"So this is the Archangel."
Sutherland arrived at the Archangel with his people.
At the moment, aside from the civilians, all the other members of the Archangel had already left the ship.
"So they really carried out such a highly automated refit? Just as I thought, it's nothing like what the data says."
After arriving aboard the Archangel, Sutherland first went to the bridge for a look.
Once he was done there, he headed to the infirmary.
"You're the Vice Foreign Minister's daughter, aren't you?" Sutherland looked at Flay.
Flay was lying in bed, looking extremely haggard.
She had been hit far harder than in the "original" timeline. In the truest sense, she had lost everything.
Flay opened her eyes in a daze.
"You are…"
"I'm a friend of your father's. Your father has always supported our cause…"
Sutherland smiled.
The Songstress could attract support from civilians on the outside, but Flay represented her father's political legacy.
Especially since her father had died at ZAFT's hands.
As a tool, she was practically perfect.
Even better than that other Songstress of Orb.
Think about it. The daughter of a high-ranking Earth Alliance official was studying in a neutral third-party nation. One moment she was happily eating hotpot and singing songs, and the next—her school was gone. She barely escaped as a refugee, and then suddenly—her father was gone too.
Oh, this pawn was just far too useful.
At that moment, the scene switched again.
This time, the Stage shifted the focus to ZAFT.
"Captain Le Creuset, Athrun Zala reporting in." Athrun saluted Le Creuset.
"Mm. It's good that you're back." Le Creuset smiled.
"What's this?"
Athrun looked at the others.
Everyone was watching a video.
The one in the footage was the Astray Blue Frame.
Watching their comrades being killed naturally hurt, but if they wanted to study the enemy, this was something they had to understand.
The Astray Blue Frame's record looked impressive, but that was only before Freedom appeared.
By the time of SEED-D, Freedom became even more ridiculous.
Strike Freedom Gundam could take on twenty-five ZAKUs plus three Nazca-class destroyers all by itself without breaking a sweat.
A total stomp.
Compared with that, the Astray Blue Frame right now was hardly anything special.
"Athrun, you're finally back."
Yzak looked over at Athrun.
"You've had contact with that pilot, right? What exactly is going on with this piloting technique?" Yzak asked.
"Is there some problem?" Athrun was puzzled.
"What do you mean, is there a problem? Everything about this is a problem," Dearka complained. "It's like the bullets are actively avoiding it. It's way too weird!"
"I can't understand it at all!"
The Strike was powerful, but its range of motion and operational logic were still predictable.
The Astray Blue Frame, however, was strange.
It was not that the Astray Blue Frame was performing some highly difficult maneuver or doing anything astonishing.
On the contrary, every movement it made could be clearly understood.
Even when it simply used the "Can Opener" to pry open a cockpit hatch, what it was doing was completely comprehensible.
Watching this video gave people the impression of, "I could do that too."
The way it dodged bullets was even stranger.
Rather than saying it was dodging the bullets, it looked more like the streams of bullets around it were parting to either side on their own.
It was the kind of footage that would make a layman think they could pilot a Gundam too.
Even ordinary soldiers would feel like they might be able to pull it off.
Only true elites understood just how absurd it really was.
Even Le Creuset was studying the footage together with the others.
If there had been some flashy high-level technique involved, that would have been one thing. The problem was that there was simply no visible "high-level technique" at all.
The same was true of what had happened with the Archangel.
It was as though it had casually fired a shot, only for the GINN to move into the shell's path all by itself.
The same went for Miguel.
Miguel dodged the first and second shots, but with the third, it somehow looked as though he had flown straight into the shot himself.
The scene was rather grim, but after watching it, Athrun still fell into thought.
"Hmm… I see. The first shot was used to force Miguel to evade. While Miguel was dodging that first round, the second shot forced him off balance and made him lose control. Then the third shot left him with nowhere to dodge…"
From the standpoint of conventional combat, this seemed to be the only part worth studying.
[That's way too damn grim]
[He was your own friend, and now you're analyzing exactly how he died]
[Because it took three shots to kill him]
[Now this is truly masterful piloting. Effortless, smooth, and a joy to watch]
[I can't pull that off in GBN, anyway]
[Forget you. Even the Champion can't do that]
[Quick, summon the AI Grandmaster!]
"Well, we can study it later. It's about time we got to work too," Le Creuset said.
"Work? Are we pursuing Long Legs?" Athrun asked.
"No, no." Le Creuset shook his head. "I would like to, but we don't have enough strength right now. Three Nazca-class destroyers might be formidable elsewhere, but I'm afraid they won't be enough here. And after this, we probably won't be receiving much more in the way of supplies."
The Archangel was simply too strong.
If this pursuit failed again, there was no telling how bad the situation would become.
"Then what are we…?"
Athrun looked confused.
"Athrun, after returning home, you should have heard about your fiancée, Lacus Clyne-san," Le Creuset said.
"Mm. Could it be…?"
"That's right. Our next mission is to search for the missing Lacus-san."
Because Le Creuset Team was the unit closest to Junius Seven, the mission had been assigned to them.
"Tch." Yzak clicked his tongue. "If Long Legs manages to make it back to the Earth Alliance forces…"
It was frustrating, but there was nothing they could do.
Le Creuset merely smiled without saying a word.
Because the Archangel was in bad shape too.
Le Creuset had deliberately leaked the battle report to Blue Cosmos. Eager to swoop in and claim the prize, they had forcibly reassigned the Eighth Fleet and were trying to dig out the Archangel's "true secret."
What made the Archangel powerful was not the ship itself, but something else.
So with this method, Le Creuset could weaken the Archangel as much as possible…
"Hmm?" Just then, Le Creuset suddenly received a message.
"Captain Le Creuset, we just received some information. It concerns Lacus-san!"
"Hmm?" Athrun raised his head.
But Le Creuset had already realized that something was wrong.
"Send it over."
Two girls then appeared on the screen.
One was a brown-haired girl.
The other was a pink-haired girl.
The moment Le Creuset saw them, he understood exactly what had happened.
"We got played…"