Because before the Strike Gundam's sensors could lock onto the targets, his eyes had already caught sight of three moving points of light cutting across the colony's interior.
There were three units. The glow of their thrusters stood out sharply within the colony's dim interior. The Strike Gundam's sensors immediately magnified the image, and its identification system began processing at high speed.
"Identification complete... GAT-X102 Duel Gundam... GAT-X103 Buster Gundam... and... ZGMF-600 Gates!"
The identification results flashing across the screen made Mu's pupils constrict.
Two of them were the personal machines of enemies he knew all too well—Yzak Joule and Diego Elsman.
The other was one he was seeing for the first time, but its distinctive head design and silhouette closely resembled the Prototype Gates Michel had once piloted. There was no doubt about it. That was Rau Le Creuset's machine.
"They're here!"
At the same time Mu grasped the details of the three machines ahead, an inexplicable certainty born of combat instinct rose within him—they had spotted him too. Almost on reflex, he sent a warning to Nicol and Michel following behind him over the open channel.
"Huh?"
Nicol reacted half a beat too slowly. His Strike Gundam had just emerged from the shaft, and he had yet to adapt to the environment inside.
The instant he voiced his confusion, a blinding pink beam streaked past his machine and struck the outer wall of an abandoned building nearby, triggering a violent explosion. The blast wave rocked his machine, and shrill alarms sounded.
Only then did he notice the three enemies flying low through the colony.
"The Duel Gundam, and the Buster Gundam...!"
Nicol's voice came through the communicator, trembling uncontrollably.
To Mu, they were long-entangled nemeses. But to this former ZAFT red-uniform elite, those two machines and the pilots