"Blue Cosmos…!"
The moment the name "Blue Cosmos" appeared, the atmosphere immediately turned sour.
Blue Cosmos, a vibrant social organization.
They were a political group that loudly waved the so-called "anti-Coordinator" banner.
Most of its members were Naturals, and they harbored disgust and hatred toward Coordinators.
There were even Coordinators among them—Coordinators who hated their parents for making them different from normal people and had developed a kind of self-destructive mentality.
And the leader of Blue Cosmos was Azrael.
"Hey, hey, hey, that joke isn't funny." The corner of Mu's mouth twitched.
Murrue looked at Mu. His joke just now hadn't exactly been funny either.
"Can we contact Admiral Halberton?" Mu asked Inori again.
"How could she possibly know something like that?" Murrue was baffled.
"Rear Admiral Halberton left for Alaska Headquarters one day ago to give a report and discuss intelligence on the G-series," Inori said.
Murrue: ???
"How do you know that?" Natarle was even more sensitive than Murrue to this kind of military-secret leak.
"I'm monitoring the Doolittle's internal communications." Inori had simply sent Fyu-Neru to eavesdrop.
"Ah, try not to reveal that either!" Mu hurriedly added. "Something like the Black Monolith could cause an even bigger incident."
"Mm?"
Just then, Murrue also received information sent by the Doolittle.
"The Archangel will now be placed temporarily under this fleet's administration… Wait! How can they do this?!"
Murrue belonged to the Eighth Fleet, and the Archangel was an Eighth Fleet vessel, yet now the other side was saying the Archangel would be put under their administration?!
And when Murrue read further, her expression worsened.
"What happened?" Mu asked.
"They're ordering us to report aboard the Doolittle for review, and they'll send maintenance personnel to conduct a full inspection of the Archangel…" Murrue stared in disbelief.
For ordinary crew members and refugees, seeing this fleet would probably have been reassuring.
But only Murrue and the others understood that the situation was bad.
No, it could even be called very bad.
"…Anyway, all the log data in the navigation computer has been deleted," Mu said. "It's a shame the combat records are gone too, but even if we kept those, I don't think they'd be of much use."
If it had been normal combat data, then of course it would have been valuable.
But the Strike's absurd combat performance would be completely useless to an ordinary pilot, in Mu's opinion.
That fighting style was simply beyond ridiculous.
"Sigh."
Murrue let out a breath.
At this point, that was all they could do.
"Right now, the Archangel's review and command authority are entirely in Colonel Sutherland's hands. This is awful." Murrue sighed.
That man was a close confidant of the leader of Blue Cosmos!
"Admiral Halberton was deliberately lured away."
Mu felt a headache coming on too.
At this point, the situation was already obvious.
Halberton had been transferred away, and Sutherland had swooped in afterward to claim the spoils.
But that was a struggle among the higher-ups. People in the middle and lower ranks like them could do nothing except obey orders.
"That's why I said we should just make a run for it," Mu said again.
"Stop joking! I'm responsible for everyone on this ship!" Murrue felt like her head was splitting.
"But you're still going to face a court-martial, right?" Mu shook his head. "If we all go together, maybe the responsibility will be lighter."
"…What do you mean, court-martial?!" Kira pressed.
"It won't be anything serious." Murrue smiled. "There were just a few matters where I slightly exceeded my authority. At worst, I'll be demoted. Mu was only joking about the court-martial."
After saying that, Murrue shot Mu a glare.
Whatever the actual situation might be, at the very least they could not drag children into something like this.
"So what are we supposed to do now?" Cagalli asked.
"I did report the refugee situation, at least. But they haven't responded."
Murrue had originally thought the other side would at least let the Archangel's refugees disembark first.
But even Murrue had not expected them to go this far. They simply ordered the Archangel to remain exactly as it was.
"No one is allowed to leave… That's what the order says." Murrue sighed.
Mu, meanwhile, was thinking. "Could it be that their target isn't the Archangel itself, but someone aboard it? And that person may not even be military?"
Mu was sharp, and he quickly connected the dots.
The situation was looking somewhat grim.
"Did information about that PLANT princess leak? No, impossible. Even ZAFT doesn't know she's aboard our ship…"
Without intelligence, the only thing Mu could rely on was his intuition…
[Oh, we're screwed]
[Damn, why are our own people scarier than the enemy?]
[Blue Cosmos is an extremist organization, right?]
[At the very start of Episode Zero, that Black Monolith was taken from the Mendel colony, and that colony was wrecked by a Blue Cosmos attack]
"Lacus… is missing?!"
The viewers were firing off danmaku, and the Stage promptly took the opportunity to switch scenes.
After Athrun was rescued, he returned to PLANT.
Because he had drifted through space for nearly half a month, he also underwent a mental-health evaluation.
But there was nothing wrong on that front.
With Cagalli involved, Athrun might have problems of the heart, but actual psychological problems were apparently out of the question.
After completing both physical and mental examinations, Athrun learned that his fiancée had gone missing.
The news was being broadcast on television.
In fact, Athrun had just been writing a report.
Inori had already sent ZAFT a letter regarding the payment owed to her, while another letter demanded damages.
Athrun remembered it very clearly.
Whether ZAFT paid or not was not important. Forced Liquidation was what mattered.
A songstress wanted to carry out Forced Liquidation against ZAFT?
It sounded bizarre.
But after seeing her combat power during the encounter with Le Creuset, Athrun had been badly shocked.
Just as three ZAFT ships and four Gundams could challenge an Earth fleet of dozens of warships, ZAFT's main force was now being suppressed by a single Gundam and a single warship.
So there was absolutely no way they could ignore her threat.
"Lacus…"
He did want to know what had happened.
But forget it.
He had to finish the report first.
Getting the higher-ups to take the other side seriously was the most important thing.
He would soon be returning to Le Creuset's team with the supply fleet. He had to finish this before then.
As for Lacus, worrying would not help.
Compared with Lacus, Athrun wanted more to know whether Kira had made it to safety, or rather…
He wanted to know whether the person he had seen in Heliopolis really was Kira…
(By the way, this was also a cover candidate)