House Arrest

"Beep~"

"Click~"

After two soldiers shoved Noer into an empty room, they locked the door completely.

"I'm innocent!"

"Hey! I'm not a spy! I'm a law-abiding citizen!"

"Ah~ I'm innocent..."

Noer leaned against the door, repeatedly pounding on it with both hands as he let out indignant roars.

"Bang! Crash!"

While cursing, Noer put on a show of striking the surrounding walls, his gaze constantly sweeping over the walls and corners.

Five minutes later~

Perhaps exhausted, Noer sighed and walked over to the bed he had messed up, then lay down with his hands behind his head.

After glancing at a corner of the ceiling from the corner of his eye, he silently turned over to face the wall and began thinking.

"House arrest is still within acceptable limits..."

After confirming the outcome, Noer could not help taking a deep breath. This result was still within what he could accept.

After all, when facing an unidentified Coordinator, not being shot on the spot or thrown directly into prison was already an ideal outcome.

Do not think that was absurd. The Archangel was a warship in a state of combat readiness, and with the recent MS seizure incident, its level of vigilance was practically extreme.

On top of that, there was Lieutenant Junior Grade Baggage, that hardline Earth Alliance military officer. One misstep could very well lead to a secret execution.

One had to know that the new MS was extremely important to the Earth Alliance. Even the generous and mild-mannered Captain Marlu had fired directly at Kira and the others when she first encountered them.

So, being placed under house arrest was already a decent result.

"But how am I supposed to get out of here...?"

However, Noer also knew this was not a long-term solution. If he did not find a way to leave quickly, his identity would be exposed sooner or later.

But leaving this place...

"What if I just steal the Strike Gundam...?"

A rather "good" idea suddenly surfaced in Noer's mind.

"How is the situation?"

At the information station beneath the Archangel's bridge, Flaga walked over to the monitoring section and asked.

Captain Marlu enlarged the surveillance feed and looked at Noer's back as he breathed steadily. "He threw a fit for quite a while just now. He should be lying down and sleeping now."

"The circumstances are special. We can only ask him to endure this for now," Flaga replied.

"Does the captain think he is innocent?" Lieutenant Junior Grade Baggage asked in return from beside them.

At that moment, obvious disgust showed on her face.

"Hmm..."

Recalling what he had discovered earlier, Flaga pondered for a moment before replying, "I don't know. We can't determine that for now."

"Then, Captain, just now you..."

"That was a special situation. Under those circumstances, I couldn't exactly call him a spy, especially when Kira was there," Flaga replied helplessly.

Seeing the confusion on both Lieutenant Junior Grade Baggage's and Marlu's faces, Flaga continued explaining, "You have to understand, that boy brought him aboard. If he really is a spy, then according to regulations, can Kira still pilot the Strike Gundam into battle? Without the Strike Gundam, we might as well surrender and save our own lives."

"Besides, we desperately need Kira's help right now. If we do not consider his feelings and he later decides that we hate Coordinators, what if he refuses to fight?"

"But what if he really is a spy?" Lieutenant Junior Grade Baggage asked.

"Isn't his ID card still here? We will know once we repair it," Flaga replied.

"Repair it? The identification chip in his ID card has already snapped. It cannot be repaired in a short time," Lieutenant Junior Grade Baggage replied.

"Then if all else fails, hand him over to the people at Artemis. Aren't we heading to Artemis? We can hand him over directly to the Earth Alliance military there when we arrive."

Flaga did not care much about whether Noer was truly a spy.

Once Noer had been exposed, whether he was a spy no longer mattered. After all, the most terrifying thing about a spy was that he hid in the shadows.

An exposed spy posed no threat at all as long as someone kept watch over him.

Moreover, based on what he had observed and the details he had noticed earlier, Flaga did not think the ZAFT military would send someone like this to be a spy...

"And instead of worrying about that Coordinator, we should be thinking about how to leave here and reach the Umbrella of Artemis." Flaga gathered his thoughts. He did not want to dwell on such an unproductive topic.

Heading to Artemis was the decision they had reached earlier.

Normally, they should have headed for the Lunar Base. But it was too far away, and they would have to pass through PLANT's blockade zone. Given the Archangel's current condition, that was simply unrealistic. Even if they did not encounter battle, they would be forced to stop due to a shortage of supplies.

Although Artemis was a military alliance base affiliated with the European Union, given the Archangel's present condition, they had almost no choice but to head there.

After pondering for a moment, Marlu voiced the plan she had just thought of. "Prepare decoys! Launch the decoys while firing the main engines to adjust our trajectory toward Artemis. Then switch to inertial travel and move to Battle Stations Two! Complete trajectory control in the shortest possible time."

"In that case, the silent approach to Artemis will take about two hours?" Flaga, who often fought in space, quickly calculated the approximate time.

"Yes. Does Captain Flaga have any other good suggestions?" Marlu looked at Flaga.

Having suddenly been called "captain" and pushed into this position was a severe test and psychological burden for someone with little actual combat experience.

At the same time, most of the crew had little combat experience, just like her, making her feel even more uncertain about the future.

Then there were Mu La Flaga and Natar Bagiruru.

Although they knew each other, they had never served in the same unit, and she did not know enough about them.

Whether she could successfully keep them in line was also an extremely troublesome question.

It could be said that the entire Archangel was full of problems.

"I have no objections," Flaga hurriedly replied.

In truth, he rather approved of Marlu's plan. To prevent the heat generated by engine operation from being detected by the enemy—

They would first launch decoys and use the false data they emitted to divert the enemy's attention. They would then make minimal course adjustments, relying afterward on the momentum from the initial engine burst for inertial travel.

This was the best solution available at present.

However, that was only the expected scenario. There was no guarantee everything would go smoothly.

After all, Cruze was leading the enemy. To be honest, when facing Cruze, Flaga still felt uneasy about whether this plan could succeed.

"Lieutenant Junior Grade?" Marlu turned to Lieutenant Junior Grade Baggage.

"I have no objections either!" Bagiruru replied.

"Launch the decoys! Fire the engines! Adjust this ship's course toward Artemis!"

Marlu took a deep breath and issued her first truly meaningful order to the crew.

Meanwhile~

Inside the ZAFT warship Vesalius.

"I never expected things to develop into this..."

On the Vesalius's bridge, Addis stood there, continually observing the region of space around Heliopolis. Destroying a colony satellite... he would never have dared imagine such a thing, even in his dreams.

Seeing Cruze lingering around the radar display, Addis composed himself and left the command seat to approach him. "Could they have already left this area under the cover of Heliopolis's wreckage?"

Because the heat sources emitted by the wreckage of Heliopolis made it impossible for their radar and thermal detectors to determine whether that heat source was the Archangel, there was a strong possibility that Longlegs had already departed.

"No. They should still be here, quietly waiting somewhere..."

Cruze shook his head. The Archangel had set out unexpectedly, so the supplies it carried could not possibly have been plentiful. Under such circumstances, it could not have traveled very far.

The nearest Earth Alliance base was the Umbrella of Artemis, which was said to possess absolute defenses.

As for heading to the Lunar Base, with Longlegs' supplies and combat strength, it was simply impossible for it to pass through layer upon layer of defenses and reach the Moon.

Addis did not know what Cruze was thinking. He was merely rendered speechless by Cruze's confident words.

Thanks to "Trooper1770," "Book Friend 20201128192806991," and "Dreamless Salted Fish"

for the donations. Say... could I delay a little? Like, pay it back on Saturday? Working 996 during the day and writing at night, I really can't keep this up anymore! I'm freaking losing hair already!