Gundam Fire Still

"Caution is the right thing to do, though I don't know what you're trying to find out today."

"So you brought results? I'm sorry to have a famous combat hero pass on the information."

"Only one part of it, something else, Dakusta said they still need to confirm it, though it's not clear what."

The man known as Tiger leaned back in his chair, "I was told to convey that the project you are interested in is divided into two parts AB, with the endings a and b added to the code, with part a mainly involving the ms development authority and the energy power authority, and that all the materials used have no record of trans-satellite transport. Their conclusion is that this project is currently underway in a gravity-free factory in the mid-axis." Tiger pointed in the direction of the satellite's mid-shaft, "And with the recent reduction in appropriations, it should be nearing completion."

"And finally is the conclusion you can give as a veteran old Zaft, that it's either a new ms, a new ship, or both."

"That's to be expected," Siegel sighed, "That project number is the flow of nuclear material, so it does seem that the neutron interference canceller has been successfully developed."

"Not only has it been successfully developed, but it's been successfully installed on the ms, at least two, or three prototypes, at least, it's still classified, but I can tell." The old ms pilot held up three fingers, "Following the usual development process, the pilot will be announced soon."

"What about part b? I hope that's just the MS kit ship."

"No, unfortunately, part b is the more suspicious part. If you've studied nuclear physics at all you should know, Siegel, that the amount of nuclear fuel needed to power a ms is very small, and that amount wouldn't attract your attention, or anyone else's."

"I tracked all of Zaft's nuclear fuel reserves, and according to that report, the warehouse that used to hold them should be completely empty by now."

Both men's faces turned pale.

"That's not good." The tiger tried to make a light tone as his female companion rested her head tenderly on his shoulder, "It's going to be okay, right?"

Siegel's old butler reappeared silently, setting down his glass and napkin in front of the trio before setting the bottle to the side, knowing that several of the people in the conversation now had no intention of drinking something.

"So... . this b-part is?" Siegel asked a tentative question, then saw the embarrassed look on his young friend's face

"Not sure yet," the tiger shook his head, "They're still investigating, all they know is that that b project used a lot of steel and satellite building materials under the name, and involved more institutes than part a. One of the guys on the analysis team recognized an institute number, a reverse engineering project targeting the mirage system onboard the X-series of the joint."

"Are they trying to hide something?"

"I don't know, the last thing they found was a lot of supplies that had outbound records and not inbound records at any of the satellites. And there haven't been any recent projects to mobilize that much material other than that one."

"Patrick, what the hell is that guy trying to do?"

"I should be getting another message in 10 minutes, what's the last thing we'll drink before then, any coffee? Uncle."

Siegel smiled a rare smile, then pointed to the side of the coffee machine. It had been a long time since anyone had called him Uncle, it had been a long time ago when the PLAnt's career had just been drafted and the young Adjusters would call him Uncle, but in the face of having been in the Speaker's chair for far too long, no one called him that anymore. In front of him, the once young man had become a good frontline commander, and the one next to him, Aisha, seemed to be a fine woman; the Speaker's front door had once been full of doors, but those who came to visit had gradually changed from friends to allies, and there was even a group known as the Kleinites....

Baltfeldt, holding a cup of coffee but not drinking it, looked at Siegel before him . Klein, the once-intentional leader had obviously aged, probably, and he was thinking about his daughter.

Then he felt the vibration of the terminal at his waist, his own subordinate was as punctual as demanded, and he opened it to quickly peruse its contents.

"The latest news, Siegel," the voice interrupted the old man's reverie, "is that on the outskirts of the satellite, the commissioner's immediate subordinates have blocked off a large chunk of the cosmos, none of which has been communicated within Zaft. There are rumors of some sort of construction going on there, and if any satellite construction materials are being used, it can only be there. They're preparing shuttles to go there for reconnaissance."

"No, you have to stop them, that would be a death sentence and..."

"Don't worry, we're in single line contact, they'll just be ordinary snoopers passing by even if they're found."

"Don't you understand? Patrick would have his men fire and silence him, he's already... lost some of the good he had going for him."

"I understand, but I can't do it, we're all in one-way contact, and even if I could guess who that was by some people's leave-taking, I'm not going to contact them, and you know exactly what that means, Siegel; the Kleinites exist."

"I think you're right, the Kleinpie, the monster that shouldn't exist, does exist."

"And PLAnt needs it, which is worse."

Tidal Wave - United Chapter

Washington, D.C., Central Intelligence Agency

CIA Director Thomas. Henriksen was holding a cup of coffee and watching the constantly refreshing screen in front of him. Contrary to what many people thought, he was actually quite busy as Director, no more laid back than the young men out in the field, except that he tended to work in offices and conference rooms rather than on the streets, and his main weapons were his own mouth and computer files rather than pistols and bullets. He had just finished a videoconference between the White House and the Senate Industry Committee, and had effectively loosened up those senators on the handling of that huge military-industrial complex industry. As for now, navigating the real-time status of investigations by front-line personnel was actually a break, and it was relaxing to watch those camera images and the variously colored markers of his own people on them, but unfortunately no red-marked targets appeared on the video. Most of this work was not under his jurisdiction, but rather an unprecedentedly large joint operation, and the part of it that involved investigations and arrests within the Atlantic Federation was not something that should be handled by the CIA, which was responsible for external intelligence gathering.

The arrests of people and military management of LoGos-owned companies would obviously bring backlash, but those congressmen knew how to change the door as long as they were arrested quickly and accurately enough. The capitalists now clustered in this isolated part of Paradise Island were no longer much of a threat, but there were still two people still in Washington, which was already the most dangerous place for them, but also the safest. The little Ezral, in particular, had enough contacts and resources from the Blue Perestroika chapter to help him make his escape.

But the constantly refreshed information on the screen showed that he wasn't in any of the Blue Perestroika chapters they were monitoring, suggesting that the young man had guessed the federal government's strategy as well. In fact, the Atlantic Federation had not arrested many members of the organization, but had only detained a few of its key local leaders for tax reasons, personal injury cases, and no doubt they would be released on bail soon. This strategy, while showing a tender attitude towards the Blue Perestroika elements within the military, also included the expectation that the LoGos characters would use Perestroika to abscond and thus facilitate the discovery of their targets.

However, the young Blue Perestroika leader clearly did not fall for this trap, not only did he not show up inside those strongholds, but he also did not show up at the air port, a place that was being watched as the first option to escape. It was logical, these rich and powerful natives must have private airfields and strongholds within their grasp, but the trackers couldn't send people to break into every place where a satellite map showed a runway, after all, this was Washington, and even if this operation was backed by the top brass, making too much of an impact was still a taboo, and their actions had to be precise.

Then a red tag appeared on the refreshed surveillance screen, the deputy representative of PmP, another figure from their list who had remained in Washington, appeared at the airport, and a few minutes later, in less time than he had expected, his tag turned green and was already under control. It was clear that this character's presence at the airport was not for the purpose of absconding; he was well aware that someone in the Federation was looking for him, and he resolutely chose to cooperate.

Then there was a beep in his ear and a flashing green diode on his desk indicated that it was an internal communications system beep, one of his subordinates had indicated on the call that there was some sort of disturbing content that he needed to report in person, and it involved two senators and some sort of serious accusation, so after checking his schedule he decided to spend a little time on it.

In the lounge, he met his subordinate, Harry . Morgenstern, and a slightly flustered man. He was well aware that it wasn't easy to be an Atlantic Federation Councillor, and that even though the people in that position tended to have some family tradition and financial standing, it still required qualities beyond those things; so people who stayed in that position weren't supposed to show panic easily, so it was by no means a common occurrence for him.

"This is Joseph . Councillor Copeland, who has noticed a suspicious situation of some sort, possibly linked to PLAnt, with one of his colleagues."

"I, I'd say, Jim. Senator Rahel,"

The Director nodded, he had some recollection of the name, and if memory served, the man was a member of the Foreign Policy Committee and had no record that felt suspicious.

"He told me once that he had a couple of Adjuster friends, and really, that's not surprising, is it? Essentially we know there are a lot of Adjusters on Earth." Copeland sat down and then wiped his sweat with a paper towel, "He's sort of a moderate to PLAnt, but essentially a loyal guy, or at least it seems that way. He occasionally visits the mansion where the PLAnt lady is under house arrest, but this isn't a particularly unusual situation at all."

"I didn't know anything about him before he disappeared today, but I got a message from him saying that his friend needed help and that the Federation had to be vigilant and he had to leave for a while. He ended his message by saying not to let this fall into the hands of the Blue Perestroika."

He pulled a terminal of the smallest model out of his pocket, the image projected on the desktop showed an audio file with a recording time of early this morning, "I found this on my desk in my office this morning, I went to his office looking for him, but, you know, there was no one there."

"Do you want me to play it?" Harry. Morganstein asked testily, "Or do you want to go ahead and run tests on this device?"

"No need to put it off, we're all short on time."

Thomas frowned, a congressman colluding with an enemy wasn't an easy situation to be in, and for the time being he didn't have much power to investigate this incident with PLAnt when the entire Atlantic Federation's internal covert forces were dealing with Blue Perestroika and their handlers.

"You take it for testing, and if the equipment is fine, get a professional to do a sonic analysis, and you can ask the FBI for help, if they can spare the manpower." He was somewhat fortunate that in the face of the huge consortium's power, there was now an unprecedented level of cooperation between these special departments that had been in open and covert warfare.

"Mr. Director, seriously, I don't think he's the enemy or he wouldn't have left this behind, but..." Councillor Copeland said with some uncertainty, remembering his own stunned state when he heard this this in an empty office.

"I see what you mean, a professional spy would never leave a voice recording like that." The CIA director chimed in, "But we don't know what PLAnt was thinking. What's your level of secrecy? It is necessary that we raise you, and this incident you've provided, to a confidential level. No one else heard this, right? Harry, run a bug test on the offices of the two congressmen involved in this, get the FBI to run a background check, they should have some records on hand."

Meanwhile, FBI Agent Isaac. Snow is driving down the highway toward Maryland, and he and his partner are looking for an address, one that's involved in a space fuel shipment. The Bureau has manned airports and every place where planes can land and launch rockets, but the Bureau knows that the man they're after must have a hidden exit strategy, and this shipment of rocket fuel could lead him to one of the locations in question.

The electronic navigation guided him off the highway and into the countryside between the two cities, and the first thing he saw in the distance was the abrupt green of an artificial color that didn't belong on a farm or in the mountains, a golf course, which, if the map was correct, was where the rocket fuel had been delivered.

"Looks like this is another transit node." The side seat companion was a little disappointed.

"Not really, I have a gut feeling that we're close to the end."

His eyes quickly caught a glimpse of something jarring at the edge of the green lawn, the black limousines weren't supposed to be on the lawn, they were supposed to be parked outside the stadium, and then the rich people sitting in them would have the luxury of driving up the lawn in the stadium's electric trolley, not like they were now.

"Start contacting headquarters, there's definitely something wrong here." Isaac stepped on the accelerator, he could already see the lowered fence and the empty guard post, then he felt the ground seem to vibrate slightly.

"This is Operations Command, what is it?"

"This is Agent Snow, we've spotted a vehicle, same model as the first surveillance target, plus, hell."

Isaac slammed on the brakes, the sharp scraping of tires joining his curses on the talk channel.

"What's going on? Please answer."