Mobile Suit Gundam Fan Fiction / Gundam Wing Fan Fiction / Gundam SEED Fan Fiction ❯ Mobile Suit Gundam GGeneration: Dreams ❯ Chapter 11: Geminass ( Chapter 11 )

Chapter 11: Geminass

“Transport T-eight-three-seven, you are cleared for landing in the main bay. Enter at ten port speed.”

The shuttle pilot checked his controls and slowly guided the large MS transport into Barge’s main hangar bay. The Chinese man who sat beside him opened his eyes for the first time during the entire journey from Earth to the orbiting battle fortress.

“So this is what I have sold my soul and pride for…” He said before shutting his eyes again.

-----

Barge’s commander, Vice Admiral Adalwolf Fleischer, balanced a pencil upon his index finger as he pondered over the recent ZAFT movements in his office. He had earned the position of Vice Admiral through nothing but hard work and the odd piece of luck here and there, but never in his wildest dreams did he think that he would be commanding the Barge. The command was originally intended for Vice Admiral Erik Lundqvist however a terrorist attack blew him out into open space. Fleischer always wanted to thank the terrorist for handing the commander’s position to him on a platter. The doorbell made him lose his concentration and the pencil drifted off his finger. Annoyed, he yanked the pencil out of the air and placed on his desk, “Enter.”

Two smartly dressed young men floated in when the doors opened.

“Lieutenant Richard de la Bretonne, reporting as ordered, sir!” The young man with a bright face and matching dyed white hair saluted. The other man saluted too, his mahogany coloured hair half covered his fair face.

“Lieutenant Vincent de la Norrio reporting, sir!”

No matter how many times Fleischer saw the two they always reminded him of the boy band singers his daughter was so drawn to back on Earth. He coughed and sat up in his leather chair.

“At ease, gentlemen. I assume that the current tests of the Geminass units are progressing steadily?”

Vincent and Richard glanced at each other, as if urging the other to say something. Finally, Richard spoke.

“Yes, sir. Tests and fine tuning of the system are progressing.”

“So why are you behind schedule?” Fleischer stared Richard in the eye.

“There were problems encountered during the PX activation phase.” Fleischer saw beads of sweat form on Richard’s forehead, “No matter how much fine tuning we did, we could not maintain PX mode for more than one minute and twenty-three seconds. The engineers believe that it is a bug within the code itself but have not been able to trace the problem…”

“I don’t want to hear any more excuses.” Fleischer sighed, “You two are Oz Prize officers, the best of the best and you can’t get one single task done. So because of the importance of the PX Project to the OAE R&D in Edinburgh, the original development team to help with the completion of the project.”

Both Vincent and Richard was taken aback.

“But sir, how can we trust them to work on the project without sabotaging them?” Vincent protested.

“They are now officially Oz troops, despite their background. Even though we defeated their government and army back during World War III, their soldiers are loyal to Oz now. I will not tolerate any protests.” Fleischer harsh tone suddenly disappeared, “I personally wouldn’t have those filth here, but it was an order by Admiral Reynolds. It was out of my hands.”

Richard and Vincent kept their anger in check. They both trusted the Vice Admiral, but working with old Chinese Union officers felt beneath them. Fleischer spun his chair around and looked at the Oz flag behind him.

“But remember that you are Oz Prize personnel, not just simply Oz personnel. Therefore you are a rank above your new friends. Their commanding officer is Captain Tang and you are both First Lieutenants…”

Smiles appeared on both Vincent’s and Richard’s faces.

“Yes, sir. We’ll cooperate with them.”

“Good.” Fleischer spun back around, “But I want you two to make sure that you keep your tempers in check. I know you lost friends to them during the campaign. But if I hear that you two are dragging the project down, then I’ll reassign you to the nearest deep-space manned satellite, is that understood?”

“Sir, yes sir!” Both men saluted and stood to attention.

-----

“Check the fifty-three-C module for any inconsistencies. I don’t want the uni-oc part to malfunction like before. Also do a complete diagnostic of the OS and PX records for any new inputs that the technicians here put in.” Tang Hui said to his team while sifting through pages of documentation that were accumulated during the testing of the Geminass Units by Oz Prize. He shook his head at the numbers and graphs. What the hell have they been doing? Most of the parts they installed aren’t even compatible with the original technology.

“Uh, Captain.” One of Tang’s technicians interrupted, pointing towards two advancing officers.

Tang handed the clipboard to one of his subordinates and saluted, “Captain Tang of the Forty-Fifth Engineering Corps of the Second Oz Army.”

The two Oz Prize officers ignored his introduction.

“Hey, Rich, you think that these guys can really get the Geminass fixed in time?” Vincent glanced at the group of Chinese engineers with distain.

“I don’t think so. If we can’t get them properly calibrated, what are the chances that these SOBs can?”

“You bastard…” One of the Chinese engineers began rolling up his sleeves, only to be blocked by Tang.

“We’ll do our best to get these two MS calibrated and get the PX System complete before the deadline given to us.”

Vincent made an “o” shape with his mouth with Richard sniggering behind him. He swaggered over to Tang and looked him in the eye.

“From now on, you will call us ‘sir’. Don’t forget who won that war. If it were up to me, I’d had the lot of you executed as soon as you surrendered. So excuse me if I seem a little condescending…as if you even knew what that meant.” Vincent eyed Tang’s face and his black hair. He noticed the small stars that were pinned to the man’s shoulders and sneered with disgust, “I lost a lot of good friends during that war with you. I don’t want to work with you any more than I would want to eat breakfast out of a toilet, so I want this project to be completed as quickly as possible, understood?”

“Yes, sir.” Tang responded without emotion trying not to provoke Vincent, but it just made the situation worse.

“You think you’re so tough, don’t you? Just waltz into our military, eat our food and steal our resources for your own little projects. We don’t like you or your so-called men; in fact I can’t even stand to be near you and I believe that Rich will agree with me. But we have orders to pilot the Geminass units and I want to spend as little time as possible with you, is that understood?”

“Understood, sir.” Tang saluted and watched them walk away before saying, “We are departing for Earth tomorrow at o’six hundred hours for field testing in gravity conditions.”

Richard and Vincent didn’t respond but Tang knew they had heard him.

“You shouldn’t have taken that, sir.” One of the engineers tapped Tang on the shoulder.

Tang took a deep breath and rubbed his neck.

“There’s nothing much I can do, Jiang Biao. Anyway, they need us as much as we need them. They need us to develop the PX System and we need their resources to complete Geminass.” He sighed.

“Sir, we need to replace the server modules.” An engineer shouted out of the Geminass 01’s cockpit.

“I’ll get on it.” Tang shouted back and focused on his work.

-----

Major Harris tapped his foot gently on the floor of the Oz Naval base in Southampton, England. His orders were to remain at Southampton base with the Quest Squad while the preparations for the Oz conference were finalised. He disliked being stuck in a rec room, but there was honestly nothing for him to do while the rest of his team was off checking the base for any points of infiltration. He tossed his head back on the sofa and stared at the grey ceiling. The door to the room clicked and he immediately sat up straight.

“I don’t see what’s so important about the entrance at port number three.” The voice outside said, the Major recognised it instantly as Mark Schneider, “To be honest, I can’t see why you are obsessed with beefing up security that much.”

Mark stepped into the room, quickly saluted at the Major and took a seat on the sofa opposite him. Marigbo, Harriet and Mason followed him in and took seats around the room.

Harriet brushed her hair back and said, “Look, you can’t be too careful. That pier is a possible entrance for enemy insurgents.”

“Who the hell would come out from under the water?” Mark laughed off her comment, “The last time I checked ZAFT was in Africa with no ships able to get past our mines in the English Channel…”
“French Channel.” The Major interrupted.

“Whatever. So unless the Titans decide to turn on us, I’m pretty sure that there’s no chance anyone can sneak past us with a sub.”

Harriet leaned back into the black leather, looking miffed.

“What about Entrance number twelve?” Marigbo asked. Promoted after Operation Juggle, his First Lieutenant insignia shone in the room’s light.

Mark glared at his former subordinate, “What about it.”

Taken aback, Marigbo suddenly reverted to his former nervous self, “W-well, it’s t-t-the least d-d-defended entrance and I-I think t-t-that w-we could h-h-have more people there or something.”

“What? Stop stuttering. You’re a full lieutenant now, act like one.” Mark stood up and walked over to the water cooler.

Marigbo swallowed hard, repressing his nervous imposition, “I just think that Entrance number twelve would be the perfect place for any potential enemies to enter into the base without detection. I mean it’s secluded, there’s poor visibility from its observation tower and it’s close to the generators.”

“Aren’t we supposed to let the insurgents into the base?”

“I know that,” Marigbo was becoming more agitated, “Like I explained it three times already, if we leave an entrance open for the insurgents, they’ll think that it is a trap and won’t fall for the bait. So if we put equal number of guards while expose subtle weaknesses in one gate or another then they’ll probably go for it.”

“I agree with Marigbo.” The Major interjected, getting a headache from listening to them argue.

Seeing that the decision had already been made, Mark threw up his arms, leaned against Harriet and pecked her on the cheek. The way that both of them giggled like eighteen year-old lovers made Marigbo, Mason and the Major slightly nauseous.

Trying to ignore them, the Major went back to his thoughts. Despite briefing his squad on Operation Darling, he had been instructed to leave out several important facts by His Excellency Riken. Apparently the Romefeller Foundation doesn’t trust any of Riken’s troops below the rank of Major.

If they only knew what was really going on… the Major thought as he stared back up at the ceiling.

-----

Listen up, The POW’s intel was accurate. There are twenty-three Union GMs, thirty tanks and twenty-two fighters ready to go. Thomas Squad will go for the fighters and then secure the perimeter, you’ll be dropped by the runway. Latimer and James Squads will go after the mobile suits, you’ll be dropped down in the northern part of the base and where you’ll head inwards. Norman Squad will be dropped at the east entrance and will take out the tanks and any other hostile targets. Balmer Squad will find the building where the leaders are and eliminate them, you’ll be dropped with the Thomas Squad. Any questions? Good. Cloud cover will hide you until you are two hundred meters above ground, don’t fire your weapon unless you are one hundred percent you are able to hit a target. To the four newbies, use your computers but remember to use your heads too. Thirty until drop. Good hunting, gentlemen. If you complete the mission and make it back, I’ll buy you a drink.

Vincent’s right hand gripped the Leo’s controller so hard that his knuckles were turning white.

T-Minus three…two…one…Drop!

Vincent was suddenly lurched backwards out of the stealth transport plane and his Leo began descending towards the ground.

“All units, only use the deceleration burn when you are one hundred meters from the ground.” Captain Thomas’s voice said through the radio.

Alright, Vince, breathe. Breathe. It’s not your first time going into battle.

The thick cloud on the view screen allowed him to concentrate what he was going to do. Target the planes on the tarmac as soon as he can get a clear resolution and to take out anything else that would get in his way. If only the instructors in the Academy at Southdown in England told them how to get rid of the nauseous feeling in his gut.

As soon as his Leo exited the cloud, there was a massive barrage of bullets coming up from the ground.

Someone must have panicked and fired their rifle. He thought as he weaved his Leo in and out of the incoming projectiles.

“Stay together when you land. Vincent, land outside the base and meet up with Cadet de la Bretonne from the James Squad and make sure that we don’t have any nasty surprises. Sorry about leaving you out of the action, but this is something that should be left to the officers.” The captain apologised.

“No problem sir.” Vincent, personally quite relieved, rotated his Leo around and fired his thrusters to join the other Leo heading in the same direction.

“Hey, de la Bretonne,” The pilot of the other Leo called out as they landed with a thud about one hundred meters outside the base, “Sucks that we’re not getting into the action tonight.”

“I don’t care. And cut the radio chatter, we don’t want to be found out here.” Vincent said back calmly. In reality he was more worried about his squad mates that are fighting in the base. Each explosion could mean that one of them would not be coming back. The two Leos trudged through the paddy fields that surrounded the Chinese base. Vincent was surprised that there was literally no-one civilians around or anything else for that matter.

Suddenly all of the radio chatter from the Oz units inside the base stopped.

The hell? He and Richard turned their Leos towards the base only to see it engulfed in light. The Leos were jerked off their feet and flung backwards.

-----

Vincent sprung up from his bed. He looked around his surroundings expecting to be in the cockpit of his Leo but found that he was in his quarters. He rubbed his eyes and walked over to his washbasin. All of his squad mates disappeared in that one instant.

Damn them, damn them all…

-----

“This is Taurus two-three to T-eight-three-seven: nothing new to report. Continuing with patrol. Tempes out.”

“Taurus two-four reporting in: nothing either. Continuing with patrol. Campbell out.”

“Sounds like nothing’s going to go wrong.” One of Tangs engineers muttered. Tang’s team was chatting amongst themselves while he was reviewing the test results that Oz had collected before he came to Barge. Though he didn’t like the idea of Richard and Vincent sat in the Geminass units for the entire ride but he thought it would have been for the best for both parties to be separate.

“Hey Jiang Biao, look at this for me will you?” He handed over the wad of paper to the person behind him, “Am I the only one…”

Jiang looked at the first page, flipped a few pages and looked at the first page again, “No, I agree but I don’t think it’ll be a problem.”

“By the looks of it, they don’t seem to have actually activated the system fully. You’re not giving me a false report, are you?”

“Oh, I’m hurt.” Jiang Baio handed the paper back to Tang, “Why would I give a false report to you? Those two are just too full of themselves to admit that they’re failures.”

Tang chuckled and placed the paper on his lap. He placed his head on the chair’s head-rest and closed his eyes, hoping to catch-up on some sleep and ignoring the beeping in the cockpit around him.

His mind wondered whether joining Oz at the end of the war was worth it. Sure, he had spent most of his career working on the Geminass Project, which had become almost an obsession. After the end of World War III with the defeat of the Chinese Union to Oz, what was left of the Chinese Union military was given the chance to join the Oz military. It was clear that Oz wanted the old soldiers to retain control over the region without their own European troops being involved. Many of the soldiers resigned and went back to their families, but Tang saw this as an opportunity to exploit Oz’s more advanced technologies for the Geminass. His engineering crew, though reluctant, followed him and joined the Oz Engineering Corps. All those who stayed with Oz were seen as traitors and assassinations of former Chinese Union officers were commonplace, but Tang kept his resolve to see through the Geminass Project, no matter who helps him.

“Taurus two-three to T-eight-three-seven, code F-two. Two ZAFT Laurasia-class ships spotted at grid two-two-one sector two-three. Possible total of ten mobile suits. Seems like they’re on a regular patrol. Recommend we change course to avoid.”

The engineers looked at Tang with apprehension. They knew Tang had a habit of thrusting them into danger in the name of the Geminass’ development.

“Agreed. Li, plot us another course to avoid ZAFT. We can’t have the Geminass destroyed here.”

The engineers sighed in relief.

“Sir! The MS bay hatch is opening and our escorts are retuning to base.”

A look of utter horror appeared on Tang’s face as he clambered over to the main computer console and picked up a headset connected to the laser transmitter.

“WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING?!” He hollered.

“Just taking them for a spin. We sent the two Taurus back to Barge. We’ll handle them ourselves.” Then the channel went dead. Outside, he saw his two creations take off towards the two ZAFT ships.

“Shit!” Tang threw the headset against the panel, which bounced off and floated in the zero-gravity conditions, “OK, activate all data collecting equipment. I don’t want this to be a waste. Take us closer to those ships but make sure that they don’t see us.”

-----

“You take the four on the right and I’ll take the four on the right. Leave the battleships and it’s escort for last.”

Vincent pressed a few buttons on his console and the six incoming GINNs appeared as labels on his HUD.

“Looks like they have standard equipment. They’ll be in weapons range in twenty, Rich. Don’t fire until you have a clear resolution.” Vincent felt oddly nostalgic when he said that.

“Roger that. PX System activated.” Both Geminass units took the beam rifles from their backs and took aim.

“Incoming beams!” Both units darted sideways as the green beams from the Laurasias punched through the hole made by the GINNs, “Heads up!”

Eight GINNs ploughed through the darkness, spraying bullets in the Geminass’ general direction. Boosting upwards, Vincent put a bead on a GINN following Vincent and pulled the trigger. The beam cut clean through the GINN’s main engines and engulfed the entire suit in flames. Remembering his training to not look at the explosions, he activated the main engines and narrowly avoided two missiles aimed at where he was.

Another explosion nearby meant another GINN had been downed by Richard. Not wanting to lose out to his partner, Vincent drew a bead on another GINN but bullets rained down on him as two GINNs closed in from above. A missile from one of the GINNs hit the Geminass’ beam rifle causing an overload.

“Shit!” He tossed the rifle towards the incoming GINNs and it exploded in their faces. Without thinking, he pulled out the Geminass 01’s beam sabre and charged directly into the explosion. Hoping that the GINNs pilots were blinded, he plunged the beam sabre into the dissipating plasma flames and caught one of them in the chest. Unfortunately, the other GINN plunged its heavy sword into the Geminass’ left shoulder joint, rendering it unusable and hanging by a hinge.

“Screw you!” Vincent swung the beam sabre wildly and sliced a GINN in half. He boosted away just in time to avoid the explosion. Looking around, he saw four trails of blue light chasing another.

Richard…! Vincent felt the anger inside of him explode. He didn’t notice the blinking light beside him:

PX SYSTEM ACTIVE

-----

“Shit, how the hell did I let them…!” Richard was flung forwards as another volley of bullets hit the back of his blue Geminass 02. Turning the suit around while still travelling forwards, he fired a few beam shots into the pursuing GINNs which they easily dodged and continued firing.

“What the…?” A white blur flew past his monitor causing the 02’s proximity alarm to screech. There was a loud crashing noise and several flashes of green light. It wasn’t until several seconds later that Richard realised that the Geminass 02’s accelerated rifle was missing and the GINNs that were pursuing him had all exploded. He stopped the mobile suit and searched his view screen for the strange blur.

“Vince, was that you? Where are you? Answer me, damn it!” He called out despite seeing that the Minovsky particle density in the area had reached 0.6, which meant that any communication would be generally garbled. In the corner of his eye, he saw a brilliant flash of white and yellow.

The battleships! He sped towards the light. Richard watched the spectacular show ahead of him; yellow streams of light spraying in all directions and the odd green pillar would fly out which were then swallowed up by another ball of white and yellow followed by two smaller ones.

“STAY AWAY FROM HIM!” Richard heard Tang shouting in his headset and saw the MS carrier pull up next to the Geminass 02, “Get any closer and you’ll be destroyed with him.”

“What the hell is happening to Vincent?!”

Tang sighed, “What you two have experienced during training had not been the PX System. Your time limit of one minute and twenty-three seconds had been the activation sequence of the PX System that boosts your reactions by around 10% and decreases the automatic safety protocols in place protecting the pilot by 10% because of your new reaction speeds. What you just saw now was the fully activated PX System.”

“Then why the hell did we not activate it before?” Richard watched the light show fade and saw the blue vernier trail of Vincent’s Geminass dart around in the distance.

“Because the PX System needs the pilot to overload in adrenalin before activating.” Tang replied, “When the body receives an adrenalin boost, usually as a result of fear, the pilot’s strength and reactions increase automatically as your mind tries to take you away from danger. But the PX System uses that urge to run and switches it into anger and uses the targeting computer to find potential targets.”

“But all the enemies are gone, then the PX System would deactivate, right?”

“The system was not designed to shut down.”

“What?!” Richard was pissed that no one had told him that the PX System had side effects.

“The Lieutenant will continually search for new enemies and will even attack friendlies as well if no one stops him. The Geminass units were designed for single MS missions to wipe out enemy forces, not made for team combat. So if you approached him now assuming that he’s still on your side, he will destroy you without a second thought.”

Richard’s hand clenched the control sticks, seething with anger. All this time he had been piloting a machine designed for suicide missions.

“How can I get Vince back?” He said. He had to swallow some of his pride by asking Tang for help since he had no idea what to do. There was some whispering in his radio before Tang replied.

“We have an automatic shutdown program that we can use to power down the mobile suit but we would need to be within communications range of the Geminass to transmit it with all this Minovsky interference. You’ll have to hold the 01 while we do our job. We need approximately ten seconds to transmit the program and then another ten for the suit to completely shut down.”

Richard knew that it would not be easy but if it could save Vincent then he had to try, after all, he and Vincent survived together in China and he wasn’t about to let him go crazy out here.

“Once I got him, you better be ready!” He said and charged towards the Geminass 01.

“Roger that.”

-----

Enemies…where are they?

Defeat…

I must defeat all enemies…

My mission is to defeat all enemies…

Mobile suit approaching at four o’clock…

Damn Union bastards…

I’ll destroy you…

-----

The Geminass 01 boosted directly at Richard’s 02 at a tremendous speed, swing it’s beam sabre down as soon as it got close. Richard’s own reflexes barely managed to dodge the particle beam but lost some paint on its chest. Drawing the 02’s beam sabre, Richard parried the next lunge from the deranged Vincent and sliced at the 01’s remaining arm. The verniers on the right side of the 01 came into action and twisted the mobile suit around 180 degrees and roundhouse kicking the 02, knocking it backwards towards the debris left by the destroyed ZAFT ships.

Shaken by the sudden impact of the kick, Richard shook his head and activated a communications channel to the 01 hoping to buy some time for the transport to get to get closer, “Vince, snap out of it! It’s me, Richard!”

“Kill…must destroy all enemies…no one can be allowed to live…” Was the reply.

My God, what’s happened to you, Vince? Richard thought as he rammed a piece of hull from the ZAFT ships towards the 01 but its beam sabre just sliced it in half like it was paper and smashed through the pieces.

“Vincent! Listen to me! This is not you! It’s Richard, your friend!” The 02 sprung upwards just before the 01 reached it. Looking down, he saw the 01 holding tightly onto the 02’s left leg and swinging its beam sabre. The sound of the beam slicing through metal made Richard shudder but he stayed alert and slammed the back of the 02’s left feet right onto the 01’s head, crushing it and destroying the main cameras.

The 01’s actions became erratic as soon as the head was smashed and it let go of the 02. Taking the opportunity, Richard quickly moved the 02 behind the 01 and grabbed hold of it, making sure that it wouldn’t be able to move or swing it’s right arm. Looking around him, he saw the vernier trail of the transport closing in.

“SEND THE PROGRAM!” He screamed, trying to hold both MS still. A flash of blue on the view screen almost blinded him. The 01 had opened its main verniers to full and was trying to melt his opponent. With alarms beeping around him, the increasing heat levels and the entire cockpit turning red around him, Richard quietly prayed. He had not prayed in a long time, not since he left home for university during the turbulent World War III period but seeing that he might actually die right now, it seemed appropriate to ask for forgiveness, so he shut his eyes and prayed. Then the deafening noise of the 01’s engines stopped.

Richard opened his eyes and saw the 01 had stopped struggling. Slowly unwrapping his hands from the control sticks, he let out a sigh of relief.

-----

Vincent drifted alone in a dark void. His head felt light but his body was heavy.

“Where am I?”

No one answered. He didn’t know why he asked the question to the void nor did he know why he was waiting for a reply. Just as he was about to give up, a soft female voice spoke.

Inside me.

“What are you?”

I am named the System.

“The PX System?”

No.

“Then what are you?”

The System.

“Why am I here?”

You are the first to activate me. However you are not the one.

“Not the one…? What are you talking about?”

You are not the one for me.

Before Vincent could ask anything else, a sharp pain in the entire right side of his body made him scream.

-----

Vincent jerked his eyes open and saw Tang’s face staring down at him, his hand was squeezing the drip-feed bag that was connected to his right arm, which explained why the right side of his body was in excruciating pain.

“Is the other one awake?” Tang spoke and another voice said ‘yes’.

“Alright,” Tang’s voice was unemotional but it gave Vincent the impression that he was going to kill him right there, “I’m usually a very patient man, Mr de la Bretonne and de la Norrio, however your stunt yesterday pushed beyond my patience. And this is what I do when I become annoyed.”

He let go of the drip-feed bag and then squeezed it again. The pain just became much worse for Vincent. He heard a low moaning behind Tang that sounded like Richard.

“Now, I’m going to say this once and only once, do you understand? Good. I don’t mind being treated like dirt by Oz or Oz Prize, in fact I’m used to it by now. But what I do not tolerate is the fact that little know-it-alls like yourself and your partner decide to act on your own discretion. You’re lucky that you to are not going to be court-martialled, even if it was what I wanted.” Tang let go and squeezed the bag again to keep Vincent from passing out.

“Let me tell you something, Lieutenants, I don’t particularly care about what you do to me or my me, but what I do mind is what you do to the Geminass. There is extensive damage to both mobile suits, which my men are working around the clock to fix. I have a tight schedule to keep in accordance with the timetable set by the R&D department and you two had caused an eight-day delay.”

“Now, if either of you two EVER dare to do anything that puts any of the Geminass Units in danger without my permission, I’ll see to it that you two are found dead the next day and make it look like an accident to any investigation conducted. I don’t care about your lives, you can be replaced, but the Geminass cannot. Just be grateful that the core systems did not suffer extensive damage or you won’t ever be able to get out of this bed.”

Tang released the drip-feed bag and adjusted his collar. He motioned to the other man standing beside Richard’s bed and walked to the door. Before walking out, he turned back to the two men lying in the Oz hospital bed in Istanbul,

“Oh, before I forget, from this point on you two will address me as sir and regard me as your superior officer and I want you to show the same respect to my men.”

“Yes, sir.” Both Richard and Vincent replied weakly.

“Good.” Tang smiled and the door closed.