Chapter 287 - 288: Stardust Battlefield

Chapter 287: Chapter 288: Stardust Battlefield

"ZAFT forces closing fast!"

Badgiruel’s voice rang across the bridge as cold sweat seeped from Murrue’s palm where she gripped the handrail.

On the holographic display, the red dots marking the enemy bore down in a pincer formation.

On the Archangel—remodeled by Inori—the bridge’s combat display was far more intuitive, but by the same token, its very realism made it more nerve-wracking.

"Oh, this thing’s really handy."

The second to catapult out after Kira was Cagalli.

Cagalli was equipped with the Sword Striker gear—the 15.78m "Schwert Gewehr" anti-ship sword—and she found it very much to her liking.

The Strike’s equipment and the Astray’s were basically interchangeable; these external packs had all been Orb-manufactured to begin with.

So Inori only needed a few minor adjustments for the Red Frame to use this weapon.

The Astray Gundam, put simply, was the Gundam SEED world’s "Type 59 tank"—the ubiquitous base platform everyone slapped mods onto; you saw "59-mod" variants everywhere.

"Creuset... that guy actually came himself!"

The third to catapult out was Mu.

The moment Mu launched, his "spatial awareness" let him sense Creuset.

"I knew it!"

The ZAFT forces quickly came into view.

Four green GINNs, one orange GINN, one white advanced-type GINN—the CGUE—and four G-series units.

The CGUE was Creuset’s ride.

"Entering a zone of complex electromagnetic conditions!" Badgiruel called out.

In this region, besides ordinary meteoroids, there was a great deal of wreckage—some of it nuclear-powered and still operational.

ZAFT wouldn’t go out of its way to lob a Neutron Jammer into the debris belt, so there were areas here with highly complex electromagnetic conditions.

The tangled EM environment made the radar screens flicker with static.

"So Creuset seized on exactly this chance!"

Mu and Creuset were practically of one mind; he grasped at once that this was Creuset’s design.

"Good thing mine’s a wired connection."

Mu muttered.

The environment was rough right now, but he stayed as upbeat as ever.

"Look out!"

The Strike’s 320mm "Agni" hyper impulse cannon carved a red streak through the vacuum, pulverizing an incoming meteoroid to dust.

Kira had launched this time with the Aile Striker and the Launcher Striker; only the close-range Sword Striker had been lent to Cagalli.

"Fighting here is bad for us..."

Murrue frowned.

In this complex environment, they had to contend not only with Creuset but with wreckage everywhere.

She turned to look outside.

A satellite fragment more than two kilometers across rotated slowly beyond the porthole.

The Archangel, running out front, was essentially taking the lead to clear a path.

Murrue finally understood why Creuset dared go full-throttle.

"Long Legs, I’m back!" Yzak’s Duel had had its leg cut off before—now he was itching for revenge.

"So the application of AI aboard a warship really is a success too." Creuset smiled.

From inside the ship you couldn’t tell.

But piloting an MS out here, you could see how the warship used micro-maneuvers to dodge the wreckage ahead—only choosing to destroy something when it hit a larger, unavoidable chunk, and slipping past easily in most cases.

"Creuset, that lunatic..."

Mu stared at his tactical panel.

The Astray Blue Frame had been fitted not only with the wired gunbarrels but also with a specially hardened, jamming-resistant command console, letting Mu read the battle from a higher vantage and stay in contact with the Archangel.

On the panel, ZAFT had split into three groups.

Dead center: the CGUE, one Laurasia-class, and one GINN.

The other Laurasia-class and the Nazca-class came in from either flank.

Facing the enemy’s divided fleet, Mu suddenly understood: "He means to use the Laurasia-class as bait!"

The commander stood front and center, and the G-units and most of the escorts had peeled away.

Wasn’t that meant to bait him into attacking?

Take down Creuset, and the enemy would be leaderless, forced to withdraw.

"Should we charge?" came Murrue’s voice.

"Hard to say whether this is an empty-fort ploy or something else..."

The words weren’t even out when sixteen missiles suddenly burst from the shadow of a meteoroid.

The Nazca-class Vesalius had used the meteoroids as cover to accelerate, reaching the Archangel’s flank far ahead of the Laurasia-class on the other side.

"Boom!"

Half the missiles were intercepted, but the other half slammed into the Archangel.

The Laminated Armor really was top-notch; though it took a full missile barrage, the Archangel’s structure held intact.

But in the flash of the explosions, four G-units had already charged into the battlefield from different angles.

"Aegis!"

Seeing the Strike burdened with the unwieldy Launcher gear, the Aegis immediately closed to point-blank range.

But the Strike, fitted with the Aile Striker, was still nimble and easily evaded the Aegis’s attack.

"Got you!"

Yzak’s Duel Gundam dived down from an upper angle, beam saber swinging at Kira.

But the Aile pack’s thrusters suddenly surged in output, spinning the Strike around; Kira pulled the control stick, making the Strike raise its leg in a precise 180-degree spinning kick that landed square above the enemy cockpit hatch.

"Damn it..."

Yzak was sent flying, crashing into a nearby meteoroid.

"This equipment really is amazing!"

On the other flank, a GINN had already charged in, and now Cagalli engaged the enemy.

The Red Frame’s anti-ship sword cleaved a GINN apart.

That GINN probably never expected Cagalli’s strikes to be so swift and decisive—cut down head-on before it even knew what hit it.

Cagalli’s breathing mask fogged white.

She was so excited she wasn’t sure whether she’d hit the enemy’s cockpit.

But the three GINNs following close behind pinned her down, and one orange machine slipped past Cagalli, heading for the Archangel.

"Mu-san! Three o’clock!" she shouted, shoving the control stick and whipping back around to grapple with the GINNs.

One-on-one, with the Sword gear equipped, the Red Frame could hold the advantage; one-on-two, it could just barely keep even; but one-on-three, Cagalli could only struggle to hang on.

"I know! Tch—that bastard Creuset is deliberately making me hesitate!"

On the battlefield, not making a choice was itself a choice—and the worst one.

Mu froze in place, falling squarely into Creuset’s psychological trap.

Whether Mu decided to charge Creuset or fall back to defend, either choice would have been better than doing nothing.

"But this machine isn’t the same as before!"

The Astray Blue Frame’s wired gunbarrels detached from the back armor and, under Mu’s control, struck at that orange GINN from four directions, forcing it to halt...