Mask landed in the assigned bay and exited the cockpit shaking. He took a drink from his water bottle and turned around to assess the damage. He was mortified at the amount of damage he so carelessly took, but besides that he felt a strange rush. That he was able to survive, with this mass production suit. With something so normal. Apart from his surroundings, the suit was not, but it was still just a MP with thick armor. He felt the adrenaline coursing through him, that he could do more. But he couldn't. Not like this. The blood lust was building,and he could tell. He needed to rest. Needed to stop depending on the mask. He was too tired to think, or do anything really, despite the adrenaline.
He sat down, propping his arms up with one knee, and laid his head onto them. A quiet snoring was soon heard from him.

Donna saw Stella's eye, ridden with chaos. She wasn't sure if her voice can reach her. "Stella." She spoke, calmly. "Thank you for saving me earlier." Looking around she grabbed Stella's right hand and squatted close. "I want you to get better. You've been like a sister to me." Donna spoke very fondly, discarding her usually formal speech. "I know we haven't met before then, but having someone to speak to other than the Instructor made me happy." She looked at Stella's heavy breathing in pain. "Please get well soon." She ended the conversation and stood up to face Wilbur and Paul. "Thank you for giving me the time to speak to Stella. I am ready to go to the meeting with you."

Paul nodded and said his goodbyes to the good doctor who nodded in return. He then went up to Stella and smiled at her and patted her on the shoulder. "Don't worry you're going to be fine. If there's a better doctor in this world than Wilbur I'll be damned. He's the best there is. One screw up shouldn't be the end of you just focus on getting better and when you need help learning how to control that side of you just come out and find me. I'll be sure to help you. I'll always be here for any of my soldiers." Paul said as Stella nodded with a smile and thanked both of them quietly as Paul led the young woman out of the medical center. "As you can see she isn't in the best of conditions. I'm sure you have a question on what an Extended is exactly but it's complicated. They're normal humans turned super soldiers through unethical means. They were discontinued a long time ago before I was even a soldier. They were found out by a group of informants and the public outcry was massive enough to warrant a shut down. There were only four survivors of the event." Paul said as he pressed the button on the elevator to send them to the officer's floor.

Jack watched the SIGMA team leader leave the elevator and shrugged, stepping off behind him. "He's not sure about any of us, and within reason. We hardly know each other or where the other comes from. That said, the story behind the people here? We'll probably never understand any of it without visiting their home universe. Come on, let's get to the meeting." He heads down the hall towards the briefing room.

As they entered the meeting room Jason sat still in his seat and was looking at the screen in front of him a page of details of the battle on it. On it included some salvage, the deaths of Beta Team, and some other technical stuff about how much damaged they had suffered. He looked up an acknowledged them. In the seats to the left sat Puru and Graham. Sigma Leader and Grant sat on the other side. The chief of maintenance stood still as well looking at Jason remaining silent. Puru was chatting with Graham and they were being themselves nothing especially out of the ordinary. Beta Leader was still missing as was Yuri who was probably working on repairs. Grant was looking through a sheet of details handed to him by Yuri whom had given him a short report on his machines. Lieutenant Black Star, Nena, and Donna were still missing as well. "Hello Captain thank you for including me in this meeting of yours." Hiling said with a bow as Jason acknowledged her and Jack and told them to sit where they were. Puru looked over and waved at Jack while Graham merely smiled and nodded. Grant remained silent. "We're simply waiting on the others too arrive. If you need anything please ask. If not you're at ease until the meeting is started. I have much to discuss."

As they waited for their floor, Donna was disgusted to hear such unethical experiments done on human beings. "But, they are human beings right?" She protested in shock. "Why would they do this to another human being? It is unethical." She came to realisation that she may have to count her own blessings when it came to Stella. "Back where I came from, the Romefeller Foundation tried to replace human Mobile Suit pilots with machines, computers called the Mobile Dolls. They argued that this reduces casualties in war and removes human flaws in warfare. His Excellency of OZ, Treize Khushrenada disagreed and spoke against it. When he was arrested, soldiers loyal to him rose up to fight the Mobile Dolls." The Gndam pilot was always reminded that the Lindemann family that served OZ also joined the Treize faction. "With the Extended, it appears unethical people are in all worlds no matter what." She concluded.

Mask woke himself from his slumber, remembering that the ship's chain of command would likely hold a meeting and debriefing. He stood up leaving the Elf Bullock to the Mechanics here. He then headed to the elevator to head back.
"I really have to get more rest." He mumbles to himself.

"Jason told me during his time just starting out they were looking for soldiers to fight the newly formed ZAFT coordintor groups. A lot of people distrusted coordinators back then but thanks to delegations and rallies by cultural icons we've somewhat patched it up in the current time. It is patch work but many coordinators still stick to space; very few if any come to Earth, and less join Earth's military. I personally have nothing against coordinators for my own reasons. But just think this to yourself: How would you fight a group of super men with average soldiers? They react quicker, fight better, and learn faster than most people. The OMNI Atlantic branch decided that it was best to use these super serum drugs too turn these men into people just as capable. Problem is it addicted people to it and going off had lethal consequences. Therefore most of the initial draftees were criminals but that failed so they took others. I don't know the details. The only people who wee soldiers then were Jason, Beta Leader, SIGMA Leader, and probably the good doctor. I was just a little dude back then." Paul said looking back on his past once more wondering how he managed to stay out of the war was beyond him.

However he supposed it was inevitable with his father being the maker of these machines code named Gundams. "Quite frankly though Donna even though it is unethical to do that to humans at least there's not one person pulling the trigger. Machines like you describe them would never go past the bill for anyone on this ship unless it was an absolute nessessity. Humans are warriors and they should not be overthrown by machines. Who is the one who watches over the machines? Who watches them? It seems like the start to a real dictatorship. Similar to how some space fairing peoples seem to see us on Earth. Sometimes unethical things need to be done to prevent more tragedy. I wish it wasn't true but humanity isn't black and white. It's a hazy shade of orange or grey usually." Paul said as the elevator opened and he came face to face with Williams who nodded to him and saluted the lieutenant before entering the elevator. She also nodded at Donna. She had no intents on talking but she needed to get back to the bridge. She had sweat glistening down her face and her cap was crooked but she still maintained her usual professional demeanor. Paul entered the room and saw everyone already there before moving to sit back down. Puru brightened up and waved over to Donna as Graham gave them a curt nod. Jason looked relieved when Paul entered. However they were followed shortly in by a surprising guest: Chief Mechanist Yuri.

"Alright then is everyone here? Most of you seem to be it seems we are still missing Mask, Nena, and Reve is at the twilight citadel, but this will have to do. Now gentlemen and ladies before we start off I'd like to announce to you since the time we've been here we've been experiencing strange signals. We have picked up these signals coming from all around this nearby areas. We have no told you this but it seems that all of these signals are resonating at a similar frequency according to Yuri over here. We've also been fighting this Zeon faction quite heavily since we started including their relatively familiar zaku units. We have all come to accept by now that we are not from the same timelines or even universes if you believe in that talk. I have no heard of technology capable of warping space and time so it's heavily suspect that there may be third parties involved." Jason stated as he pulled up a live feed of the twilight citadel and then switched to a technical file on it that showed various statistics about the citadel. "As you can all see the citadel is not just as it looks like: a standard building. It is in fact capable of transmitting and focusing these signals that disrupt our communications somewhat. They are both similar and foreign when compared to the GN Devices used by our Celestial Being and A-Law members here. Likewise we have some disturbing news." Yuri said the small man clicking a button as a screen shot of Mariemaia's base showed up and a statistic sheet similar to the one from the citadel showed up.

"Mariemaia's base also projects it however we noticed that the farther we are away from these signals the clearer our transmissions are. The disturbing part comes next: This place is also generating them. So it seems that key places around the area or at least important ones are transmitting thee signals. So what does that mean for us all I ask all of you. What do we do with these? It's possible these things can hold the key to allowing us to return to where we came from however...their destruction could also just as plausibly keep us from returning at all trapping us here. I have personally requested this revealed to the military personnel here. We will do a general vote on our stance on these at a later time. However we are wondering if any of you gentlemen and ladies have any theories on the matter at hand." Yuri stated as he took a moment of silence to see if anyone wanted to answer.

Jack reviewed the numbers, figures, and schematics placed in front of him by the presentation relatively quickly, running them through his own mind to double check things and trying to come to a conclusion of his own. There was over a dozen ways that something like that could be used against both the people who'd been pulled in and those who had set them up. But they could also be used to do the pulling, which would explain the phenomenon that brought them all there. But something occurred to Jack that made much more sense than any of the other theories he briefly thought up. "What if these buildings are being used to keep us from finding the exits, versus being the key to them? That would explain why there are so many of their signals."

"It's certainly possible but will we risk everything on trying to destroy the ones we control? Further more do we bring Mariemaia into this discussion? We are first and foremost trying to find a definitive way to get out of this place without trapping us. I'm sure there are other groups studying these things. If we can collaborate with them on a diplomatic level then perhaps we can get out of this just yet." Yuri stated as SIGMA raised his hand and Jason acknowledged it. "What if these things are simply distractions? What if we're wasting out time on them while we should be focused on something else." SIGMA asked as Jason nodded his head. "We should be wary of that fact as well. No one here is more wary of wasted time than myself and the mess hall crew. We have a steady supply of food rations but we can't keep them forever. Likewise we will need fresh water soon. Perhaps in the next battle we may find a water treatment plant or some sort of fresh water site. It will be in our interests to make sure we not run out of supplies. However with the loss of crew members, including Lieutenant Paul's own Omega Team, supplies have been kept at a steady pace." Jason stated as Paul spoke up, "Sir as I've stated this world doesn't feel as natural as it should be. It could be that these signals are capable of stopping or disrupting newtype and newtype like powers. Puru and Gabriel before his demise have both commented that this place feels 'distorted' in it's own way. We should be wary of what effects this may have on newtype allies and comrades." Paul stated as Graham looked over to Jason and began his own choice of words, "Actions speak louder than words Captain! If we want a way out we need to carve it out ourselves. No one is going to hand us the golden key to this whole thing we will need to find out for ourselves. Maybe if we keep fighting eventually we will come across the real group behind this if there is even a group behind it at all. I want to make sure we all are on the same page here: Everyone we've encountered so far have been hostiles it's unlikely we will find another Mariemaia but if we can then that's great. For now we need to keep our guns held at the ready." Graham said bluntly as he stared at the screen behind Jason.

Donna thought on what to say with her opinion in the meeting. Graham is right that not everyone will be friendly as Mariemeia, but deeply she thought that some diplomacy will be needed. "I agree that we should try to approach the other groups diplomatically at best." She voiced her thoughts. "If we keep fighting everyone we will lose our own numbers, which can put us in a weaker position. We should only fight if we are threatened." There was a thought on the supply of food and water. "Perhaps I can join the scouting missions to look for food and water?" The Gundam pilot suggested. "If everything here is supposed to be real, then I believe that the plants that grow here and water from rivers and lakes should be here too. Assuming that the Sundown has a water treatment facility I believe this will solve some of our problems."

"We have our own filtration systems and can last for a month or two but we're in need of water for our power systems. It cools down the cores. We haven't seen too many rivers so we're hoping the city the ZAFT men are held up at will hold one. Take that and we can hopefully find food as well. We're meant for a long-term military operations but we're unsure about how long we'll be here so we want to cover our bases well." Jason chimed in as Yuri acknowledged the claim but Beta Leader butted in, "Like it or not we lost men. Just like I have today. We should focus on diplomacy but not at the cost of leaving us open Captain sir." Beta commented as Grant grunted in agreement. "Bullshit everyone we met here minus two factions have been spacenoids with a need for an attitude adjustment." SIGMA growled as Paul spoke up on his own accord. "We can't simply ignore the fact we killed a bunch of earth soldiers for Mariemaia. The only reason we aren't all traitors is because we're from a different Earth supposedly. Still it goes hard on my own conscious that we did that unknowingly. More over we need to look for ourselves at the end of the day. We're still a professional military organization, O.M.N.I Enforcer has strict conduct codes on handling our operations." Paul stated bluntly as SIGMA gave a disdain filled snort and sat back down once Paul mentioned the ambush.

Jack shook his head. "The issue with fighting everyone we come across is that we can't keep cannibalizing parts from other units when they aren't all necessarily compatible with our suits to begin with. And, like Donna said, why keep throwing away lives if it means we still get to figure this out? Simply put, we can't win any kind of wars of attrition."

"True enough I've been scrapping and patch working the rifles that were beam weapons in order to get them working for our daggers. I'm good, some say I'm a natural genius when it comes to these machines, but there's only so much I can work with. We can't scrapping these machines for ours. Metal plating on the other hand can be mostly just overlayed onto our own armor." Yuri commented as most of the soldiers present agreed with the statement as Puru raised her hand and Jason politely asked her what she had to say, "Captain I agree we shouldn't be mean to people but at the same time I don't think everyone can be trusted. Captain Bright says that not everyone is willing to be friends with us and may be willing to hurt us if we trust people to quickly. Judau thinks otherwise but I think I can see where Captain Bright is coming from now. I don't want to offend anyone but Stella did seem really scared when she came back and Hiling kind just massacred those soldiers back when she joined us. No to mention mean ol' Glemy is still out there and no doubt he wants me back with him. I guess what I'm trying to say is we shouldn't just trust people without reason but we should give them a chance?" Puru said as she looked at Captain Jason but it was Hiling who spoke up. "I guess little miss sunshine is at the very least idealistic. Truth be told Captain everyone here is naive. If there's a threat: Remove it. No questions asked just get rid of it. If there's an obstacle in our way why try to barter with it when we can just take what we want? Seems pointless to just sit here with our thumbs up our butts while they demand stuff from US. Still if we can get some guns on our side I suppose I wouldn't be against it entirely." Hiling said her smug sense of superiority still present and on top of that her more ruthless nature made itself clear.

Jack growls at Hiling's statement. "Well aren't you just miss personality. No one said anything about them making demands from us, Hiling. All we're discussing is ways to save lives. Not every thing in this world can be muscled through, not that you stop to think about it." He returns his attention to the group at large. "Look, since we're all here, we need to figure out what we're going to do with the prisoners. We don't have the supplies to sustain them and us and I can name at least one who's too dangerous to let live."

Donna tried to remain neutral in Jack and Hilling's snarks. "I may suggest that we collect enough supplies for them to last a while and leave them where they are convenient." She suggested. "If some of them are cooperative, we may recruit them but not all as we are limited to resources." The Gundam pilot returned to her thoughts on careful diplomacy. "As I have stated before, we should prioritise diplomacy before combat, or we risk losing more men just as we cut them. For the ZAFT faction mentioned, I believe your logic would be to engage them? I believe we can get Mariemeia to assist us if we promise to share resources we find together?"

"I've already decided on that. We're going to pawn them to their allies in exchange for favors later, or give them to Mariemaia or other allies to keep safe. Mariemaia has a large base at her disposal unlike this ship which is not meant to be a long term prison ship they can hold more enemies there. Alternatively we kill them or let them wander around this world without supplies. Brutality isn't my calling card but first and foremost are those who our allies. If we need to conserve food and supplies for our forces by letting them suffer then so be it. We're OMNI and we're bound to moral contracts here yes but we can't exactly court marshal anyone here can we? That being said I must stress we do this only when we have to." Jason stated flatly as Hiling chuckled both at Jack and Jason's brutal statements. "If I may speak Donna's statement is logical and reasonable. I believe we should go on from there. Talk when we can but prepare to fight when we have to and to eliminate any ZAFT units who can't comply with us." Paul reinforced as no one really added anything to the conversation at hand. Jason spoke up once more, "So in conclusion we're going to emphasize supplies, research the signals more, and watch out for more possible allies. Does anyone want to dicusss anything further? If not then we will dismiss you all for now. You all need a chance to breath and Beta Leader we will perform a funeral for your men when we get back to the citadel." Jason stated as Paul wondered about all things considered at the moment but he had nothing too add personally.

Donna looked around, if anyone is going to speak. Thinking on what she can add, she shook her head as she had nothing to discuss about. What was decided sounds reasonable to her. "There is nothing else from me." She replied to the Captain. "As I have declared before, I can volunteer in scouting missions. I may serve as a liaison with Mariemeia if needed." The Gundam pilot looked around once more, whether if anyone else is going to answer. It sounded like this struggle will get tougher each day. She prayed that they will prevail through this.

"We can have Sigma Team scout for us don't worry on that regard. They have suits more well...suited for the task being more mobile and able to achieve flight for an extended period of time. As for your part as a liaison I'll consider it next time we make contact with Mariemaia. For now I'd prefer not to rely on her too avoid coming off as weaker or dependent on her force. We need to establish ourselves as an efficient and strong force." Jason replied to Donna as she spoke up. He then looked around and nodded at the lack of hands appearing. "If none of you have questions or are finished speaking to me or one of the others here then I'll dismiss you for today. I hope my information given has earned me more trust from our foreign allies." Jason said as SIGMA Leader, Beta, and Grant all got up and left after saluting their captain. Paul stayed and so did Hiling Care. Puru got up with Graham who asked if they wanted to get dinner before going to do whatever they could get their hands on. Puru agreed happily.

Jack grunted, shaking his head. "We need to do something with Yzak, Captain, the enemy pilot who was flying the other Duel. He made it sound like he showed up with his universe's Athrun Zala, and the guy...well, he's an ace, even among the elite of ZAFT." Offering a salute, he turned and headed out the door, heading for the mess hall himself. Then he'd head down and check on the Duel.