"These Blue Cosmos people—they despise Coordinators, yet they use such inhumane methods to create what they call Bio-CPUs!"
For Hawk, who had a daughter—two of them, in fact—the scene before him was clearly infuriating.
"Yes."
Fred sighed, his eyes sweeping over the data in front of him.
The Enhanced Person trio from the original story was still here, and of course, the trio from the SD world was here as well.
In a sense, they had taken out the enemy's high-end Aces ahead of schedule.¹
Speeding things up had been the right call.
Otherwise, once they boarded their new Mobile Suits, things would have gotten quite troublesome on his side.
"Send the signal. Have the support team come down."
"And tell Orphee and the others to finish clearing out the other bases and head back first."
"There's no telling whether the Eurasian Federation might intervene."
Eurasia, though its stance was gradually shifting toward neutrality, still maintained an ambiguous relationship with the Atlantic Federation.
"We can't let our guard down yet."
"Understood."
"And what about these children?"
Hawk looked somewhat conflicted.
"Leave it to the higher-ups to arrange."
He wasn't omnipotent. With this many people, handling them himself would be a huge hassle.
Better to leave the cleanup to others.
There was no need to do everything personally.
"Yes, sir."
At Fred's words, Hawk responded in kind. Inside the smoke-filled base, as it welcomed the first light of morning, order was quickly restored.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the conversation, at the Eurasian Federation's Ministry of Defense, news of ZAFT's secret landing on the Black Sea and their strike on the Atlantic base had already reached the Defense Minister's desk.
"What was in that secret base?"
The minister, a middle-aged man, wore a complicated expression, his taut face clearly etched with a headache.
"Unknown."
"Aren't you the Intelligence Minister?"
The man demanded of the woman before him.
"The Atlantic Federation won't let us investigate. There's nothing we can do."
The Intelligence Minister was his equal in rank, and her tone remained as flat as ever, showing no reaction whatsoever.
"But whatever it is, given the Atlantic Federation's urgency, it can't be anything good."
"And they'll probably ask us to send reinforcements."
As she spoke, the woman's expression grew increasingly grim.
"If we mobilize, it'll only bring more trouble."
"Indeed."
The deep, furrow-like wrinkles on the man's face bunched tightly together, and he quickly shook his head.
"Our internal Blue Cosmos elements have already been mostly contained."
"The higher-ups shouldn't be so reckless as to do that."
A half-dead Atlantic Federation couldn't control them anyway.
Everyone had their own interests. No one was going to fight to the death for the Atlantic Federation's sake.
"As for whether the Atlantic Federation gets support, that's their own business."
That said, apart from the few military bases nearby, the Atlantic Federation had virtually no defensive forces at all.
Not even in space.
The lunar bases were too far from Earth, and Yggdrasil occupied low Earth orbit.
The Atlantic Federation simply had no capacity to project military power.
Of course, having decided to sit back and watch, they had no intention of interfering with whatever the Atlantic Federation planned to do.
"Then I'll take my leave."
With that, the woman rose from her seat.
"I still need to prepare an explanation for PLANT."
That place was indeed their territory, but it had been leased to a company from the Atlantic Federation, so they could still wash their hands of it.
Though it would probably cost quite a bit, and require complicated negotiations.
Just thinking about it gave the woman quite a headache.
"Good."
The conversation between the two quickly ended, and at the same time, Kira and the others inside Yggdrasil learned from the newly received signal that the plan had gone smoothly, and they breathed a sigh of relief.
"Fred's side is fine."
At Kira's words, Flay nodded firmly in response, but the seriousness on her face was not entirely replaced by happiness.
"We can't let our guard down yet. We need to watch out for the Atlantic Federation's counterattack."
Though they had no real power in space, you never knew.
They were stationed at Yggdrasil precisely to guard against Atlantic Federation reinforcements.
"...Yeah!"
Seeing the gravity on Flay's face, Kira quickly nodded along.
The girl was different from a few years ago.
The Flay of the past had been childish and delicate.
But now she had become so strong—just like her hair color, like a blazing flame.
As if she were constantly drawing him in.
"What is it? Why are you staring at me like that..."
Flay shyly averted her eyes from Kira's gaze.
"N-nothing..."
Seeing the flush on the tips of Flay's ears, the boy belatedly blushed as well and looked away.
The two of them were slowly making progress, and nothing unexpected happened afterward.
After Eurasia's refusal, the Atlantic Federation simply didn't have enough combat strength to deploy over the Black Sea.
Their main forces in space were tied up at the Moon, and the few Nelson-class ships at the nearby bases would be little more than fodder if they showed up.
Besides, they lacked experience in atmospheric entry operations.
Having suffered so many losses already, even though the Atlantic Federation had taken a big hit this time, they didn't commit any more forces to meaningless sacrifice.
Thus, as more and more information was released, the reputation of Blue Cosmos and the Death Merchants plummeted once again throughout the Earth Sphere.
More and more people began to hate those Death Merchants with a burning passion.
As for PLANT, their favorability rose a few notches as well.
"It's about time."
Watching from a distance as the captured base executives were loaded onto transport planes, Fred murmured to himself.
He turned to look at his squad members, who had regrouped before him.
"The first phase of the plan is complete. Thank you all for your hard work."
The moment Fred's words fell, everyone around him snapped to attention.
"We accomplished our mission."
"Rest well when we get back, but don't let your guard down."
"Yes, sir."
"Dismissed."
"Yes, sir!"
The people before him dispersed at his command, and the boy's thoughts drifted up into space.
Even if the Atlantic Federation's leadership intended to downplay this incident, it would surely trigger a corresponding interlocking reaction across the entire Atlantic Federation.
With such a research institute providing high-end combat power gone.
They would definitely be anxious.
Judging by his current understanding, if they wanted high-end combat power, they would either have to join the Atlantic Federation's Hybrid Coordinator unit, or continue making Coordinator Replicas.
Though the first option was rather unreliable.
As the Atlantic Federation's narrative of values lost its advantage, the loyalty of those Hybrid Coordinator units could no longer be guaranteed.
Not to mention what they would think once the matter of the Enhanced Person facilities was exposed.