Blaze glared for a moment more, then sighed and deflated. "Yeah, okay. Point. It's just... being able to do something about it is the whole reason I'm here, y'know? And, oh, by the way, Tolle called and asked if had changed your mind about your date, so he could cancel the reservations..."
Miriallia stood bolt upright, and her face went white. "That's today?! I thought it was next..." she trailed off and bolted deeper into the building, calling behind her, "Sorry, Kira! I have to hurry!"
The dark-haired girl looked after her friend with a tolerant smile, then shook her head and turned back to the bemused new arrival and stuck out a hand. "You're the new resident we're supposed to be getting now that SunTech has shut down, right? I'm Blaze Shiratori, sorry about that. You'll likely get used to us in a couple of weeks."
He took the opportunity to set down the bag with his computer and datachips, since its strap was cutting into his shoulder, and reached out to shake. "Kira Yamato, don't worry about it. Most of my friends transferred to Hawaii University, so I had thought I'd be sort of on my own. It's nice to be wrong."
She laughed a little, then a little more as a noticably-more-dressed-up Miriallia bolted out past them, and showed him to the dorm office as they chatted.
* * * * *
Yitzhak Joule scowled at his wingman. "Could you maybe be a little more conspicuous?" he snapped. "I think maybe there's still a blind man or two that hasn't seen you."
Dearka Elsman slid his sunglasses down a little to make eye contact. "Another random Coordinator with the touristas is a lot less remarkable in a place like this than an obvious military type, hey? Relax a little - pull the rifle out of your ass and enjoy the scenery." His voice had been atypically serious, the better to make his point, at least until a trio of the local university's coeds walked by on their way to the beach. Only one had bothered to put anything on over her swimsuit.
"He's right, you know," said a third voice, and both of them tensed for a moment before they placed the face under the scraggly beard from their mission briefing. "There's no military base here on Aube proper, so that kind of discipline stands out more than a bit."
Yitzhak flushed slightly, and his jaw clenched, but he nodded. "Understood. What can you tell us?"
There was no reason for anyone to have bugged this stretch of sea wall, and there was no one close enough to overhear the quiet voices all three of them were using, but paranoia was practically a neccessary job skill for any sort of intelligence work and their contact checked a display on what was carefully designed to look like a generic PDA before he spoke further. "Boss said there hadn't been time to brief you guys before now. Background: when Morganroete lost the ORB mobile suit bid to EBC, their shareholders were out a whole lot of money with not much chance of getting it back, right?"
Dearka nodded. "So now they're trying to sell it out of the country to try and cover their losses."
"Right. We come into the picture because the customer they've gotten coziest with isn't South Africa or Oceania - it's the Atlantic Federation."
"Fuck," Yitzhak hissed. "And ORB's just letting them?"
The Information Directorate agent shook his head. "No, but for them it's a criminal proceeding - takes time. There's not much doubt about the case, at this point, but the whole final development run was just about finished - they're almost ready to field-test. Some of the higher-ups think that there's a good chance the Federation will just decide that war's inevitable anyway and snatching mobile suit tech is worth starting it early."
"That's what we're for, then," Dearka concluded.
"Yeah. Mostly. Morganroete's suits are supposed to be a lot more sophisticated than EBC's Ares series, probably even better than what we've got. We aren't quite sure just how much ORB's IAB knows about what we're planning, so keep your heads down in the meantime and try not to be too obvious."
"That's ridiculous!" the paler of the two mobile suit pilots snapped. "An Earthside nation building better suits than the PLANTS? Hah!"
The intelligence man shook his head at that. "ORB's got a full fifth of the Coordinator population, and seven times as many Naturals. On top of that, they've got a lot easier access to raw materials than we do, which helps their economy. Yeah, they've got the tech to do that, no sweat."
"So if we can get them without getting caught, we should?" Dearka asked.
"Not without orders. But yeah, be ready for that. Top priority is keeping them away from the Federation or OMNI, though. Do whatever you have to to make that happen."
You can maybe see where this is going, ne?
Ja, -n
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"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"