Crossover Fan Fiction / Gundam SEED Fan Fiction / Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Crossing Barriers ❯ Searches, Information Shared, Pirates! ( Chapter 9 )

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

 

 

Searches, Information Shared, Pirates!

 

 

Sally slumped into the one comfortable guest chair in Anne Une's office gratefully. It had been one hell of a day. Up before dawn on one continent to grab the girl out of the blazing ruins of a battlefield, dash across three countries in a vehicle not designed for speed, dodging potential enemies and allies alike since she couldn't be sure which was which, a high speed flight to the middle of another continent, an emotion packed meeting and an even more emotion packed departure and one last high speed flight home.

 

“Tell me.” General Une ordered, her voice nearly as tired as Sally felt.

 

“We lost everyone but Sergeant Rus from the protective team. The Kramers are dead. The house is a smoldering hole in the ground. The trip was hell on wheels for all three of us. She's in shock and will need all the help they can give her.” Colonel Po dumped the basic information in a few spare sentences.

 

“Will they help her?”

 

Sally looked up, eyes full of memory of the terrible wrath of five teenagers at what had been done to an eleven-year-old. “Anne, they'll die for her if they have to. No one, and I mean no one will be allowed to hurt her. She touched something in them, something deep, something in the core of their souls. She is their mascot now. And no one harms what belongs to the Gundam Pilots.”

 

“Yuy?”

 

“It was Heero who decided they were going to be her protectors.” The Eurasian woman sighed deeply. “You have to understand. As far as Heero is concerned, Mariemaia Barton is dead. He shot her with an empty gun and `killed' her in his own mind. Mariemaia Khushrenada-Une is someone else altogether. But mostly, she's a badly frightened, emotionally injured little girl. And Heero has issues with people who hurt little girls.”

 

Sally paused, then added slowly, “Duo told me once that Heero had a mission go bad on him, back before they even launched Operation Meteor. I don't think even he knows the whole of it and I know he told me less than he knows. But something went wrong on that mission and a girl and her puppy were killed. Yuy could not have been more than fourteen then and may have been younger. The unintended death hit some unarmored part of his soul, and they punished him brutally for allowing the emotional response to that strike to show. All they really did of course was force all his emotions to internalize. The unresponsive, apparently emotionless killer who first brought the Wing to Earth was the result of that abusive `retraining'. He's recovered remarkably over time. But it has left him with a permanent sense of guilt and an overwhelming need to protect children, especially young girls. Your daughter stepped right into the center of one of Heero Yuy's core personality needs. He will defend her with his life.”

 

She smiled wearily and reached into her pocket for the picture. Anne Une was not likely to believe just words. Not after Heero's rather spectacular display outside the hospital that day. But he'd just been talking to Relena and he was more than upset over how she'd been treated. Few people understood better than Heero just how mercilessly damaging verbal abuse could be. And the arrogant, self-centered, self-aggrandizing child her grandfather Barton had raised her to be had been very cruel to Relena. He did not deal well with people who hurt Relena.

 

“This was taken just before I left. I do not recommend keeping it for obvious reasons but you need to see it. That's why I took it.”

 

The General took it. Sally smiled slightly as she watched the dawning surprise cross the slightly older woman's face. Unless you saw it, it really was not something easy to believe. But she'd taken that photo and she knew there was nothing touched up in it.

 

The picture centered around Mariemaia. Who was sitting in Heero's lap, his arms still wrapped protectively around her. Relena sat on a small stool in front of them. Duo knelt on Heero's right and Quatre on his left. Wu Fei sat on an armless chair parked beside Maxwell and Trowa had a matching seat beside Winner. Zechs stood by Yuy's left shoulder and Noin by his right.

 

Everyone but Heero was smiling at the camera. His eyes were focused on the child on his lap. And they held a shocking depth of pain and sorrow. This was what Anne needed to see.

 

“You took this?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“He's grown, hasn't he?”

 

“They all have. And in a lot more that just height.”

 

“The wig is interesting. Why did he wear it?”

 

“It isn't a wig. He's been letting his hair grow for the last three years. And he makes a really beautiful woman properly dressed and made up. I don't know why he left it in that topknot style though. It has to get in the way hanging loose over his shoulders like that.”

 

The General smiled. “And I'll bet you have a picture of that outfit too.”

 

“Of course!” She grinned. “I have one of Maxwell in drag, Winner the same, and, prize of all prizes, Wu Fei as a modern Mandarin lady. Oh, and one of Barton festooned with beads, baubles, and more embroidery than you'll see at a gypsy wedding.”

 

Une's eyes widened. “Chang? Our Chang? In a dress?”

 

Sally fished them out and handed them over with a broad grin on her face. The two of them enjoyed the surprisingly clear and well centered pictures. She had to admit she'd stolen these from the Preventer security cameras though. She didn't think the General was going to ever put down the one of Captain Chang in the surprisingly sexy black dress. Still, eventually she did. She set them all down and gave them a warm smile just before she dropped them through the shredder. They carefully burned the shreds in the ashtray Une kept for visiting politicians who couldn't be civil enough to smoke outside. Unfortunately, sometimes there were really, really neat things it was just too dangerous to keep.

 

* * * * * * *

 

Three hundred eleven air or space craft belonging to the Winners had filed flight plans today. Ramirez stared at the list in anger. Seventeen flights had been high speed space shuttles. Nine of those had been loaded and had taken off under exceptionally tight security. The rest were normally scheduled flights with passenger lists and cargo manifests they could probably get hold of if they needed to. The other two hundred and ninety-four flights ranged from local delivery hops to the every five years check flight of that near antique `Clydesdale' that took off from central North America to head for L-4. Somewhere, on one of those ships, Headquarters was sure they'd find the Gundam pilots. And he was supposed to find out which one it had been.

 

He glared at the list again. He knew the betting was going toward the high speed ships. Yet, that really just seemed too obvious. The Gundam pilots could do obvious things of course but they didn't make a habit of it. They were more into stealth and surprise.

 

It was generally believed that they had been moving about ever since they'd disappeared. They hadn't gone straight to whatever their final destination was, that much was known even if the where and how of their travels weren't. Were they making ultra sure they weren't being followed? He didn't know and not knowing was aggravating.

 

Still, he had to cut this list down somehow. He was going to have to make some bets of his own to do that, bets he didn't want to be making. The price for failure here could be severe.

 

Jose shook his head angrily. He didn't have a choice in the matter. It was time to decide and go from there. So he started by dumping all the strictly atmospheric flights. The failed attacks had been all over the news first thing this morning. If anything was going to prompt them to make a run for wherever it was they planned to stay long term, this should do it. And he didn't think they'd try to stay on the planet.

 

There were countless places to hide down here and still over two billion people to hide among but hiding here had severe disadvantages. For one, there were all those pairs of eyes that might see something. And it didn't have to be anyone who understood what he saw either, just someone who'd talk about it. People loved to talk, especially about anything unusual they'd seen. The last message from Headquarters indicated the Sun was concerned with the possibility someone would get the pilots new mobile suits. Well a military mobile suit would be something quite unusual these days and very much worth talking about. No, if they were getting new equipment, they needed to be keeping it where there was as close to no chance it would be seen as possible. And that meant somewhere out in space.

 

He discarded the standard scheduled flights too. They were too locked in to their courses and destinations. It wasn't impossible for the pilots to take a commercial flight, but again, if stealth was the game and a serious destination the goal, the commercial route was probably too round about now.

 

Now he was down to something more manageable. There were thirty-one freight shuttles and that `Clydesdale' that launched today. Of those, twenty-three had listed straight point to point flight plans. He set them aside for a second look later. Most of them were going to the same colonies the passenger flights were headed to. They were more likely to be chosen simply because they'd dock in the commercial section far from the busy passenger areas but they weren't high priority possibilities for the same reasons the standard flights weren't.

 

That really left nine ships, eight freighters and the `Clyde'. All of the freighters were going to be making multiple stops, a number of them at one or more of the more isolated industrial stations where materials that needed zero g in the manufacturing process, or were just too dangerously polluting for inclusion on a residential colony were being made. The Winners controlled a surprising number of these stations, making them all quite reasonable destinations for the pilots.

 

That `Clyde' on the other hand wasn't going to dock anywhere but L-4. However, it was going to be going through its paces out by the area currently called the Shoals because of all the ruined war materials, blasted guard stations, and the three actual ruined bases that were all jumbled in the relatively small space. The area was a salver's heaven; if the salver was a first class pilot who could get his ship in and out without being smacked by some of the smaller debris - too much of which was unexpended munitions quite capable of blowing said salver's ship into more scrap to litter the vicinity. She was going to be out there a good five days too.

 

He reluctantly put the `Clyde' in the `second look' pile. It was honestly the most attractive of the options in his mind but five days, no, they'd want to get where they were going sooner than that. And unless the old ship was met by another, they'd be trapped aboard her at least that long. Moreover, none of the ruins in the Shoals would support life any longer. Two of the bases still had working reactors so they could, in theory, have heat, light, and the rest of life support. But both had been so badly holed in the last weeks of the war that just sealing an area off and restoring all the necessary connections would take a year or more.

 

Besides, his team would be taking over the patrol zone that included the Shoals in three days now. He could check on the `Clyde' then. He'd bring her back to the front burner if a check of the Preventer scans of the area indicated there was another ship out there. Maxwell had connections deep in the Sweepers, if one of them passed too close to that `Clyde', then it would be something to check and check fast.

 

Ramirez turned his attention to the remaining eight. He began plotting courses, noting where individual shuttles were going to either dock at the same station or stop at sites close enough together that a skip-shuttle could transport a quiet passenger or two between the sites. He couldn't bet they'd all take the same flight at this point. That would just be too good to be true, a single target ship with all their enemies aboard. Real security didn't allow that, and he was deadly aware that this was no action-adventure movie he was playing in.

 

He finally finished his analysis three hours later and sent it off. This business of shorting himself on sleep was dangerous. They would be loading the team's equipment tomorrow, he had to be awake for that. Some idiot was always in a rush and ready to just do a half-assed job that could leave the cargo subject to shifting on liftoff. Whole teams had died that way. None in the Preventers yet, but both the old Alliance and Oz had lost ships when suddenly loose cargo had thrown the balanced weight vectors straight to hell and made it impossible for the pilots to control the launching ship. He stumbled to bed, praying he'd guessed right and the others he knew were assigned to it would be able to intercept the missing Gundam pilots.

 

* * * * * * *

 

Yzak was out today interviewing people. Some for staff positions to help them get this new FAITH off the ground and a few as possible members. This left Kira to hold down the fort as it were and keep the office from looking completely vacant.

 

Fortunately, there were no calls from the Supreme Council yet although Lacus had warned him one was coming. It seemed the trip to the L-4 colonies was rapidly becoming a hard agreement. The kicker for Lacus, and a point that had raised suspicions that had no facts behind them but were well buoyed up by emotion, was the demand by the Alliance Foreign Minister for an escort `suitable to the dignity of the office he represented'. He was making it plain without directly saying it that he wanted the top officers of FAITH to be that escort. The comments about who was and who might not be trustworthy were almost blatant sometimes.

 

That demand, coupled with a surprisingly disparaging comment on a specific mobile suit he'd overheard at lunch, had Kira digging into files that would upset some folks if they found out. But there was a balance in politics that only a blind fool ignored. And being dragged into FAITH had put him in a very political spot. He might have avoided everything he could back in Aube that was tainted with the sticky mess but that didn't mean he hadn't learned a great deal about it anyway. So he was many layers deep in the manufacturing files of the three Plants that were most concerned with building ZAFT's mobile suits. Because Yzak needed a new one.

 

He didn't think so of course. He was comfortable with his GOUF and lethally familiar with all its systems and abilities. But it didn't take much in the way of eyes to see just how outclassed it was by Strike-Freedom. And a wise subordinate did not give a commander with a temper like Joule's a chance to get jealous. Nor did he undercut said commander by always having better gear. Yzak needed, honestly needed, a suit in the Gundam class. And the GOUF didn't make the grade.

 

The problem was getting him one. The peace negotiations were ongoing but they hadn't touched on the issue of mobile suits yet. So there was no obligation there to impose limits at this point. That state of affairs was not going to last long. Kira needed a Gundam, preferably one already completed or very, very close to ready to grab for Joule. He wanted something damn close in caliber to snatch for Dearka too. The Commander of FAITH should have his Wing in a suit that matched the station.

 

If he could find it, he'd see to it Shiho had a new suit too. Her beloved DEEP Arms was aging tech now and while she was technically only Yzak's secretary, she was also a rated member of the Joule Team. If he needed backup, she would be right there to provide it. Joule might yell that he didn't have a girlfriend but the man was just sailing on that Egyptian river there. He might not think they were an item but she sure did. And she wasn't the kind of girl to let him go out to get shot at without being right at his back, blowing would-be Yzak killers to small bits.

 

All this put Kira Yamato in the market for a Gundam and a pair of superior mobile suits not quite that good. It was beginning to look like he was going to have to hack every computer in the entire ZAFT to get any information though. Then he found a fascinating file from the last war.

 

Wow, they'd really had some wild plans for adapting designs based off the four Gundams they'd stolen from Heliopolis. He paged through them, noting that there was a designer or two who needed a lot less imagination and a lot more time in a mobile suit's cockpit before they let him near a drawing board again. Hands that would drop down so a cannon could be mounted in the forearm? Had the idiot who came up with that one stopped to realize that there wasn't time in combat to go through all those steps to make it work? And where did they think the control lines for that flopping hand were going to go if they put the silly cannon in there? A beam rifle was rated for more power too. Talk about a waste!

 

But not all of the designs were bad. There was one for a Command Duel that looked pretty good in fact. Four 75mm Igelstellung mounted as point defense on the sides of the head. Two beam sabers, stored over the shoulders in the permanently mounted Aile pack that gave it atmospheric flight ability. An anti-beam shield and a fairly heavy beam rifle as standard equipment and, he grinned, a pair of Armor Schneider combat knives in leg mounted sheaths. It came with an exceptionally powerful sensor suite and the full set of command communications equipment. Give this a modern reactor power source, n-jammer canceller, up to date versions of the weapons, and phase shift armor and it would be in the Gundam class; especially with the kind of maneuverability possible with the thruster power a nuke would give it. And a command suit would be perfect for Yzak.

 

It was a good looking design too with sleek, clean lines, two eyes, no spikes sticking out at odd angles or heavy head fins, none of which factors would hurt the image part of its job at all. He gave that aspect a careful study too. Yeah, put this next to Strike-Freedom and you had the leader with his powerful subordinate beside him. That was exactly the picture he wanted. Now, had this design ever gotten off the drawing boards?

 

Yes! There were two of them in fact. Unfortunately, neither was completed but if they were going to modernize the equipment, that wasn't necessarily bad. The more finished of the two could probably be updated and completed in a couple weeks.

 

Kira sat back and considered this carefully. But no matter how he looked at it, it was justifiable. So, for the first time, he exercised the power his office gave him. He cut orders to move both incomplete suits to Armory One. And he cut other sets for the shops there detailing what he wanted installed in the one. The other would be prepped for a backup unit but left incomplete until it was needed. It would be easier to get upgrades into it that way.

 

One problem solved. He went on to see if he could find a solution to the other half of his mobile suit needs. In fact, he was beginning to think maybe FAITH should have a small, very high powered mobile suit Team of its own. The pilots wouldn't need to be actual members of FAITH, but he'd like them all to be of Elite redcoat caliber. To have such a tactical group that could react at a moment's notice, able to bring serious firepower to bear quickly; that would be worth considering. Maybe he wasn't looking for just two more suits at all.

 

* * * * * * *

 

“Dean Koudelka, thank you for taking the time to see me.” Lacus said graciously as she shook the older woman's hand.

 

“I should thank you Madam Chairman for being willing to let me come by on next to no notice.” She smiled, a gesture that felt sincere to Lacus.

 

She swept the Dean to the small side table in the corner of the office by the window and ordered tea and snacks. They managed to find small things to talk about until the food and beverage had arrived and the staff had left the room. Even then, Lacus held the discussion to light things until she'd managed to get some food into herself. The schedule she was keeping was seriously interfering with organized meals. Considering the item Kira and Yzak had dropped on the Dean's desk the other day, well she just didn't want to face alien data on an empty stomach.

 

Things could only be put off so long though so when she was beginning to feel like her blood sugar levels were coming back to normal, she set her teacup down to simply smile at the ranking academician of the PLANTs. Svetlana Koudelka put her cup down as well. But she had no answering smile for the younger woman.

 

“It is a detect of some kind.” The Dean just jumped straight into the subject. “And it was hand built. It is both amazingly sophisticated and sometimes almost crude. They are ahead of us in places, equal if different in most, and behind in an odd few. I do not see how a culture with this mix produced the ability to pierce the barriers of space-time.”

 

Lacus considered the information quietly. “Kira remarked that what he saw on the recording suggested a splinter group of some kind to him. That they seemed to be overall poorly supplied. Yet they had those disturbingly capable looking mobile suits with them. He suggested a rogue genius.”

 

Koudelka nodded. “Yes, that would go well with what little we know. Such a genius would explain a great deal. However, his presence is not provable at this time. All we have is a single piece of equipment, and while it is a fascinating unit, it does not speak of genius in its makeup. This detect Commander Joule found is intended for what can only be considered standard uses. It is not part of the equipment that created the breach in the barriers. Our examination suggests it was intended to provide them with warning of activity by our security equipment. If so, its use tells me they know little of our systems as of yet. It is heavily biased to detect activity in the radio frequencies. It is not set up to even be able to recognize a laser pulse scanning system. As I said, they are oddly behind in a few places. The range and sensitivity it has for the radio frequencies though indicates they are remarkably sophisticated in how they use them. We discovered the pulse laser systems long before we ever developed the radio systems to anything approaching this level.”

 

She smiled a bit grimly. “In fact, if we put a detect of ours geared for a similar degree of information gathering into one of their warehouses, it would be as blind against their radio based systems as theirs was to our laser ones.”

 

That was not something she'd wanted to hear. It wasn't surprising though. They had to think differently in some areas after all, they simply weren't the same kind of people she'd grown up around. They came from some unimaginably different place that just happened to have too many similarities to be comfortable.

 

“Can we use this to make equipment that will recognize theirs?” Security, it was coming back to security again.

 

“I believe we can.” Svetlana Koudelka replied seriously. “Our initial efforts will be crude of necessity until we have an opportunity to actually use them against their equipment to see what does and what does not work. But crude or not, with this unit to give us the knowledge of where to look for their systems, yes, I can provide a basic detection counter-probe in a few days.”

 

The Dean smiled grimly. “What I can not do is provide sure knowledge of where to use it. I do not think they will be returning to that warehouse. They took what they needed; there is nothing to draw them back there.”

 

Lacus could only nod in unhappy agreement. They had taken just six n-jammer cancellers, stacked neatly on those two pallets. If they needed more, they would have had another pallet loaded. She had gained the impression from the look of almost relief on that unattractive man's face just as the `hole' collapsed that he was not sorry he wouldn't have to return.

 

So, time to move on to the next issue. “You told me you had designed a program to give you some suggestions for what you think we can expect from these aliens. Where are you with that project?”

 

The older woman sighed. “Unfortunately, I find myself in agreement with Commander Yamato's assessment. They are a splinter group. I can not tell you if they are a rebel group or a survivor of a fallen legitimate state but their level of supply, the degree of desperation it would require to even think of doing what they did, those make it impossible for me to draw any other conclusion. I must also agree that there should be a concern over the possibility they could open that `hole' wide enough to put those machines across it. They strike me as being in hiding. And if you must hide, in another space-time is probably the last place your enemy is going to be looking for you.”

 

Koudelka picked up her tea and took a thoughtful sip before putting it back down with an oddly decisive air. “I will tell you something else, something my programs have not said. I believe if they do come, they will be trying to stay out of our sight as well. I do not think they would be the leading edge of any attack.”

 

Lacus tipped her head. That was interesting. And not something she'd gone far enough in her own considerations of the issue to think of yet.

 

“Why do you think this?”

 

“Because there are too few mobile suits involved.” Dean Koudelka replied simply.

 

Lacus blinked. Too few? How many did one need? Especially, how many Gundams did one need to start serious trouble? When she considered what Kira could accomplish with the Strike-Freedom alone, the thought of more Gundams with unknown levels of ability was enough to have given her nightmares since she'd first seen that recording.

 

“I see you do not follow my reasoning.” Svetlana gave her another of those grim little smiles. “They stole six units. That, combined with the fact that they appear to be an undersupplied group, tells me they should have between five and six of those mobile suits. I would lean towards five. It would have allowed them to have a spare unit to take apart for study while leaving them enough to fully equip their machines. Five mobile suits, no matter how powerful, are not enough for an invasion.”

 

“Five in the Gundam class would be a deadly threat.” Lacus replied.

 

“The what class?” The Dean was puzzled.

 

“The term is Commander Yamato's, an acronym he came up with using the first letters from the title of the operating system in the original Strike. He and I both use it to describe unique, prototype mobile suits of unusual power that are not intended for mass production. Usually, these machines are unique enough to have their own names, like the Strike, Justice, Impulse, Destiny and, of course, his Strike-Freedom.”

 

The academician nodded, readily grasping the concept presented. “I see. And yes, there are some disturbing similarities between the units you named and the three machines we can see. For one, they also look purpose built. They clearly had different designers with different visions of how these weapons should be used and what they would need to fight effectively. Yet they are all from the same design `family'. That their `family' so strongly resembles ours suggests a disquieting parallel of rationale in their construction.”

 

“They looked almost new.” Lacus mused, not realizing she was speaking aloud. “There were odd points where things looked worn or even repaired but the whole effect was that they were new.”

 

“New,” Svetlana agreed thoughtfully, “or entirely rebuilt.”

 

“I suppose it would be wistful thinking in the extreme to hope they were recreations of historic artifacts.” Lacus managed a small smile.

 

Dean Koudelka simply smiled back and shook her head. “Wonderful thought. Somehow though, I doubt simple historic recreations would need n-jammer cancellers from another space-time to be authentic.”

 

She sighed. “Point taken.”

 

“I do agree though that they may be recreations of older weapons.” Svetlana told her calmly. “This is something a splinter group could well be forced to by its limitations. If they had parts of those machines, from a battlefield or even a museum, it would be easier to rebuild the past than create anew. And it would explain the odd scratched plates and small dents we see on them.”

 

“None of which, as Commander Waltfeld pointed out, show up on parts in service-critical areas.” Lacus noted. “If they are recreations, they look to be very usable ones.”

 

“Quite.” The Dean agreed dryly.

 

With a small frown, Lacus eyed the other. “If you were an alien with a powerful mobile suit who had enemies dangerous enough to force you to flee your own space-time, where would you go in this new one to hide? You mentioned you could build detects to locate their kinds of equipment. Now I need to have an idea where to put them once they are available.”

 

“I say again, I do not know where to look. However, if you are going to hide units like that there are three prime locations.” Svetlana replied briskly. “I will say this because I've already asked several senior ZAFT officers where they'd put a team they seriously needed to hide. They suggest one of the quasi stable points in the Debris Belt, any of the abandoned moon bases that have working reactors without radiation leaks, or the abandoned colonies of L-4, a fair number of which still have working life support. They preferred the Debris Belt on the whole. However, they know it and visitors from a different dimension won't. I would suggest expending any vigilance efforts on the moon and the colonies. If I were a stranger, I doubt I'd want to get into that dangerously unstable tumble of space and combat wrack that make up the Belt.”

 

Lacus nodded in agreement. “Not to mention which, a base in the Belt that used radio based technology for security would be relatively easy for both the military and civil scanners on Earth to pick up. The Belt surrounds the planet, everything down there has to pierce it to `look' into free space. They know every power source in it. A new one would bring the Alliance or Aube up to investigate very quickly. If they're smart enough to be able to come here and experienced enough with war to be building mobile suits, they should have the brains to stay away from the planet.”

 

“I would.” Koudelka shrugged.

 

“How soon could you have a supply of those counter-detects ready?” The Chair of the Supreme Council asked. “I want eyes out as soon as we can get them in place. If they tell us nothing, so be it. But I can not in good consciousness fail to at least watch for so possible a danger.”

 

She shuddered. “Did you look at the weapon in the rack beside the winged unit? Something that size could be as powerful as a hyper-impulse cannon. And it is a double barreled weapon. I've seen weapons that size fired by mobile suits, the destruction they can cause is nothing to ignore.”

 

“I saw it. I've seen weapons of that class in use myself.” The Dean agreed as she picked up her cup and drained it. “I can have the first ones ready in a week. They will be slow coming out if we have to build them in the lab ourselves but I take it you do not want any hint of these strangers getting out?”

 

“There are already too many rumors. They must stay rumors, and fantastic rumors at that! I've already spoken to an individual I trust to help design new rumors that will make the whole story sound, as she put it, like the results of a sneak peak in a forbidden lab after a drinking binge. We can not stop rumor, we can make it sound foolish though.”

 

The academician smiled grimly. “Good thought. There is nothing like ridicule to kill a story. I will have a half dozen units by the middle of next week. Who should I deliver them to?”

 

“Take them to FAITH Headquarters. I'll warn Commander Joule to expect them. He and Commander Yamato can decide where they'll be most effective and they can arrange for having them placed.”

 

“Oh,” Lacus added thoughtfully, “considering where we're going to be putting these, an ability to pick up more familiar signals as well might not be a bad idea. Both the moon and L-4 would make good hiding places for local troublemakers too. It seems a waste to put out probes for an unknown enemy and ignore the known ones.”

 

Dean Koudelka frowned. “That will force an increase in size you know. And the larger the probe, the more readily it is found by those it is set to watch for.”

 

The younger woman nodded. “I understand. But it is a risk we should take.”

 

“Very well. It will take a bit longer to get them to you, a day or so, but if we are going to do this then there are standard units I can adapt. I will be able to get more of them ready in the first group if I am simply adding the extra circuits to units already built. Make it late next week and you should expect a dozen units. More might be ready but I know we can get those done and I will not promise others until I am sure of delivery.”

 

“It will be a solid start.”

 

They chatted a bit longer, mostly about the rising danger of pirates, but the meeting was essentially over. Dean Koudelka was forthright enough to give Lacus confidence she would be able to produce the probes and deliver them in the promised timeframe. What she could not do of course, was promise they'd find anything. That would depend on the behavior of others, recognized enemies and the new strangers both. Personally, Lacus would be delighted if they never had anything out there to find.

 

* * * * * * *

 

“Fuck you! He's your enemy too. I'm not risking my people and ships for no reward!”

 

Commander Hannam just sat and listened to the arguments going around the table. They'd been at this for close to three hours now. It was going better than he'd expected.

 

George Napci, Captain of the Saucy Annie, was leading the arguments. Well perhaps it would be more honest to say he was keeping them going with his belligerent attitude. His was the largest of the pirate groups sitting at the table today; he was getting the attention his seven ships deserved. Unfortunately for him, Napci was not a particularly smart man. The real brains of grandiosely named `Brotherhood of the Red Swords' was his first officer. And Carter wasn't here to keep his Captain's mouth in check. Without Carter, Napci made enemies every time he opened his mouth. He was working overtime at it today.

 

Claude Boothe of the Siegfried on the other hand was sitting back and letting the arguments roll on around him. His five ships put him solidly second to Napci in numbers but he was individually the smarter. He wasn't lucky enough to have a Joe Carter for a first officer though and was over-proud to boot. It made it possible to sucker him into agreements he shouldn't make; not easy mind you but very possible. His loud, ill considered, declaration in the opening minutes of the meeting that he'd kill Yamato for free, while nothing he hadn't said before, had thrown the entire group into this uproar they were still snarled in.

 

“You do not consider being rid of Yamato a reward?” Albert managed not to smirk at the cutting condescension in his sister's voice. “We will be giving him to you on a plate! You will know exactly what strength he travels with, his ship's flight plan, what mobile suits are with them, who the pilots are, everything you need to set up the ambush. It isn't your agent who managed to get this kind of data! Do you think it was free? Our money is buying you information. You can either go in with us or stay out. But there will be nothing more. The cost is already bitterly high. The days when we had the resources of LOGOS to fall back on are gone!”

 

“I don't work for free!” Napci snarled again.

 

“Shut up and leave then.” Dieter Ruhde ordered bluntly. “If you don't want to be part of this, then do as the bitch says and get out! I'm tired of listening to you repeat yourself. I want a shot at the damn space monster and I want to hear the details of how I can get it. Listening to you break wind isn't telling me a damn thing.”

 

Hannam leaned forward, intent on controlling this before one of these hotheads started a feud that would tear their forces apart. “Captain Ruhde, please, Captain Napci is entitled to voice his opinion.”

 

“Yes, we agreed to that.” The Captain of the Ice Dragon nodded. “But we didn't agree to waste three hours while anyone repeated themselves until we all puked. And I'm about to. I want your data. I want to be out killing those filthy lab rats! Me and my crews have no time to squander on listening to him make mouth-farts.”

 

“Why you . . . !”

 

“Enough!”

 

They all turned to Ellie Terasawa, the only woman ship Captain in the group. Hard black eyes glared around the table and men older and larger shifted ever so slightly away. She had a reputation as a mad-dog killer, one Albert Hannam knew was deserved. Everyone was supposed to be unarmed but he didn't believe they'd really managed to fully disarm anyone here and Terasawa probably had kept more weapons than anyone else. When she started snarling in that voice, it paid to listen. Not even Crystal wanted to fight with her. And anyone his sister backed away from was deadly indeed.

 

“I am not willing to listen to this any longer. We have a deal with these Blue Cosmos people. They pay us and we kill their enemies. Simple deal. A good deal. Payment's never been just money. This time its data.” She glared around again. “Or will one of you sorry bastards try to tell me you could come up with this kind of intel on your own?”

 

“No,” Claude said bluntly. “But good as it is, it won't power my ships. I need fuel. Hell, we all do. Losing that last convoy hurt, damnit!”

 

Commander Hannam watched as the black eyes swung back to him and the woman snapped. “Well, you got any comment?”

 

“I will concede it does no good to plan an ambush if the ships can't get there in time.” He looked around the table grimly. “You're all fortunate that I managed to intercept that shipment when Boothe and Soderheim missed. I am willing to put a full fuel load on any ship taking part in the attack. But that's all I can supply right now. Our enemies have been more alert recently; I haven't had all that much more success in acquiring war materials than you.”

 

“Fine.” The bitter woman stared fiercely at Napci until the big man was nearly squirming. “Do I hear anyone who's got any argument any more?”

 

The silence was deafening. “Then we have a deal. Full fuel, complete intel. We kill Yamato and whatever we scavenge is ours.”

 

Commander Hannam frowned slightly. She'd tacked that last on with an air of defiance. Normally, he'd not accept anything like this. At the moment though, Terasawa was putting her fellow pirates on the spot. It was worth it to let her be the one who forced their hands. So he nodded slowly.

 

“I will agree to that.” Albert made sure he made eye contact with each of the ship-masters at the table to assure they were going to take the bargain. “The only thing I want back is proof of Yamato's death. If one of you takes the Strike-Freedom, I want to see it. That's all, just see it. Up close so I can satisfy myself that he is gone.”

 

“I can live with that.” Ruhde said coldly. “Hell, if I take it I'll even let you check out the cockpit.”

 

Terasawa grinned like a starving shark. “Same deal. You can climb all over it. But it doesn't leave my ship.”

 

“Acceptable.” Hannam agreed calmly, knowing he had no means of forcing any of them to hand over the mobile suit anyway.

 

“All right,” Boothe hissed. “Count me in.”

 

They all turned to Napci. The infuriated man stared back. No one flinched. It took almost five minutes of silence and grim glaring before he finally shrugged.

 

“All right. Full fuel, intel, and scavenging rights.”

 

“And?” Terasawa asked, voice so empty it chilled Hannam to the bone.

 

“This overblown sod can verify the bastard's dead if I pick up that mobile suit.” Napci said it like someone was pulling his teeth with pliers but he'd committed out loud and with witnesses, it was good enough.

 

The woman turned to him and Commander Hannam nodded graciously. “We have a deal.”

 

There, he'd just committed them all. He instantly began to outline what they had at the moment. It wasn't the intel promised because many of those decisions hadn't been made yet. The pirates all understood that, they were familiar with evolving situations. They listened and began to ask the intelligent questions of reasonable fleet leaders.

 

When they'd beaten the Yamato ambush into the ground for the time being, Hannam turned them to other targets. The money from De Groot had arrived on schedule, he had more than enough fuel to be able to offer them some extra to keep them working on all available enemy lines of communication. Targets were discussed, argued over, and eventually assigned where he wanted them to go in the first place. After all, even the most stubborn among them could see it made more sense to send the Red Swords seven ships after the three ZAFT Nazca's patrolling the dark side of the moon than it did to send Terasawa and her three ships out for a close to even fight.

 

He needed her elsewhere anyway. She had helmsmen skilled enough to slip through the dangerous space around the L-4 colonies to get them current information on the state of that space and the condition of the three colonies he was considering for the ambush point. When he promised her a chance to pick off a civilian supply transport from Aube, she jumped at the job.

 

The smaller targets he offered Boothe and Ruhde were readily accepted. They weren't spectacular but they were opportunities for loot and reputation enhancement. Both smaller fleets were actively recruiting among the human detritus left by the war. Among such men, reputation mattered. They could only attract the skills they needed if they had something to offer in return.

 

Assignments set, the meeting broke up. He escorted the four leaders to the hanger and saw them safely off his own deck. Once their ships had put significant distance between them, he had his own helm head for their closest space base, one of only two they had left and not something he wanted his current `allies' to be able to find. Now they were down to waiting for the intelligence data to make the final plans. Marcia had better have something for them soon. Those damn pirates wouldn't wait long. If he couldn't feed them the Coordinator, they'd come looking for other, more immediate, gain.

 

* * * * * * *

 

G grunted softly with the effort. This damn handtruck took too much muscle to operate. But it was all they had that would lift the pallets of supplies onto the handy racks in these storage rooms. The only really good one J had was too big for this tight space. He got the loaded pallet into position and set it down carefully. There! That was the last one in this batch. And this batch was the last of the food.

 

He trundled the handtruck out of the room and left it in the hall. A couple steps brought G back to the storage room doorway to eye the neatly stacked supplies. There was enough here for the boys and their company for six months, even allowing for Maxwell's still remarkable appetite. And he knew Quatre Winner would have more on that antique barge of a shuttle of his. Probably of better quality too as the boy didn't settle for second best if he could avoid it any more.

 

He turned back and pushed the handtruck out into the hanger to see what J had managed to move across for him now. It was spare parts for the mobile suits this time. G shook his head. This was going too slowly. Unfortunately, there was nothing they could do to speed it up. He'd come out of that explosion aboard the Peacemillion with nothing more than a few cuts and that bullet in his shoulder Quinze had put there. Time and a bit of doctoring had fixed that.

 

J on the other hand had been a wreck. Explosive damage aside, and he'd been almost as lucky there as G had, the engines had gone up with a surprising amount of electro-magnetic interference. J's bionic arm, leg and eyes had not reacted well to that. He'd been breathing but not much else when G had pulled him out from under that pile of scrap.

 

He'd had to discard the arm immediately. The feedback from the scrambled electronics in it was a threat to J's already unstable heart. One of the oculars had fallen off its mounting as well. He'd left that too. It was amusing in retrospect to know that finding both those items had been enough to get J declared dead. He himself was just thought to have been blown into so many tiny pieces that there was nothing left to find. Odd that they should make that assumption when they'd found enough of O, H and S to make positive identifications. But then, they'd made the same decision about that fool Quinze too.

 

G stopped his mental ramble at that thought, quite suddenly oddly uneasy. He and J had come through that incredible explosion. Quinze had been further down the gangplank than they were. Could he have survived as well? The idea had never occurred to him before and it gave him an instant stomach ache when it came to him now. The man thought they were crazy! He was the one who had still been trying to write his bloody eulogy for the first Heero Yuy by slamming the Libra and Peacemillion down onto the planet to assure it was rendered unfit for human habitation! The fact that the first Yuy would have been absolutely horrified by it hadn't ever seemed to dawn on Quinze.

 

The old scientist glanced across the open portal thoughtfully. J was lining up two more pallets to shove over. His new prosthetic arm, physically weaker but more useful than the old one, maintained a solid four claw grip on the large handtruck's controls while his real hand input the lift requirements to get this load through the portal. At least he could pick up small objects with the new hand. Those pads on the old one had a terrific grip but they couldn't deal with small or very flat items. G made a mental note to himself to discuss Quinze with J when he got back.

In the mean time though, there were a couple items he wanted on this side before someone he could name decided to renege on that promise.

 

“J!” He yelled, knowing the other could hear him perfectly clearly with the portal open like this. “Put those down and get the reserve returns! I'm not moving another damn pallet until they're over here! In fact, I'll push back anything you shove over here that isn't a return unit! They were supposed to have been in the line before the last of the food. I've been as patient about this as I'm going to.”

 

J gave him an expressionless stare, which pissed him off. “Do it! Or I'll tell Heero that you weren't going to provide them with a backup unit to get their Gundams home! Considering the issues he has with you already, do you want him to know about that too?”

 

“Those are the only . . .”

 

“I know they're the only reserves! We've been over this a dozen times. What the hell good are they going to do anyone on our side of the portal? We aren't the ones who'll need to be bringing those machines back! And yes, I do remember a machine or two of yours that didn't work on the first try! Get me those backups!”

 

He hadn't wanted to bring young Yuy's name into it but damn it, J was being such a stubborn ass about this. They could build a third return if they needed to. But if they needed the Gundams back unexpectedly and the single return on this side didn't work, well that would be lovely wouldn't it? Besides, both the backup units had higher ratings. The one here now was set up to - in theory since there'd been no way to test it - hold the portal open for a mass three times greater than all five Gundams put together. The backups were set up for five times the group's mass.

 

The real reason though was because he'd had a chance to run his own tests on both backups. He had a lot more confidence in them than he did the main unit. But he wasn't going to say that to J. They needed to work together on this, not go off in temperamental snits. It was a relief to see the other pull the heavy handtruck back and head for the neatly palleted returns. Apparently he hadn't taken his irritation too seriously.

 

It was the next item across. G put the heavy pallet beside the main return without comment. Nor did he argue with J about the order in which he sent anything else across. He just moved and stacked until he was exhausted. Then he left the smaller lift unit parked neatly beside the last pallet through the portal and, when J reversed the fields, used one of the small returns for personnel and went home. The boys would be here no later than tomorrow evening. They could move the last of the supplies themselves.

 

* * * * * * *

 

“Is she asleep?” Duo asked quietly as Quatre and Noin joined the rest of them in the opulent lounge.

 

“Yes.” Quatre replied wearily. “It took a sleeping pill and two cups of that special tea of Wu Fei's but she's finally asleep. And it doesn't look like she's going to have nightmares either.”

 

“It's too early to be sure of that.” Wu Fei cautioned. “The tea is very effective but it is not infallible. Whether or not she dreams will depend on factors we can not control.”

 

“Rashid is sitting with her.” Noin said her own weariness showing in her voice. “He'll let us know if there are any problems.”

 

“She shouldn't be sleeping alone.” Heero said grimly. “She should be sharing a room with someone for a bit. She has no training for coping with war. The only battle she was part of was over too quickly for her to really understand what was happening. Besides, she was seriously wounded that time. It took her attention off what was going on around her.”

 

“I gotta agree with `Ro on this one.” Duo nodded. “But I don't know who to put her in with. I don't think any of us would be real good choices. We're all pretty much back in combat mode ourselves now. If she touched one of us wrong when we were dreaming ourselves, things could be real bad.”

 

“It will have to be me.” Relena said. “We get along now and she knows she can trust me. Besides, that suite of mine has a spare bed in it. I know Dorothy was supposed to share with me but it might be better if she and Mariemaia traded.”

 

“Or we could all three share the suite.” Dorothy pointed out calmly. “It isn't like there was no space in it. Someone may have forgotten to put my name on the door but it still has two bedrooms. If you and Mariemaia take the one with the two queens, I can take the other and then there will be two of us to keep her company.”

 

“That's a good answer.” Zechs remarked. “We could leave the adjoining room door unlocked as well. If you needed us, Noin or I could respond immediately that way.”

 

He looked at his wife. “Is this acceptable to you?”

 

“It's a very good idea.” She nodded.

 

“Then that's what we will do.” Relena smiled happily.

 

“All right, one problem solved.” Duo grinned too.

 

“We'll move her into the your suite when we get ready for bed ourselves.” Noin said, settling the issue before it could come up.

 

“So, Heero, what did you want to discuss?” Relena asked.

 

“Oh,” Duo muttered, “bigger issues here.”

 

“Excuse me?” Dorothy had one eyebrow up almost to her hairline at the wary tone of his voice.

 

“Ignore Maxwell.” Heero said quietly. “There is no good way to approach this. I've got my computer set up. Please read the report open on it. We can discuss the issue from there.”

 

Relena gave him an odd look. It was not like Heero Yuy to duck away from any problem. But he was looking out the port into space instead of meeting anyone's eyes this time. She didn't waste any time trying to argue with this strange attitude. If it upset him this badly, she just wanted to know about it. By moving first, she got the chair. Her brother, Noin and Dorothy were all compelled to read over her shoulder.

 

She was intelligent and well educated but even so, she had to read the thing twice before what it was saying sank in. Considering none of the others had moved when she went back to the top and started over, she wasn't the only one having problems with it. She stared at it when she reached the end again, beginning to recognize the feeling in her chest was fury. This, this was obscene! Their excuse was baseless!

 

“Those bastards.” Zechs breathed in her ear, his rising anger a solid reflection of her own.

 

“You don't do things like that to people!” Noin yelled, breaking the near paralysis they'd all been in.

 

“We were weapons, not people.” Heero said flatly.

 

“I'm going to kill J.” Zechs remarked with the kind of casual calm any soldier would recognize as a cover for blind rage.

 

“It wasn't his idea.” Quatre pointed out gently. “Ultimately, it was Dekim Barton's decision. Since he held the purse strings, they did what they were told to do. I understand this, I control a great deal of money too. I could do the same thing as easily as he did.”

 

He smiled, very grimly, an expression utterly out of place on his face. “If I were ever to sink that low however, I would try to use better science.”

“So,” Zechs was fast slipping back into the Lighting Count, his voice going oddly precise and very even. “What exactly does this mean in the real world?”

 

“It means we are unable to look past this. I tried. I discovered this almost two years ago. I've made a number of attempts to accept sex from others outside the team. They were all failures. Rather embarrassing failures if you must know.” Heero addressed the viewport coldly, refusing to look at anyone. “And once we were back together, it was not possible to refuse to act on the push either.”

 

“I . . . . . . see.” Zechs said quietly.

 

“No, I don't think you do.” Trowa suddenly spoke up from the corner where he'd been sitting so silently. “Think about this Colonel. After all, Epyon was a Gundam. You're a Gundam pilot too.”

 

“What are you saying?”

 

“We will keep to ourselves.” Wu Fei told him bluntly. “But we all recognize you as one of us. The lucky one, who did not suffer this humiliating abuse.”

 

“This makes no sense.” Dorothy snapped. “Even if one grants it was possible to do it, it's a brain chemistry thing. How could it last this long? It should have been temporary, short term temporary at that.”

 

It was Quatre who finally spoke up when the silence stretched too long. “I suspect an implant.”

 

“An implant? One that's lasted six years?” Dorothy snarled. “What kind of idiot do you take me for?”

 

“I don't think you're any kind of idiot.” Quatre replied. “I simply note that I found a reference to research being done in Russia six years before Operation Meteor on long term hormonal implants. The concept was to insert a small device that would keep whatever changed hormonal balance was desired going by directly inserting the activation proteins into the desired location. It would only act when the desired hormonal levels reached some trigger level. If it worked, a small supply could keep things altered for up to a decade. It was intended to help with depressions induced by chemical imbalances in the brain. The one paper I found did not say it had ever been perfected. Since we weren't supposed to live three months, I doubt Dekim Barton would have cared if it was a proven technology or not.”

 

“They were putting these things in people's heads?” Relena stared at him, aghast.

 

“No, they were still using rats in the paper I read. But I doubt that would have inconvenienced Barton if he found out about it. Please note, when you get the time to read them, all of those documents Heero has clearly show that old Barton was the one making the decisions on this kind of thing. This is one of the major reasons I suspect the implants. I found that paper in among other records recovered from his home and office.”

 

“You might have said something to the rest of us.” Duo growled.

 

“I intended to. But then we started moving about and it was largely pushed out of my mind. Besides, there isn't anything we can do about it even if that is the problem.”

 

Relena slipped out of the chair by Heero's computer and went to find an isolated place to sit and think. She found a small alcove too obviously designed for a close couple and took it over. But once there, her mind refused to cooperate. It would not consider the information. It would not examine the present or consider the future. All it would do was replay those hours aboard the Libra and Peacemillion, when Heero had come to get her away from the danger of the battle about to be fought.

 

She could remember the tone of his voice then. And the odd, somewhat baffled look in his eyes when she caught him watching her. He honestly didn't know how to behave back then. He was just beginning to open back up to his feelings and they confused the life out of him.

 

She'd had no doubts at that time. He was the boy she'd wanted to marry. Doubts were something that had come with time. Time to learn more about him, to understand how very, very differently they'd both grown up and to recognize that the effects of those upbringings were not just going to go away.

 

So for a year they'd been friends. He'd vanish somewhere only to reappear when she really, really needed him. They would talk for a bit, and he would be gone again. She would go back to her office recharged and once more able to pick up the burden she'd agreed to assume when she's accepted the office of Vice Foreign Minister.

 

Then the Mariemaia Incident happened. Once again Heero and the others had responded. And they managed to save the world for a second time in a year. But that fight did something to him. She didn't know what it was but he'd managed to warn her that he was going away. She hadn't wanted to hear it. Or believe it. But he'd gone. And he'd stayed gone for almost three years.

 

With a small shock, Relena suddenly realized she didn't know this young man with Heero Yuy's face. The boy she'd been so attracted to was gone. This long-haired stranger was wearing the body now.

 

“Where did you go Heero? Who is this person who's come back?” She whispered.

 

 

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