Mobile Suit Gundam SEED - Pain

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Phase 05 - A Place to Call Home

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Vice Admiral Bartholomew Stone was not a happy man when the reports came in. He stared disdainfully at the video of the wreckage field that had once been the Wyoming, and the ugly smear of blood that had probably once been Lieutenant Commander Nanto Fredrik. Another ship had moved in to take stock and clean up— the John Adams was salvageable, but the Wyoming was gone. He cast a dark glance around the Arzachel Crater control room, where nobody could tell where those three biological CPUs had gone with their valuable prototypes.

One of the lower officers rushed up to Stone, brooding in his commander’s seat. “Admiral,” the officer began, “we have a lead.” Stone glanced at the documents in the officer’s hand. “Three mobile suits matching the descriptions were seen on their way to Lagrange Point 5.”

Stone’s eyes widened in fury. “The PLANTs?!” he exclaimed. “What the hell are they going there for?!”

“They may be trying to turn the machines over to ZAFT,” the officer said. “And since they’re Extended…”

Stone rose furiously from his seat. “They’re only children,” he spat. “The only thing they’ve ever known is Azrael. They could never survive as fugitives.” He glanced over sharply at the officer. “Prepare the Mephistopheles. I will go after them myself.”

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“Oh man,” Clotho moaned, “what are we going to do?”

The Raider drifted lifelessly through space, with the Calamity standing atop it. Nearby, the Forbidden followed, its scythe held loosely in its left hand.

“I’m thinking,” Orga snapped, rifling through files in the Calamity’s computer. “Maybe we could go to the PLANTs…”

“But those are what Azrael wanted to destroy,” Clotho protested. “They were our enemies…they’d kill us.”

“Well, the PLANTs are closest,” Orga said. “And it’s not like we’ve got any other choice.”

“…would they let us…?” Shani asked quietly. Orga sighed and rubbed his temples irritably. “Because…we’re their enemies…”

“Maybe they’ll let us in,” he said. “They’ll probably want to take our machines, but that’s okay, isn’t it?”

“I dunno,” Clotho said. “What will we do if they chase us?”

Orga sighed again, sitting back. “We have to go somewhere,” he said. “That’s what Lily told us.”

They all fell silent, seeing her again as she was cut down by a stray bullet. Shani closed his eyes.

“She told us to go to a place to call home,” he said.

“But where’s our home?” Clotho asked.

Orga shook his head. “I think,” he began, “we have to find it ourselves.”

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They had decided to take turns sleeping, but they might as well have not bothered. Shani stayed wide awake, staring lifelessly into the darkness of space. There was nothing out there— yet Lily had told them with her dying breath to go out there and find a home.

He wondered what it would be like to have a home. Stretching back as far as his memory would take him, the only thing he found was the same thing he always found— that evil grin on the face of Azrael. And so it was this time as well— Azrael was there again, watching from an enclosed balcony as they were operated on, as they were trained, as they were brainwashed, as they were remade. Their home had been a trio of bunk beds deep inside some Alliance base. The word “Lodonia” returned to mind, although Shani could not discern what it meant. He vaguely recalled that it was a base on an island somewhere, but all he remembered beyond that was pain.

He shook his head. He didn’t need his memories to tell him about that.

He glanced around the Forbidden’s cockpit, taking everything in. He recalled sitting in this same cockpit, holding these same controls, during the war. He had fought the enemies of the Alliance, the enemies of Azrael. He remembered the sting of defeat— or, at least, the sting of failing to meet their objectives. And that had been just a precursor to the pain Azrael inflicted on them for their failure.

But now it was his. The Forbidden had once been Azrael’s power, Azrael’s shield, one of the three monsters that Azrael had sent out to do his bidding, piloted by soldiers who could not disobey even if every fiber of their beings told them to. But now that power was his. He glanced down at the scythe in the Forbidden’s hand— he could do something with this machine. He could change something with this machine.

But of course, he remembered, that wasn’t what he wanted to do.

He sat back, wondering what it was he did want to do. He wanted to carry out Lily’s dying wish, but what did that mean?

He glanced over at the Calamity and Raider, cruising into the abyss next to him. Maybe they would know.

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Clotho stared down at the Wonderswan in his hands. He wasn’t sure how it had gotten here, but it didn’t really matter. It seemed this thing would go with him wherever he went.

He wondered if there was any battery life left in it. But if there was, then of course that would mean he’d want to play it again, and he wasn’t sure if he could do that. He had seen real people die, people he cared about. He thought about that man on the television, holding the broken body of a boy, and realized that the way he felt now was probably the way that man felt as well. He realized that this was how he made people feel when he went out to fight and to kill.

The Wonderswan sat motionless in his hands. It was just a game, or that’s what Orga had said. Orga read all those books, so he must have been smart. He wasn’t actually killing people.

He hesitantly switched the game on. A light on the side flickered red— the battery was too low to start the game.

He looked up, wondering what to do. He looked around the empty cockpit of the Raider Gundam. It was the game again, but this time it was real life, where real people could die and other real people could feel sadness and pain over it.

And yet, he remembered, he had done it again, destroying the Alliance ships, the ones who had killed Lily and McCormick and the captain. Did that make it alright? As long as they were bad, nobody would be sad to see them die?

Clotho shook his head, stashing the Wonderswan in the Raider’s cockpit locker. Sooner or later, he told himself, he would have to put it away anyways. He couldn’t play games forever.

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The bridge buzzed with the sounds of a warship preparing to leave dock. In the captain’s chair, Lieutenant Commander Ian Lee glanced over at his very important passenger. The most displeased figure of Vice Admiral Bartholomew Stone was settled into one of the side chairs, content to let Lee handle the actual commanding of the ship, but determined to personally oversee the mission. Lee sat back, looking at the rest of the crew. He was the one who had to carry the orders out, but Stone was the one who had to come up with them.

“Captain,” Stone said, “when we find them, hold nothing back. They must be captured at all costs.”

“Yes sir,” Lee answered. He didn’t care what “they” were— dangerous criminals, he presumed, who had gotten a hold of important Alliance technology and were going to do dangerous things with it. But the Mephistopheles was loaded with a complement of gleaming new 105 Daggers, all manned with veteran pilots, so surely these criminals couldn’t last forever. Not on their own, alone in space.

“We’re ready to launch, sir,” the helmsman reported. Lee glanced over at Stone; he nodded silently.

“Mephistopheles, launch!”

With a deafening roar, the ship began to move.

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“There’s a ship coming!” Clotho exclaimed, as the Raider pointed up ahead. Orga squinted through the light of the stars and the PLANTs, at the lime-green hull of what the Calamity’s computer called a Laurasia-class frigate. A team of ZAFT mobile suits came forward, armed with rifles. Orga eyed them carefully, wondering if they would attack. They barred the way between the three Gundams and the ship, and the PLANTs drifting behind them.

The image of a young man in a green ZAFT uniform appeared on the Gundams’ screens. Orga blinked in surprise, staring down a face that couldn’t have been any older than his own.

“Attention unidentified mobile suits,” the soldier said. “You are entering PLANT airspace. State your name and purpose. If you attempt any hostilities, we will open fire.”

Orga glanced at Shani and Clotho. “We’re…looking for a place to dock,” he said. The soldier arched an eyebrow, glancing at something off the screen.

“But who are you?” he asked. Another man appeared, older and dressed in a black ZAFT uniform.

“We’re just looking for a place to live,” Orga added uneasily.

“Do you have the proper immigration paperwork, then?” the officer asked. He glanced over their mobile suits. “You’re piloting Alliance mobile suit models. Why?”

“They’re ours,” Orga said quickly. “But…”

“We cannot let you in,” the officer said shortly. “You do not appear to have any documentation about who you are, and you’re bringing Alliance equipment with you, which, for political reasons, we cannot accept. Turn back at once, or we will open fire.”

The mobile suits raised their beam rifles threateningly.
“But we’re just looking for a home!” Clotho protested.

“Then you won’t find one here,” the officer said. The screen went dark, leaving the three pilots staring desolately at a squadron of increasingly impatient ZAFT mobile suits.

“We don’t want a fight,” Orga said quietly. “Let’s go, guys.”

“But they won’t let us in!” Clotho cried. “Why not?!”

“Well, it’s their place,” Orga sighed. “Let’s go, I don’t wanna fight them.”

The Calamity backed away, followed by the Forbidden. At last, with Clotho cursing all the way, the Raider took off after them.

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There were many colonies drifting lazily around Lagrange Point 2, but only one had an enormous spaceship attached to it. And, according to the news reports, only one colony was accepting passengers for a one-way colonization trip to Jupiter’s remote Literia colony.

So, Orga concluded, only one colony was fit to be their home.

“It’ll take us all the way out to Jupiter,” Orga explained to a skeptical Shani and a probably uncomprehending Clotho. “They can’t possibly bother us all the way out there.”

“But it’ll take forever to get there!” Clotho protested. “It’s so far away!”

“Well, let’s get going now!” Orga said. “Maybe they’ll let us get on and go with them.”

Clotho heaved a doubtful sigh as the three Gundams eased towards the silent colony with the enormous spaceship docked at its end. Worker pods and mobile suits scurried like bees around the massive hull, as an armada of motley ships floated around the colony itself.

“What is this place?” Clotho asked anxiously.

Orga consulted the Calamity’s map. “’Avalon,’” he said. “It says they’re neutral.”

“Does that mean they’ll let us land?” Clotho asked. Orga shrugged.

“I hope so.”

The docking operator didn’t appear to care much about them, admitting them because the only form of identification they could present was that of Atlantic Federation soldiers. The three mobile suits drifted hesitantly into a sprawling hangar, surrounded by a vast array of ships and machines of all shape and size. The Gundams set down next to a battered ZAFT shuttle, and Orga nervously opened the cockpit hatch to look around.

“What do we do now?” Clotho asked from the Raider’s cockpit hatch. Shani regarded everything suspiciously from the Forbidden’s hatch as Orga climbed out.

“The news guy said they weren’t gonna leave for a couple more days,” Orga said, glancing around. “I guess we have to find somebody and ask.” He pointed down at a door in the side of the hangar, on the floor. “Come on.”

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“Avalon,” Admiral Stone said dourly, staring in annoyance at the main screen. The three Gundams had without a doubt gone there…but that raised ugly political questions.

“We have a nonaggression treaty with them, don’t we?” Lee asked from the captain’s seat. Stone nodded warily.

“They will allow our ships to dock, so long as their crews do not disembark,” Stone said. “And they are not supposed to shelter criminals of the Atlantic Federation.” He sat back in his chair, crossing his arms, brooding. “But now they’re harboring Atlantic Federation fugitives.”

“Perhaps they don’t know that those pilots are fugitives,” Lee offered. Stone shook his head dismissively.

“They are like the United Emirates of Orb under Uzumi Nara Athha,” he added. “A policy of total neutrality. I have no doubt that they allowed those pilots to dock.” He narrowed his eyes venomously. “Which, of course, is aiding and abetting criminals. And, of course, violates the treaty.” He glanced at Lee. “Move in and we will broadcast a warning. Should they not heed it, we will attack.”

Lee nodded.

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On one side of the desk, Orga Sabnak stood nervously, fists balled, standing in front of a dispassionate Shani and a confused Clotho. On the other side, a dark-haired woman adjusted the thin glasses on her nose and peered at a computer.

“Where did you say you’re from again?” she asked, glancing up at Orga.

“Lodonia,” Orga said, his voice faltering. The woman regarded him carefully for a moment, and then looked back at her computer.

“I don’t see it in the records,” she said. The keys tapped under her fingers, and the computer hummed. “Well, I don’t see any criminal records, at least, so I suppose that‘ll have to do.”

“What do you mean?” Orga asked guardedly. The woman looked up at him.

“The only people we aren’t allowing on the ship are criminals,” she explained. “We don’t want to stick a serial rapist on a ship with several thousand people for a few years.” She stood up. “But you three check out, so we’ll let you board.” She dug around in her desk for a moment and produced a paper card, that she pressed into Orga’s hand. “My name’s Amy. Call me if you have anymore questions or problems, and we’ll work them out. The ship departs in two days.”

Orga looked up at her, not sure what to think. “Th-thank you,” he managed to sputter.

Amy returned to her desk. “There’s still some things work out before the ship leaves,” she said. “Notifying family and friends, luggage, that kind of thing, but— ”

“We don’t have any,” Orga said. Amy blinked at him. “Family and friends.”

“You’re war orphans?” she asked. Orga glanced at Shani and Clotho, and nodded grimly. Amy looked down somberly. “I see…well, Literia will be a better place for you than the Earth Sphere.”

“We want a home,” Clotho said quietly.

Amy smiled at him. “That’s what Literia is,” she said. “A home for people who have nothing left here.”

Orga looked back at Shani and Clotho again— they nodded back.

“Lily would be happy,” Shani said softly.

“Then in two days,” Orga replied, “we’ll be free.”

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Clotho returned to the hangar by himself, guided by a map so that he wouldn’t get lost. Orga still wasn’t sure what to do with their mobile suits— they wouldn’t need them at Literia to fight, but maybe they could be converted into worker machines. Clotho wouldn’t mind that. He had spent so much of his life using the Raider to destroy things, but using the Raider to build things would be a nice change. And he had heard that at Literia, they sometimes held races between the machines— surely nobody would be able to beat the Raider at that.

He stared up skeptically at the dark Gundam, his protector and steed for the war. It had been Azrael’s weapon, the weapon Azrael had used to make him so powerful. But he had used it to destroy Azrael’s people, the people who wanted to use him as a weapon again.

It was power that he wanted, but he didn’t want to use it to destroy.

He glanced over at Shani as he drifted up towards the Forbidden.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Clotho asked. Shani ducked into the cockpit and returned a minute later with the few contents of the Forbidden’s cargo locker. He landed next to Clotho, arms full of CDs and his familiar headphones.

“Orga said to get your stuff,” Shani mumbled. “We’re gonna leave the machines here.”

Clotho looked back up at the Raider, startled, but Shani headed off before Clotho could say anything. He stared into the dark eyes of the Raider, wondering if it was right to leave his power behind.

He climbed into the cockpit, pulling the cargo locker open. There was little inside— the emergency supply kit took up most of the space, with his Wonderswan in the corner. He scooped it out and looked at the familiar old game, wondering if he should really take it with him.

Orga had said that it was just a game— it wasn’t real. And Clotho had fun playing it. He didn’t have fun anywhere else in life.

He smiled at the game and took it with him as he crawled out of the Raider. When he got to Jupiter, he wouldn’t have to kill anymore. And then the game would be just a game.

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People from all walks of life were going to Jupiter, it seemed, but they all wanted to be away from the war-torn Earth Sphere. They all wanted to be free. They all wanted a home.

Orga turned that thought over in his mind as he sat in a sprawling cafeteria, surrounded by people waiting for the ship to leave, to take them to Jupiter, away from the Earth Sphere. Nobody would bother them all the way out there. The trip would take seven years. Orga thought of what life would be like for him seven years from now. By the time the ship reached Literia, he would be a man.

He looked around, at the faces surrounding him— desolate, broken, but not defeated. There was still hope in those eyes. The war had scarred them all— so many of them were missing limbs or had mechanical replacements, Orga noted— but it hadn’t taken everything.

There were uniforms from all sides of the war here. He recognized the ZAFT uniforms from his training— they went as high up in the ranks as a sad-looking old man in a black ZAFT uniform, looking down at a photograph. Right next to him, apparently unaware of his presence, sat an Earth Alliance officer who, somewhere in the war, had lost his left leg.

Orga sat back, thinking of Jupiter. Azrael’s people would never find them there.

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Lee stared inquisitively at the enormous structure attached to the spaceward end of the colony Avalon. It looked familiar, almost like George Glenn’s ship.

“Avalon is sponsoring a trip to Jupiter,” Stone filled in. “During the war, a colony modified itself with a nuclear engine and took off to Jupiter to escape the war. Avalon is sponsoring a trip there to take more people.”

“And the pilots must be trying to get passage, then,” Lee finished.

Stone picked up the intercom. “We will stop them.”

The Mephistopheles ground to a halt, its guns sliding out of their chambers and pointing straight at Avalon.

“Attention neutral colony of Avalon,” he said, his voice booming over the bridge and into every ear on Avalon. “This is Vice Admiral Stone of the Atlantic Federation Space Fleet.”

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Orga looked up in horror in the small hotel room as the rumbling voice reached his ears. Stone’s eyes burned into him from the screen. Azrael’s people were back.

“They came for us!” Clotho exclaimed, bursting into the room. “What are we gonna do?!”

“As you know,” Stone continued, “your colony has signed a nonaggression treaty with our nation. One of the conditions of that treaty is that your colony not harbor any fugitives of the Atlantic Federation. I regret to inform you that that condition has been violated.”

The colony rumbled ominously.

“My men will begin searching for these fugitives,” he added, “and in order to avoid any unfortunate incidents, we ask that you stay in your homes and cooperate fully with us. Should you not comply, we are assuming that you are harboring fugitives willfully and deal with you accordingly.”

“They’re coming for us!” Clotho cried. “What should we do?”

“Lily told us to live,” Orga said. “And we don’t wanna go back.”

Shani emerged from another room, his visible eye burning furiously. Orga and Clotho glanced at him in surprise as he swept past them, towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Orga asked.

Shani glanced back at him.

“To fight.”

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To be concluded…