Maintenance [Open]

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

Sure enough, it was there in the vehicle bay - the Freedom. At 18 meters tall, it wasn't the largest craft in the cavernous hangar, but it certainly did present an imposing figure... particularly next to the squadron of low-to-the-ground fighters that Kira didn't recognize.

It was a tool of war - of killing, Kira reminded himself - but it was also a tool which he could use to help people; he could use it to protect people. To protect a world that might truly be gone... it was almost comforting to see something familiar. A reminder of home (and of Lacus, still sleeping in the pod caverns), even if it was a war machine.

Computers were the young man's forte, but he'd become familiar enough with the machine to do a bit of physical maintenance on it too. So anyone in the hangar bay would see the machine's cockpit open in the center of its chest, as he gave everything a cursory inspection, making sure things were in shape.

Unfortunately, the plantsuits didn't make the best toolbelts, even when fashioning makeshift loops at the waist - but when one's was in a cramped crawlspace up to the waist, it made it possible for even enhanced Coordinator reflexes to catch a wrench that slipped out from one of said loops, skidding across the sloped metal of the Mobile Suit's skin before plummeting to the hangar floor below.

He didn't think anyone had been in here with him, but Kira gave a warning shout nonetheless. "Hey...! Look out!"

(ooc: There may be a wrench heading in your character's direction. Especially so for any of the Rogues, since the Freedom Gundam is conveniently next to the X-Wings. WATCH OUT BELOW!)

Comments

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

"That's impressive," he said with a nod. "The Freedom was one of a kind, too... it and the Justice had the only completed N-Jammer Canceler devices in existence."

Kira paused - of course, she was from another world. How to explain this? "In my world, humans don't just live on Earth, but out on space colonies in orbit, called PLANTs. There was a lot of hostility and prejudice between the people on Earth and the PLANT government, and a senseless tragedy led to a full-blown war."

"ZAFT was the military wing of the PLANT government, and I... started out flying for the Earth Alliance. But as it turned out, they weren't any better. Both sides wanted to wipe the other out of existence."

[redheadcarrier.livejournal.com]

"What's an N-Jammer Canceler?" Asuka cocked a brow. Half of this stuff she'd never even heard of before. She listened for a moment and then shrugged.

"I worked for NERV. We fought... Angels." It was a long, complicated story, really. His world didn't sound much better, though. "We're not supposed to fight humans."

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

Oh, right, he'd have to explain this too. "The tragedy at Junius Seven that caused the war was the result of a nuclear explosion, so in response PLANT developed the Neutron Jammer, which projected a field that made it impossible for nuclear power or weaponry to function. They put them all over the Earth and space - and killed millions who relied on nuclear power."

"The N-Jammers made it so that all Mobile Suits had to run on battery power, which gave them limited operational time before they'd have to recharge. But PLANT also secretly developed the N-Jammer Canceler... meaning that a Mobile Suit could run on a nuclear engine."

His explanation, though, died off at her next statement. "Angels? You fought... Angels?" He suddenly had a vision, as silly as it was, of the giant red mobile suit swatting winged humans like flies - but that couldn't be what she meant, could it?

[redheadcarrier.livejournal.com]

Asuka's brow furrowed in a frown as she listened. She was trying to figure out how half of that technology would even work in her head - the physics didn't add up. "...how do you jam a nuclear reaction? That seems impossible!"

Hooray for having a degree. She shrugged and trotted over to his mech. After examining it, she began climbing the gantry - yelling at him from the ground was getting annoying. "They weren't like the angels you're thinking of. They wanted to wipe out humanity - and I was the only line of defense!"

Well, her and Shinji and Rei.

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

Kira shook his head. "It's hard to say - it was all top secret. From what I can tell, though, it stopped the emission and movement of free neutrons, meaning that nuclear fission couldn't occur on the levels you'd need it to."

He still didn't know what exactly she meant by angels, but... trying to wipe out humanity? Maybe it was like what had happened between Naturals and Coordinators? "Why were they trying to wipe out humanity?"

Oh - she was trying to climb up? "Hey, wait a minute - there's a better way," he called down before moving to hit a button that lowered a cord with a loop on the end. "Just stand in that loop and hold on - I'll bring you up."

[redheadcarrier.livejournal.com]

"That shouldn't be physically possible!" She replied as she snagged the dangling loop and set her foot into it. After a moment she gave it a tug. "Hurry up already!"

Asuka was used to heights. As she made her ascent she examined the Gundam - all metal and armored plate. Not exactly like her Eva, then. "I don't know why. I just know that if they made it past us - game over for the whole world."

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

"I'm sorry, I don't know how it worked other than that." Once Kira was sure that Asuka was in the loop, he hit the button again, lifting her up to the cockpit area.

He was quiet as the winch wound her up, thinking about that - being told that you were the last line of defense for all of humanity? Something about it didn't sit right with him, especially in light of how the OMNI leadership had deceived their own forces.

'You were the last line of defense; if they defeat you then our people die.' Was that what they'd told them, too? "That must have been difficult."

[redheadcarrier.livejournal.com]

Asuka shrugged, muttering to herself. She'd think about it later. It wasn't that important anyway. She alighted next to the cockpit, peering inside curiously, only half listening to Kira. It didn't look all that different from an entry plug (minus the LCL fluid) - a couple of joysticks and an array of dials and status readouts. "Not really. I'm a prodigy and the best Eva pilot in the world - all in a day's work, you know!"

Of course, it had never really been that easy, but Asuka wasn't going to admit that. She craned her neck, trying to get a better look at the cockpit. "Doesn't look that hard to pilot."

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

"I think you'd have to be if you've been trusted with that..." Kira wasn't sure how to take her proclamation that she was a prodigy or the best in the world - he didn't disbelieve her, but it seemed kind of self-aggrandizing. "You're even younger than I was when I started piloting."

He moved to join her, looking inside the cockpit. "It's not hard to pilot, once you know what you're doing... I rewrote the OS to make it more efficient, too."

[redheadcarrier.livejournal.com]

"Well, not everyone can be as good as I am~" Asuka replied as she prodded one of the control panels curiously. "I'm pretty sure I could pilot this thing - do you have to sync with it?"

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

"Sync?" Kira repeated, not quite sure what she meant. "Er... not that I know of. Anyone can operate it - it just might be a bit hard for Naturals, since the OS is written for Coordinators."

[redheadcarrier.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, you know - match your brainwaves to the machine, all that kind of thing."

Wasn't that how everyone piloted giant robots?

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

"Really?" He blinked - now that he thought about it, an interface like that made a lot of sense, but... "...no, I've never heard of anything like that. It's all manual."

[redheadcarrier.livejournal.com]

"...weird." She leaned into the cockpit and waggled one of the control columns with a grin. "You have to let me drive this thing sometime!"

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

That actually got a small smile from the teenager. "You can sit in the cockpit (http://www.mahq.net/Mecha/gundam/seed/lineart/zgmf-x-a-cockpit.jpg), if you like - I don't think there's any harm in it."

"You'd probably be able to do it if I rewrote the OS," he nodded. "It's pretty intuitive once you understand what you're doing, but right now it's tuned for a Coordinator."

[redheadcarrier.livejournal.com]

"Really? Thanks!" And without another word, Asuka slipped into the command chair, fingers flexing as she grasped the control columns. It was different from her Eva, but then again everything was.

She looked up as she fiddled with the controls curiously. "What's a 'Coordinator'?"

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

The smile faded just a bit. "Coordinators are humans who've been genetically altered. Back in my world, they usually live out on the PLANTs, because... well, a lot of Naturals - non-altered humans, I mean - don't trust them."

[redheadcarrier.livejournal.com]

"That's stupid," Asuka replied dismissively as she ran her hands over the control panel, "They're still human."

She tapped a few random buttons, secretly hoping that one of them would start the massive machine up.

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

That brought the smile back to his face, though it had a bit of a melancholy tinge to it. "They are, you're right. But... some Naturals thought they were freaks, or were frightened of them because they could do a lot of things better. And some Coordinators did the same things - they were scared of the Naturals, they hated them, or they thought they were inferior. And it just kept snowballing, with one side hating the other because the other side hated them."

Kira shook his head. "But both Naturals and Coordinators were still human. I just wish it wasn't so hard for some people to see that. Besides, there's not much difference at all. One of the best pilots I ever knew was a Natural."

She seemed to be looking for the start-up, and while Kira didn't think it was a great idea to go into full combat mode... "Here, I'll show you - I've been meaning to run a system diagnostic anyway."

[redheadcarrier.livejournal.com]

"Ugh. People are stupid." Asuka rolled her eyes. "I mean, I'm better than a lot of people, but I don't hate them for not being as good me! That's just life~"

She flashed a meaningful grin at Kira and then leaned back to let him access the control panel, watching him carefully. She wanted to know how to drive this thing.

"Are you a 'Coordinator' or whatever?"

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

He nodded. "I am. My parents were both Naturals, though." Well, the people he considered his parents, anyway.

Kira leaned in around the panel, touching his hands to a small keyboard that slid out from the controls - and around them, the viewscreens that lined the cockpit flared into life, showing the cavernous hangar bay in a wide, 270-degree arc around them.

Meanwhile, the green disc in the center of the console flickered and lit up as well, lines of computer text scrolling across the screen - and if she'd been watching Kira's eyes, Asuka would have seen how quickly they flitted back and forth to read them - as the OS booted up, with red letters now taking center stage along with the ZAFT logo:

MOBILE SUIT NEO OPERATION SYSTEM

Generation
Unsubdued
Nuclear
Drive
Assault
Module
G.U.N.D.A.M Complex

[redheadcarrier.livejournal.com]

"Huh. So, how good are you at piloting this thing?" She examined him wit ha bit more interest - was he a potential rival? No. He couldn't be as good as her. No one was. Not even Wondergirl or Shinji. Shinji. She harumphed to herself and dismissed the idiot from her mind. She didn't need to be thinking about him.

Instead, she focused on the displays as they sprang to life, a grin on her face. This was familiar enough - she had similar displays in her Eva. The text caught her eye next and she glanced down, doing her best to read it as it flickered by.

"...that's a really complicated acronym."

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

"I'm good enough to hold my own against some skilled pilots," Kira said with a nod, though that was a bit of an understatement. "But that doesn't mean I can't get better."

"And it is - but it's why I call them Gundams, even if that's not the official name. It's easier to remember, isn't it?"

Fingers now raced across the keyboard at genuinely superhuman speeds as Kira took the familiar OS through its paces. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary here, so time for some technical stuff: With the press of a button, the words "Phase Shift Armor" flashed on the screen - and outside, there was a strangely-electric-sounding hissing.

If Asuka were to check, she'd see that the outer armor had changed from plain gunmetal gray to something a bit more colorful (http://i324.photobucket.com/albums/k359/lel123_1234/FreedomGundam.jpg).

[redheadcarrier.livejournal.com]

"Well, not all of us have natural talent," Asuka managed to sound condescending without truly meaning to - some people were just better. She grinned, watching him run through the start-up sequence - he was fast. She glanced at him curiously (the cockpit was a bit cramped at the moment).

"What's Phase Shift Armor?"

[kirasaves.livejournal.com]

She was a bit confident in her own abilities, Kira noted - bordering on arrogant - but he didn't think she meant anything genuinely malicious by it. He just wouldn't let it get to him.

"It uses pinpoint electrical pulses to help coat the armor with special... well, it's kind of like a shield. It makes a mobile suit almost completely immune to physical weaponry like guns and explosions - but every hit requires more energy, so if you're using a battery-operated suit you can only take so much before you begin to run out of power."

"The Freedom doesn't have to worry about that thanks to the reactor, but... it can still be overloaded if the attack is powerful enough. Especially with energy weaponry like beam sabers."