When Reid brought up the missing hardliners from the Zala Faction, Athrun naturally could no longer refuse the mission.
Athrun had been working in Terminal's intelligence department for nearly a year. He was no longer the man from the original story who idled away his time as Cagalli's bodyguard, possessing only a partial understanding of the world situation and easily swayed by others.
However, precisely because he knew so much, it was, in a way, easier to fool Athrun with half-truths.
For instance, Athrun had always known that the Zala Faction hardliners still had countless ties to ZAFT.
After all, this group, acting under the banner of Patrick Zala's last wishes, sought to reignite the war between Earth and PLANT, and had planned numerous terrorist attacks against the Earth Alliance and even the New Misurugi Kingdom.
Moreover, because this group was hidden so deep, people dissatisfied with the three nations of the Earth Alliance would occasionally impersonate the Zala Faction to carry out terrorist attacks.
Athrun had once caught such a person, only for the investigation to reveal he was a Natural. There was no way the Zala Faction hardliners would let a Natural join them. Athrun couldn't even be bothered to question him and simply threw the man into the local police station to be done with it.
Now, having once again caught the trail of these people carrying out terrorist attacks in his father's name, Athrun had to go and see for himself, even if the intelligence wasn't entirely accurate.
At worst, just as Reid had said, if there was nothing there, he would just come back and say nothing.
And so, an abandoned colony satellite named Columbus (an original creation, since the colonies in the manga were destroyed anyway), located in the L4 Colony Cluster near the Circum-Terrestrial Debris Belt, welcomed a new guest.
The dragon-type machine, Hong Long, which Reid had given to Athrun, had already achieved great merit in Athrun's hands, helping him complete numerous infiltration and protection missions over the past year.
Therefore, Athrun once again set out in the Hong Long. With its Electronic Camouflage System active, he drifted all the way from the Circum-Terrestrial Debris Belt to Columbus's outer wall. After embedding the claws on the Mobile Suit's four limbs into the satellite's exterior, he, clad in high-tech infiltration gear that armed him to the teeth, entered the interior through a breach that looked like it had been blasted by a warship, then immediately slipped into an exhaust pipe.
Just a few minutes after entering the colony, Athrun discovered a problem. The security in this abandoned colony was a bit too strong. Through his Multifunctional Tactical Monocle, Athrun saw that the colony roads below the exhaust pipe were littered with Infrared Sensors.
It was important to know that the abandoned colony satellites in L4 were mostly those that had been damaged and decommissioned during the last war, which was why the satellite's outer wall had a huge breach.
Even if such a colony still had functioning equipment, ports, and oxygen circulation systems, it was impossible for its security sensors to still be operational. If it were so fully functional, the satellite wouldn't have been scrapped at all; PLANT would have used it when establishing its additional city in L4.
Therefore, Athrun now felt that something was amiss here and continued to infiltrate deeper.
Soon, relying on his experience and without a map, Athrun entered the exhaust pipe of a hangar. Through a ventilation grate, he saw rows of the mass-production prototype Zakus he had seen in the South American rainforest.
According to PLANT's reports, these mass-production prototype Zakus were all supposed to be scrapped. But clearly, these Mobile Suits had not been dismantled at all; instead, they were being modified.
This was because the Outer Armor of some of the mass-production prototype Zakus had been removed and was being replaced with other armor.
This proved that there were indeed no plans to dismantle this batch of MS. However, just changing the armor wasn't a big deal. Although choosing to do it in a place like this was strange no matter how you looked at it, it was still within PLANT's rights.
So Athrun activated his directional sound-collecting device, preparing to listen to the chatter of the ground crew changing the armor to see if there were any clues.
As everyone knows, ground crew work is actually quite tedious, so when the staff have some free time, they will almost always chat about something to relieve their stress.
Thus, Athrun heard Ground Crew A and Ground Crew B (too lazy to think of names) chatting.
"Senior, this is the last Mobile Suit for today, right? We can rest after we're done with this."
"Yeah, we're finally almost done changing them all. I don't know what those old geezers in the military command are thinking, taking perfectly good Mobile Suits and refitting them all with the GINN Outer Armor that was supposed to be scrapped, and even changing them back to Battery-Powered Mobile Suits. The performance of these suits is so good, even a GuAIZ can't touch them."
"Indeed, what a waste. I heard from Old Six over at the cargo hangar that these Mobile Suits are going to be sold to Junk Dealers later to recoup the costs, which is why they're replacing the entire power system and armor. Someone already came to look at the suits today."
"Bullshit, what Junk Dealer? Only a kid like you would believe that. Eighty percent of these Mobile Suits will be used for some shady missions later. That way, if they're exposed, they can just say they were sold to Junk Dealers and got out that way, washing their hands of it. Let me tell you, I saw Saito earlier."
"Saito!? Didn't he defect?"
"Shh, keep your voice down. That guy's wife and daughter died on Bloody Valentine. Now that the government is holding peace talks with the Earth Alliance, it'd be a miracle if he could accept it. Although he's gone mad, I can still understand his motives."
"...Understood, understood. But senior, doesn't that mean this batch of Mobile Suits is..."
"Shut up. Don't say what you shouldn't. Let's just hurry up, finish our work, and rest. The sooner these machines are done, the better."
Hearing this, Athrun's eyes narrowed. He thought to himself that Reid's underground intelligence network was truly something else; it had actually let him catch the tail of those Zala Faction hardliners.
In fact, the reasoning was simple. Reid had been influenced by the side story plots, which was why he wasn't sure if this batch of machines would actually be dismantled.
The reality was that Durandal knew very well that if the forces currently in the hands of the Zala Faction were to truly clash with the troops of the New Misurugi Kingdom, they would be shattered on impact.
Therefore, to ensure his own plans could be carried out smoothly, it was necessary to prepare some suitable weapons for these scapegoats, at least to buy some time.
As for why these defected Zala Faction members had ZAFT's decommissioned test machines, it was just as that ground crew member had said: weren't they just dismantling the special equipment and selling them to Junk Dealers to recoup costs? Any subsequent circulation was beyond PLANT's control.
Although not even a ghost would believe this, this was the effect Durandal wanted. In any case, all the relevant procedures within PLANT were normal, so no one could hold him responsible.
At this moment, although Athrun didn't know who that Saito was or what he looked like, he knew that ninety percent of the defected pilots officially announced by PLANT were Zala Faction hardliners.
Therefore, Athrun prepared to continue his infiltration. As soon as he found genuine Zala Faction members in this colony, he would immediately go out and send a signal to call for backup.
However, Athrun's luck wasn't as good from then on. He ran into many dead ends along the way.
But this was a normal phenomenon. When you hit a dead end, you just find another path.
As it turned out, the next thing Athrun encountered was a couple kissing in a nook.
Such things weren't too uncommon in an informal military base like this. They were all young men and women, and if they really met someone they clicked with, an outburst of passion was inevitable.
However, although Athrun didn't recognize the two people below and had no intention of getting an eyeful of the "combat" to follow, a single sentence from the woman as the man was already pulling at her clothes made Athrun freeze.
"Courtenay, don't be so impatient. Let's stop here for now. I have to go meet that middleman in a bit. We can do it tonight. Besides, you have to pilot the test machine for a practical demonstration later."
This Courtenay was actually the pilot of the mass-production prototype Zaku that Athrun and Kira had fought in the South American jungle. As a test pilot, he had naturally been assigned to this colony to act as a demonstrator and, incidentally, as a security guard.
However, having his excitement interrupted now naturally made Courtenay extremely displeased, but there was nothing he could do. He could only stop his hands and say, "Tch, what's that guy's hurry? Didn't they say he'd rest for a day today, let him look at the goods, and do the practical demonstration tomorrow? Zala (Meer Campbell's manager in SEED Destiny, originally a member of ZAFT), why don't you make him wait a while?"
Zala straightened her clothes and looked at Courtenay's eager but unsatisfied expression, smiling as she said, "I can't do that. I have my own mission. Courtenay, go to the pilot's lounge and get ready. You'll probably be called out in about half an hour."
After speaking, Zala waved her hand and left. However, as she departed, her eyes secretly glanced towards Athrun's position.
Above her, Athrun had not yet realized he had been spotted. He was thinking that this was great; he could first get a picture of the Junk Dealer's appearance. Then he could follow that lead to find his people.
So Athrun judged Zala's position by the sound of her movements and slowly followed her.
And just as Athrun was slowly following Zala, another uninvited guest arrived outside the Columbus colony.
As mentioned before, many of the junk merchants in the few garbage collection companies Reid had set up had been bought by various factions; Reid just deliberately ignored it.
Therefore, back when the ZAFT transport ship suspected of carrying nuclear materials was discovered, there were also people from the Eurasian Federation on the warship.
Thus, this intelligence was passed on to the Atlantic Federation through the Eurasian Federation.
The Atlantic Federation also knew that this shipment was most likely those mass-production prototype Zakus slated for destruction, but they too found it strange to be destroying Mobile Suits in such an abandoned colony.
Therefore, the Atlantic Federation decisively sent someone from the Phantom Pain Unit to investigate.
However, it was not a time of war, and the Atlantic Federation's orders were only for the pilot to confirm whether these mass-production prototype Zakus had truly had their Anti-Neutron Jammers removed; no order was given to destroy the colony.
The result was that the Phantom Pain Unit directly dispatched the future pilot of the Strike Noir, Sven Cal Bayan, piloting the Strike Gundam E-Type (used as a pack testbed), a near 1:1 replica of the Strike Gundam made by the Phantom Pain Unit. Equipped with the Actaeon-version IWSP pack, he set out in the Strike Gundam E-Type IWSP.
Since the Phantom Pain Unit was also equipped with the junk Minovsky Particle Fusion Reactors Reid had given to Orb, the endurance of this Strike Gundam E-Type IWSP was greatly enhanced.
The Phantom Pain's ship only had to transport it to the vicinity of the L4 Colony Cluster; it could fly the rest of the way on its own.
So, at this moment, this Mobile Suit had already reached the exterior of the Columbus colony.
And the backup unit Reid had prepared for Athrun was utterly speechless at this scene.
In fact, for the sake of a covert operation, the backup unit Reid had prepared was divided into two groups.
One group, along with a warship, hid deep within the Circum-Terrestrial Debris Belt. It consisted of the members of Tekkadan, excluding Mikazuki and Akihiro. They needed to wait for a signal from their comrades lying in wait near the colony before taking action.
And the person lying in wait near the colony was, naturally, a seasoned expert in this field: Neil Dylandy.
At this moment, just as he had during his time with Celestial Beings, he had found an asteroid, set up his sniper rifle, and was waiting for the signal.
Of course, his Mobile Suit was no longer the Dynames. Reid had gotten him a machine more in line with their side's style: the Darkness Hunter Gundam.
(Please imagine the antenna as a standard Gundam V-fin.)
The frame of this Gundam was almost identical in design to the NT-X Gundam. Since GN Particles still needed to be concealed in the CE Universe (the few particles from Lacus's Diva Gundam were always dismissed as special effects), Reid still used a hybrid power system of a Minovsky Particle Fusion Reactor and an AC micro nuclear fusion reactor.
However, the Mobile Suit's color scheme was changed to all black, and two super-sensors, capable of rotating up, left, and right, were mounted on its shoulders. Reid named this the Clairvoyance System.
This Clairvoyance System was countless times more powerful than the Dynames's dedicated sniping camera, as it integrated almost all of Reid's side's long-range sensors. Within a certain range, it could even achieve a wall-penetrating detection effect. As for its observable range, it was on the level of an astronomical telescope.
However, this system had a strong requirement for a powerful Artificial Intelligence to analyze information and filter out useless data. So, Reid copied the Hachi intelligence system that Nami had been cultivating for a long time and installed it into the Mobile Suit. Neil then named this AI "Haro," which made Reid a little afraid that Athrun would one day come asking him for copyright fees.
As for other systems, besides the Obscurant Umbrella System needed to conceal the Mobile Suit, the rest were the standard Lambda Driver, Psycommu System, and the PX System for Minovsky Reactor Machines.
In terms of armament, its main weapons were a Super Rocket Launcher and a High-Energy Long MEGA Particle Launcher mounted on its back.
The Super Rocket Launcher needs no further introduction; it's used for firing special ammunition and for dealing with situations requiring high explosives or fortifications.
The High-Energy Long MEGA Particle Launcher's function could be varied by selecting the output power and particle convergence rate during actual firing.
For example, if equipped with an additional large power generator and the particle convergence rate was maxed out, it could be an ultra-long-range sniper rifle with a range of over a hundred kilometers in an atmospheric environment (the maximum range of a normal sniper beam without additional equipment is about forty-odd kilometers).
By slightly loosening the particle convergence rate, this gun could also be used as a lite version of the Hyaku Shiki's FHA-03M1 Mega Particle Cannon.
If the particle convergence rate was set to its lowest, the gun could also be used as a diffusion beam cannon.
And by lowering the power output, it was no problem for this gun to achieve the firing rate of a beam gatling gun.
Therefore, this High-Energy Long MEGA Particle Launcher had many uses and could be played with in countless ways, all depending on the pilot's skill.
Other armaments included a piercing Beam Saber, and the small physical shield on its left arm could deploy a Beam Shield.
There were two hardpoints on the legs, each capable of mounting a six-tube missile launcher.
At this moment, Neil watched the Strike Gundam E-Type IWSP charge towards the colony and complained helplessly, "Hey, this is my first mission in the new world. Can you not give me this kind of surprise? Haro, what's the contingency plan?"
Inside the Darkness Hunter Gundam, a mechanical voice immediately replied, "Another faction's Mobile Suit has appeared during the mission. As long as the unit does not attack the colony, continue to observe."
(End of Chapter)