Editing KSGU:Volume 7 Chapter 2 (section)

===Part 8===

The ship descended in height, and after the final cloud became mist and floated above them, the surface of the Sydney Bay suddenly appeared in their eyes.

They descended from 800m in height and continued to descend. As the ship had already slowed down to its original speed, one would be fine even if they were to appear on the open deck. Riddhe waited for the immigration surveillance to deploy as he came to the open deck together with the inspector on standby. The bridge back made it possible to shelter him from the wind, but the winds blowing upon his face was still very cold. The Tri-Stars zipped up their flight jumpers from their chests as they too accompanied him, and like tourists who were visiting without thinking, felt suspicious about this unexpected cold as they looked down at the Sydney Bay below them. In fact, it seemed that they did not think about how the seasons would be different in the South as compared to the North, and thought that it was merely a difference between the climates. The day was May 6, and it was in mid-autumn.

Basically, the reason why they felt cold was not simply because of the temperatures. Riddhe looked past the nozzles of the main thrusters protruding right below his eyes as he stared down at the land that was on the distance horizon. The tea-brown color that appeared faintly in the cloudy day looked like the shadow of an island when looking from the ocean. However, what was surprising was that there was a curve expanded to both left and right side, creating a thing veil on both left and right sides of the horizon as well. “Hey, there’s really a round hole there.” Watts leaned his body out from the handrails as he said this with a rather pale expression, in stark contrast from the usual teasing tone.

“Is this the place where the colony dropped?”

“800km diameter, said to be one-sixteenth the size of the entire Australian continent; well, an entire area of land was blown up from the old Sydney to the inland…”

Daryl answered beside them as he tensed up his slightly tanned Latin face. Riddhe felt the cold air remain in his chest as he turned his sights to the shadows of the land. Right, this place was not the ocean in the place. As the landscape around the place had seemingly indicated the place, the “Ra Cailum” had approached the skies above the Australian continent. 17 years ago, the “Island Iffish” space colony was dropped upon this place, causing Sydney to be dug up from the continent together with the state of New South Wales, and formed a huge crater in the southwestern side of the Australian continent. A part of the circumference overlapped with the coast in the past, and though it was directly connected to the Southern Pacific, the circle that was blown up inland looked more like a lake than a port. It was impossible to imagine that there was originally land on this place, the largest lake in the world ever since the world was born—and people stupefied over this scar of devastation instead of seeing it as a spectacular scene. But either way, this was too concealed to be considered a sea, and too open to be considered a lake; a certainty to confuse an observer’s sense of geography. It was a natural scene, but it could not fit in with nature, and could be considered a distorted space.

“But what happened to the land that was originally here? Is it blown up into space or something?”

It seemed that there were changes on the crust, and some parts were buried in the sea, while the majority was blown up into the atmosphere and still remains as dust in the skies. That’s why the horizon looks so blurry. It was said that the horizon could be seen very clearly when the weather was fine before that colony dropped onto Earth.”

“Such a large mass of land got blown up as dust floating in the air…” Watts retracted his upper body poking out from the handrail and cringed his shoulders. “I really don’t understand . those guys on Earth really don’t want to let go of this world.”

This line indicated the thoughts of Spacenoids, and Riddhe felt that it was a little unexpected as he turned his head around. Watts continued to look down at the sea surface at his feet without moving, and Nigel, who was standing not too far away, glanced over. His usual unconcerned expression was still hiding an intent to observe in the eyes. Riddhe found himself uneasy as per usual and started looking for a place he could rest his eyes on at a place closer in. he found several objects protruding from the brown wasteland devoid of greenery.

That was most likely the debris of the colony. In the past, the coast of Sydney was blown off with a range reaching hundreds of kilometers, and the burnt black debris of the colony was still scattered upon the landscape like a tombstone. Riddhe once heard that the reason why this place was never replaced was because the crust had not stopped changing, and there was difficulty removing the debris scattered around. Some of the colony debris were several hundred meters in height, and such exceptionally large rubbish was something no large construct on Earth could compare to. If there was a need to talk about its one worth, it would be that this field of rubbish could be used as a modern obstacle course for mobile suit piloting training. One could certainly praise the Federation army for having quite the foresight to keep Torrington Base after the war, whether it was for the sake of obscurity, or that the land it was on could not be used for any other purposes. Perhaps it was because it set up as an Achilles heel, as its geography meant that it was isolated, that it was once attacked by Zeon remnant forces soon after the war, and was once used as a nuclear weapon storage site, something that was forbidden in the Antarctica Treaty. However, the media attention on it had become a thing of the past, and this base, which was treated as a nearly forgotten shanty until recently, could only be described as a remote place.

The base should be set up at less than 20km away from the coast, but they could not see any signs of it from the ship. There was nothing moving on the land that was shrouded under the clouds, and one would certainly mistake it for a barren land on Mars as it extended beyond the horizon in front of everyone. “There’s nothing here.” Watts said, and Riddhe had no disagreement about that as he merely stared at the continent that expanded beyond unwittingly. The clouds that were roaming down low, right above his head, were thick and heavy, seemingly lighting up a fire in his gloomy emotion.

“I suppose we’ve arrived on land now, and we can only think wildly in the base’s rest room at most. What do the people in Torrington normally do everyday?”

“Most likely, I think they’ll just chill out and enjoy nature. I head that the sunset at Sydney Bay is quite the unforgettable sight.”

“How boring…we’re going to continue hunting Zeon remnants after we let those Foundation people off at the base? I’ll really bore to death if I can’t find a place to spend the time. Besides, even if we don’t talk about it, the air in the ship has been really stale.”

Watts said as he gave a reproaching look at Riddhe, who had been getting used to this for the past few years. The latter decided to ignore the former’s stare, “What I’m concerned is why they chose this place.” And looked over at Nigel who raised the question.

“It seems that those people from the Foundation are intending to switch over to a space shuttle, but Torrington Base doesn’t have any Mass Driver launch facilities. How do they intend to launch into space?”

Nigel did not respond to Riddhe’s stare as he said that with an unconcerned look. “Maybe they’ll probably use an equipped booster to launch into space?” Daryl answered with a bored tone.

“Torrington is really a backwater region, so even if the “Ra Cailum” is docked there, it won’t be too conspicuous. It sure seems like an idea those people with ulterior motives will have.”

“Maybe, but they’re going to head into space with 2 “Unicorns” on it too. I don’t think the Torrington Base had that kind of large space shuttle, and it’s not easy to get one either. Maybe there’s another way.”

“Another way?” Watts asked, and Nigel pointed his chin silently into the sky. Riddhe followed Daryl and Watts’ stare as he looked up and spotted two machines flying between the clouds.

The soft sound of the engines became louder, and the silhouettes of the two disc-shaped machines were gradually closing in. The lifting bodies of the two machines glided past, leaving beside a rotor sound right above the “Ra Cailum” as it disappeared into the clouds. “What’s that? Some Base Jabber?” Watts reached out his short neck hard as he watched the machines leave and muttered, while Nigel answered, “No.” as he stopped looking for the machines in the sky.

“That’s a transformable mobile suit. I think it’s a new elite machine of the Federation army, called the “Anksha”. Read through the data before.”

“Ah, the next generation machines following the Asshimar-type? I heard that it could transport mobile suits in its transformed form.”

Daryl said. Riddhe himself recognized the “Asshimar”; it was a transformable mobile suit type with a unique shape, and was assigned to important points on Earth 10 years ago. Once its round head and arms were retracted in, the upper body of that mobile suit would show a disc shape, like an illusion. He recalled how shocked he was when he saw it on the news for the first time. To the Federation after the war, the “Asshimar” was a machine that hardly had the chance to operate effectively under gravitational conditions, but that was still not the driving force behind Riddhe’s willing to join the air force. To a plane hobbyist, this round-disc flying mode was complete unorthodox and simply ridiculous.

The “Anksha” seemed to be the successor, and the legs below the disc were made to be more aerodynamic in shape, and the sides of the lifting body seemed to have two long barrels of beam launchers. Riddhe was not very certain, but he could see a platform used to ferry a mobile suit on top of it. “Torrington Base has that kind of thing?” Watts asked, and he and Riddhe looked over at Nigel. If this were the case, he would have to change his view on Torrington Base. “Who knows?” Nigel answered as he looked up at the sky shrouded in grey clouds.

“Most possibly…”

The wind blew by as it swayed his hair, and his eyes were hinting at other possibilities as he looked into the sky. Riddhe frowned and looked over at Nigel’s face that seemed to be hiding something.