"First battle stations! All crew members, report to your assigned positions immediately! I repeat, first battle stations!"
"—!"
The shrill broadcast, accompanied by the flashing red alarm lights, cut through the ship's brief calm like a saber slash.
She had not even managed to sleep for a single minute before Flay instinctively sprang from her bed at the call over the speakers.
The tangled mess of thoughts deep inside her remained unresolved, but her body had already moved ahead of her mind.
She bent down, grabbed the heavy, stifling combat uniform piled on the floor, and forcefully pulled it on.
The instant she yanked the metal zipper all the way up to her collar, Flay forced all her former weakness, confusion, and self-doubt into an iron cage deep within her heart. She tightened every muscle in her face and restored her usual cold expression.
Her mental state was riddled with cracks and nowhere near recovered, but she understood all too clearly that no matter how bad things were, she had to enter the cockpit of the Goddess of Liberation Gundam and fly into space. That was the final duty given to her by that man—Djibril, who had discovered her and given her this role.
That was right. There was no other choice. She could only keep fighting. The burden on Flay's shoulders was no longer merely personal revenge. It was also the lives of the countless Natural compatriots on this warship and across the entire Earth, people who could do nothing but pray. They were watching her.
The memory of that enemy pilot, who should have been a stranger, had long since crossed every line of defense she had erected and quietly taken root in the softest, most untouchable place in her heart.
That whispered phrase, "someone important," had even