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Thank you all for ten years of moving at Sufficient Velocity.
For all readers and writers
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"Come on guys, why is it always my room?" Asagi groaned, watching Tamaki, Kei, and Suruga comfortably cram themselves in the small space that had been given to them so they weren't cooped up in the Godinion all the time. "This isn't even the Star Rose!"
"It just feels right!" Tamaki, unhelpfully, cheered from her position on his bed.
"I mean, Izuru's still not released from observation, so that makes you the temporary team leader." Suruga shrugged, then winced as he moved a still bandaged shoulder a little bit too hard. "And we may as well hang out with our team leader."
Asagi groaned, rubbing his stomach. Yes, he had been put in field command since Izuru was on strict orders to not hijack another mech and potentially injure himself again so he could heal, but it was a rather large pressure on his shoulder he preferred not to think about.
"Where has Izuru been anyway?" Kei asked. "I haven't seen him today."
"Oh, I think they're running more tests with Red 5 today. He should have finished a while ago though so I don't know what's taking him so long" Suruga said. "You know, they wanted me to answer some stuff about Gold 4 too. I think it's for the upgrades they're putting on it. Maybe they're upgrading my-"
"I was asked about Purple 2 too." Kei thought out loud, incidentally cutting off Suruga's tangent about his ASHMB. "I wasn't sure why though."
Any further speculation was cut off by the door opening again to admit Izuru. "Hey guys, I had to grab something from my room." Confidently walking to Asagi, he said. "Here,I meant to give it to you for luck before you fly off. I'm sure you can do it."
Weirdly enough, that was actually reassuring to Asagi, who could feel his stomachache just fading away. "Thanks, Izuru." He reached for the well intended drawing, even if it was probably going to be-
…a really good drawing of his face and Blue 1, slashing at a Wulgaru fighter. "Wow, this is really cool Izuru. Like… it's really good." There really wasn't anything else to say. "Thanks for this."
The other members of Team Rabbits, initially disinterested in Izuru's normal bad quality of drawings, immediately turned to look in his direction. Izuru, ignorant of all of the surpise right behind him, simply smiled. "I should do only the best for all of you guys, after all. It was no big deal."
Incessant humming is a new annoyance that Norea Du Noc did not think she would have to put up with today. This makes about the sixth on the list.
"Hey, big sis, what happened to those boys you picked up?" Number seven: the break in the unmuted humming comes with an annoying question from their erstwhile ally.
"Captured. We captured some guys. Don't call it 'picking up'," Norea replies. "And they're in the brig. And I'm not your big sis."
"Nope, you are now," Sophie Pulone chimes in. "I'm adopting her, so transitive property, you're her big sis."
"No adopting random spacians, moron," Norea says, albeit without much bite to it. Better for Sophie to blow off steam before the mission than in the middle of it.
"Look at her, though, she's so cute. Hey, Ple, do you want to go to Earth after this? It's way less hideous than Axis, and way less boring than Side 3."
Sophie's offer has the predictable result of making the younger girl literally start bouncing off the hangar walls in enthusiasm. Norea just has to roll her eyes at the idea of playing with a kid before an assassination job. Only Sophie. And whatever psychopath from Axis put a ten year old in a mobile suit.
Brig, hijacked civilian transport
Emotionally speaking, this is not the worst day of Guel Jeturk's life yet, but it's an unpleasant jarring back to reality. It had been surprisingly - depressingly - easy to disappear into the Earth Sphere under an assumed name, to just drift until he washed up on a proverbial shore like the discarded sea trash he felt like. The past few weeks in Shangri-La colony had been a welcome change, in some ways, in that he was earning his way through work, however humble, rather than awaiting the caprice of his father...although it had given him a deep shock to learn how even other residents of space lived when they hadn't lucked into the privilege he'd thrown away for his pride. It was a lot to think about, and interrupted, in a cosmic sense, almost immediately by getting kidnapped by these terrorists and that flamboyant Zeon weirdo, along with the friends he made the past few weeks.
Guel takes a deep breath to calm himself. He's in the belly of the whale now, fortunately not separated from his new comrades. It's time to confess, and maybe use what little pull he has to try and get them out of this.
"Judau. Iino. I have something to tell you," he says, sitting up straighter in his shackles. "My name isn't really Bob."
"We know, Bob," Judau says, rolling his eyes. Rolling his eyes! Guel's put up with a lot of lip from the younger boy, but that's a bit much when the situation is this serious.
"Wait, what do you mean, you know?"
"You're Guel Jeturk, nob hill rich boy. I wasn't gonna ask why you were slumming it, but you've got a really recognizable face," Judau replies.
"I spent most of March making stupid parody videos of your marriage proposal," Iino chimes in unhelpfully. "I got like an extra 25 creds in ad revenue when I jumped on that one. So I got it right off."
Guel gives up and bangs his head backwards on the brig bulkhead. "Okay, you know who I am. Do you want to help me get us out of this mess?"
"Nah, Beecha and Mondo probably sold us out like 30 seconds after those girls grabbed us," Judau says. "I was just going to wait to see what they do with us."
"You need some motivation, then? Outside being friends? You want money? Mobile suits?"
"Guel, bro, if you had your family's money, you wouldn't have been on Shangri-La. No one with your family's money would be on Shangri-La. And as your friend, you should calm down. Nothing that's going on here's worth getting shot over."
Guel grits his teeth and thinks. There has to be some way to motivate Judau - clearly he doesn't consider these Dawn of Fold people enemies just for kidnapping him and his friends circle, as little sense as that makes, but there's got to be something he wants--
"...I can get your sister into Asticassia," Guel says.
Judau sits up immediately and brings his hands forward, showing that he's already slipped out of his handcuffs. "Guel, Bob, buddy, you said the magic words. You know how to pilot a Desultor, right?"
"Obviously, they didn't update the controls at all for the Dilanza."
"Great! I saw a couple Gundam-types, too, but it's good to have a backup in case they had enough brains to put biometrics on 'em..." Judau says, pulling his lockpick out of his sleeve and going to work freeing Guel and Iino.
Benerit Manufacturing Facility Plant Quetta, Side 4
"...I...you don't need me, Miss Miorine," Suletta says to her fiancee in the midst of the most confusing hug she's ever had. Careful to keep tears out of her voice, she lets out the words she'd been holding in since Miorine got back to space. "You have other people to help with your garden, you have other people to protect you, you even got to go to Earth withou--"
"Idiot!" Miorine says, albeit muffled by gripping Suletta closer. "You think I wanted to go to Earth because my lousy father gave me a job there? Like he's trying to bribe me with some shitty conflict-Sakuradite? You think I was still trying to run away to Earth when I've heard nothing but your stupid motto the last few months? When I've seen nothing but your stupid face every day? You think I wanted to run away from that?"
"I?? Uh--"
"I don't care about going to Earth anymore. Well, no, that's not true. I want to go again, but not on a stupid business trip. You'll have to take me. And stay with me. And tell me what you're thinking so we don't end up in a stupid argument for no reason. And text me, three times daily, if we don't end up seeing each other. And rely on me like I rely on you."
Suletta has nothing to say to that, really, beyond Miorine's name...and holding her closer for a moment.
The situation outside of the Benerit Group's drydock at Quinn Harbor develops in a confusing manner almost immediately. A transport registered to Jeturk Heavy Industries - but not part of the company's onsite security delegation - launches three mobile suits without permission and refuses to respond to traffic control challenges. Very shortly thereafter, early warning systems in the area report the encroachment of a large flotilla of cruisers and battleships painted in Axis - now Neo-Zeon - colors. Faced with close and distant disturbances, the commander of Plant Quetta's security forces initially freezes in indecision, recognizing a diversion and an attack, but unsure how to handle it. Fortunately (for him, anyway), he's outranked by the commander of Benerit's Special Security Force I, recently returned from their hunt for Neo-Zeon forces in Africa. Recognizing Mashymre Cello's Endra as part of the Neo-Zeon forces, the Special Security Force immediately starts scrambling their own mobile suits, a prescient move given that shortly thereafter one of the ""Jeturk"" mobile suits - visually revealed to be an unknown Gundam-type - opens fire with a heavy beam cannon to break off a part of the habitat, and the situation descends into chaos.
The two Gundams and their third partner, a black copy of Haman Karn's personal Quebeley mobile suit, open fire on seemingly arbitrary parts of the station, forcing a response from Benerit security forces that are already scrambling to herd civilians away from the breached section of the station, while the Neo-Zeon fleet hangs back at far range and takes potshots at the security forces, fanning out their mobile suits into a cordon against any Benerit reinforcements. This necessates the security forces splitting up, although they handle it competently, engaging Neo-Zeon's mobile suits freely once they realize it's not their intent to have their battleships fire on the station. Of more concern is the immediate situation around Plant Quetta, where several more "Jeturk" (terrorist) mobile suits begin a messy knife fight near the station, which gets even more confusing as Jeturk's own corporate security engages then, and two of the "terrorist" Desultors appear to turn coat and start attacking their own side. It's a mess that will go down in history (assuming the details ever breach Benerit's information control) as one of the great paramilitary clusterfucks of all time, and results in the death of Vim Jeturk after his rash decision to take flight in a mobile suit himself.
It also becomes clear that there's not much on the Benerit side that's particularly capable of dealing with two Gundams and what's either a prototype Zeon Newtype-use mobile suit or a convincing copy thereof - the production-class Darilbalde drone-use suits assigned to the security forces prove capable enough at containing the Quebeley's funnels, but it's not until a surprising additional unit sorties that the attack is halted - the Gundam Aerial, bane of the Asticassia dueling circuit, just so happened to be aboard the station undergoing a rebuild, which it quickly puts to use in heavily damaging several of the enemy mobile suits, driving them off before engaging in search and rescue - and intercepting a group of terrorists that had slipped aboard the station just before they accomplished their true objective of killing Deling Rembran. The president himself survives, albeit severely injured, as do most of the civilians present - although not without trauma.
"Hey, big sis, who was that?" Ple asks.
"Suletta Mercury," Sophie replies smugly. "Not disappointing at all, was she!"
"No, I meant the other ones."
"Eh? What other ones?"
"Shut up, both of you, Cathedra's hitting the Zeke ships now and we're bugging out. Ple, you're with us, there's no way we're getting you back to the Endra."
"'kaaaay!"
"This is the last fucking time I let Yamato skip a field trip."
"Where is he, anyway?"
"Never mind that, where's Miorine and Suletta?"
Dawn of Fold
Mobile Suits: 6 Gen 1, 4 Gen 2 Destroyed
Neo-Zeon
Mobile Suits: 5 Gen 2 Destroyed, 1 Gen 3+ MIA (will return as she's able probably)
Cruisers: 2 Gen 1+ Destroyed
Benerit Group
Mobile Suits: 3 Gen 2, 1 Gen 2+ Destroyed
Various privately-operated Jeturk Heavy Industries mobile suits destroyed
Vim Jeturk KIA
Deling Rembran severely injured
A bunch of teenagers severely traumatized
Dawn of Fold acquires some idiots and escapes to Earth
NOTE: Benerit Group's Trait means that not all details of this combat are necessarily public knowledge unless they are announced in an IC by them or by Neo-Zeon.
The terrorist attack on the Plant Quetta colony was not the only instance of quiet Zeonic interference in the semi-autonomous colonies of Side 4, nor was it the only case of unfortunate students from the Asticassia Institute of Technology got caught up in grievances from before their time. In this case, however, the setting is a far more quiet, even haunted one: Mendel Colony, a research facility abandoned and sterilized by government and corporate actors alike, now home to nothing and no one. Even the computer systems had been thoroughly scrubbed by the former residents, mostly affiliates of Peil Technologies and other genetic engineering firms, before leaving.
Except...
"So...I see we've all gathered."
"Oh, okay, we've been lured to a haunted space station by a serial killer, cool," Elan Ceres summarizes, checking his handgun. His erstwhile classmate, Kira Yamato, looks at him like he's insane, although he's not sure if his assessment of the situation is all that inaccurate.
"Who are you? What's going on?" Kira calls out, ready to retreat to his borrowed Demi-Trainer.
"In a moment. I suggest you stay and listen, Kira Yamato. It won't end well for you if you leave now."
Outside the station, Canard Pars waits impatiently aboard a Tallgeese Flugel.
"Explain to me why I'm not just blowing this station to hell, old man. I've got a limited amount of time before OZ takes time out of their schedule to blow me out of the sky for going AWOL again."
"Patience," the same voice says. "You can kill Kira Yamato at your leisure. Don't you want the rest of the Ulimate Coordinator Project to be exhumed to die in infamy?"
"Enough to give you five minutes or so."
"--and of course, the Coordinator project had its own failings, with the well-known limitation of successive generations of 'natural' reproduction that--"
"Alright, Kira, I don't think this guy's ever going to shut up. He's got a mobile suit out there covering the hangar, but as far as I can tell, he's in this actual facility somewhere," Elan says. "So if we put a gun to his head we should be able to--"
"I...I'm what?" Kira asks. "An Ultimate Coordinator?"
Elan makes a raspberry at that. "Please. Even if this guy's telling the truth, it sounds like it was...ah hell, you didn't know you were adopted, did you?"
Elan rolls his eyes. "Listen kid, there's all kinds of this crap going on, okay? I'm not even really Elan Ceres. I'm some poor dumb bastard who got gene therapy to look like him and not die when I use a GUND system."
"What--"
"Oh, thank you for the reminder. You were here because you wanted details on Peil's labs, right? Well, good news..."
"Time's up, Captain Crockpot", Canard says, spinning up the Flugel's dober gun even as he says it.
"You're right," Rau replies. "It is. Fire when ready~"
Canard doesn't pause to think too hard about this before opening fire on the colony, approximately where he thinks Kira Yamato is. At the same time, a gleam on the other side of the station reveals something that had been hidden - Rau's backup, the OMNI flagship Dominion.
"What in the actual hell is a Feddie battleship doing here?" Anavel Gato questions from where he'd stationed his new mobile suit in the shadow of Mendel's solar collector ring. "They're applying Mirage Colloid in the field now, too..."
"That Tallgeese just fired on the colony. They must be trying to wipe out the intel!"
"No, wait," Gato says. "I smell a rat. The Feds are in the middle of a civil war, and one side's flagship just shows up at a random colony? Sazabi squad, we're going in, but we're going in quiet. This whole mess is a trap, and I don't know who it's for."
The mysterious appearance of OMNI's flagship took Canard Pars off guard, but did little to stop his cackling assault on the colony, trying to kill Kira Yamato at any cost. Rau Le Creuset's initial plan had been for this to turn into a picturesque duel between the lurking Neo-Zeon strike team and OMNI, but--
"Hm, someone on the Zeon side has a brain. They must have sent Gato. No matter."
The Dominion moves forward with its choreographed plan and deploys mobile suits, aiming to disable the Tallgeese Flugel and secure the treasure trove of genetic research that Rau Le Creuset had leaked to them aboard the colony, but the battle quickly becomes a pursuit through the darkened interior of the labyrinthine labs as Canard uses the wreckage of his assault for cover, picking off OMNI pursuers and trying to confirm that he's killed his target, only to find something he didn't expect.
"A Gundam?" he asks, already having been grabbed by his opponent - which perhaps fortunately, opens up contact comms.
"I'm not supposed to admit it, buuut sure!" Elan Ceres replies. "Lunatic, meet Pharact. Pharact, meet this fucking lunatic. I have a beam rifle pressed to your cockpit block. Please explain why the fuck you're trying to kill me so I know whether to risk blowing up your reactor."
"I have to kill Kira Yamato. I'm the real Ultimate Coordinator, but as long as he's alive, I'm just a failure."
"...he's dead. Vaporized him on the first shot. I'm going to have to cry my heart out to the school Haro counselor over it. Why are you still here?"
"One, you're full of shit. Two, I don't have a problem with you, whoever you are, so just leave."
"Well, Kira's riding in my cockpit, and I'd have to do way more fast talking than I'm already gonna if I go back without him. So I guess you're just gonna--ghtwhatthef--"
"This is Kira Yamato." Another voice comes over comms from the Pharact. Canard's own voice, as it sounds in recordings, anyway. It's irritating as hell. "I don't know who you are, but I don't want to be this...Ultimate Coordinator. What does that even mean?"
"It means there's a point to my existence!" Canard snaps. "That I exist for a reason other than suffering and dying."
"Yeah I got bad news on that front, buddy. If you're something someone made, they probably made you to fight and die anyway," Elan chimes in.
"Listen," Kira says, shoving Elan away from the cockpit mic again. "You win, okay? You're the Ultimate Coordinator, you beat me, good job. Just let Elan go, and--"
"YOU DON'T GET IT!" Canard shouts, finally spinning his Tallgeese around and looping the Pharact's rifle harmlessly under its arm. "THIS ISN'T SOME DAMN DUEL OF HONOR LIKE AT YOUR SHITTY SCHOOL! THIS DOESN'T END UNTIL ONE OF US IS DE--"
The Tallgeese Flugel's head is then shot off by a precise three-round burst from a beam machine gun. Elan, reacting instinctively, kicks it away to get some distance for the Pharact.
"Kid, how in the hell do you keep ending up in this kind situation?" an older voice comes over Pharact's comms.
"Mr. Gato?" Kira asks.
"Mister G---YOU CALL THE NIGHTMARE OF SOLOMON MR. GATO?" Elan asks, having finally been pushed to the breaking point.
The Battle of Mendel Colony, such as it is, is a quiet, hidden affair, quite against the intentions of its instigator, Rau Le Creuset. A battle between two mobile suit hit squads within the bowels of an abandoned space station, playing with the lives of three adolescents who all, in their own ways, quickly come to regret being there. The Dagger-GMs initially sent from the Dominion are all quickly dispatched by either Canard or Anavel Gato's team, resulting in the eventual deployment of OMNI's trio of Enhanced Human-piloted Gundams, who (assisted by Rau in his stolen GuAIZ) put up a better showing, but their lack of combat longevity means that Elan and Kira are able to eventually break free of the station and escape, covered by Neo-Zeon's commando forces.
"Well, this was a farce," Rau Le Creuset eventually broadcasts on Zeonic encryption.
"What was even your goal here, Le Creuset?" Gato demands, waving his wingmen to stay out of sight. Technically, Rau's a hostile, even it's become increasingly obvious he leaked the location of this supposed information trove to Zeon on purpose.
"For you? I simply wanted to offer some fresh material for Zeon Alive. I'm transmitting it right now, in fact," Rau says. "I'd been hoping for some of the Federation's sins to snuff each other out at the same time, but you just had to be gallant about it."
"I don't appreciate being played for politics," Gato bites off.
"Politics?" Rau says, mock-offended. "Captain Gato, I don't have any plan so complex as to be called politics. I simply want to break the world."
OMNI
Mobile Suits: 6 Gen 2 Destroyed
Delaz Fleet
No Casualties
Advanced European Union
Mobile Suits: 1 Gen 2+ stolen and then destroyed
Canard Pars is AWOL indefinitely
The Second Worst Asticassia Field Trip This Month
Mobile Suits: 1 Gen 1 destroyed
Delaz Fleet acquires a huge intelligence cache of Federation genetic engineering experiments detailing the Ultimate Coordinator Project, human cloning experiments, and human enhancement experiments, which will be detailed in DM.
Aboard the SDF-1 Macross, secondary communications station
"And you're sure they're still insisting that nothing happened?" A UN Spacey investigator asks.
"Yeah, they're stonewalling us. Keep saying that those thermal flashes we saw were, and I quote, 'defective fuel containers exploding'. Bullshit. I've detonated at least a dozen Zentraedi fuel containers from a distance, and those thermal blooms looked nothing like what we saw here." A VF-17 pilot says, his voice distorted over the Permet connection by a combination of distance and Minovsky interference.
The UN Spacey investigator mutters something unflattering under his breath.
"Damn corporate PR bullshit, I guess we've been spoiled by our interactions with the LRC..." The investigator lets out a sigh. "Fine, if they're not going to let us help, then we'll just wash our hands of this. See how Benerit likes it when we can't help them with an 'urgent' matter of theirs because we're neck deep in Zentraedi and Wulgaru."
"So...do we stay on our assigned patrol route?" The Valkyrie pilot asks.
"If that's what your orders from on high say, then yeah, finish your circuit before reporting back to..." The investigator consults a piece of paper. "The secondary rally point near PLANT."
"Not the SDF-1?" The Valkryie pilot asks in confusion.
"Something big is going down in Japan, and the brass decided to deploy most of what we have there, the SDF-1 Macross included. You drew one of the lucky straws-you get to sit this one out and enjoy the hospitality of the GDF and ZAFT while this whole thing goes down." The investigator says.
The Valkryie pilot shrugs before terminating the connection.
"Now, where did we put the codes to where we locked away the reaction warheads?" The investigator asks himself as he rummages through his desk.
Commander Simon Gato sat at his desk, and contemplated the rapid turn the month had taken.
Thankfully, most of it had stabilized at this point. The (literally) exploding Mars situation was in the process of being handled after his conversations with the Chryse government, the GDF attachments to Japan and Siberia were already in place for Lando's assault, and the current accommodations for the UNS members were set aside for their use while the bulk of their organization was moving towards Japan.
On the negative side, something had happened at one of Benerit's plants that they were covering up impressively well - the most that escaped Benerit's lockdown had beens whispers a fight between mobile suits had rocked the exterior of the complex, but there was nothing concrete other than that. There was nothing left to do but wait and see what the 'official' line Benerit was going to put out.
That just left his two biggest headaches at the moment: Komine's current chase and the emerging Wulgaru situation.
The expansion of the GDF's scope towards Celestial Being had been a convergence of a multitude of factors rather than any grand plan. The events on Kaminejima had elevated their priority, and so had MO-I for that matter, but realistically speaking everyone had expected Komine to spend at least a bit fumbling in the dark.
(Admittedly, a not insignificant part of Simon's willingness to give him one of the lead positions was that it would give the man an outlet away from the incredibly sensitive operation at Boaz.)
Then Komine had actually succeeded, and in bombastic fashion too.
The discovery of the GN particle was a boon to the GDF's production line, as were the schematics for the GN-X mobile suit as a cheaper, more balanced alternative to the more specialized Rhinos. Then he followed it up with a surprise ambush on the Celestial Being forces, which, even as he spun it during his rounds on GN Flash to sound less of a defeat as it actually was, was still more than any other organization had done so far.
How fortuitous, and a bit suspicious.
Lieutenant Amane had reached out to him, passing on the emails Komine had received and her suspicions about the ease of its acquisition. Looking at it in concert with Celestial Being's rapid drop in popularity after MO-I's destruction, it had all the feelings of a set up, dangling bits and pieces in front of Komine to get him to keep chasing the lead. But it was only a feeling, nothing he could actually prove and so nothing he could act on, for the moment.
So he let that sit and moved on to the other, inevitable problem.
The Wulgaru forces in the Earth Sphere had taken a heavy hit after the forces at Boaz, and as a result the raids on Earth Sphere convoys and settlements had lessened for the month. It was valuable time that gave the GDF the ability to reposition and devote time to other projects without the pressure of the Wulgaru directly on their doorstep.
Judging by the increased appearance of the orange Wulgaru craft, they apparently thought the same. Where the green ones lashed out at the convoys and settlements around the Earth Sphere, the orange group was more targeted, probing at GDF bases and patrols as they tried to establish their own foothold. They were more tactical as well, avoiding the previously favored swarm strategies in favor of actions like multiple levels of pincer maneuvers and more subtle decoys - nothing exceptional from the rank and file so far, but it was still a noticeable step up from the previous years. The other information of note was the rumors of the Wulgaru using stealth technology, ambushing unsuspecting GDF members and retreating before they could identify the method of camoflage they were using.
As loath as he was to admit it, the Zentradi bearing down on Earth was as much of a useful deterrent as much as they were a serious threat. Most of the Wulgaru forces in this section of space had been diverted to clearing the rival 'hunters' out first, leaving what most of the GDF analysts had determined to be a clearly subordinate commander content to leave battles up to numbers and waste time on indiscriminate targets rather than focused assaults. The lack of a dedicated offensive into the Earth Sphere proper had bought the GDF valuable time to get the ASHMB program and Rhinos line of mobile suits up and running, and it still cost countless lives and material during the first months of operations. But now it looked like the grace period was ending, and the Wulgaru were now interested in Earth, enough to take them seriously as they hunted humanity.
His computer buzzed, before a GDF officer appeared on his screen. "Commander Gato, your appointment is on the line and ready to talk to you."
"Tell Miss Crossroad that I'll be on the Permit Line momentarily." With that, Simon stood up and moved towards another of the many, many balls he had to juggle.
