“I’ll protect you.” This is the fervent promise that Gundam pilot Shin makes to the fair-haired girl, Stella, he rescues from the sea.

And how have they met? It all starts with Shin, off-duty, catching sight of a strange but beautiful girl, dancing and singing alone on the top of a cliff. Suddenly she misses her footing. Shin sees her fall and dives in after her. Drying off later, in a sea cave, he binds her gashed ankle with his scarf. In return she gives him a seashell. Their parting words, “We’ll meet again”, will take on a bitter resonance in the episodes to come, for neither one has any idea as to the other’s true identity – or that they are fighting on opposite sides.

Faith officer Heine Westenfluss is assigned to the Minerva. Athrun is instinctively drawn to his reasoned, relaxed attitude and the two soon become friends. In stark contrast, we then see Stella and the other two Enhanced pilots being reprogrammed by Neo Roanoake’s scientists. “I think the three of them are better off without their memories. They’re fighting machines.”

The sinister forces behind the ongoing conflict resurface as Lord Djibril, furious that his plans are going astray, plots in his grand country mansion, far from the realities of war. “We’ll get ORB to go to battle ZAFT in the Black Sea.” But when the foolish and pompous Yuna, Cagalli’s rejected fiancé, takes command of the ORB fleet, the outlook is far from promising for either side.

The Minerva is caught between the ORB fleet and the Earth Alliance. When the Archangel appears and Cagalli tries to intervene to halt the hostilities, the Enhanced pilots, trained to destroy, take advantage of the confusion. Loyalties are severely tested in the battle that follows – with tragic consequences. In the aftermath, Athrun, shaken and saddened by ‘an unnecessary loss’ arranges to meet Cagalli, Lacus and Kira in secret. It soon becomes apparent to him that his old friends have been utterly unaware that they were facing each other in battle; they believed he was still up in the PLANTS. Kira tells Athrun disturbing news about the assassination attempt on Lacus. But Athrun cannot believe that Durandal is capable of such a plot and, their differences unresolved, Athrun flies away, sad that once again he and Kira find themselves on opposing sides.

But there is more trouble to come. Shinn and Rey Za Burrell discover an abandoned research laboratory at Lodonia that reeks of death. On entering the facility, Rey undergoes a dramatic transformation; the usually calm, self-contained young man collapses, shaking and speechless. When Captain Gladys’s crew arrives to investigate, they find bodies. Many of the dead are children, all evidently part of the Naturals’ secret experiments work in bionic engineering, creating the Extended, specially selected, altered, and programmed to become killing machines. All manner of questions are raised, not the least why has Rey reacted so violently?

When the news about Lodonia reaches Neo’s headquarters, it also has a bizarre effect on the three Extended pilots. Stella, half-crazed, sets off in her Gaia to defend the laboratory. Shin scrambles to the defence of his fellow crew members. A clash is inevitable.

The underlying theme of Gundam Seed comes to the fore again in this volume: the clash between the Naturals and the enhanced Coordinators and the immorality of war. Whichever way you interpret it, as a science-fictional exploration of the implications of bionic engineering, or a metaphor for the clashes of race and religion of our own troubled times, it makes for powerfully dramatic material.

In Summary

Volume 5 proves another strong volume, going from moments of romantic misunderstandings (‘Lacus Clyne’ is discovered in Athrun’s bedroom by a jealous Lunamaria) to the conflicts of loyalty and friendship that threaten to divide the characters we've come to know and identify with.