Editing KSGU:Volume 6 Chapter 1 (section)

===Part 5===

The scorching sun continued to light the sky from above as it was so hot it seemed like noises would be made. The sunlight, which should be appropriately called heat rays, shone on a burning hot desert that stretched to a distant horizon.

The temperature was 42 degrees Celsius, and the hot air that blew by combined with the sunlight to rob the dry and hot skin of any moisture it had left. At this point, the sun had risen directly above them, and it was hard to find anything that could be used as a shade. Suberoa Zinnerman continued to peel the skin that was dry because of the sunburn, and looked up at the sand dune right in front of his eyes. The bow of the ship glittered under the sunlight’s reflection, and one could see the “Garencieres” buried under the dune.

“Sure looks like it was buried deep. We’ll be able to hide from the eyes of the surveillance satellites, so I suppose you can say that it’s good in some way…”

Flaste Schole said this as he reached his hand out to the exterior of the ship, “HOT!” and immediately pulled back his hand. It had been 3 days since they went off their estimated course and landed in Western Sahara of Africa. The result of trying to make the ship land on its belly was that the “Garencieres” ended up sliding in the desert by several kilometers and was dived into the sand dunes. There were two sandstorms after this, and it was buried under the sand. The bow and a part of the broadside lying horizontally were the only parts exposed, while the rear hatch of the aft was buried under several tons of sand. There were 3 main thrusters, and one of them had its nozzle exposed from the dune, but it looked like a mere rock amongst the rocks scattered in the desert. It was very likely that nobody would notice a cargo spaceship buried in the desert unless they analyzed the satellite visuals intently.

Like the rockets that were launched into space, the “Garencieres” landed in a vertical manner under gravity. Once it flipped onto the floor, it was no different from a tortoise with its legs facing up, and had no chance of changing its position on its own, let alone leave the land and fly. Basically, there was no way to move away other than to move this large amount of sand that was piled up, and they only managed to dig out the airlocks through manual labor. It was really impossible to drag out the cargo hangar at the aft of the ship if they lacked the assistance of a large machine. The rear hatch at the belly of this triangular ship was already more than 20m long, and at this point, the sand could only end up piled on it in a slope.

''Besides, we’re surrounded in all corners.'' Zinnerman again understood the seriousness of the situation itself as he put the brim of the captain’s hat to eye level. Flaste looked over at the exterior of the broadside that was hot enough to cook an egg as he grumbled, “It’ll be great if the starboard can face up.” 

“In that case, we’ll be able to use the unloading hatch on the side. We can’t do anything now that the hatch at the back is buried in sand. A mobile suit can get out if we shoot a beam from inside…”

“But the “Garencieres” will really meet its end. Let’s just treat it as a final resort.”

Zinnerman lifted his head as he drank the water inside the bottle, unwilling to talk about this topic again. The desert was not a suitable place for discussions, and the sweat that flowed out started to evaporate afterwards. The dust-like fine sand would enter all corners as long as there were openings. It would cause the machines to malfunction and wear people out physically and mentally—Flaste was extremely familiar with the terror and troubles it would bring as he once had to survive in Africa during the One Year War. As all the crew was hiding inside the tilted ship in this bright sunny day, Flaste exposed himself to this scorching weather, and he was definitely recalling his memories that time. ''There’s no time to hesitate now. We have to decide if we should go with our last resort.''

He could only see sand, sand and more sand around him. The Sahara Desert that occupied 40 percent of the African continent was 13 million square kilometers in total area, and the largest desert in the world. The average temperature here was above 30 degrees Celsius, and the annual rainfall was less than 200mm. if anyone were to take off their clothes because of the heat, they would be burned red immediately and incur contagious skin diseases. In late April, temperatures could rise to above 40 degrees Celsius, and this place would become an actual burning hell. However, this was a result of the abnormal weather conditions causing global warming to be accelerated after colonies were sent crashing to Earth, prompting the desertification of Earth. Despite all these, one thing that never changed since the old ages was that temperatures would drop drastically after sunset, and at night, there would be icy cold winds that could freeze people to death.

The cruelest thing about this was that this wide open place encouraged people to think that they could walk through a desert if they wanted to. A lot of desert victims were bothered by such mirages as they ended up moving around their point of accident, and finally ended up as dried up corpses in the wilderness. The dunes would move according to the winds, and the desert that would change the landscape as well was an overly cruel world where humans had to survive with their own power. While there was the advantage of not being spotted if they remained here, the chances of them being spotted by their allies would be marginally slim.

Thus, the desert became a hidden nest for Zeon remnants on Earth, and a few guerilla organizations set up base here to this day, but nobody knew how long it would take before they discovered the “Garencieres”. They did report beforehand when they passed through the atmosphere, but their estimated course was the Atlantic. It would probably be a few days later before they realized that the “Garencieres” went off course and landed in the desert several thousand kilometers away from the estimated point.

The forced landing caused the wireless satellite device to be faulty. The only thing left was the wireless communicator of the mobile suits in the ship, but the range couldn't exceed the horizon. The emergency distress call sender machine was still alright, but it was not practical to try it as they could not guess which side would detect the signal first, the enemies or the allies.

Since this ship had the key to opening the “Laplace Box”, the Federation army would logically search around the area with all its efforts. In contrast, the Zeon remnants who hardly had enough resources probably would not be able to afford a large search party. “It’s almost impossible to repair the wireless satellite device if we don’t swap the entire thing.” Flaste said as he gave a look firmly believing that there was no time to hesitate.

“It’s a good thing that we have ample water and food, but we can’t just stay here all the time.  We’ll be detected by the enemy if we don’t contact our side. Tomura just said that he heard the sound of a plane flying above us.”

Flaste looked up at the thing layer of clouds floating in the air, and took a gulp of water. Once they finished their search in the Atlantic Ocean, quite a few surveillance satellites would turn to look at the desert. Zinnerman blew out air from his nose as he answered, 

“Looking at the map, we’ll see an oasis if we move 60km to the east. There’s a town called Atal over there, and we should be able to contact with someone over there. We’ll reach there quickly if we ride on a mobile suit.”

“That’s true…”

“Kwani’s unit still needs repairs, but Ivan’s “Geara Zulu” can be used. Even if we have to blow the ship to scraps—”

“You forgot one other machine.”

Zinnerman spoke up to interrupt. ''Eh?'' Flaste blinked his eyes and immediately gave a recalling look, only to give a wry look as he answered, “We can’t possibly depend on the “Unicorn” here.”

“I let the maintenance crew inspect through, and they said that they can’t remove the pilot’s biometric authentication. The pilot’s like that as well…”

Flaste pointed his chin at the entry hatch that was approximately 50m away. One could see Banagher Links covered with a sunshade cloth behind the dune piled up at the door, curled up there. Banagher did not detect the stares from Flaste and company as his gloomy-looking face kept staring at the sandy ground of nothingness. It was really hard to determine that he was a living person if nobody said that he was alive, and he was the same as when he was dragged out of the “Unicorn Gundam” cockpit, not seeing anything in his eyes—

He looked like he was fatigued, a common symptom amongst recruits, but the medical officer said that it was not the case after inspection. His mind was overly fatigued, but his body was completely healthy, and he had no problems with his meals and other usual living conditions. However, he had no sense of will to live on by himself, and he would not ingest food if it was not prepared. If he was left alone, he would just sit around blankly for the entire day. It would be more appropriate to describe his symptoms as being very feeble instead of forcing himself not to live, and it was rather similar to those old-aged people that would give up easily. He made himself devoid of all sorts of concerns to seal his heart and soul, and he did not know that he was in a decline. This would be considered a subconscious self-neglect.

There were no effects no matter what they did, whether they tried to threaten him or please him; he would not resist, but he would not show any form of will on his own. He disappeared before they knew it, and would just spend the day spacing out. It had been more than 2 weeks since he was involved in the “Industrial 7” incident, and perhaps the stress that was built up within him during this period had finally reached its breaking point. However, the crew could only feel extremely irked that this brat, who was not even a prisoner, was just wandering around lifelessly even as they were forced to make a decision of life and death. Flaste looked like he felt the same as well as he added with a vexing line, “Such a bother.”

“Even if the “Laplace Program” shows a new coordinate, we can’t make the next move if the “Unicorn” can’t move. We can tie the brat in and let the other mobile suits move it, but the coordinates are a troublesome thing here.”

Flaste took out the paper with the new coordinates from his clutches as he continued to grumble, seemingly feeling that there was no point to look at it any further. Zinnerman did not raise any objections here. A seal of the “Laplace Program” was undone after the activation of the NT-D the last time, but the coordinates given this time felt like a joke. It was a place that nobody with a weak resolve could enter just like the last time, and in this sense, the hurdle here would not be something the relics of “Laplace” could match. Flaste folded the printed paper into a paper airplane, pinched it with his fingertips, “What’s that and what’s that, really?” and threw it away.

“We keep opening, and we see a new box inside it…are we being fooled by Cardeas Vist here?” 

Despite only saying this as a joke, his eyes were filled with intense anger. ''Either way, there’s no way Gilboa and the other men who died could rest in peace if they did not find out the truth. Do we wait for aid that might not come here, or do we wreck the ship and find aid—''  Zinnerman felt that there was only one option here in his heart as he looked at the direction the paper plane Flaste threw floated to. The plane that did not ride on the wind lost speed after flying for less than 10m, and fell onto the burning hot sand.