Chapter two! Kira meets the Archangel again

Le Creuset brought up a space map, "Operation: CounterStrike is a military operation with the intention to capture or failing that, destroy the Earth Force's Archangel. Our force will consist of the Gamow, Zeigler, and the flagship will be the Vesalius. Overall, we will have twelve GINNs and the five captured mobile suits. The GINNs will engage the enemy fleet, clearing a path to the Archangel. At which time, the Strike, piloted by Kira Yamato will attempt to reason with the crew and convince them to abandon ship. If this proves unsuccessful, he will convince them to send out any civilians and the remaining four units will engage. If possible, I want that ship and it crew to be captured. If that cannot be done, you may destroy it."

As he explained the operation, the map indicated the size of the enemy force, and the projected plan. "Overall, this is not a very difficult operation. However, after our arrival, we will have only fifteen minutes before it reaches the atmospheric entry interface over the Alaska base and therefore, out of our effective combat range. I would like to emphasize that our objective is not to destroy the Eighth Fleet. If our operation succeeds or fails, withdraw and do not engage them any more than needed. Are there any questions?" he concludes. Yzak stands, "Why are you entrusting this operation to HIM? Me or Dearka could go in and destroy it easily, but you insist on letting him take the lead." Kira starts to rise, but Rau stops him, "You are right about that, Yzak. However, I assured Kira that we would avoid unnecessary deaths on his operation. Also, that warship is far more powerful than our Nazca class. If we were to Mass produce something with similar characteristics, this war would be over." Yzak sits down, clearly not happy with the answer.

Dearka stands next, "My question isn't for you, Commander. It's for you." He says as he turns to Kira, "We're fighting against your old ship. How do we know that you won't betray us? And will you be able to fight against them if negotiations break down?" Kira doesn't answer for a minute leading to Dearka almost sitting down, believing that he had his answer. "I don't betray my comrades. If you don't believe me, just ask Athrun. And as to whether I'll be able fight against them, you're right I probably won't be able to. But if it has to be done, I'll cover you while you handle, since according to Yzak, you wouldn't have any problems." Kira answers, stunning the room. Everyone was silent. None of them expected him to say that. "But you already betrayed the Earth Forces. How can we trust?" Yzak says, his voice lacking the anger that it had earlier. Kira shook his head, "I never joined the Earth Forces. All I ever wanted was to protect my friends. I joined ZAFT because it was the best way to achieve that. You're right that without the strike, the Archangel wouldn't stand a chance. At least this way, they have a chance. If you think that I'm betraying you, go ahead and shoot me."

Yzak couldn't hide his surprise. He sat down with a look of shock clear on his face. After that, there was silence. Le Creuset spoke, "If there are no more questions, stand by aboard your machines. We will relay instructions once the operation begins." They stand and salute, walking out, Athrun leading the way. Kira climbs into the Strike's cockpit for the first time since he left the Archangel. Going over the system check, he makes some adjustments to the settings for the replacement legs, and to optimize performance with the Aile striker pack after he'd modified it. At quarter of noon, a voice came through the strikes communication system. "Operation: CounterStrike has begun. All mobile suit pilots are to stand by aboard their machines. Be prepared to launch at any time. Kira body tenses as he hears the orders. "No going back now." He says to himself.

At exactly noon, Kira receives the order he'd been dreading. "All mobile suits involved in the second part of Operation: CounterStrike are to launch." Kira nods, giving himself one more moment to get up the courage before saying over the communication, "This is Kira, Strike is launching," and stepping onto the catapult. Almost at once, he's propelled forward, and activates his booster just as he reaches the end. The extra boost ensures that he moves at maximum speed through the chaotic battlefield. There, in the distance, is his target. His old ship. The Archangel.

The Archangel was at level one battle stations. The bridge was strangely quiet. They'd been given orders not to get involved in the battle, and to continue on to the target point. Captain Ramius was about to open a communication to the Menelaus, when Kuzzey gets an incoming signal. "Five signals, matching Duel, Buster, Blitz, Aegis, and…" he said as the audibly gulped. Everyone look at him. "And strike. GAT X105 Aile Strike." The Bridge was in chaos. The machine they'd learned to rely on was coming after them. To all of them, it also seemed to spell the end of the old friend, Kira Yamato. Until, "Archangel, do you copy? This is Kira Yamato."

"Kira, it's time to start." came Athrun's voice over the radio. Kira replied, "I know. I'll be using frequency five." He attunes it to what he knows the Archangel's bridge and inputs the access code. After confirming the connection, he takes one more breath and starts. "Archangel, do you copy? This is Kira Yamato." It only took a second until he got a response. "Kira! Is it really you?" came the familiar voice of Miriallia Haw. Kira felt a twinge of regret when he answers, "It's me. Can you put the Captain on?" A few seconds later, "Kira, I'm so glad that you're alright." "Miss Murrue, I'm sorry but please, order the crew to abandon ship." Kira says, hoping that she agrees, and knowing that it won't be enough. "Kira is this some kind of joke?" came the reply, and even over the communication, he can tell that his words have deeply affected everyone on the bridge. "No, it's not a joke. Please, just surrender. I don't want any of you to die."

Kira hears something on the other end, and a new voice, "Kid, come on, stop messing around." Came the voice of Mu La Flaga. "Please, this is your last chance. If you won't, at least order the refugees to evacuate." A long silence, than Kira sees a transport ship leave through the hanger. "That's everyone who is going to evacuate. If you're going to destroy us, go ahead and try." Captain Ramius says, and before Kira can get a word in, she cuts him off and scrambles the frequency. He switches back to the ZAFT frequency. "That's all I can do. The rest is up to you." Kira says, fighting off tears.

The four machines push forward. As soon as they do, a familiar mobile armor launches and is immediately engaged by the buster. The Archangel is trying desperately to fight back. Athrun and Nicol start by attacking all the weapons on either side. While they do that, Kira and Yzak engage the mobile armors sent from the Eighth fleet. Despite their contrary personalities, the two work well together. The Duel draws both beam sabers and Strike protects them both, all the while shooting any mobile armor that managing to slip past the Duel.

The battle seems to be going in their favor, until Kira heard a scream over the radio. Looking around, Kira saw that Mu had managed to beat Dearka, and the buster crashed onto the Archangel. Yzak charged straight towards the ship, trying to rescue his friend. Athrun and Nicol ran interference on the Archangel. Kira intended to assist them, until he saw the Mobius zero approaching the Duel from behind. None of the others even noticed that he was there. Kira took aim at the man he'd once considered something of a mentor and started firing. The Mobius did a barrel roll and fired straight at Kira. As the battle raged on, he started to realize why Dearka had been beaten. Keeping track of all four gun barrels and the main cannon with hard enough with an amateur piloting it, But against Mu, Kira was having trouble dealing with just the main cannon, barely managing to dodge the rest. He was starting to run low on energy. He only had enough energy for another five shots, assuming he wasn't hit. Any more than that and his Phase shift would go down, and he'd be left defenseless. The more he thought about it, the clearer the battle became. He didn't have any problem shooting down two his gun barrels with one shot. Then he dodged the return fire, severing one of the cables with a beam saber slash. The barrel crashes into the last, leaving him with only the main cannon. Kira goes in to finishes it, when suddenly, he get dragged away by the Aegis.

"Kira, snap out of it! It's over! The archangel is already outside our range." Athrun calls to him. Only when the Mobius lands on the Archangel, does Kira realize that the Archangel was glowing red, heated by the friction of the atmosphere. They were already going through reentry. The Eighth Fleet was all but annihilated. Only four out of the twenty five ships that once composed the mighty fleet remained. The Menelaus succeeded in reentry just before the archangel, and the rest were retreating towards lunar orbit. They'd lost Dearka, the Buster, ten GINNs and the Ziegler, but ultimately, they retreated to the Vesalius.

None of them said anything as they changed back into their uniforms. They were called in for the debriefing. They filed into the briefing room. Le Creuset enters several minutes later, followed by Captain Ades. They stand in the front of the room and begin, "Operation: CounterStrike was a failure. However, the earth forces have been dealt a critical wound. With the destruction of the eighth fleet, the lunar base won't be able launch any attacks at the PLANTs. Does anyone know why we lost today?" Yzak stands, "because we didn't launch at the beginning of the battle." Le Creuset shakes his head, "That would have wasted more energy. None of your machines had any energy to spare." Nicol rose next. "Because we didn't back up Dearka in his fight?" Again he shakes his head. "You would have been destroyed by the weapons of the Archangel. It was only because of that that he and Kira were able to concentrate on the Mobile armor." Kira rises next, "It was because I took too long talking to them. It just bought them more time to escape." Again wrong. "You saved innocent lives. And it still wouldn't have made much of a difference. If you had more energy, than maybe. But all four machines were running on empty." Athrun rose last, "We just got unlucky." Le Creuset smiles, "Correct. That battle could have gone either way. We lost this time and it cost us a comrade. We won't let it happen again." Kira nods and stands, "There is still a chance that he's alive. The crew of the Archangel aren't bad people. I doubt that they'd kill him just because he was a coordinator. They'll take him prisoner, but at least he's alive." Yzak nods, "I know. We'll get him back." "That's the spirit. We'll be descending to Gibraltar. Get ready." Le Creuset says as he stands. They salute and he leaves.

The four of them leave and as they are about to leave, Yzak surprises them, "Kira, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have doubted you." He says as he bows. Kira just shakes his head, "Don't worry about it. I'd have done the same thing." The three go to their respective quarters to pack for Gibraltar, while Kira head to the hanger. He sits and talks with the maintenance crew, waiting for them to get their orders. After about an hour, Yzak joins him, and they start talking. Nicol arrives thirty minutes later, and give them a time frame. "We'll be descending at six tomorrow morning." Kira stretches, "Great, I might be able to catch up on some rest." Nicol starts apologizing. "Don't worry about it. I've stayed up later doing classwork and Heliopolis." Kira says to stops him. "What the heck are you guys talking about?" Yzak asks looking from one to the other. Kira nods, "That's right, I forgot that you didn't know. Nicol asked me to help him optimize the Blitz's OS, and it kept me up until two."

Yzak was silent for a moment then said to Kira, "Could you do the same thing for the Duel?" Kira smiles, "Not a problem, It'll give me something to do while we wait." Yzak unlocks the OS and Kira starts working. He begins by allocating a portion of the main power source to the beam sabers, ensuring that it won't run out just because he took too many hits. Next he adjusts the power distribution to the limbs and booster, further increasing the already considerable speed. Then, he activates backup energy cells to allow the Duel to compensate for the increased performance of the machine without losing operational time. When he finally finishes, he finds that he's attracted something of a crowd. The vast majority of the maintenance crew had stopped working and watched Kira. The whole process took a little over an hour and a half, during which time Athrun showed up. The three pilots watch as Yzak took the Duel out for a test, and marveled at incredible speed it showed. Even with the intense training that they'd gone through, Nicol and Athrun could barely see it move. When he came back he joked, "Now we know why we didn't succeeded this morning. You didn't work on Dearka's, Athrun's, and mine. We'd have crushed them with this. I never thought it would make that much of a difference."

Kira decided to take a rest after they finished the tests on the Duel. Athrun was gracious enough to let him rest before working on the Aegis. Kira rested in the infirmary, which had become his quarters. He heads straight to the hanger. Athrun left the OS unlocked on the Aegis and Kira got straight to work. He reconfigured the power grid, lessening the energy cost of the energy beam in armor mode, also lessening the cost of changing form. Next, he adjusts the phase shift on the shield, allowing it to reflect beams instead of just blocking them. Like with the Duel, a portion of the main battery is allocated to the energy saber. Finally he fine tunes the main systems, making them more compatible with Athrun fighting style. It takes a lot longer than with the others, three and a half hour from start to finish and by the time he's done, all the pilots have woken and come down to the hanger. Athrun launches to do a few tests. At quarter of six, the remaining three pilots launch and enter the descent pod. Athrun follows shortly afterwards, and the pod drops at exactly six o'clock.

"That was a hell of a ride." Yzak remarks, causing the other three to laugh. The pilots report to the Gibraltar personnel office. They are met by the regional commander, Marco Morrassim. "You are the pilots from the Le Creuset team?" he asks. They salute and answer, "Yes, sir" he nods, "you for are to be assembled as the Zala team, and are to assist Commander Waltfeld in maintaining control of the area." They salute and the commanders leave to arrange transport. Yzak leads the other two to the mess hall and Kira enjoy the meal more than any since he left Heliopolis. Athrun finds them just as Kira comes back with ice cream, "What? Nothing for me?" Athrun jokes. They laugh and eat the ice cream.

Athrun leads them back to their machines, "Our transports are on the third runway. Pick a plane and we'll head out." Kira climbs onto the Strike and follows the other to the runway. After he stores the mobile suit, he sits in the back of the transport. The pilot checks back in five minutes, "We'll be taking off in about ten minutes. It'll be an hour before we reach the Lesseps." Kira nods, and closes his eyes, falling fast asleep before they take off. He wakes forty-five minutes later, when the ships starts shaking violently. Before he can get up, the pilots voice echoes over the intercom, "We're under attack! Board your machine! If worse comes to worst, we'll eject you." Kira runs through the back door and rushes into the Strikes cockpit. "We're ejecting you, brace yourself!" the pilot said, as the cargo bay door opened.

The wind pressure blasts the strike out of the ship. Kira fights the wind and turns his machine. On his way down, he shoots at the aircrafts that were shooting at the transport. Two of them go down, but the last takes a hit to the wing and turns towards Kira. Kira turns on the phase shift just in time, and two blasts hit the strike, sending it plummeting down to the desert. Kira regains control, seconds before he crashes to earth. With the last of his energy, he powers the boosters and slows his fall. The machine crashes and a surge of pain shoot through his arm, and he blacks out.

Yzak, Nicol, and Athrun land safely, and wait at the runway for Kira. When the transport appears on the runway, they immediately know that something is wrong. Burns and dents cover the plane, the cargo bay door was open, and half was broken off. As soon as the plane had stopped, the three run to the cockpit. The pilot is running towards them, "We were attacked en route. I had to eject him in order to make sure they didn't shot him down." "What!" the four yelled. Athrun turned to the fourth voice. There was a tall man, wearing sunglasses, yelling on the phone. "Scramble the copters! Everyone available should be out there looking for that kid!" he yelled onto the phone. He looks to the pilots, "Sorry, but for obvious reasons, we'll be postponing the welcome party. Where was he dropped?" he asks the transport pilot. "Point eighty-seven, district four." He shakes his head, "Damn it. That area is controlled by Blue Cosmos."

Kira slowly regained consciousness, and found himself on a bed in a small concrete room. There were no windows, and only one door. He could hear muttering on the other side, "Is that kid a coordinator? I heard a rumor that the Strike defected to ZAFT." The first said. "Don't believe everything you hear. For now, keep quiet about it. If he's a coordinator, we'll kill him. For all we know, he might've been captured." A voice answered. Kira heard footsteps walking toward him, and rushed back to the bed as quietly as he could. Just as he pulled the covers over him, the door opens and two men walk in. One of them, slightly shorter than the other, with a bold head, had a gun drawn. He quickly looked around and holstered it. The second, tall with short red hair, walked over to the bed and started shaking Kira. "Hey, kid, are you okay?"

Kira waited a second, then pretended to wake up, then said to the men, "Where am I? What happened?" Kira tries to sit up, but when he attempts to put his wait on his left arm, he collapse screaming. The man rushes to support him, "Easy now, your damn near broke your arm. You're in the middle of desert, about a hundred miles east of the town of tassel. You're mobile suit fell out of the sky yesterday morning. Any idea how that happened?"

Kira froze for a second, he hadn't thought about how to explain how that happened. If he told the truth, they'd kill him. Quickly, he said, acting a natural as possible, "I was fighting against ZAFT in the earth's atmosphere, my machine was shot and crashed through the atmosphere. I need to get to Alaska…" he says, trying to get up, until the pain got to be too much.

The bald man said from the door, "The only way that you'd get to Alaska is to fight your way through Gibraltar. Why don't you wait here? There's an earth force's ship that'll be arrive at our port in a week. They'd be able to take you to JOSH-A. Until then, just get some rest, and let that arm of yours heal. This is a small town and we don't have any doctors." Kira nods and lies back down. He falls asleep a few minutes after they leave.

When Kira wakes up, the door is open. Its late in the afternoon, as the last of the daylight was fading. There was a commotion in the town square. Kira carefully got up and walked out the door. In the center of town, all the towns' folk were arguing with a group of people. Arguing with the bald man from earlier was someone that Kira didn't think he'd ever see again. A girl with short blonde hair and green eyes. The same girl he'd pushed into the shelter at Heliopolis.

"Why are you always so intent on fighting without any help? We should join forces, for the preservation of our blue and pure world!" the bald man yelled, and the cry was quickly taken up by the surrounding citizens. Kira froze in terror, his worst fears realized. This town was Blue Cosmos. The girl yelled, "All we want is to protect our homes and our families! All we want from you is for you to sell us the weapons like you agreed to." He sighed and motions to several of his compatriots. "Here, all of the weapons you asked for, plus the ammo and equipment. Now, if you'll just pay for them, you'll be free to take them." The large, bulking man, stepped from behind the girl and handed a wad of money, and bent down and picked up four of the crates. All the townsfolk helped to pack the weapons into the jeep, leaving Kira alone. Kira mind raced, trying to find some way to escape. If they found out he was a coordinator, he would stand a chance. He heard a sound from the other side of a large building to his right.

He looked and saw the girl standing in front of a large crater. He took a step forward and saw at the bottom of the crater, armor greyed out and broken in places, was his Mobile suit, the strike. "Why the hell is this here!" she yelled as she turned, having heard him walking behind her. She stopped as soon as she was him. "What the hell are you doing here?" she yelled running towards him. "Nice to see you too." Kira says, laughing at her reaction. The laughter stops when she punches him, "Shut up, you jackass! I can't believe that I was worried about you!" They were drawing a crowd, and the bald man, speaks, "You two know each other?" Kira nods, "We met at the ORB satellite Heliopolis. We got caught in the attack by ZAFT." She huffs, "Not like I asked you to save me!" Kira smirks, "I never said you did. After that, I was forced to pilot the strike." She looks shocked, "You pilot this thing? Why the hell are you-"she's about to punch him again, but Kira grabs her arm, twists it, and throws her to the ground. "I might have been a civilian before, but I'm still a soldier. You can't beat me."

The bulking man run at Kira and knocks him off her, sending him crashing next to the Strike. "You will not hurt Cagali!" He yells reaching for the Machine gun he has slung around his back. Kira jumps to his feet and gets into the Strike's cockpit. He starts it and runs a quick diagnostic, "Good, as long I don't run into any mobile suits I should be fine." The strike stands, and over the speakers, he says, "I've got a signal from the Archangel! I'm heading back!" He prays that they believe it. The townsfolk start shout for him to massacre ZAFT, until the bulking man yelled, "That's a lie! The Archangel landed in Josh-A! You're with ZAFT!" It takes a few seconds for what he's saying to sink in, and then the town raged. Half of them started to throw stones and the like, even a couple of grenades. Kira curses and the strikes boosters launch it through the air.

When he reached the outskirts of the town, he felt the Mobile suit sink. They were gaining on him. "Damn it! I can't move like this. In the rear view, he saw a large crowd of townsfolk were heading the opposite direction. "They must have some weapon cache nearby." Some of the terrorists chased after him, now armed with more weapons and yelling curses. Kira checks the power output, and found he was running out of power fast. He quickly brought up the OS and started to reprogram the contact pressure. "Judging from the speed I' m sinking, if I change it to negative twenty, I should be able to get away. It'll be hell to deal with later, nut in this case-"He inputs the changes and jumps out of the sand. He lands and runs. He checks the power and he got less than half his energy.

"Fuck, I used too much energy taking out those planes. I can't last much longer-"an explosion rocked the cockpit, dazing him slightly. The rear camera show that they aren't giving up. There are about ten tanks, and a dozen jeeps. On the jeeps, they start firing rockets and rpgs. With the Aile pack disabled, they'll over take him in no time. Kira gets an alert and turns his attention to the front monitor. There were seven Helicopters, all fully armed, with one of them having some kind of special equipment.

Kira takes aim at the copters, when he hears a voice over the radio, grabbled by static, "X105 strike, do you copy? This is the second interceptor squad from the Lesseps –"Kira can't believe his luck and sends back, "This is the Strike. "The copters open fire on the jeeps, cutting them off from the strike. A copter appears at the head of the other and hovers behind the strike, "Disengage the Aile striker pack. We'll test this new equipment pack now instead of later." Kira discards the damaged pack, and sends a linkage signal to the copter. The copter drops some equipment and the boosters push it into position.

Kira locks them in place, and takes a few moments to look over the new equipment. GAT X105 – Stealth Strike. Mirage Colloid dispensers, Twin lancer darts on each arm, beam saber, mines armed with Mirage Colloid and could be remotely, time, or sensor activated. Kira looks back and sees that two of the copter have been destroyed and three crashed. "I'll take it from here, fall back!" he says as he launches the darts into two of the tanks, destroying them and two more that were nearby. He sets the mines and leads the jeeps into the trap, destroying the remaining five and two of the tanks that followed. The remaining tanks start to retreat, but Kira knows that as a member of ZAFT he can't let Blue Cosmos go. He activates Mirage Colloid, then goes at full speed and cuts them off on the way back to the town. They stop to try and to convince the remaining people to take up arms. Kira slashes the tanks, destroying them and killing most of the drivers. Kira sees the remaining terrorists running towards the caves on the outskirts of the town, and launches the lancer dart into the cave. There was a massive explosion, causing half the mountain to collapse. Kira leaves the town, returning to the scene of the battle.

Kira found the crew of the copters searching through the wreckage of the downed aircrafts, trying to save those that could be. He climbed out of the cockpit, lowered himself to the ground, and ran over to the leader of the soldiers. She was a young woman, with long black haired tied up in a ponytail. "Thank you. You saved me." She turned and saluted, "No trouble, sir. I'm Rena Imelia, Commander of the Second interceptor squadron." Kira saluted, "Are you able to get in touch with anyone else?" She shook her head, "No, the N – Jammer level are too high. We might have to wait until tonight, and then send a copter back under cover of night." Kira thought for a moment, "How many copters are left?" she called over two of the soldiers and had a quick conversation with them. "We have three in working order and two more that we can get airborne." Kira nods, "Then I'll go. With the stealth strike's Mirage colloid, I'll be able to slip past them undetected. Once the copters are airborne, get them somewhere out of sight." She salutes, and sends one of the crew to find someplace they can lay low until he gets back.

Kira boards the strike and engages the Mirage Colloid. He inputs the coordinates of the Lesseps and heads in that direction. For over an hour, he moves through the desert, completely undetected, dodging Blue Cosmos patrols. His mobile suit is about to run out of power, when he finds a familiar signal on the Radar. He picks up the radio, "Nicol!" "Kira? Is that you?" he says in response. "Yeah, it's me. How is everyone?" Kira says smiling. "They're all out searching for you. I just transmitted your position so don't move. We'll be there." Kira nods "Go it. I've got the Stealth Strike, so I'll be under Mirage Colloid until you show up." "Got it, I'll tell the others. Be there in less than fifteen minutes." Nicol says, cutting off the connection.

Yzak shows up first, The Duel covered in scorch marks. Kira disengages Mirage Colloid and takes a step out of his hiding spot. Duel turns to him and the machine walks toward him, feet unsteady in the sand. Next is the Blitz, Nicol dismounts his machine and runs toward him, yelling, "Kira! Kira gets out and run to him, "Nicol! Thank god." Athrun flies by and lands next to them, his gundam, like the others sinking into the sand. Almost immediately afterwards, a four legged mobile suit came barreling through, stopping next to the Duel. A man got out, followed by a young woman with long black hair. "Glad to see that you made it. I'm Andrew Waltfeld. Judging from your mobile suit, I'm guessing you ran into an interceptor squad?"

Kira salutes, recognizing the name of his current commander, "Yes, sir. The second interceptor squadron found me when I was being chased by Blue Cosmos." "Where is the Second squad?" he inquired, still eyeing the Strike. "Over half the squad was destroyed or disabled. They stayed behind to gather the survivors, while I went to get help. I told them to find someplace to lie low until I got back, given that at least one Blue Cosmos group is nearby. " Waltfeld nodded, "Exactly the orders I'd have given. I noticed that your machine not have the same problem as the other three. Why not?" "I was forced to adjust the contact pressure variables in order to escape." He nods and turns away, talking on his radio.

About a minute later, he returns, "the third squad is on the way. Kira, since you know their last position, I'm placing you in command of the squad. Switch equipment when they arrive and bring back our boys." Kira salutes, "Sir, would I be able to take Athrun with me? I'm still rather new to this, and I'm not confident that I can lead a mission like this on my own." He nods, "that won't be a problem. While we wait for the third squad, why don't you correct the other machines?" Kira nods and starts working on the blitz, while Waltfeld talked to Athrun.

you'll have to wait and see how this whole thing has effected the crew of the archangel. R&R