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The chants of the soldiers echoed through the Minerva's interior observation deck and bounced their way into Emily's brain. She took an anxious step back.

"Is that the enemy...?"

At her side, Rau merely shrugged. "To be fair, what can you expect from a group of people who have endured the horrors they have?"

"But that doesn't mean they can just slaughter everybody for it!" Emily protested, and gestured angrily at the Moon. "They're being just as bad! What's the difference?"

"There is none," Rau agreed, "which is why you can't hang your coat with either side. They both must be destroyed if there's to be peace." He smiled reassuringly. "Isn't that what Ms. McGriff told you?"

Emily looked back out the windows, towards the mountains. Of course that was what Selene had told her. Take the Eclipse's power and end the war. She had seen its power herself, twice now.

"I know you don't want this power," Rau said, and turned to leave, "but it there regardless, and it is yours to wield. Why not do some good with it?"

The door slid open and Rau disappeared down the hallway, leaving Emily with her head in her hands and her father's voice echoing through her mind.

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"Good God."

Breaking the silence of the Charlemagne's bridge and its gaping crew, Danilov tore his eyes away from the images of death in Copernicus. He'd already had his fill of corpses in the contortions of nerve gas poisoning, but the news couldn't seem to get enough.

Instead, he glanced over at the communication console. "Any word from headquarters yet?"

"No sir."

Danilov peered out the bridge windows and frowned, pushing the images from his mind. He was too professional to dwell on bodies— and that ZAFT unit was out there, fresh from having slaughtered ten million people in a neutral, affluent colony. They had escalated the war— so it was up to Danilov to bring the war to them. The Charlemagne would annihilate them.

But the Minerva's remaining mobile suits had been spotted in action against the ZAFT forces, and the Minerva itself was apparently redlining its engines to get around the enemy fleet and beat them to Sagan City, by the Posidonius crater. What would they do? Danilov could already tell. They would never pass out an opportunity to mete out justice like that— especially if they had been there for the gassing itself.

And yet his ship's official mission was still to destroy the Minerva on sight.

Well, Danilov mused, that may be what my orders say...but it's not what my oath said.
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A somber silence hung like mist in the air of the Charlemagne's crew lounge as the images scrolled by on the monitor of the streets of Copernicus. It didn't bother Sven in the least— but it did seem to rile up that damned little kid.

You know you're bothered by this, the voice spoke up, and Sven ground his teeth in anger. Hey, did you see that one kid with the silver hair? He looked kinda like you. Y'know, back when you were a human being.

Shut up.

It's pretty brutal, huh? All that young life, vibrant and excited and ready for whatever, cut down by some psychopaths with poison gas. And you don't feel even a teensy little bit bad about it?

Sven turned around and stormed out of the crew lounge. He angled for his bunk, where he could bang his head against the wall until the voice left him alone without attracting unwanted attention.

The bodies were still there in his mind's eye, writhing in agony and clutching at their throats. But he was a soldier and he was supposed to do his job. He could not let sentimentality get the better of him. Not in this business. That was not how he had survived the Phantom Pain's ruthless training, in the days of the 81st Autonomous; that was not how he had survived throughout his entire career. To survive, on the battlefield and off, one had to be ruthless and cold. He could not afford distractions.

You keep telling yourself that, the voice added, and Sven growled hatefully.

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"Those damned Coordinators," snarled Joaquin, drifting from his chair on the Lucifer's bridge towards Ortega. "Get this ship on their tail immediately."

"We're following as fast as we can, sir," Ortega protested, "but the ZAFT fleet has a considerable head start on us. And," he called up an image on the auxiliary screen, and Joaquin frowned, "we've got them to worry about too."

"What the hell is the Minerva doing there?" Joaquin stroked his chin thoughtfully, disturbing ideas flitting through his mind. "They don't actually mean to stop this ZAFT force, do they?"

"They launched mobile suits to protect Copernicus, sir."

"For all the good that did." Joaquin studied the map again. "The Charlemagne is on its way too. What does Danilov think he's doing?"

"I think, colonel," another voice spoke up, "that Danilov is fighting our real enemy."

Joaquin glanced over at the bridge doors and found Morgan Chevalier floating through with a steely expression.

"That marshmallow of an officer had better not forget that the Minerva is no friend of the Alliance," Joaquin sneered. "And that goes for you too, Captain Chevalier. They are to be shot down the instant the ZAFT force is neutralized."

"Can we really afford that?" Morgan shot back. "I think between the two, ZAFT presents a bigger threat. The Resistance has never pulled off anything on this scale." He gestured angrily at the auxiliary screen. "They've killed almost twenty million people in less than a month. I think they should be the priority here."

"We will decide what's the priority, Captain Chevalier," Joaquin snapped, and turned back towards Ortega. "Take us to the Moon, immediately."

Ortega frowned. "If they're heading to Sagan City, we won't be able to catch up in time to protect the city."

"I don't care! Get us there, now!" He turned and pushed past Morgan with a scowl. "I won't let them shame me again..."

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"...and then he jumped on top of the truck and they had a fistfight!"

Shinn Asuka watched with growing discomfort in the Minerva's crew lounge as Lily excitedly described her Copernican escapades to a somewhat skeptical-looking Stella.

"That's dangerous," Stella pointed out.

"Yeah, but it was really cool!" countered Lily.

"Relatively speaking," Shinn added. "Personally, I remember Athrun driving like a maniac— "

"In his really awesome car!"

Stella blinked at Shinn for a moment. "Is Shinn okay?"

"I'm fine. It's nothing we haven't done before."

Lily immediately turned towards Shinn. "You mean you've fought gunfights in moving cars before?"

Instantly, Shinn's mind flashed back to a nasty stay in Havana two years ago, and a car chase that Sting and Auel had called "fun" and he had called "terrifying," all of which had ended in spending the night in a muddy creek. "Anyways," he said, "it wasn't all that fun, and," he frowned, "it did get worse."

They all fell silent, and Shinn silently regretted killing the mood— but, really, how could any of them talk about Copernicus and their misadventures throughout the lively city and not come to what had happened hours later?

He looked up sadly towards the ceiling and idly wondered if that too was somehow his fault.

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Everything was falling into place. Every piece, every move, every word— all of it was working as she had planned.

Valentine Sunogachi stood at the window of Messiah's control room— the one she liked best, for its sweeping view— and gazed at the debris. It was all that remained of the PLANTs, the shattered fragments of the Coordinator people's lives. And it was here, in the blasted remains of their homeland, that the blasted remains of their nation made their headquarters as they brought justice to the rest of the Earth Sphere.

She breathed in the feelings. Exultation everywhere, at the success of Hell's Wind— at the incredible blow this army of survivors had struck against the mighty Earth Alliance. At the blows already struck, and the eagerness about the blows yet to come. The breath of victory coursed through her.

But there was something else, pulsing underneath, that drew her in. That anger, once white-hot but now even closer, warmer, tightly wound. It had taken three years to take that raw, burning rage and mold it into something self-sustaining and purposeful. Rage with no purpose was little more than recklessness, and the violence such rage begat was simply wasteful. It had taken her three years and she had withstood a coup d'etat and the conquest of those miserable Martians to forge from these survivors the pulsing cocoon of hatred that wrapped itself around her.

Valentine closed her eyes and threw herself into it. All that hatred, itching to be released; all that anger, at the most towering of all injustices the Coordinators had ever suffered; all that sorrow, regret, longing, pain, all of it swirling together in this simmering cauldron of her own making. Of course there were those with doubts— but in this world, those doubts vanished. They were not Newtypes, but they could not help but be subsumed by all this, and even those who doubted and faltered and hesitated were sucked back in and the dark thing within them all itched and craved for its release.

They were perfect, and they would bear her up as a goddess of a new world. A better world. A worthy world. She stretched her senses deep into Messiah and found what she was looking for.

They would bear her up a goddess— and he would be her priest.

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It always comforted Rudolf Wittgenstein, to some small extent, to lay eyes on his gleaming golden GOUF Ignited mobile suit. It quite literally outshone the other mobile suits in the Caernafon's hangar, and that was as it should have been. He wore on his lapel the emblem of FAITH, and he was one of the ZAFT Reds to boot. He deserved to stand out.

So why did thinking of that damned Athrun Zala make his blood boil?

Well, there were reasons for that— like how Athrun Zala had enjoyed all the prestige and heroism that he, Rudolf, deserved— and squandered it all when he turned out to be a race-traitor. Sympathy for the Naturals. What a ridiculous concept. They had lost any claim they had to Rudolf Wittgenstein's sympathy when they blasted the PLANTs out of the sky.

Rudolf looked over to the right of his own GOUF, passing over a silent ZAKU Warrior— and then ground his teeth in even more anger, at the white and violet Civilian Astray with the Gundam's face and the grinning serpent emblem on its shoulder.

Yes, the Naturals had lost his sympathy, and yet here he was, taking orders from one. What difference did it make that he was so knowledgeable about lunar cities and their defenses? Lunar cities were easily figured out by Coordinator minds, and their defenders were easily cut down by Coordinator reflexes and technology and skill. He whirled around furiously, back towards his GOUF, and pushed off the railing with his feet. What did they need him for?

Athrun Zala might have had an answer, the bastard. Rudolf scowled. He might have had an answer, but that didn't make him right.

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"So even Kira Yamato is joining the fun."

Varder Ehrmacht drifted around his office with his laptop in hand and a smirk on his face. He glanced up towards his desk, where Lilith was floating just overhead, idly twirling a pen between her fingers. She blinked disinterestedly at him.

"Well I think it's cool."

"As if," Lilith snorted. "What's he doing out here anyway? Afraid Glasgow's diaper will need changing or something?"

Varder made a face. "Wouldn't want to wish that on anyone. No, he's coming to deal with the Minerva."

"I thought we were going to do that."

"Yeah, well, Vice Marshal's prerogative or something." He moved over towards Lilith, discarding the laptop, and gathered her into his arms with a smile. "Besides, if Yamato is running around with us, he'll get to see how awesome we are."

Lilith settled into Varder's embrace. "I thought we were given this assignment because he already knows we're awesome."

"Well, more awesome. Think about it, Lil. We put up a good showing in front of Kira Yamato and earn some brownie points with the brass. And if we wind up fighting that Angel of Death girlie again..."

"Awfully interested in her, aren't you?" chuckled Lilith. "Should I be jealous, or just creeped out?"

"Oh no, she's our ticket to glory," Varder answered, his eyes lighting up. "Glory, fame, power, prestige, money...we take her down and we'll be heroes, Lil. And then," he waved a hand contemptuously around his office, "no more of this."

Lilith turned herself around in his arms and rested her head on his shoulder. "I don't really mind this."

"Neither do I," agreed Varder, "but we can do better."

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There were many instances when Lord Djibril truly despised meeting with his associates— and this was one of them. He sat in his screening room with a generous glass of wine in hand, direly contemplating an upgrade to something stronger, as his fellow leaders of Blue Cosmos railed.

"Lockheed-Martin just lost an entire factory complex, Djibril!" raged the bald and portly Lally McWilliams. "This isn't just a little bump in the balance sheets, we lost ten percent of our manufacturing capacity!"

On another screen, the long-haired Adam Vermilyea frowned. "Dassault-Dornier did not come out of this well either, Djibril. I think we've waited and played cat-and-mouse with the ZAFT fleet long enough. It's time to use the Requiem."

"Yes, use the Requiem!" Celestine Groht added with a pounding fist on his desk for emphasis. "We should have done that at the outset!"

"Gentlemen," Djibril cut them all off, "you are not privy to this information but suffice it to say that intelligence from Mars suggests that such steps will be insufficient. And if it will do no good to fire the Requiem at Messiah, I would rather not waste the energy and risk the relay points."

"Then what are you going to do?" demanded McWilliams. "Are you going to let them just get away with this?!"

"Of course not," Djibril said, and reached the power switch. "I have other matters to attend to. I will speak to you again soon," and with that the screens went dark. He knocked back a mouthful of wine and scowled, around the bitter taste of the alcohol and the even bitterer taste of what ZAFT had done. The people were clamoring for retaliation just as his associates were— but some of them were equivocating. Some of them were quietly raising the point that it had been the Atlantic Federation that had fired the Requiem in the Junius War, not the Republic of East Asia or the South African Union or anyone else. At least Sunogachi did not seem inclined to respect such a distinction.

The click of combat boots on the polished metal surface brought his attention back and he glanced up in the darkened screens, at Misa Tsunomi's dim reflection.

"Look into the feasibility of assassination of a certain group of individuals," he said quietly, and then scowled at his own reflection in the screens. "I was careless..."

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It had been a horrific scene to see at first, but as the news replayed footage of the devastation at Copernicus for what seemed like the millionth time, it had ceased to have any effect on Robert Meyers by now. Strange how constant images of death made one just get used to it.

He sat back in the chair in his office and pondered. There was only one way this could play out— and it already was, with people in the streets demanding a swift and brutal retaliation against ZAFT for what they had done to Copernicus.

But Robert Meyers understood the real language of these things, and in her own way and her own words, Marshal Sunogachi had just issued a challenge to Lord Djibril. He had to answer it, or risk his own legitimacy as President of the Alliance.

Not that his legitimacy as such rested on such solid foundations anyways. No, not after what he had heard from quiet poking around in the State Department. Premier Musashihara of East Asia was already trying to quietly edge away from Djibril and President Vasserot. Prime Minister Manuel of South Africa and President Schtorzmann of Eurasia were still ostensibly on Djibril's side, loyal toadies that they were, but in the face of ZAFT's brutality the Alliance's already-stressed seams showed some signs of further fraying.

Meyers could not help but admit that he too wanted to see ZAFT punished for what they had done. But he was no Blue Cosmos fanatic; he could suppress that urge. They were right to say that the Coordinators were a threat to human civilization, in more ways than they knew— but they were of no use. Djibril and his little puppet Vasserot were proof enough that three years of Blue Cosmos's open brutality had bred only a backlash— and now there were ten million corpses being pulled off the streets of Copernicus to stand in proof of it.

He sat back and thought over the aging, hunched person of Evander Vasserot, President of the Atlantic Federation— acting, of course, after President Copland's disappearance from office. That was an interesting loose end, but it was not in Meyers' radar yet. At least Vasserot had no Vice President of his own. That would make this all a little easier.

Meyers glanced up as he saw Seri Minamoto slip quietly into his office and shut the door behind her. "It's, err, it's done now, sir."

"Good," Meyers said, and glanced down at his computer screen— where, sure enough, the news websites were already starting to shudder to life with the news that the 89-year-old Pierre St. Michel, Senior Senator from the Province of Manitoba and President pro tempore of the Atlantic Federation Senate, had unexpectedly passed away. But nobody would really be surprised that an 89-year-old man had up and bought the farm— and no one would know otherwise, because Seri was good at what she did. "Very good. Pierre wasn't on our side anyway, old bastard."

Seri fidgeted for a moment. "Sir, this plan," she protested, "it just...I don't understand it. All these rules and parliamentary tricks just confuse me, sir."

"That's what they're there for," Meyers answered with a smirk.

"But...I don't get it. I thought the president pro tem was supposed to be the oldest?"

"By tradition. But we're just going to have to arrange a little break with tradition. Because, you see, he's also next in line for presidential succession after the Vice President and House Speaker, and that, dear Seri, is where you come in."

Seri blanched. "I'm supposed to...?"

"Soon," Meyers said with a wolfish smile. "And then, no more."

"No more," Seri repeated quietly.

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"We've got mail," Roxy spoke up suddenly into the silence on the Minerva's bridge, startling everyone. Meyrin tried not to look too annoyed as she smoothed out her coat. A moment later the auxiliary screen flickered to life— and Meyrin blinked in surprise at the sight of Chiao Xu, on what looked like a spaceship's bridge, with Joseph Copland standing over his shoulder. "Hey, it's the boss!" Roxy exclaimed.

"Chiao Xu, sir," Meyrin said with an awkward salute, "what's the occasion?"

"I understand you're in pursuit of the ZAFT fleet that just attacked Copernicus," he said, and Meyrin nodded. "Do you intend to destroy them?"

Meyrin blinked again. "Of course, sir. They're on course for another lunar colony. We can't let them do this again."

"I see," Chiao Xu said with closed eyes. "Then I must inform you of a change in your battle plan." He looked back at her again, and she felt her blood go cold as she guessed what he was about to say. "We are aboard the Alexandria, on our way to the Moon to meet with the commander of this ZAFT fleet and attempt to negotiate a ceasefire."

"What?!" Abbey cried.

"Sir, that's suicide!" Meyrin added. "They— you heard Sunogachi's speech, right? They're not giving quarter to anyone, and they're certainly not going to make an exception for you!"

"This is above your level of knowledge," Chiao Xu said firmly, "but I have been in contact with ZAFT since before they arrived in the Earth Sphere. Our negotiations are ongoing— but I will have access that no one else has, and I must take this opportunity to avert another tragedy like Copernicus."

Meyrin looked helplessly up at Copland, seeing by his expression that he agreed entirely with her— but keeping his mouth shut. "But sir, if those negotiations fail, your life will be in jeopardy and they'll still attack their next target."

"That doesn't matter. I must try."

Abbey stood up in disbelief. "Chiao Xu, sir, what makes you think you can negotiate with them? That they even want to talk? You would be putting your life at risk for nothing!"

At his side, Copland shifted uncomfortably and looked down at the aging leader. "The Alexandria is prepared to defend itself," he spoke up.

"And if I can end this crisis with negotiation before anymore lives are needlessly lost, then so much the better," added Chiao Xu.

Meyrin looked between the two men with something between outrage and horror churning inside her. "But they just gassed ten million people to death and bragged about it on worldwide television!" she sputtered. "What makes you think they're going to talk?"

Chiao Xu narrowed his eyes. "Do you disapprove of this course of action?"

"Of course I do, sir. You're just going to get killed— and that won't help anyone."

At that, the old man straightened up and seemed to draw himself in. "My negotiations with ZAFT have garnered me significant goodwill among their leadership," he answered curtly. "I am confident I will be in no danger."

Meyrin glanced over at Abbey anxiously. "Be that as it may, sir, we're going forward with our plan anyways. Because you may believe that ZAFT is willing to negotiate over this, but we don't."

"You will do what you think is right," Chiao Xu said. Copland smiled apologetically, and the screen went dark— and Meyrin groaned and put her head in her hands.

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