Resistance Organization

When the match result scrolled across the tactical display, Han Zheng's grip on the control stick tightened slightly.

He did not voice the information.

Jiachen would automatically send it back to Sheng Lan's data terminal. He did not need to say anything.

Inside the communications vehicle, Sheng Lan had already seen the same set of data. She closed her notebook and glanced at Ye Qingluan's back. Ye Qingluan was using a handheld terminal to review the voiceprint comparison results for the contact frequency, her lips moving slightly.

"The voiceprint characteristics have a seventy-three percent match with the person designated R-14 in Ye Qingluan's intelligence file."

Sheng Lan asked softly.

"Who is R-14?"

"Hassan Tariq. A regional commander of a resistance organization in western Libya, formerly a military engineer. He specializes in mine-laying and signal interception. Half a year ago, his unit lost one-third of its people in a purge operation by Andrew Waltfeld's forces."

Ye Qingluan lowered the terminal and pressed the communications key.

"Mr. Tariq, we noticed your supply beacon three weeks ago. East Asia is not unfamiliar with the situation in Libya."

The channel on the other end fell silent for nearly ten seconds.

The hoarse voice sounded again, two degrees more cautious than before.

"You know my name."

"Your beacon moved twice. The coordinates from the second move entered an area with signs of human activity. That area lies at the edge of a blind spot in ZAFT's thermal patrols. A clever choice of location."

Tariq's breathing came through the comms.

"You're intelligence."

"I'm with the overseas operations unit of the East Asia Strategic Intelligence Bureau. My name is unimportant."

A low conversation in Arabic rose from the communications channel again. At least three different voices were arguing. In the cockpit, Han Zheng listened as the translation software struggled to keep up. Some said they could not trust any member state of the Earth Alliance. Some said they had heard that East Asia and the Atlantic Federation had fought each other. Others asked whether that iron coffin could help them fight Waltfeld.

The argument went on for nearly a minute.

Tariq's voice returned.

"The United Army came to North Africa to fight ZAFT. ZAFT came to North Africa for resources. What did you East Asians come here for?"

Ye Qingluan glanced at the handwritten note Sheng Lan had passed her inside the communications vehicle. It contained only one line, sent by Lin Yuan through an encrypted channel twenty minutes earlier.

No promises of political aid. Exchange only intelligence, supplies, and battlefield passage rights.

Ye Qingluan pressed the communications key.

"Mr. Tariq, I'll be honest. East Asia did not come here to liberate you. We have equipment that needs testing in a desert environment, personnel who need safe passage, and data that needs verification. Those things require a secure route, and you happen to be on that route."

"So?"

"So I propose an exchange. You provide local passage security and intelligence on ZAFT force deployments. We provide supplies and medical materials. No political commitments, no military alliance, no paperwork."

Tariq's laughter came through the channel, dry as sandpaper scraping metal.

"You East Asians do business more honestly than the United Army. At least you didn't tell me you came to help reclaim my homeland."

Ye Qingluan did not respond.

The engine noise beyond the dunes began to change, shifting from idling to slow movement. Four armed pickup trucks came around from behind the dunes, machine guns and improvised armor plates mounted in their beds. A man in a headscarf sat in the front passenger seat of the lead vehicle, an old scar running from his cheekbone to his jaw across the exposed half of his face.

He looked up at Black Iron Unit One standing in the desert, his gaze lingering for several seconds on its dark gray Ceramic Steel armor.

His voice sounded over the communications channel.

"Your iron coffin took one of my RPGs in the chest, and it didn't even lose any paint."

Han Zheng replied quietly from the cockpit.

"It did. It went from dark gray to charred black."

Tariq jumped down from the vehicle and walked across the sand to Black Iron's feet. He was not tall; beneath the nineteen-meter machine, he did not even reach its knee joint.

"Face-to-face. Your commander comes down."

Ye Qingluan stepped out of the communications vehicle. A sand mask covered most of her face, leaving only a pair of narrow, long eyes visible. The wind pressed her short hair against her forehead.

Tariq watched her approach, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

"A woman?"

"Is there a problem?"

"No. My wife is taller than you, and she's a better shot."

He turned and pointed toward the hazy heat shimmer on the southeastern horizon.

"Your people asked about that big ship. Eighteen kilometers in that direction. A white United Army warship landed at the edge of the desert three days ago, bringing an MS that can transform. Waltfeld's people have already set their sights on it."

Ye Qingluan did not follow the direction of his finger. Her gaze remained fixed on his face.

"How do you know so much?"

"Because Waltfeld's troop movements pass through our territory. His Baku squadron pulled two platoons from the eastern front over the past three days, all pressing toward that ship."

Tariq crouched and used his finger to draw a rough tactical map in the sand.

"The white ship came in from here and headed southeast along the dry river valley. Waltfeld's people set ambush lines here and here, with a platoon of Bakus on each flank and wheeled armored vehicles blocking the road ahead. If the white ship continues along this route, it will enter the pocket in about two days."

Ye Qingluan took a photo of the tactical map and sent it back to the communications vehicle.

"Have you had any contact with the Archangel?"

Tariq shook his head.

"No. They dropped several communications buoys along the way. The frequencies were the same as standard United Army channels, unencrypted. My signal operators intercepted some of the content, mostly internal logistics dispatches and damage-control reports."

He wiped away the tactical map with sand and rose to his feet.

"East Asian, your iron coffin can stop rockets. Can it stop a Baku's heavy particle cannon?"

Ye Qingluan did not answer the question.

"That is not something you need to worry about. Tell me the details of Waltfeld's deployment, and I'll give you three truckloads of supplies and two crates of first-aid medicine."

Tariq stared at her for several seconds.

"Deal."

The meeting ended forty minutes later. Tariq's convoy disappeared into the heat haze behind the dunes with the supplies, while Ye Qingluan organized the intelligence they had left behind into three pages of classified documents inside the communications vehicle.

As Sheng Lan transmitted scanned copies of the documents back to the 811 Institute, she opened the operational log of Jiachen, the machine soul, on her terminal.

She stopped on page forty-seven.

"Han Zheng."

"Here."

"When did your Jiachen mark those three locations?"

Han Zheng pulled up the tactical display's history records and scrolled back to the period before Tariq appeared.

Three yellow triangular markers floated silently on the map. They corresponded to a depression east of the dunes, a shadowed stretch around a bend in the dry river valley, and the shaded side of an eroded rocky hill to the southeast.

There was only one word beneath the markers.

Ambush points.

Han Zheng's voice sank.

"I never gave an order to mark those."

Sheng Lan flipped the operational log to the precise timestamp when the markers had been generated. It was seven minutes before the meeting, earlier than when Tariq drew the tactical map in the sand.

Based on terrain data and temperature distribution, Jiachen had independently deduced the three locations most likely to be used for an ambush without receiving any enemy intelligence.

Two of them closely overlapped with the ambush lines Tariq later described for Waltfeld.

Sheng Lan closed the terminal and picked up the communications handset.

"Director, this is Sheng Lan. Jiachen wrote something again."

Eight thousand kilometers away, Lin Yuan's fingers paused against the edge of his desk.

"What did it write?"

"Three ambush-point markers. No pilot command, no intelligence input. It marked them itself."

Only the background hum of equipment remained on the channel.

Lin Yuan's voice came back five seconds later.

"What was the marker accuracy?"

"Compared with the field intelligence provided by the resistance organization, two out of three were exact matches."

Another three seconds of silence.

"Encrypt the logs and transmit them back. Top priority. Tell Zhou Boyuan to reduce Jiachen's adaptive module iteration limit by another five hundred cycles."

Sheng Lan returned the handset to its cradle and looked at the three dark gray machines standing in the desert beyond the window.

The communications vehicle's generator droned. Sand-laden wind poured through the gap beneath the door, piling a ring of fine sand around her boots.

She opened her notebook and wrote two characters in the corner of the newest page.

Jiachen.

Then she drew a question mark beside it.