"It's a destroyer. Its engine was probably damaged..."
Most of the wreckage floating through the debris field was of relatively early models.
"There isn't much major damage. There should be some ammunition or something..."
Sai spoke to Par, who was seated at the controls.
At first, they had felt some psychological resistance toward "grave robbing," but that slight reluctance was quickly replaced by the excitement of boarding a work pod for the first time.
The treasure-hunt-like feeling was addictive.
"Ah, I hope everyone inside managed to escape safely back then..."
The huge empty hole in the engine room looked like a hollow tomb.
The Strike Gundam escorted the work pods piloted by Thor, Milia, and Noer into the sea of debris.
After they rounded a piece of wreckage that looked like the outer wall of a spacecraft, an extraordinarily eerie sight appeared before them.
"Ah..."
"Whoa..."
"...What... is... this?"
Kira, Thor, and the others cried out at the same time.
Before them lay a frozen stretch of land.
It somewhat resembled the rural scenery of some place from the past.
Withered, frozen wheat stood in pale fields, while only scattered farm-like buildings remained, preserved almost perfectly in the vacuum.
Encircling this land was seawater that had frozen the instant it boiled from decompression, as though silently protesting the colony's tragic fate.
The central axial tower had been broken apart beyond recognition. Around the chaotically severed high-tension cables, which drifted like strands of silk, only a few shattered outer walls and scraps of self-repairing glass remained...
Wearing EVA suits, Kira and the others descended onto this land covered by vacuum.
Faced with this tragic ground, none of them could speak.
The empty scene before them felt even lonelier than the pitch-black void of space, sending a chill through them like returning