Gundam Fire Still

"I think I know why your boys are overreacting," Mueller nodded, having investigated his own people in the CIA he was well aware that the presence of an internal enemy was very dangerous and every intelligence officer would take it extremely seriously.

"You know there were at least half of us who still thought they were targeting Panama before they broke radio silence and issued the order to attack."

"On the other hand, we were fortunate to catch this man before their plans began," from which Hayden produced another photograph, "William. Colonel Sarzalante, he was involved in the whole affair, and while one of the reasons our men were after him was wrong, luckily they found the right man."

"What do you mean?"

"Our people noticed that he was leading the political censorship of the recently arrived members of the Archangel in a single effort, and his enthusiasm for the political censorship was so strong that it almost suggested that he was from the former Soviet Union of the last century, and so the members of the Intelligence Unity there believed that he was deliberately weakening the base." Hayden shot the Admiral a derisive look, "Yet in reality it was just his blackmail and revenge against Halbarton's students and factions."

"Hell, I'm ashamed that such a guy exists in the Navy." The Admiral was somewhat indignant, and then he was also painfully aware that he had indeed seen some scum in his naval career, and he knew full well that those people would always exist, "And then what else did this idiot do? And you still haven't explained why the General committed suicide, it was a scandal, but never to the extent that he would have shot himself."

"Until then, I must emphasize that those who were secretly captured, and those who committed suicide in fear of guilt, were openly or secretly members of the Blue Perestroika, or inclined, do you understand? It just took me quite a while to convince the intelligence agencies in Paris and Moscow that this is not an Atlantic Federation-led, conspiracy against the Eurasian Union, although the fact that most of its participants are members of the Atlantic Federation is a terrible fact."

Bill. Hayden pulled a few more from the photo pile.

"In fact this incident was enough to shame me and my men, and your men and Director Thomas' men, that they did get hold of Zaft's battle plan, so they knew that Zaft was targeting Alaska, and that there would be a secret weapon. And the price they paid to get that plan was the arming map of our base in Alaska. We found records in the database that had been additionally opened as well as copied, and a record of the existence of the arming map was restored in Lieutenant General Harunji's cleansed and destroyed mobile terminal."

Hayden put both hands on the table, "If their plan had worked, we all know what would have happened, and we would have seen them wear medals as survivors who made the right choice."

"The only thing that saved our face this time was that our guys adjusted their deployment before the battle started, the newly formed MS squadron plugged the holes, and then the entire Alaskan base withstood their onslaught."

"And then we caught a few assholes." The Admiral kept his head down, staring intently at the information, his tone shaky, showing that he was mentally unsettled, and that as an Admiral he wasn't as good at controlling his expressions as the two intelligence officers were. "Seriously, I'm afraid it's you intelligence people who are concocting evidence and framing it for the Navy. But it's logical, it's really what they would do, and I mean really, it's because a certain few people were so biased in favor of Blue Perestroika that we transferred them to the 'whatever' command in Alaska."

"I can't believe Blue Perestroika is involved in a deal like that, they should be trading their asses instead of our intel." The Deputy Director of the CIA grimaced, "Can we find out where they're trading?"

"That should be asked of you guys not me, the guys we're currently watching haven't been in the universe for months, and if the Langley building can't find a lead we'll be even less likely to find one."

"Okay, I'll go back and tell the old man to deploy the investigation while keeping out of Ezral's earshot."

"Do the same for your Naval Intelligence, and watch out for Perestroika." He lifted his eyes and looked at the Admiral the same, "They'll be aware because their intelligence network in Alaska has disappeared, but with any luck we won't need to hide it from them for long."

"Indeed, we'll have to pay the President a visit, whether he has time or not."

"He'll always have time, always."

"But you two, I'm not personally familiar with intelligence deals, but Blue Perestroika trading our base arming in exchange for Zaft's battle plans, that kind of intelligence deal wouldn't happen so simply anyway, would it? Both in terms of physical operability and in terms of the relationship between the two?" The Admiral spoke again after a moment's thought.

"Very well... Good question, physically it's not hard, as long as there's a transition between the two, or a couple of intelligence brokers that might avoid our eyes, we can't possibly monitor every base entrant's portable electronic storage device. It would probably only take a couple of days for the intelligence to travel from Alaska to any city that can get up to the universe, and then to Copernicus to be handed over to a possible Zaft intelligence agent, or a professional intelligence dealer."

"And positionally, General, we need to be clear that the bottom Blue Perestroika hates the Adjusters, and their plan this time could accomplish that - in addition to having enough Naturals to go along for the ride; also, for their top members, who are more concerned with their own profits and interests while disliking the Adjusters, it's profitable to face them here. "

"Yes, the money needed to rebuild the base, the big order of arms for replenishing and re-equipping the army, and the promotion of generals to one or two key positions are all things that are well worth their concern."

"Is there any chance, then, that they didn't know the information was being sold to Zaft?" the general asked tentatively

"Even if they don't, they'll know," Hayden laughed sarcastically, "Who needs a map of our base layouts but Zaft? Terrorists?"

"But then, since Zaft's intelligence paid the price for obtaining our layout, shouldn't they also know that their plan of attack has been compromised, and thus modify their plan? Why are they still attacking as planned this time?" The General asked the question again, appearing confused, "Was it their plan of attack that was stolen? "

"Very good question, Admiral, it's a very good question, there's no reason for Zaft to shoot themselves in the foot, they're not like Blue Perestroika, Perestroika doesn't care about the loss of the Alaskan base, they only care about the potential gain, plus killing more Adjusters.... But adjusters are different, being stolen? No, best not to underestimate our enemies, it's hard for you to steal on a PLAnt full of adjusters."

Mueller and Hayden fell silent at the same time

"Unless... "

"Unless..... . unless they had someone deliberately leak it?" They both spoke almost simultaneously.

"Unless there are some like Blue Perestroika among them, or they don't care if their soldiers die in Alaska for some benefit they can take from it." Bill. Hayden rhythmically tapped his knuckles on the table, "I should have thought of this earlier, any collective can have internal problems after it gets complicated enough, there's no reason this doesn't exist with PLAnt."

"True, but why?"

15. Diffusion aftermath

A week after the fighting in Alaska ended, Washington

A low-ranking DOD employee in charge of foreign information dissemination walked into an open-air café on his way home from work as part of his routine, but as he buried himself in the café's vintage-style physical menu, he failed to notice that, under the cover of the back of a chair, the man sitting at the table behind him had taken his purse with lightning speed and placed another identical black bag in its original position.

The low-ranking DoD employee would spend at least twenty minutes here, which was enough time for the agent to copy the contents of his bag once and then put it back, electronically or on paper. The careless employee stood up and left after thirty minutes, satisfied that all the valuable information in his bag was being packed up where he couldn't notice it.

An hour later, an encrypted packet was sent to the Internet, it was screened through the Washington external gateway, then all the way across the fiber optic cables at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, then through the oRB's rather lax national firewall, and finally it was uploaded to a server at the oRB. But its journey didn't end there; it was loaded onto an ordinary data disk and then put on a regular flight to Copernicus, the moonlit metropolis, via an expedited courier signed by one of the Moonface companies. And in Copernicus, the four-way neutral ground, the paradise of intelligence officers, a piece of information can go a lot of places.

================

--- "Sorry, Mr. Reporter, I really don't have that many exciting experiences to share. Yes, I took part in the battle in Alaska, assaulted the area occupied by the enemy as ordered by my command, I took command of some tanks and ms, set up positions and battle plans, then launched an attack on their squad, then the next target location, set up the next plan of attack, and that was it."

--- "Yes, I did rescue some friendly troops from the Zaft attack, but it was nothing special, it was just a necessary part of the battle. If my unit and I were surrounded, I would also trust that friendly troops would come to support us if they could do it, and of course, we would hold off the enemy to facilitate friendly troops reaching their objectives."

--- "Yes, of course, Mr. Reporter, you have to trust your comrades, it's like... Just like every one of us has to trust the cooks to cook a meal that won't give us diarrhea. Every pilot has to trust the mechanics to treat our airframes right, and my crew trusts me to give the right orders, and I trust them to carry them out, the way the military is supposed to be."

--- "Peace? Of course, most soldiers don't like war, and I'm one of them, we fight wars to make a peace at some point. We are soldiers, do our job and then trust those higher up generals and politicians to work out how to get peace. Peace is precious, Mr. Reporter, and you've seen the casualty figures from this battle."

--- "Yes, of course, not everyone in the military hates the Adjusters, and I think, as you know, Madam Reporter, the wars that took place in the last century were entirely between naturalists, but the brutality of the fighting was no different than it is now, and whether the fighting was against the Adjusters or not was not a predominant thing. "

--- "Myself? Madam Reporter, thank you for your interest, but I don't have too many stories to share, I flew fighter planes and attack planes in flight school, and then I started flying MS by coincidence, so I'm not one of those 'legends' whose destiny is connected to the sky, who was born to fly, or who has a similar spirit. 'Character. I'm really sorry, ma'am, but I'm just a cog in the United Earth Force system. If you're looking for a lone hero, I suggest you interview Major Vladar, who probably fits your idea of a characterful, passionate pilot more than me. Yes, he's more of a legend. It was during this campaign that the air force he escorted played a key role."

--- "First exposure to ms?No, that would be Lena-san who is now on the moon's surface, I was indeed one of the testers for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's ms program, but by no means the only one. Most of the others involved in the testing are also active in their respective battlefields."

--- "No, really, even if it wasn't out of confidentiality, I don't have anything about my own experiences that's worth sharing--except the ones you can find out about. As I'm sure you'll notice, Madam Reporter, I've always fought with others, whether tanks or ms, airmen or even infantry, and ms warfare is part of the combat system, at least I think so, but unfortunately I'm no theorist either. If you're interested in a brave warrior, why don't you go to the 'rabid dog' of Eurasia, or the 'drunken tiger' of East Asia, Monho? They're all the kind of legends you're interested in. They have something completely different compared to the others, and at the same time they're pretty prominent fighters.Zaft is not the kind of opponent I'd like to spar with in a knife fight, or do that type of thing."

--- "If you're really going to make a big story, Madam Reporter, why don't you go interview Jean. Kelly? His experience as a good Adjuster pilot is legendary, and there will be plenty of stories worthy of your attention, both combat-wise, if you know what I mean, and otherwise. Especially, you know, why he retired, I'm sure you can investigate a result worthy of making news."

==========.

"Is this the guy who made you suffer too?"

The middle-aged man paced slowly in the carpeted office, smoothly shutting off the wall terminal and playing an as yet undeclassified recording of an interview that the subject of the conversation before him had gotten hold of in a joint channel. It was an unofficial interview outside of a DoD press conference, in which several of the people interviewed were heroes who had been put out as propaganda by the joint after this Alaskan campaign, the recording was still under internal review, but his own prodigious men had shown good intelligence skills.

As for the content of it, it's not really that big of a deal, at least not to this Zaft leader; a few pilots, tankers or ms pilots aren't too noteworthy targets. Especially when they were all naturals. He lifted his eyes and surveyed his beloved men, being ambushed by a combined ms squad shouldn't have threatened the best ace of the Adjuster's crew.

"Or is it that you slacked off? Captain Kruse."

Location is the capital of PLAnt - April City, Office of the President of the Supreme Council of PLAnt.

The newly appointed Speaker Patrick stared solemnly at the man in front of him, the uniformed man with the mask standing respectfully, but the former couldn't catch his true eyes through the mask.

"It was just an ambush by the dastardly naturals with superior numbers of ms, I didn't expect them to have mass-produced ms," the man replied as calmly as usual, taking on the tone of an impeccable apology.

"Are you sure there are no Adjuster traitors among them? Like the one mentioned in the recording?"

"No, that man has been driven out of the army by the Blue Perseus of the Union Army, Mr. Speaker."

"Well, they're helping us with that, though."

"Yes, their help will help us get to victory faster." The masked man replied in a voice with a hint of flattery on it, while laughing quietly in his head, yes, their help could indeed help him reach his goal, it was all part of the plan.

"But we have failed in this battle." The Speaker's voice was heavy, "Was it our plan that was detected?"

"That kind of possibility exists, but I'd rather say it's due to a series of accidents and misfortunes," still a quiet reply, "one of which is the man being interviewed on the recording and his new mass-produced ms squad. We didn't anticipate them this time, but there won't be a next time."