he feels about the situation that the both of them might be facing as well, to learn how he viewed their situation. Duero's opinion mattered as well on this one.

Parfet thanked him and resumed eating, just as Duero and his brother arrived at the end of their shifts and went to eat, the doctor in question already sitting where Parfet was, and Max sat down and was then joined by none other than Barnette who sat down next to Max and then began to chat with the younger brother of Duero. This was another blossoming relationship that he was very interested in, and he knew that the crew would be curious about this one as well apart from Duero and Parfet's own blossoming relationship…he too showed interest in it.

The two were also getting closer, though how close was still up for debate among the crew. He however could tell that this relationship was certainly going to mature soon, considering the fact that Max had a prior relationship with a woman from Megele, and Barnette seemed to have changed a considerable deal, though he knew that they still had some distance to go. Barnette however seemed willing to do what she could to learn as much as she could about Max.

Their relationship too would be considered as heretical by the men of Max world, and the women on Barnette's world, and he had a feeling that the two were also aware of that fact, or he would have to be the one to tell them that. He recalled Barnette's willingness to go to her world and support the idea of men and women working side by side against the Harvesters, an idea she once considered to only work on the Nirvana and no where else. And that was a good sign…despite the dangers involved.

The relationship between the two however was another matter, since Barnette was the one who was new to a relationship with the opposite gender, unlike Parfet who had been friends with Duero, Misty who had been raised alongside boys and had been familiar to the intricacies involved with co-gender relationships, and her friend Jura, who naturally was intent on having a baby with him took the time to know all she could. That along with Dita's existing relationship with him, Meia's own budding relationship with him, Mai's working relationship with him, both in the Register and in the Crusaders, and Sara's working relationship with him as his second in command. With all that, Barnette would seek advice on how to get Max's affections, and unlike Duero who was still getting used to being in an increasingly intimate relationship with Parfet, Max is familiar to some degree of the relationship, though not that much. They would have to deal with the consequences of it once they were back in Megele and Talark space…and he hoped that they would have a chance as well as Duero and Parfet did.

Kyo recalled seeing the two chatting warmly and guessed that they will still be working hard on getting to know one another. Max and Barnette were getting closer and he liked that, both their relationship and that of Duero and Parfet would be examples of men and women having a relationship together.

Barnette cared a great deal for Max since he had nearly lost his life to save her from death, a death she nearly brought on herself for being too stubborn back on the desert planet…and the two bonded over the past days they had spent on the base…with the Megele girl taking care of Max until he recovered from his wounds and working alongside him to thank him to forgiving her despite her actions that nearly got him killed. That was part of it, the other part as that over time, with her exposure with Max, Barnette began to experience things that before she would have considered nothing but lies…the attraction of a woman to a man, the feelings involved, and the respect she gave to Max when he showed so many traits that she once thought no man would ever have…he was resourceful, patient, forgiving, caring, brave, and kind…those qualities were seen when they fought side by side and worked side by side as well, she also began to learn a lot from the man, which naturally helped her move along with a relationship with him.

He did make it clear that if they ever needed advice, then just give him a call and he could help them. He had several jobs now…cook, pilot, squadron leader, instructor, and now relationship councillor. He couldn't believe it.

He then decided to prepare some new supplies for his Gundam…namely food, drink, munitions, and tools. His Gundam had several well placed supply lockers and there he could store what he needed in an operation where he would not be able to return to the Nirvana for any reason. He was a military man and being prepared was important to him. It was then he was approached by his second in command, Sara Elsman.

“Hello Commander.”

Kyo smiled as he wiped his hands clean with a rag and faced the young woman.

“Hello Sara, you wanted to see me about something?”

The young woman nodded and blushed a bit and twiddled her fingers. Back then such actions were foreign to the young woman, she didn't act like this when with her fellow women back home, and certainly not with a man, but she was near Kyo, a man that she now admitted she had a big crush on, and respected as well.

Kyo was curious as to what was going on with Sara…but before he could asked, Sara did it for him.

“I was wondering…if…if you…had the…had the time to…go out on a …date with me?”

Kyo's eyes widened at that statement. He had gone on a normal date with Mai a few weeks before, though nothing…happened between him and his Register colleague and fellow Crusader pilot, he and Mai were good friends and he was thankful that it hadn't gone too far as of right now…he still needed to get to know Mai a lot more before anything serious could happen…and now it seems that he will be going out with Sara, who he knew was feeling the same emotions as the other girls. He wasn't in a bet with Gascogne…so what had he got to lose?

*************

Out in space…a fair distance from the Nirvana…

Commander Arland was in his ship's quarters, preparing a report on the fall of his space station command and his order to initiate the self destruct/evacuation protocol. He knew for a fact that the military council would not be in the best of moods to learn that yet another military station had to be abandoned and many officers were being tried and sent to the military courts for court-martial hearings…and he just joined the rising numbers, but the officer didn't care about that, he cared for the lives of his troopers, pilots, support staff, and officers…there was no guarantee that his station could hold off another attack from the aliens.

As he finished his report, he looked at the pictures of his wife, two eldest sons and two daughters. They were the reason he was in the military years ago…ever since the first contact with the aliens and the disastrous event of their exploration fleet being wiped out and only a single ship coming back, he re-enlisted despite his wife's protests and explained that unless they stood and fought, then no place on Khudan would be safe for them all, and he mentioned that he wasn't the only man who went back into war…this was for their future…

Now the officer hoped that his actions didn't result in a last stand situation for his people as their defences began to fall to the invaders, the outer system defences no longer existed and only the inner core defences were left to them, the military intended to reinforce those zones prepare for a last stand…but Arland felt that maybe it was time his people considered another option…despite how unthinkable and painful it was…

Mass planetary evacuation…

Commander Arland knew that this would be considered a mistake by just everyone, but he knew that he and other realistic officers in the Khudani military council had known that without aid, even their advanced forces would not stand against the alien hordes. Plus, the chance of aid coming was no longer possible, for the communication stations that they had built outside of their home system were among the first to fall when the aliens first attacked them…and there was no way to replace them since the recovery teams were among the victims of the aliens…effectively sealing the fate of the Khudani into a war that there would be no aid…

The officer then looked at another picture…his home in the regions to the north, where his wife and children were still. It was the latest picture of is family, his wife was taking care of his youngest daughter while his sons and their sister played with their toy kites and watched the birds of their home-planet fly by them…a wonderful sight…and now a painful one for the stern commander with silver streaked black hair due to what has happened.

It was then that a communiqué from his desk came online…forcing the Commander to look away from his family and home. He then answered the incoming message as one of the bridge crew appeared.

“Commander Arland, sir…are you there?”

“Go ahead Corporal Rook.”

Corporal Rook…one of the operators on Arland's command ship the KAF-091-SDF RAC `Snow-Lance' nodded as he delivered his report.

“I apologize for disturbing you Commander…but we've detected signals coming from an unknown ship…and signals of alien fighters.”

“Where is the location?”

“On sector Beta 8, outside of the home system's eastern border…it seems they are salvaging the remains of a station…one of ours.”

Arland's blood boiled at the thought of the site being desecrated by unknown beings. His anger however was tempered by some very important facts.

One was the fact that on record, there was no mention of a Khudan station being built in the sector. As a member of the military, he along with all officers of lower or higher rank were given open information on the location of all military and civilian stations in the area of their system. Civilian stations on the outer fringes were either lost to the aliens…or evacuated, and only military ones were now listed…thus the wreckage of a station of his people that wasn't listed on his archives was a cause of concern for the seasoned commander.

The second was that this station was in a location beyond the system, most stations owned by his people were kept near the Khudan system to ensure proper communications and supplies were brought in, this was a needed protocol after the loss of the outer system communications stations, a station that was out at that distance would have difficulties in gaining supplies and information, unless by supply convoys.

And the last was the fact that the location was in a path that led towards a massive debris belt. In the historical records, a ship once known as the Ikazuchi had attempted to enter it to locate possible planets to colonize…but due to the magnetic storms, debris, energy clouds and other cosmic occurrences…the Ikazuchi was lost in comm. range…and was deemed by the first generation of his people as lost. A memorial service in honour of the crew of the Ikazuchi was held on Khudan once a year, and as such…passage through the location was not allowed to any Khudani vessel and it's crew.

“Any information as to what system and civilization the ship belongs to and it's destination?”

Corporal Rook replied as he worked on is console on the bridge…alongside the rest of his fellow operators.

“I'm afraid that it's an unknown ship class sir…it doesn't match the profile of any ship design we have on record, not to mention that it's transponder signal is showing strange readings in terms of power emission and is unknown…though it seems to be of human make. We are detecting what appears to be an old communication frequency that was used in…the Colonization Era however.”

That bit of information quickly gained Arland's attention.

“Anything else you can tell me of this unknown ship Corporal?”

“We detected signals that appear to be similar to those used by the alien force's main fighter units…but appears to he heavily altered and nearly didn't match the ones we have on records sir. We also determined that it has a two extra classes of fighter units…one appears to the an interceptor class fighter, we also can't determine both design and origin…and the other group…resembles…humanoid like suits…also of a design we don't have on record sir. This is getting rather odd…”

Arland wondered just what was going on…first they locate a Khudani space station out of the zones such stations are normally built and it was not on record, then they locate a ship of unknown design and origin and not matched the alien designs…yet had a transponder frequency that was from the Colonization Era, and then they locate fighters of the aliens…but had been so heavily changed they hardly send out the same signals…something was going on…and now he had to make a choice…

Either ignore the happenings and return to his home-planet.

Or go and investigate the possibility of meeting another race and possibly gaining allies in this war.

Arland then decided that until he gained more information, he would not endanger his crew and those under his command.

“Have the fleet remain away from the unknown contact's sensor range, but close enough to maintain passive scanning ability. I want all the data we can get on this contact…and Corporal…”

“Yes Sir?”

“I want all the records of the Colonization Era fleet's transponder frequencies and their comm. frequencies to be recovered and I want them compared to the contact's own…I want to know exactly why a ship that we don't know about has a frequency that is nearly a hundred years old and hasn't been used in just as long a time.”

“Yes sir!!!”

*************

Back on the Nirvana…

Kyo walked alongside Sara Elsman as the two looked at the outside view of the Bio-Park to the stars and planets. Kyo was dressed in a polo shirt and pants with boots, while Sara was in a sun-dress. This showed that the two were now on a very much official date.

When Sara had arrived at the meeting place where her fellow Crusader pilots were resting, they were ecstatic on the fact that she had finally asked Kyo to go out with her on a date…and they were even more impressed and slightly jealous that he accepted her request. The girls immediately went to work on getting to look presentable.

Unlike the other women, Sara Elsman didn't always wear powder and lipstick, or any of the social aesthetics her fellow women normally did, she only had them when she wanted to look nice, and yet, even in plain form, she was considered pretty by Megele standards, but since this was her first date with a man…and her commanding officer n less…she wanted to look the part and be a person Kyo would consider attractive and her friends were more than eager to help her in that regard.

And it appeared that it had the desired effect as when they met…Kyo was awed at her and made her blush, something she normally never thought of doing, but did so when Kyo was nearby.

Kyo on the other hand was feeling a bit uncomfortable, yet he didn't mind being in Sara's company, he found her to be a good friend, and he did feel attracted to her. He still recalled how attractive she was when he saw her naked in the communal bath and he knew that despite her actions…she liked him, and she seemed to have gained the courage to try and get to know him even more…and there was nothing wrong in that…but he was tempted the moment he saw her in the dress…

It was a light sky blue cheongsam sun-dress and seemed to hug Sara's frame without being too showy, but showed her curves and build, just enough to show her attractive, athletic build, plus her makeup was done well to bring out her natural beauty. Kyo placed his thoughts aside as he chatted with Sara about her past life and family, while he told her of his travels long before becoming part of their crew nearly a year before.

The Nirvana remained near the wreckage of the station as the crew decided to take the time to do some needed maintenance and to rest a bit from all the constant alertness that permeated the ship for the past few days. The excitement of finally being closer to home however was still there and many of the crew were trying to relax but were still buzzing with excitement. For now however it was time to relax as much as they could, though Buzam still had the bridge crew keep an eye on things.

The couple continued to chat for the time being, Kyo sharing whatever new memories he had seen that resurfaced from his mind, while Sara told him of her family and the life she had before and after joining the pirates. Kyo was a bit surprised that Sara was telling him about her family and she blushed a bit in reply…saying that she respected and trusted him enough to reveal her life to him, and he couldn't help but blush and scratch his head….honoured that she held him in that high regard.

They then arrived in one of the hallways…ironically enough it was the same hallway where Kyo had played the piano all those months before, it had actually been quite a while since he had sat down to play the instrument and he was willing and eager to see if he still had what it took to play a song.

Sara herself was eager to see and hear Kyo play once more as he sat down and began to play a soft melodic tone of music.

(The music is the piano version of For Real from the series Gensoumaden Saiyuki and is the only non Gundam SEED universe song in here.)

Sara smiled warmly as she listened to how well Kyo played the piano and recalled the time she had heard and seen him play when Barnette had routed the image and audio…and she was now the one who listened to him and then as he finished the piano number. Sara smiled warmly at him…

“Wow…I heard you sing and play before…but I never…who taught you how to play that well?”

Kyo sighed and smiled a bit as he looked at the piano.

“My mother I guess.”

Sara's eyes widened, this was a first, to know that despite Kyo not knowing his mother…he knew that she was the one who taught him how to play instruments so well and…

“She taught you how to sing as well?”

Kyo nodded and smiled a bit as he began to recall what memories he had regained concerning his mother.

“Yeah, she was a singer, since I recall her voice…she sang very well, and was very kind and gentle…but she was strong in will, conviction, and she was very brave and determined. I can't see her face all that clearly yet…but I knew she was beautiful, inside and outside. I guess…she even taught me how to cook and paint and she always took care of me and my…siblings and father…when we were still together.”

Kyo then shook his head a bit and Sara saw his eyes mist up a little.

“I miss her…I really…really miss her.”

Sara felt her sadness increase as she looked at Kyo who was sad at still not being able to see his mother's face…and even if he didn't know if she was still out there somewhere…he still missed her and his emotions showed nothing but love for his mother. Sara could imagine how much pride Kyo's mother had in raising him, and she couldn't help but feel sad for both of them, for Kyo being unable to recall his mother and his mother for being unable to be reunited with her son.

“I'm sorry I brought that up! I apologize!”

Kyo reached up to Sara and calmed her down. He smiled a bit at her and she couldn't help but blush a bit at the warm look in his eyes.

“It's okay…There's no need to cry…I'll find them someday.”

Sara smiled and nodded. “Then I wish you good luck when you do.”

As Kyo and Sara began to conclude their time together, they were unaware of the other Crusader pilots…minus Mai who was in the Register, were recording the whole thing and they too felt sad that their male commander had to deal with such loneliness everyday, and so they planned to make him happy someday.

*************

The Harvester Fleet…

“What is the status of our resource gathering operation?” The leader of the Harvester Armada asked as he faced his clone operators. He was now busy monitoring the activities of the Fleet's massive factory centres in each ship as they began top process the materials gathered and new weapons were now being created, those that he himself created and rested, now the process of modifying the first form of the Overlord series now renamed the Dominator series to ensure that their new weapon systems would operate effectively once they were able to use them. The new class however retained the existing features they once had as Overlord units. The upgrades were never intended to remove or alter them, but to give them a seriously effective tactical and strategic advantage when they were in battles that would show the normal arsenals would not be sufficient to bring about a more favourable outcome to the war with the ever growing resistance. During the battle on Melanos, the leader was impressed with the Overlord series and wanted to see their full potential and now he was seeing it as handfuls of the units were now being modified to use the new weapon packs.

The first was basically an upgrade for the speed of the Dominator units when using this system. Armed with upgraded power thrusters and a pair of heavy load missile pods initially filled with medium class homing missiles, the pack could allow for rapid deployment and heavy suppression fire and bombardment. The missile class could also be changed from smaller but more numerous scatter missiles, to heavier but more accurate missiles. This was the first of the weapon packs visualized by the leader and due to the nature of the design, it made sense it was named the Swarm Converter Unit. (**)

The second was to combine a marriage of exceptional fire-power with deadly close combat range. This meant a pack that had a weapon set for long range combat and a weapon set for close range combat. The end result was a pack that had a pair of high powered beam gatling guns on one side and a powerful rail-gun on the other for deadly medium and long range fire-power…this meant that even when not in close combat range…the Dominator that used this Pack was a deadly foe in ranged warfare. And the next weapon was a larger and far more dangerous version of the beam hatchet…a beam edged double bladed pike. Essentially it had a main beam edge emitter on one side and a powerful support beam edge on the other shaped like a crescent. And on the front was a powerful beam blade emitter like that of the spear used by the Wyvern Gundam, though it could not be fired and reeled back. The net effect was that when using it's beam rifle…the beam gatling guns and the rail-gun could fire as well to add some serious punch as well. And should the fight become close quarters, then the beam pike would come into play and it also had a powerful anti-armour pike on the end which could pierce a ship's hull with considerable power. This unit was designated the Breaker Converter Unit. (***)

The third and the last was designed to be a truly devastating weapon in terms of Mobile Suit units engaging ships in ranged warfare and destroying them with powerful amounts of firepower and ensuring that the Mobile Suits would get the first shot before being attacked. The weapon comprised of an operation set, the first was a powerful but compact anti-ship torpedo launcher that could fire a trio of easy to replace anti-ship torpedoes with powerful explosive heads and a small but lethal anti-ship gatling gun…but the second set was the most dangerous…a powerful anti-ship beam cannon that could easily punch a hole through a medium or lower class ship, and could cause considerable damage to battle-ships and was powered up by a large spare energy battery tank on the rear which was naturally reinforced. This meant that a handful of Dominators using these packs would be a serious threat to fleets of small and medium ships and a powerful threat to even capital class ships when well coordinated in attacking and flanking patterns. This unit was designated as the Punisher Converter Unit (***)

Though these would give the Harvesters, namely the newly christened Dominator units a serious edge in fire power…there was naturally a trade-off for each weapon system. The most commonly shared was the disabling of the shield the unit normally carried so minimize the weight and that would require either the disabling of the beam hatchet or it's lack of use. The best example as that due to it's lack of good striking range and the difficulty of using two weapons of different design simultaneously in either hand…the beam hatchet was not usable when using the Breaker Converter Unit, and with the Punisher…the need for both hands of the Dominator to carry a large anti-ship beam cannon means that only when either the pack is removed or the cannon is either placed aside or destroyed could the Dominator use it's beam hatchet. And despite the respective power rates and functions of each pack…it was still recommended that the Dominators using each pack should work as pairs or mixed groups to unleash the full power of each system effectively.

The leader than recalled something very important.

“What is the current status of the 3rd Fleet?”

One clone operator looked up and replied. “They are already sending out their scout forces and ready to attack the enemy. Their losses from the battle with the enemy have been recovered and will be re-engaging them in the span of half an hour.”

“Good…have them contact us on completion of the mission, and if we lose contact with them…then make sure to download their last coordinates so we can know where they are last seen and if we have the time…finish the job. In the meantime…have the fleet remain here until we complete full construction of the Converter Units and field test them before moving on…is that understood?”

“It shall be done.”

*************

In one section of the Nirvana…

Kyo wiped some sweat off his brow as he gazed at his handiwork.

“This should certainly come in handy whenever I get caught on the ground again.” The Gundam pilot said as he looked at a medium sized container filled with medium sized rectangular packs made out of reinforced plastic and heating foil. He had just prepared his new supplies of MREs.

He then made his way to the hanger with the large cart filled with MREs. Though he had not recalled as of yet where he learned on how these items were made and how he could customize them…he hardly complained. These medium sized packets helped him out a lot on the long travels he had taken while he was not part of the Nirvana's crew or when he had come to Talark. The pre-package foods and drink certainly came in handy for him when he was still very much a wanderer…and a free lance fighter back in his days before being where he was now. Before he got used to eating the nutrition pills on the all male plane and getting past the horrible `lack of taste' taste of the pills, he focused on eating MREs while he was there on the desert world and only decided to stop eating them due to the fact that he was running low of the packs. He nearly forgot about them when he was with the pirates…now being able to eat cooked food again.

Naturally he ate cooked food in his travels…but it wasn't always possible so while he travelled and met up with friendly human civilizations, he made a point of stocking up MREs for long trips and not knowing when he could get the chance to eat a hot meal again. MREs were his staple diet and certainly came in handy when the time came to eat and he was in a hostile place or when travelling in his Gundam in space. Kyo also made sure to have variety in his diets and thanks to technological advances…MREs were of far greater taste, nutrition content, and variety.

The MREs had different foods in them that he had come back to cook and prepare after his date with Sara. They comprised of various cuts of meat, vegetables, fruits, grains, bread, small tube containers of water, and small but useful packets of Talark nutrient pills. He also included easy to dispose of utensils, coffee powder, non-addictive wake up stims, heating tabs, juice powder, cheese, butter, jam spread, and some small condiments, namely salt, sugar, spices and sauces.

Due to that…and the vacuuming and sealing, the MREs could last for months or years, in the same way Talark food pills could last for just as long. And due to the built in heating tabs that activate when he opened them…the rations were always warm and fresh.

As soon as he arrived in the Hanger as the other personnel were busy doing their regular duties…he scuttled up to his Gundam and took the container with him. As soon as he got there…he began placing in his newly made MREs and placed them in the large built in storage locker of the Infinite Freedom which had gotten enough room to store about fifty of the MREs. Kyo didn't know where he had gained this habit…but he never complained or got rid of it

As he did so…he was wondering about the others and just what they were doing.

*************

In the gym of the Nirvana…

Max was lifting a pair of small barbells as he was dressed in his body suit with a white tunic and pants, and his trench coat as a medic was placed aside…for the training he had in mind…he brought some practice dummies that were very much human in form and movement, medical charts, some rubber weapons, including hard but non-lethal knives. When Duero and Aleck asked him what he was going to do with all that he told them, and expected them to be rather angry…they were but told him that as long as Barnette used the combat techniques only for self defense, they were okay with it.

As he went through the basic moves and exercises, he then turned and spotted Barnette…who was wearing a training uniform worn by the Crusader pilots when they trained in the martial arts and sparred with one another during their routine exercises. The plain white gi and pants were tied in by a pristine white belt, showing that Barnette was a beginner, even though she was familiar with Megele martial arts as a child.

“Hello…sorry I'm late, I had to borrow a uniform from one of the Crusader pilots.” Barnette said in apology as she greeted Max.

“That's all right, now before we start, we need to warm up so let's get to work, no sense training when you are not yet ready in body and mind.”

Max and Barnette began to do regular stretching and warm up exercises done by athletes and martial arts students, and although they were focusing on the session at hand…there was no doubt that their respective presence had an effect on them as they would gaze at each other's sweat glistening forms. But they worked that out of their system for the time being.

As soon as they were warmed up…Max began to train alongside Barnette, showing her the basic movements of martial arts from his world and the techniques involved. This was basic unarmed combat for now as he also watched her perform. He could tell that despite her use of guns in fights, Barnette DID possess the qualities of a good martial artist…and it was an honour in a sense for him to be showing her how to fight without her guns just in case she wasn't armed with one.

After an hour of that, Max then began to use the charts he had to point out the vulnerable parts of the human body which both he and Barnette knew to be the same between men and women despite their…respective differences in the chest and groin areas…both blushed somewhat at the thought as Max then went back to the strict instructor tone he had heard a lot in his youth. He pointed out nerve clusters and what the effects would be when hitting them in the exact way with the right force and speed, then he pointed out the bones and where they were weakest and the joints as well and on how to apply pressure that would be enough to ensure a quick takedown of a target.

Barnette had to admit that Max certainly knew what he had to use when it came to personal combat as she listened, and like a serious but trusting instructor he helped her understand parts of his lectures that didn't make clear sense to her.

As soon as she was done and he was finished…they got down to the more serious parts of her training, namely practical application as Max brought forward the training dummies which will be used to simulate the effects of the techniques on a human person.

As Max underwent the showing of the various techniques, Barnette at first was a bit confused as he showed her arm bars, nerve strikes, holds, sleeper moves, floor grips, knife strikes, and more, as she saw him perform the moves on one of the practice dummies that was armed with built in sensors however, she saw the lethal power of his methods as the sensors that displayed information to a nearby portable display showed deadly injuries had been sustained, according to the readouts, Max's different strikes would have resulted in severe muscle trauma, dislocated or broken bones, damaged organs, internal bleeding, loss of consciousness, cutting of circulation, and torn tendons, it was a move that he called the Crucifier that got her attention as Max locked the dummy on a cage of muscle after rushing it and bringing it quickly the ground and used his entire body to imprison the arms and upper torso of the dummy, and then he pulled back the head of the dummy to his side...creating a VERY painful and sickening sound even if the bones of the dummy was metal. As soon as the readouts came, the screen showed that the dummy's head completely broken off from the spine a totally fatal blow equalling to certain death, Max then explained the method of the Crucifier.

“This move targets the most vital spinal cord bone which connects the head to the spine…right at the very base of the head, enough force will literally remove the head from the neck…this however is one move I can't allow you to use on anyone and is NOT to be used unless you have NO alternative, the reason I showed it to you Barnette is to show just how it works. Promise me you will not use it on anyone unless you have no other choice Barnette.”

Barnette knew that this was a serious thing if Max showed her such a deadly attack and nodded without hesitation.

“I promise.”

The rest of the session went on as Max continued the lesson with some knife combat training, namely the vulnerable areas where an attack with a knife…either hand held or thrown can cause serious injuries, along with defensive methods when facing a knife wielding opponent or those with melee and improvised melee weapons.

The two learned a lot from each other, Max could see the stronger side of Barnette's personality due to her not giving up and willingness to learn from others when she makes mistakes and didn't complain as he pointed out the exact way it should be done. Despite being bruised by him in some sparring rounds she didn't become to angry and paid attention. Barnette could also see the strong and patient side of Max as he continues to teach her the right ways to use her abilities in combat, and patiently correct any flaws in her movements and stances, back then when she fought in hand to hand she was not very good since many students would make fun of her. Max however was patient with her and since she had very strong feelings towards him she listened to his advice and found tem to be very effective.

Along with that was the closeness they had, very similar to when Max and her were in the quarters given to them when the Nirvana was with the fleet of the Taisians. This was not as intimate as before, but due to the personal relationship they had and it was growing as Max and Barnette worked to learn from one another. As Barnette continued to train, she moved more effectively and that gained her the approval of Max and that was very nice to her senses as he continued their training sessions. The two were now becoming more open to one another as they pressed on in their training, and this included now the various moves he had shown to restrain opponents, this however made things more steamy as they were now pressing their sweat soaked forms to one another.

Just like the time Kyo and Meia had sparred in the same hall…both Talark male and Megele female were now sparring with one another in close proximity and despite their best intentions…it didn't take long for the physical tension in them t take effect, just as Max was teaching Barnette the movements when using a restraining move and toss…apparently she made a mistake in foot and landed on Max, her breasts right on top of is hard chest and her face millimetres to his. Barnette was sweating and her face was showing the exertions along with a deep blush. Her milk white face was slightly pinkish, the lights were reflected on her skin due to the beads of moisture on her. The same could be said for Max though his blush was a bit hard to see due to his still present tan, though both his, Aleck and Duero's tans had toned down somewhat due to their long stay in the ship.

Both of them looked at one another…Max saw his reflection in Barnette's eyes and it began to have an effect on him. Barnette likewise saw her own reflection in Max's own eyes…this was enough that both of them came ever closer to one another….and kiss.

The tension seemed to die away, but a hunger seemed to fill that empty place as the soft kiss became more heated. Max placed one of his hands on Barnette's face and the other in the back of her head. Barnette didn't mind as she held his face with both her hands. The kiss was very much on high gear, but they stopped when they realized that it would soon be time for the other crew members to be using the gym…and the last thing either of tem wanted was being caught like this…so they reluctantly got up and began to clean up the place and as they moved out…Barnette hugged Max and whispered in his ear.

“Thanks for teaching me those things Max…I'll make sure to use them only to protect myself.”

Max nodded and before he could say anything, Barnette kissed him once more and left him with a smile as she walked back to take a bath, Max on the other hand couldn't help but blush as he walked away. Barnette turned and smiled at what she had felt with him, as she got to her room, she went to the shower with a warm silly smile.

*************

Back at the Hanger…

Kyo was busy yet again, but didn't mind the extra work load as his current job was vital…and that was to figure out the capabilities of the second Mobile Suit the pirates had recovered. He had already finished his packing of his supply of MREs in is Gundam and went back to his previous duties…so here he was...running through all the data that was in the OS of the Mobile Suit…and there were quite some very interesting features to boot on this model.

<Hmmm…High Field Conduction Aluminium that connects to the power reactor, this would give this unit a serious operation edge.>

He had heard rumours of armour that would be able to absorb energy and convert it into power for the Mobile Suit's own use, this was unheard of in the other worlds he had gone to in his wandering days.

He then ran an inventory check and found the Mobile Suit to be armed with quite the array of ranged weapons. 4 CIWS machine guns of a unique make in the head, 2 foldable plasma cannons that could spread when used, a set of four light beam rifles, that were stored on the torsos, namely in the back, and a pair of forearm stored catapult cannons. He also found optional weapons, namely a unique ionized beam rifle stored in the rear skirt, fed by power clips like a regular assault rifle, another beam rifle also stored in the same location, but was a single shot variant…no doubt designed for sniper work, and last was a beam saber.

Using a version of Phase Shift Armour, that was different from the sonic wave using version of the first Mobile Suit, which was still effective and using the High Field Conducting Aluminium would mean that beam weapons were useless as the energy from them would be fed to the reactor and combine that converted energy to the reactor's own power output itself would make this unit impossible to take out using energy arsenals and would be deadly since it allows all it's beam weapons to be on near unlimited power…but he had found a fatal flaw…

<Hmmm….that's not good, apparently it's temperature regulation systems were not designed to handle such power flows and containment, at least not yet…if this unit was in the battle-field too long the systems would have broken down and melted.>

He recalled the overheating results in the Vanguards that were piloted by Dita and Jura…the units had been unable to match up to the girls' SEED ability when they were on the desert world since they were able to be reconfigured in time to be able to handle the skills Jura and Dita have in Mobile Suit Warfare…the only machines that could handle that were the Dreads all three of the girls piloted, Meia included, and finally their Gundams. In the case of the Mobile Suit he was currently working on, as long as it was able to channel out the excess beam energy, then it would have a chance in the battle field due to it's high ability in both offence and defense, plus it's ability to remain in battle due to the ability to absorb and use the enemy's own energy weapons against them. But if it was unable to properly regulate it's power supply, namely from the absorbed beam fire, then it ran the risk of overheating to the point that it would system crash, melt it's reactor and destroy the Mobile Suit and kill the pilot.

As Kyo finished his work and study, he realized that all three Mobile Suits were still not fully developed, and since he had no idea as to who were the people who created the three and what were the blue-prints and schematics of the Mobile Suits, he could not change them for doing so might disable key features and systems inside the Mobile Suits' OS and the design frames themselves, such a move was a mistake since when he helped create the Retribution series of Mobile Suits and namely the units made exclusively for the use of female pilots in his Crusader Squadron, he had to use the blue-prints and schematics of both the Morpheous, Switch-Blade, Templar, Shinobi and Kunoichi Gundams as a frame base to create the series for the Resistance to use in their war. Since he had no idea as to what was the design of the Mobile Suits and the OS in them wasn't completed…then these units were still prototypes and fooling around with them was a bad idea.

As he got out of the cockpit after powering down the Mobile Suit he was hoping that they would soon be able to move out once all they had salvaged from the station was catalogued and stored. He didn't know what could be waiting for them but he hoped that apart from the Resistance forces and make an alliance with them to help fight off the Harvesters.

*************

Back with the Khudani Fleet…

As Commander Arland gazed at the incoming data as his fleet kept a good distance from the Nirvana, he hoped that until he was sure of what kind of ship it was and why it would be using a century old transponder frequency. He also decided to check on the remote transmissions coming from his former base on whether the aliens had arrived.

“Sir…we've just gotten word from the base…it's sensors has picked up the aliens' forces and are now priming the main explosive charges.”

“Good…any possible threats coming towards us?”

“We don't detect any incoming threats except for the strange alien fighters that have been changed in terms of transponder signals. So far they are merely on recon patrol and don't seem concerned with looking for us. I still can't figure out what those things are doing working with that ship sir.”

“Neither do I soldier, but we don't have the time to figure it out.”

Arland then turned to Rook, who was left in charge of locating all the relevant data on the Colony Fleets from a hundred years ago. Such data normally would only be relegated to story books or holo-records, but Arland amazingly enough despite being a strict, by the book soldier was somewhat a history buff and preferred to have original data, not those modified by spin doctors. This was now coming to good use as Rook was able to locate the data they needed on the transponder frequencies of the Colony Ships.

“Any luck Corporal Rook?”

“Almost done…the last remaining files are now ready for comparison sir…give me a few minutes…hmmm…no…not a match…no…still nothing yet sir…the transponder frequencies are not matching up…brining out the next one. Hold on…I think I've got something…what the? Let me check this again sir, no way, that can't be right!!! Maybe something's wrong with the data…nothing wrong…but how could that be?”

“What's doing on there Corporal? Did you find a match?”

“I did sir…but you are NOT going to believe this…”

“Try me.”

“Sir, I know this will sound real crazy and maybe it is…but the Colonization Era ship transponder frequency that the ship we're tracking is using the transponder frequency of the Ikazuchi.”

The reactions of the entire crew were the same as Arland, they were shocked…many of them thought that the Ikazuchi was a lost ship and all of the crew…including those in cryogenic suspension were dead after the Ikazuchi plunged through the magnetic storm and debris belt that was beyond their system…and since every Colony Ship had a unique frequency that could not be duplicated easily and would only be changed by the crew itself, there was no way anyone alive could know the Ikazuchi's frequency.

“Are you absolutely sure that the data is accurate?”

“Positive sir…I ran the scanners and there is nothing wrong with them and the data we have in our data-base has not been compromised in any sense. This data we have sir…is authentic. That ship is using the Ikazuchi's EXACT transponder frequency.”

Arland mused it over, this was certainly quite the shock for them all…him most of all. He mulled over the decisions and the possible outcomes of each.

He then made contact with his crew.

“All hands…prepare for combat standby…we are going to initiate contact with the ship, be prepared for possible retaliation. Move the fleet out and enter their sensor range, and hail them as soon as we get there.”

The fleet followed their commander's orders. Arming up their weapons, guns, cannons, missiles and anti-ship torpedo launchers were now primed along with their squadrons of fighters…as soon as they arrived into the sensor range of the Nirvana, Commander Arland of Khudan established lines of communications with the pirates.

“This is Commander Arland Kashell of Khudani Armed Forces, I am the Captain of the SDF RAC `Snow-Lance' and fleet commander of this unit. You are to identify yourselves and state your business for plundering the wreckage of one of my home-world's space stations. You have 30 minutes before we consider you a hostile force and we will be forced to take drastic action.”

*************

On the Nirvana…

Magno gazed at the man calling himself Commander Arland Kashell, the crew had immediately responded to the alert when the ships came out from the shadow of a nearby moon, that was how they avoided the sensors and they apparently were a well trained and experienced group to have stayed away from their sensors. She was accompanied by Buzam and Gascogne, along with Aleck. Both the Register head and Vanguard instructor were busy playing cards when the alarms came on and rushed to see just was all the noise was about.

Magno then spoke as she also opened communications with the new individual she was facing.

“This Captain Magno Vivian of the pirate ship the Nirvana, we were not aware of the fact that the station was one of you're home-world's, we have already completed our salvaging of the station but have left the place intact, we have no wish to fight fellow humans, and if you will allow it, we can return what we have found to you. However, if you attempt to harm this ship and my crew…Then we will be forced to fight.”

With that, the Nirvana's Dread Squadrons, the Crusaders, and the Gundams took to the scene, with Kyo, Jura, Meia, Dita, Max, Aleck, Sara, Mai and Barnette in the lead in their respective machines with Barnette flying her newly re-constructed and upgraded Dread fighter with Max's Templar Gundam beside her.

The Crusader pilots then armed themselves as the Nirvana began to release the Form Pack for their units. They were able to receive the Form packs they needed as those were released from a modified launching bay found by the crew on another part of the ship, several Crusaders were armed with the sniper packs and took strategic positions on the Nirvana to provide long range sniper cover for the crew, having been trained hard by Kyo in sniper style combat. Several more took the heavy range assault weapon systems and then activated their mean cannons, several others took the close range combat Form pack and readied their anti-ship sword and shield. Others took the flight pack, and readied their beam sabers and shield emitters, others also took the remaining Form Packs, some were in the forefront, armed with the Form Pack designed for EW support (Electronic Warfare), and the last batch were armed with the heavy weapon systems and were now prepared to fight. In the lead were the custom Crusader Mobile Suits piloted by Sara and Mai. Mai readied her anti-ship sword while Sara took out both her Mobile Suit's cannons.

Kyo took out both beam sabers of his Gundam and ignited them, Meia took out one her beam katanas and got ready, Dita combined her beam rifles and formed her beam cannon and aimed it at the Khudani forces, Jura readied her beam saber and shield, Max readied his beam rifle and shield, Aleck's GUiAZ was now armed with a new solid slug firing assault rifle, but carried a spare beam rifle, just in case as all of them were ready for a fight.

The Dreads also armed their shields and weapon systems as cannons powered up and missile pods were primed, navigational systems were ready, along with fuel and munitions reserves. Gascogne stood at the ready on her supply shuttle, ready to reload the Dreads and pick up any pilots who had to ditch their machines in case of severe damage.

Bart was ready to fire the guns of the pirate vessel and took aim at the Khudani fleet, aiming to take the fighters out and then the carriers. The converted Harvester Cube Fighters also came on the scene and powered up…waiting for the order to attack the new arrivals.

All of the pirates however didn't want to go into the fight with fellow humans when they had a soon to arrive invasion fleet from Earth intent on wiping out more human worlds, the last thing the human race needed at this stage was to be fighting with one another.

However it seemed that the Khudani were on the same page as Arland responded.

“All forces stand down…power down weapons. I suggest you do the same Captain Magno.”

Magno nodded and without incident, the pirates also powered down their weapons.

“I can see that you're not with the aliens that have been attacking us for a year and several months. Before we make any more discussions on what to do with what you and your crew took from the wreckage and who you all are and where you are all from, I want to know why is it you are using the transponder frequency of the Ikazuchi, a ship my people have considered lost? And why is it the fighters of the aliens that have attacked us for so long are under your command?”

Magno replied.

“That is going to be a very long story and yes…we have encountered the aliens you seem to speak of, they however are not aliens, they are the Harvester Armada…a fleet that comes from a planet I think you and your people are very much familiar with.”

“And which planet is it? We have been looking for it for so long and never found it.”

“We ALL know it….they came from Earth.”

*************

The Harvester battle-ship pair that comprised the whole 3rd Fleet flew showily as their sensors began scanning through the cooling wreckage of the space station they had previously attacked and had come back to finish off. Their forces went on to do the routine boarding attacks that they have done for many of their respective missions, and once they were in attack angle, they would unleash their drones into the ship to begin the Harvest…but that wasn't what happened.

What HAD happened was that when their Cube Fighter units along with a small but substantial number of Seed Ships, and Urchin Vessels came close enough to be gin insertion operations…explosions began to occur all throughout the station and before anything could be done….the insertion force was covered in heavy explosions and were wiped out…either by the heat and power of the explosions or the hot shrapnel and debris that followed…the rest were able to escape the inferno.

Now that meant that the fleet would have to leave the area and head straight for Khudan since their scanners did not detect any known human life forms.

*************

Outside of the Nirvana and the Khudani Fleet's combined sensor range…

A hidden Mobile Suit watched as the Fleet of the Khudani came closer to the Nirvana and out came a shuttle from the `Snow-Lance' and was escorted by a mix of Khudani fighters and that of the pirate forces.

The pilot nodded and merely spoke in a quiet voice before guiding his Mobile Suit away from the scene.

“It has begun…”

*************

In the Nirvana's Conference Room…

“Captain Magno…do you mean to tell me that the aliens my people have been fighting for the last year and months are actually created on Earth?! And that you and your crew are descendants of the crew of the Ikazuchi, and I and my officers are in the Ikazuchi itself?!”

To say that Arland Kashell was shocked would have been the understatement of the millennium…

He and his officers were escorted by a young man who merely called himself Kyo as soon as he got out of his Gundam and said that they would need to meet up with the Captain to know just who they were fighting and why this was happening. Arland was not pleased to hear at first that the aliens were actually a fleet sent from Earth, the ancestral home-planet of all human colonies in this universe and wanted to see for himself just what was going on since he wasn't going to believe it. He and his crew were somewhat surprised to find that the vast majority of the crew were females and there were only a small handful of men, only five in total.

Magno could understand the shock and disbelief in Arland's voice, she knew that when she and her crew found out about it nearly a year ago they too were shocked out of their minds to learn that the ancestral home of their race and the humans left behind were the ones responsible for such a massive slaughter of human life…all for their own survival.

“ I can understand that you and your officers do not believe what we have told you…but we ourselves were unable to comprehend it when we found out about it a year ago, it had been hard to imagine our ancestral home of Earth and it's people have resorted to doing such horrible things. But they did…these records from other worlds that were hit by the Harvesters should be enough proof for you.”

Magno then presented the records the pirates had gained over the months of fighting with the Harvesters. The records from the desert world where the Vanguards were first piloted by women and was the birthplace of the Crusader Squadron, the records from Anpathos, the data from Rabat's own data archives, the records gained from Melanos, the recording of their first conversation with the Harvester Fleet, the records from Misty's capsule and finally the combined data handed to them by the Resistance…all of the information they had given was copied and sent to their worlds…they only hoped that the information was not discarded.

Arland then began to view all the data on the screen and after he and his officers were shocked at what they had seen, the Harvest reports, the records…everything, but the invasion fleet launched from Earth and the holo-record that showed the utter annihilation of Melanos by the super battle-ship made them pale with deep fear. They now realized just what they were dealing with.

Magno, Kyo, Buzam, Gascogne, Meia, Duero, Parfait, and Aleck were all present and waited to see what the Khudani officers would say after what they had witnessed.

They didn't have to wait long as Arland gave them a long look, after his officers checked and double checked the data and found them to be all authentic.

“This is very serious information you gave us…as such, we have no choice but to return to Khudan, our home-world at all available speed and inform the Government of this. If you don't have any objections, I wish to ask for your presence so they will know that this data is authentic.”

“Why is that?” Buzam asked.

“The more radical members of the military council insist that we all would stand and fight, many would agree, but I am not one of them…this is a war that we can't win alone, and considering that the human colonies are fighting back against the Harvesters, I want our people to be in the fight too so we can be free. The Harvesters have already taken much from us and now that we have the information we need we can stand against them…however we must hurry and convince them before all is lost.”

“What do you mean?” Kyo asked, his military honed senses picked up that something was not completely right with the whole picture.

Arland then told them of their recent encounter with the Harvesters, previously they had been able to hold off the Harvesters and kept them from going deeper into Khudani space…but they had lost a lot of good men and women in doing so…ever since the loss of the bulk of their fleets, they had to use smaller ships to try and hold the lines, along with their military space stations. Now however, they were being attacked by a pair of massive ships that released hordes of Cube like Fighters, urchin like attack ships, strange mecha, and the seed shaped ships that unleashed even more Cube Fighters…the pirates knew what that meant…the Khudani were facing a pair of Harvester battle-ships and it sounded that these units were un-upgraded versions too…basic Harvester units and the unmodified GunDread Clones as well...despite not having better weapons, a pair of battle-ships were a serious threat to anyone that they intended to Harvest and had to be stopped.

Magno nodded…this had to be done…the lives of the people of Khudan and their possible joining with the Resistance was vital to the universe.

That was also when Arland asked about what had happened to the Ikazuchi after a hundred years after the other Colonial vessels lost contact with the ship. It was going to be a very long story as one officer relayed the order to continue the journey to Khudan with their new guests and potential allies.

Though how would this work out was still up for debate.

*************

The Invasion Fleet…

“Status of our new weapon systems and the Dominators?”

The Harvester Leader asked the question patiently as more reports came to the ship's command centre. The leader was taking a very focused interest in the weapon systems' development as these were personally hand crafted by him and he was very interested to finally seem be active in combat, thus he made sure to make routine checks. Right now he was eating his food and waiting for the reports.

A Clone operator turned and faced the leader and spoke in a monotone voice.

“The weapon systems will be ready and operational in a few more hours, the factories have began to produce the prototypes and only wait for your approval on the order to mass produce my Lord…the Dominator units have now been fully redesigned to feature the Form Plugs, and several are now on combat standby and are ready to begin field testing each of the designs.”

“Good.”

Another clone then spoke in the same tone. “My Lord…we have received an incoming message from the 3rd Fleet…it seems that the targets have abandoned their location and set a trap for the fleet, the fleet has lost a number of it's newly rebuilt forces but is very much operational and is now making it's way to the main home-planet.”

“I see…give them this order…collect all the organs they can….and wipe them out…ALL of them.”

“Understood.”

*************

An hour later after the meeting of the Nirvana and the Khudani command ship the Snow Lance…

The Nirvana and it's converted Harvester ship escort was following the Khudan fleet. In the lead of the fleet was the Snow-Lance and it's crew. Arland had spent time on the Nirvana before returning to his ship with the records and the data concerning the existence of Talark and Megele. The rest of his crew and the officers on the rest of the ships were naturally stunned to realize the true nature and mission of the aliens they had been fighting with for so long, even more so when they learned that the Ikazuchi, a ship that had been considered lost for three generations was right in their fleet and that it's crew, composed of men and women, (though the women outnumbered the men) were from two human inhabited planets just beyond the debris belt that was once believed to have been the one that had destroyed the Ikazuchi.

As such it was required that they deliver all this information to their home-land and let the Council make a decision. They were eager to return to their homeland and some thought of continuing the fight even without support from anyone…however, they witnessed the overwhelming force of the arriving Harvester Invasion Fleet when they attacked Melanos and turned the entire planet into nothing but a fiery, irradiated mess…leaving the Melanos people homeless and wanting revenge, and the records of all the other worlds that were attacked by the Harvesters, plus what had been their fates…they knew that the Harvesters did horrible things to their people, but they were not told about it…and now to find out that the human survivors on Earth were harvesting fellow humans on other worlds like crops or livestock of their organs just because they wanted to survive and not care about their lives and choices…made all of them all the more angry and determined to resist, but that was tempered when they recalled the sheer size of the Invasion Fleet heading in their direction. Despite their own advanced technology, they didn't have the numbers and firepower…having lost a vast portion of their heavier ships, ever since the disastrous first expedition sent out a year and several months before. Not to mention, that they didn't have the Mobile Suit units to even up the odds with the new and evolved arsenal of the Harvester Fleet…

They were among the human colonies that dissuaded the use of Mobile Suits years before and relied on space and air born fighters, ground vehicles to maintain their edge in warfare, along with their infantry…the Khudani military had a ground force comprising of their Marines who served both in space and on the ground, their space borne interceptors known as the `Gladius' and their planet based multi-purpose fighters known as the `Rapiers'. They also had a collection of tanks and other weapons, but now that they had seen the records…they were in a very serious situation and they knew that their planetary forces would be useless in such a battle with the incoming Harvester Invasion Armada.

This was also when Kyo revealed the three Mobile Suits that had been salvaged from the wreckage while the salvaged supplies were handed back in good faith to the Khudani forces. Kyo had expected Arland to have the designs, but was surprised that Arland knew nothing about the units, stating that according to their records…neither this station, nor the units were ever stated in the data their military had…the confusion lasted only for a few minutes until they run into only one relevant file-name in one of the Mobile Suits…

`Project Helios'

This immediately made sense to the two as this would mean that the Khudani military council or possibly some key members had these units made without the knowledge of the rest of the military and thus was a black ops project…and it meant naturally that it wasn't listed on the official records the Khudani Commander had on his files. Arland surmised that the Harvesters might have sent a scouting force and the station's inhabitants activated the self destruction system in order to ensure that the Mobile Suits would never fall into the hands of their enemies…basic military practice and since it was a black ops project, they did it since they didn't have such an effective fighting force to hold off the attackers.

The Commander then promised that when they would arrive on his home-planet, the would go straight to the Council and present the data and also ask for two things…the data on Project Helios, and his plan to call for a massive planetary evacuation before the main invasion fleet of the Harvesters would arrive to wipe them all out.

It was then that they were arriving closer to the Khudan that the pirates spotted a large number of RAC ships, all sporting the same symbol of the planet Khudan as Arland's fleet did. And it didn't take long for them to be greeted by one of the ship Commanders.

“Commander Arland Kashell…I didn't think you'd leave the station you were commanding…things getting to dicey out there?”

The person in question was a bald man with a short military style beard…wearing the same uniform as Arland did. The person was very much asking a slightly insulting but friendly tone…and Arland also replied on the same level.

“No more than you already know of J.T… the station got totalled but that's not what we should be concerned about… we've got people to help out.”

“I see.” The man in question then turned to face the crew of the Nirvana as they were also into the conversation. The new Khudani officer directed his look to Magno

“The name's Commander Joseph Taggart, or J.T to most people. What's your deal here ma'am?”

“The name's Captain Magno Vivian Commander Joseph. We are here to give you important information about the aliens you and your people are fighting.”

J.T looked at Arland with a questioning eye…to which Arland merely nodded.

“It's the real deal J.T. we all need to see this.”

The bald commander merely nodded as the planet of the Khudan people came to view…to the Megele women…it was like seeing a co-gender populated version of their own home planet.

Khudan was a beautiful world and had a very balanced climate…as the pirates came closer to the planet, they saw it had oceans, continents and various environments, green, desert, tundra, arctic…it was like looking at the pictures the women had on both Earth and Megele…around the planet's atmosphere were orbital platforms…some appeared to be for civilian use and population, others were ship-yards, combat stations and planetary defensive installations, namely cannon batteries, missile launcher stations, fighter bases…and amazingly enough…there was even a large mine field that separated when the sensors in them picked up the ships…the men noted that it was the same as the orbital mine fields their people used to discourage the women from attempting a full scale attack on their world…they however hoped that the Ikazuchi incident that happened would not mean that the men would go all out in their attacks and strike at Megele. The one thing neither of the crew of the Nirvana and their Talark allies wanted to see were both their respective worlds locked in a brutal all out war that would tear their respective people apart before any attempt at a peace treaty and defense pact was made to stand united with the Harvester menace.

The Nirvana was then guided to a nearby space port and once it docked, it was flanked by several Khudani RAC ships and fighters. This meant that the pirates would have to go to the surface in their shuttle and speak with the leaders directly as Arland was the one who made the call for the pirates to have an audience with the Government Council.

It had taken a lot of effort on his part and even that of J.T…but it was arranged.

*************

On Khudan…namely in the Khudan Governing Council Assembly building…

The Khudan Government and it's Council Members, including representatives of their military forces were busy looking at all the relevant data brought in by Commander Arland Kashell, who was also present in the assembly room and in the middle of a raised platform and also viewing the same images of the records…alongside him and his own officers were Magno, Buzam, Gascogne, Max, Duero, Aleck, and naturally Kyo…along with Dita, Jura, Meia, Barnette, Sara, Mai and a small detail of security personnel.

The crew of the Nirvana stayed in space and were surrounded by Arland's fleet along with the rest of the gathered Khudani fleets that were coming in for re-supply and repairs. The prates saw the ships were battered and needed serious overhauls, which was not surprising since they were not built for such long and violent encounters. The pirates' only hope was that the Captain and her fellow comrades would be able to convince the Khudani people how important it was for them to stand and fight united with the Resistance before it was too late.

However, Arland and J.T mentioned that the situation was not going to be easy…namely with the radical war hawks in the Council who would rather fight to the death than leave their home planet, not to mention that many of them were not going to be easily swayed by anyone…so it meant that the pirates would have to become creative in convincing the Council to not just accept the information being handed to them…but to also consider the possibility and need of evacuation and allying themselves with the Resistance. That was why none of them wasted the time gawking at how beautiful the planet was once they approached it and the cities, they had important business to do, as such both Jura and Meia kept Dita from being too over enthusiastic with her picture taking.

As the records were played, the pirates hoped that the data would not be rejected by the Khudani, not like before when they felt and learned that the previous information they had sent to Talark and Megele were discarded by the Governments and never revealed to the population. They however heeded the advice of both Arland and J.T that they needed to expect a very serious situation once the Council was done reviewing the records and confirming them to be authentic…

Apart from the civilian and business sections of the Council representatives, there was naturally the military, officers of high and middle ranks were present, the only ones who were of very high rank present were Commander Arland Kashell and Commander Joseph Taggart, both of whom were debriefed and were allowed to their families.

The Nirvana's crew got ready as they were now being looked at by the Council of Khudan…

It was negotiation time…

*************

Hours later…

Kyo was with his Gundam in what appeared to be a hanger. The Gundam pilot had brought his Gundam to the surface of the planet and beside it was Sara and Mai's own Crusader units. The young man had left after offering his own accounts of the Harvesters to the Council and left Magno, Gascogne, Aleck, and Buzam to handle the mess, the aged Captain gave him her permission to leave since he had already admitted that politics was not his strong point, and it would be far better he worry about other matters and that was to be left in far more capable hands, right now the pilot was alone as Dita, Jura, Sara, Barnette, Max and Mai were busy walking about in the outlying areas of the base that the pirates were assigned to stay in…a quick trip to the Council building via hover train, the same one they had taken once the shuttle of their ship had landed.

The Council had been open and asked many key questions, but there were naturally those in both civilian and military sectors that tried to find ways to discredit the data they had, it galled him that despite all this time, there were still people concerned with their own lives than that of their fellow human beings. That was why he decided to leave early and not listen to their hubris…it would not suit him well. He checked his Gundam and it's systems via a lap-top, the same one he always had on his person…that was when he had another flashback.

*************

Flashback…

Kyo saw himself looking at Freedom…but it was a single wing pair version of the Gundam…not like the one he owned before and after it evolved….but yet it felt the same…it resembled both Meia's Silver Lightning Gundam and Max's own Templar Gundam…but it had this feeling of it being his…he walked over and traced his hands over the Gundam…realizing that it was in a hanger. He then turned and spotted several individuals, all of them seemed to be wearing Mobile Suit pilot uniforms…that were just like his.

Three of them walked over to him and the untransformed Freedom Gundam and called out to who was in the cockpit.

“Kira…come on out, we've got some work to do.”

Kyo looked up as he heard a sound of something being lowered and spotted a man wearing a full uniform and helmet, and he was about to see the man's face when he suddenly heard his own voice…the voice of him being younger.

“Dad!!!”

Kyo turned and saw himself when he was possibly around seven or eight years old, wearing a uniform and had a lap-top in hand.

The one named Kira moved past Kyo, not allowing the future Yamato child to see his father's face as he was looking at his past self, but saw his eyes for a brief moment, deep violet…a darker shade than his own blue-violet shade. The older man hugged his son warmly as the three others walked up to him and the two chatted…

Kyo decided to try and walk over to them and finally see his father's face but that was when his memory faded.

*************

End of Flashback…

Kyo was shaken out of his memories when he spotted Meia who was beside him, looking concerned. As soon as he cleared his head of the images of his father, he noted the look of concern on the aqua-haired girl's deep green eyes.

“What's wrong Meia?”

“I should be the one asking you that…you seemed so…distant.”

“Nothing…I just had a memory come back…it was short though.”

Meia looked concerned. Things like these were sometimes fun for Kyo, but others were difficult to bear for him since they sometimes brought back happy but short-lived memories.

“What did you recall now?” She asked him gently.

“I recalled that…my Gundam was not transformed before I got it and I saw my father, didn't see his face…but his eyes, they were in a deeper shade of violet, no doubt why I have blue-violet eyes, the violet shade was from my father and the blue shade is from my mother…since I can sense that my mother had deep blue eyes. I heard my father's name…from myself when I was younger…around seven or eight years old.”

“What was you're father's name?”

“Kira…my father's name was Kira.” Kyo said as he spoke the word, knowing that the name was truly his father's as he felt a good familiar sensation in him when he said the name.

He then recalled that among them who left, only Meia stayed behind with the others in the Council. This meant that he could now at least hope the results of the negotiations were favourable.

“How did the meeting with the Khudani go?”

*************

A few hours before, in the Council Room…

`The Earth intends to harvest us for their survival…and it was due to the event known as the Days of Despair?”

“Why would they do such a horrible thing?”

“Hold it…for all we know…all this is may just be a ruse, a story concocted by these outsiders.”

Magno looked at the Council member who spoke that, a thin man with a very devious and brooding look, who stared at her and her crew with distrust.

“My crew and I have been fighting the Harvesters for a year, just as you're people have sir, and we have nearly lost not once, not twice…but many times, and we all have scars from each battle, my crew have ALL come back from every battle with them alive…”

The older woman then looked at the man in question with a solemn and steely gaze.

“…so WHY would we lie to you?”

The Council had to admit that despite Magno's apparent age, considering she had a walking stick, she was not intimidated by anyone.

A woman with regal clothes, showing her to be a high ranking member of the Council broke in and looked at both Magno and the Council member.

“Speaker Gren, I would recommend that you wait and chose you're words carefully. This is a Council meeting to determine our actions concerning all this new data that points to the beings we considered aliens.”

She then spoke to Magno.

“Forgive Speaker' Gren's comments, though I myself do not completely believe it, I will not leap to accusing you and your crew as liars Captain Magno.”

Magno looked at the woman, she was young, similar to Fanita…but apparently spoke with more tact and understanding than the young priestess the elder woman had met a year before.

“Thank you…”

“My name is Leila Sandrel, Captain Magno, you may call me Leila if you wish.”

“Very well.”

“You and you're crew were pirates from Megele, am I correct?”

“Yes.”

“And that is a planet that is beyond the magnetic storms and debris belts that were in the path of the Ikazuchi…am I correct?”

“Yes…the Ikazuchi was able to make it through the debris belt and storms and arrived at two worlds, one which became the home-world of my crew and myself, the other became the home of the male members of my crew.”

“So the Ikazuchi wasn't lost…”

“Yes.”

Another Council member spoke, this time a member of the military.

“I understand that you and you're crew have been fighting the Harvesters for a year, according to you're records…how many ships do they possess, apart from the ones that are coming closer to us?”

“That number I am afraid is unknown…however, it is known that the invasion fleet summoned by the Harvesters is around forty or more battle-ships…and their new forces are now on the move, as you have seen, they have already laid waste to several human colonies before they unleashed this fleet of theirs. The fleet have now wiped out Melanos and rendered the people who lived there into refugees. If they arrive here…they will no doubt do the same to you're world, that is why…”

Another member of the military however stood up and glared.

“You propose to us that we abandon our world and let them take what they want from this world that is our home?! I would rather be dead than abandon this world, my grand parents, my parents, and my family have lived on Khudan for three generations!!!”

“Order!!!”

“He is right! We have to stand and fight! This is our world…no matter how many we may face in battle…we will not GIVE over our world to anyone!!!”

Magno stopped speaking as she waited for the people in the Council chamber to come to order, the last thing she wanted was to waste her energies shouting.

“This Council will come to order!!!”

As soon as things quieted down, the Council resumed it's work to try and plan out what the Khudani people would do in this dangerous time.

That was also when Arland requested permission to speak and when he was allowed to do so, he brought up the existence of `Project Helios'. This caused an even greater uproar and many people were chatting and shouting left and right about the existence of the black ops Mobile Suit program.

Arland then passed his own recommendation that the whole government considering the possible need for mass planetary evacuation, the Commander's predicted results of his statement were seen and heard as the radical ones in both the civilian and military sectors called him insane, and Speaker Leila and several other moderate officials were able to bring the situation to a peaceful resolution before tempers were ignited and words were said in haste, however, the people who were adamant in fighting the Harvester to the bitter end were still in deep discussion and the ones who were understanding of the situation were also deep in discussion.

When Magno spoke once more about the need to align with the Resistance and prepare for the inevitable invasion, it caused an even greater uproar, on one side was the war hawks and radicals who would not allow themselves to accept the proposal, since they were insistent to not abandon their world…even under such dark circumstances.

That was when the Council decided to deliberate more and make decisions, despite Magno's insistence that if they delay then the Harvesters would be on top of them soon. The Council however planned a resolution in two days. The crew of the Nirvana realized they had done all they could, and it was now up the Council what to do to ensure their people would survive these dark times ahead of them.

*************

In the Hanger…

“That's just what happened.” Meia said as she sat next to Kyo on a crate as he worked on his lap top, that was connected to his Gundam which was kneeling down so to limit the height that he had to climb, by a long connector cable to it's CPU. Kyo had a slight frown on his face.

“Half wants to stay and fight, not to mention discredit us and accuse us of being spies for the Harvesters, the other half partially believes us, yet can't accept the truth about the Harvesters, and the whole are still unsure of whether to join the Resistance….humph, typical.”

“Can you blame them? All of us back then couldn't believe it either when we learned that the Harvesters were from Earth and wanted our organs for their own survival. It's not easy to learn that your own fellow humans now want you dead and treat you like crops for their own survival. Not to mention, make the choice to abandon their homeland in order to survive.”

Kyo finished his work and gave Meia a calm stare.

“I'm not blaming them…I understand their reactions to the information that the Harvesters intend to hunt down our organs and kill all of us, not to mention their reluctance to leave their world in order to survive what is to come. It's just typical to me that not everyone is willing to listen to the truth. They've already seen what the Harvesters have done to not just others, but no doubt their own people. Every moment, every second, minute, and hour they spend debating will allow the Harvesters more time to come here and fight.”

“They do have solid defences Kyo…they may hold on and survive.”

Kyo shook his head…recalling the desperate last stand of the Melanos people the first time he met them, and what had happened to them when they fought with the invasion fleet. He then recalled the data concerning the worlds that had already been harvested by the Earth Force.

“Not against this kind of situation Meia…Melanos survived and so did other worlds…but they all survived due to the fact that they united their efforts, all sides of humanity, whether they followed the law or not banded together and pooled their resources and managed to hold their lines before the Invasion Fleet came on the scene…and with their new weapons, their other still existing forces and the Overlords…this is not something the Khudani can survive alone…I read some history and I know that in times such as this…humans have to stand united. The Harvesters don't care about where and who their victims are, all they see when they come to human colonies are organ farms and enemies to wipe out. You and I both know that for a fact…and you and I know what would have been our respective fates if we didn't work side by side on every battle, along with the others.”

Meia nodded…seeing quickly Kyo's logic on the situation they were all facing. Neither her or any member of her fellow pirates would be alive if they didn't work with the men, if Bart wasn't around, they would have been unable to move the ship and would be easy prey, plus none of them would be able to use the Nirvana's powerful plasma cannon batteries, without Duero and Max's medical expertise and skills, Paiway would have been overwhelmed with the casualties and injuries, many of them would not have recovered and suffered grievous injuries and losses, and Paiway would not have the new medical training to become a very skilled medical officer in the crew, outshining nurses on their world, without Aleck loaning his battle-field expertise with Kyo's training regime and his own formidable combat talents, the Crusaders would not be as proficient as they were now, with Kyo's training and Aleck's own experience, the women pilots would not be so skilled now.

And Kyo's contributions when they were working side by side were tremendous. He and his Gundam were the ace in the hand when they were side by side, he could inspire the others and turn the tide when it looked bleak, he trained her fellow women to use the once despised male Vanguards and turned them into a fierce fighting force that had Aleck, Duero, Max, and Bart impressed, all the men said that Sara and Mai's teams would have given even the best Vanguard squadrons on their planet a run for their money, he came up with strategies and moves that helped them many times, and gave ideas on what they could do, he undertook daring actions that if not done would have meant their defeat, he inspired the men and women on the Nirvana to work side by side and showed her and her fellow Megele comrades that men were not weak, cowardly, emotionless, stupid, and inferior with all he could do, he broke down their walls and showed them the power of humanity working as one. And he never left their side and fought with them with all he had.

She also knew of his contributions to their lives…he made Dita become stronger and mature, without losing her innocent and cheerful nature, he made Jura grow and become very capable than before, and to her…he was the only man who truly knew who she was and helped her break down the walls in her soul, and she knew that he too had a positive influence on many, he helped break Barnette's dislike for men and that helped pave a relationship between Barnette and Max, and he also helped Duero and Parfet. Kyo's contributions to the war on their side were absolute and she shuddered at what the outcome would have been had they not worked together.

If the Khudani people didn't stand alongside the other human colonies against the soon to come invasion fleet…they would not just be harvested…but wiped out.

“You're right, but we can't do much since the decision is in their hands, not ours. I guess we can now only wait and see the outcome. Hopefully, things will work out and the Khudani will be our allies…and that of the Resistance.”

Kyo nodded in agreement as he looked at the entire base of the Khudani, he then realized that he was rather hungry and it didn't take long for Meia's own stomach to tell both him and her that she too was hungry, since it was already dinner time. The pirates were allowed quarters in the same base that the two were in and Meia decided to head for the mess hall, Kyo however had other ideas as they spotted some of the bas personnel head off to eat, since it was already going to be night time.

“I'll grab me a meal right here.”

Meia was a bit puzzled by that comment and watched as Kyo activated the cockpit cable and as the durable, long cord came down, Kyo put his foot on the hard loop and was lifted up to his Gundam's cockpit, and Meia looked, wondering what meal Kyo would have in his Gundam's cockpit.

She didn't have to wait long as Kyo came back out a few minutes later, carrying a pair of rectangular containers in silver foil. Her curiosity was caught as Kyo went back to the floor and handed her one of the packages.

“What is this?”

Meia asked as she looked at the item was a very curious eye as Kyo sat down and smiled as he opened a side of the pack that was not connected to the main pack and took out a set of utensils.

“This is an MRE, I custom made those when I woke up the first time. You only know about these and how they are made if you were in the military. I relied on these packages of pre-cooked and preserved food when I was still out there in the cosmos. I know that since I know how they were made…I guess that would mean that I served in the military.”

Meia looked at Kyo, him being in the military in the past was a strong bit of information, that would explain his skills, knowledge, and battle-field tactics. If he had been fighting in his prior life before losing his memories in the military, that would explain his formidable skills as both a Gundam pilot and leader of the Crusader Squadron, plus his training as a hand to hand combatant, commando and soldier.

“Do you recall…that part of you're life clearly now?”

“Small pieces only, but they are very powerful to me; I fought with people who I knew were very close to me, I could feel that my father and uncle were part of the military too, not to mention my mother who was a singer and my aunt supported us. And…some close friends of mine were among them too…I can't really recall what I learned, nor how long I served in the military, but all those skills certainly helped keep me alive…so I have no regrets on that.”

Meia smiled at that, the teachers Kyo had in his military days certainly helped him a great deal in his travels.

Kyo then told her to get the utensils from the storage packet and then told her to remove the special heating strip to let the air in, once that was done, he told her to reseal it using the special sealing strip and let the meal cook for four minutes. The pack foil was made from reactive heating micro-foil, the micro-foil reacted with the air and the moisture particles located in the air, causing a rapid increase in temperature in the foil, heating up their and causing the pack to cook the meals in the tray, which had sections of heat retardant covering on the sides to ensure the person eating the meals didn't suffer burns from getting the food tray out of the pack once the foil cooled after four minutes.

As soon as four minutes passed, Kyo and Meia took out the trays and smelled the now cooked food. Meia's meal had hot potato slices, beef and mushrooms, with coleslaw and hot beef broth that was once in a cool gel form, but was now steaming hot, along with some small bread rolls. Kyo's own was composed of roasted venison, hot rice with small amounts of pepper, hot biscuits, and carrot sticks. They also got out some bottles of water and mixed some juice powder to make their drinks, while keeping the condiments and the coffee powder.

The two ate their meals and since the technology of making MREs had evolved, the problems and nicknames had faded well into nothing, not to mention the high dietary fibre content, along with taste and nutrition made these very worthwhile as the two ate their food, along with the added Talark nutrition pills.

It was then that Meia got word that Magno and the others were now in the base and were ready to bunk in for the night. Meia and Kyo nodded as Kyo put aside the tray and assured Meia that he will deal with the mess as the Gundam pilot then activated his Gundam's security lock to both the controls and his Gundam's OS. They could only hope that the days they would spend here won't be used by the Harvesters to attack them with their pants down, but they were alert anyway. Magno had left strict orders for the bridge crew to contact them the very minute they and the converted Harvester ship's sensors picked up the signals of the incoming Harvester battle-ships and their escorts.

*************

In space…

The 3rd Fleet determined that there was a viable warp path that they could take to attack Khudan more directly instead of taking the much longer route that would allow the Khudani enough time to mount an effective defense…it would cut down three days from the five day trip, and at full speed, they would catch the Khudani totally off guard and collect their quota of organs soon…and there was nothing that would stand before them.

Wasn't there?

*************

An hour later…

Kyo was having a rather disturbing sleep as he moved in the bed he was on. Apparently it was another one of those hormonally charged dreams of his, this time involving him with Dita and Meia…simultaneously.

Kyo got up and managed to adjust his eyes to the darkness, but had to close them again when the automatic lighting systems in his room kicked in and nearly blinded him. He swore a bit from the brightness and then called out a command…

“Lights…drop three shades!”

“Command accepted.”

The lights in his room began to tone down and the light intensity dropped per Kyo's voice activated commands, and then was at the level Kyo felt comfortable with. When he woke up suddenly, the lighting system's sensors responded and went a little too far in activating the light intensity, thus forcing Kyo to make the call.

As soon as Kyo felt his eyes adjust to his room's lighting level, he sighed and sat on his bed, shaking his head to clean the cobwebs in his head, along with trying to calm down his very much active libido as he was sweating and feeling hot, and flustered. He was still wearing a thin white under-shirt and shorts so it was hardly surprising that he was feeling a bit cold from the air in his room from the air conditioning system. However, the coolness helped calm his body in it's heated state. However, some more images of the latest dream flowed back into his brain and his body naturally reacted once more.

Deciding not to think about it, he decided to go to the nearby small refrigerator in his room and get a cool drink, as he did so, he then headed to his bath-room and splashed some cold water to his face to calm down, he decided to come out of his room for a bit and head for the nearby garden outside. Apparently the Khudani had an eye for both practicality and aesthetics when they made the park, it wasn't too showy but pleasant and was close enough for any on them in the second floor to reach.

Cradling his glass and his water, Kyo decided to try and get some cool, fresh air, it had been a while since he looked at the stars in some semblance of peace and quiet for once, back then, he rarely did so, before and after joining the Nirvana, sure he did do star-gazing, but they were constantly under threat of attack and despite the still underlying situation he did find a small semblance of peace in the scene…near the base was night time activity and the usual sounds of people moving through a city.

Kyo sighed once more as he looked at the decorations of the garden and drank his water as he sat on the ground, leaning back on a tree. Normally he was going to go back to sleep, he'd be in no condition to pilot his Gundam if he kept this kind of thing up, but after his hormones had decided to flood his brain with very stimulating images, he doubted sleeping with his mind and body the way they were now in currently was a healthy idea.

He was so pre-occupied by his looking to the stars that it was only when she called his name that he turned to see Meia looking him.

Meia was also awake, and if Kyo had the ability to be a telepath, he would have been shocked and somewhat pleased that he and Meia were very much in the same boat tonight. She too looked somewhat flustered as she held her glass. She realized that it had been a mistake to see that video in it's full length since she began having images of her and Kyo DOING IT whenever she was resting, just an hour ago, she had a VERY vivid dream once more with her and Kyo…

Meia also had undergone the same things Kyo had in her room when she woke up, she also used some cold water from her bath-room to cool down her face, she also had seen the garden and decided to got there and after getting a cool drink filled with ice, in order to calm down her heated imagination. Ever since she had seen the video in it's full entirety, Meia was really very tense and she had hoped to enjoy the cool, quiet night and just try to bleed out her body's excitement.

With that considered, it was natural that they were somewhat surprised to find each other in one place.

Kyo got up and looked at Meia, who had taken off her chest and shoulder padding and had on her normal multi-purpose suit. He was expecting her to have fallen asleep and wasn't expecting to see her here, especially when he had more vivid imaginings on the fact his hormones were on the high tonight. He however put those thoughts aside as he greeted her with a smile.

“Meia, nice to know that I'm not the only one up tonight.”

Realizing the double meaning of his statement, Kyo scratched his head and tried not to look foolish, and then asked Meia the question that bugged him.

“What made you wake up? I thought you were sound asleep by now.”

Meia merely gulped a bit and replied.

“Nothing really bad…just had a very…ah strong dream.”

“Nightmare?” Kyo asked in concern and curiosity, in all the times he had been close to the aqua-haired girl…he didn't quite peg her for the nightmare suffering kind, there were times she would react badly to memories of her past life as a street hood and fighter, but they didn't make her lunge out of bed screaming, like some of the people he had been with in his wandering days and when serving as a soldier.

Meia shook her head as she sat down on the ground, leaning on a rock next to the tree Kyo had sat on as the Gundam pilot went back into sitting on his former spot next to the tree.

“No…it wasn't a nightmare…but it was very…intense.”

Meia blushed as she recalled the very vivid images and it made her all the more aware of Kyo's state of dress…and hers, she HAD seen him in less clothing…AND she had seen him NAKED…but back then she wasn't totally aware of her feelings of attraction and was unaware of why she had this desire to be so close to him, it had gotten stronger when they bonded and had time for themselves and after seeing the video…that desire was getting stronger by the second…even more so since he was here.

Kyo nodded and both of them merely set there, looking at the stars as they drank their water, they may have looked calm to anyone willing to be up at this time of night and would see them…but they were far from being calm and collected. Inside, they were very tense and agitated, due to the thick sexual tension between them and the urge to do something about it, and the respective need to not try anything to surprise and shock one another.

Meia knew Kyo cared for her, and her fellow pirates, and he did admit he cared about her in a very special way, after all he had done for her, namely on her birthday celebration. But she was still somewhat unsure about whether she cared for him that deeply. She also knew about how much the others cared for him, namely her fellow Gundam pilots Dita and Jura, along with Sara and Mai, but there was no doubt about her feelings towards Kyo and the viewing of the video just made that a lot harder to ignore…so before she could stop herself she decided to ask him an important question.

“Kyo…”

“Yes?” Kyo looked at her as she seemed to be wanting to talk to him, right now, he hoped to defuse the situation before the tension got to him and her. He did like Meia…and he did have very strong feelings for her, but didn't know if she felt the same about him…and the fact that he had deep feelings for Dita, Jura, Sara, and Mai made this situation VERY sensitive to discuss. He didn't want to make Meia sad and angry, and he certainly didn't want to guess how Meia would react if she found out the very intimate situations he had been in with Dita and Jura.

“I…wanted to know…how you would feel if I told you…”

“Told me what?”

Both Kyo and Meia had already drank their iced water and the liquid did cool them off a bit, but the tension was there and the cold water was waging a stalemate with their hormonal urges. Kyo turned and saw Meia bathed in moon-light…and since she was in her suit without the padding, he could see her full slender form, and couldn't help but admire how Meia looked in moon-light, namely when it gave emphasis to her aqua-coloured hair and cream complexion…despite the presence of her circlet.

Meia likewise saw Kyo bathed in moon-light…and something about it made her very aware of her attraction to him. Just like Kyo who admired her form and looks in the light of the moon, Meia was happy to see Kyo's face, that did have a light tan, but was pleasing to the eyes, his dark brown hair was like brown silk and his unique blue-violet eyes were given greater prominence by the light. She liked what she saw.

Meia managed to realize in time that she had not answered Kyo's question and hesitantly asked him what she wanted to ask for quite a bit of time, she then got a bit closer to her, this was urged on by her feminine side, while her rational side told her to go back…however, her basic female nature was winning over rationality rather early.

“If I told you that…I like you, more than the normal way a woman likes a friend. I like you because of all the things you've gone for us, but most of all…for me, and I want to thank you for that.”

Kyo didn't say anything at the moment, trying to digest and make sense of what exactly was happening, and as soon as he got most of it down in his mind he spoke calmly as he could.

“Thank you Meia, I like you as well…and I am happy that you place me in such high regard, despite how we first met.”

“I want to show you how much I like you…if you let me.” Meia said shyly as she drew closer to Kyo. She heard her rational side shouting to her not to do this, this would change everything between her and Kyo the minute she did it, but her more feminine side told her that it was high time she was honest about her affections towards Kyo, and now was a good a time as any.

Kyo was about to asked what Meia meant by that, but got his answer as Meia kissed him...the intimate contact silenced him, at least physically, but his brain was already running through all that has happened and before he could do anything, his mental defences began to fall down…exposing his more primal emotions and his own feelings for Meia, those he kept hidden for the time being were now being unleashed.

Meia thought that she might have made a mistake at first when Kyo stiffened and she wondered if she had pushed her luck too far with Kyo, and doubts began to fill her mind about her actions. Those were dispelled when Kyo reached out to her and embraced her, her feminine side screamed for joy as she decided to deepen their kiss. In truth...Meia was already familiar with sex, being on the street most of her life…but this was a new life for her, being with the pirates and there was no denying the fact that this in her mind was an absolute first since Kyo was a man…she had seen the video and saw just how…compatible a man and a woman were in the act of love…and naturally, she wondered if Kyo and her would be in the same boat.

She was about to find out.

Kyo deepened the kiss, and with his tongue prodding her lips gently and lightly nipping at her to get her ready for the more physical parts. Meia complied and slowly opened her mouth, she had done this before and knew the proper responses, but this was still different, she wasn't doing this just to satisfy an urge, not partially anyway, but there was a difference there with kissing a man, though she didn't know why. And as soon as both their tongues touched one another, the two began to taste and feel each other's mouth, both moaning at the same time.

Kyo took it a step further as his now hormone induced senses reached out with his hands and got to the hidden zipper of Meia's suit, though he did have some difficulty in locating it, Meia sensed his problem and without breaking their kiss, she reached down and guided him to where the zipper was, and once Kyo found that, he zipped her suit open… parting the suit half-way, exposing only the front of Meia's form, her breasts however were still in their confines.

Meia sadly broke the kiss and then began to remove her gloves and then began to try and remove the upper parts of her body suit, and Kyo was more than happy to help her, they removed the suit, and that revealed a large portion of Meia's form and showed her wearing what appeared to be a light cream white strapless bra, that showed her breasts without being too showy. And before Kyo could even react to the already arousing sight, Meia took it one more step further as she removed her circlet, gently placing it aside and then reached in front of her bra and released her breasts from the confines of her bra, apparently they had gotten bigger since she had changed her diet somewhat, while still being slim and strong in all the right places, a very sexy form.

Kyo looked at Meia, she was blushing, sweating, panting, with half her suit open and without her bra… showing her gorgeous upper form bare of any covering, that plus the cool colour given to her by the moon-light made Kyo's now lust fogged brain go on overdrive as he visually devoured her form.

Meia however took the initiative and reached out to Kyo, kissing him once more…just she had seen the woman do in the video with her partner. She kissed him even more, showing a more aggressive side as she nearly knocks Kyo down to the ground, Kyo however wasn't easily knocked over and helped Meia as she broke the kiss to remove his shirt, leaving him only clothed in his shorts. Meia wasted no time as she and Kyo kissed and then began to touch one another, Kyo ran his hands on her sides and her flat stomach and then her breasts, playing with the soft and firm mounds and teasing her areolas and nipples, making them sensitive and hard, and making Meia moan in pleasure.

Kyo began kissing Meia's cheeks and then the smooth column of her neck as the two of them were sitting on the ground and Meia was leaning on the cool surface of the rock, as Kyo continued his ministrations on Meia…the moans she released were very appealing to Kyo who intensified his actions. He then went to her chest and began to kiss Meia's right breast, gently sucking and licking her sensitive mound, while playing gently with the other breast with his hands.

Meia then managed to catch Kyo off guard as she leaned forward and managed to finally knock Kyo to his back on the grass of the park. Despite this sudden change of position, it hardly bothered Kyo as he continued his actions on Meia, making sure not to accidentally hurt Meia with his teeth and speed. That consideration was felt by Meia… that is if she could filter out the pleasure she was feeling as she held Kyo closer as he continued.

As soon as he was done with her right breast, he went to her left, while one of his hands ran through her hair, making Meia moan louder. As soon as Meia moaned and arched her body towards him, Kyo kissed her deeply, while her breasts rubbed sensually on his chest.

Meia knew in her heart that she was going to be getting into serious trouble with some of her fellow pirates, namely Jura, Dita, Sara, and Mai. They had feelings for Kyo just as she did, and considering the intense closeness of Dita and Jura to him, she had a feeling they had already managed to confess how they felt and he seemed to have kindly responded to them. She didn't admit it, but she was somewhat jealous of them being able to do what she had not done in nearly a year…but now, even with the possibility of being caught by anyone and risking being treated with shock and anger by her closest friends and fellow Gundam pilots, this was one encounter she would treasure with every fibre of her being. She revelled in the sensations and made several mewling and moaning sounds that showed just how much she loved his actions on her form.

Kyo likewise knew that he was really putting his neck out on the chopping block on this one. If Dita and Jura found out about this, he knew that things were going to be a seriously dangerous mess once that did happen. Just like before, he was not in the mood to see the crew divided once more. Namely when he was involved in it…despite his reasoning at the moment, his hormones were in the front of the driver's seat…and his body certainly wasn't complaining in the least as he moved away from Meia's breasts and kissed her deeply.

Both moaned deeply at the intensity of the kiss they had and the taste as well.

However…like all good things…this too had to end…however, not by either of them...

As they were getting more heated, their smaller model communicators came online. Both of them always kept their communicators close just to be on the safe side of things, and if ever important and unexpected situations would suddenly pop out of nowhere, though these were smaller so they won't be suddenly confiscated for different or no reasons. They didn't plan on being caught off guard…and now for a brief moment, they each wondered if their decision to carry the smaller ones was a mistake. Both managed to get their clothes back on and that was when Meia spoke in her communicator. It was Buzam…

“Commander?” Meia asked as she managed to get half of her suit back on and half zipped up.

“Tell Kyo and the others to get ready to head back to the Nirvana ASAP!”

“What's going on?!” Kyo asked as he looked at his own communicator with his shirt on.

“The Khudani forces on the outside of the planet have detected the Harvester battle-ships and their forces…they were able to avoid the larger bulk of the patrols and are right now three hours away from here!! The defense fleets been depleted since they are heading back on their routine patrols outside of the planet's range, they already are too far away to help their defense forces left in the area. If we don't help them soon, Khudan will be attacked.”

Both pilots realized that this was a serious situation. The Harvesters had caught the Khudani totally off guard, and if they were able to overwhelm the defense force of the planet, then this world and all of it's inhabitants would be harvested and the planet rendered life-less…and that would leave the Khudani homeless and broken.

Kyo then spoke to Meia as they rushed back to their rooms to get into their clothes.

“You and the others get to the Nirvana and power up your Gundams, I'll go ahead in mine and help the defense fleet out!”

Meia nodded as she rushed to wake up the others. Once they were all ready to leave, they saw Kyo as he was now heading to the hanger where his Infinite Freedom Gundam was…since it had the power to leave a planet without boosters, the Gundam could reach the battle-field quickly and hold the line until they themselves get on the scene.

As the pirates got on the shuttle to return to the Nirvana, Kyo, who was now dressed up in his combat/survival/pilot uniform got into his Gundam and began to power up his systems, he activated the OS and began to warm up the systems for combat and scanned through, making sure that there had been no tampering with his Mobile Suit. Finding none, he then activated the switch that turned on the Prominence Phase Shift Armour.

The Gundam's still gun metal grey colour scheme faded away in a hiss and a slight burst of Paeksis energy and was replaced with red, white, and blue colours, the same it always had before and after the transformation into the Infinite Freedom Gundam. The Mobile Suit fired up it's engines and with a powerful burst of thrust the machine took to the sky like a missile fired from a launching point, the wings then unfolded and in that moment, the Paeksis crystal feathers erupted and streaks of Paeksis energy followed the Gundam like falling feathers of light as the Mobile quickly flew past the oncoming traffic and into the atmosphere and was now surpassing it.

Kyo began to run through his weapons and saw that all of his weapons were ready, he took out both his beam rifles and was now heading to the Nirvana, just as the shuttle that the others were in landed in the Nirvana a few minutes earlier.

From the pirate ship came the Dreads as the women got into combat mode, and from another launcher bay came the Crusaders as the female Mobile Suit pilots got out and got ready to fight, in the lead were Sara and Mai in their respective Mobile Suits. Kyo knew that it would be a bit before Meia and the others were in their Mobile Suits to go into the fight.

He immediately began to organize the lines of his squadron as the military forces of the Khudani were still half-way ready, however there were already two ships getting ready to fight, Arland's Snow Lance and Joseph's own ship got into combat position as their fighters began to be unleashed.

*************

In space… a short distance before the planet of Khudan…

The Harvester battle-ships began to unleash their Seed Ships, now that they were in combat position, they would form their lines and use their Cube Fighters to strip away the defences of the human world, and since the vast portion of their fleet was now no longer present, it would be less trouble for them, with their world harvested and with no other place to hide once they were unable to contact their planet, they would have an easy time wiping out the Khudani and harvesting them, they already had managed to jam long range ship to ship communications thus there was no way for the home defense fleet and garrison to call for back-up.

Thousands of Cube Fighters were unleashed by the two ships, along with large numbers of Seed Ships, Urchin Ships, a collection GunDread Clones, and a few of the Dominion Gundam units, these were of the same design to the ones that had been used on the desert planet a few weeks before. These units however were kept on the rear since the CPUs of the Harvester Battle-ships have determined that at this moment, that the Khudani would have nothing to counter the exact numerical advantage their forces had over them.

It was only when they scanned and detected a certain set of contacts…and one in particular that their tone changed.

The CPU's determined the signals of…Megele designed and built Dreads, a powerful pirate/colony cruiser, modified Talark Vanguard Mobile Suits, and a certain Paeksis enhanced Gundam. The CPUs were suddenly thrown into strategic and tactical disarray as they detected the Nirvana pirates, and realized that their creators' worst enemies were now part of the Khudani defense fleet!

Immediately the CPUs began modifying their attack vectors and plans to include the disturbing data, they had already determined that out of all the forces, the Nirvana pirates were the worst threat…but most of all the Paeksis powered Gundam of Kyo Yamato was of primary concern and was a high priority target, it and it's pilot had to be destroyed immediately, if not, then they would be suffering severe losses from their engagement. This required the unleashing of their Dominion and GunDread Clone units and they would focus on slaying the Gundam unit…all other forces were secondary, though the CPUs had yet to determine the full combat effectiveness of the new Vanguard models and their abilities since it seemed that the Talark made machines had undergone a serious transformation.

*************

Back on Khudan…namely in high command…

“Are you saying that ALL long range ship communications have been jammed?!” One of the female Khudani officers asked the operators in the Command Centre's Communication Network.

“Yes ma'am! The Harvesters have been jamming all our attempts to send out a wide ship to ship band distress call! There's no chance to recall all our forces to act as our reinforcements.”

“There must be a way to contact them!” Another officer said as he also worked on the consoles in the Command Centre, trying to find a communication frequency to bypass the jamming fields created by the Harvester Fleet that was cutting away their communications.

The entire command structure of the Khudani people was thrown in absolute disarray. Their fleets had been able to return home for repairs, re-supply, and re-arm for their return to the battle-zone. But now the enemy had brushed past their defences and caught them all with their pants down. Their fleet officers were unaware of the warp field that was used by the Harvesters and they believed that they could hold the line for a while once their forces would be called back as reinforcements to ensure that they would not be easily taken down by the Harvesters.

But now…all they had planned was useless since they could no longer call for reinforcements and their forces were not totally sufficient to fight off an invasion force. Namely when they were not expecting a serious surprise attack.

“No sir! The jamming field is blocking many of our attempts to contact the fleets and even if we can contact them…the sheer number of the enemy units will mean that we might be wiped out before they get here!”

That was when they got a communiqué from the Nirvana, namely from Captain Magno.

“My crew and I will help you deal with the Harvesters, keep trying to contact you're fleets until you do.”

Council member Leila came on the line and spoke to Magno.

“I speak for those who are here on Khudan, and even those who are not among the Council that we appreciate you're support and aid, but you have to warn other planets…”

“No…we will not abandon fellow humans to the Harvesters.” The old woman said in reply as she and her fellow pirates got ready to fight with the Harvesters.

“But how will you…”

“Trust us.”

*************

In the battle-line…

“Sara…take part of the squadron to one side and support the left flank.”

“Roger!!” Sara then signalled her part of the squadron to follow her lead, she then contacted Parfait who began sending deployment orders for Form Pack units to be launched by the Register. The Register activated the specially made Launcher system as the Form Packs were set, their homing systems now locked into the transponder signals of the Crusader pilots, and in a minute or two, the Form Packs flew out and were guided by the their smart magnetic patches and began to lock in with their respective Mobile Suits.

There were Crusaders in Sara's unit that had the Kaiser, Aero, and Galahad Form Packs on them as the units combined with their assigned users, they were not only going to provide security on the left flank, but also provide heavy fire support. Sara took out both her Mobile Suit's cannons and got ready to fire once the battle started.

Kyo then directed Mai and her team to the right flank, to provide right flank security for the battle. Mai nodded as she and her comrades began to call in the Form Packs that they would need in this fight. The Form Packs that were released were the Schneider, Galahad, and Aero form packs, they were to mix up considerable long to mid range fire-power with deadly close combat skill, thus they would also work with the others as close security detail.

Another batch of the Crusader Mobile Suits however were armed with the modified Koenig and Raiha Form Packs and were scattered evenly in Sara and Mai's units and also near the Nirvana…their job was to provide sniper and electronic support o both the Nirvana and the squadrons. And along with each squadron were a mix of the Crusader Mobile Suits that were based from Barnette's SwitchBlade Gundam and Max's Templar Gundam…both Mobile Suit variants and their pilots were more than ready for a fight alongside their comrades in both Mobile Suit and Dread.

Naturally, both units could change their Form Packs quickly by releasing the first Form Pack in use and the unit would be easily returned to the Nirvana via the OS and thruster units installed in the weapon system itself. The OS would then allow the released Form Pack to return to the Nirvana, while the new one, now programmed with the data of the Mobile Suit it was being sent to will home in and dock quickly.

The Crusader Mobile Suits and their pilots got ready for the fight as they merged with their fellow pilots in the Dreads.

Kyo got out his Gundam's beam rifles and began to check up his teams to see if they were all in good combat formation, he then nodded as he detected the arrival of Max's Templar Gundam, Aleck's GUiAZ, Barnette's Dread, and Dita, Jura, and Meia's Gundam units. Barnette took the lead of the Dread squadrons and they were ready.

Beside them came the Nirvana and the rest of the Khudani Space Force, all of their fighters and ships were scrambled for battle as their weapon systems and defensive installations were fully operational…now all they could do was wait.

*************

The Harvesters unleashed their forces, with their GunDread Clones and Dominion Gundams in the lead…a large number of GunDread Jura Clones activated their shields and covered the Dominion Gundams, along with a pair of Seed Ships, since there were a limited number of GunDread Clones, it wasn't very surprising to see the remainder of the Harvester units to just charge at the mines while the shielded ones led the charge through the mine-field. The mines activated their attack protocols and attacked the Cube Fighters, the Cube Fighters didn't even fire their blasters at the mines, but charged mindlessly into the fray…regardless of the results of their actions.

The results were obvious as Cube Fighters were shredded by the exploding mines, the mines were spaced evenly to reduce the risk of one mine wiping out the rest of the mines in a chain reaction explosion and that was enough as more Cube Fighters were reduced to rubble…however the mines were not going to be enough as the Harvesters still had numbers on their side, not to mention the GunDread Jura Clones were at the fore-front of the attack, their shields defending them from the incoming enemy mines and protecting their charges. The other GunDread Clones were not far behind as the Harvester battle-ships also came into the fray, and were also releasing many supporting Seed Ships.

Once the explosion settled the Harvesters had lost a large portion of their forces from the mines, but that was only a part of their support fleet as the full might of the Harvesters came to bear on both the pirates and the Khudani.

The pirates were led by Kyo, Sara, Mai, and Barnette as their machines charged into the fight…

Beam bolts, missiles, solid weapon fire was unleashed in a firestorm of combat as the forces collided.

The Battle for Khudan 7 had begun…

*************

In the forefront of the battle…

“TAKE THIS!!!!”

Kyo shouted as he used one of his anti-ship swords to cleave in half a Seed Ship as it was about to unleash more Cube Fighters, the burning wreck barely at time to die out as Kyo unleashed his CIWS guns on both the head and shoulders of his Gundam to slice down more Cube Fighters that tried to attack him. He then swung the sword as a GunDread Dita Clone tried to attack him, the GunDread Blocked the attack but got a face full of energy darts from Kyo's Gundam is it aimed it's right arm at the face. The explosions ripped the GunDread Clone's head off, allowing the Infinite Freedom to send it's anti-ship sword crashing into it and cleaving it in half.

Kyo then placed back his anti-ship sword and took out his beam rifles and began to unleash blast after blast of beam fire from the energy weapons, wiping out several Cube Fighters that tried to attack him and then got into a shooting duel with several more Cube Fighters and one Dominion Gundam. The Cube Fighters tried to shoot down Kyo, but the pilot moved his Mobile Suit in a very quick and evasive pattern, weaving past explosions and the beam fire from the Gundam as they tried to take him out. The Paeksis powered Gundam flipped upside down and both plasma cannons and rail-guns, along with the CIWS guns, the barrage shredded the Cube Fighters while the Dominion Gundam was able to use it's shield to block the shots, and it's Phase Shift Armour protected it from the explosions of it's destroyed allies.

It was about to retaliate and move away it's shield, but was unaware that the Gundam it was fighting had charged into the fight and when the shield was out of the way…the Dominion Gundam had it's shield arm slashed off by one of the I-Freedom's beam sabers, and as it was about to strike back, the Paeksis powered Gundam dodged the attack and slashed with both beam sabers…severing the last arm and then the Dominion was stabbed through the chest and the beam saber that punctured it also skewered the power plant. The I-Freedom jetted away as the Dominion Gundam exploded. The Cube Fighters continued to try and shoot Kyo down, but the pilot dodged and weaved from the attacks of the Harvesters. It was then that Kyo decided to send them a reply for all the shots fired at him.

“MY TURN!!!”

He activated the HiMAT system and began to target all of the Cube Fighters before him and once they were locked on, the plasma cannons, and rail-guns extended forward, and the crystal feathers of his Gundam broke into their metallic form and were unleashed from their moorings and were now aiming at the masses of Cube Fighters along with the GunDread Clones in the area.

The massive wave of beam fire from the I-Freedom caught many of the Harvesters off guard…squadrons of Cube Fighters ere reduced into scrap…several GunDread Clones, namely of the Dita and Meia variety were either severely damaged and lost limbs…or were flat out destroyed…Two GunDread Jura Clones survived by using their shields but that was not going to save them as when they deactivated the shields…that was at the exact same moment that the Paeksis powered Gundam of the Nirvana and it's pilot attacked…it's beam sabers released.

The Gundam attacked the first…it's beam saber skewering the GunDread Clone right on the head and then ripped out the beam saber and slashed off the mandibles of the second GunDread Jura clone as the first exploded behind him. As soon as the second GunDread Jura clone was damaged, The I-Freedom placed aside both it's beam sabers and took out both beam rifles…shooting the GunDread clone at point blank range…reducing it to scrap as he jetted away, firing more and more shots from his beam rifles as more Cube Fighters attempted to destroy him.

The Dreads, under Barnette's leadership took advantage of the still existing formation of two Crusaders for each Dread and their previous battle-field experience with the Cube Fighters as they devastated the ranks of the Harvesters with their beam cannons and missiles. The pilots had been hardened by the year's worth of battles with the Harvesters and knew the weak points of the Cube Fighters and were now using the knowledge to deadly effect as they were supported by their fellow women who were piloting their Crusader Mobile Suits. Due to many of the Dreads gaining the needed weapon upgrades, navigational instrument upgrades and shielding, thruster systems, armour, energy shields, and more from their alliance with the Resistance and good Megele hardware and software…the Dreads were now able to even up the odds somewhat.

The Crusaders, being a mix of various combat roles were really devastating as they attacked. Those using the Aero Form pack used their beam rifles and solid projectile weaponry, the Kaiser used all of their beam cannons, rail-guns, and missile to even up the odds. The ones wielding the Schneider and Galahad used their weapons to deadly effect as they cut down the Cube Fighters. The ones armed with the Koenig and Raiha Form Packs were also unleashing chaos as they went at it. Those units armed with the Koenig used the animated holograms that did not have Mirage Colloid to the distract their foes and leave them open for attacks and the Raiha Form Pack users were able to shut down the CPUs of their foes and also cause intense damage with their other armaments. The Crusaders that borrowed Max's Templar Gundam designs were flying all over the place and unleashing barrages of weapons-fire from their plasma cannons and rail-guns, though they didn't have the advanced and Paeksis enhanced HiMAT system Kyo's Infinite Freedom Gundam had, or the same HiMAT system of Dita's own Gundam Mobile Suit. The normal version of the HiMAT design gained from Max's Templar Gundam was more than enough to help out. The Crusader Mobile Suits with this system were able to move faster and fire at multiple targets…a serious boon to even up the odds in the numbers game with the Harvesters. The Crusader units based from Barnette's SwitchBlade Gundam were a vast add on to the forces…their pilots were in awe at how fast they could get from one battle site to the next once they were in Mobile Armour mode…it reminded those who were once Dread pilots on how it was like when they flew their first Dread in both training simulations and then to the real thing. They also loved the way the Crusader variant they were piloting could convert into Mobile Suit form…allowing them to use the full power of the Mobile Suit in conjunction with the abilities of the first Mobile Armour form. The speed and dog-fighting ability of the Mobile Armour form and the flexibility and power of the Crusader variant was very invigorating to the girls as they pushed it to the limits as they helped move from one hot-spot to another in mere minutes…which could mean either the success or failure of a strike force.

Sara and Mai were also doing rather well in the fight as they each used the customized Crusader Mobile Suits to deadly effect as they led their respective squadrons into battle.

Sara blasted down several incoming Cube Fighters with several precise shots before using her Mobile Suit's beam saber to cut down an incoming Cube Fighter that tried to attack her. Another Cube Fighter came at her and she was able to aim her cannons and jam both of them into the Cube Fighter's body and fired at point blank range…the explosion didn't damage her Mobile due to the inclusion of Phase Shift and the Laminated Armour plating that was strategic areas for defense. She then fought with a GunDread Jura Clone that blocked her shots with it's shield, but the Elsman girl wasn't in the mood to give up as she took out her Mobile Suit's sonic resonance sword and when the shield was down, tossed the weapon like a throwing knife and hit the GunDread Clone right in the eye. Once the thing was distracted, Sara charged and took out the weapon and fired both combined weapons into the eye of the GunDread clone and it was blown to pieces from the blast as the weapons ravaged the insides of it's body. Sara then went back into the fight as she and her comrades bombarded the ranks of the Harvesters.

Mai took out her Crusader's anti-ship sword and cut down a trio of Cube Fighters and then took out an anti-armour knife and tossed it into the cannon eye of a Cube Fighter, She then used her beam rifle and CIWS guns to take out several more Cube Fighters as she dodged their attacks though with some effort. As soon as the looked at the debris she had to move as a GunDread Meia clone came at her…she knew that there was no way for her to win a chase with the GunDread clone in terms of speed so she preferred to dodge the attacks and wait for an opening to present itself to her. The GunDread Clone certainly still had the original GunDread Meia's speed and had a lot of combat data archives to support it, but it was not familiar with the new Crusader Mobile Suits despite their slight similarity to the Talark made Vanguard units the women used to pilot in the previous battles the Harvesters had…but since this unit didn't have any data on the Crusaders, it considered them nothing more than mere toys and decided to finish Mai off with a pass…Mai however had learned some moves from Kyo and waited for the GunDread clone to get closer and as the machine was close enough, she reversed the thruster engines of her Crusader Mobile Suit…allowing the GunDread clone to fly over her and expose it's undercarriage to her and her anti-ship sword and the weapon ripped right into the GunDread clone…and since it couldn't stop in time…the damage was extensive on the unit. The machine screamed in pain as it flew away…and then there was a line of melted metal below it as it exploded. Mai then took her beam rifle and began to fire at more Cube fighters as she led her squadron into the battle.

Aleck's GUiAZ Mobile Suit had a new assault rifle in it's arsenal and he also carried a spare beam rifle…just to be on the safe side since after he lost his first assault rifle to the beam tomahawk of an Overlord weeks before. The elder Talark pilot used his years of training had his current combat experience to it's full power as he dodged the incoming blasts and blocked with his shield the ones he could not dodge…the bullets from his assault rifle ripped apart more Cube Fighters, but that was when a GunDread Dita Clone tried to take out the elder male…the pilot kept his calm and aimed…unleashing a torrent of bullets that shredded off the cannon on the shoulder of the GunDread Clone. The GunDread clone closed in and attack, but was blocked by the GUiAZ' assault sword.

The two fought on as the GunDread Clone continued to attack the Talark male's Mobile Suit while he was using his assault sword and it was using it's fore-arm blade to try and slice the GUiAZ unit into nothing but confetti. Aleck timed himself and when the GunDread Clone stabbed at him, he made his Mobile Suit dodged and slashed downwards on the arm of the GunDread Clone and as the arm was sliced off, he moved aside and stabbed the Harvester unit right in the back. He then ripped out his Mobile Suit's assault sword and placed the weapon back and took out his assault rifle and reloaded a spare clip into it and went back into the fight.

Barnette flew in and began to unleash a barrage of missiles that took out several more Cube fighters as she flew through the debris. As she did so, several Cube Fighters came at her and fired their blasters, the green haired Dread/Gundam pilot moved her Dread to dodge the incoming fire and waited as the Cube Fighters were locked on and the pilot then unleashed her fighter's weapons, destroying several of them and moved away as more tried to take her out. She then led the Dreads to drive a firing wedge into the lines of the Harvesters.

It was also when the three Gundams piloted by Jura, Meia, and Dita came on the scene…along with Max's Templar Gundam as well…all four of them flew alongside Kyo just as the Gundam pilot destroyed another batch of Cube Fighters.

Meia took her Gundam beam rifle and expanded her shield…using the shield to block incoming weapons-fire…the aqua-haired girl lined her target sights carefully and took down more Cube Fighters. Once several were reduced to scrap, the aqua-haired girl activated the Paeksis crystals on her Gundam and in a moment a corona of energy surrounded her Gundam and she then pushed her Mobile Suit to full power and smashed into the enemy ranks at high speed, several squadrons of Cube Fighters were torn apart or blown to pieces by the attacking Gundam with the power of a beam cannon bolt fired at high speed, as soon as she was able to deactivate this feature, she too unleashed another surprise…and unleashed the plasma cannons and rail-guns of her own Gundam and reduced even more forces into scrap, she then faced an Urchin Ship that tried to rip her Gundam apart with it's spines but she wasn't going to give up now as she blocked the attacks with her shield . As soon as she was able to block the attacks she used the special energy field once more to move past the Urchin Ship and as it fired it's spines, the spines were destroyed by the energy field and bounced off her Gundam's Prominence Phase Shift Armour. She then retracted her shield and took out both her beam katanas and slashed the Urchin ship into confetti, and it wasn't able to do anything as the Gundam had closed the gap and it was bare of any spines for defensive reactions. Meia then cut down more Cube Fighters as she went back into the fight.

Jura blocked the incoming weapons-fire from the Cube Fighters with her Gundam's shields, as soon as she absorbed enough weapon energy she unleashed barrages of the energy in quick bursts to wipe out several batches of Cube Fighters and even destroyed a few Seed Ships and Urchin ships as well. She then took out her anti-ship swords and ignited their beam edges and cut down not only several Cube Fighters but the blonde pilot cut down several Seed Ships as well. The Ships tried to release more Cube Fighters but those were also cut down by the swords of Jura's Gundam. A pair of GunDread Dita Clones attacked her with their cannons, but after seeing what her Gundam could do to energy fire…they decided to go on melee mode and charge at her. She placed away her anti-ship swords and took out her beam sabers, and assumed the basic fencing stance…even if she had not fought two opponents before. The first was foolish enough to try and charge, Jura guided her Gundam into blocking each attack and with a block and parry, introduced her second beam saber into the stomach of the GunDread Clone and with one lift of her Gundam's arm, the beam saber ripped through the GunDread Dita Clone and the Clone exploded. The second one continued to attack ferociously at her as she blocked the attacks with both shields and beam sabers, Jura then aimed her beam cannons and heavy machine guns at her foe's body, causing severe damage the GunDread Clone in the body and then she decapitated the Clone with one powerful slash from her beam saber. Jura piloted her Gundam fight off more of the incoming Cube Fighters and attacked them when they came too close…her skills having already improved due to the training Kyo had given.

Dita was using her Gundam's own beam sabers as she fought off the Cube Fighters, the still bubbly redhead kept her head together and focused on her performance…not wanting to lose to the bad aliens, and leaving behind her Mr. Alien (no need to wonder who that is.), she then used her Gundam's rail-guns to damage several Seed Ships and then took out her beam rifles after placing aside her beam sabers. She then fired several beam bolts at her targets…causing even more damage to her foes…spotting a large number of Cube Fighters and a GunDread Dita Clone, she then activated the HiMAT system of her Gundam and began to lock in on all of the present targets…in that same moment the Super DRAGOON beam cannons fly off of her Gundam and then she unleashed a combined blast from her Gundam's rail-guns, beam rifles, and abdomen cannon…the resulting strike wipes out or severely damages to the Cube Fighters and also severely damages the GunDread Dita Clone and Dita then combines her beam rifles to form the beam cannon and fired a powerful beam to destroy the remaining Cube Fighters that were damaged along with the GunDread Dita Clone that had only lost one arm and the shoulder cannon. The powerful beam blast destroyed the GunDread Dita Clone as Dita returned her beam rifles and took out her beam saber and activated her shield emitter as she went back into the fight.

Max piloted his Templar Gundam carefully, using his newly crafted shield to block the incoming weapons-fire from the Harvester forces. He then used his beam rifle and his Gundam's own rail-guns and plasma cannons to open fire a full stream of destructive force at the incoming Cube Fighters and Urchin Ships…the Cube Fighters are destroyed by the attack and only the Urchin ship is still functioning, Max draws out his beam saber as the ship fires it's spines at the Gundam, he blocks the attacks and the rest were thankfully deflected by the Phase Shift Armour of his Gundam…he used the shield to block more spines and as he got close enough, he tossed the shield aside and guns the engines to full speed, catching the Urchin ship off guard and takes out both beam sabers and slashes the eye of the Urchin Ship…crippling it's ability to locate him, Max then pulls upward and after placing back his beam sabers, flies his Gundam upside down and activates the plasma cannons and destroys the Urchin Ship and then moves to pick up his shield and take out his beam rifle to continue the fight.

The Nirvana also gets involved in the fight as Bart began to use the Nirvana's plasma cannon batteries and quickly targets the Seed Ships in order to slice down the number of reinforcements the Harvesters had on hand…they knew already the basic and unchanged tactics involving Seed Ships, they were to provide the reinforcements to the front lines at regular intervals and thus they were the big threat. Bart took his time and when the timing was just right, the bald navigator unleashes a powerful wave of destructive plasma beams that overwhelm the Cube Fighters…wiping out more and more of them and allowing the pirates and the Khudan both some breathing room and a chance to counter attack. The pirates and the Khudani waste no time and cause more damage to the Harvesters, despite the returning rush of Cube Fighter and Urchin Ship reinforcements.

Kyo unleashes more attacks with both beam rifles and CIWS guns as he blasts past a large number of Cube Fighters, leaving behind massive debris and wrecks all over the place. The Gundam pilot then uses his anti-ship swords as he cuts down several more Seed Ships as they are about to release more Cube Fighters, after Bart's heavy plasma cannon barrage. The weapon cuts through the armour plating of the Seed Ships with few problems. The Infinite Freedom then gets hit by several beam shots that are deflected by the Gundam's Paeksis enhanced Prominence Phase Shift Armour and Kyo turns to spot two Dominion Gundams attacking him. The first charges while aiming with it's beam edged shield, while the other attempts to lock onto his Gundam and use it's HiMAT to destroy or cripple him. He charges forward with beam sabers at the ready and clashes with the first Dominion Gundam unit before him. The Harvester built Gundam reverts to it's own beam saber and the two began to a high speed duel in space…their engines and thrusters unleashing light as they tried to slash and stab at one another, Kyo uses his Gundam enhanced speed and agility to dodge the attacks, while the enemy Gundam uses it's shield…their high speed duel prevents the other Dominion from gaining a good lock on Kyo's Gundam…nullifying the targeting advantage of it's HiMAT system. Kyo then dodged the next slash of the first Dominion Gundam and takes out the other beam saber and slashes off the arm of the Dominion Gundam holding the beam saber and before the Dominion could retreat, Kyo places away his Gundam's beam sabers and takes out his anti-ship swords and with beam edges ignited, slashes off the remaining arm stump and the shield arm of the Dominion Gundam before he aims his rail-guns at the severely damaged Dominion Gundam and destroys it as it smashes into the open maw of the Seed Ship, causing the Seed Ship to explode and destroys the Gundam even more.

Kyo then attacks the send while still moving about, stopping it from using it's HiMAT to target him, and the Infinite Freedom Gundam wraps it's wings around itself as the Dominion Gundam got a lock and unleashed it's full arsenal of weapons fire…as it stopped, the Gundam then launches it's beam edged shield at the cloud that engulfed the Infinite Freedom to further destroy it…however the shield was suddenly sent flying back as the Infinite Freedom charged out with it' wings and Paeksis crystal feathers still protecting it, and before the Dominion Gundam could do anything the wings opened…allowing Kyo toss his anti-ship swords in staff mode like a discus at it…and with the shield out of the way and the sheer speed of the weapon, the results were devastating as the combined weapon sliced deeply into the head and cut all the way down to the torso of the Dominion Gundam. Kyo jets closer and recovers his weapon…kicking away the nearly cleaved Dominion Gundam's wreckage away and returned them to normal mode and charged with them in hand as the critically damaged Gundam explodes.

The Nirvana's converted fleet of Cube Fighters and the harvester battle-ship was also going all out in the fight, the converted Cube Fighters clashed with their former comrades as they either fired their laser cannons, or slammed into their foes and try to rip them to shreds…with the Harvester Cube Fighters doing the same thing as they clashed fast and hard, the converted Seed Ships released more and more Cube Fighters as the Harvester Seed Ships did the same and the battle between the two sides was fierce as both types clashed with one another. The Harvester battle-ship converted by the pirates also got into the act by releasing more Seed Ships and providing whatever fire-power it could muster, despite the decrease of most of it's weapon systems in order to accommodate the Mirage Colloid System.

The Khudani forces were also in full swing but were in awe at how the pirates were fighting…they never saw anything like this before and saw just how dangerous the female pirates and their male allies were. Their fighters unleashed their own barrage of missiles and weapons fire…just as their defense stations and missile bases began to fire back…unleashing waves of destruction on the Harvesters and they made sure not to accidentally hit the Nirvana and her crew as they were helping them in this battle. The fighters were not too much like the Dreads of Megele themselves, but made due with their speed and power. The squadron leader coordinated the strike as every squadron stationed in their fighter bases…even their reservists were called upon to fight. The sudden and unexpected attack of the harvester had recalled all the reservists of the Khudani population and shuttles were still arriving to the fighter bases, carrying reserve pilots…even older veterans of previous wars who had retired from the front lines years before the war with the Harvester started.

In the defense stations, the gunners fired their weapons and aimed at the clouds of Cube Fighters…like all of their comrades, they were not expecting this attack and were only able to, at first, take out a few Cube Fighters, but now that things were more organized after the initial shock of the attack. The defense stations of the Khudani had powerful rail-guns, beam cannons, laser cannon batteries, solid anti-ship guns and point range defense weapons…should the enemy get too close.

The missile bases were using various types of missiles, from basic dumb fire rounds, to smaller pod missiles, homing, medium payload, heavy payload…to stand-off types of missiles. The end result was the missiles being fired filled the sector of space with missile trails and explosions, resulting in massive damage to the Harvester Forces.

The RAC ships of the Khudani also unleashed their weapons and fighter units, their captains of officers were also caught off guard by the attack but they were not going to run and leave their main home-world to the mercy of the enemy. Their crews had the exact same sentiment as they moved t complete their missions, their weapon crews firing their ship's weapon banks, their engineering crews working around the dot to keep the ship operational and still able to fight, their mechanics to get the interceptors ready for battle and repair damaged ones, and their pilots ready to fight the enemy and avenge their comrades who were killed in the fighting.

The humans were holding on…but even with the help of the Nirvana and the pirates…there were still casualties.

Several RAC ships were hit hard by the Cube Fighters as their crews struggled to keep the ships from being wiped out entirely…but many lost their lives to either shrapnel, explosions, fires, or were sucked out into space. The crews managed to rescue those who were badly injured but some were not as lucky and had to be left behind.

The Harvesters managed to infest some ships with their harvesting drones and the crew watched in horror as the drones tackled their comrades, killed them and began to harvest them whether they were male or female…the drones didn't care at all. Several ships managed to force them back but lost a lot of crewmembers…other were overrun and the captains forced the crews to abandon ship and activate the self destruct modes of their vessels. The ships took out their boarders and the now the escapees had to be rescued by whatever ships on their side were available…some were not as lucky and were taken by the Harvester units.

Fighters from the bases were also destroyed either by weapon fire from the Cube Fighters, torn to bits or punctured by the Urchin ship's spines. Others were captured and torn up by the Cube Fighters, the comm. systems allowed their fellow Khudani to hear their screams and deaths as they were either harvested by the robotic machines or committed suicide…in which they activated the self destruction system on their fighters…taking out themselves…along with their captors.

There were also bases and defensive installations that were being bombarded by the Cube Fighters, along with the Urchin Ships. The bases held their own against the attacking forces but were also being hit hard all over the place…firs were breaking out, along with explosions, and rips into the vacuum of space…the crews fight to repair the damages to their respective stations and keep the fires from spreading, large numbers of crew are either killed by new explosions or incinerated by the flames, or were being rushed to medical bays in each station's own medical bay…these too were getting crowded and the doctors, nurses and support staff prayed that they could get the people out in time…their medical bays were not meant for this kind of stress as their supplies began to dwindle.

Other stations were not so lucky as they were infested with Harvester drones and they too had to escape as their commanders also activated the self-destruct in their bases to prevent more losses and to take as many of the Harvesters as they could with them to the afterlife.

The situation looked grim to the Khudani Government as they had moved to a large command station on the planet and the Council members were in fear and sorrow for the many dying and now dead…but they heard also that the Nirvana and her crew were beating the Harvesters back and this allowed them to dispatch medical shuttles from the Khudan 7 to evacuate the severely wounded from the medical bays and bring them to the planet for treatment. Speaker Leila hoped that they could get the wounded out in time before the stations were overrun.

The only chance they all had apart from the support of the Nirvana and the pirates was that they could somehow break past the jamming field of the Harvesters and contact their outward fleets to make it at full speed back to Khudan before they were all over run. The officers knew what they had to do as they began working feverishly to find a way to break past the jamming field.

*************

The Nirvana and it's crew continued to fight as Kyo, Sara, Mai, and Barnette maintained the attack. Buzam still helped in coordinating the strike teams alongside their respective squadron leaders…though not like the ambush with the Mirage Colloid armed ship in scale and numbers, this was still a deadly situation as there was now form of reinforcements unless they could bypass the jamming fields created by the Harvester ships.

They too were getting injuries among their pilots and many Dread and Crusader pilots were brought back to the Ship's Medical Bay, under the protection of not just their fellow pirates, but that of the converted Cube Fighters that use their newly created spinning shield wall formation to defend the retrieval of the injured. Gascogne is on permanent operational status to not only re-arm and re-fuel Dreads and Crusaders, but to gather the injured from the battle and also salvage damaged Dreads and Crusader units. As the fighting intensified, Magno contacted the Khudani Council in their main military operations headquarters to try and see just how they were doing with re-establishing communications with their fleets and get them back into the fight.

“How are you all getting with the communications?”

The people in the Khudani High Command Centre, were working non-stop and were still unable to bypass the jamming fields created by the Harvester battle-ships and due to it, the men and women of the planet were reaching panic mode…however Speaker Leila was not giving up, along with those who were the ones who were on the side of the pirates and the plan to prepare for possible evacuation.

“There is still no way for us to get past the fields Captain…the jamming fields are too strong with both the Harvester battle-ships combining their respective fields! The sheer power of the fields is enormous and that is why we can't get the message through it at this point in time.”

“There has to be some way to bypass them.”

That was when Parfait and Duero came on the screen.

“We can try a piggyback message using the fields themselves Captain.”

“Piggy-back?”

“In genetics class on our world, we learned that RNA is the primary messenger of the body to send genetic codes throughout the cells. What that means is that in creating a new organ or cell, or if the Alpha or Beta want their…son to have unique features or specific ones, we select in the needed information and modify the RNA messenger strand and send the genetic code for that particular trait using the RNA as a carrier. In this case…Parfait still has the data concerning the communications frequency of the Harvesters from the first encounter we had from the first battle-ship we fought with in Pyoro, along with the power signature. If we can isolate the main pulse-wave signature of the jamming field and create a suitable copy that can be accepted by the jamming field and have the pulse redirected into space as excess energy, then we can use that to shield the hidden communication message we are going to send out. That, coupled with the massive amounts of energy we detected being emitted by the jamming fields will convert the jamming field into a massive transmission net that can reach any ship that is in the system at this current time.”

The others considered the idea and realized that it was the best option they had at the moment…however thee were some concerns.

“How can we have enough power to boost the signal until it relies on the power of the Harvesters' jamming fields?”

Parfait then took over.

“We've got enough power in the Paeksis and recently, we've managed to synthesize the power signature to make it compatible with the power used by the Harvester battle-ship's own power frequency. We will need Pyoro to handle that end…all we need is the transmission codes of the Khudani military and we can make the message.”

“Will it work?” Buzam asked.

Both Duero and Parfait looked at one another and Duero replied.

“We are not yet sure…but this is the only option we have available…even with all our fire-power and weapons…as long as we are backed in a corner, we have to do this quickly or else we will be overwhelmed, and the previous strategy we used before with the battle-ship group won't work…according to the scans we did manage to make despite the interference…this ships are at full power in terms of weapons, equipment, and it would not be surprising that since they do not have Mirage Colloid, they are not like the ones we fought with and the one ship we have. They will no doubt try to stop us…and they may succeed…but with the situation as it is…we don't have any other option.”

The Khudani Council members looked at one another, along with Magno and Buzam, they now had two choices before them. The first was to make an attempt as doctoring a signal that could be used to contact the rest of the Khudani military to come to their besieged home-world's aid, but the signal might not work and the Harvesters would be able to overwhelm them. Or not do what both Duero and Parfait suggested and not call for aid and if they fell, the people in the ships would be hunted down by the Harvesters and wiped out, rendering the Khudani extinct.

The decision was unanimous.

“Do it!”

*************

The battle outside…

Kyo unleashed another plasma cannon barrage on several more incoming Cube Fighters were attacking him. The Harvester units exploded as several more GunDread Dita Clones came at the Gundam pilot and his Mobile Suit. He dodged their combined fire and then took out his anti-ship swords and combined them into single double blade form, using his Gundam's agility to get into their ranks, he took off the heads of two GunDread Dita Clones that were not able to dodge in time and as they were exploding, he activated the SEED program of the I-Freedom. The crystals that were seen on the Gundam glowed along with the eyes as the Gundam literally became a blur as it evaded the incoming fire from the GunDread Dita Clones, and began to fly around them, while firing at them, nearly destroying the Clones and forcing them close their formation, they were unaware of the fact that Kyo intended to do that manoeuvre to make sure he could finish them off.

The GunDread Dita Clones were now in a sphere like formation to cover one another and fire at Kyo's Gundam. But then the Gundam moved even faster and before they knew it he was inside the sphere before they could close in with both the anti-ship swords in normal form. The Paeksis powered Gundam attacked with a quick and powerful rotation and cut the GunDread Dita Clones right in their torsos….the beam edges making slag out of the armour, the innards and systems of the Harvester made machines before they could even register that attack in their sensors. The entire area was filled with explosions and out from the sphere of destruction and wreckage was the Infinite Freedom Gundam…which now had both anti-ship swords stored in the back and both beam rifles ready for use….the Gundam them released it's feather beam cannons from the crystal form and the cannons flew quickly about as the rail-guns and plasma cannons made their appearance…and with the SEED ability working in conjunction with the HiMAT system…the result was devastating as the initial barrage from all fifty beam cannons, rail-guns, plasma cannons, beam rifles, and CIWS guns wiped out a massive number of Cube Fighters, crippling more Seed Ships, destroying Urchin Ships, and severely maiming the GunDread clones that were also in the blast range.

That, plus the secondary barrage that followed as the beam canons flew from angle to angle…meant more Cube Fighters, Seed Ships, Urchin Ships and GunDread Clones were severely damaged or outright destroyed. As the cannons stopped firing the Harvesters counter attacked…attacking Kyo with their Dominion Gundams. But they too were surprised as instead of the cannons flying back to Kyo and reform into their crystal forms, they released beam blades, becoming beam sabers!!!

The new version of the feather beam cannons attacked the Dominion Gundams…catching many of them off guard and were barely able to defend themselves from the attack of Kyo and his Gundam, which was now armed with it's own beam sabers. A Dominion was barely able to block several powerful stabs at it's torso before Kyo attacked and sent his beam sabers into the Gundam's shoulders…skewering the Gundam and severely reducing both attack and defense ability, and before it could use it's remaining weapons, the I-Freedom pulled back and slashed off the head of the Dominion Gundam…sending the thing into the drifting veil of space.

Two others were barely able to fire at the beam cannons before they were attacked by the I-Freedom with it's own plasma cannons, the barrage ripped off the head and left arm of one of the units, and then using his rail-guns to slam into the shield of another, the Dominion Gundam blocked the incoming attack, but wasn't expecting to be stabbed in the back by two of the feather beam cannon/sabers, the blades of the weapons protruded from the back to the upper torso section of the Gundam, the blades retracted, but not before Kyo's beam sabers severed the head of the Dominion in one fatal swing.

Dita took one of her beam sabers and used her Gundam's beam shields and blocked the attack of her Dominion opponent as the beam saber of the enemy Gundam clashed on her shield, the redhead trained harder with her Gundam's beam saber, as was requested by Kyo and her training was paying off as she held her own and waited, as soon as the Dominion Gundam tried for a powerful swing at Dita's Gundam at the torso, she blocks and allowed the beam saber to slide over her beam shield, creating massive sparks and flashes, she then stabs her beam saber right into the side as the Gundam was unable to stop it's momentum. The Gundam exploded as the beam saber of Dita's Gundam had bypassed the Phase Shift Armour at a weakened point and had hit the power plant and power regulation node in it's systems. Dita's Gundam shielded itself with the Prominence Phase Shift and the beam shield emitter and the redhead shook her head clear as she took out her beam rifles, connected them into their beam cannon mode and aimed with her targeting computer, once she did so, she fired and took out more Cube Fighters.

Barnette fired more missiles…after she reloaded her Dread with the aid of Gascogne and her shuttle, the Dreki. The elder Head of the Register was protected by a squadron of Crusaders using a combination of Kaiser and Schneider Form Packs, and also by Aleck's GUiAZ as she made her deliveries, and as she reloaded the Dreads and Crusaders, she also took injured pilots back to the Nirvana, along with Dreads and Crusaders that were damaged…that required her to upgrade the storage space of the Dreki, along with increased armour to the inside and outside of her shuttle. The Dread pilot locking in at several Cube Fighters, taking her time but not too much as she aimed and fired as soon as she had a lock-on. The Cube Fighters were totalled, but two got away and began to open fire at her Dread as they turned around. The Dread pilot dodged the attacks, but was jostled around as the explosions occurred around her…she fired several salvos from her Dread's energy weapons and as the Cube Fighters moved away, she pushed the throttle of her Dread…accelerating quickly, and avoiding the fire of the Cube Fighters, they tracked her as she passed them unaware that as they fired, Barnette's Dread was able to escape and the two ended up shooting each other.

Both Cube Fighters were destroyed as Barnette turned around to face more…she spotted another group who were about to attack her…but they were suddenly destroyed by a salvo of plasma cannon and rail-gun fire. The fire came from Max's Templar Gundam, the Talark youth then blocked the retaliatory fire from surviving Cube Fighters with the Gundam's shield…the shield held and when he was close enough, he moved the shield aside and fired the Gundam's head mounted CIWS guns and then took out his Gundam's beam saber and slashed down a pair of Cube Fighters and blocked the incoming fire.

Max greeted Barnette as his Gundam flew alongside her Dread and Barnette realized that her Dread was already running low on fuel, power cells and ordinance, she also knew that the Dreads could not handle being out here for so long…as all of their squadrons from the veterans to the reserves were all out in this battle. She quickly contacted her squadrons and found to her dismay that a considerable portion were in the Medical Bay, and many of their Dreads had to return for repairs…however the rest of her squadron assured her that they were still able to fight. She however told them that she needed to change machines and Max told her that he would escort her to the Nirvana. Barnette smiled her thanks as she was informed that the rest of the squadrons will be all right.

She punched her Dread's thrusters and made her way back to the Nirvana as fast as she could…with Max shielding her from attacks and destroying some Cube Fighters trying to ambush her on the way back to the Nirvana. As soon as she was inside, she quickly got out of her Dread, put on her Mobile Suit uniform as calmly and she could and made her way to the SwitchBlade Gundam, which was now fully fuelled and ready for a fight. She got into the cockpit, ran a thorough check on her Gundam's power supply, weapon systems, navigation, armour settings…the works…she then smiled as all systems were in the green light and silently thanked her time with both Max and Kyo as they taught her the value of maintaining her Gundam even if she only used it when her Dread was not a viable choice for a particular battle-ground or there was no time for her to re-arm or re-fuel. The SwitchBlade got on the Launching Platform as soon as her Gundam activated it's Polaris Phase Shift Armour she switched to the Mobile Armour mode and open fired at several Cube Fighters, who were unable to prepare in time before being reduced into scrape…several more bit the bullet as a GunDread Dita Clone began to open fire. Barnette dodged the attack and then converted her Gundam to it's Mobile Suit mode and took out both her beam sabers, slashing the arms off the GunDread Dita Clone and then sliced off the head. She used her shield and fired her Gundam's beam rifle, just as Max flew in and they both began to guide the Dreads to the battle…the female pilots knew about Barnette using a Gundam and they all had seen it so they knew that she was back and they rallied to her.

Jura fought with a Dominion Gundam that used it's beam edged shield while still in it's moorings to try and cut her Gundam in half, along with it's beam saber, she knew that her beam sabers might not be enough, but she certainly wasn't going to give up this fight. She moved backwards to gain more fighting room, but with the wreckage nearby, that would be a problem. She took her time and blocked the attacks with her shield and beam saber, she had placed away her anti-ship swords since the area was not very useful for them right now. She however had a plan in mind with the wrecks that were nearby. As soon as she moved away from the attacks, she spotted remains of a RAC ship and a Seed Ship, both were fairly intact and were drifting close to one another. She moved her Gundam backwards…allowing the Dominion Gundam's CPU to determine that she was n optimal range for it to use it's beam shield as a boomerang. It did so, but as the shield was released, Jura jetted out of the way as they had gotten close enough to the two wrecks. The beam edged shield sliced through most of the wreckage in the miss, but it's cable got caught and the Dominion Gundam had no choice but to release the cable…and took out it's second beam saber, Jura then attacked with her beam sabers and the two got into a duel as the female pilot used her fencing skills to even up. The Gundams fought on until Jura blocked a stab, moved it aside and smashed her Gundam's shoulder into the chest of her foe and as the Dominion Gundam tried to right itself and break from the impact. Jura came in and uncharacteristically took out one of her anti-ship sword and tossed it with the beam edge ignited and the tip caught the Gundam square in the chest, and impaled it on the wreckage of a Seed Ship. Jura came in and took out her anti-ship sword and slashed the Gundam's head off, she then used her beam saber's beam whip ode as she struck down several Cube Fighters that tried to blind-side her. She then went back into the fight as more enemy forces came at them.

Sara and Mai were having their own rate of kills as the two led their squadrons into the fight as Meia met up with Jura and Dita, the three then fought their way past a mess of Cube Fighters to hook up with Kyo, who had just trashed even more GunDread clones…all four of them began to work together, right after a massive beam barrage from Kyo's feather beam cannons had reduced more Harvester units into nothing burning wrecks and scrap metal. The feather cannons re-linked to the wings and returned to crystal mode as the four attacked in unison. Kyo attacked with beam rifles, alongside Dita while Meia and Jura attacked with both beam weaponry and their beam sabers. Kyo led the charge as they came to different battle-zones and rally both their fellow pirates and their Khudani comrades.

This proved helpful in reinforcing the lines of the human side as more Khudani forces were being nearly over-run, as more of them tried valiantly to hold and defend their positions and deny the Harvesters access to their beloved homeland but were losing ground, thus the arrival of the four Gundams to support them certainly came in the right time.

*************

In the Nirvana's Engineering Bay…

“Hold on Pyoro…and don't give us any of you're lip! We need to concentrate right not and the last thing we need is disturbance.” Parfait said in warning to the Navi-robot as both she and Duero were hooking up the little egg shaped robot into a communication/data decoder. The head engineer noted before all this happened, that Pyoro's brief exposure to the Navigation Well and contact with the Harvester AI nearly a year ago had left behind the same communication codes in the Navi-robot's CPU core, she had thought of removing it, but never got around to that due to the numerous situations the pirates found themselves in, and her current…relationship with Duero also got most of her attention as well.

Now she was happy that she didn't follow through with her plan.

Duero used his medical knowledge once more as well as his mechanical knowledge as he began to experiment with the power signature and waves lengths from both the jamming fields of the harvesters to that of the Paeksis itself…he planned to use the disguised Paeksis energy to shield and hide the hidden message, while Parfait began to create the needed outer electronic shell to shield the message that was now written in the code and language of the Khudani. The Navi-robot for once wasn't struggling or trying to be a smart mouth, and stayed there as Parfait worked on him. He knew that this was for the safety of the crew and namely Lacus and as such, placed aside his normally mouthy nature and focused on helping the head engineer and the doctor to complete the ruse.

A few minutes later…

“It's done!!” Parfait announced to her crew who cheered, the cheers grew in volume and intensity as Duero also reported his success in making the changes to the power signature to match that of the records of the jamming field. The made some rechecks to make sure that their calculations and parameters were right on the dot and Pyoro helped hem out be comparing the recorded transmission from nearly a year ago to their newly doctored transmission wave. They matched well within the currently recorded parameters.

Both of them then contacted the Bridge of the Nirvana to give the report to both Magno and Buzam. The two officers nodded and sent the signal to the Khudani, they too held their hopes on this and gave the two the go ahead.

The signal was being tracked by the Engineering crew and the rest of both the pirates and the Khudani as they used a portion of the Paeksis' Reactor's power to boost the signal further. And they waited as the signal was absorbed by the jamming fields, according to their scanners…now all they could do was hope…and pray that signal came out in time to reach the rest of the Khudani Fleet.

For now, they had to hold the line and prevent the Harvester forces from breaking through them and having a clean strike path on the planet. So far, the Harvesters have yet to send their battle-ships into the fray, but they had to remain in their current location to maintain the jamming field to prevent the Khudani from calling any support from their fleets. Even with the Nirvana and it's forces…namely it's accursed Gundam, piloted by bane of the Harvesters, couldn't handle two fully independent Harvester battle-ships and their forces at once…even with the support of the Khudani Fleet.

*************

Back in the battle-zone…

The fighting grew even more intense as the Nirvana, it's forces, and the Khudani fought on with the Harvesters, in the hope that they could keep the Earth Forces from landing on the surface and harvesting and slaughtering the people below them. The Khudani Commanders of their ships held their own and were able to hold on as best they could…despite the rising amount of casualties, losses of equipment and the utter chaos surrounding them….some however break under pressure and had to calm down with the aid of their more level headed officers.

The officers were very busy, and so were Arland Kashell and J.T as well as their crew. The two officers worked non-stop ,even if their ships were showing signs of damage and reports were coming in.

The Snow Lance…

“We have fires in sections 2 to 5!”

“Isolate the fires and initiate emergency fire fighting and containment measures! Make sure that the fires are not allowed to spread to the Munitions Station, Medical Bay, and Engineering!” Arland said as he coordinated his officers and personnel in doing what must be done.

“Enemy forces are closing in!”

“Laser cannon batteries… maintain suppression fire! Don't let the bastards get even close enough to be pictured by a camera!”

“Yes sir!”

The other Commanders of the Khudani were going at full tilt as they struggled with leading their squadrons, keeping the morale of their officers, crew and themselves, along with coordinating the rest of the battle-groups with the support of the battle stations, fighter bases, and missile bases…as they tried to hold off the Harvesters…despite the damages on the three types of stations.

The fires on the stations were contained…and damage was being repaired…but not all the of stations were lucky as their staff, and officers had to abandon some of the stations as they were too badly damaged or had been filled by the Harvester drones that were delivered by the Cube Fighters that bypassed their defences. They too had to be rescued by their fellow humans or else they would be located and taken by the Harvesters.

It was here that Kyo, Dita, Jura, and Meia activated their respective SEED abilities and began to unleash more of their coordinated assaults on the Harvesters, decimating their ranks as more wrecks of Cube Fighters, Seed Ships, and Urchin vessels filled the void of space…along with the wrecks of even more Dominion Gundams and the GunDread Clones as the four Gundam pilots led the counter-attack…just as Bart fired another plasma salvo at the Harvester forces…despite the still increasing numbers of Seed Ships and their release of more of the Cube Fighters.

The entire field of space was now filled with various wreckage from the Harvesters, the Khudani Military, and even some of the pirates' own forces though they didn't suffer any fatalities. The Crusaders used the wreckage to stage ambushed and sneak attacks, this worked were for the Raiha and Koenig Form Pack using Crusader units as the debris hid their presence long enough for a quick strike and fade assault, the Kaiser and Schneider Form Pack armed Crusader Mobile Suits and their pilots used the debris as shields and distractions to get better firing angles and to ambush even more Cube Fighters. The area before the planet was now filled with so much wreckage and weapons fire…that it would have passed off for a planet wide demolition derby special.

That was when the Khudani military unleashed the two Mobile Suits developed under Project Helios.

The Mobile Suits were now fully powered and their pilots began to guide them into the battle-zone to help the defenders. The first Mobile Suit, now in the colour scheme of magenta, and silver…showing that it's Phase Shift Armour was now online, and it had cyan coloured eye sensors which began to scan the battle-zone.

The Luminous Gundam was now able to arm itself up as it's weapons moved into position as it began to engage the Harvesters. The Cube Fighters unleashed a storm of weapon fire that was dodged and blocked by the Gundam's armour and much to the surprise of the GunDread Dita, Jura, Meia clones and the surviving Dominion Gundams, their beam weapons were seemingly absorbed by the armour and the Gundam continued it's attacks with it's beam weaponry.

It's twin, the Spark Gundam, in it's colour scheme light red and silver, took out it's own beam rifle and the two Mobile Suits began join in and attack the Harvesters. The two attacked several squadrons of Cube Fighters and those were quickly taken out due to the advanced versions of their Phase Shift Armour System and other support systems protecting them. The two Mobile Suits were moving in and attacking as their pilots, though being newbies to Mobile Suit combat, compared to the Nirvana pirates were doing rather well. It became apparent as to the reason why…as they had been able to recover the back-up fully updated OS that was designed for the Spark and the Luminous Gundams, this allowed the pilots a needed edge to make up for their lack of practical Mobile Suit operation experience. But Kyo however got into contact with them and warned them of the traits of both the Luminous and the Spark, the first Gundam with it's still imperfect cooling and temperature regulation systems when it was hit with too much energy weapons, and the second Gundam's almost human-like OS program.

Both pilots…Lieutenant Nicolas Almani, and Sergeant Joss Vaughn nodded in agreement as they had been briefed that since the Mobile Suits they were piloting were still experimental, they would have to learn on the fly and when they told Kyo that bit of information, the veteran Gundam pilot ordered both of them to form up with him or with Max and Barnette as they would have to learn quickly how to use a Gundam unit.

Nicolas and Joss were technically not part of the pirates and as such, being soldiers of the Khudani military were not bound to follow Kyo's orders or that of the pirates, but due to the facts that Kyo was already a seasoned Mobile Suit operator, and the pirates were proving to be very valuable allies in the defense made the higher ranking officers in the Khudani Military give them unofficial de facto leader of their own Mobile Suit forces, which naturally comprised of both the Luminous and the Spark Gundams. Thus both pilots obeyed their orders and hooked up with Barnette and Mac, who were informed by Kyo of the arrival of their new comrades. Barnette and Max began to guide Nicole and Joss on where they needed to be in the fight.

Despite all this…the one thing the human side of the battle hoped for was to beat the Harvesters and the arrival of the rest of the Khudani fleets…that is…if the message got through in time.

*************

The battle continued to grow more intense as the two fleets closed in on one another. The Harvester Battle-ships remained in orbital standby…protected by their Cube Fighters from the heavy weapons of the enemy as their point defences held the attackers at bay. With their support and reinforcement fleets acting s their shields and blades, the Harvester battle-ships unleashed their own brand of supports fire…taking out squadrons of Khudani interceptors and RAC ships, the pirates avoided engaging the Harvester battle-ships due to the large numbers of still existing Cube Fighters and the sheer fire-power of the ships.

The battle-ships also unleashed their main beam cannons and severely damaged or destroyed a few stations and several RAC ships. They however didn't divert too much power to their weapon systems in order to maintain the jamming field. They sensed that even with the presence of the Nirvana and it's forces, they had the advantage since the pirates could not attack them and remained on the defensive to prevent them from overwhelming the Khudani defensive line.

Even with the support of the pirates and their Gundams, the lines were starting to break and falter as even the pirates were hard pressed in keeping the Harvesters from having full access to the surface of Khudan 7. Kyo and his friends were exhausted but not giving up yet as more and more Cube Fighters came at them.

That was when the Harvester Battle-ships were suddenly attacked by several barrages of missiles…the fighting stopped as the Cube Fighters, Seed Ships, Urchin Ships, GunDread Clones, and some surviving Dominion Gundams turned and tried to locate the attackers.

It was the rest of the Khudani Fleets!

The pirates and the rest of their Khudani allies cheered as they saw the jamming fields go down and received communiqués from the reinforcements…their desperate gamble paid off after all.

Kyo nodded that this was the right time as he, Meia, Dita, and Jura all activated their SEED mode and led the charge…understandably the Harvester Forces now found themselves trapped between to walls of attackers and now they had no choice but to pull back and defend their mother-ships from the fierce counter attack…the Khudani of the planetary defense force was nearly devoid of hope when they were nearly overwhelmed…but now that they had the chance to take the fight to their hated enemies…they took it with near suicidal relish and had to be restrained hard by their more level headed officers though some of the officers themselves led these suicide charges…these comprised of the pilots unleashing their full barrage of weapons fire…exhausting whatever ordinance they had and then crashing their fighters into the Cube Fighters and letting the explosions damage the Harvesters, or they lured the Harvester forces closer by appearing to be easy prey and then detonating the power reactors of the interceptors they were in.

This was halted as the officers managed to rally their teams and fight back. Kyo saw through the desperation of the Khudani and called the Nirvana to unleash the Liberty unit so he could have extra punch to help their comrades. Ina few minutes the METEOR Unit was released and it's Paeksis powered CPU quickly locked into Kyo's current location and the machine opened the front and the Gundam moved it's wings and anti-ship swords away as it docked and the massive beam cannons/sabers were now in the hands of the Gundam as the connectors showed green light…complete success in docking procedures. The Gundam then activated the missile launchers, beam cannons, it's own rail-guns, plasma cannons, CIWS guns, and it's feather beam cannons…the full arsenal was unleashed as the storm of weapons fire smashed hard on the clouds of Cube Fighters, Seed Ships, Urchin Ships, GunDread Clones and the Dominion Gundams…they were all obliterated and the survivors were not much better as the METEOR unit activated it's massive beam sabers and slashed them into nothing but shreds. Kyo's Gundam slashed up and down and to the sides…ensuring massive damage to any Harvester unit caught in the path of the beam blades…the first battle-ship open fired at Kyo…but like what he had done to the salvaged Harvester battle-ship nearly a few months before, Kyo dodged the attacks and slashed at the ship, but then stopped and then amplified his beam sabers to high intensity level and stabbed right at the ship at a diagonal angle, the beams were at such a high level that they literally sliced through the Harvester battle-ship's tough armour…and even right through the other side as it was boosted by the hybrid reactor in the Infinite Freedom Gundam, and the power reactor in the Liberty METEOR unit. He then moved them to separate sides…as the beams were slicing through the ship, causing massive structural damage and explosions as the beams cut through the ship like a beam saber would slice through ship or armour plating…Kyo then angled the beam cannons upward…and when the beams had finished their path and dissipated, a massive chunk of the Harvester battle-ship was literally sliced off! (*****)

Several squadrons of the Khudani interceptors, Dreads, and Crusaders leaped right into the massive wound of the Harvester ship and unleashed all of their arsenals, bypassing the inner defences that were woefully unprepared for it. They began to destroy the central computer node…while Kyo, Dita, Jura, and Meia moved on to attack the second battle-ship. The four were now moving in formation, as the three girls converted their Gundams back to Dread form and then with a flash of Paeksis energy, the Gundam, Dreads and the METEOR unit combined to create the Super GunDread.

The massive mecha took on the form of Meia's GunDread and smashed right through the clouds of Harvester units…turning them all into atoms and recyclable junk. The Super GunDread then used it's shield to block the incoming weapons fire from the survivors and the Harvester battle-ship, once all the shots were blocked, the massive GunDread unleashed it's own beam arsenals and reduced the surviving support fleet into nothing but junk and wreckage…the beams also caused considerable damage to the Harvester battle-ship itself and it was reeling from the impact. Before it could even recover the GunDread attacked with it's beam saber.

The beam saber…being as massive as it was sliced right into lower half of the Harvester battle-ship…and the weapon was able to slice through the Harvester battle-ship's lower sections with brutal and deadly ease, the beam blade was cutting through the ship and the explosions that followed were spectacular and the four pilots guided their Super GunDread unit from the lower bow to the rear of the ship. The Super GunDread then moved away and with a powerful descending slash with the beam saber, cut the Harvester-battleship at the side…creating even more explosions and the complete result was the Harvester battle-ship being blown into nothing but a burning wreck and suffering severe internal and external damage.

The ship exploded…just as it's counter-part began to explode as the combined forces of the both the Nirvana pirates and the Khudani left the wreckage…and surviving Harvester units powered down and were now longer operational

The Battle for Khudan 7 was over, and the human side won…but at a very high price.

*************

Hours later…

The Khudani tallied all of their losses along with the pirates. The Nirvana's crew-members were happy that most of their injuries were not that grave, due to the Laminated Armour and Phase Shift combinations in their Crusaders, even the newly upgraded armour plating and shields of the Dreads came in seriously handy. But they had suffered even more injuries and as such, until they rest and recover.

The Khudani however had suffered the most at the current point, they had lost over sixty of their RAC ships, hundreds of their interceptors, twelve battle stations, seven missile bases, nine fighter bases, tens to nearly a hundred thousand dead personnel in all station types and ships, with the interceptors, countless others wounded and receiving medical treatment, there were also large numbers of their ships, stations, bases, and fighters that needed extensive repairs, replacement parts…and more. They had lost nearly untold amounts of credits worth of equipment, machines, and facilities, along with the massive costs in repairs to the machines and facilities that were still serviceable… but compared to the possible loss of their entire people and the loss of their home-planet…they were lucky.

The home planet defense force was nearly decimated, and the reinforcements were in the same boat, they lost large numbers of their plots and had pushed their ships to the absolute limit and the reports of burned out engines, computers, and control systems was an engineering crew's worst nightmare come to life. The technicians on the planet and even those who were not in the military were called in to effect the repairs of all the stations, ships, and fighters that were repairable, those that were too badly damaged were to be salvaged for whatever parts were still useable, while the unsalvageable wreckage was to be disposed of.

The Khudani were understandably shaken by the sheer power, surprise, and ferocity of the Harvester attack. By all rights, had they not had the support of the Nirvana and it's crew…they didn't even want to know what would have been the results had the Harvesters been given a chance to overwhelm them. The ingenuity and practical thinking of the pirates and their military support, under the leadership of some of the finest pilots their military had ever seen, along with their various war machines…namely the Gundams that had been developed by the members of Project Helios. The Council knew that they had nearly lost everything and thus, even the war-hawks and their supporters were severely humbled by the events that had occurred.

The pirates were then told that the Council was in an emergency session. Once that was done…they would see to the massive burials of those who died, either in the battle or in the ER. Not all those brought in for medical treatment were lucky enough to survive their wounds.

The crew of the Nirvana were all safe and sound, and recovering. Kyo and the others however hoped that the Khudani would make the right choice…not for themselves alone…but for the survival of the human race out here in space.

All they could do now was wait…and hope for the best.

*************

The Harvester Invasion Force…

“My Lord.” One of the clone operators spoke emotionlessly as he faced the arriving leader of the Harvester Armada.

“Yes?” The leader of the Harvesters replied as he got out of his quarters of his main command ship. He seemed relaxed, after he had taken a day's break after all the changes to the Converter Packs were completed, and the day of testing had arrived.

“We have two reports, the first is on the current status of the 3rd Fleet and their attack on the Khudani home-planet…and the second is the one concerning the completion of the Converter Form Packs.”

“The first bit of news first, what happened to the 3rd Fleet?”

“They were wiped out my Lord…it appeared that an unexpected factor was encountered by the fleet when they attempted to attack the Khudani secretly.”

“Let me guess…the Nirvana was present?”

“Yes my Lord…it appeared that the pirates had found a way to bypass the jamming fields and send a message to the departing Khudani Fleets. The pirates and the Khudani were able to hold their own against the 3rd Fleet and destroy them with the reinforcements that followed. The 3rd Fleet was totally destroyed.”

Normally the loss of two battle-ships and their support fleets was by definition a serious blow to the Harvest Operation…and to the Re-Genesis Project that was being completed, and by all rights, the leader would be in a seriously bad mode…however it seemed that he was more concerned with other matters.

“Have the records of the battle been recovered?”

“Yes My Lord…before the battle-cruisers were destroyed, they were able to record the battle itself.”

“Good…have the records studied and the moves of the pirates analyzed. This will help us gauge the simulations of the Dominator series' new weapon systems and match them with the Nirvana's…Retribution series. This may not be worthwhile in the long run…but we can use the data to determine possible solutions on how to effectively counter their strategies.”

“It shall be done my Lord.”

“And the second bit of news?”

“The reports have shown that the Converter Unit Packs and the Dominator series are both ready for their practical combat deployment my Lord…all we need is the signal from you to authorize their live fire test trials.”

“Good…have them face off with the Cube Fighters and some of the existing Dominion Gundam series units we have in the fleet to test their effectiveness against Gundam units. Have the simulations also run a test on how they would perform if the faced the Infinite Freedom Gundam and the three new Paeksis powered Gundams of the pirates. Bypass Khudan 7…with what they have suffered, I doubt that they will be able to mount an effective defense…our targets are more important…once the tests are completed…set a full course to the system of Talark and Megele. We will end the Resistance with the destruction of the two planets and the destruction of the Nirvana…without them…the Resistance will fall.”

“At once my Lord.”

The leader then grabbed his meal as he looked at the artificial park where he was having his meal, and relaxed a bit.

“You certainly have moved up…haven't you Kyo? Now let us see just how far can you get before I come for you and you're comrades.”

*************

The Nirvana was now on it's way to Talark and Megele…with some good news at least.

The Khudani, having realized the outcome and the possible arrival of the much larger and more advanced Harvester Invasion Fleet…decided after a short but meaningful session voted to begin plans for emergency evacuation of their home planet and surviving colonies. They, under the leadership of Speaker Leila formally thanked the Nirvana and it's crew for fighting alongside them and helping them defend their home-planet. The military at first asked them to join their forces…they would need the support, just as the people of Melanos had once planned to ask Kyo to fight under their flag during the time he left the Nirvana.

Magno and her crew politely declined, stating that they too had their own worlds to save and the place would be where all of the members of the Resistance would assemble their fleets. As of now, the Resistance were doing all they could to delay the Harvester Invasion Fleet and ensure that other worlds would be warned and given time to plan and prepare.

For them…they had to rush back to Talark and Megele…comforted by the fact that the Resistance was doing their absolute best to help them in this war. Alongside them was their converted Harvester battle-ship and it's own army of Cube Fighters…acting as it did before…as a scout and skirmish force.

Unknown to them…

A Mobile Suit…armed with Mirage Colloid watched them as they made their way to the sector where the magnetic storm and debris belt were located.

“It's now time you found out who you really are Kyo.”

*************

To be continued…

(*) Had to make changes due to the original concept alloy was from another series that was not a part of the story series. These are merely name changes as the functions will be the same so no serious changes here, merely cosmetic ones.

(**) Based on the Blaze Wizard packs but had interchangeable missile loads to ensure a strong degree of variety in terms of weaponry and firepower. That plus the speed with the ability to fire swarms of missile is a serious advantage when used properly in a fight and in the right circumstances.

(***) Based on the Slash Wizard Pack, but has a spare anti-armour rail-gun for extra punch power.

(****) Based on the Gunner Wizard Pack but with some features of the Launcher Pack of the Strike Gundam for an added increase flexibility and ranged combat.

(*****) This was inspired by a scene in Gundam SEED Destiny where both Kira and Athrun in their respective Gundams, the Strike Freedom and the Infinite Justice which were docked in their METEOR units used their beam cannons to fire a massive constant beam and moved the cannons to the sides…dissecting the Geschmeidig Panzer armed space stations of the Requiem Doomsday weapon on the moon in half on either side.

As for a make-out scene with Kyo and Meia…well then, I'll see what I can cook up in my melting pot, okay folks? By the way, I'm NOT forgetting Sara and Mai anytime soon, so expect them to be soon on the same boat.

*************

A special Festival of my home province is coming soon, so I'll be real busy, plus some left-over paper work might keep me busy, but don't worry, I'll be working on this lovely specimen of mine for all the readers until we end this chapter.

And thanks to a good childhood buddy of mine who's a great fan of good anime shows, he gave me more ideas to throw into the hot-pot, so brace yourselves for more.

*************

Author's Notes: I am adding new characters and new Gundams into the story as a way to say thanks to Zack Free a.k.a Jehuty Zero who allowed me to see the Gundams that he custom drew and also allowed me to use them in GunDread SEED. I am hoping that his creations will be recognized and appreciated by the readers of this chapter. I will make only a few modifications for them to fit into the story better.

I also made a mistake with the previous chapter. In the case of the Polaris Phase Shift design, which is that it can still deflect/withstand solid or projectile weapons, but loses a portion of that ability in exchange for a chance to deflect beam weaponry. In a way, the Polaris Phase Shift System is similar to the Prominence Phase Shift system used by the Infinite Freedom Gundam, but the overall weakness is that it can only handle low to medium level beam weapons, unlike the Infinite Freedom that can withstand beam attacks of a large calibre, with the exception of those placed in a negative wave-length to that of the Paeksis.

So in simple terms, the Polaris Phase Shift System sacrifices a portion of the Phase Shift's original functions to give it an increase of protection in the area it lacks, while not losing the original function of the Phase Shift design, which is to deflect solid weapons.

The tension is getting rather thick now, what will be the reactions of the Khudani when they learn not only of the Harvesters' true origin and purpose, but now of their drive to wipe out all human life? Will the Khudani become allies of the Resistance or not?

*************

The make-out scene between Kyo and Meia is now officially finished. I hope that to all the readers that it was worth all the time and effort, if it is, then thanks, and if not, please kindly send me reviews and comments so I can correct any errors or make modifications that will make the make-out scene more appealing.

Thank you!

*************

(KAF) - This naturally means the Khudani Armed Forces and since Arland is a member of his home system's military it would make sense that he would be part of it and as you all have already read he is a Commander, thus it would make some sense he would be in command of both a station and have his own personal ship.

(SDF) - Also means System Defense Fleet

(RAC) - This is military speak for Rapid Assault Carrier, this class of ship is designed to carry a good solid compliment of fighters, transports, and personnel to help in a quick attack on most targets, whether ship or planetary based. It also possesses a balanced amount of offensive weapons and defensive systems. However this carrier class in not designed for powerful stand-off missions and since a large portion of the Khudani Fleet was part of the doomed expedition a year before…it would hardly be surprising that the Khudani have to rely on RAC class units to help patrol their borders until they have recovered their full military strength.

(MRE) - This is the military short term for the Meals Ready to Eat, pre-packaged food in vacuum sealed packs that were used to feed field personnel when it is not possible to establish kitchen facilities or bringing in hot food was out of the question. The packaging and quality of MREs in this is more unique…the freshness and nutrition content of MREs is now present and is very much like have a well cooked hot meal in a package. Since Kyo served in the Guardians…he understands the value of MREs when the situation calla for it to keep the soldier fed and able to withstand the pangs of hunger when in a mission, and since he knows how to make them, he creates his own custom made ones.

The MREs that are custom made by Kyo is armed with a built in heating foil to warm the meal, thus keeps it hot until the food is consumed. Since he knew how they were made…his MREs before going to Talark were his own make and were practical to say the least, he used the last of it when he was with the pirates on the desert planet a month before. And the new packs comprise of combinations of Megele food/cooking, his own, and Talark food pills…making it a seriously effective package of rations, along with other items.

Hey…even MREs have to evolve too…they don't stay the same after four hundred years of advancement in human civilization right? Besides…Kyo is a former soldier despite his young age at the time and thus he was able to integrate well in military life so he understands the reasoning behind MREs.

*************

Well this officially ends that story arc for now…we will see the Luminous and the Spark Gundams again, but they will be upgraded and far better in performance as well. We will also see the third Gundam of the Project Helios soon.

I hope that this was worth you're time and patience, and I will work on the next set of chapters. Sara and Mai will be having their turns at making out with Kyo in the next chapter story arcs.

By the way…for all the male readers…as I have promised…we are now getting to the fun parts of this story…since I have stated that the coming chapters will be where the lemony goodness will be! (^_^)

As such, please send me reviews and suggestions on who will go first with Kyo…and for all the Duero X Parfait fans in this site… we will also have the chance to have Duero and Parfait finally consummate their relationship to the next level soon, hope you will all be ready for that!! Plus we will have the other couples get involved soon, namely Max and Barnette!!!

Gascogne and Aleck will soon be along, but they will need more time before they do get to that level, so if there is anyone who likes this pairing so far, please tell me.

I will be working with ZoidDread for the time being so have fun and send me those comments and suggestions!