Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Idle Hands ❯ Ten ( Chapter 10 )

Ten

"Brigadiers!"

Heero, Duo, Trowa, and Quatre jumped to their feet as Wufei turned from the side-table he'd been at.

"Brigadiers!" the soldier dropped a file of papers onto the table, flattening the thing and glancing at the clipboard a lot more men had taken to carrying since Matty, Blake, and Jinli had started playing with them. "Here!" he indicated a point on the map. "A transport shuttle from Obsidian was flying over the area about five minutes ago—the soldiers there hailed it—it's part of Derringers's Fleet. They hailed the transport and the soldiers on board refused to comply...they shot it down."

Wufei stepped toward him, his expression startled.

"Sirs...it was full of armed M.S....armed."

Quatre looked to Duo in disbelief.

"They sent in an immediate salvage team to check for survivors...there were three men on it, and only one was critically injured. They have them in the medical ward under guard...but...the suits..."

"How did he get armed suits?" Duo muttered, turning to look to Quatre in amazement.

"I don't know," Quatre muttered, widening his eyes. "But they noted several other transports heading back toward Obsidian...do you think?"

"God, I hope not," Duo dropped into a seat as he considered the ramifications. It wasn't the first time they'd heard of the transports heading back to that ship.

"Which suits?" Quatre muttered to the guy.

He looked almost like he'd salute as he set the clipboard down and started flipping through options. "Uh...it looks like...mainly Aries, sir," the guy returned.

"But that's only one of those transports," Duo noted quietly.

"We have the gundams and Demigod for a reason," Heero noted quietly.

"Should...I get Sandrock?" Quatre looked uncertainly to Wufei.

"No," Wufei and Heero said in unison.

"Sandrock was too...alive...to be safe," Heero reminded him. "Zero was fucked up beyond belief, but Sandrock..."

Quatre pressed a knuckle to his lips.

"We should...destroy them," Duo said quietly, not looking at either male. "Sandrock and Zero...should never have been made like that."

Heero nodded, his lips pursed, but Quatre looked away.

"What do we do with the suits?" the runner muttered quietly, his expression somber.

"Unarm them...destroy them?" Heero looked to the others, the statements more a question.

"If Gerrange has armed MS," Duo countered quietly, "we might need them. I can do some damage with Deathscythe, and Tro with Heavyarms...but we were having issues with Demigod in our midst." He looked around to them all. "We're not even sure those suits weren't salvaged by them."

Heero rubbed at his face, and they all focused on Wufei and Trowa.

Wufei looked away from them. "I'm not good at these decisions. Every time I make one I'm wrong—look at Marimea."

Trowa studied Wufei a long moment, then looked to the rest again...and nodded once. "Wipe the programming," he ordered the soldier quietly. "Wipe it and reboot it from our systems—make sure the information wasn't tampered with before we reset the system, too. If it was, find one that's old."

The soldier looked around at them all a long moment. "It's a real war then, isn't it?"

"It's been a real war playing on silent since the beginning," Trowa agreed. "As soon as Gerrange made his first move, he declared this a war...we've only been playing capture-the-flag so far...but I guess it's time to stop the kiddy shit," he looked out the window a long moment in silence, then nodded sharply at the soldier. "You have your orders."

"Sir," the guy muttered, saluting him smartly before directing the respect to the other men...and disappeared.

- -

"Rab!"

Rab turned to look at the alarmed soldier who came spilling onto the landing to salute him.

"Sir! There are ships moving in! Not ours!"

"Took them long enough," he muttered, turning to look at the contingent of MS that had made it in over the last day—one of the transports had been destroyed when it flew too close to an E.S.A. fleet. Obsidian had been in quiet mourning since the transport's communication had crackled out of life. There was no news if the men had survived, and with how the E.S.A. worked, they'd probably salvaged the ship and found the MS.

It really had taken them long enough. They'd given him five or six days to repair his ship and recollect his soldiers.

Maybe they wanted to fight just as badly as he did.

"Go check if the repair team is done," Rab ordered the man, starting for the bridge. "I want this battle in space as soon as we can get it there."

"Sir!" the guy saluted him and disappeared.

Rab ran a hand through his hair, then smiled grimly.

He wished he could have seen the look on Winner's face when they'd found out about the suits. He wished he'd had someone inside to see how they'd all reacted. ...it was almost too bad J had ditched out on him, he'd have appreciated that humor. Deroy, too.

He put the matter aside as he swept up the final set of stairs and threw the door open to look at the men who'd been scrambling around. "They're finally taking me seriously," he noted conversationally. "It's about damn time."

- -

"All the ships are reporting the same thing," Trowa noted quietly as he stood on the deck of the flag ship of Derringer's Fleet. "Minimal resistance. The transport we took out is the only ship, though, that hadn't returned. That's more than thirty-five suits if the other ships returning weren't full of suits."

"And if they were...there could be a hundred on his ship," Quatre noted, rubbing at his eyes. "We were having issues with eight. Why were we having issues with eight?"

"That was just a warm-up, Quatre," Wufei noted with a wicked grin. "I can do some damage with that whip, too."

Quatre looked at him.

"We have an army, we have at least three ships that are pre-armed, and at least a dozen more that are ready to be armed when we find the old weaponry." He shook his head, giving Duo a look. "And you were happy they disbanded the Preventers."

Duo gave him a look.

"I doubt we're dealing with more than seventy. It's probably fifty, if you remember how many suits Gerrange let fall to ruin in L.A."

"We should have foreseen this," Wufei noted pointedly. "I know other officers made the conjectures, and we weren't paying them mind much at all. We were being naïve, so now instead of us implementing a plan of our origin, we have to implement one someone else thought of."

They all nodded glumly at that.

"It's our own fault," Heero muttered tiredly, running a hand through his hair. "We did it to ourselves."

"We were so sure we knew what Gerrange was capable of," Quatre noted in vague amusement. He looked up, meeting all their eyes. "We got complacent."

That made them all give him sour looks and nod their agreement.

"We need to get back to the base and find a plan," Wufei noted, shoving himself up to look out the windows at the calm ocean. The sky was a brilliant blue and the waves were calm...it was a beautiful day to be at sea.

"Let's go," Duo agreed, shoving himself up and offering a hand to Heero. "Something tells me that our quiet little war just exploded."

"Yeah," Trowa muttered, moving to stare out the window himself. "We fucked up, didn't we?"

"Let's not admit that to anyone," Duo suggested pointedly, considering the man. "We can leave it in the dust with you courting Lifon and Wufei becoming an alcoholic."

Trowa and Wufei made faces at him, moving to follow.

Duo made an amused noise.

"What?" Heero asked curiously.

"I'm not there," Duo smirked at him. "Remember? We had like...six months or whatever to build that house? I haven't been there at all. I wonder if Reg is pissed at me."

Heero started snickering.

- -

"So we're ready to head out?" Timorre muttered curiously to Heero, looking around at the group of men. "Most of my soldiers are on board."

"Good," Heero muttered, moving past him to board Illicit.

"What is he doing?" Timorre asked Trowa blankly.

"I have no idea," Trowa noted, shrugging and following the man.

Timorre looked to Matty uncertainly.

"I haven't been told more than that shit got serious," the youth noted with Blake a step behind him. Jinli was standing near them, his lips pursed.

"I suppose...Captain," Duo noted, looking back to salute Timorre, "I should ask permission for our lot to board."

Timorre grinned at him and nodded. "By all means, it's a retroactive invitation to five minutes ago."

"Wonderful, you think you're clever, too," Quatre noted, bouncing up the entryway.

Timorre gave Matty a look.

Matty smirked back at him, moving to follow the mostly-blond wordlessly.

Trowa watched as Blake hesitated to glance at him, then turned and followed as well.

"So what's up?" Timorre asked curiously, moving to fall in with Duo and Trowa. Wufei and Jinli followed them.

"We overlooked that Gerrange isn't an entire idiot," Wufei admitted dryly. "So now we have a general's plan from over in Brazil to enact, and none of us are overly pleased by it."

"How many suits do you have?" Heero asked sharply from where he was at the intersection.

"You're utterly charming," Matty noted dryly. "Now I remember why I fell in love with you."

Heero snickered, turning to kiss him very quickly.

Blake and Matty smirked at each other.

"Uh...three," Timorre returned, tilting his head. "Why?"

"Because Gerrange has at least thirty."

Timorre stopped, blinking at him.

"Armed," Heero agreed, studying the other man curiously.

"How did he get armed MS?" Timorre asked, looking around to Trowa and Duo in disbelief.

"We were hoping you knew," Wufei noted, moving around.

"For all that Rab considered me his second, he didn't bother telling me a lot," Timorre considered them all a moment, then gestured. "We should go somewhere more comfortable to talk. Hold on." He moved over to the screen on the wall and typed in the code for his room.

"Hey, what's up?" Qing asked happily, drying his hair with a towel and stopping as he realized they were all with him. "Uh...the council-room?"

Timorre nodded.

"Right...I'll be there in a few," the screen went blank.

"So what do you know about his plans?" Quatre asked curiously. "You defected with him."

Timorre considered the guy a long moment and shrugged. "I was brought into that shit more than planned it with him. We would hang out, and they all started planning. I was there, so I had to join or I'd probably have been in some sort of tragic accident. I don't know if Rab could tell I wasn't all-in on it, or if he was just manipulating everyone around him. No one knew his whole network, all we knew is that he only had a few men in a lot of places. I knew he had like...two...suits, and he used those fighting with you lot in L.A.."

"You knew he had Wing?" Heero snapped.

Timorre shrugged. "I also know that the machine wasn't repaired all that well."

Heero made a noise.

"But even with the notion of him having MS...I didn't think they were armed," he made a face, glancing sidelong at Quatre...and stopping. He blinked a few times, then focused on the man.

Quatre smirked at him and shrugged to the others. "He hasn't been lying."

"Fucker," Timorre accused.

"We use what resources we have," Duo reassured him as they turned into a larger room. "So now we discuss how to go about getting you a few more armed MS."

"Really?" Timorre blinked at him, then frowned. "Wait...that...you'll make me pay for them, won't you?"

Duo shrugged, dropping into the end-seat nearest the exit as he looked to the man.

Timorre sighed, looking up to the ceiling, then closed his eyes and moved over to the vid-panel in the room. He opened a program and typed up a few lines of numbers...and clicked something.

Several smaller screens split up the thing, and a woman answered instantly. "Supreme?"

"Hold on," Timorre suggested.

"Jaden?" Hoxha asked, appearing on the second screen. "What's with the split?"

"Hold on," Timorre repeated.

It took a few moments before all the screens were lighted, each person greeting him with either President, Supreme, or Captain.

"The Brigadier Generals are present in the council room," he noted almost formally to them all. "We're to discuss the current state of the war."

That made everyone pause.

"We'll be there," the woman noted, her screen blanking out...it took a moment before they all turned black.

Timorre cleared the board, rubbing a hand to his face as Qingfu moved quickly into the room and saluted the Brigadiers as he passed his captain.

"Take a seat, Qing," Duo suggested as the others moved around to sit as well. "We have real business to discuss."

"Well," Qingfu muttered, sitting in the right-hand chair at the other end of the table. "That sounds foreboding."

- -

"So we've got enough to arm twenty suits," the soldier noted happily to Duo, hitting the side of a large cargo-box. "They were all checked out before they got here. How many of these lovelies are we putting on Illicit?"

"Six," Duo returned, rubbing his hands together as he considered the box. "Or eight, I forget what was finally decided on. The second shipment should come in this evening—the one from Cape Town."

"Awesome," the guy muttered, passing the clipboard to Duo. "Sign that, please," he passed the stylus over.

Duo considered the electronic thing a long moment, then rolled his eyes and scrawled his signature.

"What?" the guy asked curiously, taking the things back.

"Williams-Yuy, Kiardane, and Wong-Chang brought these back into popularity around here by playing with them," Duo explained dryly.

The guy grinned at him.

Duo pulled out his phone, moving off to the side as the guy started yelling orders at his crew.

"Den's phone, Qing speaking. I can't get laid if you call him away."

Jaden started laughing in the background. "Give me that," he muttered, sounding muffled. "Sorry...uh...Maxwell?"

"I'd hope he wouldn't answer like that to just anyone," Duo noted dryly. "I didn't hear the final outcome. Six or eight?"

"Oh, the weapons are in? Uh...we decided on eight."

"Alright, go back to the sex thing," Duo ordered, closing his phone as the man started laughing.

"Well?" the soldier asked, turning back to him.

Duo grinned happily at him. "Eight. That's the transport," he indicated the large flat-bed that had pulled up off to their right.

"Alright," the guy saluted him, then clambered away over the boxes.

Duo considered the pile of weaponry happily, then turned and made his way back down the bit of the pile he was on. The man had been on his way to the floor, but Duo hadn't gotten to climb any sort of cargo mountain in years, so he'd moved up to join the other.

"Do you feel better now?" Quatre asked, moving out from the dock area.

"Yeah, actually," Duo grinned as he hopped off the stuff. "They're gonna take Den's stuff over to him," he indicated the flat-bed. "Let's go get him the rest of his MS."

Quatre nodded, turning to follow him happily.

- -

"You know how to mount the weapons, don't you?" Heero asked tiredly as he tried to balance a pencil on end—they were in the council room of Illicit again, but this time it was only them. It had been mostly social, starting with them acknowledging the weaponry shipment.

"Not really, but I have guys," Jaden shrugged.

Matty snorted at him.

Jaden gave the guy a look.

"I'm here!" Blake bounced happily into the room with Heero and Trowa's laptops in his arms...and...two more.

Matty blinked at that.

"These were in the rooms," Blake explained, passing Matty one...that had his name graphed on it like Lifon's, only not metallic.

It was blue-glittery.

Matty started giggling.

Jaden blinked at the machine in amusement, then looked up to Matty with interest.

"They came already?" Heero asked, dropping the pencil as he blinked at the guy.

"If they already have your programming on them, I'm going to smack you," Blake informed him dryly, dropping into the chair next to the other young man. His was orange with his name printed in a golden sort of metallic.

"What?" Jaden asked blankly, looking between the machines.

Heero sniggered a bit, leaning over and kissing Matty...as he detached something from the bottom.

"A board!" Matty squeaked, absolutely jumping out of his seat to pounce Heero.

"Aww, they found them already?" Trowa moved into the room with Qingfu. "I wanted to be there!"

"I sent Blake to get ours," Heero admitted, gesturing at the pair. "He found them."

"Damn," Trowa sighed, moving over to kiss Blake and touch the top of the thing. "What do you think?"

"I like it," Blake muttered, smiling up at him.

"Why don't you get me awesome-ass laptops out of nowhere?" Qingfu asked Jaden in a pouty tone.

"Because I can't afford them," Jaden retorted, giving him a look.

"I got you a good one," Duo protested, moving in from the hall. "Why are you pouting?"

"Because theirs are shiny," Qingfu indicated t blue glitter and the gold metallic.

Duo snickered, glancing back to Matty. "You have Li's nail-polish?"

Matty started giggling again, pulling his phone out to show Qingfu.

"What's....with the blue glitter?" Qingfu asked blankly. "Or do I want to know?"

Matty snickered. "It matches Heero's car."

Jaden and Qingfu both gave him very exasperated looks.

"Alright," Wufei muttered, moving into the room with a duffel over his shoulder. "I got our shit."

"What?" Heero asked blankly, looking back to him.

"Jaden noted he doesn't know how to mount the weapons," Trowa explained. "I figured we should just stay the night and call it good," he shrugged. "Shower in the morning and head back to the main base. A little semi-vacation where we don't have to be officers."

"I think I'm flattered," Jaden noted thoughtfully.

"I got a laptop," Jinli muttered, moving into the room with a curious expression on his face and a green machine in his hands. "Who got me a laptop?"

"I did," Wufei retorted. "It has a removable board on the bottom, too. That way you guys don't have to carry around the old clunky electric clipboards...we ordered them the other night. I put your shit on them," he added to Heero. "The ones I had on my machine, anyway."

"I have a laptop back home," Jin muttered with a frown to Wufei.

"It's outdated and these were on sale," Wufei retorted, then smirked at him. "I gotta treat my man right."

Jinli gave him a look.

Wufei laughed, moving around to set his own laptop down, then looked skeptically to the younger men. "Why aren't they on yet?"

Matty squeaked, pulling away from his kiss with Heero to focus on the machine—specifically on reattaching the board.

"I was enjoying that," Heero informed Wufei.

"Yes, that's why I distracted him."

Heero tossed the pencil at him.

"Open it," Trowa suggested.

Blake smiled up at him cutely, opening the machine and hitting the power button. It whirred to life...and a large picture of a very orange frog looked back at them. It was the same picture he'd set as the background on Trowa's laptop.

Trowa guffawed.

Wufei laughed a bit, glancing at it and winking at Blake.

Blake sniggered, pulling the board off the bottom...and absolutely giggling as the image of the frog was displayed inside the clear board.

"It can go 3D, too," Wufei informed him happily.

"What the hell were you doing all morning?" Trowa asked Wufei blankly.

"Playing," Wufei returned, blinking at him. "Obviously," he indicated the frog as it showed up in the air over the board and Blake giggled more.

Matty, meanwhile, had flicked his laptop on as well...to show one of his shots of a sort of blue frog.

Wufei grinned at the young men, looking around as he realized that he was being stared at. "What?"

Jinli started laughing wickedly, slamming his laptop closed.

Wufei started laughing delightedly, looking to his friend. "Show them your 3D. I'm sure everyone in here would appreciate that."

- -

It was later in the morning than they'd been waking up when Trowa opened his eyes. He blinked around the room blankly a moment, realizing belatedly that they were on Illicit. They'd spent most of the night mounting some of the weapons on the MS. It would probably three days to get them all set up, but that was fine because the teams on the base had already mounted the ones they'd been sent.

The engine was whirring.

Trowa frowned, climbing over Blake to find his clothing.

"Huh?" Blake muttered, rolling onto his back to look around. "Where..." he hesitated. "What is that sound?"

"The engine," Trowa explained. "I don't know why they're starting the ship."

There was a pounding on the door.

Trowa moved over and threw it open as Heero stumbled into the room to look between them in disbelief. "He took off!"

"What?" Trowa asked. "He who? What's going on?"

"Gerrange," Matty explained, moving into the room as well. He ran a hand through his hair...as the ship lurched.

"Everyone," Jaden's voice came over the room's loud-speakers as the man himself appeared on the room's vid-screen. "Hold on!"

"Jaden!" Trowa protested, grabbing ahold of the edge of the screen as Heero shoved Matty at the bed.

The image on the screen looked away as Trowa realized it was a one-way message.

"Hey!" Matty protested at Heero...as the thrusters kicked in.

Trowa and Heero were both thrown to the floor as the machine took off almost straight-up, and Matty dropped onto the bed next to Blake in disbelief as Wufei started cursing vehemently in Chinese from his room.

"Sorry," Jaden muttered, looking back to the screen. "Everyone was on board...and Gerrange is launching—the fool did a patch-job on Obsidian and is going to try the atmosphere."

"Our suits!" Trowa snapped, bracing himself against the floor as their direction changed a bit.

Blake was cursing.

"I have to sit," Jaden noted...and the screen went black.

"Damn it," they heard Duo snarl.

"Wait," Blake called in disbelief. "We're going into space?"

"You've never been, huh?" Matty muttered in vague amusement.

"We're readying the atmosphere charge," Qingfu noted as the ship's momentum lessened some. "If you can, get to a bed or a chair."

Trowa snarled, yanking Heero from the floor after him toward the bed. Blake moved toward the wall, but Trowa rolled over him and pulled the blankets around behind him.

"Hey!" Blake protested—which when the others realized he was naked.

"Things might get warm," Trowa retorted, leaning over and grabbing the guy's boxers. "Lay down, I think," he added, pulling Blake toward him.

"In three...two..." Qingfu wasn't watching the screen...and disappeared much like Jaden had.

The sound of the thrust was loud all around them, and they were pressed to the bed.

"Holy shit!"

- -

"You totally just kidnapped five brigadier generals and their spouses," Duo informed Jaden pointedly as he moved into the bridge.

"Sorry," Jaden muttered, frowning slightly at them. "I forgot you were here until we were already in the atmosphere...I...we'll send a transport back to Earth with you when we're stable up here."

Heero sighed, running a hand through his hair.

"I really am sorry," Jaden persisted, moving closer to them. "I...suppose this has to look bad."

"You kidnapping us?" Trowa asked happily. "It looks horrible," he moved past the man toward the wall of windows—the wall was a series of windows. "Where are we?"

"In space," Heero noted dryly, looking back toward the blue jewel of earth. He sighed, moving to look out the window, then moved to the vid on the wall. "How do you call a room?"

"There's a room call button," Jaden said quickly, moving over to him. "Do you know your room numbers?"

"1036," Qingfu called from where he was at a console on the far side of the room. "Barton is 1024."

Jaden typed the numbers in quickly, hitting the send.

Heero considered how angry he was at the man a brief moment—he could have gone for a kidney shot from their position, but realized almost belatedly that it was Jaden's ship.

Navy rules. His ship, his law.

"Yeah?" Matty asked, looking almost nervous.

"Hey, you should come up here," Heero muttered. "It's got a..." the bottom half of the screen came on and Blake was looking at him.

"Matty! Heero!" Blake bounced. "It's all black out the window!"

"Come up here," Heero suggested. "You'll like the view."

Blake agreed instantly, hitting the button and disappearing.

"We'll be a minute," Matty noted, also disappearing.

"Can this do all rooms?" Heero asked, considering the commands available.

"With the command code," Jaden agreed, moving out of his way. "It's 429."

He blinked at the guy.

"Half the ship know it," Jaden noted, then licked his lips almost nervously. "Everyone knows not to abuse it," he explained. "We...all kind of mutually respect each other, you know?"

Heero conceded with a shrug.

"You kidnapped me again, asshole!" Matty bounced into the room a few minutes later with a couple soldiers trying to protest on his and Blake's heels. He bounced across the room to smack Jaden...but noticed his friend, who'd stopped entirely.

"This way, kid," a soldier started, grabbing Blake's arm.

"They're the significant others of the brigadiers," Jaden informed the man. "They have free run of the ship."

"All right," the guy muttered, saluting him and glancing out the window. He snirked a little as he realized what had stopped the youth, then disappeared again.

"Come here," Trowa suggested, extending his arm for his boyfriend.

Heero moved up behind Matty, pushing him to get the full view from the window as well.

"Whoa," Blake whispered, leaning into Trowa as he considered the blue jewel with the white striping of clouds.

Trowa made a slightly amused noise, squeezing him slightly. "Yeah," he agreed. "Whoa."

.

End