Mobile Suit Gundam SEED New Theatrical Version

PHASE-01: Heavenly Blue

Mankind, even beyond the twenty-first century, never learnt to co-exist within its species peacefully.

The third world war had broken out just two centuries after the second, and the brutal conflict that had devastated entire countries came to be known in the annals of history as the Reconstruction War. For the war, like the one before, and the one before that, had been purported to be the ultimate end of armed conflict, the catalyst for the resurrection of the beast of potential within humankind from the savagery it had once reviled in.

Thus the leaders of the world's surviving nations proclaimed, never again. After proceeding to declare the end of the bloody Anno Domini era, the members of the United Nations thereafter audaciously set their hands to the World Non-Conflict Progress Treaty, branding with strained enthusiasm a new golden age of science and spacefaring – the Cosmic Era, which officially began on the first of January, 2156 AD.

Four decades later the "Coordinators" emerged, in a time when, in spite of great advancement in other fields of science and technology, the general populace regarded genetic engineering with suspicion, even fear in their eyes. Through genetic manipulation, the human body could be enhanced beyond the physical constraints rendered by both nature and the human condition – giving rise to an elevated state of human existence termed Coordination. Yet George Glenn, the world's first Coordinator, had intended the Coordinators to be a mere stepping stone in human evolution; that his opinion of a true evolved human being something greater than even the Coordinators went ignored, and the majority of the rest of the world subsequently saw only an archfiend and its hellspawn. Kept in check by the Progress Treaty, however, people then sought to vent their aggregations of its fury and hatred elsewhere, through guerrilla methods – politics, religion, and terrorism. Against the Coordinators the rest of the world rallied relentlessly and ruthlessly, and with no means to and desire for an end to the conflict, it was inevitable that war – the true demon that their ancestors had sought to exorcise – broke out once again.

But it would only be thirty years later before the fourth global armed conflict officially began, on the seventh of February CE 70, encroaching from the boundaries of the dying Earth into the infinite abyss of space. On one side, represented by the Zodiac Alliance of Freedom Treaty, were the PLANTs, the collective of space settlements to which the Coordinators, seeking a place where they would finally be free from their tormentors, had escaped. The Earth Alliance, a military coalition united by a common goal to defy those who had the audacity to proclaim themselves superior to non-Coordinators – or Naturals, the humans untainted by the genetic augments that defined a Coordinator, the only ones with the mandate to exist in the universe.

And so the cycle of war rages on.

25 January, CE 71

Ikari Shinji shifted his eyes to the cabin window, gazing in wonder as the deep abyss of space disappeared beneath the sleek steel of the Lagrange 3 colony, Heliopolis. Behind the thrusters of the Union Airlines shuttle ES-571 the airlock hatch slid shut, and as if on cue the flight captain's voice rose across the intercom, rousing the shuttle passengers from either fitful slumber or electronic entertainment. Across the aisles the cabin crew were already on their rounds, genteel professional charm exuding even through haggard eye bags and drought-lines creeping over edges, of eyes, lips, fingertips, everywhere that even copious amounts of CC cream and Vaseline couldn't reach.

The shuttle gave one amorous shudder as it entered the magnetic docking clamps' embrace, signalling the end of an arduous fifteen hours trapped in micro-g limbo, but it was the sight of the fading seat-belt lamp that triggered the mass exodus from the seats, the simultaneous movement of more than 75% of the shuttle manifest into passageways that were only slightly larger than the average person's shoulder span. In this way, more than half of the occupied overhead compartments were already vacated by the time the crew got down to releasing the shuttle hatches. With due hindsight, Shinji opted to remain in his seat for the next ten minutes, at least until he could move without a semblance of physical contact with anyone else.

Subsequently, customs was cleared and baggage claimed in the mere span of twenty minutes, the combined effect of Heliopolis Commercial Spaceport's brutal efficiency and also Shinji's undivided attention on his phone instead of the duty-free shops and restaurants. The subject of his focus was splayed out in an e-mail app window, a message received only the day before yesterday from an Ikari Gendo – Shinji's father.

From: Ikari Gendo ikari_rokubungi_gendo

To: Ikari Shinji shinji.55

Subject: COME!

Ikari Shinji:

Your presence is due at Heliopolis Commercial Spaceport on the twenty-fifth of January, CE 71. You will find, attached, your boarding e-pass for shuttle flight ES-571, due to depart from Kaguya Space Centre at 2145 hours on the twenty-fourth of January, CE 71. By now, you would have received your security pass for access into restricted and protected facilities. Lieutenant Colonel Katsuragi Misato will be dispatched to intercept you. Do not be late, and at no point should you wander off should you reach your destination ahead of the aforementioned schedule.

This is a computer-generated message; no signature is required.

NERV: God's In His Heaven. All's Right With The World

And then, the next e-mail:

From: Katsuragi Misato 1

To: Ikari Shinji shinji55

Subject: YOz!

Dear Shinji:

Hi there! No doubt you'd have already been informed of our little rendezvous on January 25 at Gate 11B, but in case you're not I've attached a copy of your flight itinerary and boarding e-pass, and also a list of instructions for online check-in (don't bother with the one on the UNA website, it sucks). And in the likely scenario that you've never heard of me before, here's a little self intro: name, Katsuragi Misato, level 30 this year. I'm single and available, but don't get me wrong, lolicon I am certainly not, however much my colleagues like to claim otherwise. I've just celebrated my twenty-ninth birthday on December the 8th last year with a carton of Yebisu (no Asahi for me, that stuff's just plain rubbish), my pet penguin, and my bisexual best friend, but I most definitely wouldn't mind if you're thinking of anything belated – in case you need a hint or two, here's a linkfor the new iPhone 9X specs, haha!

Anyways, I know that this might be a shock to you, with my boss pulling you all the way here from the mainland and all, but I assure you, Heliopolis is a damn cool place to be in, especially at this time of the year. If we have time, maybe I can bring you on a little tour before we head to NERV proper?

Hope you enjoy your flight (in all honesty, I'd think you're criminally nuts if you really do), and see you on the 25th!

Regards,

Katsuragi Misato

P.S. I've attached a photo of myself here; now you've no excuse for missing me!

Automatically, Shinji's thumb worked his phone, unearthing the aforementioned photo of Katsuragi Misato from the gallery. It was not that he needed to refresh his memory on what the woman looked like; no, that had long since lost its validity as even a pathetic excuse. He had had come clean with himself hours ago, when he had brought up the photo for the umpteenth time since boarding the Onogoro Island-bound Shinkansen the day before, that yes, Katsuragi Misato was an astonishingly beautiful woman, yes, all he wanted to do was just to admire her, and yes, as a fifteen year-old adolescent there were certain impulses that he simply could not ignore.

Beneath the phone's crystal screen sat Katsuragi on pristine sand, the clear silhouette of the Kaguya mass driver facility in the background signalling that the photograph had been taken near the eastern coast of Onogoro Island. Clearly, before being shot into digital remembrance, she had been frolicking amidst the Orb surf; her midnight tresses hung slickly, fringe and all draping backwards down her neck and bare shoulders, whilst pinpricks of salt and sand glistened all across her body, one glorious bronze marble statuette basking in the gentle sun.

Shinji's eyes began to stray, past Katsuragi's piercing ebony eyes, past her thin lips, her arching collarbone, and down, until silent rebuke came in the form of a rising in his trousers, that in his own self-censuring opinion the pubescent fantasies were over however otherwise his body protested. Still, he allowed himself one last stare before ripping his eyes away from his phone as red glowing warmth gushed into his cheeks, at how Katsuragi had completely forgone the customary bikini for her beach outing, instead opting for a floral scarf criss-crossed over the dead centre of her collarbone with the ends wrapped round her wrists in two petite knots. At how the underside of her supple breasts peeked sneakily out from the bottom hem of the scarf – the end of the valley, opening out to a vast, rocky savannah … and snuggled deeply was a solitary arrowhead, connected to a postscript scrawled by the side – Pay Attention HERE!

Shinji locked his phone, and dropped it back in his left trouser pocket.

Through Gate 25 Shinji stepped, and then almost immediately he spotted Katsuragi leaning casually against the security rail, her right foot bobbing up and down along with the music blaring from the Bose earbuds draping from her ears. He began treading forward apprehensively, and it was then that Katsuragi's head tilted left, and their eyes met.

Hesitantly, Shinji raised his hand in a tiny wave. A broad grin spread across Katsuragi's face, as she brushed off her earbuds and strode towards Shinji.

"Miss Katsuragi?"

"Please, just Misato would do," Katsuragi said. "You must be Ikari Shinji."

"Shinji is fine, too," Shinji said shyly, flushing violently as silently he urged his eyes to not settle on any one spot for extended periods of time. The woman that stood before Shinji now, shaking his quavering hand, looked eons apart from her digital counterpart in Shinji's phone. Then, she had been a goddess, the epitome of Shinji's daydreams and fantasies; now, she was a soldier, handsome and stately in her NERV uniform kit. The badge on her left forearm was the exact same insignia that had graced Gendo's terse e-mail to Shinji, both proclaiming the same axiom, GOD'S IN HIS HEAVEN, ALL'S RIGHT WITH THE WORLD.

"If you say so," Misato said. "How was your flight?"

"Uhhh, not bad, I think –"

"Nope, I don't think so," Misato said, scrutinising Shinji's well-worn features. "To my experience, nobody's ever fine after a fifteen-hour space flight, not even a Coordinator. You look like you need lunch, buddy."

"I'm OK, really, I ate during the flight –"

"You call that rubbish lunch?!" Misato said incredulously. "No matter, we still have some time left; let's get ourselves properly fed and watered before we head down to NERV proper, yeah?"

"Here?" Shinji said timidly, already thinking of the imminent ragged hole through his wallet.

"Yeah, quite a lot of the best stuff in these parts is right here in Heliopolis Commercial," Misato said. "A tad expensive, maybe, but if it's expenses you're worried about, then fear not. Just for today, everything's on me."

"No, no, how can I?"

"Sure you can," Misato said with a wink. "My pay just came in last week, so leave everything to me."

Shinji hesitated. "O … OK then," he stuttered. "If it's fine with you."

"That's the spirit!" Misato said, annexing Shinji's luggage. "First thing first: am I right to say that this is your virgin experience in Heliopolis?"

Shinji nodded numbly.

"Well, then, let me assure you that you'll be spoilt rotten for choice. There's the good ol' Japanese, but I'm sure you wouldn't mind something more outlandish. How does Mexican sound to you?"

Shinji opens his mouth to give his assent, but all hell broke loose at the exact same moment, giving him no chance to speak at all.

Right before Shinji's and Misato's eyes high-arching walls of the east wing splintered, then disintegrated like the melting ice shelves of pre-Second Impact Antarctica, when all the brouhaha about global warming and rising sea levels was just a fading blockbuster genre. Then CE 0056 had come and gone, and all that motherfuckery about prolonged drought and famine, catastrophic climate change, and mass extinction – once upon a time only pure bleak conjecture about the future in the centuries ahead – all of that fast-forwarded into the pre-centennial Cosmic Era by one goddamned meteorite. Of course, all the top brass at NERV – and also SEELE, NERV's enigmatic benefactor – knew it wasn't a meteorite, but that would be a story for another day.

Heat and sound detonated as one synchronous entity, crushing Shinji's world into a monochromic kaleidoscope of crimson and an excruciating whine pounding in his eardrums. From the chaos he surfaced soon enough, yet all he could then see was Misato's scarlet NERV jacket, and all he could feel was the pair of arms, connected to that same jacket, hauling him in powerfully into a protective embrace. But the screams, the shrill shrieks overflowing with pain and panic, they were EVERYWHERE, saturating the surrounding air and dust, slowly suffocating like a murderous pillow to the face.

"Misato!" Shinji panted. "Misato, are you alright? What happened?!"

But Misato only said, "Stay still."

Beneath the furling smoke and dust a shadow could be seen, a tall looming silhouette wading through the rubble as its head scraped across what's left of the wrecked ceiling. A full second passed before the shadow moved, and when it emerged from the smoke Shinji could hear the gasp of horror rippling from Misato's chest, as her eyes bulged at the titan's mono-eye sensor swivelling maniacally left and right across its spherical head, at its clunky military green armour, and at the sleek black assault rifle holstered at the back of its waist.

Misato unwrapped herself from Shinji, grabbing his arm and tugging him to his feet. "Let's go!" she urged. "We're under attack."

Shinji scrambled to his feet, allowing Misato to grab his hands and wrench him bodily towards the exit with his luggage tucked single-handedly under her right arm. Behind them, the GINN model of the Zero Gravity Manoeuvre Fighter (or simply 'mobile suit' for those who would cringe at the sheer pompousness of the name) – ZAFT's answer to the problem of the massive Earth Alliance armies outnumbering them like how a termite infestation would its unwilling human hosts – twisted slightly to unhook its rifle from its holster. No doubt about it, it was the exact same bipedal unit that Shinji had seen everywhere on the news these days, from the destruction of the ISS in late February last year to the complete rout of Earth Alliance forces in Kaohsiung just last week: the ZGMF-1017 GINN, backbone of the infallible and seemingly indestructible Coordinator war machine.

The GINN hoisted its weapon upwards, aiming the barrel at an angle away from itself towards the roof. There was no trigger, just an electronic command zipped from the cockpit to magnetic contact points between the mobile suit's hands and the weapon's handle. Off and away the rifle screeched, spewing carriage-sized projectiles that burrowed into the steel alloy like tapeworms into intestinal walls.

The mad dash through the exit and to the multi-level carpark beyond lasted an approximate total of six seconds, but in that short span Shinji witnessed the partial collapse of the west wing that culminated in the arrival of a second GINN. He saw it wield its blade and hack away with it like how one would with a machete in the middle of a dense rainforest at its choking foliage, and then he saw the bodies, countless hapless commuters and staff who had been pinned down by tumbling chunks of cement and steel larger than a bus, or otherwise trampled alive underneath the GINNs' elephant feet.

Blood, gore, and fire swirled around Shinji in one colossal maelstrom. Scrunching up his eyes, he covered his ears, with both his free hand and the one latched on to Misato's. As his legs pumped he began to scream, and scream and scream, and though the vortex swallowed his pitiful gurgles it was all he could do to drown out the death and devastation that swarmed all around like ravenous locusts.

A lone Porsche stood before them, its silver frame glinting innocently beneath the hellfire blazing in the background. Misato dropped Shinji's hand, yanking the doors open and flinging Shinji's luggage into the back seat. Even before Shinji had scrambled into the passenger's seat she had already secured herself to the driver's chair, finger jabbing the starter repeatedly as if it would make the vehicle start up faster.

She turned to Shinji, forehead and cheeks glistening with sweat and chalked with black ash.

"Ready?" she said.

"Uh –" Shinji was still fumbling with his seat belt.

"Off we go, then!" The Porsche surged ahead, engine purring. Inertia shoved Shinji forward, straight towards the windshield –

CRUNCH.

Misato winced. "Oooh, that must have hurt," she said, hauling Shinji back against his seat. "Are you alright?"

"In front!" Shinji yelled, as an explosion sent a FedEx truck gambolling down the tarmac towards Misato's Porsche, the millennia-old adage WE LIVE TO DELIVER flashing right before them –

"Easy, easy," Misato muttered as she spun the steering wheel, feet slamming the pedals in no pattern Shinji could discern. The Porsche drifted – yes, it drifted, no need to be so shocked now – in the corresponding direction, its argent frame bouncing in tandem with the THUD THUD THUD of the FedEx as it tumbled past and out of sight like an oversized basketball. And as the ground reverberated Shinji swore he could hear Misato cackling in adrenaline-infused glee.

The car then, finally, embarked on a route with some semblance of a normal trajectory, and Shinji sagged in his seat, moaning hoarsely in relief.

Misato grinned at him. "Enjoying the ride, Shinji?"

"Keep your eyes on the road, please!" Shinji begged. Misato chuckled, but otherwise returned her eyes to the windshield.

They climbed onto a feeder ramp into the expressway, and by then the ruins of the spaceport had become nothing more than a smouldering dot in the background. For Shinji, however, the memories remained vivid as ever, flashing by as if they were just next to him. Immersed in his own mini version of hell, he did not notice his breath escalate in exponential counts and his mindscape swimming from the sudden infusion of oxygen, until he felt the Porsche screech to a stop and Misato's gentle hand on his shoulder.

"Chill down, Shinji," she instructed. "You're hyperventilating. Here." From the glove compartment she withdrew a folded Starbucks paper bag and a water bottle, still slick with condensation.

"Breathe," she said.

After a while, Shinji sighed. He put down the paper bag and leaned further back in his seat, his eyes fluttering to a close.

"Feeling better now?"

"Yeah … yeah," Shinji wheezed. "Thanks a million, Misato."

Misato thrust the water bottle into Shinji's hands, still a tad trembly. "Now drink," she commanded, and it was only when she saw Shinji's lips touch the bottle's rim that she felt fit to resume driving. Past an automated toll gantry, the road soon tapered off as she turned her car towards their next destination.

Located in Lagrange point 3, the space mining colony Heliopolis had been constructed in CE 30 as part of a government initiative to tamper its reliance on imports. As with all other off-world settlements build within that decade, the colony followed a standard O'Neill 'Island 3' cylinder design, with the cylinder itself rooted in an asteroid within the titanium alloy walls of the 'Colony Builder' mining module (or the 'Snail', as it was affectionately named so by its denizens), which extracted precious metals and minerals from the asteroid for use within the colony and export back to the Orb mainland.

Within Heliopolis, the living space in the cylinder was divided into three equal strips that lined the colony walls called 'Sides', from Side 1 to Side 3. Five districts comprised each Side, which was in turned governed by its own municipal committees that reported to a central prefectural administration in Side 3, the designated colonial capital. Heliopolis Commercial Spaceport was located in Side 2, which apart from governance also fulfilled a scientific and engineering specialty as the other Sides did. Over the decades since the colony's commissioning, the city had established itself in the frontiers of aerospace engineering and space exploration, helming a plethora of key global initiatives and research projects such as the founding of the Deep Space Survey and Development Organisation, the development of the scramjet engine, and, in recent years, the Minovsky fusion reactor for long-distance space travel.

It was almost immediately after they crossed the city threshold that the air-raid sirens began their unearthly wails, harbingers of doom resonating throughout all corners of the Side. Virtually everything screeched to a complete standstill, and subsequently Misato seized the opportunity to accelerate more than twice the speed limit and perform a gut-wrenching myriad of stunts and traffic offences; it had never been more convenient then that the only meal Shinji had eaten during his flight had been breakfast more than four hours ago.

Past mingled expressions of befuddlement and denial they raced past, until the announcement and subsequent realisation hit – not a drill, not a goddamn drill, Heliopolis is now under attack, neutrality treaties and agreements and settlements be fucked – and it was then that the results of tens of hours of bimonthly drilling and evac exercises unfolded before them. Misato slowed down, watching in amazement as the good citizens of Side 2 abandoned their work, their vehicles, everything, and trooped off to the nearest entrances of the colony lifeboats in patient, meandering lines.

"Your first time?" Misato suddenly spoke.

"Huh?"

Misato gestured towards the fleeing civilians, now refugees in their own homes. "Seeing the war first hand."

"Yeah," Shinji replied after a moment's pause. "Before this it was only the Internet and news. I've never imagined that I would experience it myself."

"You're not the only one. We've all taken Orb's peace for granted."

"But, why? Why did ZAFT attack?" Shinji burst out. "Isn't Orb neutral?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Misato said. "Maybe the world has finally decided to stop pretending we didn't exist."

"Shouldn't we be evacuating, too?"

"No, it's OK. The Archangel will be safe haven for us."

"ARCHANGLE –?" Shinji blabbered.

"ArchANGEL," Misato corrected. Then, with a hint of pride, "NERV's very own space battleship. It's our ride back to Orb, and trust me, it's a darn cool place to be in. You'll see what I mean."

Shinji bit his lip.

"Back … to Orb?"

"Mmm," Misato said with a slight nod of her head. "Our base is at Onogoro Island. I was dispatched here as part of a small convoy to pick up some, um, supplies."

"But … if we're going back to Orb anyway … why did my father call me all the way here?"

"He didn't say anything?"

Shinji shook his head. "He told me to take the shuttle up here and wait for you. That's all."

"Is that so …"

"Misato, do you know anything?"

Misato's knuckles momentarily turned white as her grip on the wheel tightened, then loosened, then tightened again. A myriad of emotions flashed erratically across her face like a malfunctioning traffic light – guilt, fear, even shame. Shinji, who had his eyes fixed on the road ahead, noticed nothing.

"Well …" Misato then began, choosing her words carefully, "according to him, there's something he needs to show you."

Shinji blinked in confusion. "What is it?"

"I …" Misato tapped the accelerator, breaking her Porsche through the eighth red light within the past hour, and even as she sped away she could feel a scarlet glare upon her back, accusatory at both her incursion and the upcoming lie: "I don't know. Sorry about that."

"It doesn't matter," Shinji said quietly. "He probably wants me to do something he doesn't want to do, nothing more."

"Seems like you've a poor relationship with your father," Misato said casually. And when Shinji did not respond she simply added, "Me too," not catching the surprised glance the boy subsequently threw in her direction.

A slightly awkward silence was the dominant topic of conversation for the remainder of the trip, though as Misato weaved her Porsche seamlessly round haphazard clots of stalled and abandoned vehicles the gentle purring of the engine soon lulled an exhausted Shinji into a fitful slumber. Veering off the city highway fifteen minutes later, Misato then pulled over beside the pavement and pulled out her phone, which had only minutes before quivered once inside her pocket.

A Viber message flashed on the screen: Dammit, Misato, you're late again. I'm at the east gate now.

Almost immediately the back door swung open, and a young blond woman dressed in a thin work jacket and Levi's durables slid into the Porsche. Slamming the door shut, Professor Akagi Ritsuko, PhD, head of Project E, then leaned over, Krispy Kreme box of dozen in hand.

"Original glazed, your favourite," she said with a slight grin. "Not everyday that you get rewarded for tardiness, so eat up."

"What the hell," Misato began, as she pinched the bottom third donut from the box, "are you doing out here with Krispy Kreme donuts?"

"Pay's just came in, so I thought I'd give our Project E guys a little treat," Ritsuko said. "The evacuation for this side of town didn't come until five minutes ago, so naturally we don't have a clue about nuts yet. But I heard about the attack at the spaceport."

Misato tapped the accelerator, steering the car towards the towering steel gates ahead. "GINNs, two of them in total," she said. "They scarpered soon after we left the spaceport. Probably Coordinator terrorists or ZAFT renegades, that lot."

"Not the only place that had a GINN sighting," Ritsuko muttered, perusing her phone and squinting slightly at the image shown. "They hit the Tannenbaum armoury, too." She was silent for a moment. "The Tannebaum armoury … shit."

Before them loomed the immense facility complex of the Magallanica shipyards, the centre of shipbuilding and aerospace engineering in the entire swathe of civilised cosmos, one of the few symbols of the Orb Union's sovereign might whose technological prowess rivalled even that of the asteroid-sized factories amongst the PLANTs. Twelve days from today, the Archangel would be launched on its maiden voyage from its drydock towards Earth, where it'd then be officially inaugurated into NERV's forces.

Right now, however, with the evacuation still in effect the entire compound was devoid of people. Driving past abandoned forklifts and idle automatons and deserted hangars Misato felt a frigid thrill of apprehension trickling down her spine. "They are onto it already, aren't they?" she said through her teeth. "The G Project."

"Damn this, our people are still over at Tannenbaum," Ritsuko cursed, as she jabbed a number into her phone. "Rei's not picking up her phone."

"We should have known," Misato said. "This was a pact with the devil to begin with."

"No doubt Asuha and the other old men knew that right from the start," Ritsuko said. "But we had no choice, hadn't we? The Astray programme was not expected to finish until early next year; it was with that collaboration with LOGOS that the air force managed to get its first MS squadron commissioned before Christmas last year!"

"A self-fulfilling prophecy, I think," Misato said. "The government believes that there would be a time in the near future where either the Earth Alliance or ZAFT would come down right outside our doorstep and say 'fuck you' to Orb's neutrality; ironically, it was our paranoia that had brought ZAFT down on our tails in the first place. Now, they can safely proclaim that it was us who gave ourselves the finger, even after they had blown us up to kingdom come."

"Ever the pessimist, aren't you?"

"How many times have we had this conversation before? I prefer to think of myself as a realist."

The bulk of Magallanica's shipbuilding facilities were located underground, which in Heliopolis meant the vast hollow space layered between the colony's inner and outer hulls encircling the entire cylinder. With the vehicle elevators down Misato took a service tunnel into the bowels of Magallanica, emerging onto the main road running parallel to the launch shafts. On any nornal day the twin runways ran twenty-four seven, coordinating entry and exit of vessels to and from the drydocks together with Heliopolis' main space traffic control centre. Today, at this moment, everything lay still and silent. A single line of abandoned staff vehicles and factory buggies and forklifts stood in a haphazard line against the road shoulder, while across the runways signal and maintenance drone clusters sprawled all over the wide maglev rails, tens of tiny ebony dots that reminded Misato absurdly of cat droppings.

By then, Shinji had roused from his slumber, at the same time Misato rounded her car into the Archangel's drydock. And as the sleek bulk of the space battleship rose into view sheer amazement drove Shinji forward until his nose plastered against the window, smudging the glass, the distance between his mouth and eyebrows widening.

"Amazing, isn't it?" Misato said with a slight grin. "LCAM-01XA Archangel. The first of its class. As far as the specs go, she might not be the fastest, but she will certainly give you a run for your money in terms of sheer power. Travelling in space aboard the mightiest war vessel ever built by mankind – gives you something to brag about when you go back to school, eh?"

Shinji cocked his head. "Will NERV be fighting those … Angels with the Archangel?" The irony of the statement did not escape Misato as her lip curled slightly.

"To answer your question, Ikari Shinji," Ritsuko piped up from behind, startling Shinji, "yes, certainly the Archangel will be at the forefront of our offensive against the Angels. Yet at the same time, the ship will not be participating directly in the conflict. It's designation is just that of a support craft, albeit the largest in NERV's arsenal, for the might of the Angels will most definitely not even begin to falter in the face of conventional weaponry, however much devastation the Archangel's has the potential to wreck."

Shinji only stared up at the reflection of Ritsuko's face in the rearview mirror, blinking stupidly at the blond woman whom had for all that he knew materialised out of thin air. Ritsuko's lip twitched, then broke apart in a thin smile. "The name's Akagi Ritsuko," she said. "I'm an engineer in NERV. Misato and I have known each other since college."

"He-hello," Shinji mumbled awkwardly.

"Hello back to you, Mr Ikari."

"Sh-Shinji is fine," muttered Shinji.

"If you wish so, Shinji," Ritsuko said serenely. "As for me, anything is fine, though if you do not know where to start do let me advise you on my doctorate from MIT, which I've acquired only a few years prior."

Vigorously Shinji nodded his head. "I understand," he stuttered.

Misato spun the wheel, turning the car round a bend towards a steel ramp leading up to one of the Archangel's starboard-side entry hatches. All around, human and machine alike hustled and bustled. Engaging the reverse gear, she slowly backed into a parking lot marked out by a single continuous reflective strip. She then killed the engine, and everyone stepped out of the vehicle.

They were, Shinji observed, in what appeared to be the ship's hangar, a vast cavity within the Archangel that appeared to house her own complementation of mobile suits. At this moment, however, the MS bays – or what appeared to be them as far as Shinji knew from what he'd gleaned from news and the Internet – were all vacated, even as they were fussed upon by both human and robotic crews, a mingled hullabaloo of barked orders and mechanical whirring echoing all throughout the entire facility.

A flash of white in Shinji's peripheral vision caught his attention almost immediately, and as he turned he saw a tall woman, dressed ostensibly in Atlantic Federation navy white, striding down towards where they stood, combat boots clanging dully against the steel ground. Unease and confusion intertwined in Shinji's spine, for as far as he was concerned the state of worldly affairs today certainly did not allow for the presence of an Earth Alliance coalition soldier aboard an Orb warship.

Yet, Shinji realised, Misato had never explicitly said that NERV was exclusively an Orb organisation. Either way, though, Shinji was of the adamant notion that the woman and her uniform did not belong here, or elsewhere in Heliopolis, one of the last bastions of peace in this entire swathe of civilised space. Nowadays, their mere presence, alongside ZAFT and their machines', were but harbingers of fighting and destruction as Bloody Valentine steadily reached climax.

The woman saluted briefly. "Lieutenant Colonel Katsuragi, Professor Akagi. And you must be Ikari Shinji. It's a pleasure to have you onboard the Archangel," she said. Then, turning to Misato, "Word about the attack over at the spaceport has just reached here. I'm glad both of you made it here safely."

"As do I, Major," Misato said. "Any word from the retrieval teams?"

"It is as we feared," Major Natarle Badgiruel of the Atlantic Federation Navy 8th Fleet said grimly. "ZAFT hit them, both the G-weapon and EVA teams. It's also the reason why I'm here: Commander Ikari has instructed me to escort you straight to the bridge upon your arrival. Our people are entrenched at Tannenbaum; the Archangel is going to launch."

"Got it," Misato said. Then she glanced down to her side, where Shinji stood with a nonplussed expression on his face. "Should I bring Shinji up with me, too?"

Natarle frowned. "I heard not a single mention of the boy," she said. "Perhaps having him somewhere else safer would be expedient. They could meet once this entire fiasco is over … if the commander seemed ever inclined," she added with a slight curl to her lips.

"I understand." Misato squeezed Shinji's shoulder. "Sorry about that, Shinji."

"I … no, it's OK." Shinji's eyes looked downcast as he spoke. As much as he had yearned to see his father ever since arriving in Heliopolis, he was suddenly glad of the delay that their current circumstances had now inspired. "But … I won't touch anything, I swear!"

"Of course you won't," Misato said, chuckling a little. "But this ship might enter combat any time after we get out of Magallanica, and the bridge is going to be a dangerous place to be once that happens. Plus, we don't have a normal suit your size."

"I'll be his chaperone, then," Ritsuko spoke up. "He can stay with Kojiro and me in the engineering bay."

"I'm counting on you." With a wink, Misato then said to Shinji, "I'll see you around shortly."

There were still a thousand and one questions, all clamouring for an answer in Shinji's mind, yet he did not say anything as Misato strode away hurriedly together with the female Fed major. There seemed to be no time to waste, at least for the both of them, but Ritsuko, on the other hand, seemed to not have a care in the world on her face …

And thus Shinji turned to her for answers. "Professor?" he said tentatively.

"Hm?"

"What's going on?"

The blonde woman's brow furrowed thoughtfully. "Seems like a little enlightenment is due," she said. "What do you want to know?"

"Uhh …" Shinji hesitated. "Who's that woman in the Atlantic Federation uniform?"

"Not bad, you actually know what their No. 3 attire looks like," Ritsuko said, sounding impressed. "In that case, let me ask you, does the name 'G Project' mean anything to you?"

Shinji shrugged. "Never heard of it before."

"You shouldn't have," Ritsuko said. "Two years back, the Atlantic Federation initiated the G Project weapons development programme to construct mobile suits that can stand up to the GINNs in combat. LOGOS, the Federation's main defence contractor, was contracted along with Morgenroete for the G Project – the result of which was the production of the G-weapons, five MS prototypes built specially for Natural use. Expectedly, there were quite a few problems.

"Constructing the mobile suits, and the related technologies, were pieces of cakes, relatively speaking. Phase shift armour, camouflage colloids, beam rifles, the Naturals have managed to produce functioning units. But even the brightest whizzes in their IT departments have yet to do a proper OS that is capable of streamlining and simplifying MS operation further for Naturals to use. That is not the point, however. The point is, somehow ZAFT has managed to catch wind of the G Project, and decided to strike while the iron's hot."

"But why did the government allow this, um, G Project to happen?" Shinji asked. "I mean … Orb is neutral, isn't it? We're not supposed to help other countries make weapons, aren't we?"

"You're right about that. The government has made it illegal for Morgenroete to produce weaponry for other countries," Ritsuko said. "But the representatives of our country had their reasons when they made the decision to sit back and turn a blind eye to a direct violation of Orb's neutrality."

"Reasons?"

"For an adolescent, you seem to have a better grip on worldly affairs than people twice your age," Ritsuko said. "Why don't you give a shot? For instance, you do know what went on over at the Tanegashima air base last month, don't you? It was all over the news on that day."

Frowning, Shinji thought for a while. "I think I remember," he said. "Something about a new air defence squadron. They called it … 'Astray,' I think."

"The 08th Astray Squadron," Ritsuko corrected. "Orb's first MS squadron, commissioned just right before Christmas Eve. Yet it was less than two years after the government began the Astray programme. The G Project itself took nearly four years. Now, how do you think was that possible?"

Shinji said immediately, "The Astray programme and G Project must be related."

"Most definitely. By having Morgenroete be the main contractor for the G Project, they'd in fact made it easier to procure MS technology. Anything the Astray project teams needed, they simply reverse-engineered from the G Project. You understand so far, Shinji?"

Shinji nodded.

"Now, the Archangel. This ship was entirely and exclusively Made in Orb around a year ago by, who else, Morgenroete. No problems there, since NERV is officially an Orb-based organisation. However, NERV's benefactor is LOGOS' parent organisation. Which is why the government's keeping an eye on us, but that's also not the point of this conversation. Rather than using a Fed carrier to transport the G-weapons back to JOSH-A, the Fed Navy has managed to rope us in as their personal chauffeur. Certainly the Archangel would be a good smokescreen against ZAFT, but with things as they are that point's moot now. Does everything make sense now?"

"Yeah, it does," Shinji said shyly. "Thanks, Professor."

"Just one more thing." Ritsuko paused, casting a suspicious glance over her shoulder. Then, in a quieter tone, "Most of what I've just told you is common knowledge amongst NERV's top employees, from our pilots to officers such as Misato and your father. But the Feds do not know that we know. Especially the part regarding Orb's motives and stake in the G Project. You got to keep everything I've said to yourself. Am I clear on that?"

The look on Ritsuko's face had turned frigid. Swallowing, Shinji nodded numbly. But he could not help but ask, "Then why tell me?"

Ritsuko pursed her lips. "Because," she said, "like it or not, you've a stake in both NERV and the upcoming battles against the Angels. Ignorance is thus something we'd all like to avoid. At the very least, you need to know the basics." Seeing the confused look on Shinji's face, she added, "That's all I can say for now." She then reached out, and held Shinji by the elbow.

"Now then, shall we?" she said, with a hint of a smile in her voice. "The Archangel's launching soon, and we need to be strapped in."

"Where are we going?"

Cracking a small grin, the professor pointed a finger towards the ceiling. "Up," she said simply, and then she kicked off the ground, hauling Shinji along with her by the arm.

Their feet left the ground, and did not return. Once they traversed past the seventh, then eighth, floor of the hangar, Ritsuko deliberately released her hold on the boy, stifling a snicker as she did so.

"P-P-Professor!" Shinji screamed, but all she did was to laugh loudly at the stricken expression on his face as he thrashed about in mid-air as if he was in water. As he struggled the momentum drew him away from Ritsuko, towards the hangar wall. Deciding then that enough was enough, Ritsuko dove and propelled herself towards Shinji's side, where she then caught hold of his hand by the wrist.

"OK, OK, calm down!" Ritsuko instructed.

"So-sorry!"

"Takes some time to get used to, microgravity. That damn Misato sprung this on me on our first day here, and she didn't stop laughing for weeks after that. The pulling effect is only exerted when you're sufficiently close to the ground, that's how the microgravity generators work these days. Brilliant, isn't it?"

"I, uh, huhh," Shinji panted.

"And isn't the view simply excellent?" Ritsuko said, spreading her arms wide.

Shinji peeked down, and promptly discovered, firstly, that he wasn't experiencing any of the acrophobia-related vertigo that he had observed in many of his classmates back in Orb when suspended at half the height Shinji was currently at, during a flying fox zipline event that had been organised by the good faculty of Mitakihara Middle just last year as part of the semestral after-exam festivities. That particular session had later earned its place in the institution's history with a seventy-eight percent last-minute pullout rate.

Secondly, the view was excellent. The next five seconds that passed saw Shinji staring wide-eyed at, well, everything and everyone, from the crew hustling to and fro on the ground, looking just like worker ants, to those striding across the mid-level gangways, waving to Ritsuko as they passed by, from the drones milling about at the bottom to those hanging idly from their storage bays embedded in the hexagonal ceiling.

And then, two more seconds later, hellfire blossomed from ZAFT seismic charges covertly planted across the Archangel's drydock. The inferno surged, melting all of the steel polymer support pillars and coalescing them into charred lumps, and then the rest was history.

Two thousand tonnes of rubble tumbled over the Archangel, the shockwaves wrecking jolly mayhem everywhere across the ship, both in and outside. Shinji felt his world flip upside-down then inside-out, his body swinging, his head cracking against the side of the gangway by his left, then darkness washed over him and he knew no more.

TO BE CONTINUED in PHASE-02: Prototype