16 Chapter 14

-Bridge, Versailus-

"It's time," whispered Commander Le Creuset. From the bridge of the Versalius, he observed the fleet gathered around him. The Gamow , Raeford, Hauser not to mention the added up ten more Nazca-class heavy cruisers, twelve Laurasia-class frigate, and 1 Pangea-class supercarriers, along with one- hundred-eight mobile suits. That should be enough.

"Signal the fleet," he ordered, "we're moving out."

"Yes sir," said the man at the communications console, rushing to relay the command to the other ships.

Captain Ades, commander of the Versalius, turned to Le Creuset. "Are you sure we should go now?"

Le Creuset nodded. "It will take us roughly fifteen minutes to reach them. If we wait any longer the legged ship may reach the atmosphere before we can break through the 8th fleet. We cannot allow them to make it to Alaska headquarters. Besides, even if they outnumber us in terms of warships, their mobile armors are mere cannon fodder before such a large group of mobile suits, especially with the prototypes among them."

He turned towards the tactical display, which showed the Earth Alliance forces arrayed in an umbrella-like formation over the Archangel. With their backs to the atmosphere, they couldn't be outflanked.

'Halberton's made his preparations quite well', Le Creuset mused. Also, despite his earlier words, he knew that the 8th fleet was nothing to laugh at. With thirty-two Drake-class escort ships, fifteen Nelson-class battleships, and the carrier Menelaus, it was an impressive force. The fleet also had hundreds of mobile armors, and despite their inferiority to the ZAFT mobile suits, they could still be dangerous due to their sheer numbers. Le Creuset was counting on the stolen prototypes to significantly thin out both them and the first line of warships so the ZAFT vessels could move in for bombardment.

Halberton will use the 8th fleet as a shield to allow the legged ship to get to Earth, Le Creuset have no doubt of that. Based on that, Le Creuset knew that he wouldn't have to worry about that ship's firepower until they had created a significant breach in the Alliance lines. The Strike and La Flaga's mobile armor would most likely be held back unless they absolutely had to launch to defend the ship.

There was just one unknown factor, and that was The Beast. He still do not know the full extent of its capabilities. He must be prepared for it to launch at any time.

He smiled. He was actually hoping that it would appear, so that he could engage it himself. It will be interesting to see how the CGUE measures up to it, especially now that the modifications are complete.

He gave a brief, quiet laugh, and looked on as the Alliance armada came into visual range. As the mobile suits began launching, he said, "The time has come to remove Admiral Halberton from the game. As for The Angel of Death Natsume Kisaragi…"

What will your move be? Le Creuset couldn't held his smirk imagine the carnage that's gonna happens soon.

-Hangar, Archangel-

Kira was standing in line with the rest of the refugees from Heliopolis, waiting to board the shuttle that would take them to the Menelaus, and from there to Orb. He looked around nervously, not seeing his friends.

"Where are they?" he said.

Suddenly, he heard a voice. "Hey Onichan..!" Turning, he saw a young girl, whom he had met while aboard the ship, floating towards him. He saw that she had something in her hand.

When she got to him, she smiled and held out the object in her hand. It was a small, yellow folded paper flower. She gave it to him and said, "For you..also thank you for protecting us until now."

Kira blushed, a little embarrassed. "Oh, uhm… you're welcome."

She laughed, and made her way back to her mother, who was waving at Kira. He smiled and waved back, and couldn't help but feel his spirits lift a bit.

Another, more familiar voice rang out. "Yo, Kira!"

He turned around, knowing that Tolle would be right behind him. Kira was correct, and was glad to see Sai, Miriallia, and Kuzzey there as well.

What he did not expect to see was all of them wearing the uniforms that had been given to them when they had first volunteered to help out with operating the Archangel. As they approached, Tolle held out some papers, which he gave to Kira.

"What's this?" said Kira.

"These are for you," replied Tolle, "They're your discharge papers."

"Wait, what about you guys?"

"We volunteered," said Miriallia, "We're staying with the Archangel."

"Wait, what? Why?" Kira said clearly doesn't understand what just happens

"Well," said Sai, "Flay decided to volunteer."

"Flay…" said Kira, going slightly red at the thought of the girl he had a crush on in an Earth Alliance uniform. Why would she volunteer?

"So we decided to volunteer as well," said Tolle, "Can't leave her by herself after all."

"Yeah," said Miriallia, "who knows what kind of trouble she'd get herself into trying to be a soldier."

Suddenly an alarm went off and a voice came over the intercom. "Attention," said Natarle, "ZAFT ships are approaching. I repeat, ZAFT ships are approaching. All hands to battle stations. Evacuate the refugee ship immediately."

"Well, that's our cue," said Miriallia.

"Take care buddy," said Tolle.

Kira could only watch as they left the hangar and headed towards the bridge. Looking back and forth between the shuttle and the door his friends had left through, he now found himself torn.

"Hey, you there!" said the soldier at the shuttle's door, "Get aboard, we're leaving!"

Kira looked over towards the shuttle again, and then found his gaze drawn downward. He looked at his hands. In the left was the paperwork for his discharge from the Alliance forces. In the right was the small, folded paper flower from the young girl.

"For you..also thank you for protecting us until now." Her words echoed in his head. That's right, he thought, I decided to pilot the Strike to protect my friends.

And if they had decided to stay…

Making up his mind, he put the flower in his coat pocket, and then tore the discharge papers in two. Turning towards the soldier he said, "Please, go without me." The man looked surprised, but then he just shrugged and went inside the shuttle.

Turning towards the exit, Kira made his way towards the pilot's ready room. Time to suit up… again.

-Bridge, Menelaus-

Halberton entered the bridge just as the first ZAFT ships were spotted, he didn't need to be a genius to figure out that the enemy had caught them partially off guard. They were preparing for the engagement, but now that it was here, he couldn't help but notice the agitation in the crew.

"Admiral we've detected a mass movement of heat sources approaching from the other side of our epileptic, multiple heat sources indicates a fleet of ships."

"Where was EWACS?" He asked.

"Our patrols didn't report back, likely they were sunk by the enemy beforehand."

"Damn it." Halberton said as he looked over the dispersal pattern. "We were careless." He muttered as he looked at the display screen.

"Incoming barrage, dispersed strike pattern of missiles and linear cannon fire incoming!" Their tactical officer suddenly reported.

"Intercept what you can, but disperse formation accordingly, screen for high yield warheads and don't let them strike the central formation around the Archangel."

"Relaying now." Com operator reported as the fleet began to fire off in response.

In an instant the 8th fleet scrambled to alert status, their position was under fire and the ZAFT was on a direct approach for them, no doubt about it, this was the attack that they had been waiting for. But it had come with little warning which left many ships lagging behind to react to the sudden assault.

"EAV Berlin is reporting multiple impacts against its hull, damage sustained minimal, emergency bulkheads holding in place."

"Good thing we ordered for the fleet to depressurise all non-critical sections prior to engagement."

"How's our fleet formation?" He asked.

"We have a total of 20 Drake-class frigates, Austen-class 17 destroyers, 8 Scott-class cruisers, 4 Nelson-class heavy cruisers, 1 Titus-class battleship and 2 Cochrane-class escort carriers still operational."

"We'll give the ZAFT fleet a fight to remember, form up the main body of our fleet around the Archangel, we'll have the 'Nathan Hale' along with a detachment of our escort carriers break and interdict the opposing enemy battlegroup at 342-280 Yellow, tell them to lock the enemy formation down while we cover." He ordered.

"Yes Admiral."

"Admiral, we've spotted the main enemy fleet formation on approach."

"Enemy fleet formation consists of 25 ships, 12 Nazca-class heavy cruisers, 12 Laurasia-class, and 1 Pangea-class supercarriers all moving in formation."

"They're throwing a lot more at us than I'd like." Captain Ardis stated from Halberton's side.

"The enemy sees their chance at sinking the Archangel here as a rare one, so they'll throw everything they can manage." He stated. "We will defend her until they are able to complete re-entry."

"Captain Ramius is requesting to participate in the battle." The com operator stated.

-Bridge, Versaillus-

From the approaching vector, the Versaillus made its final approach, the ship was prepared for battle.

Le Creuset watched as the battle unfolded, he saw the Archangel throw itself into the battle, determined to break through to its beleaguered allies, as the ship had entered into the net, Le Creuset executed the next phase of his plan.

"Have Yzak's unit move in from the Gamow, make sure to tie down the Strike and other machines as much as possible, this will be crucial if we want to achieve victory." He told the captain.

"Aye commander."

"And now, for us to unveil our welcoming gift." He turned his attention to the tethered ships hiding in the shadow of the Versaillus.

"Captain Nader, Captain Biden, we're now in position, begin flanking maneuvers once we detach the tethers." He told them promptly.

"Understood." Nader responded as he began issuing orders.

The Raeford, and Hauser detached their cables, allowing them to drift off one at a time behind the shadow of the Nazca-class and split off.