Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Jokers Wild ❯ Four ( Chapter 4 )

Four

"Three weeks and counting," Duo noted, looking them all over as he set his bowl down. "We found Obsidian, how's Heavyarms?"

"Fine," Trowa shrugged. "I was making sure the area around the oxygen tank was in order."

"Check Deathscythe for me," Duo instructed. "And Demigod...and Quatre's."

"Let's call it Lame," Quatre suggested.

Duo grinned at him.

"Alright," Trowa agreed, shifting back to cross his arms.

"I want you to try and hack Obsidian," Duo added to Heero easily. "Go all Mad-Max on that machine," he pointed in a seemingly random direction. "I want oxygen levels, water levels, crews and communication."

Heero nodded.

"What about me, boss?" Wufei asked curiously.

"I don't know...be all bad-Asian-movie at it," Duo retorted, giving him a look.

Qingfu's eyebrows shot up.

"I will avenge my comrades!" Wufei offered instantly, actually managing a Chinese accent as he nodded to his friends and made a fist.

Jinli smacked a hand to his face.

"My ancestors will laugh in the face of my enemy!" Wufei added brightly, shaking the fist in the air.

Duo and Heero started laughing.

"Wow," Jaden muttered, staring at Wufei.

"I was gonna do the kung-fu pose stuff," Wufei offered to him, "but I didn't want to stand up."

Trowa snickered.

"I'll set up the relay with 25," Quatre noted, raising his hand. "What will you be doing?" he asked Wufei.

Wufei tilted his head at him. "Burning incense?"

Jinli hunched forward.

Quatre half-giggled. "No, really..."

"I'm not sure yet," Wufei noted, sitting back as he thought. "I suppose I could help with the suit maintenance—I mean, Demigod is mine."

"Help me," Heero suggested. "You'll just get in Tro's way if you go tailing after him. Besides, I don't think he appreciates your fetish with him when he's playing mechanic."

Trowa smirked at that.

Wufei rolled his eyes.

"Talk with Illicit's men," Matty suggested.

"Illicit men?" Wufei asked, focusing back on him. "How would you know about them?"

Qingfu groaned, leaning forward.

Matty snickered, glancing at Blake a moment before shaking his head.

"What, now?" Heero protested.

"Nothing!" the pair chirped in stereo.

"I just think someone with us should go make sure the soldiers here understand how we move!" Matty added brightly.

Heero's eyebrows arched.

"It's not like we were wandering around with Cardle last night," Blake agreed.

"Oh, that," Heero gestured the information away, looking back to Jaden and Qingfu. "That sound like a plan to you?"

"I thought you were the leader," Jaden muttered to Heero uncertainly.

"Leader?" Heero repeated, giving him a confused look. "I'm...Zero-One, yeah...but that's just because I attacked first."

"I think it's more because you're an asshole," Zechs shrugged, not meeting eyes.

"I thought you didn't like Duo," Matty protested that.

Zechs met his eyes, startled.

"What part of him searching me out to sit with his wife so he could sleep suggested that?" Duo asked blankly. "Before Quatre, I'd have gladly ran off with Lu, but Zechs never really wanted to leave her—for all that he was too stupid to admit it."

"We're engaged now," Zechs shot back in a mature fashion.

"And we're getting off topic," Jaden cut in quickly.

"You're married," Wufei noted.

Lu started giggling.

"She's not very good at being intimidating when she's giggling," Trowa noted, leaning sidelong at Qingfu. "You ever notice that? She was a big bad-ass during the wars, but now she's so besotted with him," he gestured at Zechs, "that she can't think straight when he's close to her, or when he's far away."

Lu laughed at that.

"We're...getting off topic," Jaden hazarded again.

"Nonsense," Quatre made a dismissive gesture. "Duo told us all what to do, so as soon as you say yes, we'll go do it. Everything else is just shootin' the breeze."

Jaden looked at him.

"I thought you were in charge," Qingfu noted to the brunette.

"When we're fighting," Quatre shrugged. "And then it's not even so much 'in charge'," he made air-quotes, "as 'suggesting' what to do."

"Or telling us we're fucking idiots when we ignore you," Wufei shrugged.

"You were being a fucking idiot," Quatre retorted.

They grinned at each other.

"What am I supposed to do?" Jaden asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I don't know, Supreme Ruler of the good ship Illicit," Duo muttered slowly. "What are you supposed to do?"

Jaden met his eyes levelly.

Qingfu snickered at that, running a hand through his hair as he thought. "I'd like to observe you, if I may," he muttered to Heero. "I've come up against you and lost enough that I'm not gonna bother anymore—fuckin' Mad-Max...I hate you, you know."

Heero laughed at that.

"You didn't realize he's Mad-Max?" Duo asked blankly.

Qingfu rolled his eyes.

"What are you going to be doing?" Wufei muttered, looking Duo over.

"Wing-man and coordinator," he indicated Jaden. "We need Heero and Wufei to get in first, then they can give the rest of us the plan..."

"Actually, we need the suits checked first," Heero pointed out. "Because then we can just send you to run."

"He has a mouse in his pocket," Lu noted, leaning into Zechs briefly.

"Do you think normal military leaders are like this?" Blake appealed to Jinli.

"It'd be a little anticlimactic, wouldn't it?" the Asian man muttered. He sighed, rising to his feet and falling into one of his stances. "To the battle stations!"

Matty started laughing.

- -

Jaden felt horribly inadequate.

He climbed up the stairs of a riser surrounding the suit they all had actually started to call "Lame" and met eyes with Matty.

Trowa, it seemed, was deep inside the suit's works. Heero had a lap-desk sitting over his lap, and Matty was leaning into the man's right shoulder. Qingfu was on the left, watching what Heero was doing with a clipboard in hand. The thing was covered in the man's tiny script, and after a brief moment of not understanding what he was seeing, he realized it was kanji.

"How's it going?" Jaden muttered, moving to bend over and kiss Qingfu briefly.

"I'm working through their encoding," Heero shrugged.

"Took him all of five minutes to get in," Qingfu agreed dryly. "He wrote his own fucking script," he showed Jaden the clipboard. "It's like...putting a puzzle together."

Heero flashed him a grin. "That is what encoding is, isn't it?"

Qingfu gave him a look.

"He has more security than I expected," Heero offered, looking back to Jaden...then Matty.

"I totally fell asleep until I heard someone saluting you," Matty noted, looking around to Jaden as well.

"You heard someone salute?" Qingfu asked blankly.

Matty blinked back at him, then sat back to look at Heero.

"Quatre will be happy," Heero agreed, looking back to the screen.

"I'm gonna tell him!" Matty proclaimed, sliding out from under the other's arm. "Where is he?"

"He was up on deck," Jaden offered.

"Alright!" Matty agreed happily, and darted off down the riser.

"Wasn't he...not supposed to be alone?" Qingfu asked blankly.

"Cardle will follow him in a second," Heero shrugged. "If he's feeling confident enough to run off by himself, I don't want to stop him."

Qingfu nodded, then sat back and started rubbing at his hands. "I think my brain went numb from trying to figure out how that shit works," he indicated the laptop.

"You made that program, right?" Jaden asked, looking to Heero. "The supplement to Pax that kept us out of Matt's phone?"

Heero nodded his agreement as he focused back on the machine. "I call it Pan. I incorporated everything I wanted in a program into it."

"Offense and defense," Jaden agreed dryly. "If Matt got close enough, you could use the sensors to fuckin' infect a console, couldn't you?"

Heero stopped, meeting Jaden's eyes as he thought. A wicked grin flashed across his face, and he snatched the clipboard out of Qingfu's hand. It took him a brief moment to have Qingfu's page torn off, and he was writing quickly...unlike Qingfu, though, he was actually doing the top to bottom lines instead of the left-to-right.

"Hey," Qingfu whispered, leaning over to look. "I promise there are spaces between words."

Heero laughed at that, shifting his shoulder so the man backed off. He stopped a second later, then scribbled something out and wrote another set next to it, then frowned as he studied the end-product.

"I wonder if that's why I'm having problems with it," Qingfu muttered dryly.

"No, I type it all up in English when I do it—this is just to confuse people if they come across it. Duo and Wufei can work out what I mean, but it is just for me."

"You...hadn't thought of using a worm-launcher?" Jaden asked dryly.

"No, but that's awesome," Heero returned, smiling brightly up at him.

Jaden covered his face with his hands.

Qingfu snickered.

"...mm...right," Heero muttered finally, tearing the sheet off and folding it up. "Sorry about that," he passed the clipboard back to Qingfu. "And line three of that is wrong," he pointed at the other sheet. "About a third of the way in."

Qingfu blinked at him, then looked down to his paper. "You said..."

Heero reached over and made another character above the one there.

"Oh," Qingfu blinked at it. "Can't I just do it in English?"

"Not if you want me to show you anything cool," Heero retorted.

"You done playing yet?" Trowa demanded, leaning out the hole in the machine to look at them with interest. "Where's Matty?"

"He went running that way," Heero returned, gesturing vaguely at the rest of the ship. "Where you at?"

"I'm checking the general works of this one," Trowa shrugged. "I know Heavyarms is fine, and trust that Duo took care of Deathscythe—we've all been working on Demigod, but Lame didn't start with us. It seems fine, so you can call me out any time and it'll take me ten minutes to close'er up. That's the same time it'd take to fill her tanks."

Heero nodded, starting to type again.

"Uh..." Qingfu muttered.

"He just got serious," Trowa noted, grinning at them. "You okay, Cap'n?"

Jaden nodded, waving the man away as he rubbed at his face.

In all of ten minutes they'd had the foundation of a plan laid out, and Jaden still didn't know what he should do. He could move closer to Obsidian, or he could dock briefly at 25...he could keep hovering, or start a pattern...

"What is wrong?" Heero asked, glancing up at him. "You seem a little...turned-off."

"I think I'm just going to bite the bullet and ask you what I should do," Jaden returned, looking tiredly up at him.

"What you should do?" Heero echoed. "Like...how?"

Jaden gestured at Illicit.

"Oh," Heero blinked, thinking about it. "What's our oxygen like?"

"Well, not full," Jaden returned, tilting his head. "The water could use a refresher, too."

"So...dock? Resupply?"

"But that'll take us away from Obsidian," Jaden pointed out.

"We can deal with a ten-minute longer flight instead of asphyxiating five-thousand some-odd people," Heero pointed out.

Jaden looked to Qingfu, thinking about that.

Heero shrugged, focusing back down on the machine.

"How can you say what to do and not care that I'm not?" Jaden asked blankly.

"It's your ship," Heero pointed out. "And when it comes down to it, you'll do what you need to do for your people—I don't need you jumping at my orders. I need you to continue not pissing me off, because my boyfriend was really happy that we can talk civilly to each other."

"You're only being nice to me because you got laid," Jaden accused.

Heero flashed him a smirk. "I could think of more appropriate reasons for the courts if I had to—but basically."

Jaden looked to the riser above them.

Heero laughed, the same youthful look crossing his face as Duo would get...but he went back to work.

"And me?" Qingfu asked.

"Uh..." Heero pulled away from the machine to look at him. "You're...cute?"

Qingfu gave him a look.

Heero laughed wickedly, glancing up at Jaden...and focused again.

Jaden smiled at his lover and shrugged. "The man has taste."

Heero met his eyes, something dark crossing his expression...before he went back to work.

Jaden considered Qingfu's happy-but-exasperated expression, then rose to his feet. "I'm gonna go change our course."

"Let Duo know that I'll be in...in about five minutes," Heero muttered, looking up. "He should come down soon."

- -

Wufei was amused at the number of people who were clustered around him, nodding at the man who was talking to him. Duo was nearby with a similar gathering. For some reason, the younger set had started to approach Wufei, but shied off—possibly it was the uniform. They'd hung back and started talking to Duo while the older and more mature men did approach.

So...he had their respect, and a healthy bit of intimidation.

He didn't know why. He'd been horsing around Jinli since this had all started; there was no way everyone had missed that.

"Um...G...Brigadier General Chang?"

Wufei turned to the young man who almost seemed to be shaking—his hand very much wanted to raise in salute.

"Um...the...the president asked...me to tell you...that Brigadier Yuy...he's almost...almost in."

Okay, no matter who you were, that was cute.

"Thank you," Wufei returned, nodding his head.

"Right," the kid half-squeaked, saluting him briefly before darting across the room.

"He saluted," the man Wufei'd been talking to noted. "I'm impressed."

Wufei smiled at that, offering his hand to the man. "Excuse me, please. I'm needed."

"Thank you for your time, Brigadier," the man noted, saluting him casually. "Right?"

"Right," Wufei agreed in amusement, nodding to the rest of the group as he fell back to join Duo.

"Right?" Duo asked quietly when they'd made the hall.

"Right," Wufei agreed just as.

Duo flashed him a grin.

"Did you get the salute?"

"He saluted you?" Duo drew himself up in mock outrage. "I feel gypped!"

Wufei snickered. "He was stuttering, too."

Duo looked around them carefully, then back to the room they'd left.

"Huh?"

"I just expected karma to make us'er bitch for talking shit."

Wufei laughed at that...and tripped.

- -

"Excuse me, Brigadier General Winner," a quiet woman's voice muttered as she moved up beside the machine with Cardle at her side. "I have a message for you from the president."

"Supreme ruler," Matty corrected.

The woman smiled at him.

"Alright, just a moment," Quatre turned back to the vid. "I'll talk to the people here about this, and contact you again as soon as I can."

"Alright, Brigadier," the man muttered, saluting him. "Good day."

"You, too," Quatre agreed, returning the salute. He disconnected, looking back to the woman.

"The president said that Brigadier Yuy was almost in," she noted. "At the time, he'd given a five-minute warning, unfortunately the president was somewhat waylaid, and I'm afraid it has been that five minutes."

"Ah," Quatre slid off the stool. "Thank you. I appreciate your help."

She smiled, nodding her head at him.

"Emily?" Matty hazarded.

"Um, Miss Thane takes political issue with the situation and has returned to menial duty. I'm a civilian. My name is Tanya Janner."

Matty smiled, shaking the hand she'd offered. "I'm Matt Williams-Yuy."

"It's nice to meet you."

"And you," Matty agreed.

"Matty," Quatre muttered...and disappeared from the room.

Matty gave Cardle an exasperated sort of look and nodded his head to the woman. He turned, darting after the other as Cardle half-strolled along behind.

"What were you doing in there, anyway?" Quatre asked when Matty had caught up.

"I heard someone salute Jaden and it woke me up from a nap."

Quatre blinked as he thought about that, then turned a grin onto Matty. "That's good, what was the range?"

"I was sitting with Heero on the risers around Lame," Matty supplied. "It was the entrance."

Quatre's eyebrows shot up. "That is impressive."

"I think it was more like an echo," Matty returned, thinking about it. "I was used to what was around."

"We'll see," Quatre returned. "With what you tell me about my searching for you from LA, you might be considerably stronger, once you've been trained."

Matty frowned at that, then smiled and shrugged.

Quatre flashed him another grin, and they started to walk faster.

- -

"Wong-Chang? Kiardane?"

Blake turned to the man who was slowing near them.

"Sorry," the man bowed slightly. "I was asked to let you know that the Brigadiers are meeting."

"Oh, thank you," Blake muttered, stepping forward to rest a hand on Jinli's arm.

Jinli turned to look at him as the man walked away, then nodded slightly. "Now?"

"Yeah," Blake agreed. "We should go."

"Right, excuse me," Jinli moved away from the people he'd been talking with. They'd been trying to find people who would benefit from talking with Wufei or Duo.

"Anything useful?" Jinli muttered as they moved through the halls.

"I won a game of spider," Blake offered, showing him the shooting 3-D fireworks over his clipboard.

Jinli stared at the display a long moment, then met his eyes. "I hate you."

Blake laughed happily at that, ending the display.

- -

Rab ran his hand through his hair as he moved into the master suite of Obsidian. He was tired of being alone, and had never realized how alone he was until he'd lost Jaden and Ranger. Sure, there were a couple willing girls in the people he had left, but he didn't have any companions...he didn't have anyone he could suggest his ideas to and get feedback from.

They were running out of oxygen and water...and there was no way they could make it back through the atmosphere. He had to think of something to do, and he doubted his ship could take on an actual colony for resources—not one that was normally inhabited.

Rabid stopped at that thought, turning to look in the direction of 27.

Could they do it? Could they reenter that colony? From all accounts he'd received, the colony was empty and loosely patrolled.

They could take on a partial force.

He moved over to sit on the bed in his room, laying backwards to think the notion through.

Could they do that? It would be far too obvious if he just headed for the colony outright, though. Maybe a diversion?

It was an interesting idea. He could send out a portion of his suits to attack a poorly defended colony, probably L-4. There were a few L-4 colonies that favored pacifism...like 22.

A wicked smile crossed Rab's face as he rolled onto his side.

The colony D17622 was notable for several reasons—one of which was being the home colony of one very prominent family.

The Winner family.

What he wouldn't give to see Brigadier-fucking Winner's face when he found out his home colony was being attacked. It would be too precious to pass up.

He started laughing wickedly, rolling onto his back again, then pushed himself up and looked around his room.

He needed to find his men.

- -

Heero snickered as Rab's men started muttering to each other. The man himself had left, and after they were all sure he was gone, small groups of them started huddling around the various consoles to talk.

"He has no fucking idea what he's doing," one woman muttered darkly. "Why did we come back out to space? We were doing alright on Earth, and our resources were fine," she tapped something on the console she was near.

"I can't believe he's such an asshole," another man was saying off in another area. "He expects us to follow him like this?"

"I'm starting to think we should have taken off with J," another man said quietly.

Jaden sneered, looking around to Qingfu.

"What?" Qing asked quietly.

"That was Sorvid," Jaden explained quietly. "Fair-weather friend, all the way."

"One of yours?" Qing asked blankly.

"No, but he was in the original group with Ranger and Rab. We were associated for a time."

Qingfu nodded.

"Did you forget the bit where J works for them now?" a woman demanded darkly.

"Nothing is coming of the bitching," Matty muttered, meeting eyes with Blake. "You notice that? They complain that he has no idea what he's doing, but none of them seem to either."

"Ooh, someone seems to see me," Heero purred, petting the side of his laptop as something flashed on one of his read-outs. "I wonder who it is."

"Guys?" someone asked.

"Gene," Qingfu supplied instantly. "Total PC-nerd...hacking, programming, paranoid delusions...you know the type."

"They are the type," Jinli muttered dryly.

"There's something weird on my read-outs," the guy continued. "I can't make it out, but watch your screens."

Heero smirked, typing something into the little black box he had open.

"Like what?" someone called back.

"I don't know," the guy muttered tiredly. "I thought it was something, but..."

"And the paranoid bit steps in so he's dismissed," Jaden noted in amusement. "Is it bad that I always kept an eye on stuff he said to?'

"I don't imagine," Heero muttered in amusement. "If he's so good..." he looked around to Qingfu. "He better'n you?"

"PC," Qingfu shot back. "Personal computer. He doesn't do the military-grade shit we run. Hell, I barely run the military-grade shit you run. I'm half convinced you worked out a program that could change a person's mind."

"Only if it was hooked up to a machine," Heero retorted.

Duo sniggered. "Bullshit."

Heero flashed him a grin.

"Though he was telling us not to touch Matt's phone right-off," Jaden pointed out, giving the younger male a sour look. "A valid warning, if I recall."

"It totally took your prints," Matty agreed happily. "I totally had your name, rank, birth-date and social security...all of it."

Jaden turned his sour look onto Heero.

"What?" Heero asked curiously. "When you get all the way down to it, he did it," he indicated Duo.

Jaden blinked at that. "What?"

"I bought him Pax and added Pan," Duo shrugged. "He didn't have it, and it's one of those basic security measures I can't stand not-having. If I hadn't had Pan, Gerrange would totally have had my phone."

"Should we put Pan on them?" Heero asked his friend seriously, indicating the other leaders with his head.

"It's a thought," Duo returned. "But I don't think it's necessary."

"But we could always find them."

"I think we could do that anyway," Duo suggested, glancing almost obliquely at the pair.

Qingfu looked around to Matty pointedly.

"Okay...I'm not sure what that look means," Matty muttered, indicating the man to Quatre.

"I think it means 'make them stop'," Quatre suggested. "But I'm not sure either."

Duo and Heero smiled happily at the leaders.

"So...I'm going to go forward this report to base," Quatre noted, then blinked as he saw Blake's clipboard. "Oh look," he added, snatching it from him.

"Hey!" Blake protested, reaching after it.

"I won't lose your game," Quatre retorted, flicking through the virtual screens.

"You were playing spider?" Qingfu protested at him.

"He's been," Jin agreed dryly.

The icon of a piece of paper popped up to the zenith of the 3-D limit, a stupidly happy little tune playing as they all blinked up at it blankly.

"I got a message," Blake chirped, amused to see their confused looks.

"That's cool," Matty muttered, bouncing slightly. "Show me?"

Blake nodded.

". . . I sleep with you," Trowa muttered blankly, focusing on his lover.

Blake started giggling, leaning over to kiss him briefly, then stopped—still half-bent—and tilted his head at Zechs.

"You...sleep with him," Zechs noted to the pair, blinking a few times. "You have sex with him...dear lord, Trowa, you're gay."

Trowa focused on the man.

"Uh..." Lu sat back, blinking a few times. "What he means to say is..."

Blake snickered, leaning back where he sat. "I'm just that good."

"I'm curious," Jaden muttered, shifting back tiredly himself. "Why is that shocking?"

"Blake is the only male I've ever been with," Trowa shrugged. "The only males I've noticed are him and Matty—and I think I must've had some bad mushrooms that day."

Matty snickered as Jaden gave him a confused look. "I evidently have a kissing mouth and deep eyes...my hair..."

Trowa kicked him.

Matty laughed more, shrugging at the other man.

"You were noticing him before that," Wufei pointed out, rolling his eyes as he looked around. "I'm not saying more, but you were."

"...and...acknowledged," Quatre noted, messing more with the clipboard. "I'm only with Duo because he's such a caring and considerate friend."

Duo snickered.

They all looked at him.

"I am," Quatre smiled at them all, then tossed the clipboard back to Blake. "Thanks for that."

"Whatever gets it done," Blake agreed, standing and stretching.

Trowa tilted his head to consider the other's body.

"Trowa," Quatre muttered happily.

Trowa ignored him as Blake tried to lean back as far as possible, then turned slightly to try and touch the floor without bending his knees.

"Troooowa," Quatre said again.

Trowa grinned, but continued watching his lover.

"I'm pretty sure they'll get something done eventually," Lu hazarded happily to Jaden.

Jaden grinned, pulling his eyes away from Blake as well. "Hm?"

Qingfu punched his arm.

Trowa's eyes moved instantly and levelly to Jaden.

"Hm?" Jaden repeated. "I didn't say anything."

Blake started giggling, and dropped back down to his seat.

"I've set up the recording," Heero noted to them all with evident interest. "What did I miss?"

"Nothing," Matty informed Blake more than Heero.

Heero smirked.

"Hm?" Blake asked sweetly. "I didn't do anything."