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Chapter 164 - Chapter 164: The Sixth Stratagem of the Thirty-Six Stratagems

The fleet of the New Misurugi Republic set out, just like ZAFT had a week and a day earlier, without hiding their intentions from anyone. Their target was declared loudly and clearly—they were heading to PLANT to settle a score with Patrick Zala.

However, unlike the relative calm within the New Misurugi Republic when ZAFT launched its attack, this time PLANT was genuinely panicking.

In previous battles against the Earth Alliance Forces, ZAFT's space forces had been nothing short of invincible—or at the very least, overwhelmingly victorious.

If there were any setbacks, they were limited to the First World Tree Defense War and the battle at the Moon's Endymion Crater. But even then, in the former, ZAFT successfully destroyed the space city of World Tree, and in the latter, the Earth Alliance's Third Fleet was nearly annihilated—at best, it could be considered a draw.

As for the rest—the Nova Defense War, the First Battle of Yakin Due, and the Star Palace Pursuit (an early conflict in this story)—no matter how long they lasted, ZAFT emerged victorious each time, inflicting losses on the enemy at least three times greater than their own.

But this punitive campaign against the New Misurugi Republic was a brutal wake-up call for ZAFT. They had assumed that the New Misurugi Republic's forces—a mobile fortress built by bankrupting themselves and diverting resources meant for Colony Satellite construction, plus a hundred or so warships—would be easily handled by three fleets.

After all, no matter how powerful a custom Mobile Suit was, it couldn't truly fight a hundred enemies at once. Once beam weapons formed a literal rain of beams, any Mobile Suit would eventually be overwhelmed. (During SEED, if Talia Gladys hadn't ordered a retreat in the Orb campaign, Orb still wouldn't have held. Of course, by the time of the SEED movie, this rule might as well not exist.)

Yet, the result was that all three fleets were annihilated right at the doorstep of the Star Palace Colony Satellite. If not for Creuset's special forces having a ship nearby to observe, PLANT wouldn't even have known how those three fleets had been wiped out.

So when the grim news arrived, the PLANT Supreme Council convened yet another emergency meeting.

But during the meeting, after the councilors listened to the field reports and watched the footage to understand the truth, they were even more devastated.

Because the solar ray reflectors on the Star Palace Colony Satellite had been sold to the New Misurugi Republic by PLANT—and even the placement of those reflectors had been handled by PLANT transport ships. At the time, some in PLANT had mocked the Natural royalty for being overly sentimental, arranging the reflectors in symmetrical patterns just for aesthetics.

Now, hearing those words again felt like a slap in the face. They had been far too careless—such a devastating weapon had been openly positioned in space for a year, and despite its simple principle, no one had noticed even the slightest hint of its true purpose.

In essence, the New Misurugi Republic had taken equipment produced by PLANT, "modified" it into a weapon, and used it to obliterate PLANT's forces—and PLANT had even been the ones to install it for them.

As a result, the PLANT Supreme Council erupted in chaos. Even though the only councilors still able to speak in the assembly were all hardliners aligned with Patrick Zala, this time, Patrick faced a torrent of criticism from his own allies.

After all, it was obvious to anyone with eyes that PLANT's declaration of war against the New Misurugi Republic had been driven far more by Patrick Zala's personal agenda than by any genuine consideration for the nation.

Since there was no direct evidence that Lacus Clyne was in the New Misurugi Republic—she had merely fled in the direction of the Star Palace Colony Satellite—Patrick Zala's reckless decision to launch a punitive campaign forced Reid Isaac to reveal his hidden cards. It should be noted that the New Misurugi Republic had been behaving obediently up to that point, at least without openly crossing any lines.

Now, the tables had turned. Three of ZAFT's space fleets were annihilated, while the New Misurugi Republic suffered minimal losses. Worse yet, Reid Isaac was now leading a massive force to attack PLANT itself.

To be fair, the New Misurugi Republic's fleet alone wouldn't have been much of a threat. Even though ZAFT's space forces had lost a third of their strength, the remaining two-thirds were still formidable. Without the advantage of their home territory and the support of their super Sunlight Reflector system, the New Misurugi Republic's limited forces wouldn't stand a chance against PLANT's numerically superior defensive troops.

But anyone with half a brain could see that the Earth Alliance's lunar forces would seize this opportunity to strike.

The superweapon under construction was still at least two months away from completion. Since it had to be built under the cover of the Mirage Colloid System—with only the construction area remaining visible—progress was inevitably slow.

Once the New Misurugi Republic's fleet joined forces with the Earth Alliance's space navy, PLANT would face an overwhelming qualitative and quantitative disadvantage. Thanks to Patrick Zala's poor decision-making, PLANT was now truly facing an existential crisis.

For once, Patrick didn't vehemently refute his colleagues' accusations. Despite his usual caution, he had underestimated Reid Isaac.

A fleet built in secret, a super fortress, strange new particles, and a simple yet devastating Solar Ray Reflector system—each of these had caught him off guard. And who knew what other surprises Reid had in store?

At this point, even Patrick was beginning to question whether his haste to eliminate Reid had been a mistake. That bastard should have been dealt with after finishing off the Earth Alliance.

But it was too late for regrets. Patrick knew he had to focus on surviving the immediate crisis first.

Fortunately, he still had an excuse. At the Council meeting, he angrily and passionately declared:

"Gentlemen, let us not forget—the Solar Ray Reflectors that wiped out three fleets were sold to the New Misurugi Republic during Siegel Clyne's administration. I strongly suspect that Siegel played a major role in facilitating the bulk purchase of these reflectors."

Patrick's implication was clear: the biggest blame should fall on Siegel Clyne.

The rest of the PLANT Council was speechless. Did he really expect them to pin such a colossal failure on a dead man? Would anyone even buy that?

Even Patrick's staunch ally, Ezalia Joule, couldn't stomach this. She bluntly interjected:

"Chairman Zala, Siegel Clyne is already dead. Moreover, Solar Ray Reflectors are civilian goods—international procurement doesn't require the Chairman's approval."

Now fully resorting to shamelessness, Patrick slammed the table and stood up, roaring:

"What else can I say? Should I admit my mistakes and resign now? Who among you will take my place to confront the New Misurugi Republic and the Earth Alliance? Or are you planning to raise your hands in surrender?"

With Patrick Zala's words, the PLANT Supreme Council fell into silence.

Because Patrick Zala was right—the Chairman's position was now a pit of fire. Anyone who took it would merely be shouldering the blame for Patrick Zala, so they had no choice but to let him continue.

Seeing the silence, Patrick knew he had passed this hurdle and softened his tone slightly.

"Since there are no objections, let's move on to other matters. First, the Solar Ray Reflectors must immediately be classified as military supplies, and some of Earth's forces need to be recalled..."

The meeting was long, but the PLANT Supreme Council's emergency session ultimately affirmed a firm stance of resistance. They began recalling troops from various space outposts, preparing to strike back hard against the New Misurugi Republic, which dared to pluck hairs from a tiger's mouth.

However, while PLANT was on high alert, Reid was doing something no one could understand.

Logically, the New Misurugi Republic's forces could have taken the normal route through the Fifth Space Zone to the Third Space Zone—after all, all ZAFT outposts along the way had already withdrawn, offering no resistance.

But Reid commanded his forces to take the shortest path—a straight line—planning to traverse the Earth's debris belt twice to strike directly at PLANT's homeland.

On paper, this decision wasn't entirely unreasonable. This route would bypass the Boaz Fortress and allow a direct assault on PLANT, leaving only the Yakin-Due Fortress to deal with. Given the firepower of the Barge's main cannon, breaching Yakin-Due wasn't impossible.

Meanwhile, ZAFT had no way to redeploy the Boaz Fortress for homeland defense. Worse, the Earth Alliance's lunar fleet had already assembled in the Second Space Zone, poised to coordinate with the New Misurugi Republic's forces for a pincer attack on PLANT.

Thus, ZAFT had to split its forces to block the Earth Alliance in the Second Space Zone. Otherwise, if their main forces were tied down by the New Misurugi Republic's army, the Earth Alliance Forces would undoubtedly seize the opportunity to advance unchecked.

Yet, just as both the Earth Alliance and PLANT's military were analyzing how the New Misurugi Republic would attack, Reid was directing his fleet to do something utterly baffling—collecting space debris.

Yes, literally picking up trash.

Since the Earth's debris belt made it impossible for a massive warship like the Barge to pass through smoothly, Reid chose the most extreme solution: blasting a path open with cannon fire.

The Barge was powered by a large-scale nuclear fusion reactor from the AC universe, so energy was no issue. Reid had no qualms about firing relentlessly. As for barrel wear, he simply noted that the onboard factories could produce replacements as needed.

As for the source of metal? After each bombardment, swarms of Mobile Dolls would fly out to gather the remaining metallic debris. A small portion of specialized metals was kept for repairs, while the rest was melted down and molded into massive rectangular blocks—twenty meters tall and ten meters thick.

To outsiders, the New Misurugi Republic's military appeared to be bombarding their way forward while collecting scrap metal, seemingly preparing for a mass career change into junk dealers.

However, no one now believed Reid was wasting his efforts. After the battle at the Star Palace Colony Satellite, everyone had fallen into the trap of overthinking—military experts across nations shared the same thought:

"Reid Isaac must have a deeper purpose for doing this. Perhaps he's preparing another weapon like the Solar Ray Reflector Array—something simple in principle but overlooked because others failed to shift their perspective. We need to investigate whether the metals in the debris belt have any special properties. We can't afford to be caught off guard again."

Yet, Reid wasn't actually planning to use these massive metal chunks as weapons. All those overthinking experts had wasted their brain cells for nothing.

Fortunately, the New Misurugi Republic's fleet didn't take long to traverse the Earth's orbital debris belt. In just a day and a half, they passed through and naturally entered geosynchronous orbit around Earth.

However, despite such a large fleet passing so close to Earth, the Earth Alliance didn't seem particularly tense.

The three major powers of the Earth Alliance all knew that unless Reid had suddenly lost his mind, there was no reason for him to attack them without cause at this time.

But aboard the Barge, when the fleet entered geosynchronous orbit without a single unit coming to intercept or drive them away, Reid flashed a triumphant smirk.

He turned to Une beside him and said,

"Une, relay the order—all ships to assume Condition One combat readiness. Announce the true attack objective. Once we reach the target location, all vessels except the Barge and the designated escort ships must prepare for atmospheric descent."

"Also, are all the Mobile Dolls on the Barge loaded into the drop pods? Are the high-resolution ground cameras and Cloud Clearing Rounds ready?"

Une, who had been closely monitoring the fleet's position and adjusting its speed to ensure arrival at the designated geosynchronous point on schedule, didn't even look up as she replied, focused as she was:

"Relax, the Mobile Dolls on the Barge are prepped for deployment. The cameras and Cloud Clearing Rounds have been ready for a while."

"We've already forecasted Australia's weather for today. July is 'winter' in Australia—though their winter is very different from what we're used to—with significant temperature differences between the north and south. But over the next few days, most of Australia will be clear skies, so we don't have to worry about tropical storms or cloud cover obstructing the Barge's line of sight."

"Plus, we have signal flares for requesting high-altitude artillery support, along with the Carpentaria Base defense layout you brought back. Our chances of winning this battle are very high."

Satisfied with Une's thorough preparations, Reid stood up and said,

"Good. Then I'll leave the Barge to you. The chances are slim, but the Atlantic Federation might get desperate after we successfully occupy the Oceania Union, so we should still be on guard."

"Also, Heaven's Base has already seceded from Orb. Rondo Mina Sahaku has a bet with me, and I heard her unlucky younger brother was killed by Serpent's Tail mercenaries. If necessary, we can send someone to… offer our condolences."

"That's all I have to say. I'll transfer to the Aries now and await your launch command."

With that, Reid left the Barge's command center.

A few minutes later, the captains who received their new orders finally learned the true objective of this mission. None of them had expected Reid's ambitions to be so grand—the targets were actually Carpentaria Base and the entire Oceania Union.

By now, the more quick-witted among them had already guessed Reid's intentions. He had set his sights on the land of the Oceania Union.

After all, it was the Oceania Union that had first declared war on the New Misurugi Republic. Attacking them was completely justified, and no other nation could criticize the move.

The captains quickly adjusted their ships' trajectories, preparing to descend into the atmosphere. If the New Misurugi Republic were to reestablish its nation on the land of the Oceania Union, they would be considered founding contributors—their future prospects would be limitless.

Moreover, compared to the defensive forces of PLANT's homeland, the Oceania Union was truly a soft target. With the current military strength of the New Misurugi Republic, everyone felt that crushing them would be no challenge at all.

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