Crossover Fan Fiction / Gundam SEED Fan Fiction / Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Crossing Barriers ❯ Gains, Discovery, the Next Plan ( Chapter 14 )

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

 

 

 

Gains, Discovery, the Next Plan

 

Sally Po watched the second squad run through their turn in the simulators. The first squad sat, sweat drenched and panting, in the recovery area being plied with water and high protein snacks. They were doing well, very well. The skills they had as aircraft pilots, while akin to those needed by a mobile suit pilot, were not the same and often required a wrenching mental adjustment or two. The Chang Team was making those adjustments faster than she'd dared hope.

 

Still, they were by no means ready to meet the experienced pilots of Crimson Dawn's Sagittarius suits. Those people had proven to be ruthless and utterly merciless. To lose to them was to die, period. They took no prisoners, ever. When they overran a base, there were no survivors, not even the youngest child among the base families was spared. If you believed in the `disease' of democracy, you weren't worth keeping alive it seemed. And your family was disposed of least the trait be genetic and passed down to trouble the new rulers later.

 

That savagery had the immediate effect of cowing most of their opposition as it was intended to. But it did not stop the remaining Preventers from resisting. Two bases, Bastogne in France and Pearl Harbor in Hawaii were standing firm. Both had local traditions of defiance in the face of heavy odds to bolster both their personnel and the surrounding populations. What remained of the ESUN's uniformed resistance was centered there.

 

The covert resistance was scattered across the globe. Each of the hidden retreats Une and Sally had set up had become the hub of a network of small attack groups. Nothing was launched from the hub itself. It was very important to keep that concealed as long as possible since what supplies they had were stored there. But the networks operating from the hubs were very active. The Dawn had been savagely stung more than once now by carefully planned raids carried out by those remote sited teams.

 

The only exceptions were the four mobile suit training sites. They were self-contained worlds completely sealed off from the rest of the universe. What hope for the future the rest of the Preventers had rested on their shoulders. They simply could not be found. So no physical contact of any kind could be allowed. Electronic contact was strictly limited as well.

 

So far, the intensity of the training regime had kept the troops from getting noticeably restless. But it had only been a month. Eventually, they would be fully trained. That point was probably less than three months off. Sally did not expect boredom to wait that long to surface though. These boys would be getting good enough to have spare time well before they were actually ready to face the enemy. She needed a distraction, one that would keep them inside the base. Unfortunately, she didn't have it. At least, not yet.

 

“Getting good, aren't they?” Johnny Morgan slid into the seat beside her. The sealing of the training site had trapped him here. And he was restless. If he'd been a bit more of a prankster, he'd have been dangerously similar to Maxwell right about now. Thank God he didn't have that boy's manic energy!

 

“Yeah they sure are,” Sally agreed. “What did Une tell you?”

 

“Pretty much same old same old. Her eyes and ears though are beginning to pick up the first faint hints that the general public is starting to realize what these people really are.”

 

“Oh! That's a lot faster than I thought they'd catch on!” Sally sat up straight. “What did she say seems to be enlightening them?”

 

“Word of mouth about what happens to the civilians at Preventer bases and government compounds.” Johnny said grimly. “They've got an iron grip on the formal news but they can't stop people from talking. And they can't stop the pictures and the short film clips from getting passed hand to hand either. The really well protected Internet sites are still up and running too. So word is getting out, and it is not being taken well.”

 

“No, I'll bet it isn't.” She smiled wickedly. “On top of the confusion their political arm seems to be going through trying to get organized, I'd say this will help us a great deal. It's really kind of strange, they're pretty good militarily but the political leadership gives every indication of being involved in an internal power struggle of some sort. This Sun of theirs is not the man in absolute charge of things he'd like everyone to think he is. He's running a good bluff right now but he's in severe trouble if anything ever gives him a serious challenge. He can't control his `Planets' well enough to mount an effective counter offensive.”

 

“Oh, I'll agree with that. Une said something very like that. She can't wait until she can call the Gundam Pilots out of hiding.”

 

“I hope they have something like their old Gundams to bring with them,” Sally said quietly. “Because they'll need them. In control of his Planets or not, the soldiers themselves will put up a savage battle. And they have a damn good suit there in that Sagittarius. Putting an ammo reservoir in the legs was a clever move. They can fight three times as long as a regular Serpent with that reserve. So they can bring fewer units to the battlefield and, unless we can knock them out quickly, they will still win.”

 

“And they have a lot more Sagittarius suits than we have Serpents.” Morgan noted unhappily.

 

“They have manufacturing facilities too.” Sally reminded him. “Another thing we lack. No, we need the boys to come back with mobile suits capable of taking out a lot of these new suits or we're going to be sitting up Duo's stinky proverbial creek with no paddle.”

 

“We'll have to trust Vicente on that. There isn't much about destroying space based sites Rojas doesn't know. All our surviving forces in space are under his control. He'll get their factory.”

 

She just shook her head grimly. “It's not a matter of if; I know he'll do it. It's a matter of when. Saito got lucky with that strike he managed at Fort Bragg; it had to hurt them to lose almost sixty mobile suits in one fight. But we haven't had another break anything like it since. We need that factory taken out or at least crippled for a good while. If it isn't, the boys will return to find themselves facing a thousand of the enemy with whatever suits they have and our hundred and fifty Serpents. Not even the Gundam Pilots will be able to manage a win against odds like those.”

 

“It'll take them a while to build that many.” Morgan told her reassuringly. “Remember, wherever this plant is, it isn't large and it isn't building dozens of suits a day. In fact, given the rate of reinforcement and replacement we've seen, they may not be building more than twelve to fifteen actual suits per day. And we're destroying six to nine a day on average all across the globe and in space. So call it seven down a day to be conservative and make it fifteen up to be alarmist and that gives them a gain of eighty suits every ten days. It'll take almost four months for them to get to a thousand.”

 

She blinked at him. “Is that supposed to be reassuring?”

 

“Ah, yeah.”

 

“You know, sometimes you really remind me of Maxwell.”

 

“What!?!”

 

* * * * * * *

 

Lacus stared at the brief report in her hands. It had come in yesterday. The probe set out in the L-4 cluster was drifting near the Mendel Colony now, where it had taken up its long term station. And it had recorded two fifteen second incidents that matched the energy patterns Dean Koudelka predicted for the strangers based on the one sample they had. But the visual recording of the area showed nothing. Which should she believe? Or did the strangers have a version of Mirage Colloid too?

 

They could not have turned up, if they in fact had, at a worse time or place. The Supreme Council had finally bowed to political reality and had agreed to provide Foreign Minister Pearson with his escort on his trip through the L-4 colonies. Due to the recent pirate attacks though and even though there were now considerable navel forces in the area, his own government had ordered him to do most of his checks from a safe distance. Mendel was the only one he was going to be getting close to. They were allowing that only because everyone knew there were recovery teams on the colony. It was no secret that there had been significant efforts made to clean up the space around it to make it safe for the supply ships those teams required to continue their work.

 

Since there were so many fleet assets already there though, the Council had agreed they would send a single Nazca class with the actual flotilla accompanying the Minister. She wasn't happy about it but the greedy man had also gotten his way about the `quality' of his escort. Yzak, Kira, and Dearka would be the mobile suit contingent aboard the Nazca. He wouldn't have gotten Dearka if a last second push by the workers at Armory One hadn't seen his Blitz-Raider completed the day before yesterday and delivered this morning, two weeks ahead of schedule.

 

They'd tried to get them both finished but a hidden flaw in a structural member in Shiho's machine had snapped, costing them to not only the time to replace that piece but to scan the entire suit to be sure there weren't any more like it. They'd taken the time to scan Dearka's as well, which was why it hadn't been delivered as soon as it was completed. No more substandard materials had been found in either suit. Still, it would be another five days before Shiho's Blitz-Raider would be ready now and the Foreign Minister's party was leaving in the morning.

 

“Still working?” Kira's voice asked quietly.

 

Lacus looked up and realized it was much later than she'd thought if he was back already. “I seem to have lost track of time.”

 

He grinned, laughter dancing in his lavender eyes. She loved those eyes; she could lose herself in them in perfect safety. She loved all of him really. And she cursed the choice they'd made after the first war to wait until they were twenty to marry. Because now that she was Chairwoman for who knew how long, he would not. He had some bee in his bonnet that it would hurt her standing in the PLANTs and he would do nothing he thought would endanger her good name.

 

Then he was standing beside her chair. “Come on, lets at least go sit somewhere where you can be more comfortable than in that rock of a chair.”

 

She paused long enough to order tea and small sandwiches for two before she let him lead her over to the deeply comfortable couch with the high back that sat in the private corner of the office. It was the space she used to hold meetings that had to be very personal and very confidential. This area with its three chairs, couch, and small table was quite carefully designed. Nothing said here could be heard five feet away.

 

She realized she'd brought the report from the probe at Mendel when Kira reached out to gently tug it out of her hand. In as much as she saw to it that there was always something official on hand when she was alone with Kira, it was as good as anything else. And considering all things, perhaps it was a very good choice today.

 

So when he went to simply put it on the table for show, she stopped him. “Kira, you should actually read this one. It's the latest from the new probe out by Mendel. And it has a very, very interesting bit of data in it.”

 

He went quite still, eyes locked on hers, searching. “They're here, aren't they?”

 

“The evidence is not good enough to say that. Read it and tell me what you think. I need your opinion on this.”

 

Kira was deep in the report when the tea and food arrived. He took the cup Lacus put in his hand and drank absently. She took it away from him as soon as his hand began to wave it vaguely toward the table, knowing he'd drop it if she didn't. He went through the entire report fairly quickly once, then much more slowly a second time, with long pauses while he stared off at an invisible horizon, mind working furiously. He ate the two sandwiches she put in his hand and drank a second cup of tea as well, paying no attention to what he was doing. Finally, he returned to the section that contained the two fifteen second anomalies and worked through it word by word. Then he put it down very slowly.

 

“Kira?”

 

“They're here,” he said flatly. “I can't prove it, the evidence doesn't support it, but I know it. They're here. And they are trying very hard to stay the hell out of sight.”

 

He looked up. “Is there any video to go with this?”

 

She picked up the tea tray and set it on the floor. A tap on the table top brought up an imbedded keyboard. A few quick touches and a virtual screen was showing him the vid recording from the probe. Lacus tapped in a couple other commands and a muted audio signal announced the beginning and the end of each of the anomalies.

 

“This isn't sharp enough,” Kira muttered, hands going out to the keyboard.

 

As his fingers danced lightening fast across the keys, the screen both enlarged by a factor of three and moved back by a factor of two. He replayed the six minute segments that held the two incidents again. A quiet grunt, and he was giving new orders to the computer. This time the image was so much more intense it startled her. He let it play again.

 

Lacus frowned. “Something changed.”

 

Kira was grinning fiercely. “Yes, it did! Let's see if I can get the image to take one more level of refinement. And we're going to play it at a quarter speed too.”

 

The screen enlarged slightly again and once more moved back somewhat. The image this time was so sharp she felt she could reach out and touch the wall of the colony or catch one of the bits of free floating scrap. Watching at one quarter speed made things appear to move very oddly too.

Then something on the right hand side of the screen caught her attention.

 

She stared at it with a frown, unable to determine just what was different there. And it was moving too, coming across from the right and heading toward the left. But, there wasn't anything there! This was crazy! Then the audio cue beeped. Oh, that told her a lot, of nothing!

 

Still, it might have a shape. It was so hard to tell. Then, when it was in the center of the screen, Kira froze the image. And suddenly she saw something.

 

It was more of an outline created by breaking up the background. It was not easy to follow it. But once you did, you could see the shape there, a strange and yet familiar shape. That was a mobile suit.

 

“It would seem their version of Mirage Colloid isn't quite as good as ours,” Kira said softly. “But you'd really have to be looking hard and still get very lucky to spot him anyway.”

 

“I think this might be the black one, with the bat-like wings folded over it,” Lacus said, leaning forward to stare at the shape. “It seems to have that extra bulk on the torso.”

 

“They took six n-jammer cancellers and we've only seen two and a half suits,” Kira cautioned. “But I do agree that it is possible that it is the black one based on the shape of the outline.”

 

“What do you think he's doing?”

 

“Scouting,” Kira answered promptly. “Remember, they can't know much about our space. They'd have to get here to really look around. We've never spotted any kind of space-going probe using their tech so chances are they came over pretty close to blind. What ever pushed them to come must be deadly serious. Any way, this stealth suit is looking around for them.”

 

“I wonder if it's armed.”

 

“Oh, I'd bet on it. I wouldn't go out in an unarmed suit in a strange universe no matter how invisible I thought I was. I couldn't afford to be wrong about that and I'd have no way of knowing if the local's tech could spot me. And I'm not going to assume that anyone who's qualified to pilot any mobile suit is stupid enough to do that. No matter where he, she, or it's from!” Kira said feelingly.

 

He looked soberly at the indistinct, barely there image. “Whoever he is, that's a remarkably brave man Lacus. I wouldn't want to be doing what he's doing, venturing out into an alien space hoping they can't see me, trying to see if my people are safe.”

 

She could only nod in agreement. It was actually difficult to imagine the kind of courage it would take to do something like that. How much worse must it be there now with all the ships and mobile suits in the area because of the pirate attacks? And did they understand what had happened? Even if they had the equivalent of Gundams themselves, this had to be a terrifying situation.

 

“I want to speak to him Kira! I want to ask him why he's come here.”

 

Kira blinked at her. “Ask him how?”

 

“Pardon?”

 

“Ask him how, Lacus? I honestly wouldn't expect a person from another dimension to speak our language.”

 

“Oh, yes, that was a very foolish oversight wasn't it?”

 

He reached out and gathered her into his arms. “You're nervous. I'm nervous too. Anyone who has a thinking mind should be at the thought of meeting strangers from someplace so impossible to imagine. Just because the one example we saw looked like he might resemble a human doesn't mean anything really. No, you're right to be concerned. Or even outright scared.”

 

“What should we do? I'm supposed to lead the PLANTs and my mind is a perfect blank!”

 

“We start by remembering that they only took six cancellers. Now, those are a very advanced and exceptionally complex piece of technology involving both the materials used in them and the way they're assembled. Given what we've seen so far of their tech, they don't have the capability to copy them. So six suits are the most we can expect to see cross. Between us all, and in case of an alien invasion even the North Atlantic Federation would stand with us, we can deal with six mobile suits if worst came to worst and they turn out to be hostile.”

 

“Yes, I believe we could manage that. And I think you're right about the Federation too. They would chose the enemy they know over the one they don't.”

 

“They would choose the enemy they knew had a human origin over one they knew didn't you mean,” Kira said snidely.

 

“Don't be rude, it's unbecoming.”

 

“It was honest.”

 

“That does not make it any more becoming.”

 

He shrugged and picked up the overall issue again. “You asked what to do. At the moment, do nothing drastic. I'll call Yzak and Dearka over here and show this to them. Then we wipe it. You have the original vid record so I can reproduce it any time I need to. But we do not need it sitting around for someone with too high a security clearance and too small a brain to find. You send for Athrun. You have him do this, I'd tell him what to expect before you do unless you want to give him a heart attack, and let him take a copy of the original vid back to Cagalli and Kisaka. Make sure he wipes his work too! After that, you and Cagalli consult. While all this is going on, we get a few more probes set around Mendel Colony and see if we can spot exactly where they're based. Then, when you decide, we try making contact.”

 

He smiled gently at her. “And we will hope that they are friendly. Now, does that make sense to you?”

 

“Yes,” she said slowly. “Yes it does. I'll have Dean Koudelka deliver all the finished probes she has to your ship tonight. You can program them and drop them as you go through the L-4 cluster. I would not want Minister Pearson to think there was any special interest in Mendel Colony and we really shouldn't neglect the others either. We don't know if they've established more than one site. If she sends enough, put two probes on each colony and all the leftovers on Mendel.”

 

“Given the recent attacks, we can explain them away as watchers for pirate activity. And since they will pick them up too, it isn't even a lie.” Kira nodded. “With Mendel the only colony with a population, never mind how small or fluctuating it is, putting more there shouldn't be suspicious.”

 

“You call Yzak, I'll call the Dean.”

 

* * * * * * *

 

Quatre had the watch when Duo went out for the `afternoon' scouting run. He was carefully logging in the bits of debris that were floating around the station to give himself something to do for four hours. Most weren't large enough to matter, even to a mobile suit. The people doing the searches here had cleared the local space very well. There were very good lanes in and out of the colony's immediate space. Duo's flights had shown that someone had pushed the trash back almost thirty kilometers and he'd gotten a few shots of what could only be local work craft tossing materials further out than that to open the lanes even wider.

 

So the odd, boxy thing that he noticed about twelve kilometers out caught his attention. And it secured his attention when two work craft swung around it instead of removing it. Between them, Heero and Duo had hacked them fairly deeply into this wrecked colony's mainframe. It was a real mess and they'd had to actually do some program repairs to avoid crashing the entire system a couple times. It had taught them a lot about how the locals approached computing. But it also had given them almost complete access to the security net.

 

Usually, they treated this as a read only access. But at the moment, it was important to find out about this box. So Quatre altered the timing of a regular scan and awaited the results. What he got sent him reaching for the comm link to the mobile suits.

 

“02! This is 04! Abort mapping scan of section 407A! I repeat abort scan and get out of there! There is a local probe in the immediate area with equipment on board that may possibly be able to detect your presence. Return to base at once!”

 

“This is 02, roger, detection possible, coming home!”

 

Quatre whipped out the door of the comm room and checked in the lounge. Merquise was usually there at this hour. And he was there, head bent over a Go board with Wu Fei for an opponent.

 

“Zechs!” Quatre called. “I have something you need to see.”

 

He didn't have to ask twice. Merquise was on his feet and coming almost before Quatre finished speaking. Wu Fei, Heero, Dorothy and Noin followed him. Well, if Zechs thought this should be some kind of secret, he could throw them out himself. The blond Arab darted back up the hall and slid into his control seat. He sent the relevant data to the small screen at the station beside his for Zechs' convenience.

 

He noticed Duo had slipped over the `horizon' as far as the probe was concerned. So if it had gotten any readings on him, it had lost his trace now. He reprogrammed one of the smallest of the colony scanners and set it to track the probe and made sure it would report to his station and his station only. The Serpent Tail people were still on the colony and they did a lot of nosing around in the security net themselves. It wouldn't do to have them discover there was someone else aboard who had similar interests.

 

Zechs slipped into the seat beside Quatre, who pointed at the screen and its data. He started reading. In seconds he was swearing under his breath. Heero, standing behind him, reading over his shoulder, tightened his hand on the back of Zech's chair hard enough to produce a sudden, unmistakable creak of bending metal.

 

“Yuy, don't break the furniture.” Merquise snapped.

 

Heero's hand fell to his side in a tight ball but the damage was already done to the chair. Quatre gave him a small smile but Yuy's eyes had gone flat and his expression blank. It was a look the Arab associated with trouble. In the old days, it had usually meant trouble for Oz. He wasn't sure who it was meant for now.

 

“Uhmm.” Dorothy sounded thoughtful. “I wonder if this is something they've put up because of those attacks. We've had all kinds of warcraft coming through for the past few days and a fascinating variety of mobile suits. This may just be one more piece of their very vigorous investigations.”

 

“It could be.” Zechs agreed. “But why its here hardly matters. It reads just far enough into the radio ranges to allow it to possibly make out the Deathscythe. And unless it moves off, this is going to trap our only scout suit inside with the rest of us. Leaving the pilot's temperament aside, it means our external information flow will largely dry up. The colony's scanners aren't set to give us the information we need.”

 

“Its only one probe.” Noin pointed out. If we keep track of it, Duo should be able to work in its blind spots.”

 

“It's losing speed.” Quatre suddenly reported.

 

“Very quickly too.” Merquise said quietly.

 

They all watched and waited. Duo joined them, got to read the information the scan had given them, cussed the probe out, and waited with the rest of them as it gradually came to a stop about two kilometers from the colony. By this time, everyone was watching.

 

Then the probe began to move away from the colony. It wasn't a swift retreat. In fact, it suggested an efficient, energy conserving one. Trowa brought them all a dinner of warm sandwiches and they'd finished them all off before the probe stopped again. Now it was just inside the limits of the cleared lane. And it seemed to be staying there. When it hadn't moved in two more hours, Noin, who had taken over the watch, locked the one scanner onto it in passive mode and everyone else trooped into the lounge to discuss the situation.

 

“This is for shit!” Duo flopped angrily down in an overstuffed chair.

 

“As long as it stays where it is, you can still scout our side of the colony.” Zechs pointed out.

 

“Yeah, but we're now cut off from fifty percent of all this place's possibilities.” The American groused. “And what'll we do if they put one up on this side, eh?”

 

“We will sit very quietly and hope Crimson Dawn makes some huge political mistake very quickly so we can go home!” Dorothy told him astringently.

 

“We need them to hold off at least three more weeks.” Zechs growled. “Neither Wing or Epyon will be ready before then. And the combat data J's been sending makes it pretty clear we'll need all the Gundams we can manage.”

 

“I do not need to be shut up in this box for three weeks!” Maxwell snapped.

 

“And we don't need you cooped up here either.” Heero agreed quietly. “But we may not have any choice in the matter.”

 

“I could take `Scythe and go back and help J and G finish the other two Gundams.” Duo suggested hopefully.

 

“Not an option.” Heero told him coldly. “I know you. You wouldn't stay inside that wrecked base anymore than you stay in here. And while you might be able to stand by and let Crimson Dawn troops win a fight or two, sooner or later you'll stumble on one you won't be able to keep out of. The people you rescue will have seen you. They will talk. Then everyone will know at least one Gundam is back. Given the area you'd be in, a reasonable guestimate for your operational range, and you'll have brought the enemy right down on the base, and our only way home. No, you and Deathscythe stay here with the rest of us.”

 

“Shit.”

 

“Opinion noted.”

 

“If you are quite finished making idiotic suggestions Maxwell, I recommend you start investigating the area we can take advantage of as long as we have the chance,” Merquise said calmly. “I'm going to start organizing little exploration parties as well. This place is a regular rabbit warren and there seem to be secrets on secrets here. Yuy, please concentrate on getting as much structural data on our immediate area out of the mainframe as you can. I want Noin, Wu Fei, Quatre, and Barton to take Yuy's data and see how far they can get. If we have to break into other sections, well, we may want to consider doing it just so we have an out if we're spotted here.”

 

He turned back to the fuming American. “Maxwell, when you aren't outside or standing watch, I want you helping Yuy. The pair of you together seems to be able to get five times the information out of that system that one of you alone can manage.”

 

The Lightening Count turned back to Quatre. “Pull Heero and Duo out of the cooking and clean up rotation. They're far too valuable on the computer and I do not want one more variation on hot dogs served to me for at least a year!”

 

“Hey! They were all perfectly eatable!” Duo yelped.

 

“Yes,” Wu Fei agreed reluctantly. “But they were completely uninspired and they all tasted the same.”

 

“Well, yeah, hot dogs do ya know.”

 

“Duo, I honestly don't think anyone could face them for breakfast, which is your next meal in the rotation,” Quatre said gently.

 

“Look, dogs and sewer squirrel are the only things I know how to fix all right? And this place is real short on the squirrels so you're stuck with the dogs.”

 

Relena stared at him. “Whatever is a sewer squirrel? It doesn't sound like something you should eat at all!”

 

“You don't want to know,” Heero said quickly, cutting off any explanation Duo might have been inclined to make. “And you don't want to know a thing about how to catch or fix one either. Believe me please, you really do not want to know.”

 

Relena frowned but Duo nodded thoughtfully, “Yeah, it's an extreme poverty food and people who've never really experienced living with the day to day chance of starvation tend to get pretty squeamish about it. I shouldn't a mentioned it.”

 

“But, . . . .” Relena began.

 

“No!” Heero and Duo chorused.

 

“I am not squeamish!”

 

“No!”

 

“I genuinely want to know!”

 

“No!”

 

“Tell me!”

 

“No!!”

 

“It's a rat,” Zechs said wearily just to bring the argument to an end.

 

Relena stared at him. All five Gundam Pilots glared at him, Heero's being particularly savage. Dorothy looked rather fascinated, Mariemaia like she was going to be ill.

 

“A . . . . . . a rat?” Relena asked faintly, turning to stare at Duo in shock. “You were hungry enough to eat a rat?”

 

Duo looked back at her soberly. “Relena, think about it for a minute ok? I grew up on the streets. I had no home. We were doing good when we could get a squat with three solid walls and a roof that didn't leak. But we were little kids, we could never hold on to one of those good places. Older, stronger gangs always ran us out before long and we were back to sleeping on the ground under some cardboard. We had no one to look after us and we weren't welcome at the soup kitchens because there were just too many of us. So we either stole our food, picked scraps out of the garbage, or caught rats. And of those options, the healthiest choices were stealing and catching rats, cause you never knew how spoiled that garbage was going to be. Yeah, I've eaten a lot of rats. They beat the hell out of starving to death.”

 

“Oh,” she said faintly and sat down.

 

“Your handlers have never let you see extreme poverty Relena,” Zechs told her quietly. “They didn't want you to know how bad things really are at the bottom of the social pile. More importantly, they didn't want you to know how large that bottom is. They knew if you found out, you'd start investigating why all the money being poured into programs to fund schools and clinics in areas like those wasn't producing either schools or clinics.”

 

“I learned about it only by chance. I was stationed at a base next to a very squalid slum once and took it upon myself to investigate why the damn place existed and why we couldn't get it away from the base. That was when I learned a great deal about greed, cheap labor, and corrupt law enforcement. It was not a happy experience. Oh, and I never managed to move a single shack out of that slum either.”

 

“I see,” she said quietly. “It seems I have a great deal to learn myself yet. And a great deal to attempt to repair when we drive out Crimson Dawn.”

 

“Yeah, but you've always been willing to go and look and ask the questions. People respect you for that,” Duo told her. “All you need is a couple dozen on your team who're reasonably honest and won't keep data from you. You should be able to find people like that.”

 

Trowa startled everyone when he suddenly spoke quite seriously. “You should consider asking Catalonia to be your Chief of Staff. She's smart, political as hell, knows everyone and their skeletons, and in her own strange way, is absolutely honest. She can help you find the kind of people you really need to have working for you.”

 

Dorothy gave him a long, flat look. “You surprise me Barton. I had the impression you weren't fond of me.”

 

“I'm not. But that doesn't blind me to your abilities.”

 

“Indeed? I wonder if you truly understand just how unusual that is.”

 

“I grew up among mercenaries, Catalonia. If you couldn't honestly assess both your friends and your enemies you were a dead mercenary fairly quickly. I was ten the last time I made a serious miscall about someone. I shouldn't have gotten out of that slip-up alive; I was the only one who did. It did sharpen my tendency to watch everything around me to the point of a near obsession though. One should learn from their mistakes.”

 

Dorothy stood perfectly still, then nodded quietly. “Yes, yes one should. Thank you Trowa. I believe you've given me a good deal to think about.”

 

“Actually, he's given me some things to think about too,” Relena said thoughtfully.

 

“So,” Duo squatted down to look her in the eye, sudden mischief bright in his. “You want me to fix you a sewer squirrel when we get back to Earth and I can catch you one?”

 

The former Queen of the World shocked him back on his heels. “All right, yes. I think it would be good to know what the very poorest have to eat.”

 

“You got it,” He said with a new respect.

 

* * * * * * *

 

Commander Hannam strode into the conference room with a savage confidence. The pirates waiting for him saw it. He watched all but Ruhde and Terasawa subtly give way before him. And neither of them got in his way. He gave an expansive wave toward the large conference table, indicating they should all find their seats.

 

Rather to his surprise, Terasawa stalked over and grabbed the one directly across from his immediately. It seemed the lady was tired of waiting for something to kill. Well, he should be able to satisfy her with what he had for them today. At least her impatience brought the others to the table quickly, unwilling to be left out of anything.

 

He looked around, very pleased with the showing. Not only did he have his four fleet commanders, he had five independent ship operators as well. None of them were skilled enough to be fleet leaders themselves and they were at least sharp enough to know it. No, they were here to assess the other four and maybe see about buying in to one of the established commands.

 

Watching the dynamics of the group on the security monitors before he'd come down, he was fairly sure the gains would go to Ruhde and Boothe this time. Napci was drinking heavily. It loosened an already clumsy tongue and made it worse. He'd managed to do a fine job of insulting at least two of the independent captains already. And of course, Terasawa was infamous for recruiting only among her own kind.

 

“Gentlemen, Madam, the ambush will take place at Mendel Colony four days from now.” Albert swept a hand over a plate set in the table in front of him and a six sided virtual vid screen sprang into being in the middle of the table. There was a schematic on it for a very odd, open work structure that seemed to have a large number of horizontal pockets in it. It was well braced and looked to be heavily padded at the two center rings. He let them study it for a couple of minutes, trying to figure out what it was. Rather to his surprise, it was Terasawa who suddenly leaned forward and spit out a sharp curse.

 

“Oh, fucking shit! That's brilliant!” Her eyes were dancing with a savage delight. “How easy is it to back the ship out of it?”

 

“Very.” Commander Hannam replied smoothly. “The intent is to deliver maximum firepower quickly after all. The ship must be able to disengage rapidly for this to be useful.”

 

“Have you adjusted them for the various ship classes we have then?” Terasawa asked sharply, her glittering eyes never leaving the vid screen.

 

“The adjustments are simple to make and can be done just before we load each carrier.”

 

“What the hell are you two blathering about?” Napci snarled.

 

“The frame, you blind drunk! It's for the mobile suits! It isn't practical as a general rule but considering how we're going to be running this ambush, it's damn near perfect. It'll allow a ship to bring up to thirty mobile suits into the battle instead of the four to six they can usually carry.” Terasawa hissed back.

 

“Look at it!” She waved a hand at the schematic, grinning ferally. “It'll slow the ships down but it'll also throw a very confusing scanner signal too. We'll be able to drift right into the edge of the debris field around Currie Colony and we won't attract any attention because we won't look like ships at all. As soon as the distraction pulls the warships far enough away, we can push these into the clear lanes leading into Mendel, drop the ships back just far enough to get them clear and then we'll have all our ships and mobile suits in place to strike!”

 

She laughed. “And if we put some of them at Goddard Colony as well, we'll be able to seal both ends of that cleared tunnel that surrounds Mendel. Yamato and his ships won't be able to go anywhere!”

 

“If some of your mobile suits have beam sabers, you can cut the frames in half and push them to the sides, clearing the lane without having to give any extra ground.” Commander Hannam pointed out calmly.

 

Terasawa just looked at him. “Cute idea but we just might need some of them to evacuate our suits before someone can turn those warships around to try to save their precious Commander Yamato. So unless you got spare parts, I think we shouldn't just cut them all up like that, eh?”

 

God-damned bitch was sharp today. He kept his face thoughtful though and just gave a regretful nod and a slight, possibly apologetic shrug. The other captains brushed it off, lots of ideas sounded good until you gave them a second look after all.

 

Fortunately, the woman wasn't particularly interested in the strategic planning of the strike itself. She'd put in a remark every now and then but she was clearly fascinated with the mobile suit frame. Good, let her concentrate on the nice techie toy. Battle planning went better when there was more to it than `lets kill `em' anyway. And once someone gave her a plan and explained it to her, Terasawa could carry it out effectively at least. God knew she stuck closer to them than that idiot Napci did. Perhaps everyone would get lucky and he'd die in this fight. It would be to everyone's benefit to have Carter take over command of the Red Swords.

 

The more she listened, the less she liked this deal. Ilene wondered if anyone else had noticed that this battle was structured to commit over eighty percent of each fleet's mobile suits. Yeah, you needed numbers if you were going to take on Yamato and Joule, who rumor said had a brand new, third generation suit of his own now. But this was only going to need half their ships. And a ships guns were nothing to sneeze at, even for Strike-Freedom.

 

If she was the suspicious kind, and being honest at least with herself she admitted she was, she'd say this battle was being structured to cut their mobile suit numbers down to something someone else thought he could deal with. They were likely to lose a few ships too. Which a specific party she could name wasn't likely to cry over either.

 

The Foreign Minister's party would be traveling on an Agamemnon class carrier and three Drake class escorts. She wondered just how many flunkies the stupid goose had dragged up to the PLANTs with him to need that many ships to haul the deadwood home. The ZAFT were sending a single Nazca class as escort, probably counting on all the other warships, Alliance, Aube, and their own, currently milling around among the L-4 colonies to provide backup if anything went wrong. Yamato and Joule would be aboard the Nazca. Despite some serious efforts to relocate him, no one had been stupid enough to put a Coordinator of Yamato's rank and background, not to mention that mobile suit of his, on any Alliance ship!

 

As she listened to the men enthusiastically planning the fight around her, she wanted to hit them all up-side the head with a board. They were going to close both ends of the clear traffic tunnel around Mendel Colony. Fine, smart move. Now, was anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to lines of fire? Not yet. And Hannam sure was being quiet about it too. So at the rate this was developing, they were going to be shooting at Yamato's party on the same plane from both sides. Oh very smart here. They were going to lose God alone knew how many to `friendly' fire!

 

It was when they all agreed to a single volley of fire from all ships main guns that Ilene knew she had to come up with a way to keep her ships and people out of that slaughterhouse. She was no stranger to bloodshed and didn't object to shedding the enemy's at all. But this, what Hannam had subtly worked them into was their own butchery. Oh, they'd get Yamato in the process. But none of the fleets that went into that fight would come out able to mount a serious challenge to the forces Blue Cosmos still commanded.

 

The trouble was, none of these pirate leaders had ever been in a fleet action themselves. Their military skills had been picked up mostly working either with small merc groups or, when they were younger, as crew for another pirate. They had no experience in dealing with this kind of fight. They were honestly expecting the target ships in the middle to stop all the fire from both sides. And unless she was going to break character totally, she couldn't tell them differently.

 

She wasn't going to do that. It wasn't time yet. There were too many things still not done. Too many people who weren't dead yet if you really wanted to cut to the heart of it. The day was getting closer but it wasn't here yet. And honestly, what did she owe a fool who couldn't look at the map he'd drawn himself to see what it was telling him?

 

“All right.” Claude Boothe leaned back. “We have the main battle planned. Now, we need that distraction you promised. Because all this is nothing more than a lovely daydream as long as those two Aube battleships are in range. All the rest we might be able to handle, but the Izumo and the Kusanagi, no.”

 

“Yes, I quite understand,” Commander Hannam replied with a grave nod. “There are several possibilities. Which one we strike will depend on how many resources you wish to commit to the distraction. While most of the mobile suits will be assigned to the L-4 battle, the number of the remaining units you make available will have an effect on which targets become practical.”

 

“Yeah, I get that,” Napci growled. “Now, what're the choices eh? Tough to know what we want to commit until we know what we can pick from.”

 

Well, well, an intelligent comment out of old George. Maybe he should get this drunk more often. Or not, as she watched his head nod down onto his chest. Ruhde jabbed him in the ribs. It woke him up somewhat, at least enough that he seemed to be following the conversation again.

 

Hannam looked annoyed. Tough. They all glared at him, making it quite clear that he wasn't getting anything promised before they knew what they were going for.

 

The man knew when to cut his losses. He shrugged and brought up the vid screens again. This time though they were showing a map of the Moon. There were five lurid red circles on it.

 

“First possibility. There is a small Alliance base here in Armstrong Crater. It is reasonably well defended for its size but the two Drake's that are based there are now part of the patrolling group at L-4. It should be vulnerable to an attack requiring no more that four ships and a couple dozen mobile suits.”

 

“What's there that would bring them running?” Ruhde asked. “Or do you think just hitting the base itself, because it's on the moon and so close to much more sensitive targets will do it?”

 

“That and the base commander is Admiral Gorman's son,” Hannam replied.

 

“Ah, yes, the good Admiral is popular right now isn't he?”

 

“Yes, now, second possibility. This is a ZAFT supply station on the dark side of the Moon. It is quite well hidden. We wouldn't know about it if someone hadn't gotten drunk at the wrong party and tried to pick up the wrong girl. It's amazing what some people will say in the middle of having sex.” He offered them a very prudish look that drew laughter.

 

“Is it far enough out from any other ZAFT assets to allow us to loot the place or is destroying it the best we can do?” One of the independent Captains asked.

 

“I suppose that would depend on how quickly you could take it.” Hannam tapped his lip thoughtfully. “It is fairly remote, you should be able to snatch at least some materials I would say.”

 

“Right, what else you got?” Napci clearly wasn't impressed so far but both targets were large enough to draw a good chunk of the forces here. She wasn't sure they were big enough though to pull both those Aube battleships. And if even one of the Izumos stayed, the whole ambush was likely to fail. At the very least the casualty rate would take a sharp upward jump. Yamato was a popular man with the Aube.

 

Hannam ignored the tone of voice and moved briskly on. “Third is a civilian target. No serious immediate defenses. Its one of the secondary tourist stops on the so-called `Copernicus' tour. But there will be two shuttle-loads of school kids there from one of the exclusive academies from Earth among those tourists. You'll be able to spot them by their school uniforms. Their parents are all stinking rich.”

 

“Ransom!” Napci yelled. “Now you're talking!”

 

From the murmur going around, it was talking to most of the men here. She couldn't disagree. It was a soft target, would be poorly defended relative to the other choices, and offered a very high return. It was so good in fact, it could set off some serious arguments about who got to go on the relatively safe diversion and who got to face Yamato in a fight to his death.

 

And that was exactly what happened. She stayed out of the arguments altogether but everyone else was getting dangerously angry. Damn Hannam! Hadn't the fool given this any thought at all before he'd tossed this juicy steak down in front of the hyenas? They were pirates! What the hell had he expected? That they'd fight over the chance to get themselves killed? God dammed Blue Cosmos bigoted idiot!

 

When Napci surged to his feet, hand cocked to catch the knife he had tucked up his sleeve and Mitchell of the Cleaver did the same she knew it was time to intervene. If those knives were drawn, you could kiss the ambush goodbye. Trust was a fragile thing among their kind and this would cut its scrawny throat.

 

“HANNAM” she screamed suddenly, shocking everyone into sudden stillness.

 

In the abrupt silence she asked coldly, “What the hell is the damned fourth option? The third one seems a bit divisive.”

 

Men who had been on the verge of trying to kill each other seconds before stepped back, abruptly reminded just why they were here in the first place. The looks they exchanged could still scorch the paint on their ship's hulls but the weapons stayed in their sheaths. Bodies settled slowly back into chairs until everyone was back in their seats.

 

“The fourth option?” she prodded when Hannam just stood there like a log.

 

“Ah, yes.” He came to life abruptly but there was a look in his eyes she was very familiar with. He was a man who had just been standing on the brink of absolute disaster. And he'd been saved from it by no action of his own. He nervous, angry, and amazed he was still alive. It wasn't a good combination when you were supposed to be leading men as touchy and violent as this gang of thieves, cutthroats, and, too many times, cowards.

 

“The fourth option.” Hannam waved a hand at the last circle, set well away from all the others. “This actually isn't a standing target. It's a memorial service that will be taking place two days from now in Endymion Crater. There will be dignitaries on hand from both the Earth Alliance and the ZAFT. A permanent, oh I suppose one could call it a shrine, is being dedicated and the names of all the fallen are to be included. There is quite a list of names attending. Foremost among them is Commander Mu La Flaga himself. Athrun Zala will be there, Commander Andrew Waltfeld is attending. Admiral Zeigler will be there from the ZAFT along with Commanders Thoms and Mansfield. The Alliance is sending Admiral of the Fleet Kim Jun Moon and . . .”

 

Her mind went bright with shock. “WHO DID YOU SAY THEY'RE SENDING!”

 

Ilene Terasawa was on her feet, her hand locked on the front of Hannam's uniform before she realized what she was doing or how she'd gotten to his side of the table. “Who did you say is coming?”

 

Hannam wasn't completely stupid. He realized which name had set off this reaction. “Admiral of the Fleet Kim Jun Moon.”

 

“I'm taking the diversion,” Terasawa told them in a tone that allowed for no discussion and no disagreement.

 

“Why?” Hannam had the raw guts to ask.

 

“Because he's the next to last one,” she replied, her voice an odd silken tone that carried no sanity in it at all. “The second to the last. After him there is only Yat Sun Moon. Then the so precious, so valuable, so cherished, so god-damned male line of Jun Yat Moon will finally be dead!”

 

“Now all of you be nice boys and keep the fucking hell out of my way,” she cooed, eyes holding something akin to the fires of hell burning in them.

 

She dropped Hannam and strode for the door, the others ignored. There would be no arguments. She knew it. She'd worked long and hard to build her reputation for lethal insanity just for moments like this. They would not fight her for option three. Opportunities like option three would happen again and they knew it. And no one would even bother to ask about the unknown option five. For a dead man could not take advantage of a future chance and that's what anyone who got in her way was going to be; dead, very, very, very dead.

 

((Yes `Father', I'm just two away from ending your precious line of studs for all time. And I won't die until I do.))

 

 

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