Without a second thought, Wang Hu clamped both hands over his mouth. After all, they were in space.
If he vomited inside the cockpit, it would be a truly life-threatening situation.
Even if he didn't suffocate from the filth floating around the cockpit, and even if he miraculously survived the ensuing battles...
When they returned to the Red Dragon and his comrades opened the cockpit to gracefully float out and receive the crowd's cheers...
What if, when it was his turn, the hatch opened only to reveal a mess of vomit in front of everyone?
He'd rather die than face such humiliation!
He fought desperately against the waves of dizziness crashing through his mind, even though it felt like his brain had been thrown into a blender.
Wang Hu lived by one principle: he could lose his life, but never his dignity.
Fortunately, since Creuset had piloted the Red Mantis into a self-destruct attack, and the explosive force hadn't yet dissipated...
No one would disturb Wang Hu at the epicenter of the blast.
After a while, the dizziness in his head subsided slightly. Swallowing hard, he mustered immense self-control to preserve his dignity.
He had protected the golden reputation of the East Asian Qilin.
"Was it an overload reaction from the GRASS System?"
Leaning his head against the seatback, Wang Hu analyzed the cause of his sudden discomfort.
It stood to reason that surviving an explosion akin to the Light of Peace using the GRASS System...
Couldn't possibly come without a cost.
"It's still an imperfect system. If only I could get my hands on the original λ-driver system."
Flipping through the intelligence in his memory, Wang Hu secretly resolved to seek out comrades from the Full Metal World if the opportunity arose.
No matter what, he would visit that world and bring back the genuine λ-driver system.
And next time, he wouldn't blindly trust the masters from the Academy. Their craftsmanship was impressive, but the side effects were far too severe.
What if he didn't die at the hands of the enemy but was instead killed by some new gadget his own people developed?
Where would he go to complain then?
Having made up his mind, he swore not to use the GRASS System again for the rest of this battle.
After all, Wang Hu believed that the Nu Gundam, reverse-engineered from CE Technology, was more than capable of handling the entire situation.
He originally planned to charge out as soon as the surrounding explosions subsided, coordinating with the East Asia Fleet's advance.
His goal was to swiftly suppress all of PLANT and eliminate any future concerns for the East Asian Federation in this world.
This would allow the East Asian Federation to focus its resources on aiding the other two worlds.
Ideally, they could even spare some resources to help him clean up someone else's mess in another world.
Suddenly, the cold, clear voice of the pink diva, Lacus Clyne, reached Wang Hu's ears in the Nu Gundam's cockpit via wide-area broadcast.
And it wasn't just her voice. Wang Hu checked the prompts on the control panel.
To his astonishment, he realized Lacus was transmitting a live broadcast to the entire Earth Sphere!
"What is that woman planning?"
Muttering to himself, Wang Hu noticed the surrounding explosions hadn't fully subsided yet, so he casually tuned into Lacus's live broadcast signal.
He was aware of the incident where the pink diva had led a surprise attack on Genesis.
Regarding Lacus, an important member of PLANT, publicly calling for ceasefire negotiations on the battlefield while frontline soldiers were fighting desperately, Wang Hu had his own understanding. After all, from the current situation, the Coordinator ZAFT Forces faced certain annihilation.
With the East Asian Army's Boaz Cannon positioned ahead, Genesis paled in comparison, becoming practically useless.
Meanwhile, the well-rested fresh troops of the East Asian Army were advancing in full force, leaving ZAFT Forces with almost zero chance of victory.
Continuing to resist would only lead to complete destruction.
Of course, this isn't to say that Wang Hu was encouraging surrender when facing enemies invading their homeland when the situation seemed hopeless.
Rather, appropriate judgments should be made based on real-time circumstances.
After all, the Coordinators' homeland consisted of space colonies, unlike the solid ground within the Earth Sphere.
If ZAFT Forces were completely wiped out and the invading enemies surrounded the PLANT Satellite Colonies, they would lose everything.
As the saying goes, different situations require different approaches - many things cannot be rigidly applied.
For example, the Rooster hero from World War I in old history had become a national traitor by the end of World War II.
But people only saw the outcome, without understanding the Rooster's circumstances at that time, or what this former hero-turned-traitor had actually done.
Or what consequences his choices had brought.
Similarly, facing scoundrels like the Atlantic Federation Army, Lacus would probably never make such choices even if beaten to death.
But when facing the East Asian Army, known throughout the world for their righteousness and virtue, that woman Lacus still harbored some illusions.
"Is she trying to exploit gentlemen's principles?"
Taking a deep breath, the pounding in his head subsided further, and Wang Hu began speculating about Lacus's hidden agenda by putting himself in her shoes.
Suddenly, a thought struck him, and his eyes widened - it couldn't be!
What clever calculation, what brilliant planning!
Indeed, subsequent events unfolded exactly as Wang Hu had anticipated.
During her global broadcast from Genesis, Lacus didn't say anything - she immediately destroyed all of Genesis's reflective mirrors.
Then, claiming that the prolonged conflict had brought immense sorrow to both Earth and PLANT,
that enough blood had been shed and the flames of hatred burned too fiercely,
for the future of humanity and all innocent people,
positioning herself on the moral high ground, she condescendingly preached to the world about the value of peace and the meaning of life.
Thus, from within Genesis, she called upon all peace-loving people of conscience throughout the Earth Sphere
to set aside their differences and sit down together to negotiate an end to the war.
Even though ZAFT Forces were clearly on the verge of collapse, and with just a bit more effort from the East Asian Army, PLANT could be toppled like dominoes -
if not completely destroyed, at least this nation that shouldn't have existed would vanish into thin air.
Yet in Lacus's speech, with her silver tongue and evasive rhetoric, she made it sound as if PLANT had made great concessions, and ZAFT Forces were enduring humiliation for the sake of peace.
Such nonsense might fool brainless idiots or ordinary people unaware of the true situation.
It was absolutely impossible to deceive the ruling elites of various nations—those cunning figures who, even with monkey hair glued on, would outsmart the monkeys themselves.
Yet, as laughable as it was, history repeated itself once more, just as it had countless times before.
And likely would countless times again in the future.
In East Asia, there was a term called "nurturing bandits to enhance one's own importance." Although the West lacked such a concise phrase, they understood the concept well enough.
Faced with the complete annihilation of the Atlantic Federation Army's main forces and the absence of any other force in the Earth Sphere capable of counterbalancing the East Asian Federation,
these nations, in order to protect their own hegemony and prevent the East Asian Army from achieving total victory over PLANT and then sweeping across the globe with the momentum of that victory—
after all, such examples were far too common in history—these hypocritical scoundrels, feigning ignorance, were the first to respond to Lacus's call.
To outsiders unaware of the situation, it appeared as though the pink diva's prestige was astonishingly high.
Subsequently, every nation's representative who believed they had a say delivered public speeches through the media,
demanding or urging the East Asian Federation to halt their advance and come to the negotiating table to discuss the aftermath of the conflict.
The absurd spectacle of "twelve golden edicts recalling a victorious northern expedition army" was, in the eyes of the world, playing out once again.
"That woman!"
Wang Hu slammed his fist onto the control panel inside the Nu Gundam's cockpit, forced to admit that her timing was impeccable.
Truly living up to the moniker "Lady Yumi" from his memories, her ability to manipulate situations with a flip of her hand was nothing short of masterful.
By leveraging the fact that PLANT was no longer the primary threat in the Earth Sphere, and that the East Asian Federation had instead become the immediate danger to all nations,
she had managed to carve out a path to survival for the Coordinators in the narrowest of gaps!
"What do we do?"
Watching the Boaz Cannon on the screen, which had been on the verge of colliding with Genesis, suddenly extinguish its thrusters' fiery tails,
Wang Hu knew that the East Asian Federation's leadership must be under immense pressure.
Even though the East Asian Federation possessed the capability to eliminate all opposition in the world in one fell swoop,
their longstanding traditions prevented them from openly standing against global public opinion—
especially when they had no allies on their side.
They had always prided themselves on representing righteousness. How could the East Asian Federation now emulate the shamelessness of the Atlantic Federation?
To shatter their own reputation with their own hands—the upper echelons would hardly be willing!
"I've got it!"
Sweat drenched his face in the cockpit, but Wang Hu's eyes lit up with an idea.
If the various factions within the Earth's gravity well were not united, each harboring their own hidden agendas,
wasn't the same true for PLANT?
Lacus's strategy was indeed the best option for PLANT at the moment, but the current leader of PLANT was that hardliner, Patrick.
Would he be willing? Could he agree?
If Chairman Patrick were to step forward and loudly proclaim, "Fight to the end against the damned, evil Naturals!"
then all of Lacus's schemes would be washed away like water flowing east.
So!
With hopeful eyes, Wang Hu watched the ZAFT Forces on the main battlefield, observing the gradually dying flames of conflict under Lacus's call.
Wang Hu, who was praying in his heart for Chairman Patrick to rise to the occasion, waited with bated breath for Patrick to reignite the flames of war.
However, as the residual shockwaves of the Red Mantis's self-destruction nearly dissipated, the main battlefield remained devoid of rekindled conflict.
"What's wrong with Patrick?"
"That hardline leader—could he have been swayed by Lacus's few words too?"
Perplexed, Wang Hu did not know that faced with Lacus's rhetoric, even her father Clyne could not have persuaded Patrick, who of course would not listen.
But if verbal persuasion failed, there was always physical persuasion.
In the original timeline, inside the Genesis, when faced with the mad Patrick's order to fire the Genesis at Earth, a high-ranking officer of the ZAFT Forces courageously stepped forward and ended Patrick's insanity by shooting him dead.
Now, history repeated itself. As Patrick raged in the flagship, branding Lacus a traitor and demanding that the ZAFT Forces fight the East Asian Army to the last man, even if it meant total annihilation—while the other officers on the flagship, cowed by Patrick's lingering authority, steeled themselves to relay his command to the entire army—the wheel of fate turned back to its origin.
Once again, it was that same officer, whose elders lived within the Earth Sphere, who abruptly drew a pistol amid the stunned gazes of everyone on the bridge. He fired several shots into Patrick's back, halting the further spread of war.
(End of Chapter)