Chapter 224: Beltorchika in Action
Ever since she received the mission from one of AEUG's higher-ups to "watch over Kamille Bidan and approach his parents," Beltorchika had been racking her brains for ways to become friends with Kamille.
The process turned out to be much easier than expected—almost as if she had befriended someone like Kamille before.
There's no need to go into the details. After successfully getting close to Kamille, Beltorchika soon found herself with a way to make contact with his parents.
What was strange, though, was that even though both of Kamille's parents were key technicians involved with Titans' cutting-edge Gundam development, the Titans themselves treated the two as if they were insignificant.
Could it be just because they were originally space colonists?
In any case, Beltorchika now had the full picture: Kamille's father specialized in MS frame design, while his mother was an expert in materials science, having just finalized a new armor composite formula.
Just as Beltorchika was about to take a risky gamble to smuggle the materials and frame data back to AEUG, a sudden order from HQ came down to abort the operation.
Because—frame data had been secured. Even the materials issue had been resolved.
When Beltorchika heard this, she couldn't help but feel that all her recent effort, and the scorn she'd endured, had been in vain.
"Seriously, they made it sound like this was a matter of life and death!"
To keep up appearances with the Titans' propaganda, she had been publicly reviled by ignorant space colonists.
Frustrated, Beltorchika scratched at her newly cropped hair—shortened due to military service.
But soon, she pulled herself together and restarted her vehicle, heading toward the PR division building located deeper inside the base.
At that moment, an MS descended into view from the right side of her vision, quickly obscured by a nearby building.
It was a Gundam Mk-II—one whose model number she'd only recently learned.
The black-painted Mk-II she had just seen was Unit 03, piloted by Jerid.
As for the hangar Kamille had been taken to—that housed the Mk-II Prototype Unit 00, the original unit built at Anaheim.
The construction cost of that unit was astronomical. Bask himself had sharply criticized it: "The cost of one RX-178-X0 could build several Pegasus-class assault carriers!"
Exaggeration, no doubt—but the very existence of such claims was proof enough of how expensive Unit 00 truly was.
This also meant that, compared to the mass-produced Units 01–03, Unit 00 likely had superior performance.
Though not by a huge margin.
Still, none of that had anything to do with Beltorchika right now.
Even if she'd considered stealing that Mk-II, her piloting skills weren't up to the task—and even if they were, without backup, there was no way she could escape from this place.
The vehicle stopped in front of the PR department building. Beltorchika pulled a comb from her bag, quickly tidied her tousled hair, and stepped inside.
"Sergeant Beltorchika, here's the material for this session."
A captain from the PR department handed her a thick stack of paper files.
"What is it this time?"
"The usual—a briefing for a suppression operation," he replied flatly without even glancing her way.
As if it were no different from any of the previous briefings.
"Understood."
Beltorchika nodded and looked down at the manuscript in her hands.
"When is it scheduled?"
"In an hour. It's a rush job."
The captain didn't even turn around as he responded.
Beltorchika nodded again and lowered her eyes to the manuscript.
Just like before, it was a sanitized account of a Titans suppression operation, using vague euphemisms and omissions.
That was all she ever got to see—just these documents.
The footage she was shown was always the final edited version, already cut by Titans censors.
"Hello? Confirmed? Got it—I'll head over right away."
Just then, a communication came through.
The captain answered the call and, after a few deferential nods and bows to the person on the other end, hung up.
He then turned toward Beltorchika, who was sitting beside him.
Under normal circumstances, Beltorchika wouldn't be allowed to stay here unsupervised.
But with less than an hour until the recording and no available personnel to keep an eye on her, letting her leave would only delay things.
The captain looked around the room—no one else was there to help supervise.
Helpless, he looked down at Beltorchika, intending to ask her to leave.
What he saw, however, was Beltorchika sitting with her eyes slightly widened, head tilted, looking at him with an innocent expression.
That harmless demeanor made him hesitate for a moment.
After some thought, he chose not to delay the work.
"Stay here. Don't move, and don't touch anything. I'll be back before the recording starts."
He spoke in a stern tone.
"Yes. I'm a soldier too, after all."
"Good."
The captain nodded, then glanced up at the surveillance monitor to make sure it was still running before leaving the PR office.
Beltorchika watched him go, then lowered her head and began softly reciting the contents of the manuscript in her hands.
She looked for all the world like she was diligently preparing for the briefing.
But if someone had been watching this area from the security room, they would have noticed something odd—a subtle flicker on the monitor, after which everything appeared normal again. Beltorchika still seemed to be quietly reading at her desk.
In reality, however, she had already left her seat and moved over to the captain's workstation.
She pulled out the comb from her bag again and gave it a firm twist.
Inside was a data connector.
She plugged it into the captain's computer and began downloading files.
That comb housed a hidden hard drive with decryption software.
A torrent of data flowed into her drive—and for the first time, Beltorchika saw what this briefing was really about.
"The Titans… how could they…"
She stared in disbelief at the screen before her.
What she saw was footage of a protest being violently suppressed, with bloodshed and fatalities.
The dead protesters had all been branded as "traitors."
But what the MS camera had captured—what now filled her screen—was the massive breach in the outer wall of a colony satellite.
This wasn't suppression. This was a massacre.
Beltorchika clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from crying out.
She watched the download bar slowly creep toward 100%, her eyes gleaming.
"This… the world has to see this."
She bit her lip hard.
"If I can get this out… Amuro…"
She hadn't realized it herself—but in her heart, she was already praying.