With Reid's order, the New Misurugi Kingdom launched all its ships, save for the most basic homeland defense forces, into space via mass drivers and rockets.
Simultaneously, the New Misurugi Kingdom began organizing its entire populace to take shelter in underground bunkers, parking garages, and subway systems.
Such a massive mobilization completely baffled the other nations on Earth. The leaders of various countries all wondered, could something have happened to Queen Angelise at PLANT? Was Reid Isaac preparing to throw the entire nation's might into a desperate battle against PLANT? But why evacuate civilians on the ground if they were going to fight in space?
However, the leaders of these nations soon received a bulletin from the New Misurugi Kingdom and learned why it was launching its entire military into space.
The truth was even worse than Queen Angelise getting into trouble and the New Misurugi Kingdom starting a second war.
The remains of Junius Seven, Boaz Fortress, Jachin Due Fortress, Yggdrasil, Heliopolis, and two other colony satellites or military fortresses were all moving abnormally toward Earth?
These objects were not small. If all seven pieces of debris were to crash down, it would be a basic operation for them to reduce the Earth's population by eighty percent.
Even a single piece would leave any nation it directly hit half-dead, or it might be more straightforward to just declare the country's demise.
No wonder the New Misurugi Kingdom was abandoning its own territory. After all, if those seven pieces of debris came crashing down, there would be no safe place on Earth. Moving people into bunkers was a desperate, last-ditch effort.
Therefore, the nations of Earth immediately used their various astronomical telescopes to confirm the authenticity of the New Misurugi Kingdom's report.
A dozen or so minutes later, all the investigating nations received the same despairing news: the New Misurugi Kingdom was telling the truth. The remains of these colony satellites and fortresses were deviating from their orbits. Although they hadn't yet moved into the most dangerous trajectory, they weren't far from it.
Once these behemoths were captured by Earth's gravity, they would accelerate and fall to Earth within hours unless they could be broken into rubble. Otherwise, any debris of significant size falling on a city would be a catastrophe.
Although the New Misurugi Kingdom's fleet had already departed, no nation with any capability would want to place its fate in another's hands.
So, the three major powers of the Earth Alliance immediately began to mobilize. It was definitely too late to recall the fleet from the moon. Given the current angle of the debris's movement, once captured by Earth's gravity, it would fall in a matter of hours. They could only dispatch troops from Earth.
Bombarding the debris with missiles or even nuclear weapons was the worst possible option. The smallest of these remnants was over ten kilometers in diameter. A few hundred nukes would only break it into a few hundred large fragments, which wouldn't solve the problem at all. To break them into an acceptable size, a conservative estimate in the most ideal scenario would require thousands of nuclear warheads used as interceptor missiles, with a guaranteed one-hundred-percent hit rate on each piece.
However, this was simply impossible. Earth was under the effect of the Neutron Jammer. Hitting large targets was one thing, but trying to hit fragments whose descent speed was unknown? That would be basically relying on guesswork.
Besides, where on Earth could they find so many nuclear missiles equipped with Anti-Neutron Jammers? It was important to remember that Anti-Neutron Jammers required a lot of precious metals. Even if they repurposed all the nukes the Atlantic Federation had prepared to bomb the PLANT homeland during the last war, it would be a mere drop in the bucket against these seven ruins.
Thus, the nations of Earth came to the same conclusion as in the original story: the only way to deal with this debris was to cut it up. Once cut into smaller pieces, it would be easier to deal with them, whether by blasting them with high-powered beam weapons or missiles.
But for the time being, the nations of Earth couldn't gather enough Asteroid Cutters, as those were primarily used for mining in the colony satellites and were completely useless on Earth.
Even the New Misurugi Kingdom was preparing to use bunker-buster missiles for demolition, as they also lacked a sufficient number of Asteroid Cutters.
In the end, the nations of Earth could only prepare for two contingencies.
First, send every ship that could be sent into space up there now. Regardless of whether the New Misurugi Kingdom could shatter the debris with bunker-buster missiles, the subsequent cleanup of the rock fragments would certainly require a large number of Mobile Suits. Every single unit they could send up now counted.
Second, all missile silos in the country were to be opened. If the situation became hopeless, they would launch all their missiles. Every little bit they could shatter would be a small victory.
Finally, the political leaders of every nation began arranging for their families to enter the bunkers.
As for the civilians, since the Neutron Jammer had cut off wireless networks, it was easy for the governments to control the flow of information.
The East Asian Republic would arrange for communities to enter the air-raid shelters dug in the last century.
As for the Western nations, to prevent the instantaneous collapse of urban order, both the Atlantic Federation and the Eurasian Federation chose to conceal the news. If the worst-case scenario occurred, hiding in a bunker wouldn't make much of a difference anyway. A quick death might even be preferable, sparing them a great deal of suffering.
However, amidst the chaos gripping the nations of Earth, Reid's side, though tense, remained orderly.
The only problem was that on his way to the Gran Chaos, he was blocked. The person blocking him was, naturally, Murrue (Noin was military, so she had immediately gone to command her troops), and she had brought Lacus and Kira with her.
The moment Reid saw Murrue, he felt a pang of guilt, but he maintained a firm tone on the surface.
"Murrue, what are you doing here? I should have arranged for you and Maria to go to the Underground Nuclear Bunker of Seikyu City."
Murrue looked at Reid, her face full of exasperation.
"You want me to abandon my husband and tremble in fear in a bunker with our child? Have you forgotten that I'm a captain too? Don't worry, Maria is already in the underground nuclear bunker. And I am going to command the Archangel into battle."
Hearing this, Reid immediately rejected the idea.
"The Archangel is still in the underground waterway in Seikyu City that leads to Carpentaria. If Australia is destroyed, its deep-sea submersible capabilities are your escape route. It hasn't even been brought to the surface. If you want to command it, you'll have to go back to Seikyu City."
Upon hearing this, Murrue laughed decisively.
"Heh, you think I'd come up here without doing my research? I already brought it out with Arnold. To be precise, the few of us came to space on the Archangel. The ship is in the Balkis's port right now."
Reid looked at Murrue, feeling that this was not a decision she could have made, given the "three years of foolishness after pregnancy" saying. However, considering Lacus had come up with her, Reid thought he knew who had come up with the idea.
At this moment, Lacus keenly sensed that Reid didn't dare say much to Murrue and was about to give her trouble, so she spoke before Reid could.
"Reid, the situation is urgent. Don't waste any more time. Hurry up and give us our mission. Kira has already brought the Strike Gundam. If those seven pieces of debris fall, it's all over."
Since Lacus had spoken, Reid could only give her a look that said, "I'll deal with you later," before saying:
"Fine. Our forces have already been divided into six groups.
"The Mystic Angel has rendezvoused with the army to deal with the Junius Seven remains.
"The Heliopolis remains are smaller, so Mina is leading a team to handle them.
"The Yggdrasil remains are larger, so Tekkadan, Mu, and Jane Houston are leading a team to deal with them.
"The two colony satellite remains at L4 are being handled by Yufang, Yulan, and Gaia, each leading their own teams.
"The Boaz Fortress remains and the Jachin Due Fortress remains are not far from each other. I was originally going to take the Gran Chaos to deal with them. Since you're here, let's go together."
Seeing Reid relent, Murrue said no more. The situation was critical, and taking action was more important.
However, on the way to the port, Lacus still found a moment to ask, "Reid, I find this incident very strange. Did you know something about this in advance?"
Reid knew his reaction had been too quick. Lacus would never believe him if he said he knew nothing, so he told her a half-truth.
"I received intelligence that those Zala Faction hardliners were planning to cause trouble. But I never expected them to make such a huge move.
"Those Zala Faction hardliners who escaped from PLANT couldn't possibly have organized an attack of this magnitude. I strongly suspect a major power is backing them.
"My first suspect is PLANT, and my second is the Junk Guild."
Reid didn't even look at Lacus as he said this, but Lacus knew he was explaining why he hadn't shared any related intelligence with her before.
It was obvious that for Reid not to suspect Lacus, who had deep ties with both PLANT and the Junk Guild, was already a sign of trust.
Putting herself in Reid's shoes, Lacus felt that she wouldn't have told a person with connections to both sides the intelligence beforehand either.
So Lacus fell silent, deciding to have Terminal thoroughly investigate the matter after it was over. Recently, Terminal's efforts had been focused on the espionage war in "August, Sextilis City," and it had indeed neglected intelligence gathering in other areas.
Next was travel time. Since the Gran Chaos had immense firepower, Reid had originally planned to deal with both the Boaz and Jachin Due fortress remains with a single ship.
After all, dismantling these two wrecks only required blasting them with the Shipboard Buster Beam Cannon. If one shot wasn't enough, he'd just fire a few more. He could always break them apart.
As for any potential defenders, Reid figured that since the enemy was split seven ways, they couldn't possibly have a large force left. His own Mobile Dolls would be enough to handle them.
And now, with the addition of the Archangel and Kira in the Strike Gundam, cleaning up the small fry would be even less of a problem.
However, when the Gran Chaos and the Archangel arrived near the remains of Boaz Fortress and Jachin Due Fortress, they were truly shocked.
The two fortress remains were actually being pushed along by massive thrusters.
For the past year, Reid had sent junk dealers to wander around the remains of these two fortresses countless times, and had even sent people inside for a simple search.
Those junk dealers had said that the various passages inside had long been blocked by the self-destruct sequence, making it impossible to go deeper.
Now it seemed that the insides of these two fortresses might have been inhabited all along. No wonder he couldn't find those Zala Faction hardliners; they had pulled a "hiding in plain sight" on him.
These two fortresses originally belonged to ZAFT. They were more familiar with the terrain and equipment inside than anyone else. Installing thrusters and living there long-term was indeed a good method.
Thus, Reid sortied directly in the heavily armed Hermes Zero, leaving Nein on the Gran Chaos to assist Hoshino Ruri.
Once preparations were complete, Reid looked at the Boaz Fortress remains, which had already been nearly half-destroyed by nuclear bombs, and gave the order.
"Liuli, fire a shot from the Destroyer Beam Cannon at the Boaz Fortress remains. Let's see the effect."
As Reid finished speaking, the Gran Chaos's main cannon rose and fired immediately.
In Reid's calculations, the already dilapidated fortress remains should be pierced straight through by the Destroyer Beam Cannon's sixty-meter-wide beam. Then, with a few sweeps, it would crack in half. After that, firing a few more missiles into it would shatter it.
But to Reid's surprise, when the Destroyer Beam hit the Boaz Fortress remains, the outer layer of rock was indeed melted through instantly with no resistance. However, the beam did not pass directly through the fortress remains. Instead, it was as if it had been blocked by a massive beam shield.
Subsequently, a violent explosion occurred on the Boaz Fortress remains, instantly blasting its outer rock wall into pieces that scattered throughout this space zone.
After the explosion subsided, Reid saw that the inside of the Boaz Fortress remains was actually solid. A metal block, at least seven or eight kilometers in diameter, was revealed. At this moment, the metal block had a deep crater nearly a thousand meters deep where the Destroyer Beam Cannon had hit it. The metal was glowing red-hot, but it clearly hadn't been penetrated.
At that moment, Reid suddenly realized something. Could the inside of this Boaz Fortress be solid metal?
To be honest, in the CE Universe, for a national power, it wasn't difficult to create a solid metal block seven or eight kilometers in diameter, as long as there were no requirements for its shape or internal structure.
After all, metal was everywhere in space. A few trips around the Circum-Terrestrial Debris Belt would be enough to drag back the required volume of metal, which could then be melted and cast.
The casting here didn't mean using a mold, but rather pouring it directly from a furnace into space. The surface tension of the molten metal itself would cause it to tend toward a spherical structure.
Of course, one couldn't expect such a spherical structure to be very strong; it might even have many voids inside.
But when the diameter reached seven or eight kilometers, what was the difference between this and a pure metal asteroid? Of course the Shipboard Buster Beam Cannon couldn't penetrate it. To pierce this thing, you'd need the Balkis's main cannon. To melt it completely, you'd need something on the level of a Satellite Cannon.
Now, this Boaz Fortress had clearly become a mold. Reid had to retract his previous judgment. No one was living inside; instead, people had been continuously filling it with molten metal for this very day.
This was clearly not a recent undertaking. It was possible they had already finished pouring the molten metal before he even established his junk recycling company and sent his subordinates out.
Moreover, this was clearly not ordinary iron, but most likely a random mix of various metals from the debris belt melted together.
Originally, when Reid told Lacus that the Junk Guild might be behind the Zala Faction hardliners, it was because the original work had hinted at it (he remembered the novel implying the Junk Guild helped transport and maintain the Zala Faction's mobile suits). But now, it was practically confirmed that they were involved in this matter.
As for the reason, besides the Junk Guild, what other country or organization in the CE Universe could melt so much scrap metal without being noticed?
The best place to hide a grain of sand is in a desert. The Junk Guild's various colony satellites smelted vast amounts of metal every day and could reasonably appear anywhere in the Circum-Terrestrial Debris Belt. It would be incredibly simple for them to fill the interior of the Boaz Fortress remains with molten metal.
And even if they were discovered, as an extremely loose neutral organization, they could just feign ignorance. After all, pouring scrap metal into an abandoned fortress wasn't illegal.
They could just offer up a few mid-to-high-level scapegoats to settle the matter. After all, the Junk Guild's backers were actually the political and business elites of the Earth Sphere's various nations. Plus, they did serve the function of clearing space lanes, so uprooting them completely would not be easy.
However, the Junk Guild's income during peacetime was much lower than during wartime. So, from a profit perspective, Reid was not at all surprised that the higher-ups in the Junk Guild wanted to reignite the flames of war.
And this solid-debris tactic was a hard stall.
Given the immense mass of this rock, even if he destroyed the thrusters now, the time it would take to push it back to a safe orbit would be no less than the time it would take to slowly cut it up and blast it apart. It was utterly disgusting.
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