Chapter 368 - 369: Strike Upgrade in Progress…

Chapter 368: Chapter 369: Strike Upgrade in Progress...

Murdoch knew it was probably better not to keep talking about the earlier attack, so he changed the subject again. "Hey, Neutron Jammers are inconvenient in all kinds of ways, but they’re still better than nuclear bombs flying all over the place, right?"

"That’s true..." Kuzzey nodded.

Murdoch sighed. "After the attack on Junius Seven, if the other side had retaliated with nuclear weapons too, who knows what would even be left of Earth by now."

Hearing that, Kuzzey instinctively shrank back.

He thought of the miserable state of Junius Seven. It was not a pleasant association.

It was precisely because of the tragedy at Junius Seven that ZAFT launched the so-called "Operation Uroboros."

In other words, seizing all spaceports in the equatorial regions.

ZAFT’s plan was to take control of those spaceports and complete an encirclement of Earth.

And the first phase of that plan was to launch Neutron Jammers into every corner of the planet.

"In a sense, I guess we’re lucky Coordinators are rational people."

[What the hell do you mean, "rational people"?]

[Hotheaded Yzak: Hah?!]

[To be fair, if the other side had thrown nukes back, Earth really might have been screwed.]

[Are you perhaps searching for Gundam X?]

[Tiffa, my goddess!]

[The West cannot lose Tiffa, just as anime cannot lose Jerusalem.]

[Grass (a type of exclamation), are those even the same Tiffa?]

[I don’t care. If she’s Tiffa, I love her! I’m an equal-opportunity lover and an egalitarian!]

[What the hell kind of egalitarian is that? I’m different. I’m an Inori-only fan!]

"What was the Earth Alliance thinking when it decided to use nuclear weapons?" Tolle came over at that point and added his own comment.

Murdoch himself belonged to the Earth Alliance, but even he fell silent for a moment. "They probably never imagined anyone would retaliate..."

"So Coordinators aren’t actually that rational either, are they?" Sai walked over as well.

"Yeah. Because ZAFT’s Neutron Jammers disabled radio communications and nuclear power all over Earth. Since the war began, Earth has fallen into a severe energy crisis. Quite a few people have probably died indirectly because of it," Tolle said with a sigh. "Then again, you could say they brought this on themselves."

Tolle found himself realizing that all over again.

He too remembered the Junius Seven he had seen in the Debris Belt.

A colony mercilessly destroyed, its residents wiped out, drifting through the darkness of the vacuum—that had been a desolate image of death...

If there had been any comfort at all, it was that Inori’s song at the time had somehow conveyed a genuine sense of warmth.

As though the souls of Junius Seven truly had been laid to rest.

"Whew. Enough chatting. Give me a hand first. This modification is seriously difficult, but once it’s done, the Strike will be able to sortie in its complete form."

The hangar had already been tidied up.

But the all-important Strike had not yet finished maintenance.

Or more precisely, its Striker pack had not yet been tuned.

The main task was finally combining the Aile Striker, Sword Striker, and Launcher Striker into a "three-in-one Striker pack."

Of course, that did not mean simply mounting all three sets of equipment at once.

If everything were installed together, the Strike’s weight would almost double, reaching more than 120 tons.

So they needed to strip away unnecessary components from the original packs, then integrate what remained into a single whole.

That way, even the three-in-one Striker pack would weigh only slightly more than an Aile Striker.

In other words, once the modification was complete, the Strike could sortie in a fully equipped configuration.

The pack’s own power supply and enhanced mobility would keep the Strike’s maneuverability from dropping, while its powerful firepower would further increase its combat strength.

The downside was that the Strike would become more complicated and difficult to control.

For Kira, that was not a problem.

But...

Put it this way: Cagalli could operate a Gundam Astray now, but if she switched to a Strike equipped with this pack, she would be completely unable to control it and might even crash.

Murdoch himself could never have designed something this sophisticated.

"This many pages of blueprints would fill an entire room if you printed them all out."

Murdoch held an engineering tablet and looked over the design on-screen.

Just combining the sniper rifle and shield was already troublesome enough.

At a large factory, that would have been manageable, but building it by hand aboard the Archangel was a major hassle.

Fortunately, Murdoch was not working alone. Countless Fyu-Neru and the intelligent maintenance system could help him with the modification.

"Even with the intelligent system helping, there’s no way this’ll be done that fast. Does Songstress-san really have to be in such a hurry?"

He complained, but the modification still had to continue...

And so, the scene cut away again.

[Grass (a type of exclamation), let me see the rest!]

[What does the complete pack even look like?!]

[So that’s how you’re cutting away, huh?!]

[We’re used to it. It happens every time.]

[Forgot to buy premium, so I can’t take screenshots. Orz]

[They’ll show it once it’s installed on the Strike. Bold prediction: there’s definitely going to be a fight afterward.]

At that point, the scene returned to the bridge.

Murrue and the others were watching the Gold Frame nervously.

But the moment Cagalli started broadcasting over a loudspeaker, Murrue and the others could no longer keep their composure.

"Isn’t that literally telling ZAFT we’re right here?!"

Radar might not work, but that did not mean ZAFT was deaf!

"Those two didn’t stop her?" Badgiruel was speechless.

"Well, maybe it’s because ZAFT already found us."

Mu, at least, was taking it in stride.

"More importantly, do we have the hull-deformation data yet?" Mu asked.

"Only a preliminary measurement, but the stress deformation is still within tolerance. We’ll need a full inspection to know the exact situation," Murrue said, shaking her head. "Call it half-good news, I guess."

"At least the Archangel doesn’t have to be scrapped." Mu was fairly optimistic.

"Well, I suppose that counts as good news... ZAFT is here."

On the Archangel’s monitors, a jeep had already appeared in view.

"ZAFT... really was right nearby." Murrue frowned.

"Now we see how the negotiations go," Mu said. "This may sound rude to the refugees, but given our current situation, I think negotiations breaking down would actually help us more."

"Negotiations breaking down..." At first, Murrue had not understood what Inori meant by "Wouldn’t that be even better?" But now she did.

If the other side refused, Inori would definitely use some other plan.

That feeling left Murrue strangely unsettled.

It was almost as if Inori were not a person at all, but an artificial intelligence.

—Could she actually be a robot?

But Inori ate and slept too, didn’t she?

Whatever the case, all they could do now was watch what happened over there. It was inconvenient for the Archangel itself to make contact with ZAFT.

Cagalli and the others, however, belonged to a neutral nation and were a third party, so... they could only see how things went on their side.