Gundam Fire Still

"He was killed in the firefight at the Institute inside the satellite, his last words implying that his goal was the destruction of the world and that he had done a great deal to achieve it. We are now almost certain that this is the man who leaked information about the Alaska attack to Blue Perestroika and tried to hand over the nuclear machine to them in this operation."

"In other words, he is indeed a madman with anti-human tendencies?"

"You should have listened to those recordings, it was worse than that."

"I remember this man, who, if I'm not mistaken, was also one of the most trusted by Zaft Commander-in-Chief Patrick . Sara's one of the senior advisors trusted by the Zaft. And who would have thought that this senior advisor of his was aiming to destroy all that was between the Adjuster and the Naturals included?"

"Corroborating with this is the information shared from within PLANT, the group known as the Terminal," spoke the officer responsible for the other part of the data.

"In the information they provided during this negotiation and engagement, the squadron under this Captain Kreuzer is the very same escort that is building the superweapon construction site that Zaft is building, and they will fire on any approaching aircraft. Also Patrick's enthusiasm for building that strategic weapon had the effect of his input."

"Okay, so you're telling me that this one madman is influencing the political situation in PLANT while trading with Perestroika with the goal of getting both sides to destroy each other together? If we do take that crazy talk seriously." The caller on Washington's end was clearly confused.

"And he almost made it, if we didn't make the right call in Alaska."

"And he hasn't quite failed," someone reminded us, "that cannon of old Sarah's is still pointed at us."

"Any new changes in L4's condition? It's still closer to the threat there now." Someone was reminding that this was just the tactical staff and didn't need to be considered political.

"No" replied the head who was staring at the map, "Zaft is still on the outskirts of the L4 satellite, in a standoff with Colonel Remiret's fleet, they seem to have lost the desire to attack."

"That can easily happen when you lose a strong commander and don't have a clear command sequence of your own."

"That red ship from PLANT is still inside the satellite and appears to be communicating with the ORB ship. The Archangel's onboard MS is housing the wreckage, which is good news, that thing is in."

"Get them under control of those Perestroika, there must be survivors there, then we can pry them open."

Someone tapped the table carefully, a way to show approval or joy in lieu of clapping.

"Wait, what are the ORB's doing?" The L4 Universe was becoming quieter from the battle, but no one would think that anyone who had just finished fighting would be idle.

"ORB ships are making bursts of communication, they seem to want to make sure the three Zaft ships with neutron jamming on can hear it too."

"What about the content of the message? Can you decipher it?"

"Wait, that's strange, that's..." The officer in charge of communications monitoring transferred what he saw directly to the main screen, and the officers stared in stunned silence at the name, the name that had announced itself at the beginning of the message

"This is Aslan. Sara is calling..." So said the message.

They all knew who he was.

"If I'm not mistaken..."

"And he's calling for a ceasefire, for those three ships to stop their acts of combat? What is this guy doing?"

"Pretty sure it's him," came the new information a moment later.

"The battle report from Lt. Broadsword, who presumed that the Red MS pilot was the same person, had the same action patterns as those once performed by Aslan. The X-Series MS that Sara flew was similar enough for him to determine it was the same pilot."

"Well, apparently he was betrayed, blew himself up and was rescued by the ORB's, he called for the fleet to stop engaging, and no, he couldn't have been taken hostage, I bet the ORB's would have put him back next."

"We need a team," Admiral Bliss raised his own volume to slightly overshadow the discussion of the others.

"To analyze Patrick . Sara's own reaction and judgment after hearing his son's report of the incident."

"Don't touch the PLANT Internal Affairs Analysis Team, this team needs a psychologist or two, the kind with a secrecy rating, and let the former Internal Affairs Analysis Team continue to speculate on what the moderates on PLANT, off stage, and now these guys who own a ship and call themselves terminals will do."

"Get a team of DARPA guys out with the Intelligence Fusion to prepare a sample of the neutron jamming eliminator for analysis, we've got to hurry."

"You know, that dead terrorist hasn't lost yet, and old Sarah's cannon, it's still pointed at us."

He still had half a sentence left to say, but he knew that everyone here was well aware that the political situation of PLANT at the moment was almost in the hands of that one man, with little possibility of checks and balances.

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

L4 Universe, Archangel, Officers' Lounge.

Jim. Rahel slumped on the couch, knowing full well that he needed to rest, but he hadn't slept at all because he'd had too much coffee.

"It's all right, old chap, you can rest now." Rick. Eisenhorn sat a little more upright across from him, "They were a little rough in their inspection earlier, but they do fear you have a bug, or a bomb on you."

"It's okay, I know your procedures, but then you're going to be busy. Who would have thought that old Sarah's close subordinate was a psychopath against humanity, a clone, and sold his son to Perestroika?"

"And there are so many people who know, the PLANT guys, and the ORB, I hope the waste merchants didn't hear the last part."

"No, their people pulled out early, and all they could see was the final appearance of the Perestroika and then the explosion, and the smart ones among them could guess it was a nuclear explosion, but that's about it."

"But the ORB's might have told them, after all, they... often work together."

"If they were really that close, they wouldn't have been late to this negotiation, they weren't informed at the first opportunity, and you know what that means."

"It means trouble, man, lots of trouble, I know. But it's also good news."

"Because we're one step closer to the end of this stupid war."

final chapter

GE-This isn't peace, it's a 20-year truce.

He didn't know if it was hard to start a war, since he wasn't a witness to that event and the terrorist who had started it all was dead, but he did know that it was hard to end a war.

The Atlantic Federation, the President sat down wearily in his office and held his head, he had just finished a long video conference with Eurasia and East Asia on whether or not he should give PLANT some time to work things out on their own.

For the eventual battle, the entire United Earth Cosmic Fleet was ready, they had stockpiled plenty of supplies and their staff had many sets of battle plans ready. In stark contrast to this was the silence and contraction on the PLANT side.

It's easy to understand in the first place, the ruling Patrick is clearly trying to stop the information from leaking out, and the Kleinites, hiding in a corner for anti-war propaganda, can't just give those truths to summon confusion. Both of them, propagandists who are old enough to be familiar with how public opinion is influenced, the truth does not accomplish their goals. If the Adjusters are indeed, as they say, more calm, Earth can expect that satellite cluster to give a result that is consistent with reason.

If a more rational and logical PLANT government had emerged, millions of deaths could have been avoided, and while the Adjusters would have continued to be a problem, they would have analyzed the risks and benefits, as well as the future of the Adjusters and humanity.

But it also meant risk, huge risk, at the cost of half the planet.

Every minute of delay meant one more risk, because the giant gamma-ray cannon that was being pointed at the planet - if the information given by those PLANT dissidents was correct - was also every minute one step closer to going into combat, and one step closer to the moment when this devastating weapon would hit itself on the head.

If Patrick . Sara really went insane, or turned into a committed nativist exterminator, while at the same time his subordinates still followed his orders, every second could have the light of destruction shining on his own head, killing most of the creatures on the side of the Earth facing the PLANT satellite cluster - that is, it would kill half the Earth - which is better than one whole, but just That's it, half the earth is directly irradiated, and the rest is a secondary disaster caused by the affected atmosphere and ocean currents.

The natural disasters after that would be on the same level as the one that had caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

He forced himself to think in terms of "creatures" instead of human beings, his own kind, the ones he could see from the window of the White House, the ones he could see walking and living. His own judgment would be interfered with if it was... their words.

The hardened man who had once engaged armed men with assault rifles was well aware that he was not a ruthless man.

The minister under him had told him many things, how many shelters there were in the entire Atlantic Commonwealth, how many of them might be able to block the gamma rays, that is, how many more would survive the first blow, just temporarily, and a large percentage of them would have trouble surviving the next climate-disrupted, animal-free winter, if the nations on the other side of the planet didn't lend a hand, because the gamma rays It's not just humans that would be killed; how many animals and plants would die, what kind of horrible conditions the whole of North America, the Atlantic and the Pacific would be in, and then the disaster would spread with the ocean currents and the atmosphere, and the rest of the planet would be in serious trouble, too, with natural disasters of unimaginable proportions, and the ORB's theory that it could wipe out the whole planet might not be an exaggeration.

The scientists hired as consultants ran some simulations with supercomputers, and then they refused to extrapolate the next scenario because it was bad enough to drive someone crazy who actually knew exactly what the numbers represented, and he remembered one of the women crying herself straight out of a secret discussion.

He wasn't a scientist, and the diplomatic president wasn't familiar with the terminology, but he knew the meaning behind the words, and that outcome was unacceptable.