Chapter 352: The War Temporarily Ends
After switching to the Blitz Gundam, Tolle immediately returned to the battlefield. Together with Mu, Asagi, Juri, and Mayura, he joined the mission to defend the coastline.
However, when facing the overwhelming numbers of Strike Daggers, an assault-type unit like the Blitz Gundam completely lost its original advantages. Its firepower wasn't strong enough at all and was wholly unsuited for defensive combat.
Tolle could only rely on the beam rifle mounted on the Assault Shield System in his right hand, picking off enemies one shot at a time. He couldn't even perform a large-scale simultaneous barrage, making the efficiency painfully low.
On an Earth Alliance battleship, Azrael lounged idly in the captain's chair, propping his head up with his left hand as he lazily said to the Atlantic Federation commander beside him, "So slow. You still haven't taken down the Orb Union's headquarters by now? That's really strange. I didn't expect them to be this troublesome."
That commander replied disdainfully, "Those new machines you keep boasting about don't seem to be performing as you wished."
"If that red unit hadn't suddenly shown up, that blue unit would've been taken care of long ago," Azrael replied with a smile, then muttered quietly to himself, "But still… judging by the time, it should be about now. The effects of those three Biological CPU drugs should be wearing off, right?"
Meanwhile, on the battlefield, Kira, Athrun, and the three druggies were still locked in a fierce, unbroken struggle.
Suddenly, as the drug effects wore off for Clotho, Shani, and Orga, intense pain spread throughout their bodies. The Forbidden, Raider, and Calamity Gundams all came to a halt in midair.
With a twisted, agonized expression, Orga said, "Damn it… the drug's time limit is up! Clotho… hurry and take me back! Shani… you get back too!"
Clotho replied painfully, "Damn bastard, always ordering people around. I feel awful too, you know."
Despite his complaints, he still switched the Raider Gundam into MA form, grabbed the Calamity Gundam with its large grappling claw, and sped away.
Shani, also struggling in pain, piloted the Forbidden Gundam and began retreating toward the Earth Alliance fleet.
At the critical moment of the three druggies' emergency withdrawal, an Earth Alliance radar operator reported, "Calamity, Forbidden, and Raider Gundams are returning. The Forbidden Gundam is damaged—its left-shoulder energy bias armor has been lost."
Hearing this, the commander asked in disbelief, "What? How could that happen?"
"What a bunch of useless trash! They even managed to break their own machines!" Azrael glanced at the time with an expression full of disgust and irritation, then casually said to the commander, "Forget it. Let's take a break, Captain. We'll withdraw for now—an all-out withdrawal."
"What did you say?"
"With just the Strike Daggers, it's impossible to take Orb. Orb's strength has already exceeded my expectations. If we keep fighting without those three, we'll be completely wiped out.
Besides, we need to regroup more forces and machines before launching a full-scale assault on Orb."
The commander made a helpless decision. "Notify the fleet immediately. Send out the retreat signal and order all remaining units to withdraw at once."
Inside their cockpits, Orb's MS pilots saw the Earth Alliance's retreat signal and the withdrawing MS units and finally let out a sigh of relief.
Some of them were so exhausted that they fell asleep right there in their cockpits.
Kira and Athrun hovered facing each other in their respective machines. After a long silence, Kira broke it. "Even though I'm very grateful for your support… I still want to confirm what your true intentions really are."
Inside his cockpit, Athrun closed his eyes, recalling scene after scene of fighting Kira—Nicol's "death," his father's orders, and Lacus's final words of persuasion.
Finally, he opened the cockpit hatch and raised the pilot seat outward, answering Kira with a solemn expression. "I… received orders back at PLANT to seize or destroy your unit, the Freedom Gundam.
But now… I don't want to be your enemy, or the enemy of your allies. I want… us to sit down and talk properly, Kira."
Hearing this, Kira's gaze softened, and he unconsciously said, "Athrun."
Elsewhere, Cagalli looked sorrowfully at the devastated landscape, littered with MS wreckage and building debris. She immediately organized rescue teams to begin searching for soldiers and civilians in need of aid.
Seeing Orb's rescue efforts, the still-operational M1 Astrays followed suit and joined in, helping clear debris and obstacles. Tolle had no choice but to join them as well.
Before long, Erica hurried over with a tense expression to the Blitz Gundam and shouted up at it, "Tolle, something's wrong!"
Seeing Erica in such a panic, Tolle immediately climbed out of the Blitz Gundam's cockpit and asked, "What's wrong, Erica? What happened?"
"There's a traitor inside the Morgenröte company!
He copied the data on the five Gundams developed at Heliopolis, the PX system, the intelligent auxiliary system, and the enhanced energy battery packs.
He escaped with the data during the chaos, and by now it's probably already been handed over to the Earth Alliance."
Tolle sighed. He had long expected that there would be traitors within Orb selling out its technological data, but he hadn't thought it would happen this quickly.
Fortunately, he had kept something in reserve—only less powerful data had been provided. It seemed that in the future, truly important things would all need to be disguised and controlled using new dg cells.
And luckily, the PX system was only the first version, with plenty of room for further modification and improvement. The source code of the intelligent auxiliary system was controlled by Nami; even if they cracked it, squeezing out an extra 10% performance from their machines would already be impressive. As for the enhanced energy batteries—once nuclear power became widespread, who would even need those anymore?
In a way, this was fine. It gave him a perfectly reasonable excuse not to disclose all the crucial technologies.
"That bastard! A bunch of traitors selling out their own country!" Tolle said with feigned indignation, then comforted Erica. "Sigh, Erica, you can't really blame yourself. No one could've predicted this."
He then pointed toward the Huayan and continued, "Besides, I did grab that beam-twisting shield of theirs, so it's not a total loss. Let's call it a fair exchange.
And since things have come to this, there's nothing more we can do. We'll just need to be more careful in the future. The truly critical data can only be shown to you aboard the Huayan."
Even though Tolle didn't blame her, Erica still said shamefully, "Thank you, Tolle. I'll be more careful from now on. I won't let something like this happen again."
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