Crossover Fan Fiction / Gundam SEED Fan Fiction / Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Crossing Barriers ❯ Bad News all Around ( Chapter 24 )

Crossing Barriers

 

Beta Reader: T'Amara

 

 

 

Chapter : 24 Bad News all Around

 

Disclaimer: I still do not own any part of Gundam Wing or Gundam Seed. They still belong to their respective creators and production companies. I do still own my own OC's and the plot though.

 

Am now going on vacation for a bit. Hopefully the weather will not keep trying to drown me or blow me away. This is the weirdest spring I've ever had to live through! THIS IS WISCONSIN darn it! It is NOT Kansas! What is the weather's problem?

 

 

Colonel Sally Po eyed the unwieldy contraption on her desk with a very jaundiced stare. The look turned cold as she shifted it to the three unhappy trainees standing in front of her. Johnny Morgan, standing behind the young men, was no happier that she was. The hapless Lieutenant Ly could only stand at attention, mortified at what his people had attempted.

 

Damn it! They knew better! Thank God Johnny had noticed two of these idiots slipping off, giving furtive looks around as they went. Their behavior had set off alarm bells in the experienced officer's head and he'd followed them. She glared again at the useless mass of wires and components so sloppily slapped together. About the only positive thing she could think of as she regarded the pile of junk was how grateful she was that their hasty and shoddy workmanship had at least kept them from getting it to work.

 

“This is inexcusable,” Sally told them, her voice a fair match for the winter wind now whipping around the remote peaks that surrounded the base. “Be very, very glad you never got this operational. Crimson Dawn is spread thin, true, but their electronic surveillance is outstanding and the three of you know that. Had you ever turned this trash on, you would have led them straight to us.”

 

The young men managed to squirm while standing perfectly still. She was too angry to be amused at the sight. In fact, she wasn't sure it would ever be funny; they'd risked too much here for her to imagine a time when she'd forgive this.

 

“There's no word,” Ensign Sheppard whispered, although no one had told him he had permission to speak. “It's been months now. No one's said what's happened back in Sanq. We all have family and friends there! And no one's told us a thing!”

 

His half-panicked eyes bored into hers. “My Mom's in a wheelchair, Colonel. I've got two sisters in their teens. Everyone's heard what those bastards are doing to any of our people they catch and we know they moved into the Kingdom with massive forces! We just want to know what's become of our families! We weren't trying to bring them here!”

 

“We all have family and friends we left behind,” Sally replied icily. “And no one has had any word. No one! Yet the three of you decided you were special enough to endanger this project and everyone on the Team. I repeat, your actions are inexcusable. You are behaving like children, not soldiers! Self-centered myopia is not acceptable on this Team. If he knew of this, Chang Wu Fei would be permanently disgraced!”

 

Ensign Kowalski opened his mouth but Colonel Morgan cut him off. “I don't want to hear your pathetic attempts to justify the unjustifiable. You have been members of the Chang Team for over a year! You know what your Captain would think of you! Ashamed doesn't even begin to touch it.”

 

“You've betrayed the team,” Lieutenant Ly's voice shook. “You've betrayed the Captain! I don't want you! You can't be trusted with our lives.”

 

He turned dark and furious eyes on the errant threesome. “I will tell the rest of the team what you've done. You can face them, if you can scrape up the guts somewhere!”

 

“That will do, Lieutenant,” Sally cut him off before he said something she couldn't get the team out of; he really was dangerously angry at the moment. He subsided but continued to give the three black looks. She slid her chair forward and leaned both elbows on the desk as she gave the situation a good mental once-over.

 

She needed these fools. That was the real sticking point. They couldn't afford to have three suits without pilots for them. There was no one else on the base she could have trained to replace them in under six months. She couldn't prove it, but Sally Po was reasonably sure they weren't going to have six more months to train. Crimson Dawn had to win and win decisively well before then. They didn't have the manpower for a really long war and, whether they were willing to admit it or not, they were on the verge of truly alienating the general populace. Recruiting was dropping sharply too as the former soldiers they wanted to draw in were beginning to realize there was something worse than the ESUN and were making themselves scarce. One verifiable incident, that was all it was going to take to start to swing things fatally away from the Rational Revolution.

 

If the people of Earth and the colonies turned back to the Preventer's side, the Dawn would be in very, very serious trouble. She knew guerrilla war, she understood what poorly armed but implacable enemies could do to a formal military force. She'd done it herself after all. And if that wretched old J could really send the boys back with their Gundams . . . ., well at that point trouble didn't even begin to describe what the Dawn would be in then.

 

All of this left her with a problem. She had to discipline these idiots and rehabilitate them with the rest of the team. It wasn't a situation that could be kept secret and Ly was right about how the rest would react to this. At the same time, she couldn't afford to ruin them in their own minds or their worth as pilots would evaporate. So, she needed to buy some time for the first of the anger to burn out. A comment the supply officer had made just that morning suddenly popped into her head and a very cold smile crossed her face. Yes, this would do.

 

Her blue eyes chips of ice, she sat back and pronounced sentence; “All right gentlemen, listen up. We don't have the time or the officer staff to set up the court-martial you've all earned. So we're going to do this the dirty way. I will set the punishment and you will live with it. Or I'll let the Team tell you where you stand with them. Do you understand me?”

 

Three frightened nods reassured her that this could work. “Fine. You will go with Colonel Morgan. He will be taking you to Major Red Wolf. The major needs custodial staff. You just became that staff. Lessons will be scheduled to keep you up with the rest of the team but you will not train with them for the duration of the sentence. You will work, study, eat, sleep, and have latrine breaks. You will do nothing else and you will associate with no one Major Red Wolf has not approved. You will not complain and you will not slack off. Sentence will start at ninety days. Your performance and attitude will be evaluated at the end of that time. If, and only if, you can demonstrate you have learned what responsibility means, you will return to the team. If you can not so demonstrate, sentence will be extended until you can. Do you understand me now?”

 

All three paled, they knew just how much work they were suddenly facing. The base was old. It had been abandoned for almost four years before the Rational Revolution had forced them to come back here. This was no climate to abandon machinery in, not if you wanted it to stay working. The light bulbs that needed changing alone would take the three of them at least two weeks of concentrated effort to get done. That didn't address the daily needs of keeping the spaces in use clean or the bathrooms working either. Nor did it include the stress of continued training. No, this was not going to be a sentence they were going to be breezing through.

 

It was a relief to see the catty smile Ly was trying to control too. It meant he thought the punishment suited the crime as well. He would convey that thought to the rest of the team, which would also help with insuring it was seen as adequate by all. It would probably also result in some deliberate messes being made just to get even too but she could have people watching for that. When the responsible parties got to clean them up themselves it should put a quick halt to that sort of thing.

 

Colonel Morgan had the three young men pick up their abortion of a radio off her desk and take it with them as they left. Johnny would be back just as soon as he pawned those kids off on Logan Red Wolf. He'd had an odd look in his eyes that said he wanted to discuss this. In the mean time, she had one last person to deal with.

 

“Mr. Ly,” she said quietly as Chen tried to slip away with his disgraced teammates, “sit.”

 

He obediently returned to the front of the desk and took the one chair there. Sally felt sorry for the young officer but he really should have kept a sharper eye on things. It wasn't as though they hadn't discussed the possibility of something like this after all.

 

“I apologize, Colonel Po, for letting Captain Chang down.” Ly wouldn't quite meet her eyes.

 

Sally just shrugged. “It happens, Lieutenant. I'm just disappointed that we didn't catch this situation earlier. If Corporal Wolper had been just a bit more skilled with that soldering tool, that monstrosity would have worked. We'd have been in real trouble then.”

 

She shook her head slowly, “you have to understand, I know our people are concerned, well, frankly scared to death is more like it. I have family and friends out there too. And I haven't heard one more word than anyone else here about their fates either. What those three did though, should have earned them a court-martial and a quick execution. It hasn't, not because I understand what drove them, but because I flat out can't afford to have suits without pilots. We, Lieutenant, we have to rehabilitate those young idiots. The team has to accept the punishment as adequate and they have to learn to deal with the silence!”

 

His head stayed down. “Could we ask, next time the line opens?”

 

“No.” Sally stared at him grimly. “No, we can't. Because lack of information equals hope, Chen. If they don't know, they can still hope their people escaped. Everyone knows some did. We aren't a large enough group, nor do we have the skilled medical personnel necessary, to cope with our people going into the kind of near-insanity some kinds of knowledge can push them to. Derek Sheppard needs to believe his mother and sisters could have escaped. Mike Kowalski needs to believe his parents and younger brothers got out. Chris Wolper has to have the hope that his wife and children are safe. Without that hope, they will slide into madness, temporary perhaps, but deadly dangerous just the same. Mobile suits with insane pilots are not very useful. Oh, they'll do a lot of damage before they're killed but they will die. And they will take the suit with them. We need those suits and their pilots to come back from their missions, to be able to strike again and again. We can't afford to let grief throw them away in one spectacular, and useless, show!”

 

Chen's head came up, a half-defiant look in his eye. “Don't we deserve to know as much as we can though? I watch and listen every day, Colonel Po, and I think ignorance is more dangerous. Those three, they aren't the only ones getting desperate for word, any word, even bad news is better sometimes than no news!”

 

Sally rubbed her temples; she was trying to raise a headache here. The young man had a valid point, she knew that. She also knew the risks associated with grief-stricken people going off in a blind rage against the source of the grief. While the Preventer base in Sanq had been warned early, the warning had been issued before they'd known just how through the attackers intended to be in destroying their enemies.

 

It was quite likely that most of their non-combatants had still been near the base when Crimson Dawn arrived. Few of them were likely to have escaped the bloodbath that abruptly cut off news report had shown in New Port City as the Dawn ruthlessly rid themselves of any and all vestiges of the ESUN they could find. They'd killed the staff of the Residence, for God's sake! How dangerous to the Dawn was an eighteen year-old housemaid? She found herself wondering if the redoubtable and resourceful Pagan had managed to escape.

 

“Please, Colonel, can't we even try to find out?” Chen's softly spoken question jerked her back to the immediate situation again.

 

“You saw the broadcast from New Port City,” Sally reminded him quietly. “Are you sure you really want to get into that?”

 

“I'm beginning to be sure we need to.” Chen slumped slightly. “We all saw that broadcast you know. Nobody's got any delusions. Any good news will be the equivalent of a miracle, everybody understands that. But, Colonel, we need to know!”

 

“My family lives in Hong Kong,” he whispered. “There are a lot of Lys there. It won't be all that simple to find them in among all the others. But, if they have enough time, eventually they will. It's the same with everyone here. A lot of us had our families on the base, we know the chances are bad but, . . . . . . . . . . . ., damn it Colonel!”

 

His head jerked up again and she saw the shine of unshed tears in his eyes. “This not knowing is killing people!”

 

“I see.” Sally sat back unhappily. There was no good answer here. Finding out could trigger grief madness. Not knowing was just as clearly eating her people from the inside out. Which was the greater danger?

 

“Sally,” Morgan was suddenly at the door, “we have a problem.”

 

He looked at the unhappy Lieutenant, then shrugged. “Word will get out, might as well be accurate.”

 

“What now Johnny?”

 

“We've lost Ren Bao and the entire mobile suit group in Mongolia.”

 

“What happened?” Sally found herself on her feet.

 

“Don't know. Word just came in from General Une. All we do know is they got nothing. Ren blew the base when they finally forced the doors. But the team training there and all twenty-one suits are gone.”

 

The chair somehow came up and hit her in the backside. Or maybe she just collapsed into it. One team, gone. Out of only six to start with. And Ren Bao with them. That left the far eastern Preventer resistance without a ranking leader.

 

“Oh hell,” Sally breathed, “what do we do now?”

 

*** *** *** *** *** ***

 

Heero Yuy did not regard himself as prone to flights of fancy. Things like that were Duo or Quatre's provenance. But the plain, cold, fact was, this place made his skin crawl. Watching Duo, who had point at the moment, he judged the other pilot was even less happy to be here than he was.

 

At one time, the corridors and offices here had probably been pleasant places to work and socialize. Someone had clearly put considerable thought into the colors and textures used on the walls and in the carpeting. Clean and well-lit, it would have been an inviting area. Filthy, torn, one light in three still working, and with ancient blood splashed in too many places, it was simply disconcerting to walk here now. Nor did the weight of unseen eyes help at all. The dead, it seemed, hadn't left this place yet.

 

This office was one of the worst so far. It had been torn to shreds for one thing. The hidden door to this space hadn't stopped the killers from finding it and they'd been more thorough here than any other place they'd found yet. For all his combat experience, Heero resolutely kept his eyes away from the massive blood spray that decorated the wall behind the shattered desk. There was a lot of hate in this room and it all centered right there.

 

“'Ro,” Duo spoke softly, giving Heero the feeling the American was trying to keep the ghosts from listening. “Got a door in this wall here.”

 

Wary blue-violet eyes looked around the ruined space distrustfully. “Ya wanna open it?”

 

Yuy looked around the wreckage thoughtfully himself. This was a first in their so-far seven and a half hours of searching. They'd found two other hidden offices in these walls but neither of them had boasted yet another hidden portal leading off of them. He considered the space.

 

This office suite had contained four areas and a small but once-luxurious executive bath. The conference room had been the least damaged, with the massive, genuine wood table almost untouched and the chairs mostly just thrown around. The sideboards had all been smashed open and the contents either broken or tossed aside but that was the extent of the damages there. The small storage room had been stripped and the contents strewn around the reception space. That space in turn had seen the furniture torn apart and every last thing that could be broken had been. Which brought them to the office they were in right now.

 

The cabinets had all been forced open and the contents torn to confetti. Every chair was slashed apart with little left of it but the metal frame. The desk was a shattered ruin that had clearly been searched into fragments for some secret data. But it had also been genuine wood, a massive piece given the amount of fragments, that had likely been quite old. Whoever it had belonged to, they were significant to this place. Heero was quite sure he didn't want to go through that hidden door, the office itself told him he had to if he was ever going to understand what this G.A.R.M. had been about.

 

“Can you even get us in?” He asked seriously, well aware that phrasing it as a challenge would help focus the nervous Maxwell.

 

The braid bobbed as Duo nodded. “Oh yeah. Whatever was here to hide the lock is someplace on the floor now. But it's one of the disguised and coded ones so it'll take a bit.”

 

“Take whatever time you need,” Yuy replied as he stepped over to look as Maxwell got started.

 

Duo had spotted this patterned wall and gone straight for it when they'd first entered, his familiarity with the kinds of hidden locks on the colony telling him there was a real probability of something to find there. The spot where Duo was working was outlined, the lock area very slightly lighter and cleaner than the surrounding wall, indication that something had hung there as an additional means of concealment. The lock itself, like a few they'd found elsewhere in this colony, was camouflaged as a decorative design on the wall. It was one of a repeating pattern of geometric shapes cut into the metal of the wall. You had to have exceptionally sharp eyes to realize that the grove of the outlines went deeper here than on the other repetitions of this pattern.

 

The code-breaker came off his belt and the American began to touch the probes to the keys of the lock, trying to find the electronically active starting point. Whoever designed these things had liked to begin with the lower keys so he checked there first. And hit his start point on the second try. Heero watched as a very Shinigami grin began to twist the other's lips.

 

“You people have no imagination,” Duo muttered. “Stealing from you guys is so damn easy; I'm amazed you kept any secrets.”

 

“I doubt the local thieves have anything like your gear.” Heero said quietly as he kept an uneasy watch on the empty room.

 

“Umph,” Maxwell just grunted, then froze. “Oh One, someone's had this open recently.”

 

The eyes gone violet now with tension, turned to him. “I'd say within a month or so given how easily these move.”

 

“Dr. Hibiki's lab.”

 

“Real likely. You dead sure we should go in there, Hee-chan?”

 

Kira Yamato was afraid of what was on the other side of this door. His voice had flat out said so when he's spoken of finding it with that Dr. Ito. Why? The other pilot hadn't struck him as being the easily frightened kind. Curiosity suddenly bit Heero, very, very hard.

 

“Let's see what the Coordinator was afraid of, Oh Two.”

 

Duo's eyebrows rose, and Yuy could see the curiosity bug bite him too. He nodded and turned back to the lock. It clicked softly only seconds later and they eased the door open slowly. Booby-traps might be unlikely but they weren't impossible; the two veterans were not going to be careless.

 

They found no traps. As the door opened though and they got a look inside, they knew they'd found what they'd been expecting. This was unmistakably some kind of lab.

 

It was a surprisingly compact space, perhaps twice the size of the office they were currently in. It was also quite full. Heero recognized maybe half of the things he could see. The two lab tables could have come out of any wet lab back home. The glassware in the one cupboard he could see was mostly familiar too. Filing cabinets were filing cabinets, no matter what universe they were in. But the rest, no idea what it was for.

 

The space was dominated by a single, very large, mostly black machine of some kind. He was looking at the back of it, which told him nothing. The lighting had come on when the door opened and the mysterious machine was bathed in a strong, warm light that was obviously set to keep shadows to a minimum in the lab.

 

“Ya know, Yamato was real definite about not touching stuff in places like this.” Duo clearly didn't like this room any better than he did.

 

“We will restrict our investigation to doors, cabinets, drawers, and computers.” Heero stepped inside warily. “We will not touch any glassware that is sitting out, the machines we don't recognize, or anything we might find in a cold storage unit.”

 

“I'm not opening any cold storage units,” Duo replied with a shudder. “I don't wanna find anything that could be some embryo bank.”

 

“Then we won't touch those either,” Heero agreed. “We aren't qualified to appraise something like that anyway.”

 

Maxwell's hand slid up to the back of his braid. “Whadda ya wanna bet the guy thought this place was pretty secure?”

 

Heero grinned as the hand slipped back down, with a pair of gundanium lockpicks in it now. “Why don't you check that out? I'll see if I can find a computer or two to hack.”

 

Duo moved cautiously to the left, Heero took the right. A fast look around as he reached the far edge of the center machine showed him the room was largely lined in file cabinets. This must have been either the primary data storage for the project or it's backup given how many of them there were here. Maxwell was going from cabinet to cabinet, assessing the quality of their locks. Knowing him, he was looking for the best secured units to try first as the most important of the data was likely to be there.

 

Now that he could see around the machine, Heero spotted another beautiful wood desk. The executive style chair behind it was unmistakably a top-of-the-line item as well. This Dr. Hibiki hadn't spared himself any expense, had he? Yuy went straight for it. If there was a likely spot to find a computer, that desk was it.

 

He had to lower the chair a bit to sit comfortably; Hibiki must have been fairly tall. He found the computer immediately. Like the one in Une's desk at Preventers, it was built into the desktop. It didn't look like a screen would pop up so it was probably a virtual unit. The controls were easily found as well. Hibiki had obviously considered this lab a very secure spot, there had been no effort spent here to hide any of the operational equipment.

 

One touch brought the power on. That was a relief. Only about half of the computers they'd found had power to them any longer. The virtual screen he'd expected flickered into being over the desk a few seconds after the computer came on. Heero stretched his fingers once, then got down to serious hacking.

 

Hibiki hadn't been completely confident of his hidden door's security though, just getting into the unit took him a good half hour. Once in though, there was a lot of stuff that was readily accessible. Among that data was a series of masters for brochures touting the services G.A.R.M. was offering. Reading a couple of them was enlightening.

 

Coordinators were a good deal more altered than he'd thought. And these people's genetic sciences were well beyond anything he'd ever heard of outside of the most far-fetched of fiction. No wonder the local, unaltered population was scared of them! He checked, found he could upload from these files into the colony mainframe, and copied the lot out to a separate file. Zechs and the others would find this very interesting. Fairly disturbing too if he was any judge.

 

The rest of the accessible materials were too technical for him to follow without real study. He didn't have the time for that now unfortunately. He did find one interesting file though. Marked as `public relations', it had what seemed to be news articles in it. They appeared to be largely about G.A.R.M.'s services and the qualifications of its staff. One he opened had a very clear picture of three men.

 

Heero studied it. The one on the right, a trim, good-looking older man of unmistakable Asian extraction, reminded him of G in a crafty mood. Not that they looked anything alike really, but the eyes had an unmistakably similar look. So this was Dr. Ito eh? He could see why Yamato might not fully trust the man.

 

The one on the left was an equally striking elderly black man with pure white hair. He was identified as a Dr. Joel Hathaway, Deputy Director. At least he looked more honest than that Ito character.

 

It was the tall, rather handsome man in the center who locked his attention though. So this was Dr. Hibiki, Director of G.A.R.M. Interesting how that warm smile on his mouth didn't even touch those cold eyes. Heero could feel his own lips curving in an answering smile, but he knew his was more honest, it at least matched his eyes.

 

Heero Yuy had met serious ambition before. The shadow of it still lurked in Dr. J. It had utterly dominated the old man who'd paid to create their Gundams, and died at the hand of one of his own when he betrayed a younger Mariemaia. A gentler but no less resolute version of it was the steel in Relena's spine. But looking at the old picture, he knew only one man who could match what he was seeing here.

 

Treize Khushrenada had once had ambition like this. And the whole of planet Earth had followed him as he brought it to a completely unexpected fulfillment. The Zero pilot shook his head slowly; Wu Fei was probably going to be dealing with that outcome for the rest of his life. Yet Khushrenada had been absolutely honest in his own strange way and he had held himself accountable for every life lost at his behest.

 

This man though, this one was not honest. Not like Treize had been. The ambition he could see here was completely untempered by any trace of concern for anyone his actions might hurt. This one would have kept better company with Duke Dermail or old Barton. He still didn't know why Kira Yamato disliked him, but he was quite sure no one with the innate personal integrity of the other Gundam pilot would ever work or even casually associate with someone like Hibiki voluntarily.

 

Zechs should see this. He might have a better grasp of some of the information in the articles as well. And if he didn't, well, J and G would. He copied and exported the file into the new database he was building for them all to review.

 

A loud crash jerked his head up. Duo was holding a file folder in his hand and leaning against the mysterious black machine, visibly fighting not to throw up. The American was ghost white, and blindingly enraged.

 

“You sick fucker! You disgusting little cocksuckin' son-of-a-bitch! Wrong, I apologize to every bitch in two universes! Ozzie trash was cleaner than you are! Tuberov was a better man! Hell,” Duo raged, eyes a virulent purple as Shinigami flared to full life in him as he turned his wrath on the folder in his hand, “Barton was a saint next ta you!”

 

He rolled slightly and met Heero's surprised gaze. “'Ro, ya gotta see this. Yamato's gotta know some of it but I bet he don't know it all.”

 

“What . . .?”

 

Maxwell gave a sharp slash with the hand holding the folder. “We came lookin' fer answers. Wish to God I hadn't found `em! These bastards were sick, `Ro, sicker'n Dekim Barton ever was.”

 

Heero jumped up and dragged the chair over close enough to tip Maxwell into it. A firm hand on the back of the other's neck forced his head down not quite even with his knees. He held him there while Duo waged war with his outrage and stomach, and won both fights.

 

When the Deathscythe pilot's breathing evened out, Heero let go. He sank down until he was even with Duo's eyes and studied them. He saw the same anger but Shinigami had stepped back a bit now. It would be possible to talk with him again.

 

“What did you find?” Heero asked quietly.

 

“He experimented on his own kid, `Ro.” The eyes were sick now. “The bastard had some nutso idea about `building the Ultimate Coordinator' and he used his own son for it!”

 

The folder dropped to the floor, the contents spilling out a bit as Duo dropped his head into his hands. “His wife was expecting twins. He knocked her out, took the boy outta her womb without tellin' her, an' left the girl for a control!”

 

He looked up, eyes furious and tear filled. “Who does stuff like that? Yanks their own kid outta the womb and experiments on `em?!?”

 

Duo shuddered. “He bragged that even his own staff didn't know what he was doin'. About how much recognition he'd be gettin' for this `groundbreaking work'! That this time, he had the right genetic materials to work with, he wasn't gonna hafta deal with one more `disappointing error'.”

 

“He called a child a `disappointing error'?” Heero asked, trying to wrap his own mind around the thought of a man who could regard his own children as genetic experiments.

 

“Yeah,” the American grinned, a seriously frightening look this time. “From what I read, he'd done this before; experimented on his own kid, but they'd all been test-tube kids. This was the first one he grabbed from his wife. Heero, I don't know how many he used, and killed, but the number has to run into the hundreds. I know at least one survived `cause he was pissed that the kid escaped. Most of `em don't seem to have lived long enough to even get born. What the fuck have we found here?”

 

Heero was stunned at the answer that bubbled up out of his sub-conscious. “Kira.”

 

Duo jerked upright. “What?!”

 

But the Japanese pilot suddenly understood a great deal. “We've found Kira Yamato. This is why he is so different from the other Coordinators. This is why he doesn't want to know what is in this place. One of twins, Duo. And his sister, his Natural sister, is Chief Representative of Aube. Recall that documentary J had us watch on the influential people of this place. Yamato and his twin were featured in that. Someone even called him something like the ultimate in Coordinator development!”

 

Maxwell nodded slowly. “Ok, makes sense. It sure would explain why he really, really, despised this G.A.R.M. group. He knows enough to understand that he doesn't wanna know any more too.”

 

“I wonder if he knows who his biological father was.” Heero looked around the lab with new eyes, seeing it now as a peculiar but fitting memorial to arrogance and what had to have been a quite genuine genius gone very, very wrong.

 

“You remember I told ya how Joule reacted when I asked who Hibiki was?” Duo smiled darkly. “Oh yeah, he knows. So do Joule and Elsman. But I bet there aren't a lot of others who do.”

 

Heero straightened up. “Maybe not but I would guess that Yamato thinks too many do. Duo, copy that file and if there is one for the sister, that one too. I think we've found more than enough to give J and G something to work with. While you do this, I'll see if there is a general report of some kind on this that I can get to and then we will go back to base. I've had enough of exploring for one day.”

 

“Yeah.” The agreement was heartfelt. He took the chair back to the computer while the American gathered the folder off the floor. He was already deep into his search by the time Duo set up the recorder to copy the file. He quickly found he wasn't going to be getting into the truly secure sections of this computer without a lot of work. Whoever had done the programming was both exceptionally skilled and as defensive as Heero himself. He snarled at the screen and began to dig.

 

Knuckles wrapped on the desk some unknown time later. Heero looked up to find a grim Maxwell looking back. He had their recording pack with him, all the gear neatly stowed back in it.

 

“Got `em copied. Let's blow this place. I'm tired of the ghosts.”

 

He gave it a few seconds consideration, then nodded. “Fine. I've got a bit more but it will take days to crack all that's in here.”

 

“Anything interesting?” Duo asked, then quickly amended, “anything interesting that won't turn my stomach that is.”

 

“All of it is interesting. But one that stands out is a file on one of the so-called `failures'. We need to watch for an individual called Canard Pars. He was the child who escaped. Considering what was documented in his records, his stability could be very questionable and his ability level will be fairly close to Yamato's.”

 

“Oh, a crazy Ultimate Coordinator! Great. Way to make someone's day Yuy.”

 

Heero closed out his work before looking up at the American dryly. “Would you rather run into him not knowing what he was?”

 

“I'd rather not run into him period.”

 

Yuy just quirked an eyebrow at that remark. Duo didn't respond. He had the pack slung on his back now and was unmistakably anxious to just leave. Heero turned off the computer, readjusted the chair to the height he'd found it at, and carefully put it back exactly where he'd found it. He didn't bother to ask if Duo had done the same for the files he'd been working on, he knew the other pilot had.

 

They slipped out and relocked the door. Getting back to base took most of an hour. They'd been out here almost twelve hours. That was too long to be in a place as malignant as this one. As he stepped through the hatch though, Heero knew he wasn't going to volunteer to go back up there. Yamato was right. There were things it was better to leave lost to history. And he'd just been poking around in one. No, if Merquise wanted to investigate this further, he could do it himself.

 

Heero wondered if there was enough hot water and soap on this unmitigated cesspit of a colony to ever let him feel clean again.

 

*** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***

 

For a brand new building, the former Preventer Headquarters in Sanq had some interestingly medieval touches. The Sun could only wonder why Une had bothered to have hidden passageways built into the whole place. He did understand the extensive security they boasted though. If one was going to have such anachronistic things, the least one could do was make sure nothing slipped up on one through them.

 

They did allow for absolutely secret meetings though and perhaps that was their real purpose. He could move unseen and unnoticed through the surprisingly heavy walls here. Access to the security control room for these passages gave him over-ride capacity for every office in the building as well. If he wanted a room to appear empty, it did, no matter what was really happening there.

 

The coded message had been marked urgent. Given who had sent it, he believed that. Terra was seen as the weakest member of the Council by most but the members who thought so underestimated the formidable old woman badly. There was nothing weak about Dame Billingsly period. Her observant silence and cunning strength was the rock his own power rested on. She knew it and occasionally took small advantages of it to deal with her own enemies.

 

But she also knew she was too old to be able to create the kind of following she'd need to hold the absolutely power of the Solar Mantle as well. Were she even ten years younger, and ten years healthier, she'd probably be his most dangerous opponent. Since she knew her own limits though, they made her his most reliable lieutenant. Her vision for the planet and the colonies was very nearly the same as his, and he still could build a personal army.

 

She though, planned to be a quite genuine power behind the throne. He was quite content for her to be so. It made her a larger target than he was in some ways. Anything that deflected a strike away from himself was a thing to be kept and cherished until its usefulness ran out.

 

He checked the small security panel by the door of the office she'd chosen and saw her waiting by the window for him. The other half of the screen showed what the main security board would be displaying; an empty office lit only by the moonlight pouring in through windows left undraped at the close of the workday. He smiled coldly and closed the panel, letting it blend back into the wall as he tripped the catch on the door and let himself in.

 

“Ah, I was beginning to wonder if that babbling fool was ever going to leave; he's made you late again.”

 

“Don't criticize Jupiter so harshly. And he wasn't babbling tonight. He was being quite direct in fact. He'd marshaled his arguments quite well too.”

 

She shrugged. “Yes I'm rather sure he did. Despite his background, the man isn't really stupid, just a bit besotted with his new office and all the bright boom-making things he's in charge of.”

 

“He's got a point and you know it.”

 

The moonlight washed the color out of her pale blue eyes, leaving them looking disturbingly white and dead as she gave him a small smile with no mirth in it at all. “Who do you think has been seeing to it the information came his way?”

 

He stepped up beside her to stare out the window although he wasn't really looking at what was out there. “I assumed you were. He's too new to the office; he hasn't had the chance to build his own intelligence service yet. And I do admit Venus is damned efficient at protecting her secrets. He doesn't have anyone who could gather that kind of data for him on his staff.”

 

He cocked his head at her. “Now, how much of it was true?”

 

An unmistakably bitter grimace twisted her lips in a grotesque parody of a smile. “Unfortunately, all of it.”

 

He turned, eyes widening slightly. “All of it? The stupid bitch has really created that `Iron Fist' unit?”

 

She nodded. “And she's beginning to use them too. She's impatient and she hates too well. Her judgment is poor in this area as well. Worse, she despises the so-called `unwashed masses'. She underestimates them severely and overestimates her ability to terrorize them into abject submission. Nor is she at all concerned that we have too few troops for what we are trying to do. She wants it, it will work out as she desires, she allows herself to see nothing else. It is very unfortunate that she knows your real name.”

 

“So you've said before,” he agreed evenly. “The Countess believes it will be a blackmail tool for years. She thinks wrongly.”

 

“Quite so.” The old woman stepped to her right to take one of a pair of chairs set before the windows. “Blackmail weapons have a dangerous tendency to dull with time. Exposure of your name is rapidly becoming unimportant in the grand scheme of things. In truth, it won't be all that long before you will be able to discard your mask and stand openly, the only man left who backed the first Heero Yuy and fought for the colonies by building White Fang. No, the day is only a few weeks off when you will be stronger known for yourself than you will be as The Sun of the Council.”

 

“Yes, yes, I understand this. But I doubt you bothered to send that note just to tell me this.” He sank into the comfort of the other chair with a silent relief, he'd been too long on his feet today, getting off them was wonderful.

 

“I told you, Kirsten has begun to use her supposedly secret Iron Fist.”

 

“If the data you gave Jupiter is accurate, she has no more than fifteen men. They may be dangerous men, but fifteen is a small number.”

 

“Quinze, she sent them into Hawaii about seven hours ago. My agent only saw the very last of their work and their retreat. He knows at least one local, identity unknown, also saw at least as much as he did.”

 

The Sun turned abruptly angry eyes to her. “And what did he see?”

 

“They slaughtered the Hibiscus Commune. Right down to the children's pets.”

He jerked up, “They slaughtered Peace Hounds? What kind of idiot is that bitch?”

 

“One who is expecting to go in tomorrow with a camera crew and blame it on the Preventers hold up by Pearl Harbor.”

 

He understood immediately. “Where are the images being shown?”

 

“On the `Free Skies' website.” She turned to glare at the innocent moon. “We were granted one small piece of luck, whoever it was only had a still camera. The picture quality isn't particularly high either. It is impossible to miss the glint of moonlight off of the heavy blades they were using but the light wasn't strong enough to make their uniforms really recognizable to anyone who hasn't seen the pictures of her new Iron Fist outfits. Unfortunately, those uniforms are nothing like the ones the Preventers wear. No, not even the most self-deluded are going to see this as a Preventer attack. Especially not after that too-clever Une witch went so far out of her way in that latest broadcast to plead with those over-confident mules to step back and shut up!”

 

“They aren't anything like the uniforms the rest of our forces wear either,” he pointed out irritably.

 

“Be grateful for that small favor. It will let us paint them as an unknown rogue faction. The Preventers won't be fooled but given how different those baggy pants and baroque vests are, the general run of the masses aren't likely to immediately believe they're ours either.”

 

“We must eliminate that team,” Dame Amanda Billingsly said coldly.

 

He just nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, and I believe I have just the man to do it.”

 

“He'd better work quickly. This kind of luck won't hold if Kirsten goes on a killing spree,” she warned.

 

“I do understand that,” he snapped. “The boy is young, bright, ambitious, very capable and smart enough to be exceptionally cautious.”

 

“He'll need all of that to take this group down.”

 

Quinze just smiled grimly. “Maybe and maybe not. It will depend on how secure they feel under her protection and how arrogant they are. This lad can work with the openings both will give him. He's due down from space in the morning. I believe I can have a covert assignment ready for him by tomorrow evening. If he behaves anything like he has on other assignments, he'll be ready to move long before they're going to be expecting any serious opposition.”

 

He eyed her, “How much can I count on you for intelligence on this Iron Fist?”

 

“I will have everything I have on them rounded up and sent to your office by noon.”

 

“That should do,” he agreed, leaning forward to stand.

 

His phone rang before he could get up. He frowned, his people knew better than to disturb one of his `trips' out of his secure office. This had better be worth the interruption.

 

“Yes?” He snapped as he held the unit to his ear.

 

“Excellency,” Major Triton's unmistakable voice was shaking. “Your Excellency, we've just received word that the mobile suit plant has been destroyed. None of our staff appear to have survived. The cruiser, Crimson Sword, was in the area. She arrived less than three hours after she registered the explosions. Captain Bahomat reports the factory asteroid is in at least sixty pieces. None of the suits appear to be salvageable and most of the manufacturing supplies were also destroyed. He is searching the area for any trace he can find of the attackers and awaits your orders for any other action you may wish taken.”

 

The Sun could only stare at the phone in shock.