Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Appleseeds ❯ Episode 5: Airborne ( Chapter 5 )

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Gundam Wing.

Episode Five: Airborne (December 25-26, 279 AE)

Dorothy Catalonia paced sedately down the hallways of Peacecraft manor, a smug smile playing on her sharp features. Making her way into the residential wing, she stopped in front of a set of double doors. Balancing the silver breakfast tray she carried on one hand, she knocked smartly before entering.

Upon hearing Dorothy`s knock, Relena stirred, her cornflower blue eyes blinking sleepily. Seeing Dorothy entering her room, she stretched lazily, her hands brushing against the wooden headboard decorated with the Peacecraft crest. “Is it morning already?”

“It's almost afternoon Ms. Relena. I thought you could use the rest after all the excitement and the late night you had yesterday.” Dorothy set the breakfast tray on the bedside table and went to open the heavy brocade curtains.

Squinting at the bright morning light, Relena rearranged her pink floral pillows and pushed herself up to sit against the headboard. Turning towards the bedside table, she spotted the white envelope sitting innocently next to her pot of tea and frowned.

“Government missives already?” Relena asked, “I thought the new government wasn't being formed until the new year…” She tentatively took the envelope into her hands.

“No Ms. Relena, the schedule for the new government is still running as planned.”

“Then what is it? I thought only government missives used paper, everything else is digital; paper is still a very scarce resource.”

Dorothy wore a suitably chastised expression. “I'm sure you'll forgive me this one time, but a digital copy just wouldn't have had the same feel to it you see.”

Relena opened the envelope and unfolded the single sheet of paper with a perplexed look on her face. “A receipt for a luxury order?”

“It' my Christmas present to you Ms. Relena.”

“Christmas present?” Relena wondered. “Christmas hasn't been celebrated on the colonies for years… Oh!” she suddenly gasped, her eyes widening.

Dorothy grinned wickedly. “I thought you might like to know the identity of your secret admirer.”

Eagerly scanning the page once more, Relena delicately crushed the paper to her chest, a radiant smile on her face.

Luxury Order: WF94S
Item: 1 small crate, Strawberry, Blueberry, Blackberry, FRESH
Credits Redeemed: 172 L
Delivery: L1
Customer ID: 01HY, Heero Yuy

~*~

Four pairs of eyes watched worriedly as Trowa's tall lanky form disappeared through the open doorway, two worn duffle bags slung over his shoulder.

Sally finally broke the silence. “We need to gather more intel; Heero and Trowa are flying blind in this mission, we need to correct that.”

“No need to remind me woman,” Wufei grumbled, the dark shadows under his eyes standing out starkly against his golden skin tone.

Sally frowned. “You'll be of no use to us in the shape you're in right now. When's the last time you slept? Go to the dorms and take a nap.”

“Do not baby me! Besides, I need to finish organizing the files if we're to find any information for Heero and Trowa.”

“Nonsense, as your doctor I'm ordering you to go rest. Even with the Gemini, Heero and Trowa won't be arriving at L2 for at least 20 hours.”

“She's right,” Quatre added softly. “I can finish sorting through and piecing the files together. You've done more than your fair share of the grunt work. We can switch off once you've gotten some rest.”

“Fine,” Wufei conceded, wearily making his way towards the door. “You should get some rest too,” he grumbled grudgingly over his shoulder at Sally, “you've been working double shifts for the past three weeks.”

“Don't worry, I will as soon as I've briefed Noin,” Sally replied affectionately.

“I can brief Noin,” Quatre interjected. “I already have some things I need to discuss with her.”

“That would be great,” Sally smiled gratefully. “I can start some preliminary work for the tests I need to run.”

Quatre turned to his sister, “Thank you for all your help Iria. We would have been lost without you.” He gently guided her towards the door, “Rashid will be waiting for you at the exit.”

“I'll walk with you Iria,” Sally joined her in the hall. “I'm headed the same way.”

The two women wearily made their way towards the elevator at the end of the hall. Stepping in, Sally swiped her ID card over the scanner and pressed the button for the main level.

“Why is this level labelled `restricted storage area'?” Iria asked, noting the labels for the various levels of the building.

“Noin thought it best that the boys have their own restricted level, separate from the other agents. It gives them more freedom to do their work and protects their identities. After all, if the other agents were to see your brother working here, there would be no stopping the gossip columns. The other agents believe that the basement is the storage level for highly classified materials.”

“Good thinking on Noin's part,” Iria reflected as the elevator doors slid open.

“Well, if you would excuse me, I need to get started on creating a vaccine. It's going to be a nasty piece work to try and counteract that atrocious virus.”

Iria's eyes widened, “You haven't made it yet? But how…? Heero said that he and Trowa were already vaccinated…”

Sally paled. “Forget I said anything, forget Heero said anything.”

“But…”

“Look,” Sally pointed to the hulking figure patiently waiting at the building's lobby, “there's Rashid. Do yourself a favour. Have some calming tea, get some rest and forget this night ever happened alright?”

Sally griped both of Iria's shoulders firmly. “I know it's hard not to worry, but leave the worrying to us alright? We have things under control, I promise you.”

Iria nodded shakily as Sally released her. “I'll try,” she whispered before hurrying towards Rashid.

Sally sighed and resignedly turned towards the medical wing of the building. She had a vaccine to formulate, but first, she had a date with the cot placed in the far corner of her lab.

~*~

Trowa checked the flight plan and auto-pilot one final time before unbuckling his harness and floating towards the cabin of the two-man ship.

“ETA is 19 hours,” Trowa informed his partner who sat at the small table in the middle of the cabin, staring morosely at his tablet.

Ignoring Heero's lack of response, Trowa opened one of the cupboards and removed two gel energy packs. Tossing one to Heero, he made his way to the top bunk bed at the back of the cabin.

“You have to refuel and rest Heero. Trust Wufei and Quatre to find the information we need by the time we get to L2. We need to be 100% to carry out the search.”

Mechanically, Heero rose and floated to the bottom bunk. Unscrewing the cap, he unhurriedly consumed the contents of the gel pack.

Above him, Trowa finished his own energy pack and settled himself more comfortably on his bunk.

“Don't worry Heero, we'll find him.”

“We have to find him,” Heero whispered. “I have to find him!”

“I know Heero, I know.”

~*~

Noin glared at the digital tablet in her hand and wondered if leaders of organizations were allowed to bang their heads against their desks in frustration. Maybe she could break something, she mused, preferably an S.A. member's nose…

“Let me get this straight: Heero uncovered this development without authorization and now he and Trowa are flying into a situation blind!?” she gritted out.

Quatre nodded, unfazed by Noin's barely controlled fury. “Don't worry; I am confident that Wufei and I will find the necessary intel. Wufei has already made great progress piecing together the fragmented files.”

Noin sighed, tossing the tablet back onto her desk. Leaning back into her chair, she studied the young man across from her, a dark wig obscuring his golden tresses and thick framed glasses distorting his famous wide aqua eyes.

“That was quite the show you put on at the ball the other night,” she remarked. “I would say you were laying it on a little thick with the spoiled and irresponsible act. I've been hearing rumours all morning about your being spotted at several inappropriate locations after you left the Peace Ball in such an abrupt manner.”

“I had to get out of there!” Quatre was unapologetic. “I would rather have been facing a squadron of Liberators than those self-serving ogres.”

“Besides,” he added with a grin. “The rumours aren't wrong.”

“What!?” Noin gasped.

“They did see me at those places, well, more specifically; they saw Ahmad in a blonde wig and my clothes.”

“A double?” Noin asked, a smile starting to form on her lips.

“Yes,” Quatre confirmed. “I knew I would be tailed, so I had Ahmad take my place. I had him go to several disreputable locations to help reinforce my façade as the out of control and reckless Winner heir. While Ahmad is out leading those spies on a merry chase, I can focus on my work here and no one will be the wiser. Perhaps Ahmad might even be able to catch some of my stalkers in some compromising situations of their own.”

Quatre grinned widely at Noin. “What do you think?”

Noin smirked back, “I like your style Agent Winner.”

~*~

“The arrangements have been made Grandpapa.”

“Good, when?”

“Two days from now, the 27th, at the usual time and place.”

“Code?”

“Black Moon Winter”

“Good. And your tasks?”

“Progressing nicely Grandpapa, very nicely.”

~*~

“Dreaming of Trowa again are we?”

Quatre jerked awake, banging his knee against his desk. Blinking in confusion, he struggled to get his bearings. Meeting Wufei's amused gaze, he grinned sheepishly as he rubbed his knee.

“Sorry, I must have dozed off for a moment there,” Quatre said as he glanced at the time displayed on his computer screen. “Uh, make that a few hours…”

Wufei leaned over his friend's shoulder and studied Quatre's screen. “Looks like you finished organizing the files. Upload them to the network and I'll run them through Nataku's search program. I can take over from there, get some rest.”

Quickly uploading the data to the network, Quatre shook his head. “No, I'm alright, nothing a cup of tea can't fix. I'll help you with the search. I won't rest easy until I know what Trowa and Heero are getting themselves into.”

“If you're sure,” Wufei assented, seating himself in front of his wall of monitors.

“I'm sure. Tea?”

“Thank you,” he watched slyly out the corner of his eye as Quatre set about making tea in the office's small kitchenette. “I recommend wiping the drool off your chin before we get started.”

Quatre's eyes widened and he scrubbed hastily at his face.

Chuckling to himself, Wufei turned to his computer and cracked his knuckles. “Let's get to work Nataku.”

~*~

“Odin Jr., status report!”

“Left leg 55%, left arm 70% efficiency.”

“I see.” A wizened old man with metal goggles limped further into the small hospital room. Snapping the claw of his prosthetic arm, he picked up the tablet recording his patient's vital readings. “Your recovery time is outstanding, as expected.”

The boy lying on the narrow hospital cot remained silent, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.

“Listen carefully Odin,” the old man commanded, taking a small metal box out of the pocket of his lab coat and placing it on the prone boy's lap. “Those incompetent fools on the committee are planning on releasing a deadly virus into the UNDIS population. Here is the vaccine. Administer yourself a dose; keep the rest for leverage against those brainless idiots.”

The small boy carefully opened the metal box and stared blankly at the four syringes inside.

“Heero,” the four syringes whispered.

“Heero,” they called louder this time.

“HEERO.”

Someone was in his personal space.

Heero woke up violently, instinctively lashing out at his attacker.

Trowa smoothly avoided Heero's flying fist and retreated to the far end of the small cabin, waiting for Heero to awake fully.

“What?” Heero growled.

Trowa wisely chose not to comment on Heero's laboured breathing and sweat-slicked skin. “T minus 1.25 hours; Quatre and Wufei are on the line with their findings,” he informed Heero before disappearing into the cockpit.

Grabbing a towel from the locker next to his bunk, Heero roughly rubbed his hair and skin dry before donning his Preventers jacket and joining Trowa in the cockpit. The link with Preventers headquarters was already up and both Quatre and Wufei were being broadcast on the screen. Wufei sat with his usual straight-backed posture but the worry etched on his face belied his confident manner. Next to him, Quatre wearily nursed a cup of tea.

“That bad?” Trowa inquired wryly.

Wufei's lips thinned into a straight line before he replied cautiously, “We're not sure.”

“Using Wufei's new search program,” Quatre began, “we were able to narrow down a location for the lab by piecing together data from the various files we managed to recover. We believe it's in Quadrant 9, Section 2 in one of the sub-L levels.”

“That's the same quadrant where the old UNDIS prisons were located,” Trowa noted.

Wufei nodded. “Yes, we think the lab can be accessed through the basement of Prison C3 or C5.”

“Why didn't we find this before?” Heero demanded.

Wufei bowed his head, “Our earlier searches were focused on the Liberators' quadrants of the colony. We labelled the UNDIS quadrants as low priority as the records indicated that they had been abandoned for close to a decade. It was a tactical error.”

“Don't beat yourself up;” Trowa calmly cut in, “the files we have are incomplete and disjointed. We had no way of knowing our prior assumptions were false, right Heero?”

Heero glared at the control panel. “It's my fault. I should have told you about my findings earlier! No, I should have noticed something was wrong the minute I entered that base! I failed!”

“Now is not the time to berate yourself Heero,” Trowa instructed firmly, “we have a chance to fix the situation; I suggest we take full advantage of it.” Turning his attention back to his two associates on the screen he asked, “What information do we have on the function of the lab?”

“That's the thing,” Quatre said uncertainly. “Besides some sort of connection to the QR145 virus, we can't find anything concrete about what other work was being conducted in the lab; just a list of experiment names and bits and pieces of coded reports and instructions. Without a key to decipher the code or a larger sample of the code to create our own key… there's just nothing else in the files!”

Wufei nodded grimly. “Whatever was taking place in the lab, it was being done without the knowledge of the Liberators or the rest of the S.A. scientific team. Great care was taken to ensure that this lab didn't show up in any of the records. Whoever was pulling the strings behind this project had to be high up in the S.A. chain of command. This lab might be our link to the shadow S.A. leaders that have eluded our grasp thus far.”

Quatre turned to Heero, his eyes full of regret. “I just finished briefing Noin. She said the seizing the lab and assessing its significance takes precedent over the search for the UNDIS subject. I'm so sorry Heero, I know finding the subject is somehow important to you but…”

Heero cut Quatre off. “Acknowledged, we will secure the lab and its contents. Any other orders?”

“Be safe, both of you.”

Heero nodded and cut the transmission.

“Don't be discouraged Heero,” Trowa urged. “This lab may lead us to your mysterious UNDIS.”

Heero merely gazed blankly out into space.

~*~

“Gotcha!” Duo crowed triumphantly as he tossed his small black device in the air and deftly caught it. “Two days from now hmm… well, tomorrow I guess since it's already the 26th…”

Vigorously shaking his small gadget, he grinned fiendishly. “Tomorrow's the day those S.A. bastards are going to meet their maker!” he sang merrily.

“But first, let's see what today has in store.”

Waiting for the words to appear on the small screen, he grinned wider.

“Unforgiving & Disreputable. I'll say… that's a pretty accurate description of Shinigami today!”

~*~

Fully clad in their snug flight-suits and protective helmets, Trowa and Heero watched as their lock decoder ran through long sequences of numbers to unlock the electronic bolts securing the double doors. After locating the original blueprints for the prisons, the two agents finally uncovered an anomaly in the basement morgue of prison C3: a set of double doors not included in the blueprints.

“I don't like this,” Heero uttered quietly over the com-link of their helmets. “The entrance is through the morgue and the lab appears to be pressurized.”

Trowa nodded in response as he watched the lock's lights turn from red to green. Tapping a few final commands into the scanner strapped to his wrist he announced, “Life systems and biohazard scanners online. Point?”

“Point.”

Drawing their weapons, Heero and Trowa positioned themselves on both sides of the double doors. With one final nod of silent acknowledgement between the two of them, Heero hit the release switch. A sharp hiss filled the air as the doors eased open. When no alarms or explosions sounded, the agents soundlessly slipped into the lab with Heero in the lead.

The lights had flickered on with the opening of the doors, revealing a long stark walkway branching into two hallways. Without missing a beat, the agents parted ways, Trowa swerving left and Heero disappearing to the right.

Heero dove into the open doorway at the end of his hall, rolling into a crouch with his gun extended in front of him. Scanning the room, he detected no threat and the scanner fastened to his wrist remained silent. Holstering his weapon, he stood to examine the deserted room. A large conference table and a communications array lay undisturbed with a very faint coating of dust.

“Clear,” he intoned into his radio.

There was a pause on the line before Trowa replied. “Clear, but I think you need to come see this.”

Hearing his partner's clipped tones, Heero rushed out of the room and pelted towards the other hallway. Bursting into the gargantuan lab he skidded to a stop, staring in shock at his surroundings. Smashed lab equipment littered the lab benches and the floor. A second morgue lined the wall opposite him, its drawers pulled open haphazardly, frozen columns of air hissing into the room. Trowa stood motionless in the farthest corner of the lab, quietly watching Heero's reaction.

With mounting trepidation, Heero made his way towards the other agent, glass and debris crunching under the thick soles of his boots. Reaching the end of the long row of lab benches, he finally saw the carnage and destruction at Trowa's feet.

“The scientists?” Heero asked.

“It would appear so,” Trowa replied, nudging the closest bloody corpse with his foot. “They all seem to have been heading for something back here.”

Heero stepped around the bodies littering the floor and wrenched open the door of the cabinet standing in the corner, Trowa a silent shadow behind him.

Surveying the contents of the cabinet, Heero's grip tightened on the cabinet door, crumpling the metal. “Pressurized canisters.”

His visible eye widening, Trowa sucked in a harsh breath. “They were manufacturing an airborne version of the QR145 virus.”

~*~

AN: Another instalment and I can't feel my brain anymore… This story keeps conspiring against me. That being said, I'm aiming for lucky 7 to be the fateful meeting of all the boys. Fingers crossed! Oh, and a pretty big reveal in the next chapter I hope. :D

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go find another brain. I think this one is malfunctioning.