Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Reprieve ❯ chapter one ( Chapter 1 )

Chapter One

Sally Po was cleaning out a rather nasty bullet wound in a soldier's leg when the ground suddenly bucked underneath her. The scalpel slipped, barely grazing the man's skin as she let it fall instinctively. The ground continued to shake violently, knocking over the table she had been working from, sending her to her knees, and by the curses she could hear outside, causes no small amount of damage to their makeshift camp. As if being a rebel army in the middle of nowhere, constantly on the run from OZ wasn't enough, they had to have an earthquake too.

Finding her feet, Sally slapped a wad of padding over the man's injured thigh to soak up the blood and left him there to check on the status of her men. As soon as she emerged from her small tent, she wished she had just stayed inside.

The camp was in ruins. Most of the tents had collapsed, with the men inside now struggling to find their way out. Trees had fallen, bark littered the ground, leaves were a thick carpet, still smoking.

Sally's eyes narrowed. Smoking leaves? Her head came up quickly and her eyes locked on the horizon which was already darkening with thick, black smoke. She noticed those trees that had fallen were all facing the one direction, and the trees still standing were slanted the same way.

"Major Po!"

Sally turned to see a jeep pull up a few feet away and four of her men clamber out, covered in superficial burns and black soot.

"What happened?"

"We're not sure. Some kind of explosion. We heard fighting, lots of it, out by the base, but we were at least thirty miles off. Then there was shit flying all over the place…We headed straight here."

What could cause that kind of explosion? Sally had no doubts the base was gone and a whole chunk of whatever was around the base to boot, but she didn't think even a Gundam could do that kind of damage. Not in one hit.

"Did you see a Gundam?"

"One," one of her men replied hesitantly. "But it was weird. I saw it head over to the base, saw it leave the base, then it went back, but I don't think there was enough time for it to have actually got there before the base blew. I don't get it, why would he go back?"

Sally thought about it, considered the small amount she knew about the Gundam pilots. She had only encountered two; Heero and Wufei, and while they were different they were also very much alike. She could only think of one reason they would have flown back.

"They left someone behind…" One of their own.

"Major?" The men looked confused, and not a little daunted. They were no longer alliance military, but rebels, and still they had a hard time even considering trusting the gundam pilots. Sally didn't care. Those pilots meant everything to the war.

She was about to make an announcement when a roar came to her notice, somewhere to the south, gaining in volume…All heads looked up as a massive ship flew overhead in the general direction of the base, or what was left of it. The underside of the ship was emblazoned with what looked like a huge frangipani flower.

"What the…?"

"Major…that's a Sweeper ship!" One of her men cried out and Sally recognized Harry, who had grown up on a ship somewhere in the Atlantic. He still had a tattoo that marked him as one of `theirs'. A Sweeper. What were they doing here, and since when did they own those kinds of ships? Sweepers were supposed to do salvage. Sally had a feeling that ship was not used for anything even slightly akin to salvage.

"Pack up camp! We're moving out! There's at least one Gundam down out here, maybe more, and I want to find it before that ship! Harry, you're with me!"

"Ma'am," he replied, though there was a slight trembling in his voice that made Sally wonder just where his loyalties would lie in this particular game. Still, keep your friends close…

Sally leapt into the back of the jeep and nodded for the four men who had driven it in to move out. The rest of the camp would follow their tracks easily enough. They didn't have enough time to wait. She settled in the back beside Harry and started the questioning.

"What kind of ship was that?"

"Don't know, I've never seen it before."

Sally frowned. She could have sworn that was a lie. Something about the swiftness of the response. She concluded Harry knew exactly what kind of ship it was, and that it was not good.

"How many ships like that do the Sweepers have?"

"I have no idea. As I said, I've never seen it before, so not many?"

Another obvious lie. This boy should have been trained to keep his head down better. So, Sally assumed they had a lot of the strange ships. She would have to run a search when they set up camp again for ships baring that frangipani mark.

"What is a Sweeper ship doing out here?"

"Not sure. Probably salvage. They always check out bases that have been hit."

Half truth, half lie. Sally narrowed her eyes. How would the Sweepers know which bases were going to be hit, or did they have a ship waiting nearby every damned base on the planet on the off chance it would blow? Or was there inside information in the Sweeper ships…

"Harry, if you lie to me this time, I will shoot you in the foot. Are the Sweepers in touch with the Gundam Pilots?"

Harry looked worriedly from his foot to the gun Sally had pulled from her boot.

"N…n…no?"

Sally took aim and promptly shot the boy's foot. It wasn't a bad wound, clean through the fleshy side, but she would be willing to bet it hurt like hell. Harry certainly seemed to think so. The other men were looking anywhere but the two of them, knowing their Major's strategies all too well. They trusted her not to do any permanent damage. She was a doctor after all.

"I'll ask again Harry." Sally pointed the gun at his arm. "Are the Sweepers in contact with the Gundam pilots?"

"Only one…" Harry sobbed. "And I will not tell you who!"

Sally nodded in acceptance. She would get it out of him later. It was enough to know the Sweepers were out here for a reason and since they weren't flying a salvage ship she could only assume they were searching for their downed pilot.

"The Gundam you saw," she asked the other men. "What did it look like?"

"Hard to tell. It was a fair bit away, but we…well, it looked kinda like the Chang kid to us."

Sally hardened her resolve. She was now certain Wufei had turned back to go get someone, but why had he left them there in the first place? Had they been aware of each other at all? And what on earth had the second Gundam, if there had been another one, used to blow that base?

Sally was so lost in thought for the next hour she lost track of the world whizzing past her. That is, until one of her men swore softly and another leant over to shake her shoulder.

"Major…" Sally looked up when she heard the shaking in Harry's voice. What could make a hardened, seasoned soldier shake that way?

The strip of road they had stopped on was black, burnt crisp. The trees that still existed were charcoal husks, broken. Lazy black dust drifted all about them, coating the world in a blanket of pitch. Small fires still flickered among the trees further off, spreading the decay. And through the centre of it all ran a thick black strip where something had plowed at high speed from a great height, slamming relentlessly into the earth. Sally shuddered as that something came into view through the lazy drifts of smoke at the end of the road.

"Wufei…"

Nataku was face down in the earth, still smoldering, broken pieces of the gundam strewn out along the path behind it. The flame thrower was twisted under the body, the head buried in the earth. It did not look like it had been beaten in battle. The Gundam had obviously been thrown in the explosion. Thrown hard.

Sally shook off the shock and leapt from the jeep, aware of her men on her heels as she rushed to the fallen gundam. The arm under the body allowed them access to the underside. The cockpit door was jammed hard against the earth.

"Cut him free! Now!"

Sally went back to the jeep to radio her men and watch in silence as her men began the arduous task of cutting through Gundanium alloy. Sally only hoped there was something left to break free.

*

"We have the base on our screens. Searching for traces of Gundanium now."

Howard watched the screens come to life with a myriad of small red dots, but none of them were large enough to be what he sought. They were just pieces…Something within his gut twisted a little tighter and he forced himself to let go of the sunglasses in his hand, putting them on his face before he snapped them clean in two.

He knew Duo was out here somewhere, and if the kid was alive he was going to find him. If. Howard could not allow such thoughts to slip through his determination. Duo had to be alive.

Off to reap the corn old man. Keep some dinner for me. The all too familiar message had been found in their logs not an hour before. Duo had not used the code in years, since his training years. The moment one of the Sweepers had found it they had contacted Howard. Howard, of course, was the only person with a direct link to Deathscyhe's logs, as well as a Doctor G's phone number. It had only taken one phone call and a systems check to learn where Duo had headed and just why Duo would have been worried.

What Hoard saw now worried him. The base was gone. Everything in a twenty mile radius was burnt black. Everything past thirty miles was still burning. He knew there was only one thing that could do that. Self destruction on the Gundam's destroyed everything in a ten mile radius. Deathscythe alone, packed with all its explosives, would cause five times that damage. There was only one explanation for the damage they were seeing, and every Sweeper on board their ship knew it. That didn't stop the search.

"Howard, there's a mass of Gundanium about fifteen miles off…" Howard checked the screens, considered the blast range, took in the data G had given him.

"It's not Deathscythe. It's one of the others. Leave it for now." The man nodded, returned to the search. Howard noticed them lessen the size of Gundanium they were looking for, saw more dots appear on the screen. One particular piece caught his attention.

"Bring up that on the main screen," he ordered, pointing to a smudge above the rubble he could only assume had been the telecommunications tower of the base. If Duo wanted to cause as much damage of possible, he would have targeted the tower, blocking off the OZ communications.

The image appeared on the main screen and every Sweeper's eye studied the picture. The rubble was scattered with traces of Gundanium. If they hadn't been flying their `Search and destroy' ship, as Duo liked to call it, they never would have seen it, but there, amongst all the debris, was one large lump of the alloy, and it was flaming with blue pulses…body heat.

"That's it! Land! Now!" The ship was moving before Howard could finish issuing the orders. He left the bridge immediately, heading for the hanger where five of his men were already powering up Sweeper salvage suits. It was a simple thing to brief them on where to find the Gundam, or whatever was left of it. Howard wanted them to get it as quickly as possible and bring it one board. They were then to collect any pieces they found and bring those in too. They would, after all, need to rebuild the thing for its pilot.

Off to reap the corn old man. Keep some dinner for me.

"Kid, I'll make you a damn feast if you survive this."

"Howard?" A voice came over the intercom on the wall. He waited until the ship had landed and the suits were out before replying.

"What?"

"We're picking up activity around the other Gundam."

"Have you got a clear picture?"

"Looks like…Alliance!"

And what the hell were the Alliance going to do with a Gundam?

"Keep an eye on hem. Do not let them leave with that Gundam. Which one is it, anyway?"

There was silence for a minute. Howard could imagine his Sweepers debating about the other suit's identity. At last they must have come to a consensus.

"Shenlong."

At least it wasn't Wing. Howard might have had to drop some more explosives had it been Wing…

"Screw with a Sweeper Suit and just fly away my ass! Get a move on out there!" As if his words could spur his men on, the voices broke through the coms on the ship.

"We've got it! Bringing it in."

Silence descended upon the Sweepers.