Soldier of OZ: Walker's Account

Chapter 82 – Milliardo Peacecraft

"How are you feeling, Miss Relena?"

The queen that was, as OZ had taken to calling her, looked up from her seat in the middle rows of the elegantly austere Bombardier transorbital shuttle. With the only two other people aboard in the flight deck's cabin, she'd grown to think of herself as the lone passenger.

"Sir Iain." He was back in his royal blue uniform, the same one he'd worn when he'd left Brussels with her at the end of her short reign.

Iain Carlyle seemed to detect the mild surprise in her voice. "I'm sorry, Your Highness, I didn't mean to…"

"No, it's fine," she quickly assured him. "You can call me 'Relena', everyone will now after all." She gave a deep sigh, recomposing herself, and smiled.

"Very well, thank you." Carlyle's well-worn face smiled back. "There's still some time before we reach Libra at the earliest, you should try and get some rest."

"I will, I'm sorry for troubling you." She frowned slightly. "Is Ms. Irene…actually, I don't really know what I'm asking…"

"Irene is at the controls, yes," he assured her. "Though our course is set until we reach Libra, as far we've planned. In a civilian understanding, she may not strictly be piloting."

Relena nodded. How little she knew about either of them.

"Please try and rest," he repeated.

"I will." She watched Carlyle float down the cabin with a gentle push, then turned to the double-panned window to her right. This is the second time I've seen Earth from space, isn't it? Not like Sir Iain or Ms. Irene.

She let her head rest forward, staring into her reflection in the thick material. Father. You always hoped for peace between the colonies and Earth. I don't know if I can follow in your footsteps anymore.

She watched her reflection blink its large blue eyes. Out one corner of her eye, the Earth was still visible—the other, Luna, its brightly glowing face interrupted by the tiny dots of some fleet or another. She thought of Flight Lieutenant Carlyle, an OZ mobile suit pilot who'd faced the Gundams, the Alliance, and then his own comrades in OZ and survived, apparently un-dissuaded from following a girl he barely knew to talk to her long-separated brother at the head of a fleet that wanted to destroy the military he'd resumed wearing the uniform of.

Come on Relena, have courage. You'll need it if you're going to protect that beautiful Earth. She clenched her fist tightly. She couldn't sit in a mobile suit like Sir Iain, she didn't wear the uniform of a soldier like Ms. Irene. She'd been Sovereign of the World Nation, as best she could, until the rest of the World Nation decided that wasn't good enough. So, she'd try again.

God help me, I even wish Dorothy were here.

Flight Lieutenant Carlyle entered the cabin, sliding the door shut behind him and taking the pilot's seat. Celeste Irene glanced up at him from the her seat in the first officer's position, arms crossed over her own blue uniform tunic. "How is she?"

"You should go ask her yourself," Carlyle told the younger officer as politely as he could manage. After finishing tightening his restraints, he looked back at her. "She's fine. I asked her to get a little more sleep if she could."

"After all, we're the ones on our way to becoming prisoners-of-war," she muttered softly.

"I suppose it was either Brussels or on Libra." Though I know which one I'd prefer, he thought. "I…think she misses Catalonia."

Irene scratched her brow, stifling a yawn. "I'm sure she does. She was the only other teenage girl she ever got to talk to." She frowned at him. "She still following us?"

Carlyle was already glancing at the instrumentation arrayed before him, reaching for a multi-function display just to the side of the primary flight display and above the navigation display. With the tap of the keys, a readout was presented by the civilian-grade radar array. "Yes, she is. I suppose you were wrong about her secret intention to abandon Relena."

"I don't even pretend to understand what's in the mind of Dorothy Catalonia," she announced scornfully. "The girl was disturbed before she left for Luxembourg, as far as I can tell. Whatever Treize Khushrenada visited on her brain couldn't have helped."

"I don't think it was Treize," he murmured, pressing the soft key again. The MFD reverted back to a list of subsystem temperature readings.

"What? You know the man?" Irene asked skeptically.

Carlyle raised his brow. "I fought with him, but so did the rest of the Third Recon Battalion back in the Alliance days. He liked the Aries troops, and he liked us."

"So not really?" she countered.

Iain conceded the point. "No, not really. Perhaps a good thing too, I won't be able to tell Zechs Merquise anything he doesn't already know."

II

To Flight Lieutenant Cage, it wasn't a very impressive sight: a pair of old fashion missile-and-gun light cruisers, belonging to the Quebec-class favored by the Alliance two decades earlier, securely moored to a substantially more massive converted submarine depot ship, its large civilian hull rising over the decks of the light cruiser but not quite up to their citadels.

"Remind me, those are…" he asked the officer next to him in the naval helicopter's cabin.

"Hull code one-three-four and hull code one-nine-two. So that's the Saguenay Valley and the Mississauga. Early in the production, before they started naming them after cities outside of Ontario and Quebec," the knowledgeable flight officer explained. A dissatisfied look appeared on her face. "I'm not sure why the Alliance liked the class so much. They're not actually good warships."

"Probably because they were inexpensive. And reliable. And flexible in theory," Cage answered, looking at the 16,000 tonne cruisers, with their neatly laid-out design of four triple-turrets of twelve 152 mm guns, probably of British or French manufacture, before spotting a ship-carried naval helicopter much like their own, just aft of the citadel.

"Even with all that antiaircraft artillery and radar equipment, Aries troops would've murdered them." The flight officer was referring the conventional wisdom that it was the responsibility of light cruisers, too slow to chase after destroyers or other swift vessels, and too poorly armed to present much of a danger to larger missile cruisers or battlecruisers, to provide air defense in a battlegroup.

"It wouldn't have been that much of a loss. Except for the crew," he pointed out.

"Sirs, we've received permission to land on the tender, helideck number two," the first officer next to the pilot announced from the helicopter's cockpit.

"Thank you," Cage shouted back.

Within a few minutes, they had easily landed on aft-most of the large tender's helipad platforms, where a trio of officers were waiting for by the access stairway, but had closed the gap even before Cage had pulled open the Kamov helicopter's sliding door. Two of them wore dull blue-colored naval working uniforms with visible rank insignia, but the man in charged seem to wear the army-style Earth Mobile Suit Troops uniform in the faithful color of royal blue. His uniform was almost a match of Cage's own in hunter green.

"Permission to come aboard!" the flight officer shouted over the sound of the rotors dying down.

At least one of the officers in working uniform looked surprised. "Permission granted!"

Cage glanced at his subordinate, who gave a casual shrug back, before climbing out from the Kamov, his F/O following.

The other officer's hand was extended. "Flight Lieutenant Cage."

"Flight Lieutenant Paria." Cage shook the other man's white gloved hand. After all this time, he still wasn't sure what to say in these circumstances. "Good weather today, no?" he settled upon.

Paria blinked at him. "Welcome aboard the Proteus, formerly the civilian cargo ship Novaya Zemlya," he announced, as if ignoring the question.

"Thank you. Sorry, this is Flight Officer Ivanova, my aid."

"Good afternoon, sir," Ivanova announced, shaking his hand a little more naturally.

"Likewise." Paria glanced back at the two officers flanking him. "Right, these Midshipmans Williams and Morales, who've been on the Proteus since she was commissioned as a depot ship." Though neither officer seemed rude in any way, they didn't seem inclined to shake hands, so another round of only verbal greetings was exchanged instead.

"Now that that's out of the way," Cage declared patiently. "Lieutenant Paria, I'm here to take the formal surrender of your ship, your escorts, and whatever mobile suits you're still carrying."

"I understand, Flight Lieutenant Cage, and have been authorized by this force to negotiate the terms of our capitulation," Paria replied with similar rigidity.

The two men stared at one another before relaxing and breaking out into smile. "Good, now that's out of the way."

"It's not nearly so civilized in Outer Space," Cage informed him with a grin.

"No, I would imagine not." Paria removed his cap and ran a hand through his curly, thick hair, a nervous tic. "Are you hungry? We've set up lunch down below."

Cage kept grinning, so Ivanova answered on his behalf. "That sounds lovely, Flight Lieutenant."

The cabins aboard the converted civilian ship were clean and neatly-kept, but sparse, both in terms of furniture and crew. The improvised state room still had some degree of extravagance, with a presentable meal for five done in the old upper-class Alliance Navy style and waited on by a bored-looking enlisted sailor.

Ivanova stared carefully at her antipasto plate before glancing at Cage to her right as he leisurely cleared his own. "You better add your cooks to the inventory, this is actually quite excellent, Paria."

Paria grinned back at him. "What was the old stereotype? Any competent cook in the Alliance Navy ought to have been just stupid enough to pass on a career in a hotel restaurant?" He ate another spoonful of vegetables. "We should remember, shouldn't we? It was less than a year ago."

"I remember they paid them better than gun crews," Cage concluded, turning to Ivanova. "Really, they got the vinegar perfect here, try it."

Ivanova gave a conciliatory nod as Paria tapped his spoon against the light blue navy china. "So, that's two light cruisers, one civilian submarine tender, five operational helicopters…"

"Four operational helicopters out of five," Midshipman Morales corrected him between bites.

"…four operational helicopters, eleven patrol boats, two long-range reconnaissance seaplanes, one Type 80 fast attack craft, and the real prize: nine marine mobile suits." He paused. "And our mess hall staff."

"Nine mobile suits?" Ivanova asked with a mouth full of vegetables. She hurriedly swallowed. "Excuse me, sirs. You had nine mobile suits? Intact?"

"Oh yes," Paria confirmed casually, setting down his silverware and putting his hands together. "Williams?"

Midshipman Williams exchanged a look at Paria with Morales, then turned back to the victors' side of the table. "Yes ma'am. Seven OZ-08MMS and two OZ-09MMS."

Her eyes wide, Ivanova leaned back in her seat, her expression grave. Nine mobile suits. Seven Cancers and two Pisces.

"Ms. Ivanova's expression suggests that's much more than you were expecting," Paria announced politely.

"Well, it's more than I was expecting," Cage assured him.

"We…started out with full squadron of Pisces troops, the Hundred-Eleventh Special Pursuit Squadron," Midshipman Morales explained, putting down his own silverware. And four squadrons from the Fortieth Naval Separate Battalion out of Agano, half their combat troops."

"We didn't loose all of them," Williams announced quickly. "Two squadrons were diverted to cover the Fourth Automated Battalion in Tunis, and we effectively lost another squadron to rescuing the Indianapolis after your force depth charged her to hell on her way to Barcelona."

"A ballistic missile submarine really had no business being there," Cage joked, eliciting a smile from Paria.

"And it would've made quite a prize if you had actually sunk it," Morales reflected.

"So that left a full squadron of each?" Ivanova asked.

"Yes. To summarize...the Pisces troops had a terrible attrition rate, even higher than our expectations. In amphibious combat, they were easy prey for anything with a ninety-millimeter gun or better. And in submarine warfare, well, you get the picture. They're barely fast enough to dodge any sort of ASW screening force, and you might be surprised to learn it's highly debatable if sinking a single Treizist frigate is worth the potential cost of a whole mobile suit and its pilot," he explained candidly.

"The Cancer is an older design, but it's also a more refined machine, and an extremely hardy underwater. Aside from carrying a massive payload compared Pisces, that's its primary strength," Morales explained patiently.

Paria seemed to ruminate about what he had just said for a few moments longer before returning to his plate. Still smiling, Cage turned to Ivanova, who looked like she was in a daze.

"So, would you like to see them?" he asked as he chewed.

After finishing their meal at a leisurely pace, the victorious officers were escorted back to the deck near the Proteus's bow cranes, and the two sub-lieutenants split off to join the active crew by the cranes. "As you may've realized, this is not an amphibious assault ship, and we do not have a well deck capable of storing marine mobile suits."

"Or any kind of well deck," Ivanova pointed out.

"But that was not in this ship's assigned duties anyway. So instead, when the war ended, we did this." Paria gestured towards the cranes. "Lieutenants?"

"Longfin One through Seven are standing by. We're still working on Stingray."

"Cool callsigns," Ivanova chirped. Cage chuckled.

The flight lieutenant nodded and Sub-Lieutenant Morales returned to the computer controls by one of the cranes, tapping a few quick keystrokes into the folded-down keyboard, before gesturing at them to approach. By the time Cage and Ivanova reached the railing and looked over, they could see vague red-and-white shapes rising underneath a swirling mass of bubbles and splashing seawater.

Paria joined them leaning over the railing. "They even surface faster."

"Hydrojets versus propeller blades," Cage explained. "Well, that's part of the story."

Remotely controlled from the Proteus, seven OZ-08MMS gracefully bobbed to the surface, one after another, connected by a pair of long cables reaching out from the cranes.

"How do they look, sir?" Ivanova asked, craning over as though for a better look.

"Very much intact," Cage answered casually.

Paria pushed himself from the railing. "To tell you the truth, Flight Lieutenant, I was hoping someone from First Recon might take our surrender," he confessed with embarrassment.

"Really? May I ask why?"

Paria thought about it. "Celebrity, I suppose? I mean, you spend weeks trying and failing to sink an aircraft carrier, you might want to meet the other people responsible."

Cage nodded in agreement. "Unfortunately, the First Recon Battalion are much too important to spend their time with this. I myself was primarily in the Baltic Campaign. Ms. Ivanova?"

The question caught her off guard. "Oh, Sevastopol Shipyards, Lieutenant. After I left the Levant. But I wasn't with First Recon, I came with the Aries troops from the Eleventh Airborne Division out of New Aswan."

"Rough time I heard," Paria observed.

"Yes sir." She paused. "Not to…rob you of credit, Flight Lieutenant."

Paria gave a relaxed shrug. "Every one of our mobile suits that was lost was sunk trying to do the same to the Levant."

"Out of almost a hundred separate mobile suit attacks on the carrier group," Morales added.

Paria shifted his weight on his feet. "I should commend your side. It's almost the end of this century, and the Treizists demonstrated that an aircraft carrier could still act as the flagship of a combined taskforce engaging in direct combat, and not just the accessory an amphibious invasion force solely serving as a strategic alternative to airborne mobile suit carriers. That hasn't happened since the rise of the mobile suit. In fact, I don't think that's happened in more than a century."

Cage thought about it and stood up from the railing. "I suppose we're as surprised as the rest of you."

"But I know our mistake," Paria added. "By that, I mean the loyalists' mistake. Or Pro-Foundation. OZ. Whatever we called ourselves. Our mistake was not sinking your missile cruisers when we had the chance," he concluded. "And your other escorts. Without them, you couldn't have operated the Levant with such impunity. And without that, the First Recon Battalion wouldn't have been such a constant threat."

Cage smiled. "History in abridged form," he offered, recalling how before the introduction of the mobile suit had given aircraft carriers a new lease on life, the missile-armed cruiser had supplanted the aircraft carrier since the warring states era that had led to the rise of the Alliance in the first place, the most effective warship in terms of human and economic costs.

On the other end of that scale, the mighty mobile suit and naval aircraft carrier, a veritable floating airbase with its own ammunition and parts stores, antiaircraft defense, fuel depot, and personnel housing. "In that one decisive moment, when its total dependency on other ships is no longer relevant, when it ceases to be a giant, expensive floating target, and is actually a seagoing airbase that can threaten its enemies, all that liability is worth it. Perhaps that's what made the First Recon Battalion so invaluable: a sense of timing."

Paria stared Cage a few seconds longer before laughing. Ivanova turned red with indignity, but after a moment Cage laughed in turn.

"And the counterargument?" Paria asked.

"Hmmm?" Cage made an overly contemplative expression. "Aircraft carriers had their day. Airborne transport is the better option. Mobile suit carriers have endured, but only if you can afford to protect them—which is why the Alliance Navy had more tonnage sunk in carriers than almost the rest of the navy combined. You can thank the Gundams, and the beam cannon arms race, for that. An Air Army does the same thing, doesn't take weeks to cross an ocean, and is harder to hit at a distance, even for the Gundams."

Except in Outer Space, maybe.

III

I must say, Treize, it's not like you to lay everything out on the table.

Among the skeleton command crew, he could sense Jarilo Sedici and Quinze Quarante tensing up as he entered the operational bridge aboard the super-battleship Libra. He wasn't offended. He almost found it endearing in a way. I wonder if it's my lot in life to be feared if I'm ever respected.

"Yes, Colonel, I'm confirming it's a Peacemillion-class expeditionary battleship. Recon craft say matches hull code EBC-28, the class's lead ship that was sold to commercial interests decades ago," a lieutenant explained, standing next to Sedici.

Sedici took a moment to respond. "So that's how the Gundams have been traveling around. Tell the Thebe to coordinate with the Calisto and the Minmas for a response if necessary, but don't provoke it. A relic like that would have trouble against one modern battlecruiser, but we're not here to make enemies of the Gundams if we can help it," he instructed, leaning towards the nearby console.

The on-duty crew didn't seem to notice him as he sat down in the commanding officer's raised seat, unable to shake the impression of it as a throne. He shifted in his double-breasted wool uniform under an outdated greatcoat, free of insignia except for a small metal insignia pinned to his left lapel, that of the White Fang Armed Forces. He felt his holster on his right hip shift slightly against his uniform jacket, and his feet ease slightly out of his leather riding boots.

Supreme Commander Milliardo Peacecraft stared at the panoramic reinforced windows arrayed in front of him, and at Quinze standing in front of them. The Party Leader had recovered himself. "Supreme Commander, Libra is finally fully operational."

"Good. Fire control, arm the primary beam cannon. The target is the OZ-occupied colony, C-00421."

The old man didn't bother hiding his shock, and even outright gasped.

"We'll teach them what a foolish thing it is to use a space habitat—the most vulnerable structures in Outer Space—as a shield. As I understand it, the colony should be within the weapon's effective firing range. Please confirm," he asked the crew.

As gunnery officer occupying the fire control section stammered out a response, a graphical representation of Libra's thirty separate beam emitters for the primary weapon on his screen. "Sir, our expected accuracy at this range would be eighty five percent. We cannot predict the scope of collateral damage!"

"Sacrifice incessantly hovers over war. If we show even the slightnest weakness in our bearing here, the World Nation will see right through it. We must demonstrate our indomitable resolve to the Earth Sphere," he explained calmly.

Finally, Colonel Sedici spoke from behind him. "Supreme Commander, sir, I beg you to reconsider. If we use the primary cannon, if we use the main cannon, never mind OZ, we'll destroy the whole habitat too!" he pleaded.

"Our forces in pursuit will be able to rescue the population in short order, why not wait until then, sir?" the Party Leader asked.

It took some effort to bury the satisfaction in his voice. "Gentlemen, I thought I had been asked to serve as supreme military commander of the Committee for the Liberation of the Peoples of the Habitats. But it seems I was mistaken." He forced scorn onto his face. "I have no intention of whitewashing this war. If you don't like the way I do things, you can look for another supreme leader."

Both men were predictably silent, just as their objections had been. Sedici was starting to sweat. Quinze looked like he was in physical pain.

After waiting a few seconds longer, the gunnery officer swallowed. "Primary beam cannon is armed, beginning the firing sequence."

"Adjusting main emitter balancer based on the latest simulation data," another announced.

"Our past data is based on firing at L2. Hurry and compensate our firing angle for the gravitational influence of Earth and Luna at L1."

He imagined the uncomfortable tension from a Space Mobile Suit Troops 1st lieutenant who standing near the colonel. "Sir, we need to…we need to warn the forward fleet about our firing path," he explained, halfway towards a whisper. Sedici said nothing, but at least unfroze enough to nod.

"The Thebe is reporting mobile suits engaging in the immediate vicinity of C-00421, sirs! They're not any of ours!" the crew sputtered out.

The Party Leader was whispering something to Colonel Sedici. "Recall the pursuit squadrons immediately! We can't afford to lose manned troops to the Gundams or OZ Space Forces!"

"Get ahold of Forrestal aboard the Thebe," Quinze asked another officer more quietly.

Milliardo shifted inside his greatcoat. Go ahead and stall. For all that will do you.

IV

"Chief Engineer, sir?"

In his half-woken state, he could adequately hear the aircrewman standing by his seat in the cabin, but remained convinced he was calling for someone else.

"Sir!" he repeated more insistently. "Flight Lieutenant Walker!"

That was enough. Walker twitched awake in his seat, uncrossing his arms and blinking his bleary eyes. "Sorry, I'm awake now." His thoughts returned to him. "We're already there?"

"It's only a ninety-minute flight sir." The aircrew came into focus to his side and he began undoing his seatbelt.

Of course. It's almost exactly a thousand kilometers from Brussels to Ajaccio," he surmised, glancing out the nearby window. From the runway, one could see the small naval city down the coast, south of the massive factory complex and its own dedicated airfield reaching into the Mediterranean. He kept staring at the almost picturesque sunrise.

"Sir, are you alright?"

Shaking his head, he looked back at the aircrew in his dull-colored flight suit. "I just realized, I haven't been back here since the Gundam attack."

The aircrew looked sobered. "When Unit Zero-Three struck Corsica Base. I remember that," he muttered reverently.

Walker felt himself starting to turn red. "You…you weren't deployed here, were you? In the Fourth Middle Eastern Airborne Division's Transport Company? If so, apologies, I didn't recognize…"

"No sir, no," the other man assured him. "Sorry, I didn't mean to give you that impression sir. I heard about it. I was…I was an officer cadet at Lake Victoria at the time." A new awkward silence replaced the old one. "I was one of the lucky ones. No thanks to Instructor Noin, if you'll excuse the expression."

Walker gave a dry laugh. He seemed to still know black humor when he saw it. "Of course."

"And…you haven't been back since then? April, wasn't it?"

"No," he repeated. "No, I…"

He stopped. Memories of that underground workshop in the New Castle of Ansembourg flashed in his mind. The Zero System and the so-called Luxembourg Gundam, Epyon.

His Gundam, or Treize's. Or now, Zechs Merquise's.

Walker grasped his left arm at the elbow and gave a short, sharp breath. He wondered if the aircrew noticed, and immediately stood up. "Time to get to work," he assured him.

Disembarking from airlifter tail number OZ-D9921, Walker was attempting to discreetly rub the soreness out of his neck with his free hand as he stepped out into the damp Corsican winter wind. The familiar smell of aviation fuel had returned since leaving Brussels.

"Get the base commander over so I can make my apologies, or anyone else who I should be apologizing to," he muttered to the aircrewman over his shoulder. "Is Colonel Brillié still the lead factory manager? I'll apologize to him too."

"That probably won't be necessary," a familiar voice assured him under the aircrewman's assurances. Walker turned back towards the terminal building in front of him, blinked a few times until his vision focused, and smiled. "You can't apologize for everything."

"Flight Officer Yoshitsune," Walker announced. "When did you arrive from Pixie Flight?"

Miyamoto Yoshitsune grinned at him from underneath the Venetian red uniform cape draped over one shoulder, the mark of a junior commissioned officer in the Mobile Suit Troops. The two-rank promotion had given him an unmistakable swagger. "I'm not sure I was meant to be combat pilot. Not with the likes Kalin Kiest-Lang," he confessed with unconvincing humility.

Walker snatched his hunter green folding cap from his head once he was in reach, then ruffled his black hair under it. "Too much teasing from Nene?"

"How'd you know?" he responded jovially as he wrestled free from the larger man. "Sorry I didn't see you at the victory parade, I went straight back to the Earth Forces Engineer Corps in Diekirch. Truth be told, I was hoping to come back here."

Walker released him quickly. "You're welcome then. Looks like we're both not cut out for the combat troops, are we?"

Yoshitsune gave him a half-sad smile. "Come on, Walker. Let's see what your future brother-in-law pinched from Corsica Base."

"Please don't remind me."

It took an hour, leaving abundant time for Walker to force Yoshitsune to part with his shoulder cape and presentation sword while the airlifter's cargo was moved to available building, a smaller structure than a proper assembly building, one normally reserved for final powerplant tests on OZ-06MS taken off the assembly line. At the other end of the structure, the distinct shape of a mobile suit could be seen, standing upright against gantries under a protective cover.

Eugene Brillié, a short ex-colonel in the Alliance Army who'd traded his uniform for grey coveralls and a dark blue tie, arrived last, tightening the straps on his white headgear that read No. 2 Corsica Mobile Suit Works on the side. The nearly paunchy man in his forties regarded them both briefly before taking his place on the walkway outside the raised observation level that evenly divided the interior space in two, within arm's reach of the guardrail. Walker glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, wondering if he recognized him from his engineering career, wondering how he felt about this young flight lieutenant returning with an Antonov taken from Corsica in the first place.

"Yes, Flight Lieutenant Walker, I do recognize you," Brillié announced, loudly and calmly. Yoshitsune looked surprised. Walker did not, so the younger man stared back and forth between them, wondering who'd rebuke the other first. Who takes precedence here, an ex-colonel or an active flight lieutenant?

Sorry, Walker attempted to say with an expression.

Yoshitsune looked back at what the ground crew had brought forth. "Reminds me of that hush house outside New Jerusalem."

"New Jerusalem Air Logistics Complex," Walker added. "In the Continental American Military District."

He tightened his gloved hands on the guardrail. "So, back before I went into the Space Forces, the incomplete machine designated EA-00MA was found in Colorado during the Alliance retreat. And you saw a turbine intended for it, next door in Utah. And I saw it in Luxembourg, when it'd been completed and designated OZ-16MSX, operated by Colonel Walther Farkill."

At some point, Yoshitsune had produced a paper notebook and was rapidly scribbling into it with a pencil. Walker realized for the first time that the manager was holding a similar notebook "Carduus. Where you killed him and destroyed it."

Walker twitched. "It was a group effort."

Yoshitsune flashed him a grin and kept scribbling. "And before that, during Operation 'Citadel' Septim's Colonial Home Army in D-120 completed and deployed EA-01MA1, called 'Chrysanthemum', which was destroyed by the First Recon Battalion and the OZ-13SMS1 and OZ-13SMS2, the twin Gundams." He only spared a second to glance at Walker.

"EA-00MA and EA-01MA1," he read aloud. "So there was model in between, EA-01MA."

"Epidendrum. That's what it was called by the Main Armaments Directorate in the Alliance Ministry of Defense." Walker nodded. "And that's it.

"Or what's left of it." Yoshitsune lowered his notes. "OZ-16MSX was clearly a terrestrial combat machine, and the turbine I saw at New Jerusalem was air breathing."

"The Noventans said they spent great deal in manpower and resources adapting Chrysanthemum for deep space anti-ship combat."

"So it reasons to stand that EA-01MA was also a terrestrial combat machine. Maybe for the Gundams, maybe for something else."

"Chief Brillié, how long was this machine at Corsica before it left for Brussels, do you know?"

Brillié had an unapologetic look on his face. "This machine? I don't know, Flight Lieutenant. Aircraft tail number Delta-Nine-Nine-Two-One? That was there since before the Gundam attack, I know that much."

Yoshitsune nearly dropped his notebook. Walker released the guardrail and put a gloved hand to his face. "You're joking. This thing just sat here, on the tarmac, through the Gundam attack, the 'Daybreak' revolution, Operation 'Citadel', Treize Khushrenada's arrest, just collecting dust until Ross Nathaniel ran off with it?"

Brillié stared at him for a moment. "Do you have any idea how many mobile suit carriers we have at the Corsica Base? How many aircraft?"

"I'm sorry I asked."

"An analysis will take longer, I'm sure, but just looking at it, it was armed with battleship-class beam artillery and, judging by those coils, a pair of gauss rifles. But that segmented chain-thing rolled into a spool, I've never seen one of those."

"It's a niche type of anti-MS weapon, more exotic than a beam saber. More flexibility against enemies of the same size or smaller, but wholly impractical against more massive targets, unlike a beam saber. Substantially less energy-demanding as well," Walker explained. So, perhaps this explains where His Excellency got the idea for his Gundam. He found himself weighing whether or not to share that with Yoshitsune, guilt welling in his chest.

Yoshitsune didn't seem to notice. "So they gave it some way to defend itself. Why not? The keystone must've been a Leo, because there was nothing better available at the time," he pointed out, approval discernable in his voice. "All this to make up for the limitations of the original platform."

"But it was political, wasn't it?"

Yoshitsune looked at Brillié. The colonel-turned-industrial manager adjusted his nylon chin strap. "What the Main Armaments Directorate wanted was technological independence from OZ for a change of pace."

"That sounds like an accusation, Chief," Yoshitsune announced, loudly and with a hint of humor in his voice. "You wouldn't be defending the ancien régime in front of His Excellency's chief engineer for Luxembourg, would you?"

Brillié seemed to get the joke, if there was one. "Of course not, Mr. Yoshitsune. I wouldn't dream of doing that."

"Enough," Walker cut in, equal parts annoyed and embarrassed. Sometimes I wish I never left that airfield. "Today, a third of the Space Forces Navy has been sunk, a third is in the hands of the White Fang along with Libra, and a third is in ours. So we don't have the luxury of looking at this as a mere curiosity. We need to look at it in practical terms."

"Fine then." Yoshitsune put his hands on his hips. "You're the mobile armor killer."

"I really am not," he corrected him quickly.

"You dealt with the proceeding and succeeding model. So, what's the worth of this machine?"

Frowning even more than before, he released the guardrail and stepped back, as if getting a better look. "Not very much. If my own combat experience is worth something, which it might not be, the Alliance mobile armor concept has been an expensive failure. Colonel Farkill an ace Leo pilot. Captain Soletta was probably an even better one. Neither of them were served by these technological alternatives, at least not in terrestrial combat." He sighed. "Or maybe they weren't good enough. I'm inclined to think the former, though."

Behind him, Yoshitsune and Brillié exchanged looks. "So then, what? Technical analysis, then recycle it for parts?"

"Well, don't you at least want the weapons for Tallgeese?" Brillié asked.

Walker could only guess at his expression when he looked at the ex-colonel: a frown so dramatic it had almost become comical. Yoshitsune snorted at him just as he deliberately remade his expression to his usual sharp, angular concerned neutrality. "What do you mean, Tallgeese? Tallgeese was destroyed, sunk over the Indian Ocean by the Alliance Seventh Fleet." Compared to his earlier frowning, he thought he managed to contain his expression as he recited the official story. In the event of danger, sir, push this.

The amusement had left Yoshitsune's face. "Same day as Gwinter Septim's speech." The connection was unmissable: the swift collapse of the unmatched Alliance Space Navy by an insurgent revolt from within.

Brillié continued to look unimpressed. "Yes, Flight Lieutenant. I saw the report. But after that duplicate surfaced in the colonies, we did a complete inventory of all the spare parts." The older man was starting to go from impatient to outright exasperated. "Why do you think it was brought here?"

With an informality that came naturally to him, Yoshitsune made an almost expression of body language: What's so special about this building? But the chief was already opening the door into the observation rooms behind them.

The two uniformed office exchanged a glance before slowly following after him. "I remember this," Yoshitsune announced, maneuvering around some rolling chairs left unused long enough to accumulate dust. "The factory wanted to rule out theft, you know, someone sympathetic to the Gundam pilots flying off with an airlifter full of spare parts like your future brother-in-law…"

"Yoshitsune," Walker repeated gravely as he followed.

"…and we confirmed it, nothing missing. Everything still in its crates, all those unused spare parts ordered for the Lightning Count." He stared at the back of Brillié's helmet. "But it wasn't a machine."

"Not until Luxembourg called." Pausing in front of the glass door to the other side, he opened the notebook that had been crammed into the right breast pocket of his coveralls. "The same day as the ceasefire with the Noventans, 18 September, His Excellency personally requested, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, that we immediately knock together a single completed airframe from spare parts. We finished in less than a week, then stood by for further orders."

With his free hand, he yanked open the glass door and stood out onto a mirror image of the earlier platform that overlooked the other half of the building. "Show them!" he bellowed at the staff waiting below them on the factory floor. With the professionalism of experience, a trio of laborers dragged the protective covering off what Walker had assumed was a forgotten Leo mobile suit, and the two pilots watched the tarp came sliding down and a bank of lights lit up the machinery. The large, flat surface of a Leo's armored monoeye camera stared back at them, but that was it.

"And here it is," Brillié declared in a patronizing tone, as if the younger generation needed to be explained to them. "The second operational Tallgeese mobile suit. There was some confusion over its model designation, since it amounted to exact copy of the prototype after it was made operational, so here at the factory we just called it OZ-00MS2."

The second Tallgeese, missing the anti-flash white paintjob on its fuselage that its predecessor had been discovered with, loomed there in the lights, its up-armored torso and shoulder ball-joints distinguishing it from its smaller successors.

The manager impatiently tapped his foot against the flooring beneath him. "Well, are you two boys just going to stand there staring?"

Walker found his voice first, clasping his right hand against his cap. "So history reaches up from the grave to shake us." He felt himself turning red. "Yoshitsune, how did you not know about this?"

"Please don't start, Walker," he begged him. "Didn't you find the first one by yourself? Back in the spring?"

"That's how I recall it," Brillié added.

"This…this is a very dubious appropriation of this facilities' capabilities. Wasn't this factory responsible for the half the refurbished Space Leos delivered to the colonies?"

"Closer to a third."

"So you're saying they should've built more of these?" Yoshitsune asked, getting a severe look from Walker.

"We were going to make another," the chief explained. "I don't know the exact percentage, but all work halted when word came down that His Excellency resigned and was under house arrest. Hardly appropriate work for the Corsica Factory to be doing."

"So you had enough spare parts for at least two complete mobile suits?" Walker asked, before checking himself. "Of course you did, this is the military."

"Could I be frank, Flight Lieutenant?" Brillié asked.

Yoshitsune looked at Walker. "You weren't being?"

"I was called back here after Squadron Commander Breget was killed in in the March terror bombing, and I agreed to act as provisional factory manager pending a replacement. I certainly didn't expect to remain in this posting after the Operation 'Daybreak', but I have nonetheless. I may have left the uniform in 'Ninety, but I obeyed orders. Package the twenty-year-old prototype for shipping. Recondition and refurbish space mobile suits for Outer Space. Build up an inventory of spare parts for a canceled prototype, then turn those spare parts into another mobile suit. I followed my orders to the letter."

Walker held back the strong urge to profusely apologize to the ex-colonel. "You're right, Chief Brillié. And I'm sorry for the inconvenience that's caused. But in the meantime, we have to decide what to do with this mobile suit," he managed to stammer out.

Brillié looked satisfied. "Well, you could always give the order to the man who requested it."

Walker felt his shoulder slacken under his uniform. The last thing we need to give Treize Khushrenada is the means to personally settle this quarrel between him and Zechs Merquise. That's not how things work, and things have changed. The Gundams are no longer the enemy. I wouldn't give it to His Excellency, I'd give it to someone like Emi Ogasawara, but no one needs to be fighting in a twenty-year-old antique with upgraded avionics. How did we even start doing that in the first place?

He knew how. It started with the combat data report sent out by the Lighting Baron after Gundam-01 shot down a pair of Aries troops over the Alliance's Japanese Airborne Patrol security zone, and he'd remembered what he'd studied during his training at the Corsica Factory. After he'd confirmed that Tallgeese was still sitting in storage in several large, unremarkable crates in an equally unremarkable building at the factory, his originally intention hadn't been to make Zechs Merquise its pilot. His plan, as much as he has one, was to have Tallgeese restored to some working order so that it could be further studied for its technological similarity with the Gundams of Operation 'Meteor', particularly the one Zechs had shot down. He wasn't sure if it could ever be made operational, much less if it was safe to operate. But the moment Zechs arrived at Corsica, perhaps even before, he knew what the Lightning Baron wanted. There was no mistaken that glint in his eye through the lenses in his helmet. The Lighting Baron wasn't merely that combat unit called a pilot, but a genuine warrior. Even in the last days of the Alliance's Special Mobile Suit Troops, it was possible to see how Zechs Merquise's journey had come to this unfortunate extremity.

"No, I don't think so," he announced. He could hear the lack of conviction in his own voice, see himself reaching nervously into his left trouser pocket underneath the edge of his tailcoat.

Chief Brillié was not inclined to push the matter. "Whatever the Chief Engineer of Luxembourg would prefer."

"And Epidendrum?" Yoshitsune asked.

What is the extent of my unofficial official authority? Could I just order all of these things packed up in boxes and dumped into storage, leaving them for the soldiers and officers of the future to find when they're needed again? Just let the cycle repeat itself. But wasn't this the time of need?

"When Colonel Farkill died, the career of the last Alliance mobile armor pilot came to an inevitableconclusion," he speculated. "As long as it's my decision to make, this facility isn't going to waste the manpower and materiel necessary to make that machine operational, when that could be going to production of Space Leo troops." He looked back through the two panes of observation windows, in the direction of the incomplete machine. "Complete a technical analysis. Appraise anything that's useful or nearly useful."

He turned back. "I'll take the rest of them."

"Excuse me?"

"The second Tallgeese and any of the spare parts. You can load them onto D-Nine-Nine-Two-One if it saves time and cost. But I'm taking delivery of all of the OZ-00MS hardware, operational or not."

The chief looked surprised by his assertiveness. "Of course."

But it doesn't matter what I'd do. I'm not His Excellency, the Lord Protector and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. A feeling that should've been familiar was coming to him, the feeling standing on the raised gantry in front of Tallgeese hours before two Gundams attacked.

How many enemies do you expect to encounter, Walker?

All of them, because that's what you taught me, sir.

"I really should have died here," he muttered under his breath.

"Excuse me, Flight Lieutenant?" the chief asked.

"I'll clear everything with the Earth Forces General Staff, they've basically absorbed their extraterrestrial counterparts and all their decision-making duties. If you're running below capacity with all orders to the Colonial Militias suspended, that can be taken up for the new aerospace divisions being raised in response to the White Fang." It seemed like a painfully obvious thing to Walker, but he kept that to himself. "If either of these machines turns out not to be of any use, you won't have wasted your time here."

"Flight Lieutenant Walker hates waste," Yoshitsune declared with unexpected confidence.

"Of course." Brillié's head tilted slightly. "If I may ask, where will you bring all this? Not to Brussels, certainly. The Ruhr Valley Factory?"

"No." He clenched something hard, with rigid edges but with a flexible leather structure in his pocket, and dragged his hand out indiscreetly: the set of unused pilot's goggles, left in Epidendrum's cockpit. "After all, I hate waste. But the Luxembourg branch is sitting unused as far as I know."

V

"All sections are reporting safe, no malfunctions detected," a bridge officer announced.

Sedici gave the bridge officer an open look of desperation that only abated when he turned to face Milliardo Peacecraft, replaced with a look of grave seriousness.

"Party Leader, your thoughts?" Peacecraft asked, almost leisurely.

Quinze was substantially less capable of hiding his alarm in his age, his wide forehead washed in sweat. He mouthed something silently and nodded.

"Go head, Colonel."

"Main beam cannon is now charged for nominal full power," the gunnery officer announced. "TRD bypass is confirmed. Physical safety lock is disengaged."

"We are ready to fire," another officer announced obediently.

Milliardo stared at the colonel and the leader of the party, hiding his amusement, before closing his eyes. Neither of you are any good at stalling.

A pulsing tone sounded from the consoles. "Sirs! The Thebe is reporting an unidentified contact on their forward sensors!"

"From the colony?" Quinze asked too quickly.

"No, sir. Course appears transorbital, confirmed from beyond the colony cluster." The officer reviewed his screen again. "Video feed incoming from the battlecruiser, it looks like a civilian shuttle! Sir, it's approaching our firing zone!"

"Hold your fire!" Sedici ordered.

Relena. He opened his eyes.

Aboard the bridge of the Thebe, naval Captain Forrestal was leaning forward nervously in his wool uniform, his scarf starting to chaff in the anxiety of the situation. His XO, the only other officer on the bridge wearing the newly-issued White Fang naval uniforms from Alliance surplus storage, blinked at him repeatedly in silence, his meaning clear enough: Are they going to fire or what?

Forrestal barely shrugged under his tunic. He'd taken a gamble by patching the THF-band transmission through, even if the display at its hands confirmed the inclusion of OZ Space Forces communications protocols leading it. Just because you have the codes doesn't mean you're an envoy, after all.

"Skipper, emissions reading from Libra indicate they are not standing down, however they just signaled to the fleet they're holding fire for now."

He exhaled a long sigh. "Fine, I'll take it."

"Sorry, sir?"

"Never mind. Are we still detecting beam fire from inside the colony torus?"

"Yes sir, along with extensive cannon fire," another officer reported.

A network UI screen bearing the logo of the Bombardier Aviation company and a long paragraph of corporate legal disclaimers disappeared with the acceptance of the transmission by Libra, replaced by an almost pale young woman with long, hazel-colored hair and a collared blouse. Some of the crew on duty gasped—Forrestal took a few seconds before his jaw dropped, recognizing her as the former Queen Relena I.

"Milliardo? If you can hear me, please tell me that it's you."

"Holy shit, it's happening," his XO whispered. Forrestal shushed him, though they were just a passive audience. "The whole reason we chose Milliardo Peacecraft in the first place." Forrestal shushed him again and louder.

"Milliardo, it's your sister, Relena." Despite her awkward words, the girl seemed to be the image of calm, sitting with her hands in her lap while staring directly into the camera above the seat-mounted display in front of her. As the communication was configured, they couldn't see the surprised face of Supreme Commander Milliardo Peacecraft; only the crew aboard Libra could.

"Millardo, I beg you, rescind your declaration of war on the World Nation immediately. Doing this won't bring about lasting peace!"

Forrestal and his officers strained to hear a response that hadn't been given. Relena continued. "You take the name of the House of Peacecraft, yet you refuse to solve this conflict through civilized discussion?"

Finally a response. "That era is over. Victor Darlian's ideals are already dead." A pause. "Perpetual peace is the duty imposed on all nations, that was what Immanuel Kant said."

"Brother..."

"Kant also said the actualization of a perpetual peace through a league of nations could not be deliberate but could only occur naturally. Do you know why, Relena?"

"Because in any league of nations, the sovereignty of all degenerates into the tyranny of one. The loss of individual sovereignty causes discontent to grow, making maintenance of the peace difficult."

Forrestal and his XO exchanged a knowing look.

"Correct. Therefore, Outer Space and the Earth must stand on equal footing. It is specifically when they each equally understand the position of the other that peace agreements can be entered into." They could hear him rising from his seat. "Understand that this action is the first step in that process."

Relena Darlian calm rapidly drained away as that thin body pressed against her seatbelt. "If you fire on that colony, you will destroy my shuttle, Milliardo. I am prepared to give my life away!"

"Relena…"

"Aren't you ashamed of yourself, taking the name Peacecraft while seizing this massive military power for yourself?"

"She's really not good at this," Forrestal's XO mumbled. Forrestal put his hand to his face.

"The Earth wished for peaceful coexistence with space, we could've come to an understanding! Don't you have anything to say to that?"

Another pause. Relena's fair face was starting to turn red. "Answer me, brother!"

Milliardo raised his voice on the other end. Forrestal immediately pictured him standing to his feet. "Relena, that was a thing forced on us by the cunning of the Romefeller Foundation through your failed monarchy!" he accused her sharply.

"It was what I truly desired!"

"Absolute peace can't be realized with empty ideals! We will not sacrifice our prerogatives, our pursuit of freedom and equality for a queen or anyone else. Complete independence from the Earth the only path forward for the space habitats!"

"Sir! S-Skipper!" a communications officer stuttered out. "We've just received a simultaneously transmission from the civilian Peacemillion-class battleship. They claim C-00421 has been liberated from OZ Space Forces and are requesting we terminate our offensive immediately!"

"Send it on to Libra!" he shouted a bit too loudly.

"Yes sir!"

His XO touched the shoulder of his tunic. "Christ, sir," he whispered. "Do we just take the Gundams at their word?"

Making sure he was facing away from the other officers, Forrestal scowled at him. "When it comes to striking a space colony, yes we do. You can ask the colonel. He would tell you the same thing."

Aboard Libra, Sedici felt a massive weight being lifted off his broad shoulders. So they've freed the hostages? His eyes were planted on the large, safety-turning firing wheel switch, a perfect copy of the older device at the center of the Libra's primary fire control station. Not long ago, just before the dawn of the White Fang, he'd turned that same switch under the orders of Chief Designer Tubarov Villemont.

They'd barely reached 30% expected output. The beam cannon's power management system had hung. It's a hell of a thing to gamble the lives of hundreds of thousands on flawed engineering.

"We're halting the main cannon's firing sequence," he announced to a nearby officer. "Contact the pursuit squadrons and have them ascertain the situation on C-00421 at once!"

"Yes sir!" Under his own grey shirt and utility vest, the officer's posture similarly relaxed just slightly.

Milliardo Peacecraft muttered a word barely audible over the rising hum of activity. "Traitor."

Sedici didn't try to hide his wide-eyed surprise as he turned. "Sir?" he thought he asked. Nothing more than a gasp might've come out.

"Party Leader, the colonel has just ignored my orders in a clear act of insubordination. Have the master-at-arms remove him from the bridge and take him into custody!" Milliardo commanded, rising to his feet.

Sedici stared at Quarante. The old man took his time his time responding, as the officer he'd just addressed and another one on duty rose to their feet and took him by either arm. "W-Wait, please! Sir!" he sputtered out as Quinze belatedly acknowledged the order and drew his sidearm from the holster he was wearing.

Milliardo made his grim satisfaction evident as the Party Leader's thin, arthritic fingers awkwardly racked the slide of his sidearm and kept it drawn on the colonel. "In light of the situation, I'm ordering that the target of this ship's main cannon be changed to one on Earth. Fire control, calculate a firing solution to strike at the Romefeller Foundation's Brussels Headquarters in Earth's northern hemisphere!"

"Brother, I beg you, please stop this at once!" Relena cried, sounding very distant.

Sedici had stopped what little struggle he was giving. The gunnery officer returned to the fire control station from his left arm. "Supreme Commander, sir! The fleet reports another transorbital shuttle sharing a flight path with that of Miss Relena's! They're both in our firing line!"

"They're also hailing us, sir!" a comms officer announced. Without an explicit instruction to the contrary, she patched it through.

As previously, audio proceeded video feed. "This is Dorothy Catalonia. It's been quite a while, Mr. Milliardo." The video feed came up, revealing a particularly pale, oval face with platinum blonde hair securely held back in a pink hairband. "I'm the same Dorothy that often played with Treize when we were little," her unshakably calm voice mewed.

"Fuck," Forrestal's XO declared. "What have we gotten ourselves into?" He saw Forrestal touch the collar of his own uniform nervously with one hand, then realized the girl was somehow wearing one of their uniforms.

"Fire." Milliardo barely spoke loudly enough to be heard by the bridge crew.

"Sir?"

"They're both from the Romefeller Foundation, shoot them down!" he barked.

Freezing, Quinze watched on the monitors past the bridge crew as Libra's massive banks of antiaircraft guns came to life, hundreds of double and triple-barreled beam cannon turrets, linked together over computer and not as temperamental as the central cannon.

"In a certain place some time ago, there was a person with two names. This person with the heir to a peaceful nation, but when his country was ruined, he sought revenge. So he put on a mask, changed, his name, and turned into the legendary hero of a certain army. And now this person says he will carry out a purge of foolish mankind. I wonder how he has become capable of such a thing?" Dorothy Catalonia recounted, almost sing-song in tone. "Is that pacifism? Or are these the instincts of a hero? Perhaps he actually hates peace. Or it could be that he loathes his younger sister, who carries on the pacifist will of their dead father. But no one knows his true feelings."

"Commander, sir, both shuttles will enter the outer range of our antiaircraft defenses in twenty seconds," an officer announced nervously.

"Lady Relena and I wish to join you, Mr. Milliardo. I want this war to be burned into my eyes. After all, this is going to be the last war, isn't it?"

The fingers of his right hand felt like they were stabbing into his greatcoat's wool sleeve. "Very well."

"Supreme Commander?" Quinze asked in a very small voice.

"Escort Miss Dorothy and my sister here. We can attack Earth after we've parlayed," he declared irreverently, floating away from his chair and towards the open doorway behind him.

"Commander Milliardo," Quinze repeated, more gravity returning to his nasally voice. "What about Colonel Sedici?"

Milliardo stopped on the other side of the doorway. "I won't be making Tubarov Villemont's mistake. He stays in custody," he replied with a grim satisfaction in his voice.

Quinze clenched his jaw as the much younger man floated away. "Get the navy provosts," he ordered the nearest officer on-duty, before looking back at Sedici. He tried to match the large senior officer's stony-faced intransigence. "And has the pursuit squadron reported in yet?"

Neither will I, Zechs.

VI

Walker thought he might sleep on the return flight into western Europe at his seat the relief crew cabin in OZ-D9921. He didn't and instead passed the time sending messages out on the Network: it seemed the fitting thing to do after absconding out of one of the Alliance's oldest military factories with two mobile suits worth of machinery and spare parts. Text-only messages had gone out to Treize's staff at Diekirch, followed by Kiest-Lang: strange as it seemed, Pixie Flight was the best collection of Aries pilots he knew, and that was the best experience base for any potential OZ-00MS pilot.

After that, Yoshitsune, who with visible disappointment suggested that he should stay behind and oversea the inspection of Epidendrum: predictably as it sounded, aside from himself he single certified mobile suit engineer and technician most experienced with that series of Alliance-developed mobile armor. Hoping he didn't come off as bothersome, Walker sent him his E.T.A. into Luxembourg and what few additional thoughts he had one Epidendrum's armament.

There are never enough people, are there? Kalin Kiest-Lang, Miyamoto Yoshitsune, Zhou Jun. Everyone he knew was in the Earth Forces military, and there weren't enough of them.

At least I don't have Lieutenant Colonel Une breathing down my throat. Memories of the old days, when his body still bore the soreness of waking up in the Third Alliance Naval Hospital with someone else's blood and someone else's organs inside of him, sitting in the workshop in one of Treize Khushrenada's castles. He almost missed that time; he wondered why that was.

Was it the changes that came with the fall of the Alliance? He hoped his life wasn't so subject to political whims so obviously beyond his control, but he suspected he knew the answer to that already. So then what could he control?

He prepared another message, one he didn't send out: to Ogasawara Emi, de facto if not formal commander of the First Recon Battalion. She's probably the best pilot I know who hasn't defected or been killed. Better than Treize Khushrenada, maybe, but even if she wasn't…

"Flight Lieutenant Walker, sir?" a metallic voice asked overhead.

"Go ahead," he answered the voice over the talkback.

"Sir, Findel Airport just confirmed that there are a pair of TEL vehicles waiting for your arrival from Ansembourg, along with the airport's own cargo trucks as needed."

"Thank you." He looked down and stared at the word processing software left on the screen of his new mobile, another black, slate-shaped glass-and-metal device that had replaced the telephone he'd discarded at the end of his time in Brussels. If it's worth fielding another Tallgeese mobile suit in combat against the White Fang Navy, it should obviously go to the best Space Forces pilot available. And that must be her, regardless of anything else. But I don't know how she or the rest of her battalion would respond to that. My timidity is not an admirable trait.

He turned off the mobile's screen and was able to keep it in his pocket for the remainder of the flight. As promised, a pair of large TEL carriage trucks were waiting, along with a transport detail from the contingent of military ground crew permanently stationed at Findel International.

"If you wanted to kidnap me and steal a pair of mobile suits, this would be your best opportunity," he admitted awkwardly to the saluting NCO who seemed to be in charge.

"More engineering humor, Flight Lieutenant?" The question was posed by a sufficiently recognizable voice, and Walker turned to see a handsome man with a long ponytail and a hunter green uniform and the credentials of a junior officer for the Luxembourg General Staff.

"Mr. Zhou! Your timing is…impeccable," Walker announced, hastily returning Zhou's salute. "I wasn't expecting you so soon."

"Well, sir, I wanted to see exactly what you were bringing," he explained, watching the completed mobile suit being lifted off its transport palettes and onto one of the TEL vehicles. "And so does His Excellency," he said, jaw clenched.

Walker stared at him back, before turning to the Antonov and the hasty worksite, crossing his arms over his chest. "Of course, if the Lord Protector doesn't want me using the Luxembourg Branch of the Ruhr Valley Factory, if there's some ongoing work there I'm not privy to, or something else…"

Zhou was nervously rubbing his right eyebrow with one finger before looking back at him. "That's not it, Flight Lieutenant. You know there isn't, or you had better, given your current appointment."

He nodded. "Of course not." His right hand slipped back into his trouser pocket again, clenching around small, rigid brushed metal. "Listen, Zhou, I know we're not exactly well acquainted, so I'll try and sound as honest as I can," he explained, lowering his voice.

"I don't want the colonel in this machine either. Not in combat or in the test flights. What good does it do us if the Lord Protector of the World Nation breaks his ribs testing a reproduction antique?" he asked with a sigh.

Zhou winced at the mention of ribs. "Then why bring it here?"

"You really have no idea what Tallgeese is, do you?" he asked sharply. "I wasn't going to just leave it at Corsica. And if I brought it to Ruhr Valley or anywhere else, do you think His Excellency wouldn't learn about it eventually? Frankly, the Lord Protector insists on going into combat, I'd prefer Epyon to this, if we still had it."

"The Gundam completed in the New Castle," Zhou asked with raised eyebrows. His expression softened. "Thank you, by the way sir. I was worried you might feel differently considering, you know, what happened with Zechs Merquise. But it might not make a difference either. If the Lord Protector settled on this months ago, I don't see how either of us is going to change his mind."

"You spoke with Chief Brillié?"

"Who?" Zhou frowned. "No, I saw the design proposals along with the design for OZ-13MS. His Excellency had copies of the data you sent from Corsica before Operation 'Daybreak'. Didn't you?"

Walker could feel his eyes widening at Zhou. There were other design documents for Tallgeese, along with the proposal for a variable-geometry Gundam. If there are, I must have seen them, all of them. My name would be on them.

"Miracles do not occur on their own, Mr. Walker. They are made to happen."

That calm, collected voice belonged to Treize himself. He heard himself answering, as if from a distance, in his stiff, almost academic voice, that he wouldn't have called it a miracle.

"Flight Lieutenant, sir," Zhou asked, in the present.

Managing to get his expression back under control, he squinted at Zhou. "Of course."

"So, maybe it's premature to talk about a combat pilots, but have you thought about a test pilot for the machine that was finished?" Zhou asked urgently. It was clear by the question that he thought it might disincline Treize, however little, were a pilot already available. The efficient ground crew had already finished with OZ-00MS2 and had begun loading the palettes of spare parts.

"They are made to happen."

"Sir?"

Walker looked down at his right hand, clad in a leather glove and clutching a pair of pilot's goggles. "I'll take it in hand."

Zhou blinked, bewildered. "Excuse me?"

"Tallgeese, I'll do it. I was going to do it for the first Tallgeese, after all, but I was killed over Corsica," he said, half-believing the story. "Otto Richter took my place, I heard, before Zechs Merquise…" he trailed off.

Zhou was still staring at him. He cleared his throat. "I'll do it. I was qualified to pilot the Leo, the Aries, and the Taurus. Short of having piloted Tallgeese, there are no better qualifications available." His unoccupied hands began toying with the study straps on the goggles. "Until I find a better combat pilot, I'll take it hand."

Author's Notes:

Yes, I'm not dead. Just busy (and somewhat lazy). This is not six months worth of writing by any stretch of the imagination, though at least I can offer the defense that I was actively working on other stories (most notably, my "new" endeavor into Final Fantasy VII, which is ironically not based on the recently-released remake). At least the chapter itself isn't too short, for whatever good that is-it turned out to be harder than I expected to write, as I struggled to finally decide where I would go with what is, hopefully, the last wing of the long story. I even bought two volumes of Glory of the Losers(or as I still call it, The Glory of Losers), to try and split the differences between the TV series and manga (there are some substantial changes to Relena's encounter with her brother, what I've presented is an awkward "split the difference" that hopefully managers to still be readable at least).

I could talk about myself but I doubt that's of interest (I'll leave that for the un-updated author's page, twice a year indeed), so where do we go from here? At least, I have a some impression of where the story is going (even if quite of the details still need to be finalized), maybe I'll actually increase my pace towards something reasonable (I've long since given up my old days of "a chapter a month"). As always, I'd really appreciate any meaningful feedback (you know what I mean) just to know I'm not running headfirst off a cliff, but that's not always available. And as always, if you're still sticking with this story after all this time (and actually reading it, not just skipping to the end for whatever reason), you have my sincere gratitude. With the current state of affairs in the United States and elsewhere, stay safe.