Night had fallen over the building housing the interrogation rooms. Two figures stood in the corridor, each holding a cup of steaming coffee.
"It's the same rhetoric as before. We've haven't squeezed a single thing out of him..."
The interrogator assigned to Kenneth sighed, glancing toward the detention cell. "Honestly, we've been at this for so long, using every carrot and stick in the book. Either his will is fortified to a level we can't comprehend, or he truly knows nothing."
During the interrogation, they had dug up everything—down to which hotels Kenneth stayed in, which rooms he booked, and which women accompanied him. Yet, Kenneth's story remained rock-solid.
According to him, as a Federation technical officer, he was merely overseeing Anaheim's Penelope project. As for how a duplicate Penelope ended up in enemy hands, he claimed total ignorance.
"Is it possible Anaheim was pulling strings right under the Federation's nose?"
"The FBI has Anaheim completely locked down. In the liquidation audit, the airframes, components, spare parts... everything for the Penelope project adds up perfectly."
The man who had interrogated Lane earlier took a sip of coffee, frowning at the report in his hand. "That Penelope didn't just appear out of thin air. There is something we're missing."
Although Char's previous warehouse demolition hadn't left Anaheim much room to balance the books, the corporation's accountants had used masterful techniques to redistribute staggering amounts of debt and inventory across various departments in a way that appeared perfectly legal. Even the FBI couldn't find a crack in the facade.
"Every person connected to the Penelope must be investigated. It's the only way." The interrogator shook his head, feeling the weight of the deadlock. "We need the FBI to prioritize the Penelope project department. We can't let a single lead slip."
As the two pondered how to find the "missing Penelope parts," the sound of footsteps echoed down the hallway.
"Who's there?!" Kenneth's interrogator barked toward the sound.
"It's me."
Lane appeared before them, his expression eerily calm.
"Lane Aim? What are you doing back here?" The man who had questioned him earlier looked annoyed. "Didn't the Colonel tell you to pack your things and wait for a new machine assignment?"
"Yes. I've already finished packing," Lane replied in a flat tone, offering his first reason. "I came back because I wanted to see Colonel Kenneth one last time."
As for the second reason... the screwdriver and the handgun were already in position.
"If you want to see Sleg, you need to file an application. Go follow the proper channels!" the first interrogator snapped, rejecting him immediately.
"...Wait, he was under Kenneth's direct command, wasn't he?" The other interrogator patted his partner's shoulder, cutting him off. "I have a feeling that if he's the one to talk to him, we might actually get the breakthrough we need."
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Lying on the hard bunk of the detention cell, Kenneth Sleg felt a slight sense of relief.
No matter how stiff or uncomfortable the bed was, after the relentless, back-to-back interrogations, Kenneth couldn't afford to care about such things. He was desperate to steal a few moments of rest during this brief window of time.
From the past few days of questioning, Kenneth had gained a clear understanding of the situation outside.
A second Penelope had appeared, and it was on "Amuro's" side... The Federation had begun to suspect him of treason and was determined to squeeze every bit of information out of him.
Unfortunately for them, he had already told them everything he knew about the Penelope, but for some reason, the bastards from the Man Hunter units simply wouldn't believe him.
At that thought, Kenneth subconsciously touched the medicated patch on his cheek. A sharp, stinging pain shot through him, causing him to hiss through his teeth.
'They really hit hard, those guys.'
Just as Kenneth was about to drift off, the door to his detention cell was pounded on.
"Don't sleep! Wake up!"
The interrogator who had been questioning Kenneth slapped the door forcefully before unlocking it with a key. "Someone is here to see you!"
Faced with the words of this "old acquaintance," Kenneth was momentarily stunned.
But soon, a familiar figure stepped out from behind them.
"...Colonel Kenneth."
Looking at the weary, dispirited Kenneth, whose body bore obvious signs of injury, Lane Aime instinctively tightened his grip on his arm.
'Stay calm, Lane. Stay calm. From here on, I can't afford a single misstep.'
Thinking this, Lane covertly glanced at the positioning of the two men behind him out of the corner of his eye.
He took two steps in one direction, though his expression remained neutral, as if he were merely curious about the detention cell.
"Ah... it's you, Lane."
Looking at the pilot he had personally scouted, Kenneth's voice held a touch of weary nostalgia. "I heard your command rights were handed over to a new commander... Anyway, work hard. Don't embarrass the Circe Unit."
"Yes. My command rights have been reassigned to the commander of the Man Hunter units."
Watching Kenneth, Lane nodded.
"In fact, the reason I came to see you, Colonel, is because I have something I want to tell you."
Seeing Lane's expression suddenly turn serious, Kenneth's clouded thoughts wavered for a moment.
"What do you want to say?" Kenneth asked, regaining his focus.
But what happened next caught everyone present completely off guard.
Suddenly, Lane spun around and lunged. A screwdriver hidden in his sleeve slid into his palm, its sharp tip driven with precision into the right eye of the interrogator who had previously been questioning him.
"Ugh... AAAARGH!"
Stunned by the sudden turn of events, the interrogator—who had been so overbearing toward Lane moments before—let out a scream of agony.
In the next heartbeat, Lane grabbed the man's hand that was holding a mug, forcing the scalding hot coffee inside to splash across the face of the other interrogator standing nearby.
The searing pain of the high-temperature liquid caused the second man to instinctively clutch his face, crying out in pain.
Lane released the mug and used his left hand to pin the first interrogator as he struggled on the floor. With his right hand, he ripped the screwdriver out of the man's eye socket, blood trailing down his arm.
Reversing his grip on the tool, he drove it with force into the interrogator's temple, twisting it several times to reduce the contents within to a pulp.
'Crack...'
With a strange, brittle snapping sound, the interrogator who had targeted Lane at every turn gave two final shudders and went limp.
Although Lane was just a pilot, the Penelope was a high-mobility, high-performance machine operating within Earth's gravity.
Even with a pilot suit, the G-forces from its sudden maneuvers were not to be underestimated.
This meant that while Lane looked lean, his physical conditioning remained peak; in a raw physical struggle against these Man Hunter goons, it was never a fair fight.
Expressionless, Lane pulled the screwdriver from the man's temple, indifferent to the gray-white viscous fluid clinging to the tip.
Lane reached down and grabbed the hair of the second interrogator—the one whose face had been scalded by the hot coffee.
His right hand, still gripping the screwdriver, lunged forward again, piercing through this man's temple as well.
After a few more twists, this interrogator followed in his companion's footsteps and fell silent on the floor.
"Huff... huff..."
Gasping for air, Lane stood up from the ground.
Lane had already planned out exactly how to use this screwdriver on his way over, but he hadn't expected it to go quite this smoothly.
"Lane..."
Watching the scene unfold, Kenneth was stunned for a moment before his brow furrowed. "They made noise just now... the patrol will likely be here soon. You can't stay here!"
"No, Colonel Kenneth. We can't stay here. We can't stay with the Federation."
Lane reached over and turned on the faucet of the washbasin, rinsing the blood from his hands before rolling his sleeves up to his shoulders to hide the bloodstains on the fabric. "You want to break away from this corrupt Federation too, don't you?"
"Yeah, I certainly do want to leave the Federation."
Kenneth glanced at the scene and, after a moment's thought, took the blanket from the bed and draped it over the two corpses. This would prevent the blood from pooling out the door and delay the spread of the scent of blood for as long as possible.
"But this move was too reckless. Escaping is going to be incredibly difficult."
"Escaping the Federation was always going to be a difficult task."
Perhaps because he had finally come to a realization, Lane had become unusually talkative.
"Anyway, time is tight. We need to go."
Slipping the cleaned—yet still faintly metallic-smelling—screwdriver into his pocket, Lane pulled out a handgun. He checked the magazine, then racked the slide; with the click of the mechanical components, a round was chambered.
"Whew... there's no turning back now."
Kenneth exhaled a sigh and straightened his clothes. "The darkness before the dawn is the hardest to endure, Lane."
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Along the way, the two managed to bypass the sightlines of both the Man Hunter units and the Circe Unit.
After all, if Kenneth were to be exposed to the Circe Unit now, there was no telling if someone might report them to that Man Hunter commander.
When they arrived at the Hangar, the mechanic who had previously spoken with Lane—the one who had loaded propellant and Funnel Missiles onto the damaged Penelope—was still beside the machine, appearing to inspect the damage to its arms.
"You're back?"
The mechanic stole a subtle glance at Lane and the disguised Kenneth, who was wearing a hat as a cover, before packing up his tools and stepping off the catwalk onto the Hangar floor.
Inside the Hangar, everyone was busy servicing mobile suits; almost no one spared a glance for a mechanic temporarily leaving his post after checking the Penelope's status.
"Move fast, or it'll be too late," the mechanic said, glancing behind Lane to ensure they weren't being followed.
But in the next second, a piercing alarm shrieked through the entire base.
"The bodies have been found..." Kenneth muttered. Hearing that siren, there was no mistaking its meaning.
"Bear with it."
Lane suddenly drew his handgun and aimed it at the mechanic's thigh.
"This might hurt a bit."
"...Then I'll leave it to you." Seeing this, the mechanic immediately understood Lane and Kenneth's plan. "The data is all set; I'll be able to account for my actions."
With the mechanic's nod of confirmation, Lane pulled the trigger without hesitation.
'Bang—'
The bullet spun from the muzzle like a drill, striking the outer side of the mechanic's thigh and passing clean through.
"Agh... AAAARGH!"
As the bullet tore through, the mechanic began to scream in pain, collapsing to the floor. "Infiltrators! We have an attacker!"
The gunshot sent the Hangar into a moment of pure chaos. Seizing the opening, Lane hurried Kenneth onto the Penelope.
"Now comes the hardest part."
Lane expertly started up the Penelope, and the view outside the hatch flickered onto the panoramic cockpit screens.
"Do you have confidence?"
Behind the pilot's seat, a steel-framed auxiliary seat meant for temporary passengers snapped into place. Kenneth climbed in practiced fashion, his hands gripping the armrests tight.
"A little... after all, I've managed to survive Amuro several times."
In the heat of the emergency, Lane didn't have time to change into his pilot suit. He simply gripped the spherical control sticks. "Though, I get the feeling his killing intent toward me wasn't that strong... maybe he saw through me?"
By now, three or four Gustav Karl units had already reached the vicinity of the Hangar, moving in to blockade them.
Fortunately, due to the chaos in the America region, most of the base's MS units had been deployed. Otherwise, the armless Penelope would have found itself in a much tighter spot facing so many enemies.
"Let's go!"
Lane roared, slamming his foot down on the pedal.
With its Minovsky Flight Craft still intact, the Penelope hovered within the Hangar.
The thrusters, now fully replenished with propellant, erupted with flame, propelling the Penelope at extreme speed toward the Hangar doors blocked by the Gustav Karls.
As the Penelope lunged forward, the docking cradles that had been securing it were torn to shreds, clattering to the floor.
'CLANG—'
The wreckage of the protruding sensors—half of which had been sheared off—smashed into the Gustav Karl in its path under the force of the Penelope's high-speed flight.
The Gustav Karl was sent sprawling to the ground, the inertia from the impact causing it to tumble across the concrete before finally coming to a halt.
Without losing a beat of speed, the Penelope tore straight out of the base's perimeter.
"Don't gain altitude! You'll be locked on by anti-air missiles," Kenneth warned. As a commander, he knew all too well what a Federation base kept at the ready. "Stay low over the sea."
"We need to be fast enough to clear the area before the MS units on mission in California return to base. Ideally, we need to be out of radar range by the time they depart; then we can move to high altitude and deal with them there."
"In that case... hold on tight."
Hearing Kenneth's advice, Lane pressed the pedal down a bit further, and the Penelope's flight speed surged.
Facing the sudden acceleration, Kenneth couldn't help but let out a muffled groan.
"...Do you know where Captain Bright Noa's Ra Cailum is?" Kenneth asked, seemingly having decided on their next move.
"I have a rough idea..."
Lane recalled his original mission and the two warships that had been scouted by drones.
"Based on the projections at the time, they were heading toward the Philippines."
......................