Crossover Fan Fiction / Gundam SEED Fan Fiction / Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Crossing Barriers ❯ Of Mobile Suits and War ( Chapter 11 )

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

 

 

Of Mobile Suits and War

 

Sally Po sat at the controls of a mobile suit carrier plane waiting for permission to take off from Singapore Air and Space Port. She hadn't intended to fly any of the equipment for Ly's group in herself but the pilot she'd intended to send had gone swimming in the local waters yesterday and cut his foot on coral. Unfortunately, the wound had gone septic within hours as coral cuts sometimes did, especially cuts that happened off major harbors where pollution was still a problem.

 

So here she was, waiting with what patience she could muster for her turn to come up. And while a good many people still looked askance at the old planes, the many new uses the Preventers had put them to had made them common enough to cause no more than muttering whenever one dropped into or lifted out of a major port like Singapore. At least no one automatically assumed there were mobile suits aboard one any more. In fact, that was the last thing anyone was likely to assume would be on a carrier with Preventer markings. It did make secretly moving actual mobile suits much easier.

 

The four Serpents she had aboard were the last ones that had to be delivered. It was a small miracle. She had been able to find the necessary assets to set up the mobile suit training facility in India and China, close enough to the hidden base to get them onsite in only forty-eight hours. The first team there had made another stunning discovery. The place had been left fully stocked. Everything from boots to Band-Aids, insect repellent to rations and everything in between was still there. Most of it was still good too. All she had to do was send in the people and the mobile suits. So she had.

 

Her turn eventually arrived and Sally roared off into the slowly darkening sky. Officially, she was taking supplies to a small base the Preventers maintained up on the Tibetan Plateau to keep an eye on smuggling of all kinds that used the rugged Himalayan Mountains as cover, route, and sometimes, point of supply. And she did have materials for the base aboard. It was just that there was going to be this short stop before she got there that she'd neglected to mention when she'd filed her flight plan.

 

She'd really rather have done this by daylight. A co-pilot wouldn't have come amiss either. But the surveillance satellite system was slowly being rebuilt and unfortunately, this part of the world now had uncomfortably thorough coverage by day and no backup pilot in the area had been cleared by security yet. Both of the known trustworthy men from Singapore had already been sent to the base. So she got to fly the fabled `Hump' alone, in the dark. Lucky her.

 

Cruising altitude was going to be 37,000 ft. and she wasted no time climbing to it. Mt. Everest was just over 29,000, this gave her a safety margin of 8000 feet if she were to stray so far off course as to cross the highest peak on the planet. Considering that she wasn't supposed to come within three hundred miles of it, she didn't expect to hit anything up here. Reaching cruising altitude also let her set the autopilot, saving her own strength and stamina for the landing and takeoff she'd be making an a few hours.

 

The plane was crossing into Tibetan airspace when the high-security comm crackled to life. “Colonel Po, do you read me?”

 

Sally sat up with a sharp jerk. That was Une! She grabbed the mike for the special comm from its hook on the co-pilot's side of the cockpit and replied.

 

“Po here. I read you General.”

 

“Sally, L-2 has revolted. They have declared independence and announced the arrest of all `foreign' agents. The Preventer station is under siege at this time. No shots fired yet but given the nature of the demands, they will be if our people can't get out of there.”

 

“I take it something is blocking the dock entry?”

 

“A pair of loaded civilian shuttles.” Une agreed in frustrated anger.

 

She nodded sharply, forgetting in her concentration that Une couldn't see her. “My advice, for whatever you want to take it for, is to get hold of that contact of Maxwell's, get everyone out of uniform, and have him sneak them out as fast as he can.”

 

“I've already done that. It will take the man several hours to get everyone out safely. I don't think we have those hours.”

 

“We get whomever we can out and deal with what happens when it happens.” Sally growled. “I'll be arriving at Plateau Base in a few hours, we can discuss this on a secure line then.”

 

“No.” Une said shortly. “The language of the revolt changed half an hour ago and now indicates the real situation is the one we've discussed. You have the fuel to reach our main station in Mongolia. Head there now. Une out.”

 

Sally set the mike back on its hanger very slowly. Her eyes were wide and her breathing was labored. Yes, she'd known it was coming, but that didn't make the actual arrival of the Crimson Dawn's so-called Rational Revolution any less jarring. She wanted to spend about twenty minutes calling them every dirty name she knew in every language she spoke. It was too bad that she didn't have the time to waste on it. She took a deep breath, exhaled violently, and forced every thought but those dedicated to survival to the back of her mind.

 

A quick hand flipped her id transponder off. That same hand toggled a switch that would toss radar countermeasures all over this part of the sky. She turned the auto-pilot off and began to carefully lose altitude until she was flying only a few hundred feet above the land below, a height barely adequate to keep her from striking one of the local peaks. Only then did she alter her heading, grateful beyond measure that she was less than an hour from the hidden base.

 

Thirty-nine minutes later, her radar gave a single ping. She stared ahead, straining to see the runway she knew would be inadequately outlined in nothing more than dim red lights. Three minutes after she'd heard the warning ping, she suddenly saw the lights materialize out of the darkness before her. Her landing instruments suddenly came alive as well, the base having activated the minimal equipment to allow her to make a radar guided landing.

 

It was a good landing, meaning she was going to walk away from it. Damn! This runway was in terrible shape given how much she'd bounced around rolling down it. But she was here now and as the main runway lights died behind her, the taxiway lights came on to guide her.

 

She rolled almost up to the face of a cliff before she turned the plane so it was tail first to the rock. The engines whined down and died. As they did, the rock behind her opened.

 

The hanger was huge and even more poorly lit than the runway. A low, flat vehicle dashed out to position itself in front of the nose wheel. It locked onto the wheel's strut and surprisingly quickly pushed the massive aircraft into the hanger. The instant it stopped, she heard and felt the thumps as ground connections were made. The phone rang seconds later.

 

“Colonel Po! It's Lieutenant Ly! Welcome Ma'am!” The young man's voice bubbled happily in her ear as she picked it up.

 

“It's good to be here Lieutenant. But I don't have time for pleasantries. I have equipment that needs to be unloaded immediately.”

 

“Yes Ma'am, I know. We have everything ready to unload the plane just as soon as you open the rear hatch.”

 

Sally reached over and activated the toggles that would let the men and machines aboard to off-load her cargo. “Hatch activated.”

 

She stepped out of the cockpit to watch as the base personnel swarmed the Serpent suits and hustled them off the plane. As the last one began to roll off, a tall man stepped around the moving mobile suit. Sally straightened, instantly recognizing an old friend. Johnny Morgan had been part of the North American branch of the Resistance during the Eve Wars. He was Colonel Morgan now, and one of the four other senior Preventer officers who Une had trusted to see the messages from J and Heero. And he didn't belong here.

 

“Hello Johnny.” She smiled to cover her confusion. “What brings you here?”

 

“Une's orders.” The handsome black man replied quietly. “I understand you were about half an hour out of Singapore when this broke. Apparently the General decided since you were already headed this way she would wait to tell you last. In the mean time, she's gotten everyone else moving. I was heading from Beijing to Lahore so she diverted me here. Saito's someplace in North America, Rojas is out in the Colonies, Bao's in China, and the General herself is going to ground someplace in Europe.”

 

“The rest of the Preventers?” Sally asked grimly.

 

“Everyone we can trust has been called into one of the safe havens. Everyone we hope we can trust has been sent to a second level haven. The rest,” The man just shook his head. “The rest are going to be putting up the good fight for us.”

 

“That's fairly disgusting.” She said unhappily.

 

“Yes it is. But if we don't save the troops we can trust first, this resistance will fall apart before it can even start. Believe me, we'll save as many as we can.”

 

“I know. That's one of the best things about the Preventers, they don't leave their own behind.” She sighed. “Has the shooting started anywhere yet?”

 

“We've lost contact with a just over half dozen small posts, three of the space bases, and a few teams aren't reporting in. We don't know if they've been fired on, turned coat, or are just keeping quiet until they can figure out what's going on and whose side they want to be on.”

 

“I see. So what do we do now?”

 

“Now? Well, now we empty this plane of everything useful, reload it with materials from the stores here that aren't usable and send it out to crash a good way from here.”

 

“What?” Sally stared at him.

 

“We have to have the plane accounted for Sally. It has to go down and burn with a cargo aboard. The pilot can bail out, they'd expect that, but the plane itself must be found. If you think about it for a minute you'll see why for yourself.”

 

She blinked, then shook her head. Of course, it was a loose end. Crimson Dawn knew she'd taken it from Singapore. They might even have intercepted the brief conversation with Une. They'd found spies planted inside the Preventers in some surprising places, she knew they hadn't found them all yet. And Colonel Sally Po would be someone the Dawn bunch would want dead. So the plane needed to be accounted for. If it wasn't, they'd start hunting for the secret base where it had vanished into hiding. And considering where she'd dropped off the radar, that would pretty much lead them right here.

 

She gave Morgan a grudging nod. He simply smiled tightly. The base personnel stripped the plane and reloaded it in a bit under forty-five minutes. Sally was in the control tower when it took off.

 

“He's going to be fine.” Colonel Morgan said before she could even ask about the pilot. “Zhou lives in Nanking. He'll break the fuel line somewhere just before the edge of the western desert and bail out. The auto-pilot should take the plane a minimum of thirty miles and could take it a couple hundred before the engine fire forces the plane out of the sky. He'll destroy the `chute when he lands and walk home.”

 

“Do his people know he's a Preventer?”

 

“They've been told he washed out in his final tests. He's been working undercover for us for a couple years.”

 

“So they don't know. Why would he go home now?” She asked.

 

Johnny shrugged. “His business partner is missing. Which is the truth by the way. The man disappeared with no notice almost two weeks ago. Zhou's been working off and on with an exceptionally talented freelancer for about a year. We've both been trying to hint to him that we'd like him on full time but he shies off. I say `him' but I'm actually not sure about that. I don't know if Kim is a very boyish girl or a very girlish boy; he can be either completely convincingly. About all I am sure of is he's probably somewhere around twenty, very skinny, quite short, and the hair is his own. But what color it really is or his eyes truly are isn't something I'd be willing to testify to.”

 

Morgan's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “And sometime, probably during the Eve Wars to judge by their age, he got cut up real bad. I only saw him once and that was a half second glimpse but he was a mess of serious scars all across his back and upper legs. It looked like he got caught in an explosion.”

 

Sally found her eyes widening. “Quiet, soft spoken, rather deep voice with a tendency towards speaking in a monotone and a great deal stronger than he looks?”

 

“You know the kid?”

 

“You got a picture of this `Kim'?”

 

Colonel Morgan fished in his pocket for his wallet. He pulled out a picture of himself and what looked like half an orphanage worth of street children, all smiling at the camera. A Buddhist monk and three nuns were with the children. So were a half dozen teens. One, kneeling between two small girls, holding them gently, was unmistakably Heero Yuy. The hair was neatly braided in Duo Maxwell's style and he was wearing male clothing. She was unsurprised when Johnny pointed straight at him and said, “That's Kim.”

 

“Yeah, I know him.” Sally smiled. “Silly idiot self-destructed his Gundam once. That's how he got so cut up. I had the devil's own time finding it and getting it back to him after Merquise repaired it.”

 

“His what?!?”

 

She looked up at her friend and grinned. “Crimson Dawn has his picture so you might as well know who he is too. After all, he may need a friend some day. Meet Heero Yuy, Gundam Oh One.”

 

* * * * * * *

 

The cargo bay was one huge, open space. Heero could see the slots in the deck below and above where heavy dividers could be mounted to cut this up into sections, sections no one had bothered with for this trip. After all, there wasn't enough cargo here to make it necessary. The two smallish sections that seemed to be permanently installed up here by the hatchway leading into the cabin spaces hadn't even been used. It had been easier to just spread the pallets out in a single layer and fasten them down.

 

He jumped over the railing, taking advantage of the very low gravity conditions that existed out here in the bay to drop leisurely to the deck. No one came out here, they had no reason to. It made a good place to `vanish' to while he let his mind work on internalizing the meeting yesterday. He'd been here for hours after it had broken up, come back after dinner, and rather suspected he might return after dinner again tonight. There was a lot to think about.

 

He landed lightly and, moving carefully to avoid bouncing over everything, worked his way into one of the dimmer corners among the pallets before he wedged himself into a reasonably comfortable position so he wouldn't accidentally move about in the low gravity, tugging the long jacket he wore against the cool of the largely empty hold into a loose and easy fit. Only then did he begin the simple breathing exercises that were the key to basic meditation. He had nothing elaborate planned here. All he wanted to do was clear and calm his conscious mind so the subconscious could work without the distracting input. He'd cleared up a lot of it already, he knew that because he was so much less nervous around Relena and the others, but he wasn't done and he wanted to be as far along as he possibly could be before he encountered J again.

 

All his years of ruthless training to control mind and body paid off here, that part of him that could not be taken off sentry duty reduced its reports to a whispery thread as all else slipped into a timeless `elsewhere'. He was aware only of peace and a dim, familiar gratitude to the cheerful Buddhist monk who had managed to get him to understand that he did have a center and he could find it. A last idle thought before all controlled thought dissipated wondered what J would make of a Heero Yuy who practiced self-control through meditation and self-acceptance instead of denial and self-suppression.

 

An unknown time later, Heero became aware of the sentry telling him he wasn't completely alone any longer. But it recognized the others present and did not report danger. He acknowledged the input and slipped back into the peace of his center. Nor did he come fully out of it when the sentry reported physical movement had begun around him. But he snapped instantly back into the here-and-now when something jarred the pallet he was using as the left side of his wedge.

 

Zechs and Duo were standing by a handtruck, forks under the pallet just beyond the one he was using, staring at him in something rather like shock. He managed not to grin. He'd come out of one of these sessions once in front of a mirror so he had an idea of what they were seeing. Only this time not only did he likely have a peaceful expression on his face, he had all this hair that had drifted around his head in the small breeze of the air circulation Quatre had going out here to keep their supplies from freezing. Had to be one real strange sight to people used to the wartime Yuy.

 

“Ah, `Ro? You ok?” Duo asked cautiously.

 

“I'm fine Duo.”

 

“I wasn't aware you practiced meditation.” Zechs said calmly.

 

“Something I learned a couple years ago.” Heero admitted as he stood with the care the gravity required. “I've found it more helpful than denying the existence of emotions.”

 

Duo's eyes widened. “What minor god got that through your solid skull?”

 

Heero gave him a look that lacked amusement. Maxwell, immune to his death glare, didn't even notice this one. Zechs had a curious eyebrow up too.

 

He shrugged and decided it was nothing that needed to be a secret. “A Buddhist monk I met in Hawaii.”

 

He looked around and realized he'd been sitting longer than he'd first thought, and that the two of them had been busy. Quatre had described the space in a `Clydesdale' as big enough to hold six Gundams stacked like logs. What he'd forgotten to mention was that you could put three of those stacks in one with room left over on all sides. The cargo aboard wasn't just for their hideaway, wherever it was. In fact most of it was for the Winner offices and shops on L4.

 

Duo and Zechs had been moving some of that Winner cargo, putting it into the permanently mounted racks near the entry hatch. Now it looked like they were dragging the supplies earmarked for the safehouse back into the vacated space. Actually, it looked like they were almost done. There were three lone pallets still sitting in the area they'd cleared by the loading hatch.

 

Heero's eyes suddenly narrowed. There were some very large cargo straps locked into place on the deck in that space now. And they were placed in a way that indicated two different items were going to be secured. His eyes abruptly widened as the area and sizes clicked. No, it wasn't possible!

 

“That took eighteen seconds.” Duo announced smugly. “You owe me fifty bucks Merquise.”

 

“Not yet I don't.” Zechs denied. “Not until we confirm what that look means.”

 

“What mobile suits are we picking up? Where have you been hiding them?” Heero snapped.

 

Zechs sighed. “All right, now I owe you fifty.”

 

Duo grinned and turned to a fuming Heero, his grin disappearing instantly. “We aren't picking up mobile suits `Ro. Well, in a way we are, but not really.”

 

“We're picking up wrecks.” Zechs spoke up before Heero could grab Duo and shake the information out of him.

 

“Wrecks? Why bother with wrecks?” Heero glared at them.

 

“Because we're gonna need mobile suits to fight with!” Duo snapped. “And since J and G aren't dead, they can fix `em for us.”

 

“That's not what I meant.” Heero sighed. “You're a salvager Duo, I'm sure you know where there are units in good condition out here. Why wrecks?”

 

“Oh, yeah, `cause all the stuff still in good shape is Oz junk. We're recovering Gundams.”

 

He looked at Zechs, who just nodded stiffly. Gundams. What Gundams? He looked at Zechs again and realized one of them had to be Epyon. He turned back to Duo.

 

“Epyon and what other Gundam? I don't remember any others being unaccounted for.”

 

“Just one.” Zechs replied staring at the far hatch but obviously seeing something very different.

 

“Heero, all the Gundams, even Mercurius and Vayeate, were either destroyed where people saw it or had enough of the pieces recovered to satisfy everyone that they were gone.” Duo said quietly. “But just before that last fight over the Libra, when Khushrenada challenged Zechs here to that duel and he said no. . . .”

 

“I fired the Libra's main cannon at him. I missed because Lady Une slammed the Wing into his Tall Geese II and knocked it out of the beam.” Zechs said harshly.

 

“Wing?” Heero stared. “Wing is the other Gundam?”

 

“Yeah.” Duo said softly. “It's pretty shot up, that main cannon of Libra's had a nasty punch, but it's fixable. And I found its buster rifle too. I've been scavenging gundanium wherever I could. I've got that stashed with the suit. Well, all but a few small boxes I still had stored at the shop. There's more than enough to repair Wing, maybe enough to fix Epyon too.”

 

“Wing.” Heero stared at nothing, no longer seeing the two standing with him or the hold of the massive shuttle he was standing in. A kaleidoscope of images tumbled through his mind. Relena, standing unafraid as he slammed the shield into the wreckage beside her, just missing her body. Duo, scornfully telling him he couldn't repair his machine without parts. The Oz shuttle, split in two, fractions of a second before it exploded when he fell into Khushrenada's trap and killed the Alliance peace faction. Relena once more, standing between himself and Duo, trying to prevent Duo from shooting him again. Tall Geese, standing back, waiting to see what he was going to do just as the self-destruct activated.

 

“Yeah, Wing.” Duo said, breaking into his tumbling thoughts and giving them a point in the here-and-now to fix on again. “It isn't what you'd customized the Wing Zero into but it's a lot better than some Virgo or Taurus would ever be.”

 

“This is why you had Quatre call J and tell him we were going to be running late.” Heero realized.

 

“Yep. It's why we suddenly had that little `thruster problem' yesterday too. We had to have an excuse to get behind some of the junk out here that will block the Preventer scanner net from seeing what we're doing. Well that and I wanted to be well away from the Lucky Dog too. I like Mike and his crew but I don't trust them. The Dog has a tendency to be lucky at the expense of others. They can't see us from here either.” Duo nodded sharply, eyes mission-keen.

 

“Rashid will be reporting the thruster issue as under control in about half an hour.” Zechs said quietly. “We'll be at the pickup point by then. I find it amusing that Maxwell and I reached the same conclusion on the ideal place to hide damaged Gundams quite independently. If we move quickly, we should be able to load in about an hour and a half. When the suits are secured down, Rashid will report the thruster as repaired and we'll head back to our intended course.”

 

“So, what ya say Hee-chan? Ya wanna help us move these last pallets?”

 

He never got a chance to answer. At that moment the hatch into the cabin spaces slammed open. Quatre came diving through.

 

“Heero! Duo! Zechs! It's started!”

 

* * * * * * *

 

They'd had a day and a half more than they'd expected to work on the hideout for the boys. G was quite pleased with the results and he knew J was pretty happy about them too. All of the supplies were over now and properly stored. He'd had a chance to check the living quarters and had found they were fully stocked. Most of the supplies were going to have to be trashed as they'd deteriorated over time but the bedding, linens and towels were all still in excellent condition.

 

This was good enough. But this morning J had had one of his more inspired brainstorms and G had found himself walking the Heavyarms across the barrier. Not only did the portal open wide enough, it held perfectly steady as that much mass crossed.

 

Moreover, having Heavyarms allowed G to reset the mobile suit bays to hold the Gundams instead of the construction suits they seemed to be set up for. Not knowing how the boys would want to use the space, and having the time to kill, he'd reset all ten of the bays. It didn't take all that long to do when you had a mobile suit with the power of a war machine to do the lifting and replacing of the heavy beaming.

 

Now four of the five Gundams were over there, resting in their new racks. Only Wing Zero remained. And he really didn't want to be the one to move it. Those stupid wings were surprisingly sturdy but they weren't sturdy enough to make him happy at the thought of what might happen if he bumped something wrong with one. Yuy would not be pleased to find someone had already broken his newly rebuilt suit. Considering just how not pleased that young man was likely to be simply because he and J weren't dead like they were supposed to be, well, it would be unwise in the extreme to add to the probable unpleasantness.

 

It was just as well that they'd gotten as much done as they had. He'd barely set the Deathscythe Hell into its new bay when J had tersely ordered him to come back immediately. L-2 had exploded into open revolt. And from what little data was getting out, it looked like they'd caught the local Preventer base by surprise and had them bottled up. J was watching the unfolding situation right now while he began the final preparations for the process of shutting down most of their systems here.

 

“G!” The shout came from their comm station.

 

He didn't quite run, for one thing the gravity was too low to make it viable. But he did move as quickly as he could. That tone indicated very, very serious trouble.

 

“What's happened?” He snapped as soon as he was close enough to make out the screen and the obviously excited news anchor on it.

 

“There's been a change of revolutionary leadership.” J shook his head. “I thought this came up too quickly. It looks like a much smaller group on L-2, the one all the attention was being diverted to for so long by the way, is the one that made the first move after all. They were the one's who took over the colony, not Crimson Dawn.”

 

“Ah, but that's a challenge the Dawn can't afford to ignore.” G noted grimly.

 

“They didn't. Now they're the `liberators' of the colony.”

 

“Ha!” G could only shake his head, unable to see any real good in the new situation. “They forced their hand then. This is going to get very ugly very quickly. Unless our sense of timing is completely gone, the Dawn isn't really ready yet. They're going to have to substitute either persuasion or immediate slaughter for the intimidation of overwhelming force they were going to present. Unless I misread them badly, they'll choose slaughter. They haven't much use for anyone who disagrees with them and somewhat less for anyone who will stand up to them.”

 

“What few pictures got out of the colony before they seized control were pretty bloody.” J agreed drily. “And one bit of video showed Dawn troops shooting prisoners. It was quite interesting in a way. I could clearly see at least two in Preventer uniforms among the men they were cutting down. All the rest seemed to be wearing that blue jacket the first group was using.”

 

G grimaced. It wasn't unexpected but there were some confirmations it would be nicer to just never have. Damn it! The boys hadn't even managed to get here before this all exploded on them. Who knew where the loyalties of the current Preventer team lay? And they had control of the local area scanners too. This was going from bad to worse quickly.

 

“Anything else I need to know?”

 

J shrugged sourly. “The leader of this so-called Rational Revolution has issued a statement. Once you strip out all the fancy verbiage, it's an order to surrender all combat capable forces at once or they will be attacked and destroyed. There are the usual twaddles about regretting possible civilian loss of life in combat zones and making sure everyone understands those people won't die if the troops have the brains to surrender.”

 

G glared at the screen. “Ah yes, the standard disclaimer of responsibility. Every would-be ruler of the universe says that just before they go out and slaughter half a city.”

 

“He was standing in front of at least five squadrons of mobile suits of a type I've never seen before when he said it.” J replied drily.

 

“Ah! Any demonstrations or just menacing looks?”

 

“Looks only.” J shook his head. “These people aren't quite stupid enough to give things away before the first battle. Ha! There! See what I mean?”

 

G turned instantly to the screen, ignoring the crowd in the foreground dressed in a wild variety of colors and large masks. He and J would analyze the speech itself later. It was the mobile suits that he needed to see right now.

 

His immediate impression was of someone going for intimidation through sheer ugliness. These things made the old Leo suits look like things of delicate beauty. They were squat and massive to the eye although he knew the place where this was being broadcast from and those suits had to be at least fifteen meters tall given where they placed against some of their surroundings. If a surface wasn't an actual ball joint, it was probably flat and met the next surface at a hard angle. They had to have a footprint at least two-thirds the size of a mobile suit mounted on a hover platform. It instantly raised questions about why they needed legs that massive. The heads were as blocky and angular as the bodies and the hands looked clumsy, something he rather doubted they actually were though.

 

The squadrons they showed the public here alternated between suits with beam rifles of some sort and those armed with double machine guns quite similar to, if larger than, those the Mariemaia Serpents carried. Each suit looked like it mounted a beam saber over the left shoulder as well while the right played host to the three discs of the Mercurius defense system. All in all, G had to allow that they made a formidable first impression.

 

Then he looked at the Mercurius system again and gave it an evil grin. “They're in for a real shock aren't they?”

 

“If that's what they're basing their primary defense on, yes they are.” J's smile was a perfect match for his.

 

“It can be useful, this business of being thought dead.”

 

“Plays holy hell with the supply channels though.” J grumped. “And we won't even go into what it's done to the financial end of all this.”

 

“I wonder when we'll be able to get a decent combat analysis of them.”

 

“We'll get it as soon as Une does. I don't know how long that line is going to stay up but the data will be invaluable as long as it lasts.”

 

G nodded, he understood the danger the woman faced and how heavily the odds favored the attackers in this case. For while the Preventers had bases and supplies scattered everywhere, the locations of almost all of those sites were public knowledge. And only a small handful of the major ones were defended by weapons capable of taking on mobile suits. If Crimson Dawn had enough of those things, they would be running the show very quickly.

 

He hissed silently in frustration. Screaming would be a better stress relief but it might shock J. He didn't need his colleague questioning his sanity at this point. As he glared around the space rather than stare at the currently triumphant enemy, a set of readouts caught his attention. He blinked, but they didn't change.

 

“J! Do we have any power issues in here?” He asked urgently, unable to believe what he was seeing.

 

“No, why, what's wrong?” The other man swung around, instantly responding to the tone of his voice.

 

“Look at the board tracking the Preventer systems!”

 

He did, and blinked. G began to realize he had a huge grin on his own face. They were down! All across the board, something had shut down every single one of the Preventer scanners in this entire sector! It didn't matter if it had been done to help or hinder the Dawn or even if it was just some kind of power failure. What counted was there would be no record of the activity of the Chariot of Fire until those systems came back online.

 

“When did this happen?” J muttered eagerly as he hurried over to the readout screens to find the time indicator that would tell them how long the scanners had been off.

 

They both looked at the time, and found something interesting. The systems had not failed at one time. No, they had been deliberately shut down by the look of this. The longer range equipment had been turned off first and each successive piece down had had a shorter range until whoever it was had apparently turned off the base perimeter grid as well. It had all been done over about a ten minute period with the very last of the systems crashing almost twenty minutes ago. So the long range equipment had been silenced for a full half hour. Where had the Chariot been?

 

Looking at their own logs showed the massive shuttle slowly coming to a relative halt near a chunk of debris about twice its own size. The logs indicated there had been a number of firings of the `damaged' thruster while they were there. All in all, it looked like they'd gotten almost dangerously close for a little over an hour before the shuttle had finally engaged all thrusters and slowly moved away. It was almost back on its planned course. The Preventer net would have the record of the near miss over by that lump of scrap and the recovery and departure.

 

He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. If they came back on in the next minute, the big shuttle would quite clearly have been holding the course it had been on when the record broke off; nothing suspicious there. And the shuttle was scheduled to use the one known working bay here to test their overhauled docking port, so that was covered. But if they stayed off-line another two hours until the Chariot could get here, then they could unload the cargo directly into the hanger next to the suit repair bay before the ship moved over to play with the docking test. All that would be necessary was for the pilot to swing a bit wide, and carefully push the load out the rear hatch. The bulk of the base would hide the activity.

 

J rigged a hasty alarm to let them know immediately if any of the mid to long range scanners were turned back on. A coded message to the Chariot gave them the information and new instructions. Then they dressed in standard space suits and climbed into small, highly maneuverable construction craft. Both mounted a set of grasping arms ideal for handling pallets. Only when J was satisfied that both little `doodle bugs' were fully operational did he seal the inner doors and open a hatchway that, from the outside, looked completely sealed. They slipped out to wait for their guests.

 

 

* * * * * * *

 

Lacus Clyne studied the report from the ZAFT L-4 sector command. A patrol in force consisting of three Nazca and a Laurasia class had encountered Captain Terasawa's three ships near the Mendel Colony. They had been in pursuit of a civilian supply freighter from Aube. By demonstrating instant aggression, the squadron commander had managed to drive the pirates off. Apparently they weren't willing to risk damage for a single freighter.

 

She listened with half an ear to Deputy Defense Chairman Snodgrass as he delivered an oral version of this. It was interesting to hear where Defense wanted the emphasis placed in this small incident. They definitely did not want to go into how someone as wanted as Terasawa could get that close to the Mendel Colony undetected! Which was quite the question in and of itself too.

 

The Colony was still semi-functional with the power plant keeping heat, light, and at least basic life support functions going. Air quality had been terrible although that had gotten better since Murakumo and his Serpent Tail had temporarily headquartered there. They'd changed a lot of filters, for their own convenience of course, but it had significantly cleaned up the air for everyone. Serpent Tail had also gone into the Colony's mainframe and brought a lot of the security systems back online. No one had objected at the time.

 

However, some months after the mercenaries had departed; an accident at one of the scavenger camps had shaken the entire colony. When others had arrived to check they found the camp a complete loss and all of the team dead. Investigation determined they'd brought illegal explosives into the colony, apparently to gain entry into some sealed area. No one would ever know for sure. What they had done in their unwitting self-destruction though was jar a lot of connections throughout the colony. Some of those had been in the mainframe `heart' of it.

 

So now everyone was occasionally bombarded with unexpected broadcasts from Mendel's security network. The broadcasts lasted anywhere from a few seconds to, in one memorably frustrating incident, almost an hour. They came out on the `all colonies' emergency band too. This meant they couldn't be ignored and it wasn't possible to shift existing services off that band. Two separate efforts to fix the problem had been made but so far, unless one was willing to take the mainframe completely off-line, there had been no solution. Since taking the mainframe down would either kill what was left of the colony or require whoever did it to fix the unit properly, no one had been willing to assume the responsibility.

 

In the midst of all this, the Mendel Colony security nets continued their erratic workings. It had been determined early on that none of the small colony defense weapons were still functional but the scanner and tracking functions Serpent Tail had reactivated were fully online and being recorded by the system. Moreover they were always supposed to set off a siren when they detected hostile ships. One of Kira's early suggestions had been to send someone to program that mainframe with the recognition data for every known pirate and unaccounted-for LOGOS ship. The Council had liked that one so it had been done. Which brought one back again to the question of how Terasawa got so close with no alarm sounding.

 

This did settle one question in her mind though. The first set of the new monitors was due from Dr. Koudelka tomorrow. At least some of those were going out to Mendel. There had been no pirate activity in the area for months. Now they had Terasawa sneaking in and at least two others reported to have passed through the area in the last few weeks. She didn't like this at all.

 

She especially didn't like it because it seemed to be corresponding a bit too well with the inflexible insistence on going there from the Alliance Foreign Minister. It wasn't the man himself that bothered her any more either. Lacus eyed the report in her hands thoughtfully but it wasn't what she was actually seeing. Rather it was a chatty letter from Miriallia Haw that occupied her inner eye.

 

The Archangel had dropped out of sight shortly after the fighting ended. Since ZAFT Intelligence had reported several of her crew had returned to work at Morgenroete in Aube, she was likely back in a hidden hanger, a reserve held silently again against a chance of deadly need. This had put Mir back out working as a freelance photographer once more. Mir had a tendency to share what she picked up with her friends. Especially when she didn't like a situation. And Mir, it seemed, sincerely didn't like the woman who was Pearson's acknowledged mistress.

 

Lacus had no opinion of the woman herself. She hadn't met her after all. Like most women who reached such positions with men of power, she was careful to stay in the background. Unlike most though, this Marcia DeLogriens took it to the point of near-invisibility to everyone outside the Minister's staff.

 

She hadn't quite managed that kind of invisibility to Mir however. The letter was very explicit. Mir'd photographed the woman almost two dozen times in the last few months in the company of people known to have had associations with the now defunct LOGOS. That in and of itself meant nothing of course. It could be completely innocent. But somehow it was hard to think of innocence when the man currently believed to be the new head of Blue Cosmos was in at least a third of her pictures.

 

She had other pictures of the woman with several others who were widely believed to have connections to the growing pirate threat. It seemed the Foreign Minister's mistress moved in dangerous circles. The truly fascinating bit of data though was the absence of the man from any meeting or party where the woman had met these people. It suggested a very old fashioned but effective means of influence had been found by people the PLANTs could least afford to have it.

 

Councilor Snodgrass had finally reached the end of his presentation. Lacus refocused her attention on the meeting, watching without appearing to be doing any such thing, for any sign that this was going to set off a major incident with the radicals. But the indignation seemed to be fairly evenly divided between all the factions of the Supreme Council this time.

 

The consensus allowed Lacus to direct the Council's attention to the pirates and away from Mendel itself. She wanted them all on board when she began the distribution of the new scanners. And she didn't want to have to sit through another hours long debate on who should fix the Mendel computer either. Fortunately, everyone seemed quite ready to go pirate hunting. She sighed quietly as Snodgrass gave a very brief update on that issue, wishing it was all as simple as the man was trying to make it out to be.

 

There was no dinner after this meeting. She'd managed to schedule it early enough in the day to insure the Councilors went back to their offices instead of out to dine when the meeting ended. In as much as she'd arranged for a rather select group to wait for her in her private office, she was not disappointed when the rather abbreviated discussion on pirates ended up with little more than a formal condemnation to be issued. The Defense Chair's office would post a complete report on what ships, mobile suits, weapons, and materials were available for this fight by the end of next week. That was the information that was going to matter. The pirates and whoever was backing them weren't going to be impressed with simply being formally bad-mouthed by the PLANTs.

 

Finally allowed to return to her own office, Lacus breathed a silent sigh of relief. The meeting had been tense, and could have degenerated into a shouting match between the moderates and the radicals of the Council so easily. It took very little to set people off right now. She understood that. The PLANTs were weaker than they'd ever been since the founding of the ZAFT. Given recent history, it required zero imagination to grasp that most of the arguing was not true difference but fear.

 

That fear worried her. Frightened people, even those normally very intelligent, did stupid things. Up to and including starting wars. And far too many of those frightened people had the idea this was all an Alliance plot locked firmly in their heads. Despite the information coming up from Aube, which she was sharing a good deal more freely than she really wanted to in her efforts to keep everyone calm, some of the Council simply would not let go of their favorite enemy to look for the new one.

 

They wanted it to be the Alliance. They knew and understood them, and weren't all that afraid to fight them. But an unknown danger, that was trying to push new buttons; buttons they would fight tooth and nail to avoid seeing pushed. There were a lot of emotionally exhausted individuals in positions of power in the PLANTs. They refused to see a new danger; they were too depleted to face one. Somehow, she had to get those psychologically worn out by war to dig into the mental reserves they no longer believed they had. If she couldn't, they would strike the wrong target, and leave the PLANTs open to the attacks of this still ill-defined fresh opponent.

 

Lacus let herself into her private office via the semi-secret door; only semi-secret because it was always known to the top staff of whomever was Council Chair but not to anyone else in the building. She found Kira dozing on the large couch and Yzak outright snoring in the high backed arm chair. Andy Waltfeld was nodding in a second overstuffed chair. Dearka was out like a light on the smaller couch. And the special guest was sitting quietly, eyes closed, in the comfortable chair beside Kira's couch. It looked like they'd all been waiting a while. Then her guest's eyes opened and Athrun smiled softly.

 

He glanced around with a small grin. “Looks like I'm the only one awake here.”

 

“It's been a very busy week.” Lacus told him quietly as she leaned over and kissed his cheek. “It's good to see you again Athrun. How is Cagalli and everyone in Aube?”

 

“She's doing well.” He said, clearly happy to be able to say it. “Her Council isn't always pleased to find itself dealing with someone as direct as she is but with so very many of them having openly worked with the Seirans, well, let's say she has leverage right now and she's not afraid to use it. Captain Ramius is back with Morgenroete and Commander La Flaga is right there with her. He's remembering more and more as time goes by. Unfortunately, a chunk of it is things he did while he thought he was Neo Roanoke. It doesn't seem like many of those memories are pleasant ones.”

 

“I'm not surprised.” Lacus said soberly. “I have not heard of anyone who was deeply involved with Phantom Pain who had good memories. Those people were almost as cruel to their own as they wanted to be to us.”

 

Athrun shrugged, it wasn't a discussion he seemed to want to have. Considering how much he had to be hearing from Murrue, Aube Intelligence, and Mu himself, it was not a surprising reservation. She would make no effort to keep this conversational thread going.

 

“Uhm,” Kira's voice came wearily from the couch. “Should we wake everyone up and have this meeting? I'd like to get to the part where we all go out for a pleasant dinner and we can't do that until we've gone over the data Athrun's brought. Oh, and Dr. Koudelka sent a small pallet load of things in boxes to my office this afternoon. Her note said you'd explain what they were for.”

 

“We're awake.” Yzak growled. “Have been all along.”

 

Lacus forbore to mention his snoring of just a few moments ago. It wasn't worth getting him wound up. If he wanted to try to pretend he'd been awake, she'd let it slide. A soft touch on Athrun's shoulder kept him from saying anything either and Kira had been asleep himself so he couldn't know if the claim was false or not. Unfortunately, she didn't manage to get that message passed quite far enough.

 

“Yeah sure you were.” Dearka mumbled. “Yzak, how many times do I have to tell you you snore when you sleep sitting up? Anyone with ears knows you were out of it.”

 

“Don't get started on this.” Andy said clearly before Yzak could react. “We have important ground to cover here and no time to waste while you badger your Commander, Mr. Elsman.”

 

“Oh yeah, the new stuff. Dr. Koudelka told me about them.” Dearka sat up slowly, yawing widely, and made a major mistake. “Those things in the boxes are sensors for spotting those strange mobile suits Kira.”

 

Everyone froze. Either in shock, on Athrun's part, or dismay on everyone else's. Yzak came out of it first.

 

“Elsman!” He yelled in fury. “Were you born without brains?”

 

Dearka sat, white faced and silent. He was awake enough now to know what he'd just done. Athrun was still a friend but he wasn't a teammate any longer.

 

“What strange mobile suits?” Athrun asked tightly.

 

“Damn it!” Yzak threw himself out of his chair to stomp off to stare out the office window.

 

“Kira? What strange mobile suits?” Athrun repeated, clearly recognizing that this wasn't something anyone had intended to mention to him.

 

Kira sighed. “Lacus? This is really your call.”

 

Unfortunately, he was right. She held up a hand to stop Athrun's questions as she thought quickly about this situation. It did not have to be a disaster, not if it was handled correctly. And she had been quite seriously considering telling Cagalli about the `visit' from another space-time ever since it had happened. The ZAFT was stretched thin right now. They could cover most of space but not as thoroughly as circumstances required. Help from Aube's space based forces, few as they were, would be significant since, in the ruins of Heliopolis, they controlled a potentially viable area for the strangers to try to hide. If they did no more than watch their own backyard, it would take a lot of pressure off ZAFT's resources. That reality tipped her private scales; it was time to bring Aube into the picture.

 

She nodded sharply. “Athrun, I have something to show you. We'll discuss it after you've watched the piece enough times to begin to believe it might be real. Because I assure you, you aren't going to want to accept it.”

 

“Got that right.” Yzak snapped. “No one with any sense at all wants to believe it's real.”

 

“Excuse me but just how strange are these mobile suits?” Athrun asked slowly, unmistakably getting the group message that the situation was very, very, unusual.

 

“We don't know.” Kira told him thoughtfully. “An image of a mobile suit standing in a maintenance rack doesn't tell you enough and that's all we have to go on. Well, you'll see in a second here. I'll be interested in your opinion.”

 

“Do you think I'll refuse to believe whatever this is?”

 

Kira just looked at him neutrally. “Watch it and decide. You don't need any more prejudicial input from me.”

 

From the slight frown on his face, Lacus gathered that Kira's refusal to really answer the question bugged Athrun. Combine it with all these negative hints and she wouldn't be surprised if he asked who set up a joke that elaborate. She activated the large view-screen and entered the codes that would allow the secret tape to play. Then she watched Athrun's face carefully. But she saw nothing past a sudden widening of the eyes that was followed by a determinedly dispassionate expression that she knew could cover anything from great joy to complete rage.

 

She replayed the short clip five times, then took to freezing individual frames so he could get a stable look at the suits. Kira supplied the narration as needed and a few other guesses that had been floating around. He also told Athrun what he thought most likely. Athrun's face refused to change all the way through the show. She still had no idea what he might be thinking when she turned it off and brought the lights back up.

 

He sat unmoving for almost ten minutes, digesting what he'd seen and heard. When his head came up though, there was a very genuine concern in his emerald eyes. It didn't look like Athrun liked the look of this any more than Kira or Yzak had.

 

“I take it this is not a fake?” He asked hopefully, obviously praying someone would say it was.

 

“No.” Kira killed that hope immediately. “Yzak and I went over to the warehouse a few days after the incident happened. We found a small sensor probe of some kind. Athrun, the tech proved to be completely unfamiliar. Whoever these guys are, they have an amazing degree of sophistication with radio equipment. And none of it is really that similar to ours. No, this is all too real.”

 

“Any ideas on where to expect them to come through?”

 

“Not yet.” Kira replied truthfully. “But that's what the new sensors are set up to watch for.”

 

“We do not need this on top of the growing solidarity of the pirates.” Athrun muttered angrily. “And those aren't mass production models either. I don't want to have to find out how they match up against Infinite Justice.”

 

“Agreed!” Kira responded fervently. “One enemy at a time please!”

 

“We don't know that these guys will be enemies.” Dearka pointed out. “And even if they are, there aren't likely to be more than six of them. We have enough state of the art machines to meet them.”

 

“Technically, yes.” Yzak said darkly. “But do you really want to fight six unknown `Gundams' at equal odds? I don't! I want to meet an enemy that potentially dangerous with overwhelming force. And that we can not field. Not even if we combined our `gundam class' suits with those of Aube. We can outnumber them slightly and that's it. That, my friend, is not good enough.”

 

Athrun shook his head slowly. “It may not be good enough but unless they delay for several months and the peace conference ignores the topic of mobile suits completely, what we have now is all we are going to have when they get here. And for some reason I don't understand, I don't think they'll be taking months to get here.”

 

“You too eh?” Andy eyed him sharply. “Well, that makes it unanimous among the pilots then. Everyone of you who've seen this all seem to believe they are coming here and coming soon. Its an interesting reaction. Especially since we have so little to go on.”

 

Zala gave the older man a dark look. “They were stealing n-jammer cancellers. I can't imagine why they'd do that if they didn't intend to go someplace where n-jammers were a problem. Since they had to steal them, somehow I don't think that place is wherever it is they call home.”

 

“Good point.” Yzak said grudgingly.

 

Yes, it was. Lacus sighed. It was the same point Dean Koudelka had made too. All of them had spotted that immediately. So, getting the new probes distributed quickly was now a priority.

 

She sat back and watched and listened as Athrun's quick mind joined the rest as they teased the limited data to try to get all the information it could give them. He contributed the Aube Intelligence report he'd initially come to deliver as well. By the time the tea and snacks arrived an hour later, all of them were deep in a discussion that involved the known pirate threat as much as it did these mystery suits.

 

In the end, she gave Athrun two of the new probes. He agreed to get them set in place by the ruins of Heliopolis in the next few days. The rest would be going to the L-4 colonies and the dark side of the moon. Aube would monitor their reports and share their reports with the ZAFT. In return, ZAFT would share its reports from these probes with Aube. Everyone would be safer.

 

So why couldn't she be relieved to have the help? Why did she feel as though involving Aube had just brought the meeting closer? She had no answer for that, any more than Kira could tell her why he was so sure they were coming over here. Or why he expected them to arrive quite soon now. Lacus gave the image of the two and a half mobile suits in the alien hanger one more long look. But they did not offer her any answers.

 

They did, however, spur Lacus to another action. FAITH reported to the Council as a whole but they still were under the nominal direction of the Supreme Council Chair. She could make some decisions about the unit without asking the Council for approval. So while the gentlemen discussed pirates and alien threats, she formally approved the new, twelve mobile suit Team for FAITH. And she signed off on the creation of both the Command Duel and the two Blitz-Raiders while she was at it. She wrote it into their charter that they would have first chance at the newest equipment as ZAFT developed it as well. Yzak wanted overwhelming force but she couldn't give it to him. So she gave him what she could. The new, nuclear powered `gundam class' suits and their Team were now legally official. She could only pray they would be enough.

 

 

 

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