When I entered Deikun Hall, the first thing I saw was Lt. Commander Shao Wei standing next to Vice Admiral M'Quve in the building's foyer. They were talking and gesturing emphatically in front of a world map sitting on a desk. Sitting next to the map was the stack of documents that I had been working on with Wei the day before.
"Good afternoon Admiral M'Quve and Commander Wei," I said, giving a quick salute to M'Quve.
"Greetings," M'Quve said without looking at me.
M'Quve was such an important villain in Gundam that I felt like I knew him personally. He was a grand schemer with a special interest in history. In the original timeline, M'Quve was given command of the 1st Division of the Earth Attack Force and sent to defend Zeon's mining operation in Odessa. He worked under Kycilia, and he was often tasked with performing her dirty work. M'Quve's Machiavellian personality came with its downsides, however, as it was confirmed later on that Zeon would have won the war in the original timeline if M'Quve had just sent Ramba Ral the mobile suits he requested.
Physically, Admiral M'Quve was a middle-aged man with blue hair wearing a white military uniform with a red ascot hanging from his neck. He had dark bags under his eyes, and he seemed to regard everything with silent resentment.
"My division will land here by Baikonur Space Base, take out the base, and then move to Odessa to utilize the spaceport there, correct?" M'Quve said, pressing one gloved finger to Kazakhstan and then dragging his fingertip to Ukraine.
"Yes, sir," Wei said. "Is there a problem?"
I looked at the map for a moment before I saw the problem. There was a direct line drawn on the map going from Baikonur to Odessa which traveled straight through the Caspian Sea. Also, the route would take them through the strait in Crimea. There would probably be a bridge there, but it wouldn't be a good idea to rely on that.
"That route has the 1st Division going over a sea," I said, feeling like an idiot for pointing out something so simple.
"Thank you, Captain," M'Quve said. "Seas and oceans are impassable for ground troops. Water on Earth can reach depths in the hundreds of meters." M'Quve spoke with the self-assuredness of an academic explaining a complicated concept to a layman.
"I see," Wei said, looking down at the map intensely. "I'll make sure that Kycilia hears of this."
Hold on. Did Wei really not know that you couldn't walk on bodies of water? Oh, my God. We were about to launch a land invasion with a bunch of people who didn't know what birds or seas were. Even M'Quve, the supposed expert on the subject, seemed woefully unprepared.
"And here," M'Quve said, pointing to the lines drawn in North America. One of the drawings started in Florida and moved up to North Carolina before splitting in two. One of the lines continued northward while the other went to the west. "Do you see what's wrong here?"
"There's a mountain range there," I said, pointing to the western portion of North Carolina. My knowledge of the state was extensive, since I had lived there in my previous life.
"Exactly," M'Quve said. "It would make far more sense for those brigades to travel through the Louisiana lowlands to the south or the Ohio river valley to the north."
"Louisiana lowland or Ohio river valley," Wei repeated as he wrote the words down on a piece of paper. He looked up after a moment and handed me several pieces of paper. "These papers hold the names that you should request specifically when you speak to the Supreme Commander."
"Thanks, Wei," I said as I took the papers from his hand.
"I hear you're going to be assigned to the EAF's 3rd Division. That's a shame. I would have liked to have such a knowledgeable officer under my own command," M'Quve said.
The fact that I was considered knowledgeable when it came to geography proved the horrendous degeneration of knowledge in Side 3. I could point to Poland or Texas on a map, but I was certainly no expert.
"You know how it is," I said offhandedly. "We don't pick our postings."
A young woman with bright blonde hair and blue eyes stepped into the grand foyer of Deikun Hall. She wore the uniform of a support officer, and I immediately recognized her as Cecilia Irene, the secretary of Gihren Zabi. It was rumored that she was Gihren's mistress, but that was never confirmed in any of the material she appeared in.
"Captain Sebastian Dogwood," Cecilia called out. "If you're ready, the Supreme Commander can see you now."
I took a deep breath and readied myself for the meeting. If Gihren had wanted me dead, he would have done it already. Okay, he already tried, but that didn't necessarily mean he would have me killed at this meeting. The assassination attempt the previous day was honestly pretty half-assed. A single sniper with a picture of my face would have been far more effective than the hit squad sent the day before.
"Yes, ma'am. I'm ready," I said with a forced smile.
I followed Cecilia Irene to the most grandiose office in the building. Considering that Kycilia and Dozle both had offices in Deikun Hall, that was saying something. It would be more accurate to say that Gihren's office was an entire wing of Deikun Hall, and it probably had its own entrance.
Two men stood guard by the ornate doors to Gihren's office. One of them, a blond man in his thirties who I recognized as Eric Manthfield, checked my pockets for any concealed weapons. In the original timeline, the man scored the fourth highest number of kills against Federation mobile suits of any Zeon pilot.
I entered Gihren's office and was immediately met with four armed guards standing to my side with rifles hanging from slings. They stood motionless as Gihren Zabi, sitting at his desk across the room from me, regarded me with the calculating stare of a predator.