A call on the comms station of the White Base Kai can be heard. "kzzchhh White base come in! this is federation command! come in white base!"

"This is White Base coming in." And to Captain Bright, "Its Federation Command."

"Command has a new mission for the White Base and the Gundam, you are to head to these co-ordinates on mars. We have information on a possible Zeon superweapon on mars, there might be nothing there but command has decided that the federation forces cannot risk another blow from a superweapon like the solar array."

The operator's tone of voice shifts from the tone being used to give orders. "Honestly, the source of the information is a little unreliable but command wants its best men on it, better than more clean up duty at least right?"

The operator coughs and gets back into the official voice used to give commands. "White base you are to make all haste to the provided coordinates and investigate, you may request reinforcements from local patrols as needed." The console beeps as it displays the coordinates on mars that were sent over.

Fraw relays this to Bright.

Bright orders Mirai to set the course, and echos everything to the crew via the PA. To just the bridge crew he comments, "Do they really believe we're the best or do they just want us out of the way?"

Mirai will set the course, and they're off.

It only takes a day or two to get to mars with the more powerful engines of the White Base Kai, plenty of time to patch up minor damage and relax. The new crew seem to be working well with the original White Base survivors as well. Eventually, the White Base Kai is nearing the specified coordinates. One of the sensor operators should be able to detect a structure at the coordinates.

Bright does not actually expect any trouble but he still orders level three battle stations plus deployment of the Gundam and both Guncannons since they'll likely enter the structure either way. Once everyone has a chance to prepare themselves he'll order the White Base closer in and call for the most thorough scan they can do. 

There is some I field interference interfering with the scans due to use of Minovsky reactors, the kind commonly used in mobile suits and warships, but almost entirely concentrated in one spot instead of spread out, and not as strong as a reactor that had been running for a while would have produced. The interference is actually giving away the position of mobile suits since it hasn't had much time to spread, right inside the airlock of the structure on the surface, wich is much too small to fit a warship. The interference is stopping any good radar scans of the interior, however.

The door to the airlock on the surface begins to slide open, a mono eyed green Zeonic Zaku II mobile suit peeking its head out of the airlock to take a look, Machine gun still at its side. The giant war machine looking for all the world like a child peeking around a corner.

"Fraw Bow, tell Amuro and Kai not to shoot first. Then hail the Zaku." And into the phone "Battle Stations level one, but hold your fire."

The Zaku almost visibly flinches when it gets hailed and its monocular head swings around to notice the white base hovering overhead when it hears the hail, it raises its gun and a very shaky adolescent male voice can be heard yelling over the comms. "F-For the glory of Zeon! HAIL ZEON!" His voice breaking as he yells and clumsily charges forward, firing wildly towards the White Base. Even mobile suit sized machine guns cannot do much damage to the White Base from this distance, and the Zaku pilot seems to not even notice the Gundam and Guncannons on the ground.

He is clearly an utter non-threat. So Amuro will feel some regret at killing him on pure instinct, but thats what happens when you threaten the home of a traumatized Newtype.

The Zaku II explodes in a ball of pink mega particle smoke and shrapnel. Nothing else comes out of the Airlock for a long while, until a mobile suit sized gunbarrel with a white bedsheet tied to it waves out the airlock.

When the wait begins to stretch on Bright will contemplate what if anything he should have done differently. It is plausible Amuro's action was the actual best choice, and it was certainly within the scope of his orders. But it seems plausible they could have gained an advantage or at least costlessly avoided bloodshed if he had made the possibility of capturing the Zaku part of his orders.

All of this is set aside once the Zeon's respond.

"Fraw Bow, tell the pilots to stand by, then try to raise the base directly."

He'll also order two buggies and a landing party prepped.

The I field blocks weaker radio communication, even if the structure has a receiver to hear them, the Zeons might not have the power in their radio set up to punch through the interference and respond, and they cant beam laser communications at a receiver like they could at the now destroyed Zaku II unless the mobile suit waving the flag of surrender sticks more than just the barrel of its gun out the door.

Once a landing party drives up to the airlock door they will see a nearly nonfunctional Dom model mobile suit, missing one arm and part of one leg on the same side and much of the armour missing, the gun barrel holding the flag out the door is connected to a machine gun without its magazine. The pilot has left the cockpit and is leaning against the remaining leg of the mobile suit, himself also visibly heavily injured, a cast can be seen on one leg and bandages can be seen through his helmet visor. Two women in Zeon uniforms stand behind a glass wall looking in on the airlock from inside the structure, in a pressurized area and thus not wearing helmets. The shorter woman of the two being held back by the other as she shakes her fist at the arriving federal forces and yells at them, unheard due to the window separating them from the rarified atmosphere of mars.

Radio failing is completely unsurprising but it was worth a shot.

Bright and the two buggies advance into the base behind the Gundam, while the Guncanons stay to screen the White Base against any surprise attacks.

The first time the White Base captured anyone it a total mess, but after some time on cleanup duty the crew has something resembling an actual procedure for processing prisoners.

They give the screaming woman a second to see if she's accidentally revealing anything important. Assuming it is just the normal Seig Zeon claptrap, Bright will turn his attention to the sane one and give the spiel. Good treatment for cooperation, death for perfidy, Sayla and Job John will provide gender appropriate body searches and first aid. Oh and now that we are all nice and friendly, and clear that only one side is still armed you're going to tell us everything that is going on here.

The screaming woman is probably more accurately described as a girl now that she can seen close up, she can't be more than 15, Her uniform is a few sizes too big. Shes mostly screaming about how they killed Charlie, presumably the killed pilot, and what monsters they are. Nothing can be gained from her except curses and being spat on.

The injured pilot, who now the helmet is off you can see is maybe 30 and a clear veteran of the war, seems mostly resigned to his fate as a prisoner, just nods along to the standard spiel about treatment under the antarctic treaty. His cast and bandages are clearly not done by a trained medical professional and he seems relieved to be getting proper treatment, he jokes to the doctors that at least in feddie prison camps he will get better food than the nutrient paste that is all that their base had left. He tells the interrogators that he doesn't know much about what went on inside and he was just one of the planned guards and that his mobile suit had been shot up on the way there. He seems a little bitter but realistic about the pilot they had shot down, complaining that the commanding officer they had, had drafted and then filled the kids head with propaganda and zeal before leaving the base with everyone else under his command but the skeleton crew you saw now. He's fine giving away the size of the force that used to be stationed here that left a week ago, 4 Zaku II F type mobile suits in various states of repair, 2 prisitine Dom mobile suits and a Musai light carrier without much of its armor plating and an engine booster for added speed. He doesn't know where they went or even what this base was for, it was all kept top secret, him and the younger pilot were only left behind because he was injured and his mobile suit damaged and the younger pilot was barely trained.

Amuro is very aware that in retrospect the Zaku posed no real threat, and that he personally is good enough to have pulled normally impractical stunts like shooting the gun out of its hands. On the other hand the Zaku shot shot first, and a habit of not killing Zeon's as efficiently as possible wouldn't have served him well in the war.  Also, and this can not be stressed enough the other guy was trying to kill his friends.

After some internal debate he will offer a sort of apology. It is simultaneously heartfelt, and pretty victim blamy to the extent a space nazi solider actively shooting at people can be considered a victim.

Sayla did not actually graduate from med school due to the war, but she's still a major step up in medical skills. And the White Base's sandwiches are great, at least by the standards of military food.

All of the prisoners can go to the White Base brig, except the sane woman. Who will still get sandwiches, but will also "volunteer" to help them explore the base.

The woman who was holding back the angry girl is at least not a child, like the dead pilot and the angry girl were. She is late teens to early 20s if one had to guess. When talked to by the white base staff she will actually volunteer to tell them about the base and help them explore.

As they enter the base through the airlock and take off their helmets. she turns to Sayla, who she feels safest talking to rather than these scary soldiers and the very very intense looking pilot boy. "I swear I'm not even a real Zeon soldier! I was an ancient languages student at Diekum college on side 3, I even supported the shift to a republic! but these men said I had to serve Zeon and shipped me off here to translate the ruins here. I haven't even finished my degree and they want me to decipher ruins on mars as if I'm going to be able to translate alien!" rambling a little and not really realizing this idle complaining would be important news to the federation. "It's not like ancient humans are going to be space travelling, first the war and now freaking aliens! I studied Sumerian and Hebrew, not Martian."

Ok so this sounds like a nervous breakdown, but she will

Get interrupted by Amuro asking rapid fire questions about Martian technology before she actually has a chance to speak.

"I'm not an engineer how would I know! they just dragged me down here to try and translate the squiggles on the big glowing rock they found, they hooked up a bunch of machines to it and showed me more squiggles on the screen like the ones on the rock, best I can figure out is maybe on and off, based on turning the glowing lights on and off when they return those symbols to it via their machines, and maybe the word star or star system because there's literally pictures of constellations next to those words, and like a smattering of other stuff. It's barely similar to even being structured like any language we know of, it's definitely not Sumerian I can tell you that. It's all right down the main elevator" Keying in the passcode to the elevator and letting them in. "Big spooky alien glowing rock underground, I've seen movies! Never Ever are big glowing things good, ever."

when the elevator arrives they are greeted with the scene of a big black obelisk with spooky blue glowing lines running through it in non natural patterns, surrounded by computers and other equipment.

"I need my toolkit."

Amuro will begin examining everything, occasionally running theories by the linguist when there is writing near it.

Bright and the rest will do a quick sweep of the area to make 100% sure there are no more hidden Zeons. That done they will head back to the White Base to fetch more mechanics, a better camera, and Amuro's tools.

Bright will also have them maneuver to an area with slightly lower I field interference but still in sight of the base and attempt to raise Federation HQ.

I field interference can last for weeks, part of the peace with the republic of zeon included an agreement about not using Minovsky reactors around populated areas, radio is very important to civilian needs after all, so the need to manoeuvre out of range of it will be there for a while. But luckily mobile suit use was minimal and it does not take much distance to not have to rely on point to point laser comms anymore. Mars is about 10 light minutes away from earth right now so there is a big delay between a message and a response.

"This is Federation command, we are receiving you, what is the status of your mission?"

While Bright is hailing the federation, the Zeon linguist is still chatting away, shes very... stream of consciousness, maybe out of nervousness or maybe that's just how she is.

"I haven't even been allowed down here for months, and they wouldn't let me go home either. The last thing they showed me was little over a week ago, they were all 'tell us what these circles mean and what this lit up dot means', and I was like 'uhhh I don't even have to be a linguist to recognize the shape of all the planets orbital path, that's the solar system and the lit-up one is Pluto'. I thought space captains were supposed to know about... you know, space? so just a few days later they pack everyone into a Musai and leave the 4.... well I guess 3 now..." She looks sad for a brief moment but then puts back on her usual energetic mood. "Anyway they left the rest of us here and all packed up and flew off as fast as they could! And then you guys got here, and now here we are." She seems to ponder for a bit, finger on her chin. "You think anyone on your ship would let me borrow some clothes? I kind of hate this uniform, long pants! and thick material too." She turns to Sayla. "Even your uniform looks way more comfortable even if it is a bit... like the person in charge of uniforms certainly was a man with the uniform having a skirt like that." Gesturing to how short it was, and she keeps chatting about less relevant to the mission things, not really caring if she doesn't get a response.

"This is White Base we have secured the facility and taken 3 prisoners. Interrogation indicates that the majority of the Zeon forces, consisting of 4 Zaku II F type mobile suits, 2 Dom mobile suits and a Musai light carrier stripped of its armor and equipped with an engine booster, departed half a week ago. Destination currently unknown. The base contains a large amount of exotic technology that the remaining Zeon personnel claim no understanding of. Our personel have begun an examination, but not yet reached any conclusions. One of the Zeons claims to be a kidnapped civilian and that the technology was created by aliens...

She's also showing severe signs of mental instability so we are currently discounting this information. Is it possible to confirm if she was actually a linguistics student at Diekum college?"

Honestly she seemed more stressed than anything, but someone in her situation having a breakdown will sound a lot more plausible than aliens. He's seen the glowing rock himself and is still less than fully convinced about the aliens. But at the same time he can't just leave out what could be the most important part of his report. Once their own tech team has reported in, and HQ has had a chance to look into the girl's background they can get things settled.

The Federation runs the ID of all the prisoners who got captured, they all seem to be who they claim to be, at least according to normal publicly available side 3 records. Jacinda Sen a third-year ancient languages student is definitely someone who exists, top grades at Diekum college, and she looks like the ID photo from her school. The pilot and female soldier both check out as well. Federation command relays all of this back to the White Base. Along with a query for how exotic do they mean by exotic? like the Psycommu tech for newtypes Zeon had at the end of the war exotic? superweapon exotic? command is very worried about another solar array class superweapon.

Back in the ruins, Jacinda is trying to make her case to a disbelieving soldier.

"We radiometrically dated every single thing in this room, the big glow rock is over 50,000 years old, it can't be human! We didn't even have agriculture back then! We were still beating mammoths to death with rocks!"

She is very grumpy that someone would not take her seriously, she thought she was very serious!

In time it takes them to run the records and handle both ends of the light speed delay Bright hears back from Amuro and receives detailed pictures to forward to the Federation as proof he has not gone insane himself.

"Alien Exotic. I didn't believe it at first but you can see the photos and the attached written summary by our tech team. We still do not know the purpose of the technology present here, but further questioning of Ms.Sen suggests that the departed forces are headed for Pluto based on her interpretation of the image shown in figure 3 as a star chart."

The written report and photos are pretty strongly in favor of the aliens theory, but not super useful beyond that.

From under one of the desks; "She's right this is obviously alien, can you hand me the oscilloscope."

Sayla will try to placate her by discussing the possibility of replacement clothes only slightly hindered by their lack of selection.

Jacinda is absolutely petty enough to stick her tongue out at the disbelieving soldier when Amuro confirms she is right, and then happily chats about clothes with Sayla, for some reason she seems to really like Sayla even though Sayla acts as much the professional as any of the others. The other soldiers were mostly pretty large and dangerous looking male soldiers so that might have been why.

More importantly, because Amuro proved she was right to the soldier, she also helps him out even if she did get spooky intense vibes from him and would otherwise have stayed away. Helping by pointing out the glyphs for ON and OFF, and how some of the Zeon computers are connected to the obelisk and how they displayed even more glyphs and symbols. She wasn't a computers kind of person but she knew that's what those computers over to the right did. 

Federation Command must have taken a long while to look over the data because the reply takes a long time to return.

"Command believes the threat of a superweapon to be even greater with the data you have sent them, whether alien or not this technology is beyond ours and clearly dangerous if the Zeons were in such a hurry. White Base is commanded to collect all data and records in the base as quickly as possible and then make your way to this rendevous with all haste" The console shows the relevant coordinates. "Going full burn including using Minovsky reactions in inhabited space. Where you will be provided with an engine booster and a GM Sniper Custom mobile suit for long-range support in case the Zeons have more forces than expected there. We apologize for sending you all the way out there for a months-long trip out past even where the Jupiter energy fleet travels, but this threat cannot be ignored. You will bring the prisoners with you in case they have relevant experience about the exotic technology. We again apologize for sending you so far out."

The tone of voice changes from the one used to give orders. "Hey I've been your operator for this whole mission, this is wild huh? Ive been told this entire mission is classified and revealing it is treason! they can shoot you for that! crazy stuff going on. Even command feels guilty for their orders this time and command never feels bad about anything, I guess spending months stuck in space on just one ship, past where anyone can talk to you or come help seems worse to them than combat orders. So I'll see if we can swing you some officers luxury supplies for the whole crew, help keep morale up during the long trip, good luck White Base!"

Bright will forward the relevant prep commands to the crew then responds; "We have commenced data gathering and will launch in 45 minutes. Sending flight trajectory confirmation now." Fraw Bow forwards the relevant data.

"As for the base here should we leave it intact for future investigation or scuttle it on our way out?"

More informally; "Thanks for the supplies we'll take whatever you can spare. Ms.Sen has requested civilian clothing if you can find any in her size. She's been very cooperative and I think it will be better for everyone if she stops looking like a Zeon solider."

Amuro would really like more time to investigate, but him and the rest of the landing team will make it back in time for launch.

The Federation sends back commands for them to weld the airlock shut but leave the possible alien object intact, the federation will send its own team shortly. It also asks for personal requests from the crew for anything they want as supplies, within reason. Civilian clothes in miss Sens size is perfectly doable, and better food than the long shelf life vending machine style sandwich rations is already planned for. 

The easiest solution for the landing team to collect all the data is just to rip all the computers out of the walls and take them with them, every hard drive in the mars base and every specialized looking equipment, even if nobody knows what it does, is loaded onto the White Base just in case it's useful.

Bright will see that carried out and get people to forward their requests via Fraw Bow.

The kids want lots of sweets and toys. Fraw Bow includes some of this while replacing others with somewhat healthy kid focused requests.

Kai has taken a liking to the image of having a fancy cigar in his mouth and sipping champaign so he requests some of each, even though he doesn't smoke at all and only slightly drinks. He does refrain from putting in a request for more of the "aviator glasses" he found last time he had shore leave.

Amuro and the other technical people all request a lot of equipment that should help with their mission, most of which was already going to be included. After talking to Jacinda they will add some books on the rather speculative field of xenolinguists and the more concrete history of attempts at reconstructing past languages.

Beyond that they're a lot of requests for the typical "good stuff" in terms of popular food and uniform parts that are hard to find in good sizes. The crew also collectively requests some library and rec room upgrades since they will be out of dock so long.

While veterans are hardly going to let an opportunity like this go to waste, the requests are more subdued then they might otherwise be for a two reasons. One the crew is well aware of the space constrains they are under, and two they are already pretty well supplied. In particular the various civilian ports they have docked in while chasing Zeon remnants had much more "fun" things than the military, which probably had Kai in mind when inventing uniforms. And while the crew is hardly rich they did have their war backpay and the rather mysterious gold bars Bright somehow got for them to play around with.

As the ship travels to the rendezvous with the supplies and booster, the information warfare trained crew (who were pretty useless in combat due to I field interference being put out by war machines) finally had a chance to shine, getting and collating and organizing every scrap of data in the Zeon drives, and avoiding protocols meant to wipe the data when accessed by someone without the right codes, really doing a great job and not losing any of it. Plenty of stuff to pass onto the Federation for analysis during the rendevous. 

Eventually, the White Base comes into view of the Federation rendezvous, the engine booster is almost as big as the whole ship! 

Amuro will of course stick his nose into the booster before it is set off. He quickly realizes that it is made from mobile suit reactors, and enough of them for a literal small army. When he tells this to the rest of the crew it finally sinks in just how terrified HQ is of the potential super-weapon they are chasing.

All the supplies are loaded onto the ship, the hangar is now very crowded with supply boxes, ships do not usually travel this long without resupply, there are always emergency nutrient pills to last a month if left adrift in space but the crew cannot be expected to live on those for the trip, so bulky luxury food for multiple months for the whole crew is loaded on as well as a whole box of media collected from the crew of the supply ship who decided to donate their personal collections. There has never been a trip this far out by a federation ship so a feeling of patriotic comradery overtook the crew of the supply ships when they heard about this mission, even if they did not get to know WHY the White base was going out that far.

Along with the supplies the White Base has to fit in an entirely new mobile suit to add to the 3 already on board. The GM Sniper II is on paper as strong as the original Gundam in both power output and maneuverability, With specialized cameras for long-range sniping and a powerful long-range beam cannon that shot much further than the Gundams medium range beam gun, but its ammo capacity was much smaller as a tradeoff. Though its stats were near equal to the original Gundam, it did not have the AI the Gundam does that enabled it to pull off insane manoeuvres, and the new replacement Gundam Amuro currently had was even more agile than the original Gundam due to an improved Minovsky reactor and so outclasses the GM Sniper II. The GM Sniper II truly was a machine for Ace pilots or the legendary Newtypes who had improved reaction speed compared to normal humans. It did not come with a pilot so Captian Bright has to pick who will pilot it.

This is a very difficult decision, but he eventually goes with Hayato. Sayla is a very tempting choice since she is more likely to actually be a Newtype, but she is needed for the G-fighter and with no learning AI he wants the new GM to go to someone with plenty of mobile suit experience. Kai is also tempting, and would probably make slightly better use of it, but at this point has really mastered the Guncanon so Bright doesn't want to reassign him.

Finally Job John will get the spare Guncanon.

The booster is fitted, the supply crew undocks. The supply crew can be seen saluting from the bridge windows of their Salamis cruiser at the White Base as it departs. All the supply crew were told is it was a top-secret mission as far out as Pluto, but this is the near-legendary White Base so they are sure its important, and nobody has ever gone out that far before, so they are showing their respect to the White Base.

For the captured Zeons Jacinda doesn't mind this trip so much, she is much less nervous and rambling around the White Base crew and is assigned to poring over the language data that was collected. The captured pilot is fine being confined to a room, it's nicer than what he would expect a Federation prison camp to be and the food certainly is better. The angry girl calms down but still has to be confined to a cell, refuses to leave on the promise of good behaviour in fact, but the pilot and Jacinda visit her to keep her company often enough.

And off they go after the Zeon army remnants to Pluto, to stop whatever it is they are up. It is going to be a VERY long trip.

The kids, and for that matter the adults that aren't busy actually flying the ship like Bright, Mirai and the operators will enthusiastically return the salute.

Even with the booster the trip lasts for months. Making things worse, the White Base is effectively overstaffed for much of the trip.

On paper the 13th Autonomous Corps is on the small side to crew a Pegaus class ship. And that is with the accidental inclusion of the kids. Three war orphans who have been tagging along since their parents died and they were defacto adopted by Fraw Bow.

This showed during the war when even the kids frequently found themselves covering other peoples' roles.

However, those numbers and reality were both for a combat intensive posting. Without near daily firefights, as well as the accompanying repairs, and need to cover for casualties it would be quite possible for the crew to get bored. Luckily they have ways to fill the time.

One of the newer crew is unpacking a crate specifically marked for the kids and is currently surrounded by the kids who are wondering what they would get. The lid gets pried off and revealed are...

A bunch of models of the various mobile suits and vehicles of the Federation, meant for an old school tactical war table? The crewman supposes they'd make decent toys once assembled, handing the kids the boxes with the unassembled plastic and metal models of various military hardware.

"Here you go, you might need some help putting them together but you can fun playing with these Gundams and GMs and Zakus, ooohh look they even have little buggies and tanks and fighter jets, isn't that fun kids?"

"Yeah that looks cool."
"We can put them together ourselves. It will be fun."
"Thanks mister."

One broken Gundam arm later...

"We should ask Amuro for help.

"Yeah he fixes real Gundams."

Amuro is in the middle of re-re-retuning the real Gundam's computer when the kids catch up to him with a scale model Gundam missing an arm and asking for help.
He has brief flash of annoyance out of habit, but realizes he has more time than he really knows what to do with.
"Yeah, I can fix this it just needs to be seated properly." He says as he pops the arm into place.

"Where did you get this?" And after staring at it for a second. "And why is it this weird grey color?"

"Thanks Amuro!" 
"It was in the supplies for us with abuncha other models."
"I think there was some paint."

"Do you want some help with the paint? I should probably take a break from the big Gundam for a bit."

Since he worked through lunch again, Fraw Bow will pick this moment to come in with the sandwiches he is getting instead of the good food they've been supplied with.
"Oh good you're already taking a break, and your helping the kids too. Thats great."

"Oh yeah, lunch. We were just going to go paint these new models they sent as toys."

The five of them will wander back to the common room the kids were using and start putting together models. Amuro gets very enthusiastic about the detail work, while Fraw Bow is mostly just happy to be working together on something that isn't war. The kids are loving every minute of it.

There are more models than could be put together in a day, even if the kids didn't stop to play with them. Fraw Bow also points out that it makes sense to stretch out building them over the trip. So model play becomes a reoccurring activity done a few hours a day, and will slowly rack up more adherents.

Meanwhile, the rest of the crew and their prisoners continue to prepare for Pluto, or at least kill time.

Mirai's job as helmsman is one of the worst for this mission, because with a preset course through an untrafficked space lane she has nothing to actually do. But at the same time it would be irresponsible to have no one at the controls while hurling through uncharted territory at record breaking speed.

The operators and, to a lesser extent, Bright are in the same position. The result is long stretches of silence intermixed with the sort of idle chit-chat they didn't have time for during the war.

"Did you know I almost took up scuba diving instead of space glider piloting? The diving people showed us all these great pictures of the ocean, but then I realized side 7 didn't have anything like that in its ocean."

"So we would have lost the war if they'd installed some corral reefs?"

"I don't think I'm actually that important."

"The White Base never would have made it as far as Luna II without you. And maybe I'm being arrogant, but I'm not sure the Federation would have won the war without us."

Mirai doesn't quite know how to respond, and silence returns to the bridge.

Jacinda's experience during the trip is... complicated. On the one hand, everyone here is way less uptight and mean than in the Zeon mars base, on the other hand, she STILL is technically a prisoner. Though maybe a better kind of prisoner? Is being a prisoner of war less bad than being a kidnapped prisoner? She tries to be upbeat and friendly and make friends but a lot of the crew still keep her at arm's length because she was captured as an enemy, but the army kidnapped her! She wasn't on mars willingly! It's totally unfair. She misses side 3 and the crazy parties the history department would get up to, she needs that constant social activity going on in her life so badly.

She instead spends most of her time trying to translate a written language she was pretty sure was not based on a verbal language at all, she didn't know if it was based on smell signals or sign language or what, but she was getting the vibe that these written words are not based on spoken ones. She wasn't even sure they were proper words and not like... Some other thing that pointed to concepts but was structured differently. At least she could be pretty sure they saw visually due to the very obvious visual representations of star maps and constellations, which was what she was basing most of her word meaning guesses on because they were next to the star map pictures.

This was driving her nuts and she needed to talk to someone, anyone! So, during one of her breaks, she goes to find the nice blonde girl who she was pretty sure was called Sayla, she seems nice and less weird about her having been captured on a Zeon base as Zeon personnel.

Sayla is taking a chance to enjoy the good food in mess while it lasts. She will say hello to Jacinda, but seems to be a bit distracted.

This just means she has to try harder! "So I heard you pilot one of the fighters? Isn't that scary? Wouldn't you rather be safe on the ship doing something technical? I hate being scared, wouldn't even go bungee jumping with the literature majors when they offered like right before the army grabbed me." One sidedly chatting until they gave in and responded, that was the way to victory!.

"I'm not a coward."
As soon as she says it she realizes she probably shouldn't have. But how else was she supposed to respond.

"I guess not everyone is cut out for the military though."

Jacinda pouts at that whole line of reasoning. "You can be scared and still do things you know, I don't just hide in my room even though I'm literally always surrounded by enemy soldiers who captured me and shot Charlie down. And it's not like just being on your ship instead of out fighting is perfectly safe either, I know the first White Base got blown up. I know the non-combat crews lost a lot of people, they talk about it all the time and I hear things. Is the cook a coward for not going out? Is the captain?"

This is exactly what she was worried about. Now she has to have a conversation. About feelings. With a near stranger.
"You asked if I'd rather be doing something safer, and I said why I wouldn't. I didn't mean anything more than that when I said I wasn't a coward. Bright and Tamura aren't cowards, and thats why they are in the military. Actually, they're some of the few people who joined on purpose instead of getting roped into it."

This conversation is going horribly. She's not exactly a social butterfly, but even randomly meeting her bother on the battlefield didn't go quite this poorly. She snaped at an insult that wasn't even an insult because she wasn't paying attention and now is doing damage control. Is she getting her point across? What even was her point? Does Jacinda know Tamura is the cook? She must at least know Bright is the captain right?

"Well... Good then." Crossing her arms looking satisfied at having cleared that up. And now she knew the cook's name too, though the cook seemed so focused in the kitchen he was one of the only people she didn't want to try and insert herself into a social situation with. And now... A silence that was dragging on a little longer than was comfortable, wich for Jacinda was any silence at all for any amount of time.

"Sooooooo, what are you doing to keep busy during the trip? I've tried to focus on work translating but I'm starting to hate these aliens and their squiggles. And it's not like you probably have much fighter pilot stuff to do."

Thank God, a chance to change the topic. To something she has things to say about even.
"I still do simulator work, and some very limited practice flights. But not too many since we need to conserve fuel. Mostly I've been reading to try to catch up with my medical studies even though I don't think I'll get an actual degree at this point"

And thinking about Char, and Zeon, and Amuro, and life, the universe, and everything really.

"Ohhhh I hung out with a lot of medical students back at school, is it just me or are a lot of doctor types really hot? You would think it'd be the same nerdier distribution of people in other science fields but like doctors... They tend to be hot. I thought it was just something on TV for hospital dramas but like... look at you! You'd fit right into one of those shows!" Sudden realization dawns on Jacinda's face. "Oh uhhhh, I've heard about how uhh... permissive and free the federation is with... Stuff, totally not hitting on you, just in case you are... not that there's anything wrong with that! But I was being very flattering and I realized I've never seen you with a guy so uhhh... I'm not saying you are though! I'm just going to shut up now and die inside..." Trailing off and hiding her face in her hands.

Same-sex relationships and even really talking about any of that was heavily discouraged under the Zabi family leadership, that every woman had a duty to create more soldiers for Zeon was a big part of the propaganda, so she had absolutely no idea how to talk about any of that stuff. She did not personally have a problem with people being gay, shed just never had to talk about it before or worry about another woman taking what she says in a flirty way, but she had heard lots of things about how libertine the federation was compared to Zeon so was worried maybe it would be taken that way.

"Thanks for the compliment? But I like guys"

If she's being honest there is a specific guy she already has some interest in, but she is yet to even start to raise the topic with him so...

"Oh thank god, I felt like I was going to sink right through the deck and into space in embarrassment. Just I'd never seen you with any guys and you hear all sorts of really really wild stories about what's common in the federation and I got worried. Like I never believed the wildest obvious lies like the one that federation ship captains have a harem of enslaved captured enemies. It'd be a much bigger deal and not a rumour of you were breaking the antarctic treaty with prisoners like that. But the idea that like gay flirting is common and you all get up to some craaazy stuff, doesn't seem so wild. The Federations supposed to have freedom and stuff. I know people that defected because they were probably gay." Jacinda is glad that got cleared up. But now, now is the chance for juicy social gossip. Leaning in with the most foxlike conspiratorial smile you've ever seen. 

"Soooooooo, any guys on board you like? I don't think there's a single guy over 35 on this whole ship, it's like THE best posting for seeing attractive guys. Bright is kinda cute in a serious way, Job seems nice and has great hair, and this might be the Zeon propaganda talking but he's a  blonde you know? blondes are super cute. I even have a pin-up of the red comet." She whispers that last part conspiratorially.

Nononono. Wait hold on there's a way out if this

"A harem? How did that rumor even get started. I think" and she leans in for this, "that Bright has a thing for Mirai. The helmswoman if you didn't know. But I can't even imagine him with a harem."

Luckily Jacinda is easily distracted from questions!

"I told you I didn't believe that though! I'm guessing it's so pilots don't surrender because they think they'll become sex slaves to the eeeeeviiil federation captains." Making spooky hand waving gestures for emphasis. "And I'm pretty sure whatever secret police guy is spreading those rumours knows they are silly and unbelievable, but maybe you don't believe that specific rumour, but the whole mess of rumours about the sexual deviancy of the federation still gives you an impression of them as terrible 'degenerates' and thus making them easier to hate." Making big air quotes with her fingers when she says 'degenerates' to make it clear she doesn't believe that.

"The funny thing about the propaganda about eeeevil degenerate federation captains was that underground authors ran with the idea of the sexually degenerate federation so you ended up with illegal smut books about how hot and attractive your captains are and how they'd conquer captured Zeon soldiers with their raw sexual charisma." Jacinda giggles at the idea, and totally does not have some of those kinds of books hidden under her mattress.

"Your captain seems like a perfectly nice guy if a little uptight, and totally not the stereotype you'd get from the propaganda, like the exact opposite, he's kinda handsome but not like a dashing romantic villain sort of thing you know? Mirai also seems a bit serious too when I've passed her in the corridors so I guess they suit each other?"

"Yeah exactly but they're also the type to take forever to do anything. Besides, she might be engaged? Her parents arranged something and I think she broke it off but I'm not actually sure. Also there was the whole thing with Sleggar, but we don't even know if he's going to make it out of his coma." She suddenly goes very silent.

Oh wow this got dark, uhhh needs more optimism! Distraction! "Weellll we are all trapped in this ship for a loooong time, even after we catch up to those Zeon army guys the trip back will be pretty long too. I bet being stuck together for so long is gonna make plenty of romance bloom~ Love conquers all obstacles and It's not like there's much else to do here for that long, there's gonna be so many people becoming couples~ " She looks eager at the prospect of relationship drama going on around her.

"Being stuck with people really makes people wanna get together. Seriously I'm kinda glad you captured me off that base because we were only isolated there for just a single week and I was halfway towards talking myself into going after Friedrich, that's the pilot you guys got, he's kind of old but the only other choice was Charlie and he was 15! yuck no. Going after Friedrich would have been such a mistake you have no idea, oh god he's so serious! He's the kind of guy who wants to get married instantly." Jacinda looks horrified at the prospect of marriage.

One of the soldiers waves at Jacinda. "Oh, well that's my break over. this was nice, we should talk more sometime~" And off she goes to go back to look at alien squiggles all day.

Sayla thinks some more. Mostly about Amuro. She really should just say something. But she has no idea what. They are a fighting duo with her in the G-fighter and him in the Gundam, but he's so introverted that they don't actually talk all that much. Well hopefully she'll think of something before Pluto.

The captured pilot also gets some break times, he's been well behaved even if he isn't doing work for the white base crew like Jacinda is, so he is allowed out of his room if a guard follows him around. That seems fair enough to him. So off he goes to the common room to maybe pick out some books from the shelves or find someone to talk to, he can only do pushups in his room for so long after all. He takes a look around for anyone seeming vaguely interesting and non-hostile. Though the hostile looks from some of the crew are also fair enough, he's from the other side after all.

Over in the corner the kids and one of the young pilots are doing some sort craft project.

He recognizes that hair. That's the boy in the pilot suit from when he surrendered, he curiously walks over and recognizes the project as little mobile suit models, the detail work is pretty impressive. He sees a Zaku picture on one of the parts boxes. "Uh... hello, excuse me. If I'm not welcome that's perfectly fine, but those mobile suit models look pretty interesting... can I try my hand at a Zaku?"

Letz shoves one into his hands before anyone else can react. So looks like thats a yes.

"Thank you." He neds politely to the boy and takes the box to sit down at the table with it. Opening the box up and examining how the parts clip together to make a finished model, and then carefully assembling it. "I might have ended up a Dom pilot but the Zaku II and Zaku II command type are still my favourite mobile suits. All insane power and almost no control, before the new generation federation machines they were the fastest thing in space."

Given his tendency to run across them in neutral zones Amuro's feelings about individual Zeons are already milder than many in the Federation military, and he is above almost all else a mobile suit otaku. So he is very willing to have this conversation and ignore any negative associations he has around Zaku's.

"Yeah, I think they mostly just needed a reactor upgrade so they could handle beam weaponry. I guess thats kind of what the Gelgoog was but there were enough other changes its hard to say."

His model mobile suit is completed and now just needs the fiddly parts glued on and to be painted, he coats it black so the other paints show up better and starts painting the base colour it will be. A Red Comet shade of red. "The Gelgoog is a fantastic machine, only 80 were made I think. Supposed to be as powerful as the legendary Gundam. I never got to pilot one obviously. " He chuckles. "Only the rich pseudo nobility from the war academy got to do that. It's a lovely design though. And I'm sure everyone can appreciate the better pilot safety rating, that things cockpit will take a lot more of a beating before you have to get worried. Some of them even have cockpit ejectors!" Even federation pilots could surely gripe about how easy it was for pilots to be killed in mobile suits. If a mobile suits reactor didn't explode due to damage and vaporise the whole unit, then the pilot was much more likely to die before the mobile suit actually was destroyed. Mobiles suits were more expensive than pilots after all.

Amuro will make a loose mental note to pass the intel part of this on to Bright on the off chance the Federation hasn't already found out.

"I fought a few. They were more powerful than the Gundam was when I first got it, but not able to match all its upgrades."

"The ejector seat sounds really useful. We had one of our pilots survive his fighter being destroyed because he was hit at just the right angle to be thrown clear but he also smashed his head in the process. I hope he's out of the hospital by now."

"By the way how did the whole academy thing work? I never quite figured that part out."

First the red base coat, then the highlights, now to glue on the Zaku II command types signature antenna. "Oh only the richest sons got to go to the military academy with the exception a very small amount of scholarships, and then you go straight to being a squad leader or having a ship command or something else important, and you can order around pretty much anyone who didn't go even if they match your rank, sort of like a commissioned officer in the army but all exclusive like and you start off as one. Too fancy for the likes of me, enlistees do not get to go to the academy. The Red Comet got a rare scholarship though, rumour has it he got perfect marks on the intake exams, ended up in the class of Garma Zabi of all people."

A shadow crosses Friedrich's face. "Hey you guys don't get censored news, is it true the Red Comet was the one to kill the Zabis? Everyone who hasn't surrendered Isn't allowed to get news from the now Republic of Zeon, and you weren't allowed to talk about how the Zabis died either."

"We don't know all the details because so many witnesses are dead. But it looks like Degwin was killed by friendly fire when he tried to negotiate a peace without warning the rest of the fleet he was moving in the path of the colony laser, but I've heard a rumor it was intentional to stop the negotiations. Char did actually shoot the bridge of that command ship so there is no one left that really knows."

He had almost finished painting his Zaku II model in Red Comet colours, and after getting confirmation that Char had shot the command ship, stops. He had never believed that rumour so to have it confirmed so matter of factly was a shock.

He didn't know what to think now. Char Aznable had been THE example for almost every enlisted soldier, proving that a nobody could rise through the ranks, that a nobody could join the war college and become someone important no matter where you came from. To most of the troops, Char had been the example of Spacenoid (and possibly Newtype) supremacy over the Earthlings, and not the ruling Zabis.

But it had been Supreme Ruler Degwin Zabi to take up the mantle of Spacenoid rights and Spacenoid freedom from the Earth Federation from political philosopher and prime minister of Side 3 Zeon Daikun after his tragic death, to name the newly independent state after Zeon and turn Side 3 from just another colony to a nation that could rival the forces of earth, despite being outnumbered 20 to 1. It had also been the Zabi children acting as generals who were leading their forces to victory after victory and giving their people something to be proud of.

And to add on top of all that the possibility that Supreme Ruler Degwin had been killed by his own side, maybe Char had acted to get vengeance for Degwin? Friedrich really had no idea what to think anymore.

"I see... that is troubling news..." He reigns in his emotions and keeps his composure, though someone having paid close attention could have seen the emotions on his face directly after hearing the news. "If it's allowed... Could I have access to basic unclassified intel on the war, our officers told us Degwin died in glorious battle and it seems I might have been kept ignorant of many other facts, I will, of course, assume it is full of propaganda but it will at least tell me what I wasn't supposed to hear."

After a long moment, he decides to continue painting his Zaku II, whether Char was a traitor or not it was still a cool machine.

"I'm not sure if its allowed but I'll ask."

Wow Char really has a way of making things complicated. He probably should just leave things there but without really meaning to he adds:

"I met Char on side 6 once. It was pretty weird. I don't think he recognized me. My buggy got stuck and he helped me tow it out."

"Were you dressed as a civilian? Seems like the sort of thing he would do is help out some random civvie."

"Thats the thing, I was in uniform. He said something about how normally he shouldn't help me but since we were on neutral ground he'd make an exception. I don't remember the exact words."

"I don't think I would have done that, helped out a feddie soldier, I was much angrier when the war was in full swing. I wouldn't have broken Side 6 neutrality but I might have spat as I drove by. Didn't realize yet the war was over the second the feddies got mobile suits, you always had the massive economic and population advantage and mobile suits were the only reason we were winning."

Looks meaningfully at the federation mobile suit models Amuro had been making for the kids.

"Didn't realize it till I got shot down and had time to think at that base you grabbed me from, seeing everyone around me be much too young or green as hell. The proud Zeonic forces were no more, a whole generation thrown into the meat grinder and having nothing to show for it, and seeing the Federation filled with young folks like you made me realise that was true for both sides. No offence but kids shouldn't have to go to war."

He does all the finishing touches on his model, all the command insignia and the fiddly bits like the antenna were painted and it was as done as it could be with the skill at painting Friedrich had.
"All done, if one of you smaller kids wants it you can have it." He says to the orphan trio.

Letz will take it.

"This was right before the end, so I think he had already realized and just wasn't ready to give up once he was back on the battlefield. I'm not sure through. I was forced into the war and never really paid much attention to the reasons for it."

This is really awkward, but strangely kinda nice. Civvies don't understand, and the rest of the crew does but it would be weird to talk to them about anything Zeon without focusing on the part where they attacked their home then chased them across the system.

"I'd say the Zeonic forces wouldn't force people to join, but they started to as soon as Side 3 Surrendered and became a republic. That educated lady Jacinda wasn't given a choice for joining the forces, and honestly the fact I was surrounded by brainwashed kids and conscripts was half the reason I surrendered. The people in charge didn't deserve me going out in a blaze of glory for them, not anymore, and someone had to look after who they left behind."

He stands up. "Well this was fun, I haven't really had much chance to talk soldiering or mobile suits with anyone, the guards who take turns following me around aren't very chatty, and Jacinda is a bit too much sometimes and doesn't really care about this sort of stuff, and Sofie just is always angry about Charlie dying all the time, and hates me for not trying to kill as many of you as I can. So this was enjoyable." And leaves the break room, to go back to his room/cell.

"See you around I guess."

Later on Amuro will pass on the tiny amount of maybe actually relevant mobile suit info to Bright. Who will in turn include it as a low priority attachment next time the White base phones home. He'll also go ahead and ok access to civilian news sources for the prisoners.

After finishing some simulator time Sayla will find herself in front of angry girl's cell. 

To start off with she won't actually say anything just look in.

She is sitting on her cot looking very miserable, all hunched over, her hair hanging over her face. She is Still in the Zeon uniform they captured her in. If Sayla has talked to anyone who guards her she would have heard that the prisoner only ever wears her uniform or the uniform Jacinda abandoned that is much too big for her, she refuses to wear civilian clothes or federation prisoner uniforms at all.

Sayla has many strengths. Staring dramatically, and flying fighters are among them.

Making actual plans and using her words kinda aren't.

"You know the entire Zabi family is dead anyway."

Strictly speaking this isn't true, but Mineva's survival isn't well known and the in-laws don't count.

The girl looks up at the barred window in the door and glares. "I knew that before I joined up you idiot! All you earthlings are degenerates that need to be controlled or wiped out whether there is a Zabi in charge or not." She spits at the door but she is not the best spitter, it doesn't go very far and part of it dribbles embarrassingly down her chin, very much ruining the intended effect. She wipes her chin and goes back to glaring.

This was a bad idea but as long as she's here.

"I was born in space and most of the crew is from side 7 even if they weren't born there."

"Federation bootlickers are practically earthlings anyway, I heard side 7 got attacked by the Red Comet and got wiped out. Once we wipe all of you out it can be filled with loyal Zeons instead of Federation dogs." At this point its fairly obvious to anyone with any level of social awareness that the girls heart isn't in it. Shes forcing herself to spit the insults out as vehemently as possible rather than actually being that angry. Just trying to hurt Sayla however she can. 

There is something incredibly stupid Sayla could say about exactly where in space she was born and under what circumstances, but she won't.

"Most of it was wiped out, but the rest escaped on the first White Base. If you want to spend the rest of your life in a cell I can't stop you, but you should ask Friedrich and Jacinda how their approach is working out."

And dramatic flounce time.

"Those two are traitors and should be hanged!" The girl yells, taking off a shoe and throwing it at the barred window, impacting with a clang.

Right she is obviously doing horrible at conversations today. So might as well go talk to Amuro.

"So it's kinda interesting having Zeon prisoners on board."

She has totally ever flirted in her life. Ok so that was a lie but no time like the present.

"Yeah, the pilot seems pretty ok, but he got really weird when Char came up."

Whyyyyy do things keep coming back to Char. Avoid the topic.

"Jacinda seems fine but talks a bit too much. Did you know" she thinks I'm hot "she was told that Federation captians have harems."

...
Is talking about harems flirting? Probably not.

"Well it sounds like Zeon does a lot of propaganda."

"Yeah. A lot."

Well maybe just let this conversation die, unless.

"By the way we've been helping the kids build models. Its pretty fun you should check it out some time."

"Its a date."

Bad wording bad. Anyway time to exit the scene now.

Later on the kids are putting together more of the models with some supervision from Fraw and Hayoto, who are practically their parents at this point. They've basically gone through all of the mobile suits, but are still have a lot of ground vehicles and some planes.

Fraw Bow has brought some snacks along for everyone and is handing them out.

Hayato Is having fun making old type federation tanks, they have a lot of fiddly bits the kids had trouble with, simplicity of design was not a core concept of federation design teams back when these were made, gluing little machine gun turrets and little soldiers to the turret nests on the front of the tank. He thanks Fraw for the snacks with a shy smile, ever since he got injured that one time during the war they had gotten real close and he felt lucky to be around her, and it was nice to see Fraw so relaxed now everyone she cared about wasn't constantly in danger.

Fraw really is feeling a lot more relaxed these days. All of the combat was nerve-racking. Also, she's pretty sure the kids wont get into any more secret bomb plots here.

Amuro and Salya will come in just as the snacks are finished. It sounds like he was just wrapping up an explanation of the modeling project for her.

"Oh hey Amuro. Fraw got me to help with the kids project too." He holds up a half finished tank in demonstration. 

"Cool! I was coming to see if there were any were any left Sayla could do."

"We've got plenty of vehicles left, and someone in logistics must have decided to put in some scenery pieces from a railway model kit or something because we've got a few houses, they very much arent the right scale for all the mobile suits and vehicles though. I don't think the kids will care." The fact that all the vehicles were to scale was a bit of a downside because while the mobile suit models were just the right size for your hands, the tiny little dune buggies and 2 person cars were tiny. The only regular vehicles getting big enough to be properly playable with were the APCs and then the tanks and aircraft. 

The kids actually have a bit of debate about if they care but decide it's fine.

"I guess I'll take a tree."

Hayato hands Sayla one of the scenery kits. "We can just say it's a redwood tree if anyone asks why it's so big compared to a Gundam." He jokes conspiratorially. He goes back to building his tank, for once in his life he's glad his hands are small because gluing on the human-sized LMG turrets at 1/100 scale was fiddly work.

"You know I've never seen a redwood. I hear they're nice though."

And so the days pass until they are close enough to Pluto that Bright puts the ship back into warzone mode.

"We're picking up signs of enemy activity on the near side of Pluto. To much I-field interference to get detials, but this far out thats suggestive by it's self."

PA time.
"Level 2 battle stations. All mobile suits stand by to launch."

Ace pilot Kai Shiden rocks up to the hangar bay and puts out his cigar. The Guncannon's reflection in his antique aviator glasses is magnificent even as he takes them off to put his pressurized normal suit on.

"Hey Hayoto. You ready to see some action?"

"Kai you don't look nearly as cool as you think with those glasses you ordered, and I know for a fact you don't even smoke!"

Hayato finally has a normal pressurized suit that fits and wasn't actually a children's model, he was 16 now and not as incredibly short as he had been when he started piloting. So that was something Kai no longer could tease him about. So it was time to tease him back a little.

He hops in the cockpit of the new mobile suit they had been sent. It was much nicer than the old Guntank cockpit and a bit different than the Guncannon one. He had been spending so much time during the trip in the simulator getting used to a machine that could rival the original Gundam, and he thought he had the hang of it. The GM Sniper II was a much more powerful machine than any he had piloted before but since it was customized for long-range assault all he really had to worry about was aiming and firing and running away if anyone got close. The GM Sniper II couldn't eject the cockpit like the Guncannon and Guntank could but it sure was fast enough to outrun any trouble.

"Hey Kai, it's just like when we first started and I would cover you with the Guntank. Let's roll."

Kai totally looks cool in his glasses, totally.

He gives one of his little laughs and responds, "Sure except now we know what we're doing."

Amuro and Sayla share a brief look as they get into their paired vehicles. 

John Job doesn't even bother with that before hopping into the second Guncannon.

As the Mobile Suits and G-fighter sortie out and get closer, they can see flashes of mega particle cannon fire. There was a fight already going on.

Char is here Amuro can feel it.

Bright will order Mirai to continue bringing them forward but slowly while the mobile suits advance in front of them. He'll also ask the suits to gather more info.  The suits are free to engage if fired upon or if if they get a really good opportunity, but he makes it clear that plan A is to let the people already fighting take each other out.

Char could feel a familiar pressure on his mind just as an outdated Zaku II tried to cleave the arm from his Mobile Suit. A very familiar pressure, the one his rival during the war, Amuro Ray the Gundam pilot gave off.

"Amuro what are you doing so far out?" He muses to himself, while expertly dodging the attack just in time. His Gelgoog Command type probably could have weathered the hit on its armour but it would have weakened it, and there was no point in taking chances. Char stabs his beam saber through the cockpit of the Zaku II and breaches the reactor, thrusting away before the Zaku exploded into shrapnel and pink mega particle smoke.

Even as he took out the Zaku II there were still at least two dozen enemy mobile suits bearing down on him with machine gun and mega particle fire, now that they didn't have to worry about hitting their comrade. "Char you sure are fucked now, Should have just gone and hidden after the war instead of joining up with these crazies." He mumbles to himself as he dodges another mega particle beam. It had been a bad decision to come here.

He had drifted without purpose for a little while after the end of the war until he met some soldiers that had formerly been under his command. A Zeon command signal had been sent out calling for Zeon army remnants to join them and those soldiers had decided to obey the order, and not wanting to abandon his old comrades Char had decided to follow them there. The commander in charge of these remnants had sent them all on a months-long trip to pluto by cannibalizing hundreds of Mobile Suits for their reactors to make engine boosters. When char and his comrades had finally arrived they had found out that the commander in charge had found a superweapon on a moon of Pluto and intended to destroy the Earth with it, not just rend it uninhabitable for humanity but fully blow it up.

Char and a couple of buddies who were not okay with that plan had snuck into their mobile suits and launched an attack on the forces supporting the genocidal commander. Chars initial group of 10 Mobile Suits had been whittled down to a measly 4, and those 4 only survived because Char had been taking all the enemy Mobile Suits attention. They had crippled 2 Carriers and taken over 15 mobile suits down with them though, but it was looking like they wouldn't win at this point.

Char radios his remaining allies. "In a short while, some federation Mobile Suits are going to arrive, You are going to retreat towards them while trying to contact the Gundam, do NOT engage the federation suits, tell the pilot of the Gundam that Char Aznable requests help destroying an earth killer." One of the pilots is about to speak out in anger when Char cuts him off. "This is not the time to hold grudges from the war, this weapon needs to be stopped first and we need reinforcements. We should be glad the federation just happened to provide some. I will hold the enemy forces at bay until you can get to the reinforcements."

The Federation IFFs just now appeared on the sensors of Chars forces. They were amazed he knew this would happen in advance and so followed his orders and pulled back, even though it stung them to leave Char by himself holding off nearly two dozen enemy mobile suits. "Go now!" Char yells to his allies as he rushes for one of the Rick Doms in the enemy group.

4 Zeon Mobile Suits with red stripes painted on their arms are heading towards Amuro and the others, they are also close enough to the fight to see 4 ships, two of those are crippled however, a lot of mobile suit wreckage and at least 20 active suits with Zeon signatures battling over a base on pluto. One of those suits fighting over pluto is a very familiar shade of red.

Laser comms are being hailed at the Gundam.

Are people actually going to surrender without a fight for once. This is nice but also something he doesn't properly know who to deal with.

"Hello, this is Amuro please state your intent."

A panicked Zeon soldier appears on screen. "Char Aznable requests help with destroying an Earth killer. We were supposed to tell the Gundam pilot that and not attack.  He told us to retreat towards the feddies but he can't hold out alone against them all, they want to shatter the Earth! You have to help!." The pilot has heard how fast the Gundam is and knows it can get back to help Char faster than they could. He doesn't know why a federation pilot might want to help Char but Char did say to use his name so maybe they knew each other.

Ok, so the Char angle is complicated to say the least but it does kinda help and earth killer sounds really bad. So he'll relay it to the rest of the White Base and the other pilots to move in.

Sayla won't waste a second using the G-fighter to ferry Amuro closer in. 

The others take a brief instant to process, but can't argue with "Earth killer" and don't want to lose formation.

"Full combat speed now. Engage the targets that do NOT have red marking."

"The faction claims they are trying to stop deployment of a planet killer and are taking orders from Char but watch for betrayal." 

Hayatos GM Sniper II has considerably faster thrusters than the two Guncannons, and he doesn't like the idea of Amuro and Sayla going into that melee alone, especially when Char is involved. "Kai, John, you follow along and watch the Zeons, you guys can handle just 4 of them if they turn, I'll go ahead with Amuro for ranged support." Boosting ahead to follow Amuro and the G-fighter. 

The Zeon pilots also head back towards the fight, wanting to rescue Char now they've followed his orders. With no thoughts of betrayal in their minds at least until Char is safe.

Char is still alive... But his situation is not good.

He long ago ran out of shots on his beam rifle, one of his leg thrusters is damaged and that limits his maneuverability, his beam sabers are completely out of charge so had to steal a heat hawk from a Zaku, and heat hawk axes take a lot more energy to swing around and cleave through armour, his head Vulcan cannons are also now out of ammo, and his generator can't keep up with how much energy he is spending dodging fire and getting close to enemies to defeat them in melee. He had taken another 4 suits down by himself though since his forces retreated, he thinks he can probably take another 4 down before his Gegloog is rendered inoperable.

"Come on Amuro the Earth is in danger... Hurry up before I'm forced to do something drastic."

He had a vague plan of kamikaze running the Gelgoog into the Pluto base and overloading the Gegloogs reactor on purpose if this fight dragged on much longer, hopefully killing anyone who knew how to use the weapon, he didn't even know where the weapon was just that the commander planned on using it soon. 

Really he should be counting on his secret sister.

But the Gundam does have a bit longer range than its ride. Amuro will start picking off suits with his beam rifle. At this range he has to actually aim so his rate of fire isn't great but it is enough to buy Char some breathing room.

"I never thought I would be happy seeing that stupid white and blue paintjob." He comms towards the Gundam now he knows it is in range.

With the breathing room provided and the Zeons now distracted by the famous federation white devil heading straight towards them, Char will escape the encirclement that the Zeons had him surrounded by. Kicking a Rick Dom in the head camera and stealing its machine gun as he zooms by, then shooting the Rick Dom with its own gun as he jets away. 

Say something witty, say somthing witty:

"Well I still owe you for the tow."

For possibly the first time in his career the witty banter thing is working. But now he's thinking about Lalah.

Maybe he should just focus on shooting things, like that other Rick Dom that's trying to flank Char.

When they are this close to each other Char can somehow tell Amuro just thought about Lalah, and that also gives him a pang of emotion.

He had spent the months since the war thinking of almost nothing but Lalah now his revenge had been completed. Initially, he wanted to kill Amuro in response to her death, but that had faded with time. Lalah threw herself in front of Amuros blade to protect him during the war, getting himself possibly killed to avenge her would not be what she wanted.

There were more important things to worry about right now anyway, like being very outnumbered.

Char senses the Rick Dom behind him but also senses that Amuro would take care of it, so he instead takes the time to throw his now chipped and battered heat hawk at a space modified Gouf, cleaving the upper torso and disabling it but not actually breaching the reactor, maybe that pilot even survived the blow. That is pretty lucky for a pilot, he thinks to himself.

"Catch"
Amuro will toss Char his spare beam saber while jumping off the G-fighter, and drawing the other beam saber.

At this point the other Mobile Suits and the White Base are getting into range of the battle. They will of course provide as much covering fire to Amuro and Char as possible, but their main objective is the to reach the super-weapon itself at any cost.

At a moment when Char is slightly less besieged than normal he'll receive a brief message from Bright.

"Do we need to win here or can I just blast it while you keep them busy?"

Char catches the tossed beam saber, activating it and slicing down into an attacking Mobile Suit and kicking off of it to gain momentum and to save energy by not using thrusters. With the pressure off of him, the fight became almost easy once more.

It becomes easier with Hayato within sniping range and accurately picking off enemies with his rifle, he is amazed at how far he can shoot and how perfectly accurate it is. The GM Sniper II is a whole different beast to piloting the old Guntank. He takes out two mobile suits that were headed toward Amuro and Char and each kill only needed a single shot and punched right through the armor. One of the enemy carriers is turning its Mega Particle cannons towards the two and ignoring that their own sides suits were still in the melee. Hayato aims at the Mega Particle cannons and fires, and the shot not only disables the cannons but punches right through the enemy carrier! Being able to fire a shot that powerful from such range almost scared him. Even if his beam sniper rifle charge only had 3 shots left. 

The carrier isn't totally disabled but it wasn't going to be a factor in the rest of this fight.

Now he is out of the melee for a few seconds, Char has time to respond to Captain Bright. "I don't actually know where the weapon is, I had planned on just shooting anyone who might know how to activate it and waiting here to shoot anyone who came here to try and activate it, at least until I ran out of supplies. I learned about the weapon only a few hours ago and that it was intended to be used soon, I have not had time to plan very we-."

His communication with Bright is interrupted. 

A fat man in a Zeon commanders uniform appears on the comms of everyone involved. "Even if the Trojan Horse and the White Devil come to join the traitors, they cannot stop me now! The relay is activating as we speak! My forces stalled you long enough to get the controls on Pluto working bwahahaha! SIEG ZEON! FOR THE ZABIS!" 

And one of the moons of pluto shatters, ice blowing everywhere, a metal structure is revealed beneath the ice. The remaining ship on the Zeon side actually turns its Mega Particle cannons to the 3 crippled ships and fires at their reactors, blowing them up and causing a smokescreen for it to escape towards the revealed structure. 

"Full speed toward the weapon."

As Mirai complies he relays further orders through Fraw Bow and the PA.

He wants a landing party with Jacinda and enough people to seize the controls ready to launch in the shuttle as soon as the enemy mobile suits are cleared out of the vicinity. John Job will escort them, but all of the other Mobile Suits should join the White Base for transit to the weapon once they finish mopping up the local opposition.

"I never wanted to visit pluto anyway."

Lackluster attempts at snark aside, the mopping up doesn't take very long.

Amuro alone was already turning the tide. Adding two Guncannons, the G-fighter as an actual fighter instead of a Gundam accessory, the GM Sniper, and the White Base itself makes things completely one sided.

The 4 remaining Mobile Suits of Char's faction also take some potshots at the remaining Zeons as they arrive, but don't actually manage to score a kill before Amuro and Char and the others finished disabling the rest of the enemy Mobile Suits. The range on their guns being much much shorter than the ones on the Guncannons and GM Sniper II and Gundam. 

Freidrich hears about the call for landing party volunteers over the intercom and asks that he be allowed to go. He hates feeling useless and they should know him well enough to know he would oppose the complete annihilation of the Earth, and so asks to be part of the attack force, his Mobile Suit might be damaged but he can wield a gun as good as anyone else and help out the landing force. He also wants to protect Jacinda.

His time building models pays off when the kids all back him on this. Someone unfamiliar with the White Base might be confused why this would matter, but it is enough to get him put on the mission.

All the allied Mobile Suits load up onto the White Base, even Char and his allies load up and stand inside the launch tubes when the hangars run out of room. Now that everyone is loaded up and the White Base has manoeuvred past the debris field and smokescreen of blown up Zeon ships, they will see that the remaining Zeon ship with the commander is too far away to fire on, but doesn't have so much of a lead or moving so fast that it will massively outrun the white base.

The chase toward what used to be Charon the moon of Pluto begins. The ice of Charon has almost completely been shaken off by the huge structure that is presumably the weapon the Zeons are planning on using. An obviously artificial structure half as long as a colony cylinder and clearly not something designed by either the Federation or Zeons. The alien theory makes the most sense for its design. As the ice travels further from the structure more of its shape is revealed, two metal arms almost forming the shape of a long leaf or rounded gladius shape, surrounding a 5km long spherical glowing blue core. One could easily see this shape as being some sort of giant alien gun that could be pointed at earth.
 

Jacinda and Freidrich are both with the landing team to capture the controls, their shuttle being escorted by John Jobs Guncannon to the pluto base that is surely still filled with Zeons, but at least had no mobile suits remaining to defend it. 

The geometry of the situation plus gravity will allows the landing team to arrive well in advance of the White Base despite their slower speed.

By the time Mirai has got the White Base into the edge of engagement range with the fleeing Zeon ship it is nearly at the weapon and the landing party has mostly cleared out the resistance on Pluto.

The resistance is fairly intense for such a small base. Some of the scientists even draw sidearms to fight to the death as their colleagues throw themselves to the floor in surrender. Seems this bases staff is a mix of absolute fanatics to the cause and scientists forced into working there. Even those forced to work there are still scared to talk when asked about the weapon, worried about a hidden fanatic among them executing them.

Jacinda rushes to decode the alien text on the computers the Zeons hooked up to the control system, but it is slow going. A lot of new symbols are showing up compared to the mars base. 

Out in space by the huge structure, the fleeing Zeon commander is dropping nuclear mines to slow down the pursuing White Base. The use of nukes is an incredibly illegal war crime under the treaty of Antarctica. "It's too late Federation scum! the Earth will be shattered and Zeon will rule the Spacenoids as the superior race!" The Zeon commander rants over comms, looking more and more unhinged over the video channel.

Jacinda comms up to the White Base what shes translated and figured out. "I am pretty sure the structure is an FTL mass relay, it effectively makes mass weigh nothing or even have negative mass so it can infinitely accelerate! A small mass accelerated to MULTIPLE TIMES LIGHTSPEED would be catastrophic! I can't even think off the top of my head exactly how much kinetic energy that would create on impact, nobody ever thought you could go past lightspeed! But it would be world ending, it might even wipe out nearby colonies I don't know! I just know my physicist friends at university said you could make the earth uninhabitable with just a few kilos near lightspeed, and this is so much faster!.

The circular bands surrounding the glowing core of the structure start to rotate and the glow intensifies as the Zeon ship gets close. The mass relay is activating!

"Open the hangar doors. Amuro take out the mines from the base. Other mobile suits stand by to assist. Amuro will intercept the mines without setting them off.

All other suits and weapons will catch any that slip through and open fire on the enemy ship as soon as we are in range."

If Amuro had a gilla for every time he had to use the Gundam to intercept illegal nuclear weapons he'd have 2 gilla. Which isn't a lot but its weird that it happened twice.

With a little bit of backup from Char he is able to take out the mines.

Mirai and the engine crew desperately drag every drop of performance out of the White Base but it isn't quite enough.

They are able to take some pot shots at the fleeing ship but it has too much of a head start for them to properly engage it before it reaches the relay.

The rings in the core of the relay spin faster and faster and faster, the blue glow becoming blinding as it powers up. Then the relay fires with a blinding flash of light, a long beam of light fires out of the end of the relay! But. it fires away from the earth... The Zeon ship has disappeared with the firing of the relay.

"Follow them."

"It's a transport device, we'll fight them for the real super weapon on the other side."

Most of the crew are still shocked, but Bright is able to put together what is going on. That or the Zeons are dead and the White base is about to be. But at least in that case Earth is still safe.

Hearing "Follow them" is enough for Mirai. She's already started steering them in before she knows why, but does find the explanation reassuring.

Jacinda radios in. "Oh, so it turns out there is another relay paired to this one, so the plan of using a mass relay to fling something super fast in the direction of earth is probably still the plan. I think I can send you after them. I am just going to start the exact same command that was run before to send commander tublord to the other relay, and hope that works. I am just straight up guessing the meaning of half these symbols. I don't technically actually know that the relay worked for him though. I reaaaaally hope I am not just also smearing you into gamma rays or something by letting you follow him."

Char can think of worse ways to go than being shot past lightspeed.

Kai is actually rather alarmed by the prospect but way to much of a Cool Pilot TM to show it.

Amuro is busy trying to figure out if ftl means time travel is a thing or if general relativity is just totally out the door.

Bright and Mirai continue to make grim yet stoic facial expressions while guiding the ship into incredible danger because it's the only strategically viable option. This is sort of their thing as a couple,

As they approach into the same distace towars the relay the Zeon ship had reached, the blue core of the relay starts to speed up its spinning again and the blue glow intensifies. The relay is activating again, and with a flash the White Base dissapears from sight.

From the perspective of those on the ship, the black of space has been replaced by blue smears of light going from the front of the ship to the back, giving the impression of forward travel. This keeps up for a few hours.

Eventually, they must have been decelerated by the mechanisms of the relay because they return to the sight of realspace, to a whole other solar system and different constelations. A little green pebble of an alien planet can be seen with the naked eye relatively close by, close by by the scale of a solar system at least. There is no time for wonderment at the fact that they've gone to a whole other alien star system because the Zeon commanders ship shows up on scans.

It doesn't appear to be ready for them, it hadn't layed down mines or anything, Maybe the commander did not expect them to be able to follow. 

The White Base is much more prepared. Obviously multiple hours is too long to stay at 100% readiness but they are pretty close. All of the crew are exprienced with hurry up and wait. Fraw Bow has made multiple trips around with the refreshment cart, and Amuro has sketched out a completely false theory of how all of human history is the result of the closed time loop they are at the lynchpin of.

Bright immediately orders the crew into action. This obviously includes launching all mobile suits, but also includes directly preceding them with a barrage of missiles. Partially this is to screen the launch, but it is also because the Zeon’s lack of an I-field makes them incredible vulnerable to radar guided weaponry.

After this initial assault the I-field’s from the White Base and its mobile suits make radar again unusable.

On principle Bright will have Mirai move the White Base off its last radar detectable vector, but he isn’t too concerned about return fire. The surprise barrage was massively damaging by itself and the mobile suit are engaging before the Zeons have finished getting their bearing.

Alarms blare on the bridge of the Zeon warship, half the bridge crew lays dead, this does not stop the commander from screaming at his crew to keep going. He is told the engines are crippled, using them at all might blow up engineering section completely, this does not phase him and he orders the crippled ship onwards. Leaking atmosphere and with its superstructure barely holding together, the ship limps towards the relay.

The engines explode from being pushed too far, vaporising the engineering bay and irradiating much of the ship and the surviving crew. The commander orders them to vent the air from everywhere but the bridge to keep the ship going. One of the bridge crew protests this order and is summarily shot by the commander for insubordination, he tells the crew they should all be prepared to die for the glory of Zeon. The remaining air is vented towards the aft, leaving the rest of the non bridge crew to asphyxiate, and accelerating the ship towards the relay that slight bit more, inching towards it. 

The commander rants over the comms. “The Earth will be destroyed! Superior Zeon Spacenoids will be free to rebuild in the ashes! Without the rule of Earth and its inferior stock polluting humanity! I give myself and my crew as a sacrifice to the future of Zeon! Our ship itself will be the mighty thunderbolt of Zeus smiting the Earth! Sieg Zeon! Sie-“

Char fires a long distance shot right into the bridge of the Zeon warship, vaporising the commander and surviving bridge crew. The damage starts off chain reaction in the already heavily damaged vessel and it breaks apart, pink mega particle clouds erupting from its reactors as they go critical.

”You can die for the glory of nothing, achieving nothing, you fat fool.” Shooting another round into the debris to break it up further and push it further off course from the relay. “I thought he would never shut up.”

Just in case Bright will have Mirai position the White Base to intercept any remaining debris. 

He'll also have Marker and Oscar scan the planet as best they can from this distance and ask Fraw Bow to scan for any comms signals. For all he knows there are still aliens lurking around.

"Should I also try to broadcasting through the relay?"

"Might as well."

"This is the White Base to... the solar system can anybody hear me?"

Back in Sol, Jacinda and the others have been decoding and decrypting the info from the alien systems controlling the relay, and the Zeon computers hooked up to them. And after Friedrich beats down a Zeon fanatic scientist who tried to stop one of the captive ones from talking, the captive scientists feel a bit safer spilling the beans.

With all these sources together they discovered that the Zeons had heavily damaged the targeting systems on the relay, specifically for physical objects coming through to this side from elsewhere. The Zeons damaged the targeting in a way that objects coming through would overshoot the relay and hit earth. They also damaged the parts that handle the mass altering calculations to make things coming out of the relay have extra mass so they would impact the Earth harder. The relay can be aimed away from earth easily enough but anything physical coming through is going to be heavily compacted due to the mass altering fields giving those objects extraordinary amounts mass when they come out of FTL.

Obviously this is very critical information to give to the White Base so they don't try to come back and become compacted. A probe is sent through the relay, screaming a warning on all communications channels about why the White Base shouldn't try to come back through the relay. And that they were fixing it as fast as they could and had sent a message to earth asking for more expert technicians they could trust. Rather than having to rely on a team of Zeons, half of whom kept screaming about dying for the glory of Zeon when questioned.

The Comms sent from the White Base might have reached the crew left behind on Pluto if they had finished fixing the targeting so the relay wasn’t aimed at the Earth anymore, but right now the only people who could get the White Bases message is whoever on Earth happened to be in the path of their message when it exited FTL. 

While in the new star system, scans show the planet has an nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere, the green colour is probably an ocean because what looks like water vapour clouds can be seen forming off of it. There are small landmasses with smatterings of colour on them that might be vegetation.

They might, in fact, have found the first life bearing planet other than the Earth. The terraforming projects planned for mars barely count, this could be the real deal.

No alien signals however, no signs of technology or radio wave use or anything that would signify aliens other than the mass relay hanging ominously in space.

Until suddenly, ALL the radio waves and laser comms, coming from a probe that came through the relay. The probe was even using ultra bright LEDs on its surface to flash its warning in morse code.

"We're trapped."

She'll then relay the information from the probe.

"Recall the mobile suits.

We'll give everyone a short rest here then make plans for exploring the planet if they haven't fixed the relay."

Once the pilots and crew have had some minimal decompression time and it is clear that no rescue coming on in the next few hours Bright will have a strategy meeting with what passes for his senior staff, and Char.

Amuro brings his notes on time travel.

Sayla will stay well away from Char and suspiciously close to Amuro. 

Fraw Bow stays at her station by Hayato and the kids, who are somehow in this meeting.

Mirai and the operators will also be able to stay at their stations on the White Base's usually spacious bridge. 

Kai will give Char his best aviator glasses glare.

The other federation pilots and a few other also fit on the bridge. It's already planned to make the bridge smaller and add actual meeting rooms in later models, but the Pegasus class combines both functions.

"It appears that we can not use the relay to return to the solar system and are limited in our ability to communicate through it.

The process of modifying the system into a weapon means that the Earth side array can not decelerate us and additionally causes anything with mass to be compressed. We can still send signals through but it appears that the people we left on Pluto have not yet set up equipment to intercept them so we're just sending them in the general direction of Earth.

In better news it appears that this system contains a habitable planet, and we brought enough supplies for a round trip as well as an extended engagement at Pluto. We will be leaving a radio relay here then making our way to the planet."

Char is still wearing his trademark mask during the meeting, mostly out of habit, he doesn't really have a reason to hide his identity as Casval Rem Diekun anymore. Maybe he still wears the mask because he thinks of himself mostly as Char Aznable now.

”I doubt the federation can afford to spare as many minovski reactors to outfit another ship with a booster to get it here in any reasonable amount of time. We should be prepared to spend at least a year without resupply if the team on pluto cannot fix alien technology nobody has any real experience with. Possibly longer if the relay deactivates for any reason.”

Someone needed to be the pessimist, might as well be the infamous Red Comet who is already wildly disliked for being an enemy ace. 

"Thats why we're going to need to seek resources here. I've gathered you all here to plan our exploration of the new planet."