Mobile Suit Gundam 00S: Crossover Episode 16

It has now been a year since events took a turn for the worse. In a decisive move by a mysterious foe, the Earth Sphere Federation has taken prisoner both Daryl and Ransac. Charlie Days and Renki Miniki were both killed trying to escape from the ESF forces. The remaining core members of Star Strike only managed to escape thanks the efforts of Amuro Ray, Heero Yuy, and Ash Kennedy. Fleeing to a top-secret military base, Star Strike has declared war against the ESF, adding to the already heavy burden of challenging the extraterrestrial Ascent, which has mysteriously become quiet over the year.

Capitalizing on this newfound silence, the president of the Earth Sphere Federation has ordered extensive measures to find and destroy Star Strike. Little does the ESF know, they are about to enact plans of their own…

Chapter 23: Final Preparations

 * “Ash! What are you doing just standing there? Get your machine prepared for the mission!” Barked a young woman with long blond hair. She wore the uniform of an engineer.
 * “I’ve already told you Syrene, ASO’s been prepped for over an hour now!” Replied Ash Kennedy. A man with shoulder length red hair dressed in a red pilot suit. He spoke with obvious irritation at the order, having received them several times before in the past hour.
 * “Then help the others get ready!” Syrene snapped, throwing her arms up in exasperation.
 * “Think she’s under enough stress?” Asked Amuro as he entered the hanger, pilot helmet nestled under his arm. Amuro wore a white pilot’s suit sporting a long red line down the right side. His hair was styled in his trademark afro. Despite his joke, Amuro looked unhappy.
 * “Surprised she hasn’t started jumping down on top of you either, only a matter of time until she finds out you haven’t prepared Hi-Nu to launch.”
 * “We have plenty of time before the operation begins. I’ll get it ready in time.” Sighed Amuro, leaning himself against the wall. His head turned as he heard someone climbing down the ladder leading to the catwalk.
 * “You have no idea what you’re getting into. In all my years of knowing Syrene, she has never been this worked up over a mission. Hell, even the ELS Conflict didn’t work her up this much, and we were outnumbered by the thousands.” Warned Longshot. Longshot stood an inch taller than the Amuro and Ash, and rather than wearing a pilot’s suit, he wore his traditional long green trench coat sporting Star Strike’s flag on the left shoulder. Despite being inside, he was wearing black sunglasses that completely hid his eyes from sight. This had the effect of making his words feel dire.
 * “Well, I guess we should feel flattered that she’s decided to drive us up the wall too. We’re just as anxious as she is to see this one pull through.” Said Amuro. As if sensing his words, Syrene suddenly snapped around and glared at Amuro. She said nothing but the effect was successful.
 * “Did anyone else just feel the room get colder?” Chuckled Ash.
 * “I tried to warn you.” Chuckled Longshot as he returned to the ladder.
 * “All hands, please begin finishing final preparations for launch. We shall be launching within the hour.” Announced Strafe Lenardo, through the com system. The current leader of Star Strike after the loss of both Daryl and Ransac and the oldest remaining member of the organization, having been part of it for over 94 years. He had been strained for the entire year to keep the group going despite the loss of two core members.
 * Predictably, his announcement did nothing to ease the environment within the hanger. Everyone exploded into havoc as people began rushing to finish their preparations.
 * “Looks like we’re starting early.” Sighed Amuro as he departed to prepare his mobile suit for launch.
 * Despite his calm exterior, even Heero Yuy tensed as Strafe made the announcement.
 * “Looks like Syrene got to him.” He thought as he continued his path to the bridge. Over the year, he had made it his goal to memorize The Traveller and all its pathways. The path he was taking now was the fastest trip from the hanger, which he had left the moment he had completed his preparations in Wing Zero.
 * Heero was one of the more unusual gundam pilots in terms of both looks and appearance. He wore his trademark green tank top and simply jeans rather than a pilot suit, despite the orders to prepare for sortie in his mobile suit. This fit him just fine as he never to rarely wore a pilots suit unless flying in space.
 * Personality wise, Heero was rather quiet compared to everyone else. It was not that he was in the least shy, Heero simply preferred actions to words. He knew this had at the beginning caused most of the crew of The Traveller, the ship Star Strike used as their flagship, but over time, most either had accepted this or simply did not talk about it.
 * He arrived to find the bridge in a state of panicked frenzy, likely caused by the sudden change in plan. The changed was the third done this week as Syrene constantly battled against Strafe to ensure the plan went through perfectly.
 * Unexpectedly, Heero found Strafe in hasty conversation with Milliardo Consulo. Again, he was thrown back by how much Milliardo resembled Ransac. He had never gotten use to the knowledge that Ransac had a clone.
 * Milliardo looked to be in his early adult years; however, Heero had learned He was in fact close to 91 years old. His body display signs of intense physical training, presumably through extreme piloting exercises designed to push the body to the limits. However, the muscle developed during this training did not make Milliardo look bulky. Curiously, his skin seemed to at times glisten with a metallic sheen.
 * Unknown to most people, this was closest to the truth, as Milliardo had once been nearly completely assimilated by the metallic ELS over ninety years ago. The forced fusion with the extra-terrestrial had completely halted his aging process while allowing him to turn his skin from flesh to metal at a seconds notice.
 * Another physical trait that stood out was the fact that his eyes were always glowing in a manner attributed to quantum brainwave usage, an ability used by both Innovators and the ELS to grant telepathy and increased reflexes from what Heero had learned.
 * In terms of clothing, Milliardo wore a long black cloak, sporting a blue shirt and jeans underneath.
 * A large difference from Ransac was while his presence tended to put others at ease, Milliardo had a hardness in his stance that put others on their guard. Heero had seen something like this before, when he had last seen Zechs Merquise, the only other gundam pilot to have been flung from Heero’s reality into the one they were currently inhabitants of. Heero expected Milliardo had gone through some intense hardships in his life to become this way.
 * “You’re rushing this, again. I told you Syrene, despite her good intentions, is only going to see this operation collapse on itself. You’re supposed to be in charge of this organization since Daryl is absent; I suggest you act like it.” Growled Milliardo.
 * “You have no authority to speak to me like that, Milliardo. As you said, I am in charge and I shall carry things through how I see fit. Now, have you come all this way just to insult me or are you actually going to give us your support?”
 * “My enforcers are on standby. Rest assured, they’ll assist you for this operation.”
 * “Your enforcers? What about your group of gundam pilots you’ve been sneaking around for the past year?” Asked Strafe.
 * “They are busy dealing with more important matters. And I will not be persuaded to recall them anytime soon.” Answered Milliardo.
 * “Busy doing what? Hiding another colony? Or perhaps stealing someone else’s mobile suit plans to construct your own version?” Said Strafe with sarcasm dripping from every word. “Yes, I know about the Dark Guardian. It wouldn’t be the first time you got your hands on something that wasn’t yours to begin with.” He added.
 * “And it wouldn’t be the first time that that something belonging to Star Strike under top secret protection was stolen from under their noses too. But, if you must know, they are currently investigating something very important, something that could possibly bring everything we’ve ever done into jeopardy.”
 * At this, Strafe’s tone and expression turned from utter disdain to curiosity. “And just what might that be?”
 * “Your claim on what happened back at the ESF Harbor. The idea of facing a God of all things puts us all in a rather problematic situation. Don’t you agree?”
 * “You believe us then?” Asked Strafe hesitantly.
 * “Star Strike may be ineffective, wasteful, and completely useless in the long run. However, you have never failed to somehow come across the truth. At least this time it was not before things were too late to stop it. What happened a year ago was both a blessing and a curse.”
 * “Glad to have your support.” Growled Strafe, his curiosity had temporarily overtaken his disdain of Milliardo, but under the barrage of insults, the curiosity was quickly being replaced by a near physical need to strangle the man.
 * “Now, if you’re done with your interrogation, I believe Heero here would like a word.” With a nod of his head, Milliardo indicated Heero, who had decided to simply wait out the argument. Without saying another word, Milliardo left the bridge.
 * “Curse the day Ransac decided not to kill him back at Lagrange 2 all those years ago.” Snapped Strafe as he lifted himself from the captain’s chair.
 * Standing at about 6’5 with short cut blond hair and blue eyes, Strafe seemed to be within his early twenties.
 * From what Heero had learned after meeting Strafe in person, the man was far more than he appeared to be. According to Longshot, Strafe had been one of the Gundam Meisters for Star Strike over 94 years ago; flying in nearly every single mission the team was given. Heero had not believed the story until Strafe told him the facts.
 * Close to 90 years ago, Star Strike had learned that Strafe was not entirely human. Instead, he was what they called an Innovade, living terminals created by Veda, a massive quantum-processing computer designed to maintain Celestial Being and ensure the completion of Aeolia Schenburg’s original plan. Innovades were intended to collect information and infiltrate the world for when Celestial Being began their mission to end war through armed force.
 * At some point, a special innovade was produced and placed into cold sleep until it was needed, presumably under the premise of supplying a Gundam Meister to the early Celestial Being. Eventually Daryl requested that Veda assign an innovade to Star Strike. Because the organization was intended to operate outside of Veda’s knowledge, Veda disconnected itself from Strafe and transferred him secretly to Star Strike’s base.
 * Nearly 8 years after becoming active, Strafe was put in charge of maintaining Ransac, Syrene, Jim, Daryl, and Longshot, who were all placed into cold sleep alongside their machines and The Traveller for when the world needed Celestial Being to return. At some point Strafe had lost contact with the asteroid they had been concealed in, which meant he was unable to awaken the group when The Ascent first began their campaign of vengeance.
 * “I’m surprised Syrene let you leave the hanger. She’s been working herself up so much that soon she’ll be demanding to use one of the GNC-5’s to head out there herself.” Said Strafe.
 * “She was busy handling everything else. I’m here to report that ZERO’s prediction has remained unchanged, we have an 89% chance of success.” Replied Heero.
 * “That’s pretty much Veda’s prediction as well. At least know our odds are good in pulling this off.” Strafe must have noticed a change in Heero’s expression, for he added, “But that’s not all there is, is it?”
 * “Not for ZERO, however, I still don’t think what you’re doing with the True Guardian is wise. You’ve said yourself, we don’t even know if the technologies are fully compatible.”
 * “You were there during the testing with the Proto Gundam. We’ve done as much as we can regarding those two systems.”
 * “ZERO is against the merge as well. There are still high odds that both ZERO and Psycoframe will only drive the pilot insane from all the stress the two create.” Warned Heero. Strafe considered this before replying.
 * “As much as I agree, we really have no choice, not with what he know is out there. I’m confident Ransac will pull through once he’s back.”
 * “Heavy expectations for only one man.”
 * “He’s a Gundam Meister, it wouldn’t be the first heavy burden he’s been given.” Sighed Strafe. As much as he had agreed with Heero and even Amuro, for some reason he had refused to cancel their efforts to combine both the ZERO System and Psycoframe into one machine. “I’m sorry Heero, but we need everything we can get for what is to come.” He added.
 * As much as Heero wanted to argue this decision, he reluctantly gave up. He knew from the beginning that it would be pointless to continue resisting the idea. Even as he had spoke engineers worked to finish the last modifications to Ransac’s mobile suit. “I’ll be heading back to Wing Zero then.” Said Heero. “Let’s hope ZERO is wrong this time.”