Less than three days after those words spread, all staffing approval documents for the 811 Institute received their final seals.
Luo Qiming's office was sealed off by the Security Division.
Chen Weichang attempted to leave the country that night and was intercepted by the border control system.
The next morning, Hualian Metallurgy's East Asia office discovered that all its bank accounts had been frozen.
March 27, C.E. 71.
On the second basement level of the 811 Institute's Materials Laboratory Building, Xu Yanqiu had worked continuously for eleven days.
The temperature curve of the vacuum hot-press furnace had reached the far right edge of the large wall display, while the complete data from the latest batch of Ceramic Steel samples filled the spectral analysis chart.
When Lin Yuan pushed open the laboratory door, Xu Yanqiu was repeatedly turning over a palm-sized dark gray armor plate. The whiteboard behind him was covered in dense annotations.
"Professor Xu."
"You came at the right time." Xu Yanqiu set the armor plate heavily on the table with a dull thud. "This thing worked."
Lin Yuan walked to the table and picked up the armor plate.
It was twice as heavy as the crude test piece from last time. Its surface was smooth and dense, and fine metallic lattice patterns shimmered beneath the dark gray color. The edges were neat, without stress fractures.
"Crystal stability?"
"All three rounds of thermal cycling tests passed. Maximum heat resistance reached eighteen hundred degrees Celsius, with no significant phase transition." Xu Yanqiu held up three fingers. "All three core indicators met the standard. Hardness improved another nine percent over the previous semi-finished piece. In repeated impact tests, its impact toughness degraded by no more than three percent after twenty cycles. Most importantly, the crystallization process can be replicated."
"What does 'replicated' mean?"
"Using the same furnace temperature curve and the same raw-material ratio, we ran five samples in succession. Performance deviation stayed within two percent." Xu Yanqiu's eyes were bloodshot, yet gleaming. "That means mass production is feasible. This isn't some one-off laboratory specimen. It's a product that a production line can reliably turn out."
Lin Yuan set the armor plate back on the table.
"How does it compare to the G Project's Phase-Shift Armor?"
Xu Yanqiu turned to another table, pulled out a comparison report, and tossed it over.
"I pulled every PS Armor parameter from the Spark Data and compared them point by point. The conclusion is clear."
Lin Yuan opened the report.
The first page covered beam resistance.
"When sufficiently powered, PS Armor is completely immune to standard-caliber Beam Rifles. Ceramic Steel can't do that. If a beam hits it directly for more than three seconds, the surface develops ablation craters."
"It can't achieve immunity."
"Right. But at standard combat range, the ablation depth stays under four millimeters. Four millimeters is nowhere near the penetration threshold for Ceramic Steel external armor plates designed at sixty millimeters thick."
The second page covered resistance to conventional ammunition.
"PS Armor is almost completely immune to conventional ballistic weapons. But there's one condition: its energy supply can't be interrupted. Once its stored power runs out, PS Armor is just an ordinary alloy plate. One armor-piercing round can punch through it. Ceramic Steel doesn't have that problem. It's passive defense. It doesn't consume energy. No matter how long it gets shot at, it remains the same material."
The third page covered weight and cost.
"For the same protected area, Ceramic Steel weighs 2.7 times as much as PS Armor. Manufacturing cost is roughly one-third of PS Armor's."
Lin Yuan closed the report.
"Conclusion."
Xu Yanqiu leaned against the whiteboard, fingers interlaced before his chest.
"The conclusion is that Ceramic Steel isn't as flashy as PS Armor. It doesn't glow or change color. When it gets hit, it simply takes the blow. There's no such thing as total immunity. But it's cheap, stable, and doesn't need a nuclear engine worth hundreds of millions to maintain its defensive state."
He extended a finger and tapped the table.
"More importantly, it's suitable for mass production. One hot-press production line can turn out one hundred and twenty standard external armor plates a month. What about PS Armor? The Atlantic Federation poured everything into it and built five G Weapons in a year."
Lin Yuan said nothing, his gaze resting on the dark gray armor plate.
Xu Yanqiu's voice softened slightly.
"Lin Yuan, from the very beginning, you never intended to take their path."
"East Asia has no Coordinators and no Enhanced Humans." Lin Yuan picked up the armor plate and rapped its surface with his knuckles, producing a deep yet crisp metallic ring. "My soldiers are ordinary people. When ordinary people climb into a machine, what I need is for them to remain standing after taking a hit. Not for them to jump higher, but to live longer."
Xu Yanqiu looked at him and fell silent for a moment.
"Fine. Then how are you setting the armor plan for the Black Iron Prototype?"
"You tell me."
Xu Yanqiu walked to the whiteboard, wiped away part of it, and began drawing.
"Full-body coverage isn't realistic. The weight would crush the joint actuators. My proposal is composite external armor. The core areas—the cockpit, chest power unit, and head sensors—will be fully covered with sixty-millimeter standard Ceramic Steel plates. The limbs and backpack area will use thirty-millimeter lightweight versions, sacrificing some protection for mobility margin."
"Can the thrust-to-weight ratio take it?"
"Compared with the current Short Sword, mobility will drop by roughly thirty-five percent. The speed gap will be even greater compared with ZAFT's GINN Type."
"But its ability to take a beating?"
Xu Yanqiu turned around, the corner of his mouth twitching upward.
"A GINN Type's seventy-six-millimeter autocannon can score twenty consecutive hits at standard engagement range with zero probability of penetration. A United Army Short Sword using a shortened Beam Rifle won't inflict effective damage within three seconds."
Lin Yuan put the armor plate back on the table.
"It's decided."
"Wait." Xu Yanqiu walked back. "There's another issue. Ceramic Steel's brittle fracture pattern differs from that of a metal matrix. In extremely low-temperature environments, such as shadow zones in space, the material accumulates microscopic cracks. Long-term space combat will require a surface coating solution. I'm still running the data."
"How long?"
"Two weeks."
"One and a half weeks."
"You—" Xu Yanqiu's eyebrows shot up.
"One and a half weeks." There was no room for negotiation in Lin Yuan's voice. "Because I may not have two weeks."
Xu Yanqiu stared at him for three seconds.
"What happened?"
Lin Yuan walked to the small screen in the corner of the laboratory and brought up a strategic situation map.
Seven new blue markers had appeared in the buffer zone between the L4 sector and the waters controlled by East Asia.
"The Atlantic Federation Pacific Fleet's Third Detachment departed Joshua Port forty-eight hours ago and is currently advancing east along the disputed waters boundary. Its formation includes one Nelson-class Light Carrier, two Drake-class Frigates, and four transport ships carrying Short Sword MS units."
Xu Yanqiu did not understand the military, but he understood numbers.
"Seven ships? They're coming for East Asia?"
"Not necessarily for East Asia." Lin Yuan shut off the screen. "It could be a patrol. It could be an exercise. Or perhaps Sykes submitted some report after he went back, and the United Army General Staff decided to show East Asia a little color."
Xu Yanqiu gripped the whiteboard marker in his hand.
"So you need Black Iron to have something presentable before they make a move."
"I need them to know that East Asia isn't merely a contract manufacturer for communications components."
Xu Yanqiu turned back to the whiteboard, erased the diagram he had just drawn, and started over.
"One and a half weeks. I'll run the coating solution in parallel and produce a preliminary low-temperature transitional solution first. It won't be perfect, but it can withstand short-term exposure to space."
"That's enough."
Lin Yuan headed for the door.
Without looking back, Xu Yanqiu's muffled voice came from in front of the whiteboard.
"Lin Yuan."
"Go on."
"Your Thunderclap Project—the Bombard Gun. Its fourth test firing succeeded, right?"
"Right."
"When will it be installed on Black Iron?"
"The same day the armor design is finalized."
Xu Yanqiu drew a heavy line across the whiteboard.
"If those United Army people really come to test us, they probably won't expect East Asia's new machine to stay standing after taking their shots—and then blast their cockpit, pilot and seat included, into pieces with one round."
Lin Yuan's hand rested on the doorknob.
"They will."
Xu Yanqiu stopped writing and turned his head.
"After they see Black Iron for the first time."
Before you continue