Editing KSGU:Volume 2 Chapter 3 (section)

===Part 18===

Banagher feels an explosion in the air, and the construction materials that immediately melt and crumble let out a heavy sound. The dock itself just looks like it got electrocuted as it trembles, and the hot air that blows from time to time causes Banagher to be unable to stand still.

The large amount of shrapnel that’s blown over by the explosive pressure slam into the reinforced steel structure, and the deep sounds of cars colliding can be heard. ''Is there a fire?'' He can see the silhouette of a crane in the slightly crimson red flame, lighting the conveyer belts that are all criss-crossed. However, the lights themselves aren’t enough to illuminate the entire factory. Banagher steps on the metal board that floats beside his feet, grabs onto the steel structure beside him. He still can’t tell whether the entrance has any stray shots, and if he floats around randomly, he will be pancaked by the flying metal scraps due to the explosions.

He continues to move through the ‘Snail’ to try and find a lift that can be used, and accidentally arrives at the construction block where the materials for building the colony are refined. This fully automated factory can purify and reprocess the debris from space that’s floating around before sending it over to the ‘Wheel’. But right now, all operations have ceased, and the night lights are the only things around. This factory that’s filled with mini mobile suits and small working launchers is really large, and no matter how far he walks, it’s like he hasn’t touched anything that resembles a wall. The floor and ceiling can’t be seen from here, and the flames are swaying far away, lighting the reinforced metal skeleton that’s like a ghost.

''It’s like a scene in a nightmare.'' Banagher’s driven by the fear stuck in his throat and tightly grabs onto the metal frame. He can’t stop trembling ever since that bearded man pointed at him with a gun. The impulse in his heart has calmed down too, and he’s feeling anxious, thinking that he might not be able to leave this place forever. Banagher grabs onto those objects that feel more like walls, and tell himself that he can definitely find the exit as long as he heads down the wall. If he moves through the construction area and passes through the fire, he should be able to reach the port. Over there, he might be able to meet up with Takuya and Micott, and he’ll definitely find a way to get to the residential area.

''Really?'' He ignores this weak questioning in his heart, and as he turns his tense neck, something white seems to move by his eyes. It’s the normal suit of a worker, a human. The thing that floats here with the debris has its back on Banagher and floats off from him. Banagher immediately thinks of that bearded man he just saw, kicks the structure and floats over to the normal suit.

''I just want to see that guy’s face no matter who he is. I want to talk; I want to see if I’m mentally normal.'' “The guy over there!” Banagher yells out and grabs the normal suit while almost knocking into him. But on see the front, he’s speechless. The visor of the helmet is shattered, and black liquid’s flowing out.

The chest has a hole the size of a thumb. The blood that seeps out from it is covered with a sooty surface. Banagher accidentally sees the inside of the helmet that’s battered into a blob of blood, and immediately lets go of the hand of the normal suit frantically. The shattered visor let out blood, creating a sound that sound like a plastic bag being stepped on.

It sounds like vomiting. This is a blood bag in the shape of a normal suit, a slab of meat where its already hard to identify where the mouth is, giving off a clear vomiting sound. Banagher screamed and kicked the normal suit aside, using the momentum to move his body backwards and instinctively grabs onto the frame of the conveyer belt beside him to steady himself. ''I can’t stay here. I have to get out of here.'' He doesn’t even know where to go as he lets the completely spine-chilling body float in the midst of the dark void.

The countless floating objects and the scraps that may be mixed in with flesh pass by under the night lights. There’s a burnt smell in the air, and the hot air coming at his face is becoming stronger and stronger. Banagher can sense the steamed meat-like stench and the sounds of vomits, and he feels that his relatively intact sanity is being corroded bit by bit. He moves his limbs and heads towards the flames. He doesn’t want to die; he doesn’t want to let himself think that humans die like that. His mother’s death was a lot more dignified in the sense that at least her body wasn’t floating around like wastage and showing an ugly state of giving off gas that’s accumulated inside. He can’t feel sad or even mourn for them, and will just naturally feel disgusted.

Unlike animals, who only distinguish life and death through their instincts, humans have to comply with the etiquettes of life and death. Humans have to use the possibilities within to show the world the power and kindness that belong to them. This is building a civilization, a duty those people who entered space has to bear responsibility for. ''In the end, humans are animals too.'' Such reasoning is an excuse the people living in space can’t accept''—unexpected words appear within his memories, and as the blood vessels in his forehead throb, a beam shot’s scar appear in his eyes, still piping hot. There’s a hole 5m wide on the thick wall behind the floating fuel and the floating cables. ''I can get through.'' Banagher firmly believes without proof as he holds his breath and kicks the twisted metal frame.

At the same time, he closes his eyes and uses his arms to protect his head. The burning sensation on the skin immediately moves behind, and the cool air surrounds him. The silence around him hurts his eyes, and even though he knows that the surroundings have changed, he doesn’t have the courage to open his eyes and check the situation. It should be the dock if he gets by the wall, but the surroundings are way too quiet. Perhaps he may have gone the wrong way, and he’ll be sucked by vacuum. Banagher doesn’t dare to exhale even once as he floats in the unknown space. A deep sound suddenly rings, and a strong flash of light appears.

The same sounds and lights continue on, lighting the space that’s covered in darkness. Banagher opens his eyes and peeps through the gap to look around. He sees many white lights on the ceiling high above, and there are lights from the bottom too. These lights that are intersecting each other are all gathered at the construct in the middle of the space. It is 20m tall and about 6m wide, and it looks like a building under construction from the metal frame and the beams that form the outside.

There’re no signs of anyone around, and there’s not even a single worker on the four walls. There’s a large handling port gateway on one of the walls, but it’s tightly shut, and the airlocks are also sealed up. Is it a storeroom or a workshop? ''No, this is really an unnatural isolation. It can probably be called a private room.'' Banagher thinks.

This sealed room that’s 30m wide on each side and can be called a cubic room is completely empty—and right in the middle, there’s a construct that’s like a building and him, an anomaly. Banagher looks around with his eyes that are already used to the light, looks at the hole he used to enter, and then turn to look at the construct standing right in the middle of the room. He pass by the metal frames and turns to the front where the lights are gathered. The construct that looks to be about 6 to 7 story tall is hollow inside, and it’s holding some sort of a machine.

“This is…”

He can’t help but let out his hoarse voice, and then shuts his mouth again. The pure white armor is basked under the lights, showing the humanoid shape of a mobile suit. There’s a translucent visor at roughly where the eyes are, and there’s a protruding long horn on the forehead—

That’s right; this is the white mobile suit he saw from the subway window this morning. Banagher’s body floats with the momentum and hits the handrail, and can feel a slight impact on his back as he looks at the giant in front of him blankly. The humanoid-shaped machine that seemed to be a sign for the abnormalities happening yesterday is held in place by a box-shaped container cage, and the giant that occupies his line of sight entirely is standing there.

Looking closely, he can see that there are armored joints on the pure white surface, covering its entire body like circuits. It has steel cables dangling all over it, and it looks to be ready to be sent off for packing. What’s weird is the object that’s like a large metal wheel binding the limbs. This sturdy metal rings that binds the elbows, wrists, knees and feet are held in place in the sturdy ring. It’ll be too ridiculous to call it a seal for transport. It’s like someone’s scared that it will suddenly go violent and sealed it up.

The cockpit at the abdomen is opened, and as he bends down, he can see that the cockpit door’s opened. The giant is sealed inside the sealed room—the numerous sculptures and old tapestries of the legendary beast in the Vist‘s mansion; these factors seem to come together as Banagher feels an ominous presence. He swallows his saliva and look at the airlock beside the wall. He guesses by the direction that the port’s on the other side once he gets over. ''Maybe I can even unlock it from inside; I really don’t want to stay here anymore.'' Banagher’s being driven by such emotions as he intends to kick the handrail of the passage he just passed through, and he then sees a vinyl sheet that’s used to cover a mobile suit floating in front of him.

The vinyl sheet’s blocked by the frame, but it continues to slowly fly to the hole in the wall where the air’s moving to. Banagher feels a chill as he sees the dust under the lights flow to a certain spot, and looks around.

“Is the air leaking?”

This isn’t an air flow caused by a ventilation unit. There’s a hole leading to the outside wall. The air of the ‘Snail’ is gradually moving out, and Banagher has to get a normal suit even if he wants to get to the port or the residential area. He looks at the large sealed room and checks the types of warning. A red light’s lit up, indicating that the firefighting apparatus is there, but there’re no green lights, which indicate where the normal suits are in emergency situations, to be found. The firefighting apparatus should have an OBA but it’s useless when this place is full of vacuum.

There should be a changing room outside the airlock, but he can’t be certain about whether there’s vacuum there. Banagher floats about weakly in the sealed room and turns to look at the abdomen of the giant, at the black hole that seems like it will suck him in—

“If it’s a mobile suit cockpit, there should be a normal suit prepared somewhere…”

If possible, he doesn’t want to go near it, but it can’t be helped. Banagher kicks the handrail and flies over to the giant. He grabs onto the cockpit cover to slow himself down, and use the momentum to get in.

The air’s filled with the scent of heated electric cables, and the all-view screen isn’t activated. There’s only the many screens sticking to the inside of the sphere-shaped inner wall, lying motionlessly in the darkness. The seat’s being supported by a linear support, and it looks like it’s floating in the middle of the cockpit. The pedal that’s built together with the chair and the control joysticks look very similar to the <<Jegan>> he saw in a practical in Anaheim Electronics. However, the standard-looking linear seat has a unique equipment above it, giving off a unique glow.

The frame looks like it will occupy the whole of the pilot’s head as it’s poked out from the chair in such a way that the pilot’s view won’t be obstructed. There are mechanical arms on both left and right sides to steady the head. One will associate this with a torture tool just by looking at it, but there’s no other place to put them in this narrow cockpit. Banagher sits on the linear seat and moves the mobile display monitor to the front. The orange activation light is glowing, indicating that it’s in a standby phase.

“It’s still working…”

He presses the activation switch under the lights button, and a deep buzzing sound echoes throughout the cockpit. The all-view screen isn’t activated yet, but three screens are all lit, and the system starts to scan. The side-monitor display on the left shows all sorts of power output indicators. The speedometer, distance meter are all being shown one by one. Its basic controls are just like a mini-mobile suit, but the output of the power and the indicators are all way higher.

The giant starts to wake up slowly, and its breathing reaches Banagher as a tremor. It’s different from the mini-mobile suit that’s for civilian use. This thing is a weapon, a hi-tech machine he never saw before, a real mobile suit—Banagher’s heart is feeling uneasy for some reason as he understands this, causing him to feel jumpy as he leans back on the hard-backed seat. Banagher looks around the inside of the cockpit that’s lit up to look for any spare normal suits. This kind of cockpit should have its spares behind the display monitor. Banagher uses his fingers to feel his way through the gaps of the monitor, and he intends to reach out under the linear seat, but hears noise coming in from the speakers inside the cockpit.

The side-screen on the right shows a communication window, and static’s showing on it. At a corner of the screen, the words ‘Engine Sector 24. Passage 3’. Perhaps it connected automatically as I seemed to have linked up with the communication speakers inside the ‘Snail’. Banagher thinks that he may be able to get information on what’s going on inside the colony, and touches the monitor to try and switch the channel frequency.

Material transport room, cargo deck, computer room, canteen; everywhere’s just showing static, and the sounds just sound noisy. '' Is it because of the Minovsky Particles’ effect, or that the devices are wrecked?'' Banagher has to give up, and can only turn his eyes away from the monitor, but a person’s voice suddenly stuns him.

(So Martha instigated you…I understand.)

It’s a man’s voice, and he heard of it before. Banagher stares at the monitor that’s still full of static that indicates that the area is the ‘Command Console’ and diverts his focus to listen to the voice coming through. (You intended…to make use of the army…but you’re the ones being made use of…huh?) This voice that’s filled with some anger continues on, and Banagher immediately associates it with the arrogant sounding ‘You risked yourself too much.’ he heard a while ago.

(The Federation wants to get the <<Laplace Box>>, and the chance is right in front of them…then…do you think…they’re thinking about the Foundation’s welfare…?)

He can’t hear the voices of the person he’s talking to, but Banagher understands that the one talking now is Cardeas Vist. “Laplace, Box?” He subconsciously repeats these words. He feels that he heard of this before, but just can’t remember when and where he did.

(That’s why…you’re not thinking enough. If this continues, Neo Zeon will be vanquished, and the Federation will continue its dominion, but what next? Humanity’s enemies are just real aliens then, and the army will lose its value…in this case, Anaheim and the Foundation will wilt.)

It’s just like what any man in a high and mighty position will say. Even though he doesn’t know who Cardeas’ talking to, Banagher understands that his words mean that they’re using war as business—the theory death merchants apply to, and from his tone, it seems that the relationship between the Vist Foundation and Anaheim Electronics is a lot more complicated than what the rumors indicate.

They’re talking about something horrifying. Another war will start again. Audrey’s pressing expression appears in front of Banagher, and just when he intends to increase the volume, (and for this, you…), Cardeas’ voice is interrupted again. After a while, the deep voice rings, (Stop it, you’ll regret this.), causing Banagher to feel cold.

Killing intent can be heard from the noise, and Banagher feels that Cardeas’ holding back his anxious breathing as his enemy is getting anxious while intending to do something. (You’re just being used by Martha, you…) Cardeas groans, and Banagher inadvertently jumps up as the ample killing intent explodes as sounds.

BAM! BAM! The sharp sounds of breaking can be heard. (DON’T LET HIM GET AWAY!) This voice that seem to belong to someone echoes through the wireless speaker. Banagher's stiff hands are grabbing the display monitor as he continues to stare at the noise on the window. Cardeas’ voice has vanished as noise suddenly explodes through the inside of the cockpit.