The Archangel finally broke through the atmosphere. It no longer needed the protection of the Ablative Gel.
Because of that, its weapon systems could be brought online. They were immediately activated and made ready to fire at any moment.
"Captain Ramius, please don't turn back. Head straight for Orb!"
Murrue Ramius was stunned.
Not only her. Everyone who heard Lacus say that was stunned.
"What are you talking about? We're not going to save him?"
Cagalli immediately shot to her feet, furious, and questioned Lacus.
Because that man had protected the Archangel, it had not been forced to make a hard descent into Earth Alliance territory. Instead, it had reached the skies over international waters not too far from Orb.
But precisely because that man had helped block the Earth Alliance's attack, his craft had gone down.
It had not been shot down. Rather, the machine itself had suffered a malfunction.
Just like before, there had been a problem with the thrusters.
This time, however, it was not only the thrusters. The function that could release that special defensive field also seemed to have malfunctioned and stopped working.
So they could only watch as his machine fell in the opposite direction.
On top of that, the machine broke apart into two large sections.
"He'll be fine."
"What do you mean, he'll be fine? Didn't you see that machine break apart?"
"Captain Ramius, head for Orb. That is the best choice right now."
"Understood."
Murrue immediately gave the order for the Archangel to set course for Orb.
Lacus Clyne's decisive act of "abandoning" him was correct.
The reason was simple. The place where he had fallen was within the Earth Alliance's sphere of influence, and there was an Earth Alliance base in that area. With the Archangel's current strength, there was no way they could break through to him. They would only get themselves killed.
If Murrue had been in her place, she would ultimately have had no choice but to do the same.
Even so, Lacus had been a little too decisive, and it left Murrue feeling uncomfortable.
"You're way too..."
Cagalli was about to angrily call Lacus heartless when a sudden alarm cut her off. Multiple Earth Alliance warships were approaching.
So she could only bite her lip and sit back down, returning to the Archangel's third weapon system, which she was currently responsible for.
After all, Bajiururu had left earlier and taken some people with her. The Archangel had already been understaffed, and now it had even fewer hands, making it difficult to draw out the ship's full combat capability.
Once she returned to the station where she could help, she bit down on her lip and stared at the trail still visible on one of the screens, a mark like a contrail left by his fall.
By now, that guy had probably already hit the ground.
A second later, they could confirm that he had indeed crashed, because the Earth Alliance was already turning the accusation back on them.
They claimed the Archangel had fired two missiles at their base.
They also transmitted footage, but the image did not clearly show any so-called missile attack at all. It only showed something striking something else, followed by an explosion, flames, and black smoke.
They were deliberately keeping the camera pointed away from the real target.
As for the Archangel being attacked, of course they denied that it had been an Earth Alliance strike.
Those missiles truly had not been launched from this base. The traces would have been too obvious, and this place was very close to Orb, so it would have been observed.
The launch point was probably somewhere else in international waters, or on some uninhabited island where the missiles had been deployed. In any case, they would simply deny everything.
They even claimed that the attack on the Archangel had been carried out by ZAFT. That kind of frame-up was truly shameless.
Wait. Some of the missiles that had come from long range might actually have been launched by ZAFT.
But that was a separate matter. What they were facing now was definitely the Earth Alliance turning the tables, using the Archangel's alleged unprovoked attack on the base as a pretext to pursue it.
In response, Cagalli could only spit out one word.
"Shameless!"
That was the only word fit to describe them.
However, those people did not seem intent on chasing the Archangel to the death. Their goal was probably the opposite: to stay on guard against the Archangel's approach.
The reason was that the Earth Alliance needed to quickly retrieve the wreckage and reverse-engineer it.
...
A shrill alarm blared across the base.
The air was filled with the smell of fire and scorched matter, and thick smoke rolled through the surroundings.
"Independent mobile unit, proceed immediately toward..."
The order broadcast through the loudspeakers pierced through the flames and black smoke, reaching Kain's ears.
If it had remained in one piece, he could have directly stored it into his personal space.
But once it broke apart, the two sections separated too far in an instant. There was nothing he could do about that. He could only follow it down, crash into the same area, and destroy the wreckage.
Before hitting the ground, he had stripped out the Lambda Driver equipment and stored it away first.
Finally, just before smashing into the base, he activated the cushioning system. In an instant, a large mass of foaming material wrapped around him.
It was like being enclosed inside a high-buffering elastic ball. This was a protective device specially added by A2.
Now, after the impact, it rapidly dissolved under the intense heat, turning into a large amount of foam.
Like the foam from a fire extinguisher, it cooled the surrounding flames and high temperature, suppressing the fire.
For the moment, an isolation zone formed within a two-meter radius around him.
Clack.
It sounded like mechanical components locking together. He was putting on powered armor.
This was the damaged Mark X powered armor, modified once again by A2.
After the helmet went on, scans of the surrounding situation appeared in his display.
The next second, he fired bolt rounds. Their melta warheads destroyed the machine behind him, further burning and melting the surrounding fragments.
At the same time, the chainsword in his other hand slashed to one side, splitting a collapsing utility pole in two as easily as slicing sausage.
"W-We have an enemy!"
"Open fire!"
A dense metallic storm swept toward him.
He raised his hand and fired several shots through the flames, evaporating several soldiers.
His return fire earned a response: the heavy machine guns of the armed helicopters circling overhead poured a hail of metal rounds down on him.
Right. He might as well try this too.
The candy-like object he had been holding in his mouth was crushed between his teeth, and the D99 liquid inside spread out.
Its effect...
Hm. He could faintly feel something.
The clearest evidence was that the armed helicopters in the sky suddenly began flying erratically, as if their pilots were drunk.
The soldiers around him who were firing with rifles also began showing signs of severe intoxication, dizziness, and disorientation.
Then he should quickly destroy the wreckage here before heading to the other area and destroying the wreckage there as well.
Hm?
As the flames dispersed, he saw a group of unusual people in a field not far away and froze slightly.
They were children.
They looked about thirteen or fourteen, and they were dressed like hospital patients.
It gave the impression that they were children being used for some kind of human experimentation.
Suddenly, one of them, seemingly half-mad, lunged at him. That speed and that leap were not something an ordinary child could manage.
He remembered now.
The Earth Alliance had a special unit: the Extended.
(End of Chapter)
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