Spark Project

When Ye Qingluan received the edge-monitoring data forwarded from East Asia's mainland, she was crouched inside an exhaust duct on the outer perimeter of Dawn Society's Factory No. 5.

She glanced at the encrypted message on her wristwatch, darkened the screen, then turned and spoke quietly to the members of Team Two behind her.

"How far along are the damage-control triggers?"

"The Factory No. 3 node has been activated. The Factory No. 4 node is being written. Factory No. 5 only needs one final port."

"Speed it up."

"Team Leader, the maintenance port at Factory No. 5 is too close to the main plant. Dawn Society's security patrol passes through every fifteen minutes. We only have a seven-minute window."

"That's enough. Once you're done, withdraw to the designated rendezvous point. Switch communications to passive reception."

"Understood."

Ye Qingluan climbed out of the duct and stopped against the wall at the corridor corner.

Her gray work clothes were stained with oil and dust, making her indistinguishable from any low-level maintenance worker on the colony satellite.

She pulled down the brim of her cap and swept her gaze toward the main factory in the distance.

The area was brightly lit. Engineers in white lab coats hurried in and out through the factory entrance, where a short line had formed before the biometric gates.

No one knew that a Nazca-class destroyer was drifting overhead.

January 29, C.E. 71, 10:33 a.m.

Along Section Seven of Heliopolis's outer hull, a miniature infiltration craft from a ZAFT special operations unit moved slowly against the satellite's metal plating, its thermal emissions suppressed below ambient noise by an active cooling system.

10:41 a.m.

The first explosion came from the colony satellite's outer hull.

Ye Qingluan was in the communications vehicle, conducting one final check of the data-reception protocol. The vehicle shuddered violently, while the artificial dome overhead gave off the shrill groan of stressed metal.

"Team Leader, fighting has broken out in the direction of Dawn Society!"

"I heard it."

She pressed the communications panel. The Atlantic Federation military channel had already erupted into chaos.

Call signs overlapped in a cacophony. Some were shouting about encountering ZAFT mobile suits, some reported that the factory area had been breached, and others screamed for reinforcements.

Ye Qingluan cut the military channel and opened the damage-control monitoring feed.

The colony's structural stress sensors began sounding alarms. The outer-hull integrity from Sections Seven through Nine had dropped below the alert threshold.

The damage-control protocol activated automatically.

She stared at the stream of data scrolling across the screen, waiting for the triggers she had planted in advance to respond.

Three seconds.

Five seconds.

A green icon lit up in the lower-right corner of the terminal display.

Factory No. 3 node, activated.

Then Factory No. 4.

Factory No. 5.

All three maintenance ports entered damage-control backup mode at once, and the engineering data on Dawn Society's internal network began automatically pushing snapshots to the nearest authorized maintenance terminal.

Ye Qingluan's terminal was that terminal.

Data flooded into the receiving drive, and the progress bar began climbing from zero.

Three percent.

Seven percent.

"Team One reporting. MS-level combat has broken out in front of Dawn Society's main factory. At least four ZAFT GINN Type mobile suits are breaching the industrial zone. The Atlantic Federation's Dagger squad is resisting, but they're being pinned down."

Ye Qingluan did not look up.

"Stay away from the combat zone. Everyone hold position and wait for the data transfer to finish."

"Understood."

Fifteen percent.

Another explosion rang out, much closer this time. Spiderweb cracks spread across the communications vehicle's bulletproof glass.

Ye Qingluan steadied herself, her eyes locked on the progress bar.

Twenty-three percent.

Team One's voice came through her earpiece, noticeably faster than before.

"Team Leader, I see ZAFT's red-uniformed squad. Four of them, wearing elite insignia. They're heading toward the G Weapons hangar."

Four red uniforms.

Athrun Zala, Yzak Joule, Dearka Elsman, Rusty.

Ye Qingluan rapidly matched them against the intelligence brief Lin Yuan had given her, but her expression did not change.

"Do not approach them. Continue observing."

Thirty-one percent.

She pressed the encrypted communications key.

"Director, all damage-control triggers are active. Data is flowing in. ZAFT's red-uniformed squad has entered the G Weapons hangar area. The capture operation has begun."

On the other side of Earth, Lin Yuan's voice was cold and steady.

"Progress?"

"Thirty-three percent. The speed is stable. At the current bandwidth, a complete backup will take about forty minutes."

"Forty minutes is enough. ZAFT's capture process will take at least an hour. The Atlantic Federation will counterattack in the middle of it, and the fighting around the hangar will keep everyone's attention occupied."

"Director, I intercepted information on the military channel. Civilians are trapped near Dawn Society's main factory, including a group of students doing practical research internships."

"ZAFT will not deliberately kill civilians."

"But stray fire—"

"Ye Qingluan."

She closed her mouth.

"Your job right now is to watch that progress bar. Everything else is not your concern."

"Understood."

Forty-seven percent.

The world outside the communications vehicle was collapsing.

The continuous discharge of heavy weapons echoed in the distance. The deafening sounds of metal structures breaking mingled with alarms and the screams of crowds.

Ye Qingluan briefly looked away from the screen and saw people running along the distant street through a crack in the window.

A woman carrying a child fell among shattered glass, climbed back up, and kept running.

Ye Qingluan pulled her gaze back to the screen.

Fifty-four percent.

"Team Leader, word from the hangar. One of the G Weapons has been activated. It isn't being piloted by ZAFT. There's a civilian in the cockpit."

Kira Yamato.

Ye Qingluan's eyelid twitched.

So it had happened.

A boy who did not know he was the Ultimate Coordinator had been pushed by war into the cockpit of the Strike Gundam.

"Do not concern yourselves with it," she said. "Everyone fall back toward the designated evacuation route."

Sixty-one percent.

An abnormally massive explosion erupted from the distant factory area, and the entire colony satellite's ground shook.

Ye Qingluan grabbed the handrail and pressed down on the terminal with her other hand to keep it from sliding away.

Sixty-eight percent.

"Team Leader, Dawn Society's main server is beginning a physical shutdown! Their security system is cutting power to non-core areas. Our Factory No. 4 node's bandwidth has dropped by forty percent."

Ye Qingluan's pupils contracted.

"What about Factory No. 3 and No. 5?"

"Factory No. 3 is still running. Factory No. 5 has become unstable."

The progress bar visibly slowed.

Seventy percent.

Seventy-one percent.

It stopped for two seconds.

Seventy-one percent.

"Director." Ye Qingluan pressed the communications key. "Dawn Society security has begun sectional power cuts. Data-transfer speed has dropped. At this rate, the time required for a complete backup may double."

Lin Yuan's reply contained only one sentence. "Get into the server room and maintain the power supply manually."

Ye Qingluan rose to her feet and stuffed the terminal into her waist pouch.

"Team Two, come with me. Team One stays with the communications vehicle and keeps the reception channel open."

She pushed open the vehicle door, and a blast of heat and smoke rushed over her.

In the distant sky, a white-and-blue MS was entangled in battle with ZAFT GINN Types. Beams from its beam rifle streaked over the artificial dome, leaving scorching molten scars across the metal panels.

Ye Qingluan lowered her head and moved quickly along the pipeline maintenance passage.

Three minutes later, she stood before the Class-C access door to Dawn Society's core server room. She swiped a maintenance work order over the reader, and the indicator turned green.

The door opened.

The emergency lighting in the server room cast a dim orange glow. Server racks stood in neat rows, and most of their screens had already gone dark.

But someone was standing before a console in the third row on the left.

A young woman in a white lab coat was hunched over the keyboard, frantically copying files onto a portable storage device.

Hearing the footsteps, she spun around sharply.

The two women stared at each other in the dim server room.

Ye Qingluan saw the badge on her chest.

Dawn Society, Engineering Department, Huili.