Part 128: Mission 37 (Orb Route) - Prologue

Voting’s now closed and Orb had a smashing victory over Paris, scoring 8:2.

I’m kinda feeling like I sank into Bizarro SRW, because I would not think Astray would’ve made people willing to sit through more Gundam SEED when Gaogaigar was the other option.

Either way, I like Astray too much to complain. Here we go:



I an island of the Orb archipelago, Cagalli is being held "prisoner" by Athrun.
Apparently the two of them ended up on an island after a fearsome battle that left both of them sans mech; Cagalli tried stealing Athrun's gun once, nearly getting both of them killed in the process.
This certainly wasn't what Athrun expected from his recon mission.
Cagalli tells him that she's fighting in part because she hates both the Federation army and the Zaft, who, between the “Bloody Valentine” Incident and Zaft’s bombardment of Earth with Neutron Jammers, seem to have ample good cause on both sides to hate each other already.



After realizing that talk of war won't accomplish anything, Athrun smiles and notes that Cagalli reminds him of his best friend, who's always so serious and always throws so much of himself into everything he does.
The two trade names and decide to split up to wait for their respective teams to rescue them.



Kazuma relates to the log how our team has been admitted into Orb thanks to our special status, but things are pretty complicated given Orb's fabrication of the five Gundams for the Feds.
Former leader Uzumi Yula Asuha resigned after the incident, but still retains his influence and is supposedly still pulling strings from the shadows; Uzumi also has a daughter, who rumor has it has just returned home from a recon mission during which she got shot down.



Ruri and the leaders are off chatting with Uzumi, and Horis and Harry are helping the Orb military look for the Whispered.
The rest of our people are to fan out in the city and ask questions the old fashioned way.



With open ocean on all sides, it's very hard to exclude the possibility of sinister forces lurking in Orb... forces like our people, for instance.
There's no practical way to check all IDs, so we've got to simply ask likely looking people for information; this gives the womanizers a chance to proposition the citizenry and get some numbers, though only until 5PM when everyone is to rendezvous.
The team picks districts of the town to search in and splits up.



Lowe barely turns around and bumps into Yzak and the Zaft G-boys, who barely keep their identity secret.
Kisato chides Lowe for being so gung-ho that he doesn’t look ahead of himself and the two run off to search; as they leave, Yzak and Dearka discuss how our group is in town and resolve to strike them.
Athrun isn't with the group, though, having gone instead to investigate Morgenleite.



I actually quite like this song. It reminds me of "You are similar to me" which was my favorite song of SEED Destiny



There, he's run into Kira, and sees that he still kept the robot bird he made him so many years ago.
Kira says the robot was made by a great friend of his and it’s very precious to him.
Athrun is silent at this and Tolle interrupts by calling Kira’s name; both boys head back to their respective comrades.
Kira cries a bit over this, but is resolved that the day will come when they can go back to being friends again; either way, Tolle comes out and asks Kira to come back inside – the Archangel is getting ready to depart from Orb.
Kira is ready and determined to keep fighting to protect his friends.



Back in town, David has propositioned what he thinks is a woman, but is actually a man.
David can somehow tell that the person is a tourist, and doesn't actually try to ask about the Whispered; he and the man seem to hit it off, and David promises to one day buy the guy a drink to apologize for calling him a woman.



Three days later, at the Morgenleite HQ, Kisato is relating our findings to Professor and while some people DID say they saw Kaname and Tessa, nothing more significant was found.



As for Professor, she’s been helping her friend Erika Simmons, who is interested in meeting the P02's pilot.
It somehow comes as a major shock to Lowe that this woman, head of the ASTRAY Project, is the designer of the "Red Frame".
Cagalli is nearby and confirms that it’s true; our people recognize her as the guerilla girl that was with Quatre and see that she made it safely to Orb.



She quickly berates Lowe, Erika and everyone else for all the trouble the Astray prototype, the Archangel and the Gs has caused to her father and leaves.
Erika explains that the Heliopolis/Federation’s “G Project” was created as per the Sahaku Family’s lobby, with support from Morgenleite, and once Orb’s work with the Federation was exposed, her family was left holding the bag.



There’s not a lot of time to think as a screaming Juri comes running after Lowe, very happy to see him again after all this time.
Along with her are Asagi (the blonde) and Mayura (red-haired girl), both of who are very impressed at how handsome Lowe is – they figured Juri was blowing it out of proportion but now stand corrected.
However, the two girls think Gai Murakumo has him beat and Lowe is surprised to hear that they know him.
It seems the Blue Frame was also brought to Orb.



Kazahana is also here and confirms that they brought the Blue Frame to Morgenleite for adjustments.
Kisato is a bit surprised at a 10 year-old being part of a mercenary troupe, though Lowe quickly sticks up for her.
They assure her that Kazuma is doing well, and, while Lowe doesn’t recognize Juri, she takes delight in revealing herself in her Marine persona to Lowe (Liam quickly sees that Horis’ guess that she was from Orb was right on the money).
Erika apologizes for fooling them but reveals that it was she that asked Juri to head up to Space and collect data for her.



Either way, the reason why they’re here is that Erika wants Lowe to do is coach the female test pilots, whose mecha have been enhanced with the OS and combat data from the P02.
Their purpose is as a Self-Defense Force for Orb; in return, she’ll make use of the Astray parts they have here and give the Red Frame an upgrade. Lowe enthusiastically accepts the assignment.



Training will have to wait until the M1 Prototype is fixed: the Archangel was in town so they had to quietly dedicate themselves to repair it, which would cause mass commotion if the information got out.
They've already left for the Federation Alaska base, so Erika had enough breathing room to prepare something else for Lowe - a test unit for the P02 to try out in the nearby islands (inwardly, she thinks that this should be good enough for “Lord Rondo”).
Juri insists on tagging along, and doesn't seem to be fazed when Lowe declines.