October 27, 0079 UC
I'm constantly amazed by the strange happenings my crew is facing in this war. It doesn't matter how much training I might have had as a cadet; none of it would have prepared me for any of what I'm facing now.
Amuro came back to White Base today. Frau had gone out looking for him on her own and found him. She was either the world's greatest tracker or the world's luckiest one man search party, but she actually managed to find him. She also found the Zeon commander Ramba Ral whose men have been after us for some time. He allowed Frau to leave unharmed, a fact for which I will always be grateful despite Ral's motives in it; his men followed her back to White Base while we were set down making repairs. Ral's subsequent attack on us was enough to bring Amuro out of hiding, Gundam and all.
The policy has been to treat Amuro and the RX-78 as two separate entities, but somehow that seems to make either one incomplete. No matter how many times I try to make it official by writing it out on forms, documents, and other pieces of paper, I can't deny that the mention of one brings on the immediate thought of the other. And now that they're both back, I also can't deny that I feel a certain degree of relief; whether it's for the Gundam or Amuro, I can't be certain. It's a very strange thing to try and wrap one's brain around.
In any case, I now have to decide what to do with Amuro. In the case of a regular military unit, desertion would be punishable by death; however, as he is so fond of reminding me, Amuro isn't regular military. I have to take that into account. But I also have to take into account the fact that the Federation is desperately undermanned at present, and that Amuro stole a classified prototype. I also have to take into account that he didn't take the RX-78 to the Zeons; this can most certainly be taken as loyalty to the Federation and to White Base, I suppose.
I'm also faced with the difficult realization about myself; I keep trying to think of reasons to go one way or another on the issue rather than actually try to come to a decision. I don't know what that means. But, in those few, short, and far between moments when I actually pose the real question to myself, I can't ignore that part of me that says "just kill him and be done with it."
It's a frightening thing to find you'd rather have someone dead than have to deal with them. I've never met anyone like him before; it's almost as though he tries his hardest to find ways to test me, to see how far he can push me. No one, not even my father, has ever gotten under my skin quite so much; it's bloody maddening.
For now, Amuro is in the ship's brig. From time to time, I'll open the comm circuit to the hallway and check in on him. I heard the most astounding thing just after the others had put him in there; he was saying something about how he was the strongest and had to be in order to beat "that man," whoever that is. It puzzles me because just over a month ago he was saying the opposite. On Luna Two, he came right out and said that all his strength as a pilot was because of the Gundam's self learning program. This sudden turn about in attitude is just one more puzzling factor in the issue. I'm beginning to wonder if Amuro is having trouble separating himself from Gundam as well.
Despite all this, we managed to turn back Ramba Ral's attack once again. We managed to destroy one Zaku and a Gouf that had managed to land on one of the engines at aft. Mirai deserves all the credit for getting it the enemy Mobile Suit off the ship; she actually flipped White Base over in a roll. It was an amazingly simple solution that I'd never have thought of; it goes against textbook upon textbook of military training, since a ship the size of White Base wouldn't normally be capable of such a maneuver. Perhaps that was why she thought of it and I didn't. She was the only one shipside who didn't have a seat to buckle into for the maneuver and insisted it didn't matter despite the fact that I…
That's perhaps the most astonishing thing of the day. I hadn't thought of it until now, but now it jumps out as a most palpable fact. In the midst of all the chaos of the battle, while the entire ship was in danger of blowing up from the Gouf's attack on the engines, my first and foremost thought was for Mirai's safety. Strange that nothing else would matter right then.
I don't know when or how it happened, but one thing I do know for certain; once White Base had righted itself once again and Mirai had finished somersaulting around the bridge, no protocol, no regulation, no stampeding herd of mad cows could have kept me from getting out of that command chair to help her. The relief I felt for Amuro and Gundam's return pales in comparison by several orders of magnitude compared to the relief I felt that Mirai was unharmed.
It's still another thing about myself of which I am unsure. She's a friend, to be sure. But I don't know if my concern for her safety is simply due to that, or due to some admiration for the one constantly steady, supportive rock beneath my feet she has been, or due to some kind of…
But that would be inappropriate of me, wouldn't it. I'll have to watch that. After all, I am White Base's commander.
I'm constantly amazed by the strange happenings my crew is facing in this war. It doesn't matter how much training I might have had as a cadet; none of it would have prepared me for any of what I'm facing now.
Amuro came back to White Base today. Frau had gone out looking for him on her own and found him. She was either the world's greatest tracker or the world's luckiest one man search party, but she actually managed to find him. She also found the Zeon commander Ramba Ral whose men have been after us for some time. He allowed Frau to leave unharmed, a fact for which I will always be grateful despite Ral's motives in it; his men followed her back to White Base while we were set down making repairs. Ral's subsequent attack on us was enough to bring Amuro out of hiding, Gundam and all.
The policy has been to treat Amuro and the RX-78 as two separate entities, but somehow that seems to make either one incomplete. No matter how many times I try to make it official by writing it out on forms, documents, and other pieces of paper, I can't deny that the mention of one brings on the immediate thought of the other. And now that they're both back, I also can't deny that I feel a certain degree of relief; whether it's for the Gundam or Amuro, I can't be certain. It's a very strange thing to try and wrap one's brain around.
In any case, I now have to decide what to do with Amuro. In the case of a regular military unit, desertion would be punishable by death; however, as he is so fond of reminding me, Amuro isn't regular military. I have to take that into account. But I also have to take into account the fact that the Federation is desperately undermanned at present, and that Amuro stole a classified prototype. I also have to take into account that he didn't take the RX-78 to the Zeons; this can most certainly be taken as loyalty to the Federation and to White Base, I suppose.
I'm also faced with the difficult realization about myself; I keep trying to think of reasons to go one way or another on the issue rather than actually try to come to a decision. I don't know what that means. But, in those few, short, and far between moments when I actually pose the real question to myself, I can't ignore that part of me that says "just kill him and be done with it."
It's a frightening thing to find you'd rather have someone dead than have to deal with them. I've never met anyone like him before; it's almost as though he tries his hardest to find ways to test me, to see how far he can push me. No one, not even my father, has ever gotten under my skin quite so much; it's bloody maddening.
For now, Amuro is in the ship's brig. From time to time, I'll open the comm circuit to the hallway and check in on him. I heard the most astounding thing just after the others had put him in there; he was saying something about how he was the strongest and had to be in order to beat "that man," whoever that is. It puzzles me because just over a month ago he was saying the opposite. On Luna Two, he came right out and said that all his strength as a pilot was because of the Gundam's self learning program. This sudden turn about in attitude is just one more puzzling factor in the issue. I'm beginning to wonder if Amuro is having trouble separating himself from Gundam as well.
Despite all this, we managed to turn back Ramba Ral's attack once again. We managed to destroy one Zaku and a Gouf that had managed to land on one of the engines at aft. Mirai deserves all the credit for getting it the enemy Mobile Suit off the ship; she actually flipped White Base over in a roll. It was an amazingly simple solution that I'd never have thought of; it goes against textbook upon textbook of military training, since a ship the size of White Base wouldn't normally be capable of such a maneuver. Perhaps that was why she thought of it and I didn't. She was the only one shipside who didn't have a seat to buckle into for the maneuver and insisted it didn't matter despite the fact that I…
That's perhaps the most astonishing thing of the day. I hadn't thought of it until now, but now it jumps out as a most palpable fact. In the midst of all the chaos of the battle, while the entire ship was in danger of blowing up from the Gouf's attack on the engines, my first and foremost thought was for Mirai's safety. Strange that nothing else would matter right then.
I don't know when or how it happened, but one thing I do know for certain; once White Base had righted itself once again and Mirai had finished somersaulting around the bridge, no protocol, no regulation, no stampeding herd of mad cows could have kept me from getting out of that command chair to help her. The relief I felt for Amuro and Gundam's return pales in comparison by several orders of magnitude compared to the relief I felt that Mirai was unharmed.
It's still another thing about myself of which I am unsure. She's a friend, to be sure. But I don't know if my concern for her safety is simply due to that, or due to some admiration for the one constantly steady, supportive rock beneath my feet she has been, or due to some kind of…
But that would be inappropriate of me, wouldn't it. I'll have to watch that. After all, I am White Base's commander.