"Lowe? How did you get here so fast?"
Standing by the hangar, Roz was slightly surprised to see a young man in a blue headscarf, with brown hair styled like a punk, wearing a mechanic jumpsuit.
"I thought it would take you a while to get here."
"Haha, I just went to Heliopolis to pick up some cargo earlier, and on the way back, I got your comms," said the young man named Lowe Guele, scratching his head. He flashed a broad, heroic manga-style grin and gave Roz a thumbs-up.
"By the way, it's been a while since I last saw your mobile suit. Didn't expect it to look like this now," Lowe said, spotting the Jegan behind Roz. Excitedly, he ran up to the foot of the suit. "So this is the D-type? Quite different from the A-type I saw before. Truly a fellow genius mechanic!"
Lowe turned to Roz, pointing at the Jegan with his left hand. "You built this one too?"
"Yeah… so you also saw Heliopolis get dismantled? Probably found some good stuff too — knowing your insane luck, you can't leave a place like that empty-handed," Roz pressed his temple, the bizarre coincidence raising his blood pressure. "I thought you were still operating in your original area. We fought our way through ZAFT with scarce supplies just to reach your zone and contact you."
"Ah, speaking of which, I talked to your captain for a bit when I went to hand over the shell supplies," Lowe said, giving another thumbs-up. "And I was pleasantly surprised to find our flight paths almost identical!"
Next moment, Roz grabbed Lowe by the shoulders and started shaking him violently.
"So you — have been picking up trash behind us all along?!" Roz's tone cracked with frustration. "Then what was the point of us fighting so hard?!"
"Cough, cough… let go, let go! Roz!" Lowe grabbed Roz's hands, trying to reduce the shaking; the sudden jolt earlier had nearly left him breathless. "I've already arrived, haven't I? And soon I'll have to act as an intermediary to transfer that girl named Lacus!"
"You have time to torture me, but not to fix the escape pod acting as a container?!"
"Damn, is this your escape route, Lowe!" Roz's face still held frustration as he released Lowe's shoulders.
But soon, the two of them laughed.
"Then I'll leave it to you, Lowe," Roz said, patting Lowe on the shoulder and drifting toward the hangar's escape pod.
"Ah, don't worry — I'll handle it perfectly," Lowe gave a thumbs-up, then turned to look at the Jegan, still unmaintained after the recent battle.
Roz and Lowe seemed to bond over being "genius mechanics." Two years ago, Lowe found Roz among the debris of Junius 7 and, being sociable, they became good friends. Roz often sent Lowe material orders from the shipyard and Heliopolis factories.
"A fellow genius mechanic… huh?" Lowe smiled, glancing at Roz drifting away, then looked at the Jegan's head, which resembled sunglasses. "How could I not tell? He's far stronger than me. Just by his own strength, he surpassed the long efforts of the PLANTs and Earth Federation, creating a suit with a completely original frame and internal structure."
"Though I lost in constructing the suit, my love for machines won't lose," Lowe said, glancing at the personal computer on his waist. "Right, little 8?"
"…I thought you'd had an epiphany, but you're still a big gorilla, Lowe," the waist-mounted PC responded in its mechanical voice.
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After Lacus's escape pod was retrieved, it was left in the corner, untouched.
After all, everyone in the hangar knew that Roz could make a temporary interface out of the debris he salvaged from Heliopolis. Who knew what Roz could do with a single escape pod?
"Life support… intact… communications system broken?"
Roz scratched his head, estimating that some electronic components were damaged. But there was no time to trace the exact fault now. So he rummaged through the nearby debris and fashioned a crude communications device, installing it on the pod.
"Test… test… all systems functional." Roz breathed a sigh of relief as he checked the results.
"Mr. Roz!" At that moment, Roz heard Kira's voice from behind.
"Oh, Kira." Roz turned to see Kira approaching, carrying Lacus. Kira was already in his pilot suit.
"You'll handle the negotiation," Roz said, patting the escape pod. "You'll hand Lacus over to the space junk dealer for transfer. The old communications device was broken, so I replaced it. You can only use the public channel, but it should be enough."
"Thank you, Mr. Roz. Kira already told me what you did." Lacus bowed slightly in gratitude.
"I… I heard it from Captain Murrue, so it shouldn't be any secret, right?" Kira stammered, a bit flustered.
"…You naive kid, so easy to get tricked into talking." Roz muttered under his breath, inaudible to the two of them, then spoke loudly to Kira: "Get ready, Kira. I'll pilot an MS nearby the Archangel to support you."
Meanwhile, aboard the Saphirus:
"Athrun, you're in charge of the negotiation this time," Rau Le Creuset said over the comms to Athrun, already seated in the Aegis Gundam.
"Remember, bring the little princess back."
"Yes." Athrun lowered his head, lost in thought. "I will bring Lacus back."
After exchanging a few polite words, Rau closed the communication.
Watching the Aegis Gundam flying out of view from the bridge window, Rau rose from his seat and floated toward the hangar hangar.
"Prepare my mobile suit."
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"Aegis… I remember that unit is piloted by Kira's friend." Roz hovered the Jegan near the Archangel, zooming in on the handover scene with precision.
"Yeah, and seems like a very important friend too, but now they're forced to face each other," Mu sighed over the comms. "So tragic… this damn war."
"Yeah, this damn war." Roz also sighed, hands gripping the controls. "When will this spiral of hatred ever stop?"
A sensation pressed against his forehead like a blade, and that faintly familiar brainwave…
"The GINN back at Heliopolis…" Roz maneuvered the Jegan, raising the beam rifle. "Kira, get back quickly after the handover. Something feels off."
"Off? You mean ZAFT might go back on their word?" Mu asked, startled, then sat upright, ready to jump into action.
"Hard to say. Hopefully it's just me…" Roz's eyes widened as the Saphirus, specially zoomed in, launched another mobile suit, beam rifle raised toward Kira's Strike.
Like muscle memory, Roz fired two quick shots from his beam rifle—American-style iai draws.
In a blink, one beam hit the leg of the GINN-like unit, the other struck the beam rifle it held.
Meanwhile, the Strike Gundam rapidly advanced toward the Archangel.
Roz didn't intend to destroy the cockpit to spare the girl named Lacus; he just wanted to neutralize the unit's weapons and mobility.
"Enough! Captain Rau, are you planning to fight in front of a mourning man?!" Lacus's serious, slightly angry voice came over the comms just as Roz prepared a triple-speed strike, ready to show Kira a disabling move.
"Cease all combat immediately!"
"…So the one I fought back at Heliopolis was Rau Le Creuset?" Roz squinted at the now-stopped "GINN variant."
"Yeah, didn't you know?" Mu's hand hovered over the fire button. "Your two shots were very precise."
"I thought Rau was just a unit commander," Roz muttered, watching the Strike Gundam pass the Jegan as he maneuvered backward to retreat toward the Archangel.
From what Mu had said, Rau was a cunning guy. Who knew if he might suddenly attack the Archangel again?
"Strike and Jegan are returning! Engines warming up!" Mu said to the Archangel's helmsman, still ready to fire at any moment.
Roz didn't head straight into the hangar. Instead, he piloted the Jegan, towing Kira's Strike, and landed on the central deck of the Archangel.
Under the watchful eyes of the space junk dealer and ZAFT, the Archangel, with the still-smoking Montgomery in tow, quickly departed from the area.
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