Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Family Ties ❯ Chapter 72 ( Chapter 72 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

The programming is now complete for the suits and it's time to test them out. Wufei and the others close in on the satellite and Barton lays his final plans.

Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Drama / Hentai / Romance / Suspense / Angst | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 02.05.2010 | Pages: 8 | Words: 7.9K | Visits: 268 | Status: Work In Progress

“Family Ties”

January 2007 ShenLong

Chapter 72

[Preventer Shuttle 221]

There wasn't a whole lot to do on a shuttle when flying through space. The auto pilot had everything under control and all systems were working perfectly fine. The three had discussed their options several times over, studied the blue prints of the satellite and still agreed on their original course of action.

Wufei had programmed the computer to alert them when they came just short of radar detection of the satellite, that way they could engage the cloaking device and avoid being detected should there prove to be anyone present on the satellite.

It was a shame they couldn't cloak themselves Quatre had commented.

Trowa wondered how long it would be before technology caught up enough to actually do that. Many things that had seemed impossible several years ago were now proving to be the opposite. Technology was advancing all the time and Trowa was unsure if that was a good thing or not.

With the rations aboard the shuttle, Trowa had done a wonderful job and created a dinner that was not only edible, but delicious too.

“You should seriously consider sacking your chef and replacing him with Trowa,” Wufei had commented again.

“We've already had that conversation, Wufei and I do not plan on letting Andre` go. Trowa has already made it perfectly clear he does not wish to be doing all the cooking,” Quatre replied. “Although there are times when I wish he would reconsider.” The blonde's eyes closed a touch as he savored the taste of the sauce on his tongue.

“If you ask me, Barton is wasted as a temporary agent or business aide,” huffed Wufei.

“I'm flattered and honored, Wufei, but as Quatre said, I have no desire to remain chained to a stove for the foreseeable future.”

“Such a waste.”

“I can still cook whenever I feel the urge,” Trowa defended.

“Then I sincerely hope you get the urge at every mealtime whilst on this mission.” Wufei declined to say anything more, concentrating on finishing his meal.

Once dinner was over and done with, the dishes cleaned and put away, Wufei checked their course again and then returned to the mess to find his partners engaged in a game of cards.

“Care for a game before we retire for the evening?” asked Quatre.

“As long as we're not playing `snap',” came the reply.

Quatre chuckled. “Actually, what about poker?”

“Fine with me.”

“Are we playing for money or chocolates?” asked Trowa as he checked the depleted state of the packet of chocolate M & M's he'd brought with him. “Forget that question, I think we'd better play for cash, I'm just about out of chocolate.”

“That's okay with me. What about you, Wufei?” asked Quatre, shuffling the cards.

“No problem.”

Three hours later...

“Three kings and a pair of twos,” smirked Trowa and swept his hand around the cash in the center of the table.

Wufei groaned. “How the fuck did he do that? I'm all cleaned out.” He looked to where a couple of dollar bills remained at his side and then to Winner who wasn't in much of a better state, having roughly five dollars left in his `kitty'.

Trowa felt quite smug; he'd scored roughly sixty dollars from the pair.

“Think yourself lucky you weren't playing strip poker with him,” muttered Quatre.

Wufei's eyes widened a touch and he swallowed. “I think I will retire for the evening. I'll just go and put in a call to HQ first and check on the navigation and auto pilot.” Chang bowed as he stood and then left the pair alone to finish cleaning up.

“You had a lucky streak tonight,” remarked Quatre as he packed the cards away.

Trowa shrugged and continued to put the bills away in his wallet. He didn't dare tell his lover that the perspex behind where Wufei and Quatre had been sitting had acted just like a mirror and allowed him to see what cards the pair had been dealt. It wasn't cheating - just taking advantage of a situation.

“Come on, let's go to bed.”

With another smirk, Trowa followed his husband out of the mess and along to where the sleeping quarters were.

“Preventer HQ this is Agent Fire.” Wufei waited patiently for a reply as Preventer would be running on skeleton staff considering it was the evening back on earth. His patience was soon rewarded when a crackling came down the line followed by a voice.

“Agent Fire, this is Agent Oak. We read you loud and clear.”

Wufei gave a soft sigh of relief and then spoke with the other agent, confirming they were still on course and all was going according to plan so far. He inquired after Heero and the file conversion, being informed that Agent Day was still in the process of changing the files systems. No further information in relation to their current case was available so Wufei closed the call after confirming they would make contact again at 09:00 hours earth time the following morning unless something unexpected were to happen in the meantime.

The auto pilot was still running perfectly, the navigation system spot on and a quick run down of the computer system showed that all was operating normally. Having set the alarms to alert them should anything at all change, Wufei retired for the evening.

* * *

[Mansion]

Tucking the blanket firmly around his son, Heero wound up the small mobile and left the child to sleep. He pulled the door partially closed and after one last peek into the room, walked down the hall and stairs to the kitchen to make a cup of tea.

With his mug in hand, Heero walked towards the back door, Miracle right behind him. She wasn't letting Heero out of her sight. Opening the door and stepping outside, Heero smiled at the dog. “It's okay, Miracle. Go do your business and I'll wait right here.”

Since Duo's disappearance, Miracle had been rather clingy towards Heero, not that he could blame the dog. Not knowing if her master was coming back any time soon she was reluctant to lose sight of Heero just in case he vanished too!

Whilst he waited for the dog, Heero sipped at his tea and glanced skywards. The night sky was clear of clouds, letting the stars shine through and they twinkled like tiny diamonds. His practiced eye soon picked up on the slowly moving object know as L2 and tracked its slow progress across the evening landscape. A soft whine and wet nose pushing at his hand brought him back to reality.

“What is it, girl?” Heero asked as he fondled the dog's ears.

Miracle looked at him with liquid eyes.

Placing his mug on the small patio table, Heero crouched beside the dog and wrapped his arms around her neck, Miracle whining softly and licking along the side of his face. Burying his face in the warm fur, Heero let the sob escape.

“Oh, god, Miracle. What am I going to do if I can't find him? I miss him so much, I don't think I could live without him.”

Miracle whimpered quietly and pushed closer to her human. She knew something was terribly wrong and she could sense it was to do with her missing master; but she didn't know how she could fix it. All she could do was offer her companionship.

Heero held onto the warm comfort of the dog for a little while longer, letting the storm of emotions rise and fall, and then settle once more. Feeling a little calmer, he released the dog and scrubbed at his face with his hands. Turning his sad, blue eyes to the heavens, he whispered, “Where are you, Duo?”

* * *

[Satellite XRB 23]

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Duo did his best to control the nausea that wanted to surface. He was dreading the arrival of the breakfast tray. So far he'd managed to avoid Duric's questions, pretending there was nothing wrong and he wasn't going to ruin the show if he could help it.

He really didn't need Duric insisting he see a medic; that would pose too many problems.

He'd narrowly avoided Duric calling the medic the previous evening when he'd returned. Unfortunately for Duo, Duric was already 'home' when he arrived. The other man had waited until their captors had left before letting fly with the questions. Ignoring the other man, Duo had shuffled into the bathroom to take a look at the damage himself.

His cheek bone was swollen and starting to turn a few interesting shades of black and purple. Blood lay spattered across the front of his t-shirt from the split in his lip, but that wasn't what concerned Duo the most. Gingerly he lifted the hem of the shirt and let his fingers explore his abdomen. He winced as he made contact with a sore spot just to the side of his hip bone. He swallowed hard, realizing just how close Young had come to actually landing the blow to his gut.

There would be bruising, but Duo could cope with that. He was just grateful that Young hadn't connected with his midsection. If any harm had come to the fetus he suspected he was carrying, there would be more than a blood bath on this floating piece of tin.

Having flat out refused Duric calling a medic, Duo had reluctantly allowed the other man to help him clean his face up a little bit. He'd not mentioned the blow to his hip area - and had no intention of doing so either.

The door to the room opened and a tray was shoved inside, the door closing quickly. With Duric still in the bathroom, Duo got up and picked up the breakfast tray. Placing it on the bed, he took a quick look at what was on offer, making sure to hold his breath and avoid inhaling the aroma as that usually set his stomach off.

This time he was lucky.

There was only toast, (a little burnt),a small packet of butter and jam on the tray along with two cups of watery tea. Duo wondered if they'd used the same tea bag in both cups. So far his stomach was behaving so Duo decided to take a chance and sipped at the tea.

It did have a soothing effect despite the soreness of his lip and after a few more swallows he felt up to trying a piece of toast. Just a thin scraping of butter went on and Duo brought it to his mouth, chewing and swallowing as best he could around the soreness of his lip and cheek. He waited for the food to hit his stomach. Aside from a slight queasiness that he managed to suppress, he felt okay.

“I see breakfast has arrived,” Duric noted, stepping out from the bathroom. “What has the gourmet chef sent us today?”

“Bread, a-la well done,” Duo replied and held up a piece of the slightly black toast.

“Better than the rubber balls they tried to pass off as boiled eggs,” Duric muttered and took a slice. He slathered the butter and jam on as thickly as he could to disguise the burnt taste. “Iced tea?” he questioned as he lifted the mug to his lips and took a drink.

“It was warm when it arrived,” Duo replied and drained the remaining tea from his own mug and finishing off his toast.

“How's the lip and cheek?”

“Fine,” Duo scowled.

Noting the look on Duo's face, Duric changed topics. “I don't think it will be much longer before Barton is ready to make his move.”

“How is it coming with the army?”

“Hopeless lot. I'm pretty much guessing that what you said about them is true. They don't appear to want to work together. Oh, they give the appearance of cooperating, but seriously, when the pressure is on I'm betting they will be out to look after number one.”

“Good. At least then it will be easier to pick them off.”

“What about your side?”

“Programing is all complete. I think I recall something being said about the pilots taking the suits out for a test run or something today.” Duo shrugged his shoulders.

Duric scratched his chin for a moment, locked in thought. Moments later he spoke again. “Supposing you do manage to screw up this guy's mobile suits, and supposing the army falls apart, Barton will still have released his Firecell thing with catastrophic results. Even if you do manage to stop him, what will happen in regards to that Firecell? Can its consequences be reversed? Will the entire populace, earth and colonies be returned to the stone age as you put it?”

Duo paused and thought long and hard on that. He'd not really thought much at all beyond stopping Barton. If the Firecell was deployed, would they be able to reverse the damage, return everything to the way it was before? He frowned. “I hadn't really thought about it,” he confessed. “I'd kind of hoped to stop Barton before it's released.”

“Well, I've got news for you, buddy. It's becoming a very real fact that this Firecell will probably be deployed before you can stop it and someone seriously needs to consider what the fuck is going to happen afterward.”

Duric did have a point, Duo conceded, although what exactly could be done about it was anyone's guess. He really didn't know a whole lot about the intricacies of the whole Firecell thing to be able to predict what could happen when Barton was stopped. That's presuming they could still stop him.

Duo longed for some way to be able to contact Heero or Preventer. Unfortunately, that wasn't going to happen any time soon. For now, Duo would have to be content to bide his time, do all he could from his end to stop Barton and hope to hell Heero had managed to get some of his clues. And if he had, that Preventer was doing something from their end to stop Barton too.

Yeah, and his chances of winning the lottery were probably better.

The door opened bringing an end to any further conversation or thoughts.

Duric disappeared one way and Duo found himself with Peterson as his babysitter. They exited the room, Peterson looking curiously at Duo's multi-colored cheek but declining to say anything, and that suited Duo just fine. They walked down familiar corridors for a short while before Peterson stopped.

“Down here,” he said and gestured to the right.

“That's not the way to the programming room,” Duo stated.

“We're not going there,” snapped Peterson. “Move!”

Reluctantly, Duo walked down the indicated corridor, following Peterson's directions. Within moments they arrived at their destination.

“What the fuck?” Duo stopped dead in his tracks and stared. They had entered a small room and then stepped out onto a sort of gangway that went all the way around a larger, open area. The gangway was roughly three quarters the way up and in the center of the open space stood a simulator.

A mobile suit simulator.

“Ah, Mr Maxwell. So kind of you to join us.”

Duo's head turned sharply to the left. Approaching him were Barton and that Zaheer guy. His eyes narrowed. The skin on the back of his neck began to prickle and Duo knew that whatever it was that was coming, he wasn't going to like it.

* * *

[Preventer Shuttle 221]

“Morning, Wufei,” Quatre greeted as the dark haired agent stepped into the small mess area. “I have tea brewed if you would like some?”

“Good morning and thank you,” replied Wufei and sat himself down. A cup of steaming tea was set in front of him and Wufei sniffed the aroma, his eyes sliding shut with appreciation.

“Did you sleep well?”

“As well as can be expected. And you?”

“Fine, thank you; although I had thought the gravity might have been an issue.” Quatre placed his mug on the table.

“It doesn't take long for your body to adjust to the slight difference between the earth gravity and the slightly less gravitation of the shuttle,” replied Wufei.

“Once a spacer, always a spacer I guess,” chuckled Quatre. “I'm glad you said you would leave the gravitational field on though, makes everything a bit easier, especially eating and drinking.”

“Where is Barton?”

“He's in the cockpit checking that everything is still programmed and functioning.”

“Ah. I'll go check also. I need to contact HQ too and see if there have been any new developments.” Wufei stood and picked up his cup to take with him.

“I'll see what I can find and make breakfast.” Quatre moved from the mess into the small galley and began his quest for said breakfast as the Chinese agent headed for the cockpit.

A shadow darkened the doorway and Trowa looked up from his perusal of the gauges and dials to see who was there. Noting Wufei's presence, he turned his attention back to the instrument panel.

Stepping in and taking up residence in the pilot's seat, Wufei began his own perusal of the instrument panel and the log book that held all the information on their flight plan, how far they'd come and how the shuttle was performing. Finding nothing amiss, he left Trowa to continue working out their estimated time of arrival at the satellite and put in his call to HQ.

“Preventer HQ, this is shuttle 221, do you read?”

There were several bursts of static down the line and Wufei had to repeat himself anther three times before a voice came back through the headset.

“Preventer shuttle 221, this is Agent Forest. We read you.”

Wufei exchanged the necessary information with communications, giving them a readout on their current location, speed and all other relevant data before asking if there had been any further developments. Forest couldn't give him anything new, nothing had changed since their departure and after a few more words, Wufei disconnected.

Trowa glanced up at the agent and raised an eyebrow.

“Nothing new to report,” Wufei replied to the unasked question. “Winner is getting breakfast, I suggest we go eat and after we need to check the suits for any signs of wear. I don't want to be caught on a satellite that doesn't have life support working and find I have a couple of busted stitches.”

Emerald eyes widened. “Shit!”

“Did you forget about the suits?” Wufei asked. It was unusual for Barton not to think of checking their space suits, it was one of the first things drummed into them.

“No, not the suits. You said Quatre was getting breakfast.”

“That's right.”

“Crap. Trust me, Wufei. If Quatre's cooking breakfast then a couple of busted stitches will be the least of your worries.”

“Surely he's not that bad.”

“He's the only person I know that can burn water. He's a disaster in the kitchen. You'll be needing life support of a different kind.”

Wufei swallowed. “Maybe we should go and intervene?”

“I think that could be beneficial to the pair of us.”

Both Trowa and Wufei bolted from the cockpit and headed for the galley.

“They must be hungrier than I thought,” Quatre muttered to himself as he heard the rapidly approaching footsteps. He turned just as the pair entered the mess, aiming directly for the door to the galley. “Umm... Hi guys. Breakfast is just about ready.”

Trowa shot through the door looking wildly around. Wufei grabbed the fire extinguisher off the mess bulkhead to back up the other agent

“Err... Guys? What's wrong?”

Coming to a halt, both men looked around, Trowa fully expecting to find the galley a complete disaster area. Wufei wasn't sure what to expect.

“Wufei said you were cooking breakfast,” Trowa stated, eyes still scanning around.

“I said I would get breakfast ready,” Quatre returned and then waved his hand in the direction of the table in the mess.

Upon the table sat three bowls, a jug of milk and a box of cereal.

“Ah.”

* * *

[Satellite XRB 23]

Staring wide eyed at the simulator, Duo swallowed and then shifted his gaze to Barton.

“As you can see, it is a mobile suit simulator.”

“I'm not blind!” snapped Duo.

“Watch your mouth,” Zaheer snarled and gave Duo a glare that promised pain.

Duo took no notice; he'd survived Heero's glares.

“You are no doubt wondering what this simulator could possibly have to do with you.” Barton stated and watched Duo's reaction.

Keeping his face neutral, Duo declined to answer. He was worried though and had been thinking exactly that.

“Let me enlighten you.” Barton moved towards a series of consoles, Peterson pushing Duo in the back to get him to move and follow. It was your standard set up for a simulator.

“The programing that you have done for the mobile suits needs to be tested. I'm not about to send my pilots out there into space in suits that could possibly be faulty should you have managed to slip anything past the programmers.”

Duo snorted. “How could anyone have done anything at all to the program, let alone myself with everyone breathing down my neck?”

“Then this shouldn't worry you in the least,” Barton smirked.

“What shouldn't?”

“Mr Maxwell, you will enter the simulator and run the suit and program through all the situations that will be presented to you. Part of the simulation will require you to use your own skills, other parts the doll will take over.” Barton turned back to the console and pushed a few buttons. The hatch on the simulator opened.

“And if I refuse?” Duo questioned.

Zaheer pulled out a gun and leveled it at Duo's forehead.

“I don't think you have any choice,” stated Barton. “Zaheer, assist Peterson to take Mr. Maxwell and strap him in the simulator.”

Duo found himself being shoved once again and with a growl, he walked along the catwalk and down the stairs to the floor of the room. With Zaheer's gun still trained on him, he entered the simulator and strapped himself in. The cockpit door closed and he found himself in a world of darkness for a moment before the circuit boards began to hum and the fire up sequence started.

Back at the control console, Barton pushed several buttons and typed in commands to the computer. The simulator fired up along with the small screens that would allow those operating the console to see the same scenario as the pilot in the simulator.

“Now we will see just how well this program can perform.” Barton typed in the command and the program began to run.

~ * ~

tbc...