Gundam Fire Still

9. division of the booty

In the command room Karl met Mikhail, the liaison officer for the Intelligence Fusion. Shakrev, a slim, young Eastern European who, without looking at his uniform, one would easily associate with the gangsters sitting squatting on the streets of Moscow. He was slumped in a chair by the coffee machine, looking at an electronic file in his hand.

"So it's true that you're transferring me to Moonface?"

"Yes, there's something concerning about that."

"You know, I'm a radical."

"Yes, so that's what it means from above."

"Nice one, how many did you take out this time?" He turned abruptly towards Christopher, who was sitting off to the side. The latter was now not only a transport captain, but also the commander of this black special forces unit, sure, he might have retired from that line of work, but maybe not.

"Unfortunately, zero." The veteran Special Forces soldier sat at one of the communication terminals, "Their men were well-behaved and didn't resist."

"What about that private army of theirs? Remember they looked pretty good in their armored suits, didn't they go negative and then let you guys do it?"

"They? Nice equipment, their LoGos own property. But well, show your face on surveillance and you'll be fished out, then a can of disabling gas and something else, and just put down." Christopher, still in his Air Force uniform, pointed to the surveillance screen overhead, where a clearing on the base was littered with neatly stacked privateers' vests, their silver-gray paintwork dazzling in the sunlight. And on a screen a little farther away, three new X-series machines, or rather, new Gundams, were being secured to transport restraints.

"Cut, what a shame, those floats." Obviously the Eastern European fellow was looking forward to a little bloodshed, "But I should have guessed, they can't even do anything about me, and it really isn't enough to try to get them to deal with your people."

"The Eurasians aren't here yet?" Carl asked as he paid attention to the base's radar screen, the next task was to wait for the Eurasian Union to come and take over the base and then split the contraband that the consortium had brought in on both sides. This time, however, the Eurasian Consortium was a little slower to arrive.

"The latest news is that they're having a little trouble seizing the lab in Rodnia, and that lab is bigger than they expected." Roy replied, and then explained to the two foggy-headed MS commanders.

"That's where those drugs came from. That's where the enhanced pilots for those three bodies came from as well. If you're curious, yes, our special forces got in there with the aid of the drug carriers."

"Eurasia's helicopter is in radar range," the soldier manning the remote surveillance radar screen made the report.

"Well, until he gets here, then, I don't think the commander here will mind if I take some coffee with me to share with the hangar." Lieutenant Colonel Toris of Eurasia raised an eyebrow and made a stoic expression before stealing two bags of coffee beans from the drawer beneath the coffee machine in the command room. And it was clear to everyone present that the unfortunate, and unable to protest about it, commander was being held in solitary confinement downstairs.

"The whole squadron of our squadron drinks coffee, but it's a lot of coffee."

"Wherever the whole squad is the same, I'll drop a bag for us to fix the transport."

In such a harmonious atmosphere, the helicopter in which the joint Eurasian Brigadier General who had come to receive this base slowly landed on the tarmac.

The representative of the Atlantic Federation accompanied the general of the Eurasian Union into the conference room, where a large screen was showing a diagram of the structure of the base, marking the location of the various, secret facilities that belonged outside of the military base.

"What's the situation in Rodnia?" Without much politeness, here was a direct question from Roy who represented a cooperative operation.

Eua's Brigadier General opened his mouth slightly, then closed it again, looking around the command room before giving Roy a questioning look.

Roy shrugged his shoulders in response.

The former was apparently asking silently, there were two other guys standing here who were driving the ms. Is it okay for them to hear? Roy, on the other hand, gave an equally silent reply.

"The condition of our sequestration is good, but the condition of the inside is bad." Receiving an affirmative hint, the Commodore spoke up.

He took his electronic terminal out of his bag as he sat down, and Carl noticed the man's face was a little pale.

"The drug synthesis area is normal, that's it," the screen in his hand was a patchwork of chemical test benches, the white lights and clean floor was just like what most people would expect in a laboratory, the numerous small holes in the benches and floor indicated that this was a high grade, clean lab." Highest level of biosecurity, and they spent a lot of money on it."

"But then, in their underground facility, our people saw this."

The image on the screen was a little blurry, but that was enough to make out the blood, the human body, and a solid substance that couldn't tell what part of the body it was. These were scattered in the huge sealed compartments below, and it was striking.

"This part of the building is a double-decker structure, their researchers' offices are on the upper level, with only very limited access to the lower level, most of the compartments for experiments below have transparent ceilings for their observation, and a small part has no ceiling at all, as no one below can climb up either. According to their records, there was a high mortality rate and they encouraged the experimenters to kill each other in this room. Some of the researchers confessed that their corpse warehouse was full once."

"What about the source of the experimental bodies?"

"It's under investigation, some of the records have been found in the computer, but the specifics are still unclear."

"It's probably such a bad situation that our team's operational efficiency has been reduced quite a bit as a result, housing the survivors has been slow, and those experiments have apparently been through rigorous military training and have almost caused us casualties."

"In short, a mess," The Brigadier General said as he stood up, shaking his head vigorously as if he intended to shake off the bad scenario.

The people present then instantly understood the reason for his pale face.

"There's no harm in it, according to our agreement, information sharing and collaborative investigation is fine, the Eurasian and Atlantic Federation shouldn't have much to hide when it comes to dealing with these private organizations, and the Intelligence Convergence will oversee this cooperation."

"Well, don't rush me, I know you have limited time to discuss the sharing of the spoils," the Commodore said as he stood at the coffee machine and then poured himself a cup of coffee from a disposable cup.

"Just follow the protocols of the top brass for everything."

"The airframes smuggled in from North America still go to the Atlantic Federation, right? You can leave it here until you can get a transport plane together and then ship it back, but you can pay for the ramp rental. Besides, there's no damage to the base facilities or personnel, right?"

"No, not only are there no fewer people, but there are many more." Roy brought up a diagram of the base's structure on the screen, then pointed to the hidden part of the underground, "I'll leave those people to you to investigate."

"Don't forget the original commander of this base, they're in solitary confinement now," Mikhail reminded good-naturedly, "We mustn't forget the guy with the highest military rank."

"Ah, no forgetting, a court martial awaits him, but I'm more interested in the other guy who made the decision in his place, he's still alive, isn't he?" The Brigadier's lips smiled expectantly.

"Alive, the fellow was completely suicidal."

"Then what's the problem?"

"And then there's socius,"

Roy switched screens, two long black and red blades were standing in a rather remote corner of the base's apron, the magnetic rail cannon on their shoulders sagging harmlessly towards the ground. Another screen showed the foot of the fuselage, two teenagers in pilot suits, but with faces that looked young enough to make them feel like they shouldn't be on the base, were sitting at the foot of the fuselage, eating an mRe combat ration, while a little further away, two Atlantic Federation SWAT team members were smoking off to the side, apparently, essentially spying.

"There are a few more socius in the underground facility that can be handed over to you along with the other researchers, but these two are ms pilots."

"Well, that's a problem." The Commodore sat down and then began to look something up on the terminal, "Do they have military IDs? If it does, then it counts according to military affiliation, but if it doesn't, hell, it's a problem, and dealing with it as a civilian won't work at all."

"How about disposing of it according to having access to a classified organism, and therefore having to be investigated?" Karl made his proposal.

"And then because the contact is with an Atlantic Federation organism, it needs to be referred to you for investigation, yes? A very cunning plan, but so be it." The Commodore nodded after a moment.

"You know what? After seeing that lab, I don't want to deal with these experimental bodies and such at all anymore, it's all trouble, really, if you want it, you can have it, it's hot potato anyway, isn't it?"

"Also, have you investigated the reason why they flew the plane off? Something wrong with their lab's methods?"

"According to the confessions of both of them, they are about to be disciplined."

"Disciplined?"

"Drive the plane and three X-series for a live-fire simulated battle for final data collection." Carl answered the question, "Their adjustments are still in effect, so they can't fire and have to wait to die. But their orders did not include a prohibition against fleeing, they claimed they left with the belief that they were alive to help the Naturals."

"Kind of... Unbelievable."

"At least the first half of it has been confirmed, which is consistent with what their lab personnel said." At the skeptical look in the Commodore's eyes, Roy added, "But it's hard to understand why this lab did that."

"I can probably explain that they're backed by a consortium, and having sufficient financial resources to accept waste is probably nothing to them in terms of depleted bodies and personnel."

The Commodore stood up and walked over to the window, squinting at the base that was slowly returning to order, it was hard to tell if he was looking at the base buildings or the ms on alert in the distance.

"Anyway those two will be yours, whether you trust or let them do anything, I don't care. I'll just say that having your Atlantic Federation people come to Eurasia's territory for an internal cleanup feels.... Not too good. But we have to thank you for that."