Mobile Suit Gundam SEED DESTINY - Red Planet

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Phase 04 - To Fight Our War

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Two hundred infantrymen throughout the length and breadth of Messiah. Sympathizers and allies throughout the officer corps. An entire Nazca-class destroyer at his disposal if the need arose. Things were coming together nicely for Orville Raclyffe, the ZAFT Black-Shirt charged with the dubious task of serving as Marshal Sunogachi's adjutant.

The imperious Raclyffe stood on an observation deck overlooking the planet Mars and the growing ZAFT fleet, sneering. Marshal Sunogachi. Yes, that was something that had to be changed.

Marshal Sunogachi, for all her talents, was insane. He had seen that personally, both in her plans for ZAFT in their return to the Earth Sphere and her leadership of the army during its exile. Some of her decisions were little more than the choosing of the least terrible option. With the Coordinator population reduced to little more than what surrounded him at Mars, ZAFT had little choice but to press every military-age survivor from the six PLANTs untouched by Lord Djibril's Requiem into service. And the round-the-clock suicide watches in that miserable first year were probably necessary in the long run, as some people simply could not keep up with the strain. In fact, Raclyffe doubted he would have made many decisions differently than hers were he the leader of these exiled Coordinators.

But she was insane. He had seen it. He did not know how, but she seemed to be feeding off of the rage and despair that festered among the exiles of ZAFT— rage and despair she continually fueled with ceaseless propaganda and fire-breathing rhetoric about their messianic return to the Earth Sphere. Raclyffe knew that they would have to return to the Earth Sphere someday and carve out a place of their own by force of arms, but the madness that she fed and fed her blinded her all the same to the exiles' precarious position.

Raclyffe knew that. He was a scholar of war, steeped in military history from his days at the ZAFT Academy and beyond. Marshal Sunogachi's plan relied in part on the ancient doctrine of a "fleet in being," a force not powerful enough to destroy an enemy but powerful enough to command its attention and prevent it from focusing resources elsewhere. The downside of this strategy was blindingly obvious: ZAFT was up against an Alliance led by Blue Cosmos, which had no comparable distractions and would spare no expense in destroying the last of the Coordinators, even if the Coordinators exacted a pound of flesh for every pound of their own in return. But the Marshal was mad, and either did not know this or did not care— and either way, that was dangerous.

And then there was the Goliath. To rely on that thing was surely madness.

Madness indeed, Raclyffe mused, because the Coordinators needed a strong and levelheaded leader in their darkest hour. Marshal Sunogachi was strong, perhaps, but her mind was anything but level— and that would not do for the Coordinators. That had never done for the Coordinators, even at the height of their power and prosperity. Siegel Clyne had not the stomach for the necessities of war; Patrick Zala had not the sense to achieve through diplomacy and economics what he could not achieve through military might; Gilbert Dullindal had not the realism and patience to let nature take its course; and Marshal Sunogachi, well, she had not the sanity to be where she was now.

But Orville Raclyffe would be different. That he knew, and that would sustain him as he put together his coup d'etat. The Coordinators needed better— and they would get it.

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The cramped training facilities of Messiah brought back all too many memories for Kayla Segar, floating on an observation walkway over one of the mobile suit simulator rooms. Large screens near the room's ceiling typically displayed the simulated training battles between both raw recruits and seasoned veterans, and they usually brought out soldiers and crew who had time to kill. At the moment, the screens were dark and the walkway was nearly deserted. The training sessions for intermediate cadets would come later.

The mobile suit simulator room was a memory of her failure in that aspect of ZAFT training. That, she remembered with some embarrassment, had been something of a confidence booster for the other cadets. She had graduated anyways, with superb marks in combat strategy and marksmanship to make up for her uninspiring mobile suit combat performance, and her detailed knowledge of history, strategy, and protocol had put her in the elite ranks of the ZAFT Reds.

Deep down, however, she suspected that the ZAFT Reds were being rewarded primarily to make the rest of ZAFT feel better about themselves. Two of the Reds in her graduating class were promptly killed on the battlefield by the MLA, after all. The days of Athrun Zala and Shinn Asuka were long gone.

But she had persevered, and now she was the military adjutant of the Vice Marshal himself. It was dizzying to be elevated to such an honorable position, even if her role was so unglamorous.

And yet even that was a double-edged sword, because the man she served was so unlike the hero that ZAFT knew. Kira Yamato was a hero to his soldiers, but now that Kayla had served him for almost two years, she could understand that he was as much their symbol and their representative. The scars of ZAFT and the Coordinators were on his body; the contradictions and painful reminders of the Coordinators' condition were his own, with so much of his flesh replaced with mechanical prosthetics.

Seeing the hero as a man made him loom even larger in her mind, because that made him a little more like her— vulnerable, limited, mortal— and, in the cold comfort of Mars, that was important.

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"It's not such a monster if you think about it," opined Gary in the Fortuna's crew lounge, watching with Kara and Juarez as footage of the mighty Delta Astray flashed by on the main screen. "Look at it. It needs room to maneuver to make those fancy special effects work. Get the three of us and the Vice Marshal on its tail and it won't have that at all."

Juarez looked convinced. "I know you weren't there during Solomon's Sword," he said, "but I was. I was a GuAIZ R pilot. I saw the Destiny in action myself. Believe me when I say that a mobile suit with beam wings will find room to maneuver even if you try to restrict it." He waved a hand at the screen. "And they're gonna have all the room they want at Austral anyway."

Gary snorted dismissively. "He can't be that good."

"He probably is," interrupted Kara, with a touch of annoyance in her voice. "Any enemy that can fight the Marshal to a standstill has got to be."

"He just has the good luck to fight the Marshal on battlefields that play to his strength," Gary replied. "You'll see. When we fight them at Austral, they'll go down."

Juarez tuned them both out as they started to argue, fixing his eyes on the shimmering wings of the Delta Astray. Yes, he had seen that before at Solomon's Sword. The Destiny Gundam had nearly killed him, blowing apart half of his mobile suit and leaving the rest a sparking ruin. And yet he had survived, and a comrade had towed him back to Messiah to treat his wounds, and only after he'd awoken from surgery had he learned of the battle's awful end.

Those wings of light were dangerous, and they had cost his comrades their lives and almost taken his own. He glanced back at his bickering wingmen. The wings of light had taken comrades before, but this time they would take no more.

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A sharp beep jolted Kira out of his slumber, and with a grunt he glanced around the room. Valentine was curled up next to him, looking thoroughly displeased at the intrusion, and Kira groggily remembered that this was actually her room— and, if memory served, it meant she was getting a call.

Valentine was up before Kira knew it, clicking a button on her nightstand and apparently shaking away her own sleepiness. "Yes?"

"Apologies for disturbing you, Marshal, but Commander Svante's task force has returned, and you requested a report— "

"I understand," she cut off the woman on the other end. "I'll be on the command deck in a few minutes."

Kira rubbed his eye as Valentine switched off the intercom. "One of these days they're gonna find out," he grunted.

"Yes, well, we can cross that bridge when we come to it," answered Valentine. "Get dressed. We have work to do."

Kira blinked the sleep away and ran his mechanical hand through his hair. Work to do, projects to complete, colonies to conquer...one thing after another. It had been entirely too long since he'd last slept with Valentine, and it had hardly been enough— and the thought of returning to his adoring troops, spending that much more time from his beloved, when all he wanted was to hold her in his arms and forget everything, even himself, made it even worse.

And, while he pulled himself out of bed and went hunting for his clothes, that was the real irony. As their faces flitted by his mind's eye, he knew that for as much as he resented his new station in life, he could not let them down. He was the "hero of ZAFT." He was their hope, the only thing other than hatred and revenge that the broken Coordinator nation had to sustain itself in this miserable exile.

In the old days of warfare, the man who bore the standard into battle had the most honorable job— and the most dangerous, because it was a matter of honor for the enemy to kill the man with the standard. Would that be his fate?

Somewhere deep inside, he hoped so.

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Silence reigned throughout the Arm of God control room, as Agnes Brahe and Nahe Hershell looked over their new orders in disbelief.

"Recalled to the Austral Colony...?" Nahe murmured. "What for?"

"I knew it," Agnes snapped, hurling the paper aside and fixing the Arm of God's commandant with a withering glare. "ZAFT is going to attack Austral, isn't it? There's no other reason we'd be pulled off the front line."

The commandant merely shrugged. "I wouldn't know, lieutenant," he said. "I'm not privy to any plans to defend Austral anyway. I have my own problems."

"But this is too sudden," protested Nahe. "If they were building up for a strike like that, we'd have noticed them massing troops weeks ago."

"Major," Agnes continued, "we're going to need the Acidalium's repairs expedited." He whirled around in frustration. "I don't believe this. I thought they were targeting Deimos."

"It makes strategic sense," said Nahe. "Austral is the MLA's most powerful surface stronghold. Even if they take Deimos, we'll still have significant combat strength left at Austral."

Agnes stormed out of the control room, closely followed by Nahe. "I should have known," he snarled. "We shouldn't have gotten involved with Vargas in the first place. There's no way Austral can handle ZAFT and the ZMA, not alone. And we can't rely on Vargas. We'll have to defend ourselves against ZAFT."

"Agnes," Nahe started, lowering his voice, "if you're thinking of going to the Council over this, it's not going to work. We're in too deep now. ZAFT isn't going to negotiate with us, because they don't have to. They have enough strength and enough ZMA grunts to overwhelm us. We're going to have to rely on something else."

Rage boiling over, Agnes slammed his fist into the wall and ground his teeth. "Our war can't end like this, Nahe," he growled. "Not like this. Not yet."

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"Good to see you back on your feet, colonel," Howard greeted with a salute on the Elysium's bridge as Omega Suzuki drifted in. He casually returned the salute, alighting next to the captain's chair. "We're still about nineteen hours out from Ceti XIII, but Major Thomas has reported that the Astray Mars Jacket is complete, except for its outer armor and combat testing."

Omega grinned. "I'll handle that."

Howard regarded his masked commander for a moment. The surgeries and therapies had taken so much out of him that he had only a few months left, at best, to exact his revenge. And what well-deserved revenge it was; to be turned into this mass of flesh and blood, living on borrowed time, deserved nothing less than death itself to balance the scales. The MLA's masked ace needed the best mobile suit that Mars could produce to fight the Strike Freedom and bring justice to Kira Yamato and his evil woman.

The masked ace glanced over at his ship's captain. "Howard," he said, "after we pick up the Mars Jacket, we're heading to the Austral Colony."

"Austral? What— oh, don't tell me ZAFT is going to— "

"Absolutely," said Omega with a wicked grin, "and I have every intention of putting our new toy to use. If Mr. Brahe and his fancy Delta Astray can't get the job done, then I will."

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Emmanuel Vargas loved to hear good news. And with Major Thomas's face on his screen delivering a report direct from the research outpost Ceti XIII, he was getting just what he wanted today.

"We've had a breakthrough on the Voiture Lumiere, sir," reported Thomas. "It's an inefficient design compared to the Delta Astray's system and it still needs testing, but we've managed to replicate the system. With adjustments, we are confident its performance will surpass that of the Delta Astray."

Vargas broke into a grin. "Excellent, major. Excellently done. What are the prospects for mass production of this system?"

Thomas adjusted his glasses. "Unfortunately, they are currently nil, sir. We would need to tighten up the efficiency dramatically before we could even consider mass production. But we are confident that the Turn Delta, even as a prototype, will be able to perform at or near the level of the ZAFT Strike Freedom unit."

"Turn Delta?" asked Vargas, arching an eyebrow. "What does that mean?"

"It was just an in-joke among the engineers, sir," answered Thomas with a shrug. "Something about turning a delta symbol upside down."

No matter, mused Vargas, his grin returning. At last he had what he needed from the Austral Colony— and it hadn't even been Brahe and his contemptible little band that had provided it, either. He had the pilots; he had the staff; he had the resources; all he needed now was the time. And with the Beelzebub Array nearing completion, soon he would have that too— and then this war would be as good as won.

"Ship the Turn Delta unit to Deimos, major," Vargas instructed. "What of the Astray Mars Jacket?"

"Colonel Suzuki has requested it for his own use, sir. We haven't completed the outer armor yet, but we will do so soon."

Colonel Suzuki. Vargas sniffed in contempt. "Fine. The Mars Jacket is something of a second fiddle anyway. Spare no expense, major; I want Ceti XIII's best troops protecting the Turn Delta as you bring it here. We will need it greatly."

"Understood, sir," replied Thomas with a salute. "Ceti XIII, out."

Vargas's grin grew just a little wider as the screen went dark. Yes, now the wings of light were his— not Austral's, not Brahe's, not the Delta Astray's, but his own— and even the Ultimate Coordinator would kneel before them once more.

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The Acidalium sliced down through the Martian air and over its rusty surface, towards the imposing mountains of Charitum Montes in the distance. The Austral Colony itself was largely built into the mountains, with some towers and machinery rising up from the ruddy cliffs. The crimson warship slowed and nosed up ponderously near one such opening, as wide metal doors swung open in a welcoming embrace towards the sleek vessel. The Acidalium slowly lowered itself down into the hangar, and the doors swung shut behind it.

The mountains quaked as the Acidalium returned home.

Agnes Brahe stretched his arms gratefully as he disembarked with Nahe, and looked around the spaceport with relief. This was where he belonged; not in the fortresses and on the battlefields of Vargas's choosing, but here, at home, where he was made to belong.

The mechanics immediately set to work on his loyal ship— and his loyal Delta Astray— leaving Agnes and Nahe to report to the colony's ruling Council, but that could come later. Right now he had a home with which to reacquaint himself. It had been almost a year since he had last set foot on the Austral Colony.

He breathed in the air, rarified and recycled as it was. Mars was no place for useless people, and the Austral Colony embraced that doctrine to the fullest. Everyone born here was genetically tailored to and environmentally nurtured for a certain task, necessary for the entire colony's prosperity and survival. Other colonies objected to this genetic caste system, but Agnes knew as well as anyone that the results could not be disputed. The Austral Colony's mineral and industrial output was unparalleled, its efficiency unmatched, its technology unrivaled. It was Austral engineers that had built the Voiture Lumiere, after all, and crafted for Mars a mobile suit that could stand up to the mighty Strike Freedom.

That was all well and good, he mused, but as he looked around the colony while traveling for the Council's offices, he couldn't help but wonder why his people were still losing this war.

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"You ever stop and ponder the incredible therapeutic power of shooting the holy living shit out of something?"

Standing in the Austral Colony garrison's firing range, Gard could only sigh as Vanfeldt and Hoskin took turns blasting away at paper target sheets with assault rifles. Vanfeldt always had to make it creepy.

"I'm serious," he continued, pausing to replace a spent clip. "Fuck the psychotherapists, when we get back to Earth I'm opening a shooting gallery. Call it an alternative treatment for depression."

"And the people who turn the guns on themselves?" Gard asked, against his better judgment.

"Can't make every sale."

Gard decided at that point that it was best to just let Vanfeldt pretend to kill things. Hoskin, at least, had the stereotypical Coordinator's analytical detachment that prevented him from doing stupid things in battle— like torturing the enemy to death instead of just killing him outright.

He regarded the two pilots for a moment, as diametrically opposed as they were. Fate had brought him and them together thanks to Lord Djibril, who had plucked Gard himself from an Alliance prison for his piloting skills despite his resistance against the new Seiran government. He had promised Gard a home and influence in the new Orb government if he performed well at Mars— but therein lay the rub. This was a losing war and he suspected his real purpose was to die out here, far from prying eyes.

But then there was Hoskin, a Coordinator strung along with the promises of surviving the slaughter— even though he too would probably meet his end at Mars. And there was Vanfeldt, who was literally a convicted war criminal whisked off of Death Row for his piloting skills and sent here with the apparent understanding of winning his freedom and exoneration if he performed well.

Lies, all of it, of course. They were here to die. Gard clenched his fists angrily. The man who controlled his country could send him here to die, but that didn't mean he had to die. And he wouldn't— not until he could see his homeland again.

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Kira never quite understood all the eccentricities in which some Coordinators indulged. The man before him was probably one of the most excessive: Vandread Harkill, the speaker in the Messiah control room wearing the purple uniform of a ZAFT flag officer, had bright blue hair and bright red eyes despite being almost sixty. These cases among the oldest Coordinators usually had something to do with parents who had quirks all their own, and the good admiral preferred if people didn't bring it up. But Kira had to admit, it was more than a little distracting.

Which was just great, because he was the man in charge of Operation Jack of Diamonds, the assault on the Austral Colony. On the other hand, this probably explained why he always seemed to be mildly annoyed with everything.

Kira shifted his weight uncomfortably beside Valentine's chair as Harkill spoke. "The problem with attacking Austral lies in geography," he said, pointing to a vast map of the southern hemisphere of Mars, centered around the rugged mountains of Charitum Montes. "The clearest path of attack is over the Argyre Planitia, which offers almost no cover and would allow Austral to see us coming from miles away. We would have no element of surprise to speak of and our troops would be exposed to relentless fire from the colony."

He waved a hand towards the other approaches to the colony, which even Kira could see were no better. "Approaching from the west, east, and south are also not ideal options," he continued, "because we would have to fight through difficult mountain terrain either way. So," he clicked his heels for emphasis, "my staff and I recommend an orbital drop, commencing as soon as possible."

In her chair, Valentine sniffed contemptuously. "They'll see that coming from a mile away too."

"Our options are limited, Marshal," replied Harkill.

Valentine was silent for a moment, pondering. "General Arnhalt from the ZMA is committing the entire II Corps to the task, is he not?"

"Yes, ma'am."

At that, a satisfied grin appeared on Valentine's lips. "We can always count on them. That's two brigades of mobile suits. Send them in first. There's no way Austral's defenders will get them all during the descent, and it will leave more than enough to soften up their troops for us."

Harkill shifted uncomfortably. "Marshal, that represents almost a fifth of the ZMA's entire military's mobile suit forces, including their converted labor mobile suits."

At her side, Kira felt his stomach turn. Two brigades meant over eight hundred mobile suits, and that meant over eight hundred pilots. Even if what Valentine said was true, he could only guess how many of those troops would be uselessly blown out of the sky during their descent.

"It doesn't matter," Valentine said with a wave of her hand. "We're on the verge of victory, and this war needs to end. It was useful at first to give our troops battlefield experience, but now our plans are too far along to allow for Vargas's meddling. I'm not risking our plans for Earth for this Martian sideshow." She fixed the admiral with a look. "Rest assured, Harkill, you'll have a trump card in case things don't work as planned. In the meantime, organize that drop for us. Dismissed."

Harkill saluted and took his leave, and as he left the room Valentine fixed her stalwart companion with a smile.

"Kira," she began, "do you recall a certain contingency plan of ours, from when we evacuated the Earth Sphere?"

There were dozens of contingency plans, but one of them stuck out in Kira's memory. During ZAFT's hasty operation to remove anything of value from the beleaguered PLANT Armory 1, ZAFT troops had equipped a set of nuclear warheads with N-Jammer Cancellers and aimed them at the advancing Alliance fleet in case things got desperate. Fortunately, they did not— the Alliance troops were too exhausted from Solomon's Sword to put up a fierce enough fight to warrant such a move— and ZAFT escaped to Mars with a cache of nuclear weapons.

His blood froze as the pieces fell into place. Surely she didn't mean...

"The authorization code is 'Thunderclap,'" Valentine continued. "I trust your judgment will suffice on the battlefield."

"That...that would kill almost a million civilians at Austral," protested Kira.

"Well," Valentine replied with a shrug, "the other option is fighting corridor by corridor. And who knows how many civilians that will kill, not to mention our own men." She looked back up at him again, this time with a hint of compassion in her eyes. "I know you'd rather not do this, but we have to end this war. The MLA is losing, but the further they get backed into a corner, the more desperate they'll get and the more damage they could do— to everything. We have to fight this war here at Mars, Kira, but it's not truly our war."

Kira took a moment to compose himself. "I know," he said at last. "I understand. I just..."

"I know," Valentine said, and as Kira looked back into her eyes, he knew that she really did.

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Kara looked up in surprise as she found Gary on the hangar gantry, staring impassively at his disassembled Impulse unit on the hangar floor. She pondered asking him what was wrong, and against her better judgment landed next to him.

"They've got new Silhouette packs for the Impulse," he said, before she could ask. "Did you hear?"

"What, about those three Second Stage ones?"

"No. The Destiny Silhouette pack." He narrowed his eyes at his own machine. "The one they used as a prototype for the Destiny itself."

Kara glanced skeptically down at the hangar floor. "What about it?"

"They're assigning it to that test pilot from Armory 1," Gary continued. "Stroud or whatever."

"What about it?"

A scowl flashed across Gary's face. "That thing can bring the baseline Impulse on par with the Destiny," he growled. "It's performance. Why are they wasting it on Stroud? He was laid up for months because he was such a fool during the Armory 1 attack. Why don't they give that thing to me? They know I'm better than him. I'm in FAITH."

Kara resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "Gary, this is petty. Yes, you're in FAITH. Who cares if you don't get to play with every new toy?" She shook her head. "Besides, Mare was a pretty good test pilot, and his wounds were hardly his fault. And..." She trailed off, as images of the Traitor Asuka darted through her memory. "They probably wanted to give it to him for...special reasons."

Gary's scowl grew a little colder. "You guys are just full of those," he snarled.

"Gary— "

He whirled around, fixing Kara with a furious stare. "Always telling me that I wouldn't understand, because I come from Mars and not from the Earth Sphere."

Kara answered with a scowl of her own. "Don't you dare denigrate what we've gone through, Gary," she shot back. "You can't even begin to— "

"Children," another voice loudly interrupted. Both pilots turned towards the doorway, where Juarez was striding through with a look of irritation. "I trust you two are mature and disciplined enough to put aside your differences? Or will I need to put them aside for you?"

Both were silent as Juarez purposefully put himself between them on the gantry.

"Gary, just be patient," he went on. "I know you don't like fighting these small fry. But you'll have to do it anyway. The MLA is as much our enemy as the Earth Alliance, and we'll get to fight them soon." He looked back towards Gary. "Alright?"

Gary heaved a sigh. "If this waiting doesn't kill me first."

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Thunderclap.

The word was already seared into his mind and he hadn't even entered battle yet. Kira sat at his desk in the master office, head in his hands, contemplating the word and the nightmarish context in which he'd have to use it. How fitting that a single strike from the heavens would be within his power to snuff out the Austral Colony like a god. Why bother trying to capture the colony when he could just nuke it off the face of the planet?

Of course there was a reason. To capture it, and its technology. They had produced the Delta Astray, after all.

And yet there were a million people there, civilians with no real part in this war, civilians that he would have to destroy to complete his objective. They would die anyway, during the battle— the ZMA troops would make no effort to distinguish targets from bystanders— so why not sweep them off the mortal plane painlessly and simply, and save the lives of his own and the ZMA's men too?

The Austral Colony wasn't even completely innocent. No, they had that abominable genetic caste system that stripped away freedom and individuality in favor of utility and efficiency. It was a colony of oppression and broken lives and powerlessness, and even if they were freed from its rule they would never be freed from its influence. In a way, this was the best option for the people of the Austral Colony— the option that spared them from their own leaders, from the ZMA's clutches, and from the ghosts of their own pasts.

And as that idea churned in his mind, Kira realized with a moan just how far he was from Heliopolis and the Archangel. Five years ago he would have been disabling mobile suits in hopes that their pilots would see the meaninglessness of conflict; now he was contemplating a tactical nuclear strike as an act of mercy.

But too much had passed during those five years to go back, that he knew. He couldn't go back to merely disabling mobile suits— not when their pilots still possessed the will to fight, and not when their leaders could simply produce newer and more powerful mobile suits. Destroying the weapons without destroying the soldiers only helped the people who profited off of making weapons— and that just meant prolonging conflict. That was pointless. That was Lacus's folly.

Fleeing to a safe haven and holing up against the world was pointless too— because someday the world would come knocking anyway. People could run and hide from war for a time, but they could never truly escape it. Collecting powerful weapons would only go so far from keeping the war away from one's shores. Diplomacy and trickery could only achieve so much. The world was a world at war, and to run from it was to run from the inevitable— and the inevitable always caught up. That was pointless. That was Cagalli's folly.

And he knew how cruel this world could be, because it created him, and it took her away from him. A world like that was too cruel to be saved. That was Athrun's folly.

He thought back to that nuclear weapon waiting for the Austral Colony. If it became necessary, he would have to use it. And in the long run, there was something better coming— a new world, ruled by an enlightened people, physically and mentally greater than before. It had to be done, and even as the fires churned within him and the screams haunted his sleep, what quenched the flames and silenced the voices was that iron will to see something better come from all these pointless sacrifices.

What had Fllay died for? It could not have been nothing. He would never accept that.

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The majestic winged form of the Fortuna regally spread its wings as it inched out of Messiah's space dock. The flagship of ZAFT was motionless for a moment, but a cloud of exhaust flared out from its engines and the ship began to speed off into the stars.

Standing on the deck of the Messiah control room, Valentine watched with a smile. Off went her knight to slay dragons for her and pile treasure at her feet. The Austral battle would probably be bloody, mostly for the MLA and ZMA, but Valentine had few worries. The latter were expendable, and near useless either way— and besides, there was so much more to be done that this war was beginning to get tiresome.

She grinned, even as she felt Kira's presence grow dimmer with distance. The pain had been almost overwhelming when she'd told him about that contingency plan, but it was necessary— and it was a final test, to see if he truly had the necessary steel in his spine for what lay ahead. What lay ahead in the Earth Sphere, after all, was no less than Armageddon itself.

Valentine watched the Fortuna depart until it could no longer be seen. He would have to say that word. She needed him to say that word.

The princess, after all, needed her knight.

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To be continued...