The Beginning to Come

"He's in pretty bad shape."

In the Vesalius's hangar, Nicol couldn't help commenting as he looked at the Mobile Suit, which was practically beyond repair.

"The Serpent Tail is a famous mercenary group, and their leader is Gai Murakumo. Michel did pretty well to hold his own against him."

The staff member in charge of hangar logistics had come out before Ino and the others, so he knew a thing or two about what had happened.

"Gai Murakumo?"

Ino furrowed his brow. He had never heard that name before.

At least, he couldn't recall anyone by that name.

The protagonists were Athrun and the others, sure, but Michel had at least made a name for himself.

And now some random person had appeared and fought Michel to a standstill...

"Still, it looks like the Serpent Tail is about to become history. After all, if you're ejected into space, it's almost impossible to survive with nothing but a pilot suit."

The older man had heard about the battle too.

"What good would surviving do him?"

Yzak scoffed from the side. "I admit he had some skill, being able to fight Michel like that, but that's all."

"..."

The others fell silent.

Yzak had been in a foul mood these past few days.

The reason was his Mobile Suit.

For this sortie, Le Creuset had requisitioned eight Mobile Suits. But seven of them had gone to the Green Uniforms, and the last one had gone to Ino, leaving Yzak deeply frustrated.

"By the way, where's Michel?"

Ino changed the subject, having more or less guessed what was going on.

"He went to report to Captain Le Creuset in his office."

Rusty explained, "They destroyed the enemy Mobile Suit, but the other side also blew up the supply base. Overall, there were still a few flaws in the operation."

"I see."

Ino turned to the older man in charge of Mobile Suit maintenance. "Can this one be repaired anytime soon?"

When Michel had dealt the enemy a fatal blow, the pilot named Gai Murakumo had driven his Mobile Suit toward the supply station and ejected from the cockpit.

The Mobile Suit's explosion triggered a chain reaction, destroying the supply base as well.

"With damage this severe, it'll be difficult. But we're only five days from the nearest supply point, so we can just replace it when we get there." The older logistics man smiled as he replied.

It might have sounded a little callous.

But from their perspective, it was just as well that the Mobile Suit had been wrecked this badly.

"Five days..."

Ino looked instinctively toward Rusty.

Whenever they set out before, Le Creuset had equipped every Red Uniform pilot with a Mobile Suit. But this time, he had provided one only for Ino.

Something was clearly out of the ordinary. It hadn't taken Ino long to figure out what was about to happen.

"What's wrong? You're looking at me funny, Ino!"

Rusty had been mocking Michel with Dearka and the others when he noticed Ino's strange stare. It gave him the creeps.

"...It's nothing."

Ino opened his mouth, but in the end, that was all he could say.

He truly didn't know how to save Rusty.

Given his current situation, Le Creuset might have him pilot a Mobile Suit to provide cover, but he certainly wouldn't let him go with Athrun and the others to seize the Mobile Suits.

In these circumstances, Ino had no idea how he could save Rusty.

Besides, he didn't have the ability to save him. He couldn't even guarantee his own future.

"You're sure it's nothing?"

Rusty furrowed his brow.

"Really. It's nothing."

Ino patted Rusty on the shoulder, then floated off toward the lounge.

Maybe it was because he was nearing the crossroads of fate, but his thoughts felt jumbled.

"What's with him?"

Watching Ino float away, Rusty couldn't shake the feeling that something was off about him.

Athrun and the others had noticed Ino acting strangely too.

But they had no idea what was behind it.

As the days passed,

something unexpected happened: the Vesalius and the Gamow didn't return to the ZAFT base as originally planned.

Instead, they sped off in an unknown direction.

Even more unexpectedly, Ino spent more and more time staring into space and zoning out.

Because of wars and the course of history, space was full of abandoned space colonies.

Those discarded by the various powers had instead become refuges for many unsavory characters.

In a room somewhere inside the abandoned space colony Triamila,

an old man entered a room where the gravity system was still running, led by a woman.

The man was a soldier and a Coordinator.

He wore a uniform modified from an Earth Alliance military uniform. Presumably for ease of movement, its sleeves had been cut to half length, and it had no rank insignia or anything of the sort.

His name was Murakumo Gai. He was a mercenary, and the man who had just completed a mission and survived an encounter with the Le Creuset Team.

"Sorry to trouble you, but could you go over the details again, in order?"

Murakumo Gai spoke far more quietly than one might have expected from someone in his line of work.

A gaunt old man sat across from him, a small tea table between them.

The old man had just explained the job to Gai.

But what he said was so complicated and unfocused that it was difficult to make sense of.

"I'm sorry, but there isn't much time..."

The old man seemed anxious and unable to control his expression.

His already thin frame looked even more frail.

"Could you please explain it again in detail?"

Murakumo Gai was confused by what the old man had told him. For a moment, he could hardly understand it.

Although the old man was clearly in a hurry, he could only go through it again...

A little while later,

Murakumo Gai had more or less understood what the old man meant.

There was a Mobile Suit factory on Heliopolis, an Orb space colony.

Several months earlier, Orb's Morgenroete had accepted a development project from the Earth Alliance, codenamed "G."

The project involved developing the latest Mobile Suits as well as a new warship.

Heliopolis was mainly responsible for developing the warship, while Morgenroete on Earth was responsible for developing the Mobile Suits.

But not long ago, the old man had paid a fortune to an information broker and learned that ZAFT had discovered Orb was developing Mobile Suits for the Earth Alliance.

ZAFT had already set out for the Heliopolis space colony. They might even have arrived while he was talking.

That wasn't the worst of it.

The worst part was that, while developing Mobile Suits for the Earth Alliance, Orb had secretly used technology from the Earth Alliance to develop Mobile Suits of its own.

If the first matter came to light, Orb might still have a chance of surviving, since it was based on Earth.

But if the second one was exposed, Orb would have the entire world against it. The nation might as well declare its own destruction.

The moment the old man learned of the information, he had contacted the person in charge on Heliopolis and told them to destroy all information and materials immediately if anything out of the ordinary happened.

But to be safe, he had also sought out the man sitting before him.