Crossover Fan Fiction / Gundam SEED Fan Fiction / Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Crossing Barriers ❯ Rescue, Failures, Discovery, Reunion ( Chapter 8 )

Crossing Barriers

 

Gundam Wing and Gundam Seed are the sole property of their creators and distributing studios. I have no financial interest in either series. Nor am I receiving any financial gain from this fan fiction work. I do however own all plot elements not part of the original and all self-created characters. Thank you. Enjoy.

 

Special note: Yaoi (homosexual pairings) is a plot element of this story. There will be NO explicit material but there will be sections where it is reasonably clear that sex is happening or has happened.

 

Beta Reader: T'Amara

 

 

 

Rescue, Failures, Discovery, Reunion

 

 

 

The house was burning furiously when Sally's car broke out of the trees. She ignored the bodies sprawled in their graceless shapes of death across the open ground of the neat lawn. Hers or theirs, she had no time for them. She was perhaps five minutes ahead of the police and the fire department. She had to get what she'd come for and go as quickly as she could. Anne Une had not been able to buy her much time.

 

Colonel Po whipped the wheel, steering the surprisingly low slung 4X4 `Rock Hound' she was driving around the dead in the drive to reach the shed. The fire hadn't touched it yet but that wouldn't last. As soon as the supports holding up the blazing roof of the back porch gave, the entire burning mass would roll onto this small structure.

 

Someone was watching for the shed door opened just as she pulled up. Sally made a quick identification, then popped the lock on the back door. Sergeant Rus jerked the door open and tossed the girl inside. He followed that by throwing a couple small bags into the storage area behind the seats before he scrambled in himself.

 

“I'm damn glad to see you Colonel!” Rus panted.

 

“Are you two it?” Sally snapped.

 

“Yeah,” Rus snarled. “Bastards hit us just before dinner. We lost the outer perimeter guys before we even knew they were there. Kojin managed to get off an alarm but that was it. They were in the front yard before we could begin to get ready. Whoever these bastards are, Colonel, they're good! They had most of the third squad down in seconds and they weren't leaving any witnesses either. Second squad had enough warning to stop the guys coming up from the back but it was hopeless from the word go. There were only eighteen of us left by then and at least fifty of them. Don't know how we got `em all.”

 

“The Kramers?” Sally asked.

 

The Sergeant shook his head angrily. “Dead. Hooper managed to cut the attackers down to size before they got him but two of them got into the house anyway. Four grenades down the stairs killed everyone in the basement. I shot the pair of them but it was `way too late by then. The entire mission would have been a complete failure if I hadn't gone back up to grab some things for the kid. As it was, we're the only ones who got out. And we didn't make it until the last four of `em fired the front rooms and got cocky enough to come around the house in a group.”

 

He grinned viciously. “Made a nice target that way!”

 

Sally nodded sharply. The loss of her team pissed her off royally. They were good men, reliable men, and yet the Crimson Dawn attackers had still come in unnoticed. This told her a couple things that made her very unhappy. It also made it imperative that they find and eliminate the traitors within the Preventer ranks. Because only someone with the correct codes could have deactivated the perimeter security net that the guard team had relied on. And only a very well placed traitor could have given them this unit's codes.

 

A tiny sob turned her attention to the reason for all this blood and fire. Mariemaia Khushrenada-Une was huddled in the seat beside Rus. She was looking shell-shocked and there was an unmistakable splash of blood on her pale skirt. She'd gotten too close to the action at some point.

 

Po just shook her head. She had no time to help the girl yet. They had to get out of here first. She could hear the sirens wailing in the distance now and they were getting clearer by the second.

 

“Sergeant, to the best of your knowledge, is the back way still open?”

 

“It was when I ran my scout this afternoon Colonel. Now,” the man shrugged unhappily, “no idea.”

 

Sally was reminded all over again why she hadn't been enthused when Une had come up with this idea of a place to hide the girl in the first place. Arnie Kramer had been one of the soldiers on Treize's staff. The man had been loyal to Khushrenada to the point of foolishness. He would take and keep Mariemaia safe all right but his home was not a good hideout. There were only two ways in for ground vehicles and the back way was in worse than bad shape, limiting anyone who didn't have a very durable 4X4 to the front drive.

 

Worse, it was set in this stupid pine forest where visibilities and lines of sight were rarely longer than ten meters. She wasn't surprised the enemy had managed to get close before detection; she'd expected that. She hadn't expected them to be gifted with the codes to shut down the perimeter detects though. Still, even without that advantage Sally had long ago decided the house was only marginally defensible. She'd have needed to station a full company here to even pretend to assure that, not the thirty four men she'd had available. She sighed and threw her specially fitted `Rock Hound' into gear and headed for the twin ruts that marked the back way out.

 

As she pulled away, the porch supports finally gave. Fire spilled across the shed and the drive she'd just left. Well that would clean up any evidence that the girl and Rus had survived! The old shed was engulfed in flame only seconds after the burning mass struck it. Sally focused on driving as she pulled a set of night goggles down over her eyes. This was not a place to be using headlights. The three of them lurched and bumped their way away from the death and ruin behind them as the first flashing lights of the rescue vehicles began to shine between the trees. They slipped into the trees on the far side of the yard only moments before the police broke out of the trees to the front. Anne Une had bought them just enough time.

 

* * * * * * *

 

“Your Excellency,” The Sun looked up as his aide unexpectedly broke into his thoughts.

 

The man couldn't see the frown behind the Solar mask but he clearly knew it was there as he bowed deeply before continuing. “Forgive me the intrusion my Lord, but we have report of the team sent to deal with the child.”

 

He had report of the team. The Sun took careful notice of the choice of words there. Not word from the team but of the team. His lips thinned as he snarled silently. Those words told him the basic message all in themselves. They'd failed. Just as the three teams sent to kill the Gundam pilots and the one sent to get rid of the Catalonia witch had failed!

 

“Your report?” He snapped.

 

The man jerked to rigid attention. “Our agent in Oberammergau reports the police and fire units responded to a neighbor's call indicating a fire at the Kramer residence. They live almost five kilometers from the place but are higher on the mountain; the light of the fire attracted their attention. When the rescue units arrived they found a battlefield littered with the dead and the house engulfed past saving. One gathers they were lucky to prevent a forest fire from spreading out from the burning structure. At this time there is no final count of the dead but none of our people have reported back yet.”

 

“I see.”

 

This was still a fluid situation then. There was no way to know if the girl had died in the fire with her defenders. Yet, somehow, he was sure she hadn't. It would be vital to keep her from reaching any aid if she was still alive.

 

“Do we have any reports of unaccounted vehicles or aircraft in the area when the battle occurred or immediately after?”

 

“No my Lord. Our agent tried but was unable to convince his nominal superiors to allow him to accompany the rescue units. They would not permit any journalists to go with them. He has not been able to get out to the area at all. They have blockaded the entire property and a good deal of the surrounding forest. He says there are recorders in the area but he can not access them until the blockade breaks. He is too well known to try slipping in. They would be immediately suspicious. Someone from the Preventers has apparently been telling some very convincing stories of spies and terrorists.”

 

“General Une.” The Sun snorted. “The woman could lie to God's face! Very well, send our agent orders to keep his profile low. He must not act out of character or whatever story the bitch has spread will mark him as worth watching. Tell him I wish details as they become available.”

 

“As your Excellency commands!” The man saluted and left.

 

Six strikes and only one success; if you wanted to call it that when all they'd managed to do was blow up a civilian aircraft that didn't even have the target aboard. The Sun was a very unhappy man. He knew the quality of his people. They were better than simply good. You didn't send merely `good' after a Gundam pilot after all. Yet they'd lost five of the six strike teams now. Three of them were gone completely by the sound of this. He cursed the Maganacs and their ruthless defense of the Winner family. They'd taken casualties both on L2 and on L4 as well and the majority of the survivors in both cases had been arrested. Who knew Maxwell's neighbors were that well armed? And who would have ever considered circus performers to be weapons trained like that either? He was less inclined to forgive the team that had struck the Residence in Sanq. Extra Preventers should have been allowed for by that team's leader.

 

It was enough to make one question if there wasn't some real truth to the often used phrase that someone had had `the luck of a Gundam pilot' when they'd survived an impossible situation. And it was true that in one full out war and the Mariemaia Incident combined only two true Gundams had been lost. Both the Epyon and the Wing had been destroyed in the Libra battle. The others had all been destroyed by their pilots own hands. Even Wing Zero could be considered lost that way since it had been Yuy's single-minded focus on the barriers of the Presidential Palace that had allowed the defense to finally shoot the thing down. Not, of course, until after the little bastard had managed to take those barriers out; it was one of the more spectacular incidents of `Gundam luck' after all. All the more so since the apparently indestructible Yuy had survived the all the attacks and the resulting crash! He could only wonder just what it was going to take to kill those damn boys off!

 

He forced himself to take and hold one very deep breath. He needed to focus here, raging anger would not help that. The air escaped in an explosive exhalation followed by an immediate gasp for more air when the oxygen level in his blood dropped too low. But it took the worst of the fury with it and he was able to think again as his body replenished the depleted oxygen stores.

 

So, what did he know? Well, he knew the five pilots were alerted to the intent to kill them. He knew the four they'd known how to find had fled their usual haunts and their closest friends were largely also gone from sight. He knew General Une had attempted to hide her adopted daughter, making it crystal clear that she knew at least something of the aims of Crimson Dawn as well.

 

He could extrapolate from this that the pilots were going somewhere. He was even willing to bet the missing Heero Yuy was with the rest of them by now. They weren't the kind to just vanish into holes. They would fight just as soon as they had an enemy they could identify. They were going to need significant weapons to do so though and there weren't all that many places to get them. The Preventers still had military mobile suits in their charge although they were all mass production models. It was not impossible, given what Une obviously knew, to suppose she would be willing to supply them with some of those suits.

 

But would the pilots, accustomed to the power and versatility of the Gundams, be willing to settle for recycled Leos or Aires? Not even the Serpents of the Mariemaia Army would come close to matching the Gundams. And he had pilots of his own who could deal with any of the old, mass produced suits no matter who flew them. Crimson Dawn's new Sagittarius suits were superior to any of those, in armor, mobility, and firepower. They were close to being the equals of the original Gundams themselves in terms of combat capacity. And while no one outside the factory asteroid where they were being built had seen them yet, he had a shrewd notion that the five pilots at least suspected there were new model mobile suits out there. Maxwell's girlfriend had sold them too many sets of thrusters for the Deathscythe pilot to fail to make that connection. Maxwell had a big mouth. What he knew, the others would too.

 

Then there was the question of where the Dorlian girl had gone as well. The Sun was quite sure she'd taken the Catalonia witch with her, she'd been the actual target of that raid after all. It bothered him that none of his agents inside the Preventers could tell him who the extra pair at the Residence had been. It meant he had very dangerous Preventer agents out there somewhere, unknown and unidentified, and almost certainly traveling with the Dorlian fool.

 

He hissed at the empty room. Now he had the Khushrenada child to find as well. Just why he was so sure she'd survived he couldn't say. But in any case it was better to plan for the worst than hope for the best.

 

There was a crisp chirp from his intercom. He glared balefully at it before he tapped the unit. “Is this significant, Major Trident?”

 

“Very, my Lord.” His aide's voice sounded almost excited. “One of the agents we have in the L4 police has obtained a set of discs. Apparently they were sent to Gundam 03 and he left them with his sister. She permitted the police to take them, saying the circus was safer if they did not keep anything that might indicate where her brother had gone. The agent was not able to review the discs but he did copy them. They have just arrived with his message.”

 

Data sent to 03? From who? And was this the information that had sent them all into hiding?

 

“Bring them in. I will review them.”

 

Minutes later, having ordered Trident to keep everyone out unless it was a genuine emergency, he slid one into the player on his desk. The portable unit would keep any nasty surprises from infecting his main computer; if the disc had such that was. It was the work of seconds to access the data. The voice that came from his speaker was a deep baritone, very deep and very, very angry. But it was the shot of a Crimson Dawn banner that angered the Sun. There had been a much more serious leak than he'd thought if they had that image!

 

“Trowa, it's been a long time.” The angry voice spoke in an even monotone. “I need you to watch this all the way through. It's taken me over two years to collect this information and it's far from complete. I've sent this same warning to Quatre, Duo, Wu Fei, and Relena. I expect Wu Fei to share it with Une. When you finish this, you'd better start packing. You can't stay with the circus. These bastards will kill them all to get to you.”

 

The Sun snapped upright! This, this had to be Heero Yuy's voice! Yuy was the one who'd warned the others! How the hell had the little bastard gotten his information?

 

The disc never answered that question. It did tell him though that Yuy'd only known enough to understand the danger, but not enough to grasp the real source of it. His knowledge was too patchy, the data scattered across too many of their projects to allow even that razor mind the chance to genuinely put the whole story together. Nevertheless, what Yuy knew was dangerous. It would take very little now for him to fill in too many of the blanks. And since he'd so generously shared this with his fellow pilots and the Dorlian bitch, their sharp minds would be just as quick to put things together if any new data came to them. Nor could he ignore Une or the Catalonia witch. None of them were actually idiots; no matter what policies Relena might spout she wasn't stupid, just a fool.

 

At least he knew for sure now that Yuy was with the others. That promise to meet Barton at the rendezvous was one he'd surely kept. It did leave the question of where they were going though. The Sun lifted the other disc, perhaps the answers were here.

 

“Hello 03. You've not met me although I believe you have seen my face once. I was the one who refused to surrender the Gundams at Siberia. I am Doctor J, and, as this message should tell you, I'm not dead yet.”

 

The scream of blind rage that burst out of the Sun brought his entire security contingent smashing into the office, weapons drawn, seeking the enemy. He had just enough presence of mind to shut the player off as they crashed in. This wasn't something he wanted known by anyone else! J! That bastard J was still alive! This altered everything!

 

It took him several minutes to get Security out of the office. He had to get enough control of himself to take charge of them and self-control was not easily come by at that instant. It was only when Trident realized it was the information on the discs that had set off his master's wrath that the office was cleared.

 

“Major,” The Sun snarled at his aide, stopping the man in his tracks as he chivvied the last of the security team back out the door. “You will put a Category Alpha commendation in the file of the agent who had the brains to copy and send these. You will also let him know he was very, very wise not to have tried to review them. The information here will force us to change a number of things.”

 

The Solar mask came up as he raised his head. “I want the watch at all spaceports doubled. I believe the Gundam pilots will try to leave the planet.”

 

“As your Excellency commands!”

 

“See to it personally and immediately.”

 

“Yes, my Lord!”

 

He waved a dismissing hand at the man, who instantly shot out the door, shouting orders for an all-personnel message to be sent out at once. The Sun dismissed him from his mind as soon as the door closed. This could be a disaster. J alive brought a number of completely unanticipated possibilities into play. Up to and including the chance - however remote - that the bastard had managed to build one or more new Gundams for the pilots! Those boys had to be found! Now, before they could reach him. He'd watched too many people from Khushrenada on down underestimate those five. He had no plans to imitate that mistake! He hunkered down to watch the entire disc. Somewhere, J would have told the boys where to meet him.

 

* * * * * * *

 

Kira sat at his desk, a small mountain of personnel discs stacked neatly in three piles in front of him. He added the current one to the pile on the left and took one more from the slowly shrinking stack in the center. The pile on the right didn't deserve the name as there were only two discs there.

 

He was going to go nuts doing this, he knew it. What did he know about selecting personnel? Every time he'd ever been put in charge of anything, from the Strike right up to the Aube Fleet, the personnel involved had already been there. Where, oh where, did Yzak think he was going to get the knowledge to suddenly be the one picking new members for FAITH? He hadn't even picked his secretary! Shiho had just turned up yesterday with Meyrin Hawk and told him she was now working for him.

 

But this was the girl who'd been going out with Athrun before he'd pulled himself together and gone back to Aube! How comfortable could this possibly be for her? He was Cagalli's brother for heavens sake! And from where Meyrin sat, Cags had stolen her boyfriend.

 

“Commander?” Speak of the devil and she walked into the office.

 

Meyrin gave him a rather worried look. “Are you all right Commander? I thought I heard you call me?”

 

“Ah, no, sorry!” Kira thought quickly. “I'm just frustrated with this. I've never had to deal with personnel issues before. Every other time I got a job, the people were already set around me.”

 

She gave him a sympathetic look. “That must have been annoying. I mean being a commanding officer and never having any say in who's on your Team.”

 

“Ah, I was an Ensign when I was with the Earth Forces. Ensigns don't command anything. And that whole Admiral of Aube thing was more for keeping things under control of someone related to the Athhas.” Kira admitted quietly. “This will be the first time I've really been genuinely in charge of anything more than my own mobile suit.”

 

He paused, and added thoughtfully. “It's going to be the first time I'll seriously be part of a structured unit too. I was always pretty independent with my suit. I mean, the Archangel didn't have any other mobile suits when I boarded her with the Strike! It was just me with Strike and Commander La Flaga with his Moebius Zero to stand off whatever Le Creuset threw at us. Not much of a Team there what with the Zero not really being able to really stand up to a Gundam and that was just about all he ever tossed at us, Athrun and the others with the other stolen Gundams.”

 

He looked over at her quietly. “When I lost the Strike and Lacus gave me the Freedom, not much changed really. I was still operating on my own. There wasn't a mobile suit squad as such aboard even though by the time Aube was overrun we had Dearka and Mu and Athrun and me all flying off the Archangel's deck. The closest thing we had to a team battle plan was when Athrun and I took the meteor units and blew up the nukes at Second Jachin Due. Even there, once we'd dealt with those we were operating independently again. I went the majority of the second war the same way; either the only mobile suit on the ship or all of us running independent battles. Even in the last battle, I pretty much just set up the mobile suit troops, gave them their targets and turned them loose. I wasn't leading anyone, not really.”

 

He eyed the stack of personnel discs unhappily. “I'm going through them but I don't think I'm getting any where doing it. I mean, I've only found two that strike me as even possibilities and I've read over four dozen folders!”

 

“You found two?” Meyrin blinked. “Wow, that's really good!”

 

He stared at her like she'd grown a second head. “No, I mean it Commander! There are thousands and thousands of people in the ZAFT and even under Chairman Dullindal there weren't much more than a hundred FAITH. Two out of four dozen is real good when you consider the characteristics you and Commander Joule want for the rebuilt FAITH.”

 

Kira blinked. “Well, when you put it that way, maybe it is better than I thought.”

 

“It's better than I was expecting.” Yzak said from the door way. “Bring the two you have. We'll drop them in my office. Or do you want to put off this trip?”

 

He was on his feet instantly, one hand snatching up the two discs. He hadn't actually thought Joule would make the time for the run over to Armory One at all. But it seemed those strange mobile suits and the hole in mid-air had aroused his curiosity too. Yzak just grinned at him, a razor-edged expression that said a good deal about how the other felt about the whole business. He swept out, pausing very briefly to smile at Meyrin Hawk. She'd really helped his perspective there. Maybe having her as his secretary would work out after all.

 

Just over two hours later, the two of them stepped out of the shuttle bay on Armory One. Thanks to Lacus' orders, there was a car and driver ready to meet them. Kira was glad to see him. Yzak had been getting steadily more wound up as the trip had gone on. By the time they'd landed, he was just about down to biting things. One Kira Yamato saw no reason to be one of the things bit; getting to the warehouse rapidly would reduce the chances of any `incidents'. Fortune seemed to be smiling on him. They got to the warehouse in very short order, it turned out not to be far from the port, and were met at the door by a Colonel in ZAFT red.

 

“Gentlemen,” the Colonel nodded briskly, “I understand you want to see the area where the, uhm, event occurred?”

 

Kira was relieved to note the familiar red uniform seemed to have a soothing influence on Joule as the other gave a very slight but polite bow instead of snapping the man's head off. “Yes, we would. Chairwoman Clyne has seen the recording of course but wants a human perspective of the site.”

 

“I understand.” The Colonel actually sounded like he meant that. “I still don't believe what is on that spool and I was in the Security office when it happened! I mean, I watched it live as it were and it still is impossible.”

 

“Do you have the original recording spool?” Kira asked quietly.

 

“No, that's gone on over to the Science Institute. Dean Koudelka hasn't seen fit to send it back yet. If you want the honest truth, I doubt she ever will.”

 

“That may be wise.” Yzak said calmly. “It isn't something you want in a file drawer where some bored watch-stander can get to it.”

 

The Colonel rolled his eyes in heartfelt agreement. “I'm Giles Farmer by the way and the entire warehouse complex in this sector is under my command. I'm actually glad to know the Chairwoman is taking such an interest in this. I have some badly frightened people these days. The ones who know the truth are bad enough but some of the rumors that this has spawned are really getting a number of people damn worried. A worried security guard is a trigger-happy security guard. We've been lucky so far, no one's been seriously hurt. But that kind of luck won't last forever. Just having both of you come is going to be very reassuring to most of my Team.”

 

It took no imagination to read between the lines here. His people were starting to shoot at each other whenever someone was surprised. Colonel Farmer was probably very lucky no one had been killed yet!

 

The warehouse itself was so normal for its kind as to make what he knew had happened here almost surreal. It was impossible to imagine a hole in space-time happening in so utterly mundane a setting. But when they reached the center and turned toward the right, things began to take on a familiar look and when they arrived at the site everything but the long gone hole itself was just as it had shown on the recording.

 

“This is almost creepy Yzak.” Kira said quietly as he stared around the surprisingly generous aisle. “Everything is here but that, whatever it was.”

 

“Yes.” Joule agreed shortly, his own unease not hard to read in the clipped tone and somewhat abrupt movements as he stepped carefully into the actual area where the theft had happened.

 

Colonel Farmer eyed the short row of boxed Null-jammer cancellers with an unhappy stare. “Just so you know, we plan to move these as soon as you're done here. There is a more secure section of the building, fenced and with constant video recording; we're going to move them over into it. Given what they are, they should have been there to begin with but that wasn't my decision to make. I wasn't in command then. I should have moved them the day I took charge here.”

 

“Hindsight is 20/20, everyone knows that.” Kira told him calmly. “Did you have any reason when you took over to suspect these were going to be a target?”

 

“Well, no, not with the war just over.” Farmer admitted. “They stopped the planned construction of the mobile suits these would have gone into immediately. Truth be told, I honestly thought these would be collecting dust here for a long time.”

 

“And this is a secured facility in and of itself.” Yzak noted grimly. “It should have been adequate.”

 

“I've got a bad feeling we're going to be saying that a lot here.” Kira told him.

 

Yzak just nodded, then he began to cautiously prowl in the stacks. Kira knew he didn't know what he was looking for, neither of them did, but anything out of place was going to get a through going over. He sighed, by moving first Yzak had claimed the high ground. With a mental groan for the state of his clean, so very white uniform, he knelt and began to search the floor.

 

They covered every square inch of the space. They traded search areas and covered it again. They found a lot of dust, a couple broken slats on the pallets, a few nails that weren't adequately sunk into the sides of their crates and damn little else. What they did not find was any sign that the hole in space-time had ever been there.

 

The air in the warehouse was relatively still. By the time they admitted there was nothing to find, they were both hot, a bit sticky, and very, very dusty. Their once clean white uniforms were an unpleasant shade of grey-beige with the grime they'd stirred up. Kira didn't even want to think about what was in his hair. He could see how much grit he had to have picked up just by looking at Yzak's badly dulled silver hair.

 

He hated to admit it but there just didn't seem to be anything here to find. From the look on Yzak's face, he'd been hoping to find a, well, a loose thread they could grab on to and try to unravel the whole mystery. Even a tiny one would have been a huge relief. Things had been so unnervingly normal here; it was getting impossible to believe what they'd seen on that recording.

 

“Nothing!” Yzak snarled in frustration.

 

“No, there's a lot of dirt.” Kira replied, hoping to coax the man out of the worst of this mood.

 

“How amusing.” Joule replied in a tone that was anything but amused.

 

Kira just sighed. He made a mental note to have a very long talk with Dearka sometime soon. He needed to know what the trick was that the blond used to get his friend to lighten up.

 

“Unsuccessful?” Colonel Farmer asked, a bit unnecessarily in Kira's view.

 

“Quite.” Yzak bit out the word sharply. “There doesn't seem to be anything here to find.”

 

“Ah,” the man sounded disappointed. “Well, if you and Commander Yamato will come with me, I'll have the men start moving these blocking crates so we can get those cancellers out of there.”

 

“Do you mind if we watch?” Kira asked. “It will change things, make it easier to see spaces we couldn't get a good look at, when they've got those first stacks out of the way.”

 

The man shrugged. “I see no reason why you couldn't. Just keep an eye on things. Sometimes these stacks fall without warning. It's quite rare but if a bottom pallet breaks, everything above it just tumbles.”

 

“We'll keep a sharp eye out.” Yzak promised.

 

Both of them stood well to the side. They were intending to observe, not get squished by being idiots. Kira was mildly amused by the level of irritation Yzak managed to sustain over such a minor insult. It did make him wonder if he stayed at `steam' all the time; and why he'd want to if he did.

 

The first set of pallets was lifted up and out of the way, moved to a space up the aisle and just put neatly down. A quick glance at his companion told Kira the other hadn't seen anything interesting on that load. Well, neither had he actually. He'd just been hoping.

 

A second lift unit picked up the next stack. Either the handler was nervous or he was a bit short on skill because the stack wavered dangerously as he attempted to move too quickly. Kira watched with slightly widening eyes as the man elected to stabilize the stack by dropping it fairly hard to the floor and banging it into the one already sitting there. It was inelegant but it worked.

 

“What's that?” Yzak suddenly snapped, staring at the two stacks now sitting in the broad aisle way.

 

“What's what?” Kira asked.

 

“That roundish thing on the bottom of the front stack, there on the floor below the third box.” Yzak pointed.

 

He looked but Kira didn't see whatever it was that had Joule's attention.

 

“Your angle must be bad.” Yzak replied, then shouted, “Hey! Hold up here. I want to check something.”

 

The lift units paused and Joule stalked toward the front stack and whatever it was he thought he saw. Kira followed, curiosity alive. And realized as he did that Yzak was right, there was something sort of round tucked in against the pallet itself just below that box.

 

The two of them knelt and eyed the thing. It wasn't really round, just very well padded. There were numerous small holes in the padding though and tiny appendages poked out of them. It looked for all the world like some kind of miniature sensor suite. He'd never seen or heard of anything like this though.

 

Yzak extended a hesitant finger and gently prodded the unit. It wobbled slightly but nothing else happened. He tapped it a bit harder with no more decisive results.

 

“What is this stuff it's covered in?” Joule muttered. “It has the oddest slick feel to it.”

 

Kira could feel the blood draining from his face. He knew what this was. Well, not exactly what it did of course, but what it was, yes he was sure he knew that.

 

“Yzak,” he managed to grind out hoarsely, “that old guy forgot something.”

 

Joule went completely still, staring at the unit that was about the size of his clenched fist. “What makes you so sure it isn't some new Alliance toy?”

 

“The Alliance didn't come here a week ago through a hole in the air.” Kira replied. “Besides, while I don't read every language on the planet, I think I'm familiar with at least the shape of the lettering of most of them and whatever is printed on that outer wrap is like nothing I've ever seen before.”

 

Yzak pulled the small flashlight he'd brought just for this search off his belt and illuminated the electronic what-ever-it-was. The print Kira had noticed was small but distinct. And once he'd lit it up, they could see there were actually two lines of it. The second line was in a darker ink that hadn't shown up in the semi-shadow the unit was resting in.

 

“The main script looks like a form of the roman alphabet.” Yzak said quietly.

 

“Yeah, but what are those letters? I've never seen anything like those before. And they aren't numbers or stray symbols either, not stuck in the middle of a word like that. And that second line looks like some corrupted form of Japanese kanji.”

 

“Yes.”

 

They both stared at it. The proof the hole had really been there. That the old man had really come and taken the n-jammer cancellers across some kind of dimensional barrier. That the dreams and delusions of a few outer fringes thinkers were a lot more substantial than anyone had ever dared let themselves imagine. Oh holy shit!

 

* * * * * * *

 

A Preventer's field uniform was surprisingly comfortable. It had come as a surprise to find that out. She'd never stopped to think about it, but it was logical that it would be; the agent wearing it could reasonably expect to find him/herself in mortal combat while dressed in it after all. Mobility and comfort would matter at that point.

 

And it came with pants instead of a skirt too. That was a welcome change right there. It was all very well to be professionally dressed in an office or public forum setting. But dashing in fits and starts about half-way around the world in just over a day, and without any staff to assist her, had already taught Relena that fabric that swished and snarled around her legs could be a serious nuisance sometimes. They had just been lucky they'd never needed to run anywhere in those long skirted disguises!

 

She yawned, getting a hand up to politely cover her mouth before she could give Fire a good look at her tonsils. This business of sustaining a false character was also harder than she'd thought it would be. She'd been expecting something like the school plays she'd taken part in for years. But this new form of acting came without a script or set director. She was trying to be someone very different from herself while real life went on all around her. The focus it took to remember who she was supposed to be and how this person was supposed to behave was incredible! Just doing this for the last four hours had already given her a much greater appreciation of what Heero and Duo had been carrying off when they'd infiltrated all those boarding schools and pretended to be normal students.

 

“We'll be landing in Chicago shortly.” Wind said quietly. “When we get there, I'll see to it that our gear is off-loaded onto a pull cart. I don't want anyone but us touching our baggage so the two of you girls will be standing guard on it constantly.”

 

“Isn't that going to look odd?” Puppeteer asked with interest.

 

“No. A team on an assignment will rarely let even other Preventers touch their equipment. Too often it is set up in a specific way for nearly instant use, something someone unfamiliar with that precise set could ruin easily. No, being defensive of our gear will look very normal.”

 

“It's so normal that you two need to be watching for anyone who wants to get too close to the cart.” Fire said softly. “We know there are traitors in the ranks, we can't afford to let one of them tag our things. They know we're out here somewhere. A team of four Preventers, two of whom are girls in their late teens, will catch the wrong eyes right now. We can't afford to be picking up any little tracers.”

 

 

“Do we trust the pilot of this shuttle?” Puppeteer asked calmly.

 

Wind's eyes were cold, distant and unhappy. “No, we can't afford to.”

 

“Who do we trust now?” Relena asked.

 

“Just the people we're going to meet Dancer, just them.” Fire replied gently.

 

“Anything else we need to know before we land?” `Dancer' enquired, glancing back and forth between Wind and Fire to see if she could catch any evidence of secrets being withheld.

 

“Our ground transportation has been arranged.” Her brother said, opening his computer and calling a blueprint onto the screen. “We will land at the Preventer's own terminal here and pick up our cart.”

 

She watched his finger indicate where they were going to be and the path they would be taking to reach the secondary ground transport area on the west side of the main terminal building. He had pictures of the route too, so they would have visual landmarks and she studied them closely. She'd flown through O'Hare just once on an official trip but it had left a lasting impression of size, people, and a potentially very disorienting layout. It was not a place she wanted to be wandering around in lost.

 

Wind tapped a small square on the blueprint. “This is the gold concourse. The Preventer terminal connects to it. We have to go through it to reach our exit. Here is the last of the embarkation waiting areas before entering the terminal proper. This is where I would expect to find whoever is going to be our contact person from the G-team.”

 

The G-team? Well, it made sense in a way. She smiled slightly at Milliardo's attempt at humor.

 

“I wonder how we'll recognize him.” Puppeteer muttered.

 

“That may be the real challenge.” Wind agreed. “Whoever they send to watch for us is going to be heavily disguised. He has to be. The enemy knows what they each look like now. But then, so do we. In fact, we know them much better and Oh One aside, we've seen them much more recently than the picture they have. Besides, I expect whoever it is who makes contact will do something to make sure we know who he is.”

 

He went on to give them precise roles to play when they arrived, knowing neither had a great deal of experience in true undercover work and that they'd do better with guidelines than without. He was most explicit on how he wanted them to deal with their luggage. Giving the right first impression there could take the most intense of the eyes off them almost at once. His instructions were detailed but very logical. She had no difficulty in understanding the why behind most of them, which made them much easier to remember. For the rest, well, she was to be the nearly silent newbie. Her voice was too well known. Then they were on the final approach and the time for instructions was over.

 

The landing and loading of their `equipment' went like clockwork. Wind would point and one of them would hand him the indicated case or duffel. He would place it just so on the cart. She watched the people around them with the surreptitiousness she'd learned from Trowa but couldn't catch anyone paying them any unusual attention. If there were eyes here, they were better than she was.

 

The Preventer's terminal was a haven of quiet that ended at the guarded gate into the main terminal building. The long hallway that linked the two terminals was empty of all but their small `team' but the noise level rose steadily as they moved forward. Relena wondered idly if the echo chamber effect of this wretched hall was something that was supposed to aid security in some way. The straight length was obvious, it gave the Preventers a near perfect line of fire if anyone was silly enough to make a frontal assault on their well-armed stronghold. Then they were at the small jog that kept the general public from staring down that hall. She took one deep breath as she followed the cart out the door and into the concourse.

 

If it had been noisy in the hallway, it was bedlam here. They were out at the end of the gold concourse and it seemed as though every embarkation waiting area was jammed with people. Too many of those people were yelling at someone or thing, crying children, playing children, or just loudly trying to carry on conversations over the powerful background racket.

 

Milliardo led them to the narrow ribbons of the center people carrier strips. A pair of much broader carrier strips bordered the central pair. These two, one inbound, the other out, were reserved for official traffic only. They had high, clear sides and were covered, with special air vents to allow rescue personnel to have a chance to access a disaster area without being overcome by whatever fumes a specific disaster was producing. They each had to swipe their id cards through the slide's reader to be allowed access.

 

The strip moved at a very brisk pace, taking them from the end of the gold concourse to the main terminal in under two minutes. As they came up on the waiting area Milliardo had selected as the likely point to meet one of the Gundam pilots, Relena studied the people there as intently as she could without being blatant about it. What she saw was not encouraging.

 

The area appeared to be occupied by a tour group, one of the big ones that dressed in uniform clothing so their mangers could keep track of them. They filled the space to overflowing and were clearly not welcoming of anyone not part of their group. She couldn't see any individual on the outer edges of that unattractive mass that bore any resemblance to her friends at all. More significantly, there just weren't any there not wearing the tour group's clothing. Her brother had guessed wrong.

 

They left the slideway as it ended, just beyond the huddled mass of the tour on their left and a crowd of more general makeup waiting in the area directly across on their right. If she was at a loss regarding where to go from here, Milliardo was not. He led them straight toward the food court and shopping area that surrounded the central atrium of the vast terminal.

 

The noise, which had been dampened while they were on the covered slide, came roaring over them again too. The people racket now vied with noises from the shops and restaurants as well as the never-ending stream of announcements coming from the P.A. system. It was enough to give her the start of a fine headache.

 

The hallway between the concourse and the shopping area was not all that long. It housed the usual restroom facilities, what looked like maintenance closets, a long middle cluster of comm booths, and a few benches, all of them occupied. There was also a set of elevators at the far side, hard against the food court. Milliardo was leading them toward those.

 

As they approached, the P.A. system blatted out one more announcement that Relena wasn't really paying any attention to. But one of the people seated near the elevators apparently was as she closed her book, tossed her bag onto her shoulder and stepped over to tap the call button. It took very little to see that her brother wasn't happy with the idea of sharing the elevator with a strange girl. But aside from a hesitation so small you had to know him to realize that was what it had been, he did not deviate from his obvious course. Apparently this was one of those times when one `winged it', as Duo was fond of saying.

 

She was really pretty, Relena realized as the other turned after boarding the elevator to hold the door open for them. The very long chocolate hair was pulled high on her head and held in a pony tail by a striking silver ring clasp. Long bangs fell across her eyes and formed a wild frame for the more severely drawn back sides of the hair. The face was almost classically beautiful and the brilliant green eyes were something amazing. Pity she was so short. Relena was not really tall but even she was a couple inches taller than this girl.

 

“What floor?” The girl had a very soft voice, rather deeper than she'd expected too.

 

“Main ground transportation level.” Milliardo replied indifferently.

 

The desired level was entered and they rode in silence. The elevator stopped at each floor but would-be riders took one look at the Preventer uniforms and stepped back instead. At least they weren't picking up any more strangers.

 

There was a five note chime suddenly and a mechanical voice abruptly announced, “Power interruption, power interruption! This car will be halted to prevent injury to occupants. Movement will resume when power is restored.”

 

The elevator came to a smooth stop. But the doors did not open. They were stuck between floors.

 

“This is no fun.” Puppeteer announced huffily.

 

“We wait.” Wind told her shortly.

 

“How long?” Puppeteer snipped.

 

“Until the shock's over.” The strange girl said in an appallingly familiar monotone.

 

Relena snapped around to stare. The `girl' didn't move. But now she was looking past the obvious, the voice all the clue she needed. And she saw what she hadn't before.

 

“Heero?!?”

 

“Hello Relena. It's been a long time.” He turned and smiled very slightly.

 

“Yuy.” Milliardo was shaking his head. “Not what I would ever have anticipated.”

 

“No, I'm not the one anyone would associate with this. That's why it works.”

 

“It's good to see you Heero, even dressed up like that.” Fire smiled brightly at him.

 

“It's good to see you too Captain.” Heero nodded.

 

Wind gave himself a good shake and got down to business. “I take it you have plans?”

 

“There is a Winner bus waiting for us. You will follow me at a discrete distance. Wu Fei and Duo will be your flankers and Trowa will be tail guard. Quatre has gone ahead to deal with the bus and last minute adjustments for our actual transport off planet. We got word that there will be one addition who we will meet at the shuttle. I don't know anything more than that but the message came from J so I'm going to give it the benefit of an initial doubt.”

 

Relena giggled. They all gave her questioning looks but the level stare from Heero was the one that nearly sent her into outright laughter. It so did not go with the way he was disguised! That flat look belonged to a tousled haired boy in black spandex biking shorts and a slightly oversized green tank top who had a gun in his hand.

 

“I'm sorry, it's just so . . . . . , I don't know . . . . , wrong maybe?”

 

He sighed. “Yes, that's why I've jammed the elevator. I thought there might be something like this.”

 

“It is fetching.” Dorothy said calmly. “I would like to know where you found the hair clasp.”

 

“Scotland.” Heero told her shortly.

 

Relena stepped closer and let her hand reach slowly for his hair. She gave him time to tell her to stop if he wanted to. But he didn't and when she touched it, she realized it was not the top flight wig she'd thought it was.

 

“What did Duo say when he saw how long you've let this get?” She asked quietly.

 

“Well, after yelling because I'd grabbed his hand his exact words were `shit, I thought it was a wig'. He then apologized for pulling it.”

 

Milliardo's shoulders suddenly trembled slightly and his face turned a faint pink, like he was suppressing laughter. The corners of his mouth were also quivering. Heero gave him a truly filthy look. It only made her brother worse. It was no help that Lucrezia had a fairly broad smile plastered across her face either.

 

Relena could only sigh. “Oh, that sounds so like Duo. He doesn't handle some kinds of shock well.”

 

“None of us do.” Heero told her simply. “And yes, there is a good deal we have to go over. But now is not the time. If I keep this car locked up much longer it will trigger an alarm I can't override. We can talk on the shuttle.”

 

He turned to Milliardo. “Give me a good fifty foot head start. We've seen at least three people here who are paying just that bit too much attention to the passing crowds. You can't afford to be obvious about following me. If you do lose me, I'll be heading for the far western doors and the driver of the Winner bus will be one of the Maganac you should recognize. It should also be the last bus in the line but Quatre wasn't sure they could hold that position.”

 

He frowned. “These people seem sharp. I'd normally give you the old handsigns to warn you if I spotted one of them but I think they may be good enough to catch me at it.”

 

Milliardo turned back into Wind instantly. “I'll keep watch myself. How are the others dressed? I do not want to mistake my escort for my enemies.”

 

“Duo is also crossdressing. He's in a burgundy skirt and vest, white lace blouse. The braid is wound once around his head then the rest is loose at the back; interesting collection of `hair ornaments' arranged in it. Trowa is done up like one of those `peace hound' people, his choices are slightly neater than their usual, blue jeans, dark green turtleneck, blue jean jacket, all decorated beyond reasonable and with the usual collection of beads and oddments braided into his hair. His bangs are pulled back and you can see both eyes.”

 

Heero paused, almost smiled, then went on. “And you do not want to stare or make the mistake of laughing at Wu Fei.”

 

“You got him to dress up as a girl too, didn't you?” Relena instantly guessed.

 

Heero nodded. “He's furious about it but, like me, Chang is not someone anyone in their right mind would be looking for under a skirt. He's wearing an ankle length black silk Chinese style dress and jacket. His hair is up on sticks and last seen he was clearing a space ten feet in all directions just by spilling attitude around.”

 

“Oh, my.” Wind muttered, eyebrows rising almost to his hairline. “I'm looking forward to this `escort'.”

 

“What's Winner wearing?” Dorothy asked with bright interest.

 

“He's in a feminine version of Trowa's outfit. They are the only obvious pair. The rest of us are set up to be stray travelers who happen to be walking in the same direction.”

 

Heero gave them all a somewhat impatient study. “Can we go now? The car alarm will sound in the next 90 seconds if I don't get it moving.”

 

“Yes.” Wind replied crisply.

 

A second later the car slid gently into motion. A few moments after that, it stopped and the doors opened on their destination floor. Heero instantly stepped out and headed across the immensely long hall. She and Dorothy pushed the cart forward but somehow, one of the bags slipped just before they could get out of the elevator. Fire grabbed it and fussed a few seconds getting it settled just so. Then they were off and a small crowd barely let her get clear before they began to pour onto the now vacant elevator.

 

She spotted Trowa instantly. Even in the wild mix of an interplanetary air and spaceport terminal the `peace hound' habit of overdressing in gaudy beads and extensively embroidered clothing stood out. The outfit was eye catching in the extreme like most of theirs were. And the lines of glittering beads and small medallions braided into his hair turned that into a visually distracting helmet too. But they should have given him colored contacts like Heero was wearing because those emerald eyes were just too distinctive. Not even the glitz he was drowning in could divert you from them. He was picking up a pair of large duffel bags as they breezed past him. She didn't have to look back to know he'd fall in behind them now.

 

She noticed Wu Fei next. Well, half the floor noticed him really. A large, well built, and too clearly aware of his own looks guy was leaning on Chang when she first caught sight of him. What the man wanted was unmistakable. So was the impression that he thought his size and strength would get it for him. He was in for a nasty shock; Wu Fei only got that kind of look on his face when he was ready to kill someone.

 

“I said no!” Chang shrieked, one foot going back to hook the off balance idiot's ankle as an expertly placed elbow caught him straight in the solar plexus.

 

The fool went down flat on his back. Relena heard the air slammed out of his lungs from almost sixty feet away. Chang snatched up a large, plain black bag, tossed a somewhat smaller version of it on `her' shoulder and stalked off, leaving the man to try to gasp some air back as best he could. It surprised no one that the angry Chinese `girl' chose to pace the small group of Preventers who happened to be going in the same direction she was.

 

It was the burgundy color that allowed her to spot Maxwell. He was quietly collecting a large bag on wheels and had the strap of a smaller one over his shoulder. Duo was already walking as they began to come up on him. He ignored them completely but he was moving just a hair slower than they were. They would pass him by the time they reached the doors and it would look perfectly natural.

 

What did not look so natural was the oddly intent focus of a couple of the security guards. Yes, you expected security people to be watchful but these two were somehow overly so. Relena realized she wasn't wearing any contacts either, and her eyes were as recognizable as Barton's, as she caught one of them glancing her way. She turned her head slightly and stepped forward, one hand out as though she'd seen one of the bags slide. She stayed alongside the cart, hand half out until they were well past the guards. Only then did she withdraw the hand. But she stayed with the bag, kept turning to look at it, to maintain the image. She wished she knew if it worked.

 

Then they were out the doors and rumbling down the sidewalk. The bag she'd been pretending to watch really did begin to move then and she caught it instantly, setting it back in place without breaking stride. Ahead, she saw Heero loading his bags into the luggage compartment of a smallish bus. He vanished aboard moments later but now she knew where they were going.

 

Chang stamped ahead of them now as her brother began to move them tighter to the wall, squeezing out the other Preventer's position. He too, slung his bag into the luggage compartment and disappeared aboard the bus, invisible behind the darkened windows. Then they were there.

 

She recognized Abdul immediately and smiled faintly at him. He just nodded politely back and waved her aboard. She left the unloading of the cart to Wind and followed Fire and Puppeteer aboard. Duo was so close behind her he was practically pushing her on.

 

“Move!” Maxwell ordered. “At least two teams have reported us to someone.”

 

“Three teams.” Barton's voice announced quietly as he swung aboard behind Duo. “Zechs is passing the cart off to one of the ground personnel. He'll be here in a second.”

 

“Someone's filming us too.” Heero announced. “Abdul! We need to get out of here!”

 

“Not a problem.” The Maganac replied. “We're a Winner bus, we don't have to follow the public routes.”

 

“They'll also know that.” Wu Fei snapped.

 

“Probably. But unless they have some incredible security clearances, they aren't going to have time to stop us.” He noted as Wind jumped aboard.

 

The doors closed and Abdul had them in motion before her brother could whip into the front seat. Being the last bus in the line had advantages she'd never considered. It allowed him to pull them directly into the furthest outside lane and thereby bypass the clogged lanes where the other busses were loading. And when they reached the end of the massive terminal she learned one of the advantages of riding a bus belonging to WEI. Instead of curving to the right with the rest of the traffic, Abdul pulled them hard to the left. A heavy security gate swung open only long enough to let them through.

 

The bus took a road that led them back around the main short term parking garage and through a tunnel under the roads that led up to the terminal itself. Then they were out in the open again and driving alongside a full taxi-way. These were aircraft waiting their turn to take off. But the bus left them behind soon enough as it drove up to, and then under, one of the main runways.

 

The buildings in the distance began to define themselves into distinct clusters as they approached. This was the industrial end of the air and space port. The great shipping companies maintained their hangers and warehouses out here. The area had been part of two historic towns. Elk Grove Village and Wood Dale still existed on paper but they were less than a third of their former size. They had almost vanished when the launch ramps for shuttles had been added and O'Hare had earned the title `spaceport'.

 

The bus turned onto a broad highway. Six lanes wide, it was as busy as any in the entire city area. But it was long haul trucks that made up most of the traffic here with local delivery wains making up the majority of the rest. There were a few buses scattered in the mix but cars were a rarity. This road was about commerce and commerce alone.

 

The Winner Enterprise compound turned out to be the fourth one down and it was easily as large as any of the first three. There was a file of eleven huge warehouses up against the road inside the fence. Relena could see a second matching line beyond them. After that, the buildings grew larger. But as those housed air and space craft, they were barely adequate for the task vast as they were.

 

As Abdul wove a skillful path through the organized chaos around them, she realized the large object she was seeing ahead of them wasn't a building at all. Relena was well traveled, both on Earth and among the Colonies. But she'd only once seen a civilian ship that was larger than the one they were coming up on. And she didn't think Peacemillion was a valid standard of comparison. After all, how many ships of any description could be honestly compared to a master battleship? Not to mention that she hoped there weren't any more like Howard's ship out there in private hands too!

 

She pointed at it and Noin glanced over. “Ah, haven't seen one of those in a long time. That's a `Clydesdale', second largest surface to space transport ever built.”

 

“The Winners own most of the ones that are left.” Milliardo noted with interest. “They were the main transports for building most of the early colonies. They don't fly very often any more. There isn't much that needs their kind of capacity. I wonder why that one's on the ready tarmac.”

 

“You will be flying aboard her.” Abdul told them cheerfully. “She's the Chariot of Fire and she just came out of maintenance. We make sure they are rotated through the shop every five years and that they do a check flight immediately afterwards. The timing was perfect when Master Quatre told us he was going to need one of the bigger work shuttles. She's on her standard maintenance cycle, we didn't have to fudge a thing to get her ready for you. Her flight schedule was set over three months ago, there is nothing to connect her to you.”

 

“Except those pictures someone was taking back at the terminal.” Heero's voice carried grimly from the back of the bus.

 

“Ah, but there is another shuttle, a more logical size for an escape, being prepped in a heavily secured hanger.” The Maganac gave them all a wide grin using his rearview mirror. “We will drive through one hanger, exchange you for others dressed enough alike to be convincing through this dark glass, and then the bus will go there. You will board the Chariot with all eyes drawn aside.”

 

“Wait!” Milliardo suddenly sat up. “You said the ship's name is Chariot of Fire?”

 

If anything, Abdul's grin got wider. “That's right.”

 

“Oh, . . . . . . my.” Milliardo sank back in his seat with a strange smirk on his lips.

 

“An explanation would be real nice.” Duo was giving her brother a very suspicious stare.

 

Noin laughed. “It's going to be an interesting trip. You see, a half dozen of those old shuttles were initially bought by a company that wanted to do both heavy freight and exclusive, luxury cruises. I've never been aboard one of them but they were supposed to have been, well, excessively well set up. All six of those ships had the word chariot in their names. So, unless this one's been stripped down, we're going to be traveling in the accommodations of the super wealthy and spoiled rotten.”

 

“Nope, no changes.” Abdul announced happily. “They kept both the chariot ships they own just like they were originally for the family to use when they needed to impress someone. You should enjoy this trip. Besides, Master Quatre requested a ship with room and many diversions.”

 

“Why would he do that?” Wu Fei asked irritably.

 

“Oh, Rashid said something about not forcing dragons and shinigamis too close together for long periods.”

 

Duo snickered. Relena looked around to find a wide grin he couldn't suppress on Trowa's face. Wu Fei looked like a bad thunderhead. Then something she'd heard only once before filled the bus. Heero was laughing his head off.

 

“This is not funny Yuy!” Chang yelled.

 

Duo lost it at that point and joined Heero, whooping with laughter. Trowa's shoulders were shaking as he ducked his head to deflect the enraged Chinese' temper away from his own amusement. Milliardo was chuckling, Noin openly laughing, and even Dorothy was sniggering.

 

“Of course it is, Wu Fei.” Relena told him, managing not to burst out laughing herself. “And you would know it if you'd just let yourself calm down and enjoy it.”

 

They pulled into the hanger beside the huge ship still giggling. Wu Fei was sitting straight as a ramrod, definitely not amused as the rest of them were. But when the bus pulled to a stop beside a small group dressed somewhat like they were and of a similar variety of sizes, they wasted no time getting off the bus. Their gear was unloaded by the waiting group even before Heero jumped off the last step, last one off as he'd been first on. Then they loaded and were gone. The whole exchange took less than two minutes.

 

Three other Maganacs grabbed bags from the pile and headed for a small door in the hanger wall. The rest of them picked up what the Maganacs hadn't managed to haul off and followed them. The door took them into a covered walkway and that led to the loading stair for the huge shuttle.

 

Once aboard they were met just outside the main lounge by Quatre, who had changed into his own clothing and had cleaned off the makeup. His hair was still full of beads and baubles though and the bright blue nail polish was a bit of a surprise. He pointed them down the corridor that the guest suites opened onto, telling them their names were on their doors and to get changed and meet him back in the lounge.

 

“What has happened?” Heero demanded suspiciously.

 

“We have another guest. One who will be coming with us.” And that was all Quatre would say.

 

The corridor had three doors on either side. The first on the right hand had Quatre and Trowa's names on it. Rashid had the room across from theirs. Heero and Duo were apparently sharing the middle room with Auda and Ahmed across from them. Wu Fei got the third room all to himself as did Abdul across from him.

 

The short corridor ended in a cross hallway. The lights were off on the right hand branch but the left was brightly lit, making it quite clear which way to look to find their rooms. There was some kind of utility space directly across from the end of the first corridor but there was another line of three rooms beyond it. Zechs and Noin had the first one. Relena found her name on the middle one and when she went to check the last door out of curiosity she found it marked only with the letter M.

 

She found the Maganac's had been there before her. The two extra bags that were hers were already sitting neatly at the foot of the bed. Mind, she didn't find that until she'd wandered through a very well appointed sitting room that seemed to include it's own small wet bar and cooktop. Although it was beyond her just who would be silly enough to try cooking in freefall.

 

Relena didn't really unpack. She just found a neat pair of slacks and a blouse to change into, washed her face in the bath, and hurried back to the lounge. She found Quatre and his four Maganacs waiting just outside the door, the beads and other interesting bits finally out of his hair. Trowa and Wu Fei had beaten her there. Her brother and Noin were right behind her with Duo bringing up the rear. They were all in comfortable, and gender normal, dress now.

 

“Where's Heero?” Quatre asked, the question unmistakably aimed at Duo.

 

“Drying his hair.” The American grinned. “Found a shortage already. The bath only has one hair dryer and I got to it first. Hee-chan was not pleased. That mop of his is long enough for him to sit on and it makes him look real pathetic when he's standing there with it hanging all around him soaking wet. He's way too skinny right now to be doing that. He didn't like that observation either. But he decided against risking breaking the dryer so I got away with it.”

 

Before anyone could make any unfortunate remarks, the lounge door cracked open. Sally Po stepped half way out and looked around seriously. Her eyes narrowed briefly as she realized the party was still missing someone.

 

“Yuy?” She asked Quatre.

 

“Coming when his hair dries apparently. Maxwell hogged the one dryer.”

 

“Hey!”

 

“You did, you admitted it.” Wu Fei pointed out bluntly.

 

“No,” Trowa corrected, “he bragged about it.”

 

“That's pretty normal Duo behavior.” Sally noted. “Quatre, do you want to wait for him?”

 

“It might be better if we didn't.”

 

She nodded and held the door open. Relena followed her brother inside. The opulence of the room grabbed her attention instantly. It reminded her of her one visit to the old French royal chapel in the palace at Versailles. The color scheme was gold and white and it was hopelessly overdone, just like the chapel. Amazingly beautiful perhaps, but ridiculously overdone. As she caught sight of the enormous, richly embellished, Dresden ceramic chandeliers though, she wondered if perhaps Mad Ludwig's castle at Neuschwanstein wasn't a better comparison than the French palace.

 

“Holy . . . . !” the explosive exclamation from Maxwell pulled her consideration off the furnishings instantly.

 

“Hey, kid, are you ok?” The American was down on one knee beside a small chair. Sitting in that chair was Mariemaia Khushrenada-Une. The girl was deathly pale, making her red hair, darkening now toward copper, seem very bright. She was wearing a skirt and sweater. But it was the large rusty brown stain on the skirt that screamed trouble to Relena. Some where, some how, someone had gotten close enough to General Une's daughter to present a deadly danger. And someone had paid for her defense.

 

“What happened?” Wu Fei snarled the question before anyone else could ask.

 

Sally told them. Of the effort to hide the girl, of the battle, of the escape across bad roads and unplowed fields. None of it was good hearing. Whoever these Crimson Dawn people really were, they had a serious hate for some facets of the past. Like Gundam pilots and, apparently, anyone related to Treize Khushrenada.

 

They had all found seats on the chairs and couches around Mariemaia's chair, all but Duo who hadn't moved from his spot beside her. He was holding her hand now, patting it gently. Whatever the past might have been, it was very clear that Duo Maxwell didn't hold the Mariemaia Incident against the child it was named for.

 

“They threw grenades down the stairs.” Mariemaia said suddenly, her voice small and shaking. “Sergeant Rus pushed me down and shot them for that. There was blood on the floor you know. I fell in some.”

 

Her blue eyes, lighter than her father's, turned to the nineteen year-old former child-soldier beside her. “They were very kind people, Arnie and Heidi. Why would anyone throw grenades at them?”

 

“Because they're sick f . . . , they've got something wrong with their heads.” Duo corrected his savage reply before it got away from him.

 

She nodded solemnly, “Yes, they're all blow up from the Sergeant's bullets.”

 

The girl was in shock, Relena realized. The battle in the bunker under the Presidential Palace in Brussels three years ago had been a very quick thing. And she'd been critically wounded herself then. She hadn't really had a chance to examine the death and injury around her that time. It was very obvious she'd seen far too much in far too clear a detail in this fight.

 

“I have to make sure they're all right!” Mariemaia jumped to her feet so quickly she managed to slip past Duo. She ran for the door, Noin making a missed attempt to catch her of her own. The door opened and she ran headlong into Heero.

 

His arms closed around her, stopping her flight. “You can't get back there now. There's a whole ocean between here and there.”

 

“I have to! I have to! They were so nice to me!”

 

“Then remember them.” Heero's voice was soft, something Relena hadn't heard more than one or two times before. “Always remember the good people, Mariemaia. And forget the bad ones. That way, the good people always live on. And the bad ones don't get the rewards they wanted. They want to be remembered, so everyone will always be afraid of them. But we won't let them. We'll forget them. So no one is ever afraid of them again.”

 

He held the sobbing child like she was a sculpture of living glass. But his cobalt eyes belied his soft voice and gentle words. He'd obviously been standing outside the door listening for Heero Yuy was deeply and truly enraged. And he held his head high, to keep the girl in his arms from seeing those eyes. But everyone else in the room could see them clearly.

 

“We'll get rid of the bad people for you. They won't ever be allowed to get near you again.” Heero told her, his deadly eyes collecting matching promises from eyes of the rest of the Gundam pilots.

 

Relena risked a look around. Trowa was sitting like a stone, one visible eye a fair equivalent to Heero's. Duo hadn't stood up but there was a identical lethal pledge in his violet eyes. Wu Fei could have been carved of marble, he stood so still. But the fury in his eyes was impossible to misunderstand. There was naked rage on her brother's face and an expression almost as brutal on Noin's. Only Quatre's eyes held as much grief as they did anger.

 

They had a symbol, she realized slowly. In the form of a child who had once been their enemy but who was no longer. Mariemaia was now the living emblem of all the children they wanted to protect, to keep safe from any harm. She drew one long slow breath as the power of this sank in. Oh, this one girl, not yet twelve, was going to be the destruction of Crimson Dawn. She'd caught the full, protector-warrior instincts of the Gundam Pilots. They would rip the enemy to shreds for the harm done to Mariemaia Khushrenada-Une. The irony of it all was incredible.