The SEED of Tomorrow

By Lord Raa

Chapter 1

Disclaim-me-do: Funk knows no boundaries.

Year 71 of the Cosmic Era

The pilots selected for the smash and grab raid on Heliopolis were all fine young men that Athrun Zala trusted with his life. There wasn't one of them he hadn't personally flown at least three missions on without any of them suffering so much as a scratch.

As far as Athrun was concerned, they were all prime examples of the excellence that came from the military academy, though they weren't the ones he would have chosen if he'd been in charge of the roster.

At least, the ones who were going in on foot were. The support section of this mission were all older, saltier pilots who looked down upon Athrun and his peers. All members of the ZAFT armed forces were Coordinators, it was just that Athrun and his team were just kids in their eyes. The fact that they were so young and being used in a combat mission just highlighted how fleeting life was for a soldier in this war may have contributed to that attitude.

But still, their mission commander, Rau Le Creuset, had laid out a specific plan of action for this operation and Athrun was determined to see it carried out to the best of his abilities. The only thing that would have made things better would be the inclusion of his preferred teammates, Yzak Joule, Dearka Elsman and Nichol Amarfi.

Members of the infiltration team planted their time bombs as they moved through the colony structure. Rusty Mackenzie scanned the area for Earth Alliance ground troops.

"Athrun, there's some soldiers over there," he said pointing to the docks.

"I see them. Looks like they're lightly armed. Are all the bombs in place?"

"They are. Timed to go off in 8 minutes."

"We'll fan out as we move in, keeping ourselves low to the ground. Once the bombs go off, the GINNs are to flank the docks as part of the distraction. Everyone clear?"

"Yes," came the replies from the whole team.

"Then we move on three. One. Two. Three."

Kira Yamato was with his friends as they approached the Morgenroete facility. They'd been delayed thanks to a technical malfunction on their automated taxi.

Kira had told his friends, Miriallia Haw and Tolle Koenig, that he could fix it in no time at all, but Tolle had insisted that they leave it for the operating service to deal with and they should get a replacement.

Outnumbered, he agreed and now they were running about ten minutes late.

Feeling something strange, he looked over his shoulder and saw something glinting in the distance.

"Come on, Kira!" Miriallia chided. "We're late enough as it is."

"Sorry, I just-"

A series of explosions cut the young Coordinator off.

"What the hell was that?"

"That was an explosion!" Tolle shouted. He whirled around to check his friends were OK when a mobile suit emerged from a service hatch and started laying down some suppressive fire.

"Run!" Kira bellowed, gesturing to a nearby shelter. "Just run!"

Tolle and Miriallia ran as fast as their legs would carry them.

Kira followed, but found himself trying to avoid a spent shell casing from the GINN and thus was delayed.

Beside him a figure in a space suit landed.

"Who are you?" Kira asked.

The figured turned slowly, preparing its projectile weapon.

"Kira?"

"Athrun? What are you doing here?"

"ZAFT business," the soldier replied, lowering the weapon slightly. "I'm trying to end the war."

"Heliopolis is a neutral colony! Attacking it will prolong the war!"

"I'm not here to assault Heliopolis, Kira, I'm here to-"

The right foot of the GINN descended on Kira Yamato, turning him into a red paste.

Athrun looked up to see that the mobile suit was pointing a weapon at him. Realising that something had gone very wrong, he did his best to evade the war machine as it unleashed a barrage of fire at him.

'What's happening?' he wondered when he'd managed to find some cover. He looked over and saw that Rusty had been pinned down by Earth Alliance soldiers.

Raising his weapon, he aimed carefully and fired off a few short, controlled bursts. It was textbook, his gunnery instructor at the academy would have been proud. Two rounds even hit their target, though it was impossible to tell if they'd been lethal or just temporarily incapacitated it.

Regardless, it was enough for Rusty to move out of cover and towards the mobile suit. Athrun followed, only to see the rogue GINN vaporise his friend in a rocket attack.

It made no sense how or why this was happening. Friendly fire was one thing, but this had been an aimed shot, as had the attack on himself. There were no reasons for a ZAFT pilot to act like this. Activating his radio, Athrun tried to contact Rau Le Creuset.

"Come in Vesalius, this is Athrun Zala, do you read me?"

"¬This is Vesalius, what's the situation?¬"

"One of the GINNs is trying to kill us! They've already killed Rusty!"

"¬What? Say again?¬"

Athrun was about to repeat when the rogue GINN approached him and fired again.

Aboard the Vesalius, Fredrik Ades looked at the comms officer. "Can you get Athrun back? Or at least replay that message?"

"Replaying now, sir," the officer replied.

"¬..ome... in Ves...s, this is Athr... Zala, do you read?¬"

"¬One ... the GINNs is … to … us! They've al...y ..ed Rusty!¬"

Ades frowned. The pilots of the GINNs were skilled veterans, their loyalty was without question. Yet Athrun Zala seemed to be saying that they were betraying them. It made no sense.

"Raise the GINNs, I need to know what's going on now!"

"Trying to raise them now, sir."

Murrue Ramius was cursing the ZAFT soldiers attacking Heliopolis. It had soon been made clear that they were attempting to steal the Gundam prototypes, but something seemed wrong.

She couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something wrong with the operation. She'd seen one of the pilots be shot down by the supporting mobile suits. She wasn't complaining that the ZAFT forces were attacking each other, but this random, chaotic element was incredibly dangerous.

Her only chance was to get into the Strike Gundam and fight her way out of this situation. Even then, it would be an uphill struggle given the mobile suit's current status.

She saw an approaching figure and realised that it was dressed in the same way as the other ZAFT soldiers. Gritting her teeth, she aimed her weapon and pulled the trigger.

It was empty.

She cursed under her breath and reached for another magazine, only to find she was out of ammo. Murrue's hand fell to her waist to retrieve her sidearm. Chambering the first round, she clicked the safety off and aimed for the incoming soldier.

Just as she was about to fire, the GINN fired at the support vehicles for the G-weapons, destroying them all. The explosion made her duck behind her cover for a few seconds.

This allowed Athrun Zala to approach the cockpit of the Strike Gundam. As he waited for what felt like an hour for the hatch to open, Murrue had recovered enough to sneak up on him and pressed her pistol at an unarmoured part of his back.

"Stand down or you're dead."

Athrun dropped the gun he was holding. It would buy him time to find a way out of this situation. Slowly he turned around to see who it was that held his life in their hands. He wasn't surprised that it was a woman in overalls, but rather that she was quite striking.

"I did-" she started to chide him when he saw the rogue GINN was preparing to kill them both.

It was only his reflexes that saved them from a premature death. The Coordinator leapt forward and tackled her to the ground, his actions having the added benefit of disarming the woman.

"Sorry," Athrun said, his face buried in Murrue's cleavage. "But I didn't have time to warn you."

"Just get off me!" she growled. She noticed she was no longer holding onto the pistol. Her eyes darted around to find the weapon and she lunged for it, only to fall short because of the young man on top of her.

Murrue kicked at the ZAFT soldier to get him off her as she reached out for the pistol.

Athrun finally rolled off her, slightly disorientated from the explosion and close encounter with a pair of breasts. He might have had a fiancée, but being that close to any female was still something he wasn't used to.

Besides, Lacus Clyne was too pure for anything like that.

The sound of the pistol being cocked brought him back to reality.

"Crap..."

Murrue was about to warn this young man that he was now a prisoner of the Earth Alliance, when the other Gundam mobile suits started to activate.

"Crap..."

Athrun realised that this was likely his only chance to overpower the woman and complete his mission when the recently activated mobile suits turned their weapons towards the Strike Gundam.

"Not you as well..." he said, his heart sinking. Out of reflex, he grabbed the woman around the waist and dragged her into the cockpit.

It wasn't exactly gentle, but it was the quickest way to get his plan into motion.

"I need you to start this thing up or we're dead," he said to Murrue.

She frowned, but knew that he was right.

A few keystrokes later and the Strike Gundam was booting up.

"Keep behind the chair," Murrue instructed. "It's the only way we're getting out of here alive!"

The Lieutenant started to activate more advanced systems, including the Phase Shift armour. The slow response times making it a struggle to get the mobile suit to react like anything other like a partially sedated elephant.

Athrun glanced at a monitor and realise that they were close to some civilians. A second glance suggested they were the same age as he and Kira.

"Kira..." he whispered.

When the mobile suit stumbled forward, the Coordinator was shaken out of this reverie about his old friend and now he felt the need for revenge burn in his heart.

"We're never going to be able beat the GINN like this. Get out the way and I'll pilot it."

Murrue reluctantly did as asked, climbing out of the seat and resting behind the chair. "What are you going to do?"

"Reprogramme this thing," Athrun said as his fingers darted across the keyboard, rewriting the OS on the fly. After fifteen seconds, the system started a reboot.

"Cutting it fine..." Murrue said as the monitor that showed the approaching GINN fade out and flicker back into life.

A quick glance at the weapons had Athrun shaking his head. But rather than complain, the Coordinator activated the Armour Schneider compartments and pulled out the two short blades.

A moment later, one was thrust into the neck of the GINN, the other into its battery compartment.

"Look out!" Murrue said as the GINN exploded, knocking the Gundam to its knees.

In his mobile armour, Rau Le Creuset was being updated by both the Vesalius and his infiltration team. Unfortunately, one of his soldiers hadn't managed to eliminate Athrun Zala during the operation before he'd contacted the Vesalius, but that wrinkle aside, the theft of three state of the art mobile suits would more than make up for having to answer a few questions back at the ship.

It was looking like he'd have to remove Ades from the picture before he became a thorn in his side. It was always unfortunate when you had to remove a skilled and trusted subordinate, but better to do that now rather than after he makes a fuss about things and jeopardise the plan.

Athrun Zala was just meant to be an unfortunate casualty in this operation. Le Creuset had no problem with Chairman Zala's son, he was an excellent pilot and followed orders. Not to mention that it was suboptimal to reduce the numbers of the Coordinators, especially given that the third generation were having some fertility problems. It was just that for Rectification to happen, he needed to be killed in an operation against the Naturals.

Breaking off his dogfight with the veteran pilot, Mu La Flaga, the masked man headed back to the Vesalius to debrief the returning pilots and inspect the stolen mobile suits.

If Athrun Zala had managed to survive this first stage of the mission, he'd either be captured by the Earth Alliance or killed during one of the upcoming phases of the operation. Heliopolis and its remaining inhabitants would not live to tell any tales about what happened here.

Murrue Ramius opened the hatch to the Gundam and ordered the ZAFT soldier out at gunpoint.

"Fine, fine," the Coordinator sighed as he descended to the ground. When he was on solid ground, he removed his helmet. After wiping the sweat from his brow, he looked around and considered his options.

It was only one woman with a sidearm keeping him there, so the odds of him being able to escape were good. But escape to where?

The rest of the team had fled to the rendezvous point or been killed during the operation. He wasn't even sure if the Vesalius was still in orbit, never mind having the means to reach it.

Athrun's quick mind went over that last thought. Had he been betrayed by the infiltration team? Rau Le Creuset had always instilled a fierce loyalty in all of his subordinates, from the lowest rating fresh from boot camp to lifers in the ZAFT military.

The only ones who weren't loyal seemed to be the higher ups in the chain of command. They seemed to view him with suspicion, but the more Athrun thought about it, the more he realised that it was with good reason. After all, the rank and file soldiers would be more likely to follow someone who'd led them into combat more than some politician.

Perhaps that was why Le Creuset had only been allocated minimal assets for this mission?

Then again, from what he knew of Le Creuset, he would have treated such things as a challenge and would complete the mission in spite of the limitation imposed upon him.

It was part of what helped instil the loyalty of the troops. So it brought the infiltration of his team by traitors into question.

Athrun shook his head, his thoughts were drifting. He needed to focus on what to do to stay alive and get back ZAFT territory.

"So then, what's your name, Soldier?" the woman in overalls asked, after connecting the Gundam to the mobile recharging station.

"Athrun Zala, rank: Red Uniform, serial number: 15874-634-S2," the Coordinator said, turning around slowly.

"Zala?"

"Zala," Athrun confirmed. He would say no more about his family history, out of fear that he was about to become a bargaining chip to ensure the safe passage of the remaining Earth Alliance troops.

It was embarrassing enough to be captured, he didn't need the dishonour of being the precise reason why the final experimental mobile suit escaped.

The woman looked at him curiously, as if she was about to ask follow up questions. For better or worse, the civilians Athrun had spotted earlier emerged from cover.

"What's going on?"

"You kids, get away from the mobile suit!"

"Who are you?"

"I'm Lieutenant Murrue Ramius and I'm armed. If you do what I say, you'll get out of here alive," the curvy woman said.

"And if we don't?" one of the teenagers, a young man asked defiantly.

"Don't test me, boy," Ramius warned, aiming her weapon at him.

"S-sorry, ma'am," Tolle backed down instantly.

"S-so now what?" Miriallia asked.

"Give me a moment!" the increasingly annoyed lieutenant growled. "I've lost my team, been attacked by ZAFT mobile suits and now I have a prisoner to deal with."

The teenagers backed up a step.

Athrun looked at the junior officer and saw she was well out of her depth with this situation. It did give him hope that he might be able to escape, but before he could formulate his plan, two ZAFT mobile suits started to speed towards them.

"Crap..."

Ramius looked at her options. She couldn't let the Strike Gundam call into enemy hands, but she couldn't pilot it and keep the civilians safe. The prisoner would be able to use this chance to escape. It wasn't what she wanted, but there was little chance for her keep him for questioning and fight off the two GINNs that were rapidly approaching.

"Your lucky day, Athrun Zala," Murrue sighed as she lowered her sidearm. "You get to go free."

It was then that the lead GINN opened fire and killed the three civilians.

Athrun blinked. He couldn't believe it, they weren't combatants, they weren't even close to looking like soldiers. They were civilians.

Not only that, but the Coordinator knew that the targeting systems on the GINN were good enough to be able to determine that they weren't a threat or even soldiers.

Something was very wrong with the mobile suit pilots.

Never before had ZAFT troops used force against civilians like this, and certainly never in a neutral colony. Rau Le Creuset would never have allowed those under him to commit war crimes.

He had to stop them before they destroyed the colony and the reputation of Rau Le Creuset.

Turning to the slightly shaken Murrue Ramius, he asked if she could pilot the mobile suit or wanted him to get them away.

"What?"

"Look, something's wrong: they could tell those kids weren't soldiers and they're ignoring my attempts to contact them. Get in the cockpit and I'll keep us safe."

"... Fine," the Lieutenant said reluctantly.

It hadn't taken Athrun long to dispatch the ZAFT mobile suits in the Strike Gundam. Once he'd gotten used to it, something that hadn't taken much time at all, it became clear just how much more powerful this Gundam system was compared to previous mobile suits.

He marvelled at the speed of the controls and power of the Phase Shift armour.

Murrue had also been taken aback by the efficiency of the Strike Gundam at the hands of the young Coordinator. None of the test pilots had shown anything close to the aptitude of Athrun Zala had displayed so casually.

'I guess that's academy training for the genetically enhanced,' she mused.

Just as Athrun was about to power down the Gundam, the Archangel appeared, emerging through the heavily damaged docks.

"Wait, Athrun," Murrue said, stopping the pilot from opening fire.

"What?"

"That's my ship, it's how we're getting out of here." The Lieutenant fumbled for the radio and hailed the ship.

"¬This is the Archangel, identify yourselves.¬"

"This is Lieutenant Murrue Ramius, I'm current in the Strike Gundam and I've got a prisoner."

"¬Lieutenant Ramius, this is Ensign Natarle Badgiruel. Make your way to the main dock and we'll discuss the situation once the prisoner and Strike Gundam are secured.¬"

"I thought you said I could go..." Athrun complained.

"If you'd gone when I said, you'd be free."

"We'd both be dead and you know it," the Coordinator shot back. He let out a sigh. He could overpower his captor and attempt to flee in the Gundam, but a quick check of the remaining power told him he'd be a sitting duck in a few minutes.

Not only that, but it would involve hitting a woman. Sure, she was a soldier, but ZAFT forces had acted ungallantly enough for one day.

The pilot's thoughts drifted back to the first GINN incident and he slumped into the chair. "Kira..."

"Are you alright?"

"I... I am your prisoner, Lieutenant Ramius. My life is in your hands."

To be continued… ?

Yeah, I've changed a few things in this terrible, terrible story. I'm sure that you'll all get over this once you realise what these changes are.

Yes, the title is something of a pun, but it's also hinting at what I have planned for this nonsense.

Feel free to comment, as I'd like to know if this one is worth continuing with.