It was purely by chance that the Minerva crossed paths with the cargo ship carrying Lacus.
Not long ago, during a battle, Shinn had crippled the Gaia Gundam and successfully captured it. However, upon seeing the pilot, both Shinn and Durandal fell into a heavy silence.
"Should we call this good luck or bad luck?" Durandal narrowed his eyes, looking at the girl strapped to the bed, who had just been injected with a sedative. "I didn't expect it to be her."
"...Shinn, don't let it weigh on you. Given your respective roles now, she is your achievement in battle." Noticing Shinn still standing there in a daze, Durandal patted his shoulder. "Anyway, we have something to show for our mission now. This isn't a place to linger; let's return to PLANT."
"I'm just... a bit shocked." Looking at the restrained Stella on the hospital bed, Shinn's expression was complicated. "I originally thought she was just someone caught in the crossfire of war. To think... she's actually a drug-enhanced human?"
To be honest, during the battle, Shinn had seen the Raider Gundam—which, according to data, had participated in the attack on Orb—and Stella, piloting the Gaia, was clearly an associate of the Raider's pilot. He hadn't expected her to be an "Extended." Had the Earth Alliance started creating enhanced humans that long ago?
"While it's unclear what the Earth Alliance did to her, her physical condition is plummeting in the absence of a certain drug," Durandal said, recalling the data he had just reviewed. "Comparing her organs, only her brain is still relatively normal. Even if she manages to survive, she would be trapped in a living hell."
A piercing alarm rang out. The doctor in the infirmary acted immediately, securing Stella's bed.
"Earth Alliance MS detected! It's the Chaos and Abyss, along with transforming units!" Meyrin's slightly exhausted voice echoed over the intercom.
A violent tremor shook the ship; an attack had clearly struck the hull. Shinn took one last look at Stella on the bed, sighed, and turned to run toward the hangar.
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"Seriously... it's never-ending. How can they complete maintenance and assault so quickly?!"
Standing behind the linear cannons of the Minerva, Luna gritted her teeth, the beam sniper cannon in her hands firing continuously toward the sky.
"The Garuda-class transport in the data is the Earth Forces' high-mobility base. As long as it locks onto us, unless we fly higher than it, it will keep us targeted from the sky indefinitely."
Durandal walked to his position and skillfully buckled his seatbelt. The bridge suddenly went dark, and the interior began to descend into the ship's hull, the dim environment emphasizing a sense of urgency.
"The sky is under their control... can you still take flight? Asuka."
Watching the Impulse sortie via the catapult rail, Durandal narrowed his eyes, rarely using Shinn's surname in his words.
"...A hell where living is worse than death."
"Your achievement in battle..." The recent conversation with Durandal echoed in his mind as Shinn gripped the machine's control levers with a solemn expression.
Having encountered Stella twice, when meeting her a third time on the Gaia, Shinn originally thought his heart was as hard as iron, containing nothing but money. But after knowing everything, it was as if a hidden soft part of his heart had been touched.
Why had he become like this? Was it because of a similar fate, being ravaged by the Earth Forces? Or was it like his sister in the past, a history of physical fragmentation? Shinn couldn't say for sure if his chaotic heart could find the answer.
But there would always be a way.
"Absolutely no problem, I'll take them all out in one go!"
Shinn took a deep breath, staring fixedly at the MS circling in the sky with Rey's Zaku Warrior.
Anyway, according to Chairman Durandal, they are still in a state worse than death, right? Then let me end their pain! As long as I keep fighting, I will definitely find the answer!
The Impulse quickly assembled in mid-air, the Force Silhouette was loaded, and with powerful thrust, the Impulse flew toward the sky.
"Yo... you were the one who just disabled the Gaia, weren't you!"
At this time, Auel, piloting the Abyss, saw the Impulse rushing toward him. Although the Abyss is a specialized naval machine, since it was deployed directly from Garuda One, it would take some time to descend to the sea, so it could only use a flying pedal to act as an aerial unit.
Although Auel had always been complaining about Stella, he and Sting actually protected her like a sister; plus, Clotho hadn't let the experimenters responsible for drug adjustment erase their memories. Seeing the Impulse, a fire seemed to burn in Auel's heart.
"Give me your life!"
Even though neither the drugs nor his own enhancement matched the first-generation Clotho, Auel erupted with a reaction speed and focus that was not inferior to Clotho's, maneuvering the Abyss's flying pedal to pour missiles from it onto the Impulse.
And this was the reason Clotho did not intend to have their memories erased.
"They would undoubtedly be very stable if they lost their memories..."
Skillfully maneuvering the Raider, using the shield gun in his hand to block the shells fired from Rey's Zaku machine cannon, Clotho casually swung the meteor hammer at Rey's Zaku Warrior.
"...But the emotion of revenge is the best medicine for them."
Clotho understood their current state all too well, because he had also once fallen into anger and hatred; at that time, his physical fitness and operations even surpassed those of the Coordinator's red-coat elites in the data.
But today's Clotho already harbored a death wish. He was well aware of his condition—he was just a walking corpse trying in vain to launch a revenge against the Unicorn. Whether the final battle against the Unicorn ended in victory or defeat, he would accept his death without hesitation.
As for righteousness or the struggle between races, he had no heart to pay attention to those things; as long as he could launch revenge against the Unicorn, anything would do.
Shinn was not the kind of rookie who would be scared witless by a sky full of missiles. The Impulse's head vulcan cannons easily destroyed some missiles, and then he raised the beam rifle in his hand to fire two consecutive shots, opening a gap for himself in the sky full of missile rain.
As the Impulse passed through the gap, appearing before his eyes was the Abyss brandishing its halberd. It was clearly too late to perform a maneuver to dodge this kind of attack, but Shinn didn't need to dodge.
Applying a little force with his feet on the pedals, the Impulse's speed surged, and the shield in his left hand accurately blocked the halberd pole. While his right hand, holding the beam rifle, aimed the muzzle at the Abyss's cockpit.
Without waiting for the Impulse to fire, the Abyss chose to strike first, its wings—used to maintain rapid maneuverability in naval combat—flipped, revealing the three beam emitters beneath each wing.
Seeing this scene, Shinn instinctively kicked the Abyss in the midsection, sending it flying.
"Wait... why is there a cargo ship nearby?"
Looking at the analysis data appearing on the radar, Meyrin frowned.
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"There is a battle going on outside right now... it might threaten our next plan."
On the cargo ship, looking at the scene before him, Kira narrowed his eyes.
"But there's no time left to change the ship's ascent operation now," Athrun, standing nearby, shook his head. "The Nahel Argama has already arrived at the planned coordinates."
"It seems our luck is really quite bad." Seeing the situation before her, Lacus rubbed her forehead. "But now, for the sake of the children on board, we have no choice but to fight."
Soon, the cargo hold that was originally meant for transporting goods opened its hatch. Two machines that had not yet started stood up, drawing everyone's attention to these quite distinctive mobile suits.
"Kira Yamato, Freedom, launching!"
"Athrun Zala, Justice, launching!"
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