Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Wild Wings ❯ Chapter 8 ( Chapter 8 )

sylenctone, thank you so much for your comments :D Hearing what you think about different aspects of the chapter really helps me figure out what needs work and what I should keep considering. Your questions help remind me of loose ends, too! XD

 

GrayPheonix, your consistent comments keep me going! The critique really helps me keep a broad eye on the world I'm playing around in, so thank you for your time!

 

OrlandosLover09, elementalmoon, and all you other nameless lurkers out there. Thanks so much for reading! Leave a review with your thoughts to help me round out this story and I'll love you for eternity XDD

 

Chapter Eight

 

Duo knew he'd be anxious even before Deathscythe broke the water line and really took off for Niger. He didn't have the time to land and run about in a convenient park so he scarfed a ration bar in an attempt to stave off hunger and plugged the guard's music player into the console for a distraction. Some boy band pop group Duo had never heard of crooned over his speakers. He made a face and skipped a few songs.

 

“Hopefully you have something worth listening to…” He found an instrumental piece and shrugged. It was better than `The Love Boat.'

 

Duo settled in the seat and considered the warheads stowed behind him. Didn't have any heavy machinery to fuse or solder anything together which meant he probably needed to use the casings that the explosives were already in. They were a little big… but maybe he could remove some of the innards to lighten their weight.

 

The pilot uncoupled the closest bomb and dragged it onto his lap. He opened the cone carefully. Even worse than dropping one of the warheads was trying to dismantle one. Setting it off now would just be sad. He set the cone aside and peered down the tube. A lump of plastic explosive peered back.

 

“Oh, well that's easy to work with.” Satisfied that a small nudge in the wrong direction wasn't going to issue his death, Duo easily dismantled the explosive and rewrapped it in a much smaller package with his own timer for detonation. He managed to squeeze three separate bombs out of the provided ingredients.

 

The second warhead was similarly dismantled and reworked. Duo was quickly running out of space to work. Six bombs sat in a line on his console and the parts and pieces left over were scattered where he had room to hold them. He didn't want to toss the scraps willy nilly but he didn't have the storage space to hold it until it could be useful either.

 

He stacked what he could and pulled the third warhead onto his lap. Opening this cone spilled a sandbox of small shrapnel pieces. Little fletchetts that were sharper than some of Duo's knives. They scattered themselves in the cockpit, leaving small point-sized dents in the Gundanium where they fell.

 

“Aw, crap—“ Duo reached reflexively to catch what he could and was sliced repeatedly for his trouble. “Damn.” He shifted the warhead in his lap to between his knees so the shrapnel would stay inside. His right hand was starting to smear blood so he maneuvered the tube one-handed.

 

When he finally had it situated an ominous series of beeps issued from the tube. Duo cursed. The warhead beeped in reply. It was buried under a layer of shrapnel and apparently attached to a secondary power source located in the tail rather than the cone. With all these fletchetts cutting him to ribbons he could see why.

 

The electronic sound of a charge startled Duo into moving. He tipped the tube to his side and let the shrapnel fall to the floor of the cockpit. It would ruin the glossy finish but it was better than blowing up. He shoveled the last few bits out by hand and tried not to bleed over everything when he worked the bomb from it's resting place. It was encased in a layer of aluminum but the wiring was a nest of troubles Duo didn't want to try and puzzle out.

 

The warhead beeped again. He probably didn't have the time to puzzle it out. He pulled the power source out with the bomb and thrust the tube out of his way. Several small lights blinked on the power box but nothing was conveniently labeled `off.' Before Duo could really get anxious the rising sound of a charge fell back down through several octaves. The lights winked off.

 

“Um…” He looked the explosive over but it seemed, for all intents and proposes, to be off again. Duo wasn't inclined to peal away the layers of aluminum to see what was inside. The thing would probably detonate just to spite him.

 

He wasn't sure how it worked in detail but all bombs were essentially the same. Something triggered the explosive and they went boom. Here, that trigger was obviously something in the power box, or the explosive necessitated some kind of mixture. Either way, tampering with either part was probably not the best idea.

 

He set the thing carefully on the only free space of console left and eyed it for a long moment. When nothing blinked back at him he considered the mess he'd made of his cockpit.

 

Shrapnel was everywhere, luckily it wasn't his.

 

--//--

 

Duo was half finished re-wrapping his plastic explosives with handfuls of fletchetts when the third warhead charged again. He froze with a mouthful of electrical tape holding everything taut and no way to easily free his hands. The charge started climbing the scales. Duo wrapped his bomb faster.

 

When he had his hands finally free the bomb whistled back down and blinked off. Duo vowed to do a `net search on the thing as soon as he had enough console space to initiate the command.

 

He could really use a voice-activation. Maybe when this was over he could find something hands-off for situations like this.

 

Assuming he got out of this situation first.

 

--//--

 

The bomb charged itself twice more before Duo found the room to conduct his search. By then it wasn't causing a small volcano of panic to erupt in his chest so when he found next to nothing on the schematics of the `Fletchett WDE 4A/A' he was less concerned than he probably should have been. He didn't know what the hell it was doing, but it apparently wasn't preparing to detonate within the next ten minutes.

 

When `Scythe warned him of an upcoming land mass, Duo checked his cloaking and began the tedious process of finding the remaining shrapnel lost in the cockpit. He knew there were at least a few pieces in under his chair he wouldn't be able to reach until he landed.

 

So an hour later he set down in the middle of a cornfield that was wider than some bodies to water a few hundred miles outside of Niamey.

 

Africa was a huge place with the entire gamut of terrain that could be found on the planet. Niamey was a bustling city along a river but there wasn't much beyond crops once you left town. It was located in a strip of land that crossed Africa called the breadbasket. It mediated the harsh dryness of the Saharah with the humid tropical forest of the Congo. The mix was perfect for growing anything you could stick in the ground.

 

Niamey was at the northern edge of this breadbasket, so a few minutes of flying north put Duo smack in the middle of the Sahara. He didn't think it was necessary to go that far out, so he lay Deathscythe down in the middle of the crop. The shift from vertical to horizontal tossed a few more pieces of shrapnel around the cockpit but Duo managed to avoid catching them bare-handed or with any other part of his body.

 

One particularly angry piece of metal flung itself by his ear and lodged in the back wall with a twang. The pilot decided to leave that piece where it was until he found his pliers.

 

The Fletchett warhead powered up enough to make Duo anxious. When it showed no signs of deviating from its regular (if nausea inducing) pattern he let out a sigh.

 

Six plus one explosives was more than enough for his part of the project. The mission might be intense, but the building was less than intimidating. It wasn't even two stories tall. Maybe he could shuffle the warhead onto Heero's watch and not have to worry about it anymore.

 

Duo opened `Scythe's chest hatch and coughed on arid air and dust. It wasn't recirculated, though, so he climbed out to get a better breath. Corn and grasses were the strongest smells by far, probably because he'd just crushed half an acre of them. Duo smiled and stretched for a long moment, just luxuriating in the sunlight. It was high noon here- he'd made good time by hitting the Key West base and getting all of his supplies in one run.

 

Speaking of running…

 

Duo closed the hatch and jogged down the length of his Gundam to warm up. By the time he vaulted onto the feet he was loose enough to leap into the corn field and did so with a cheer. There were fields in every direction, no one was around to hear or stop him.

 

He returned nearly two hours later sweaty and a little tired, but completely relaxed. His stomach protested the exercise and demanded food. Duo dropped himself into the cockpit to comply and called up Heero's frequency. It was probably about time he checked in with the man. He drained half a water bottle while `Scythe provided the right code. He was fishing about in his duffle for a small towel when the static on the radio changed pitch. The slightly higher tone indicated he finally had a connection.

 

“Zero-One, this is Zero-Two in position and armed. Requesting mission status.”

 

The pause was very short. Duo wasn't surprised. “Mission is go. Pilot status?”

 

He finally found the towel, “We're firing on all cylinders.” He drained the water bottle and realized Heero hadn't responded. Duo rolled his eyes. “Pilot is green, One.”

 

“Acknowledged. Radio silence until oh-two hundred hours.”

 

“Yessir.”

 

“One out.”

 

Duo flicked the radio off and began shutting down `Scythe's running processes. He didn't need anything more than some air and light so even though Heero hadn't asked for a blackout Duo powered down to one anyway. It was a bad idea to waste energy if one could avoid it. He glanced at his watch. Two thirty. He had more than a few hours to kill.

 

His stomach threatened to revolt if it didn't have food soon so he rummaged about to see what he had. More ration bars than he knew what to do with would give him the right nutrients but they didn't actually fill him up which seemed to be what his stomach was complaining about so often.

 

He discovered a box of crackers and nibbled on those until he remembered his stash of food from the den in Key West.

 

With bread and cheese to chow on for the moment, Duo called up the mission specs and stared at the data for a while. He didn't have much. His route was planned to the last detail, where he should enter, who he could eliminate if they got in the way, how to get out again... All he knew about Heero's job were the explosion points and Duo was supposed to give him the explosives.

 

The pilot sat forward with a frown. This execution didn't take the river into account. A substantial body of water flowed directly beside the rendezvous point. He'd have to check the depth but if Scythe fit there was no reason for him to hike all the way into the base...

 

He left his crackers scattered to the side in a sudden burst of typing and simulation numbers.

 

--//--

 

Duo jerked awake and stopped breathing, an automatic reaction while he tried to identify what woke him. `Scythe beeped again and flashed the time on all monitors. Twelve thirty. Time to get moving.

 

He booted only the essential systems and cloaked his Gundam as tightly as he could. But even the best kind of cloak wouldn't protect him if someone simply looked up or heard the roar of his engines. `Scythe wasn't invisible; just undetectable on radar.

 

The cornfields stretched in every direction and with full-dark already several hours past, Duo needn't have worried. There wasn't a soul out looking. He deviated slightly north, toward the river, and set the Gundam down with a splash. It took a bit a maneuvering but he managed to line the mecha up with the river and simply let the current take it from there. He grinned and lay back. Easy as pie.

 

Aside from the occasional bend to navigate, the water brought him smoothly through the sparse town with no one the wiser. The river wasn't deep. If someone was curious enough they would probably see the machine gently floating along under the water. But `Scythe was mostly black and blue, nearly every system was shut down to save power and quiet his presence to any listening sensors. Duo tried his best not to knock any boats on the water.

 

The target base was almost literally on the water. Several peers jut out against the current and while he could see no docks for water-based mobile suits, most of the rock and sediment was cleared from the riverbed to avoid motor boat damage and deter creatures from the area. Above the water, only a fraction of Niamey base actually bordered the river. Much of the territory extended in a swath of undeveloped sand and dirt to the east. Their plans to expand were about to come to a halt.

 

Duo navigated his mecha with ease between two peers and let the machine come to rest against the sandy bottom of the river. The position was a double edged sword. He was closer to his target than a land-based location usually allowed him to get, but leaving `Scythe required him to get wet and he wasn't all that thrilled with the idea.

 

He was in the middle of packing his explosives when the thin line of communication he left open crackled with static.

 

“Zero-Two this is Zero-One, status?”

 

Duo carefully set the warhead in the top of his backpack before responding. “This is Two, we're green across the board.” He checked his systems. Except for the cloak and this one radio transmission `Scythe was entirely silent.

 

“Acknowledged. Synchronize time on my mark…” Duo twisted his watch around, “Mark,” and depressed a button when Heero indicated. A forty-five minute timer began counting down. There were several things he had to do, but the important landmark was when that timer reached zero. The bombs exploded then, regardless of the mission's success or failure. “Rendezvous on location in three minutes. One out.”

 

Duo heard the com fizzle out and took a deep breath. It was now or never. He shouldered the pack, made sure everything else in `Scythe was well strapped down, and jabbed the hatch release to flood the cockpit.

 

The river water was slightly green. That was Duo's first and only thought before suction dragged him from his mecha and he was propelled to the surface of the river with a surprising amount of force. He latched onto a post of the peer and dug a black ball-cap from one of his pockets. It was a worn, old thing, but it would do the trick. He collected his now-sopping braid and fit the cap over his head with a nod.

 

It was time to meet Heero.

 

The base was dark. Except for a few halo-like lights on random building corners, there was very little to prevent this operation from going as smoothly as Duo envisioned. His nose was full of the smell of the river. He repressed the urge to sneeze and got to work instead. He scaled the peer and scanned the boardwalk before hauling himself over the edge with a slight splat. He was imbued with river water but he didn't have time to wring himself dry.

 

Duo snuck silently onto the base, scaled a fence without so much as a whisper, and blended with the shadow of a transformer. He could see the rendezvous point from here and it was unoccupied. A quick glance at his watch confirmed he was seconds early.

 

While they ticked by he tightened the straps of his pack and glanced around. There wasn't a single guard in sight, at least not on the dock-side of the base. The river added a fairly regular thrum of white noise to the otherwise silent desert.

 

A shadow moved. Duo was instantly on alert. When he recognized the shape as Heero he prowled his way to the next building and shed his backpack between them.

 

“You're late.” Heero hissed quietly.

 

Duo unzipped the pack and glared, “No, I was waiting for you.” Just for that, the man was going to deal with the big bomb. Duo slid it carefully out of the bag and handed it over. He didn't even notice the quiet hum until Heero tensed and nearly dropped the thing.

 

“Is this a live warhead?” The Wing pilot growled, “Just what do you think—“

 

“Hey, time was short and it was available. Just don't jostle it too much or get it too close to anything hot and you'll be fine.” Duo set out two of his five plastic explosives rigged with shrapnel. The sixth was still safely in `Scythe for another day.

 

Duo looked up to see Heero eyeing the bomb in his hands. If he didn't know any better he'd say the teen was afraid of it. “That'll be the biggest boom. Don't time it early.”

 

Heero's face closed and he glared at Duo. “I'm not incompetent, Two.” He gathered the bombs, “Just do your job and I'll do mi—“ The man paused.

 

Duo slung the bag back over his shoulder and glanced around. There didn't seem to be any danger. Then Heero leaned toward him, sniffed audibly, and curled his lip.

 

“Why were you in the river?”

 

He grunted, “Only a slight change of position, `Scythe'll be easier to ac—“

 

“You changed the mission without consulting me?! This has to be timed perfectly, I can't account for any changes you—“

 

“We don't have time for this. I changed nothing important to your precious mission. I'll deal with it, now get going.”

 

Heero wanted to argue the point, Duo could see the anger there in his eyes so easily; but the mission came first and One just growled before sprinting toward his target with a warhead under one arm.

 

Duo rolled his eyes. The man was far too uptight. All he'd done was put `Scythe closer to the action. When they all booked it for the Gundam's he would be the first to safety. The pilot scaled a building and slid his way into a dark room via the window. The soft tinkle of glass followed him.

 

His first target was only three doors down from here. Duo twitched the thin blind over the door's window and winced. The hall was flooded with light and, for whatever reason, people. There was no way he'd be able to sneak out without being spotted. He was still dripping with water but there was precious little he could do about that.

 

Duo lifted his cap up and let his long braid slap along his spine. The cap came back down to cover his eyes as much as he could. He flicked on the light, dropped the blind on the window he'd broken, and glanced around. The pilot rifled around on the single table in the office. He found a binder, grabbed a small stack of papers, and a pen. When all else fails, papers will always make you look official.

 

He exited the office whistling a mild tune he knew and flicked the light back off as he did so. Playing a part was all about the small details. Yes, he was dripping wet and looked too young to be out of middle school yet, but his shoulders were square and he knew where he was going. So despite the small trail of water he left behind him, no one questioned his short trip down the hall and most people forgot he was even there by the time they turned the next corner.

 

Duo tested the knob and was unsurprised to find it locked. Looking mildly annoyed for the sake of his audience he blocked the view of his picks by juggling papers between his hip and elbow as if fighting with a key. The door popped open and Duo slipped inside.

 

This light he didn't bother to turn on. The room was illuminated by rows of small blinking lights on larger rows of computer servers. Blue wires hung from every available surface and resembled an obstacle course more than a server farm. He dropped his binders and paper to the side.

 

"Hello my pretties..." Duo slunk through the knots of wires like a shadow counting machines under his breath, "five, six, seven..." He needed to leave the base intact until everything went to hell but tripping door locks every twenty feet would shatter the time constraints of their plan. "thirteen, fifteen, seventeen..." he was jogging now. His first goal was to disable those locks.

 

"twenty seven, eight, nine, thirty; turn right..." The isles of machines whipped past. "six, seven; turn left... two, four: found you." Duo skidded to a stop in a mess of wires and blue lights. His fingers flew over the connections until: "And Bingo was his name..." He disconnected the two wires he needed and began his quick retreat.

 

Duo listened at the door but whatever shift change or break had flooded the hallway, it was over now. He left the paperwork where it was, tucked the pen in the strap of his backpack and slunk into the hallway. The sliding doors at the end hissed open with a button tap. Objective one complete.