Mobile Suit's hand gently pushed a large stone towards the massive net. The silvery net was almost full of asteroids of all different sizes.
'It took us nearly 20 hours to fill this up.' The 2nd Princess thought to herself as she realised that they would spend a bit of time collecting these.
Maybe her projection of a week away was right?
'Time will tell.'
Her eyes went to the side where Marcus Tiranis was using a physical sword to cut asteroids like they were tofu.
The Britannian Princess realised that he was using his Geass to perform such feats! It's impossible to do it normally, she is certain of that.
~~~
Marcus looked at the asteroid before him, his red eyes and bird-shaped pupils stared at all of the possibilities of the space rock.
He found the most vulnerable angle and then used the sword to swing through this specific angle.
The 100-metre-wide asteroid opened up into two pieces.
'It's getting easier to see these things. I think my eyes are getting stronger.'
He then once again looked at the two pieces and located the best angle before swinging again.
And again,
Until it was several pieces which he pushed into the net before flying away to locate another asteroid that is worth collecting.
By his rough estimations, he will have enough resources to wage war to conquer the Earth, without worrying about things like Metal or precious metals like gold.
Gold is good for conductivity, so it's an important metal that works very well with Sakuradite, which he will have more of than Britannia.
"Lelouch, I have located a nearly 5-kilometre-long one. It needs chopping." His sister contacted him.
"Coming."
He changed his mobile suit's direction and flew towards her location.
When he saw the Asteroid, a smirk appeared on his face. This was it!
A rock that is made from different materials! Several types of metals! It was wealth given form!
Marcus' mobile suit prepared his sword as the machine lunged and swung the physical sword at a specific angle.
Upon contact, the asteroid began to crack like an eggshell.
He did several more cuts, and the asteroid began to fall apart into much smaller pieces.
"How does this even make sense? I was wondering why you even made such a weapon for your machine." Leila, who joined them midway, used her funnels to cut them at a rapid pace, commented with a weirded-out tone.
"My eyes can see weakness in structures. All I need to do is process what I see before deciding how to cut them up." He explained to her.
"That's how I can cut rifles." The Inventor Prince made her recall what Milly told her about the incident in the hotel where he cut the rifle.
"I see…"
The moment he mentioned his Geass, her look changed as she ended the call and focused on her task.
Her funnels would stab an asteroid from all angles before using beams to slice it up into smaller pieces.
Leila was one of the most efficient resource gatherers, while the KK-units were the most productive. The mass-produced units didn't fall behind that far; instead, they were using 2nd-generation prototype rifles to blow up asteroids.
The Setanta units would operate for around 7 to 10 hours before returning to switch up the energy fillers.
This was the best time to gather data, which was observed by Anna, who was the creator of these machines.
She was gathering the information to improve the machines; this time around, the nerdy girl was motivated!
~~~
The operation lasted for around 3 Earth days. The nets were full, and the Blackbirds were ready to return.
"Sir, the systems are all green."
"Good, then we will start with solar sails in formation B."
The pilots went through configurations as the sails got unfolded, and then silver metals covered the bronze ones, and then secondary sails were released.
This formation allowed them to move inward into the solar system instead of outward.
The secondary sails would capture the solar wind and send it into the primary sails to use it as propulsion.
Soon enough, the planes began to move as the ion thrusters kicked-started the movement.
"...It would seem we are moving." He sounded a bit surprised. The Inventor Prince checked the stress levels.
Thankfully, this was not Earth; the gravity and air resistance were simply not here. There was only one force at work, and no resistance was working against them.
"I don't like it when you are surprised like that. It's like you didn't expect that we would succeed." Kallen commented as she floated over to his side. She looked tired, as she was piloting for more than 20 hours per day and was barely sleeping, since she was not used to being in space at all.
It will take her a while to get used to such a thing; at the same time, piloting a mobile suit in space is a bit different as well.
She is used to Earth's gravity far too much.
"Oh, I am just surprised that my technology works." He chuckled as he proceeded to adjust the Fusion Reactor's output before dissmising the hologram and floating over to her.
"Now that we are done here, we should get some rest." He took her hand and proceeded to pull her out of the cockpit.
"...W-What are you doing?" The girl immediately got embarrassed when he got close.
"Taking you with me to rest." Marcus' reply was simple and to the point.
"...B-But what about Leila?" Kallen looked around for the blonde girl.
"She is with Anna, and I am tired." He floated with her through the corridor before entering the private quarters and into his captain's room.
He then hugged her and closed his eyes. The pair ended up trying to nap close to the bed, but it was space… no gravity and a bit difficult to sleep in such conditions.
~~~
The trio of planes just passed the moon as they began deacceleration efforts long before that.
The five KK-Units worked together to stop the nets from draining their resources. While the planes themselves could easily stop, the same cannot be said for the asteroids, as they didn't have thrusters.
To assist them, more machines joined them from the planet's surface.
As the planes returned first and picked up reinforcements from Solomon's base.
Thankfully, the effort started early, way before the nets were caught in Planet's gravitational pull.
"I know this is a bit too much, but why are we using mobile suits to push hundreds of tons of space rocks?" Suzaku commented as his borrowed Setanta is trying very hard to push the asteroids.
"You see, the rocks don't have reverse thrusters."
As Marcus said, the three planes returned, and they flew in the opposite direction of the net, where Marcus brought the cables and then connected them to the planes.
All the mobile suits needed to do was hold the asteroids for a bit before the planes could pull the rocks away from the Earth.
After a bit of struggling, the rocks stopped…
"If they didn't notice before, I am sure they will now. These stones will be visible from the planet's surface." Leila said from her side.
"Indeed."
Marcus nodded. He was sweating buckets for a bit. He forgot a single fundamental thing! Just because his plane was slowing down, it doesn't mean the rocks that the plane was pulling will stop!
'I knew that I missed something.'
'Next time, I will bring portable thrusters that we can attach to these rocks.'
The Inventor Prince thought to himself as he sighed in relief. He was able to avert a self-made apocalypse and, at the same time, gather enough resources to kick-start his revolution.
"Lelouch, I think this is the end of the trip. I need to return to Area 11."
Cornelia pulled him back from his thoughts.
"Yeah, take one of the planes. I will be returning to Solomon Base."
With that said, his Tiranis folded into a plane and blasted towards the planet without wasting any more time.
He wants a shower and to sleep in a proper bed!
"Hold up! I am coming as well!"
One after another, the girls followed him.
"Umm, can Setanta do a reentry?" Jeanne asked all of a sudden.
"Just use a plane," Leila said before following Marcus.
~~~~~~Meanwhile~~~~~~
The 2nd Prince Schneizel returned from his successful conquest of Northern Africa and the Middle East, where he created Areas 17 and 18.
The moment he was back in Pendragon, he returned to his primary objectives, and that is to figure out the mysterious machines.
Over time on the frontlines, he paid attention to what was happening in the Empire.
While he was a 'temporary' General for Britannia, he was still the Prime Minister.
And since he was running logistics, he stumbled upon something that made him realise something.
The flow of resources was siphoned off by someone!
What he found made him feel a cold chill pass through his back.
While Area 11 is very profitable, with Anaheim at the front. The place is draining their resources in turn. He tried to figure out what was going on.
Because the numbers made no sense, Area 11 was buying a huge amount of basic metals.
He never would have checked this if not for the military campaign he was in.
After all these kinds of things should be addressed by the Minister of War. Who didn't bother, as he was busy with wars being waged for his father.
But now, when he bypassed the stellar amount of revenue they were generating from Area 11, he could see that something was not right.
Where are all of these resources going?
'Anaheim is building something for Cornelia?'
That's where he got into a rabid hole that is Anaheim.
Advanced robotics factories, special joints for Sutherlands, Gloucesters, prototype weaponry…
All of those things…
'Why am I not aware of any of this!?'
Before long, the Prince realised that he stumbled upon a completely new world that he was not aware of!
It's like there is a new world created inside of Britannia.
Sure enough, as he went through records of what was happening in Area 11, he found out that there were a considerable number of sightings of those machines!
Much more than in Europe or above the homeland!
'...I knew it! Someone has access to our systems… all of the data is here, but nothing gets highlighted, as if someone on purpose makes it invisible unless we check one by one.'
But it's on a global scale! Someone has access to their internal system! It's an enormous security breach!
"Damn them!"
The blonde prince grabbed his phone and was about to call, but then he stopped and looked at it. His eyes were wide as he realised that everything could be heard by this unknown force!
'This…is not good.'
He swiftly got up from his seat and rushed to see several ministers.
One could say… the domino effect has begun as one of the biggest conspiracies in Britannian history is about to be uncovered.
Instead of using the Britannian network to communicate, Schneizel ordered to use older, more primitive means, from letters to simple verbal messages, until the network was secured.
The Official swiftly found that there was something running in the background of all of the computers and databases.
They can't discern what, but the simple check in CPU and RAM usage told the dark truth.
There is invisible software that is running in their data centres.
That alone prompted Schneizel to order the immediate shutdown of the system.
Apart from that, he concluded that the 2nd Princess knows more than she reports, and that is concerning, as she is one of the best tacticians with a huge following in Britannian with an almost flawless victory record.
"Begin preparations for 2nd Princess arrest." The blonde man dropped a bombshell in one of the military meetings.
The officials gawked at him for a second before slowly nodding at him.
"...My Prince… if this is true… what you are thinking… then there could be a bloody civil war. If those machines are on the Princess side…"
"The facts are there. Cornelia was in Saint Petersburg, where she was spared for some reason. At the same time, the rest of her army machines were destroyed.
She has met someone there."
Such news caused the whole room to turn silent, like in a graveyard.