Zeta Gundam Fan Fiction ❯ Harbinger of Darkness ❯ Portents ( Chapter 7 )

Disclaimer: I make no pretense as to lay claim to any of the various and sundry Japanese Anime Programmes referenced to in the following work of fiction. Any similarities between extant characters or places is purely intentional. I do not own Zeta Gundam, Mobile Suit Gundam, The 08th MS Team, BGCT2040, RahXephon, Neon Genesis Evangelion, or any of the other masterpieces referenced herein. Thank Ye!

"I'll see you tomorrow, Sayoko," Michelle Bannock called out as she left her office in the clinic.

"Okay, see ya," her co-worker replied from behind a mountain of paperwork. Michelle wondered how she could stay sane between all the work backed up after the whole 30 Bunch Incident at the clinic and with her second job across the island, but somehow she managed.

She had almost reached the elevator when she heard Sayoko calling after her, "Wait a second, Michelle!"

"What?" she asked, with a glance down at her watch. It was quitting time for most of the municipal offices now, too. If she wanted to be able to catch a cab, she was going to need to hurry.

"I'm sorry to have to chase you down like this but I just remembered something important: you see, there's this kid at my other job whom I've promised to show around the office in a few days. Would you be willing to meet him, say, next Wednesday?"

"You want me to spend time babysitting a child from your other job?" She asked, indignity evident in her voice. "I won't have time! Wednesday is my busiest day next week."

"It's not babysitting," Sayoko said, folding her arms before her and leaning against the wall of the hallway. "I just want to introduce you to him, that's all. He's a delightful young man and very bright too."

"Sayoko, I don't know…"

"Please?" she milked the word for all it was worth. "If not for him, then for me?"

Michelle sighed. Sayoko Nanamori was a very manipulative person indeed. "Okay, I'll see what I can do, but I might not be able to see him until late in the afternoon."

"That's great! See ya tomorrow!" she repeated and started back down the hall towards her office.

Rain greeted her as she stepped out onto the street. That wasn't surprising, though; there were still a few weeks left in monsoon season and it would undoubtedly rain every one of them.

The human body posses a small gland near the centre of the brain that secrets hormones based on the amount of light it detects. Prolonged lack of stimulation of this gland tends to cause bouts of extreme moodiness and even depression-what some people call the, "winter blues" because of the shortness of days and thus, daylight hours during that season. It seemed almost comical to be able to catch a case of the winter blues in early October, but Michelle didn't doubt that they were already starting to sink their teeth into her.

She flagged down a taxi and rode one the winding road to her flat at the side of one of Hong Kong's many mountains. After riding the elevator to the fourteenth floor, she rummaged through the pocket of her jeans until she came across her keys.

Her apartment wasn't much-she couldn't afford much, working one shift at a small medical clinic-but it was home. Exhausted from her work, Michelle kicked off her shoes and went straight into her bedroom, where she flopped onto the futon she had laid out earlier that morning. She removed her glasses and rested her chin on the backs of her forearms.

Just an ordinary day. That baffled her. After wasting away her youth with books and classes, the disappearance of her parents, the war, and her incarceration, ordinary days were anything but ordinary for her. She knew should be cherishing them; she should be enjoying freedom and making her own way in life. Yet despite even her best efforts at forced happiness, she still could not shake the portentous gloom form her heart.

Was it because she was alone? No, that wasn't it at all. She remembered the days she had spent with Trowa after she was first released. He had done everything for her, bent over backwards to make sure that she was happy. But it was to no avail. The intended warmth of his embrace had come off feeling as cold and uninviting as a python's coils.

Why?

Why?

Did not he tell her that he loved her? Had not he gone out of his way time and again to try and ensure that she was happy? For what purpose did she leave him?

Trowa had taken it personally, though she hadn't meant for it to be construed that way. His last remarks to her had been bitter ones. He accused her of still being in love with Alex Kincaid, and had said in no softer tones that she could just go back to him if that would make her feel better.

Ah, but that led to the question at the heart of it all: did she really still have feelings for Alex? She had told herself no a thousand times over, and a thousand times after that, but she still had difficulty believing her own words, no matter how often she repeated them.

But, in the end, didn't this all just say that she had been lying to herself all along? That by telling herself that Alex was a figment of the past, never again to play any sort of role in her life, and that she did indeed love Trowa too…were those all just lies and self-deception?

And if they were, did that not make her as bad a person for leading him on as she had felt Alex was for leading her on in those last few hours of the battle of A Baoa Qu?

Of course, she no longer blamed Alex for the train-wreck masquerading as her life. No. Alex had come to her Court Martial, to see her off. To wish her well. To say good-bye forever. He had meant well enough, the whole way through the ordeal, but she hadn't heard from him since. Perhaps he had moved on with his life. Perhaps he had just been too busy to write.

No, not Alex. If anyone was to blame, it was Rachel-fucking-Sawyer.

Michelle had found out through connections with some of Trowa's war buddies that it had been the night after Solomon that everything had gone to hell with that farce of a relationship that she clung so tenaciously to. Alex had all but given up on ever seeing Rachel Sawyer ever again until that chance encounter at a bar on Side Three's Neo Canton colony. That dirty little slut had, by some impossible coincidence, been scheduled to sing at the bar Alex and his squad had been drinking at. From there, it was inevitable that Michelle's best efforts to be with him would fall short.

Rachel. That tramp. That bitch. That slut. It was all her fault, dammit; all of it! Her and her skimpy dresses and revealing businesswear. Her and her singing and reporting. Her and her mother-fucking crooked-ass nose!

Honestly and truthfully, Michelle had wanted to kill her. The whole way through her sentence in that penitentiary, the only things that kept her going were Trowa's visits, the dream of being reunited with Alex, and the desire to put a bullet between Rachel Sawyer's eyes.

She sighed and rolled onto her back, staring up at the motionless ceiling fan. Damn, life was hard.

But there wasn't a whole lot she could do about it now. Her sole comfort now was that she knew that at least things couldn't get any worse; the sole good thing about "ordinary".

Michelle rested until later on that evening and the got up and made herself a cup of tea (Earl Grey, not the horrible green stuff that was so popular here in Southern Asia), and sat on her couch and watched a movie. It was nothing truly memorable, but it helped to kill two hours. She didn't eat dinner, but instead went straight to her computer and did a futile job of trying to catch up on her paperwork. When she looked at the clock on the wall, it read quarter after one.

Tired again, and surprised at how late it had gotten, Michelle decided to turn in for the night. Tomorrow was her Saturday half-day and so she still needed to get up early to be at the clinic on time.

Her weekend crawled by, a carbon-copy of every other weekend she'd had since arriving in Hong Kong. She did manage to finally get caught up on her filings and charts about the virus that had torn though 30 Bunch. Interestingly the virus was one that, while fatal, was one that had not been seen in the Earth Sphere in over seventy years. She thought that was rather peculiar, but did not bother to report it. Surely, if she knew about it, the head of the Asian Branch of the Medical Department did too.

Despite the sluggish pacing of the uneventful weekend, Monday, as it always seems to do, came too soon. Michelle managed to survive though, and Monday, as it always does, drifted into Tuesday, and Tuesday drifted into Wednesday.

Wednesday. Wasn't there something important she was supposed to remember about this Wednesday?

"Michelle, dear!" Sayoko Nanmori's voice came out in an irritating sing-song fashion. "There's someone here to see you!"

Of course, that was it. Sayoko's little babysitting job.

"Come in," she said sounding every bit as resigned as she felt.

Yet, as soon as she heard Sayoko's hand on the doorknob of her office, she felt an intense calm wash over her. It was the most bizarre of feelings, and it came with such surprising force, that Michelle couldn't help but feel invigorated again.

Sayoko walked into her office with a young boy behind her. Well, boy might have been the wrong word-this individual was teetering on the edge of becoming a young man. It was from him that the serenity that Michelle now felt seemed to be radiating.

"Michelle, this is the young man I was telling you about last week. His name is Shinji Ikari."

"It's a pleasure," Shinji said with a slight bow. "Dr. Nanamori has told me a great deal about you, and I've been looking forward to meeting you for quite some time." He sounded slightly nervous, and Michelle wondered why.

"T-thank you," she stuttered. Then she remembered her courtesy; "Please, sit down, both of you. I'm sorry my office is rather messy, but I have been working rather hard trying to get things in order for some of the appointments I have later on."

"It's no problem at all," Shinji's voice cracked as he nervously collapsed into the seat across the desk from her.

"Yeah," Sayoko nodded. "My office stays like this all the time, and is frequently worse than this."

She turned to Shinji. "Weren't there some things you wanted to talk to Dr. Bannock about?"

He gave an uncomfortable-looking shrug while looking at the floor. "A few."

"Then please, let's get started," Sayoko said, crisply, "She is a very busy woman, you know."

"I'm sorry. Ah, Dr. Bannock, this may come out sounding a bit awkward, but, how do you…how do you cope with being alone?"

Michelle looked at him, totally bewildered. "I beg your pardon?" she asked, not quite understanding.

"What I mean is, um, from what Dr. Nanamori has told me, you and I…we're kind of alike in a few ways. Both of us are crammed into situations that seem normal on the outside, but really feel vacant on the inside. It's like, you're surrounded by people, but none of them really connect with you. In that way, you can be in even a crowded city like this, and still feel totally alone."

She should have been offended. She should have gotten up and slapped the precocious youth right across his face. She should have, but she didn't. Everything he had said was exactly the way she felt. It was as if he could read her mind, or see what was in her heart.

"Shinji!" Sayoko was apparently as astounded by his forwardness as she was, but did not seem to be having any trouble expressing it. "You cannot just say things like that to people you've just met!"

She turned back to Michelle. "I'm sorry, I should have explained. Shinji is a student at a special programme for gifted adolescents. Since I work as a psychologist at the institute, it's my job to see that the students get acclimated to the city."

"Dr. Nanamori, why are you lying to her?" Shinji asked hotly. "She's your friend, dammit, why can't you just tell her the truth?"

"Because the truth remains classified and on a need to know basis, Shinji," Sayoko returned.

Apparently the throes of adolescent-hood prevented Shinji from fully understanding military SOP. "You don't trust her, do you?" he said in a low, accusing voice, "your own co-worker, your own friend."

He turned back to Michelle without waiting for her to respond. As he did, she could almost feel that he had lost a bit of his self-confidence; interesting how that happened whenever he spoke with her. "I am what the Federation calls an enhanced human; a Newtype. I, ah, have these powers of empathy, and even a small degree of telekinesis."

"Shinji!" Sayoko turned his name into a hiss of fury.

"A Newtype?" Michelle was…she didn't really know how she felt. It was obviously a surprise, yet, somehow, she felt as though she had known all along.

He nodded, but cast his eyes to the ground, almost as if he were expecting her to think less of him. In fact, the opposite was true.

"Shinji," Michelle began.

"Yes?" he looked up anxiously.

"You seem like a very…fascinating person. Do you think we could possibly meet again and talk further? I mean, I'd love to right now, but I have an appointment to take in about five minutes."

"S-sure!" his voice again fluctuated harshly between the timbre of his youth and that of his immanent adulthood.

"If I let you," his happiness deflated like a balloon when Sayoko said that. "Anyway, come on Shinji, it's best that you not hassle Dr. Bannock further."

"Of course," he gave a nod, and followed her towards the door. "It was a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Bannock," he said before he left.

"The pleasure was mine, Shinji," Michelle said, and meant it. She giggled a little to herself when she saw how his face waxed crimson.

However, as he walked out of the door, the calmness Michelle had felt when he was near, began to ebb and soon was gone as fast as it had come. Within moments, she was back to the nigh eternal depression that had plagued her for the past few years. She forced herself up to try and treat her patient, but all the way through the appointment, her thoughts kept straying.

How do I cope with being alone?

Naomi Sterling found that she had no trouble returning the cockpit of a mobile suit, even after almost five years.

Of course, the Gelgoog Marine suit she sat in now was a slight downgrade from the Kämpfer prototype she had piloted in the war; propulsion was a little slower, and manoeuvring was a little harder with fewer venires, but the beam cannon was a hell of a lot better than the shot guns and bazookas the other unit had bore.

All that and, as an old GM opened up on her with a machine gun, the shield particularly helped.

She shot forward and slammed into the offending JEF suit, shield-first. The recoil of the impact and lack of friction in the vacuum sent both suits flying. Naomi, however, quickly hit up her reverse thrusters and disentangled her Gelgoog while the GM continued helplessly. It was then that she pulled out the beam rifle and fired two quick shots through the suit's head and torso.

`That's another one down,' she thought grimly. The Jupiter Energy Fleet was passing through the vicinity of Axis space on its way through the asteroid belt towards the gas giant. The GMs were members of scouting parties that served as the fleet's escorts.

Technically, Axis was not a recognised power in space. Her forces had seen some action at the end of the '83 rebellion, but the Federation had considered them neutral and not much of a threat. To be honest, they really hadn't been at that point. The fortress' residential block had still been under construction, and the mobile suit factories had only been going at 2% production capacity (that hadn't stopped the construction of the mighty Neue Ziel for commander Gato, though, not by a long shot).

Now though…

The Jupiter fleet was another semi-autonomous entity within the Federation that served to collect Hydrogen from Jupiter's atmosphere. The Hydrogen was then sold at market prices to The Federation, Titans, Anaheim Electronics, and even the Republic of Zeon to serve as fuel for the other entities' MS armies. Axis forces could hassle the fleet but were far enough away from the main fortress so as to not attract attention. They could complain if some of their own MS were gunned down, which is why the Axis vanguard post at asteroid Sirius 95 existed. As far as the Federation knew, they were mere Zeon stragglers; more ghosts of the Duchy. This anonymity was crucial, though, for if the Federation or Titans ever found out that Axis was behind the attacks on their precious Hydrogen supply, they would come down on the lonely outpost with both feet.

Probably the only reason that the Feddies and their Titans thugs hadn't already smashed Axis was because the fortress was simply too far away. Of course there were the Deimos and Phobos waypoints where an armada could be re-fuelled and make its way to the Asteroid Belt, but why make the effort? Axis was nominally still neutral and rebellion seethed throughout the Earth Sphere. It took all the ships in the Federation Cosmo-arma to make certain that the horrible debacle with the Delaz Fleet was never repeated.

How fortunate the circumstances were, even if they had been bought at the cost of human lives.

Naomi vented some of her pent up rage by shredding another of the scouting GMs with her dual sided beam sabre. Henry still held that he had done the right thing in liquidating 30 Bunch. Of course, the end result had been exactly what he had anticipated: The AEUG was the first organised resistance the Titans had yet had to face, and with their covert ties to Anaheim, they were able to secure quite a large contingent of MS with which to harass the paramilitary officers.

And they did keep the heat off Axis and the Sirius outposts, which meant that Naomi, herself, was less likely to be killed…

`No!' her conscience screamed, `you can't be so subjective about it, or else you'll end up becoming as bad as Henry is!'

Hands still resting on the controls, Naomi resigned herself to a feeling she'd only felt once before, when she had lost her sight after looking directly into the blast from a mega particle cannon: helplessness. Then, however she had been granted a reprieve by ocular transplant surgery. She had been able to escape from a life of eternal darkness.

There was no medical cure for this darkness though. This attacked her directly at her heart, at her very soul, tormenting her every moment of her existence.

She hadn't wanted to be dragged back into this situation; back into a war. Yet at the very same time, she hadn't wanted to die along with all of those other unfortunates on 30 Bunch. Did she love her brother for rescuing her? Or did she hate him for killing everyone else?

"Hey! Falcon 334! What in the name of God are you doing?" A voice from the tower on Sirius demanded of her. "Get back to the outpost on the double! Jesus, do you want to attract the JEF over here?"

Naomi sighed. Wrestling with her inner demons would need to wait for another day. Perhaps as soon as she got some R and R and was allowed to return to Axis, she would finally confront Henry and purge the guilt in her soul once and for all.

"Kiss the floor, shit-sack!" Sergeant Will Valentine bellowed.

Antony Kaiser complied, and began forcing his way through his punitive push-ups, swearing under his breath after each one.

"Ya got heart kid," Valentine said in his native Australian accent, glaring down at him, "but ya got to learn to control your anger."

"Damn your mother-fucking regulations," Antony raged with strained breath as he fought his way through another push-up.

Unfortunately for him, he was not so quiet in his anger that Valentine could not hear: "Damn the regulations, eh? Let me remind you that the AEUG is not a conscription-based organisation. You're here `cause you wanted to be here, not `cause anybody forced you to; but now that you're here, you are gonna follow orders."

"I came because you all said you were offering a chance for revenge against the Titans. So far all you've done is march us along in formations and make us do fucking manual labour. We haven't even seen combat yet!"

"Tony," Jin Romanov, a fellow cadet hissed his name to try and caution him against further transgression.

"Okay, cock-sucker," Valentine finally snapped. In an instant he had yanked Antony up by his collar and lifted him fully off the ground. Antony was a muscular guy, but his Sergeant still towered over him, and his biceps were the size of Antony's head. "I hate the damn Titans just as much as you do, but you can't just go off all kamikaze like and try and kill them all. It ain't constructive, and you're all too likely to die before you do any real damage. If you want to throw your life away, be my guest, but you sure as hell won't put the lives of the rest of us in jeopardy because you're too blinded by rage to follow orders. Ya got me?"

Antony was tempted to continue swearing, but decided against it. "Yes, sir," he muttered his eyes avoiding the sergeant's piercing gaze.

"Good, now finish those push-ups and you are dismissed. The rest of you can return to quarters also." With that, Will Valentine did a smart about face and stalked off down the hall.

"Bastard," Antony grunted behind his back, refusing to do the rest of his punishment.

"Dude, you are such a fucking basket case," Jin said, shaking his head falling in step with him as he started back towards their quarters. "Why in the hell do you have such a problem with the Sergeant? He's only trying to help us be better pilots."

"Yeah," their comrade, Lisa Hayes, nodded in assent. "We all want revenge on the Titans just as much as you do, but there's protocol to follow."

Antony snorted. "Protocol."

"Yes, protocol." Lisa repeated, starting to sound irate. "Dammit, Antony, why don't you even try to listen?"

"Oh, I listen," he said darkly, "I listen very well. I choose not to comply because `protocol' works to slowly! Nothing will get accomplished if we remain constrained like this! I'm going home." He turned sharply and started towards the linear train station that connected the AEUG training camp to the rest of the colony.

"Tony!" Lisa cried after him.

"Let him go," Jin said, crossing his arms before his chest. "If he's gonna be such a little bitch about following orders, it best if he does go into town and burn off some steam."

"But what if Sergeant Valentine finds out that he's gone AWOL?"

"I'm not going to tell him. Kaiser's a loose cannon, but he's still a fucking force of nature when he gets into an MS cockpit. We need all the able fighters we can get if we want to stand a chance against the Titans."

Lisa looked dubious. "If you say so."

The two of them turned and continued on towards the barracks.

Antony, having hopped the linear train that went straight to downtown, sighed heavily. He knew he was acting irrationally, and that by doing so, he was becoming a hindrance, but…dammit, his whole family and everyone on his home colony had been killed right before his eyes. If thinking about that didn't make a man's blood boil, he was either dead or a member of the Titans.

He gazed out the window of the train. It was one of those high velocity external models, air-tight and pressurized to be able to travel on a magnetic track on the outside of the colony's metal carapace. Trains like these afforded a spectacular view of the stars.

Within seconds he had reached the residential block just outside of the downtown business district. The train slid to a stop and was lifted inside the colony by means of a special elevator platform. Airlocks shut tightly behind the lift as it rose to street-level inside the colony. Antony got off at the station and started walking south.

All of the citizens of Side One's Thebes colony were supporters of the AEUG, but were careful how they showed it. With such close proximity to Thirty Bunch, how could they not be extra cautious about maintaining ostensible loyalty to the Federation? Still, he got a couple of covert smiles from some of the dissidents who knew that he was a part of the Resistance.

Antony stopped in front of a small Soul Food restaurant and stepped inside. He wasn't particularly fond of the food from the Southern region of the former United States, finding most of it far too greasy for his tastes. Still, Susanna Martin, the proprietor of the diner smiled as warmly at him as she would any other regular.

"Evenin' Tony," she drawled. "Amanda's upstairs getting ready fer her shift. I was just fixin' ta call her down."

As if to underscore her claim, she shouted, "Amanda! First customer of the evenin's here!"

"I'm coming Auntie!" Amanda Frost's sweet voice floated down from the living quarters upstairs.

"It's right good to see you again, Tony," Sue Martin said looking back to her patron. "Amanda's been worried sick. Always pestering me about `when do you think Tony'll be by again?' I can see why she's so stuck on you though; you did save her life and all."

Somehow or other, Mrs. Martin always managed to bring up that fact. She had remained on Thebes to run the restaurant while her husband and son had gone to Thirty Bunch for Amanda's wedding. When news of the atrocity first hit, she had been devastated, thinking she had lost all of her family. Then, a day and a half later, Antony and Amanda had showed up on her doorstep and proved her wrong.

She had invited Antony to stay, but after hearing about the opening of an AEUG training facility on the colony, he, like so many others his age had gone and enlisted. It was a rare treat for him to stop by the restaurant, and Sue always made sure to treat him like a hero when he did.

"Sorry I'm late, Auntie," Amanda said as she hurried down the steps in her server's uniform, "I was just-Tony!"

He was as stunned as she was. It had been over two months since he had enlisted in the Resistance, and in that period of time, he'd not had leave at all (mostly because of his inability to follow orders). He'd received letters from Amanda in that period of time, but here she was in the flesh.

Her perky, vivacious, personality had more or less returned after having time to finally cut her losses, and she seemed almost to glow with happiness and relief to see him again. Of course she looked the same, but something about the way she carried herself now only seemed to amplify her beauty, even though she was wearing a red t-shirt, jeans, and a calico apron.

Amanda wasted no time in flying down the stairs and throwing herself into his arms. "It's so good to see you!" she said, finally breaking the embrace. She then made a face. "You stink though. Did you just get off duty? Why didn't you wash up before you came here? Eww!"

`And she's how much older than me?' he asked himself tiredly. "It's nice to see you too."

"Well, don't just stand there, Amanda, help me get the boy some food. If he just got off duty, I bet he's right starved." Sue said from behind the counter as she fired up the stove. "I'll have you a plate of chicken `n mashed potatoes `n gravy, in a half a minute, son, so take a seat and relax."

Amanda pushed him over to one of the tables for two and sat him down. "Gimme a minute and I'll get you a couple of Auntie's biscuits and a couple pieces of cornbread."

"I…"

"You just hush and relax," Amanda said. "You're the guest this evening and we're gonna take good care of you." In a flash she disappeared to help her Aunt make the food.

Pushing thoughts of the fried grease-fest that awaited him aside, Antony was unable to keep from smiling. Somehow, just being near Amanda Frost seemed to make all of his troubles seem as far away as the stars.

Tropical sun filtered down through the palm canopy creating a meshwork of dappled shadows over path towards the Titans Pearl Harbour branch office. Trowa Barton was sweltering in the black and blue uniform nonetheless, and eagerly looked forward to being in the air conditioning of the office. He envied Asuka for being able to relax on the beach…in a two-piece swimsuit…

He shook his head. No, now was not the time to be fantasising; not with such an important interview at hand. This was his first day on the job at Pearl Harbour and he needed to make a good impression with his commanders. He had been fairly certain that his application would be accepted, given his illustrious service during the war, and the help he had rendered to the military thereafter, in spite of his handicap. What he had not counted on was getting promoted as well as being accepted. Apparently the need for officers with experience-and especially veterans-had been much worse than he had thought. It felt great, though; Lieutenant Colonel! It meant a supervising position at best or at the very least a role as a general's adjutant. Either way, he would be fighting from behind a desk now…provided nothing too catastrophic happened any time soon…

The double glass doors slid open before him and he was buffeted with a blast of cool air. Damn that felt good!

He strode up to the main desk. "Lt. Col. Trowa Barton reporting for assignment, ma'am!" he said with a brisk salute.

The orderly at the desk peered at him over the rims of her glasses. He maintained the salute, and tried to smile. She rolled her eyes and reached for a clipboard. "Barton, you said your name was?"

"Ma'am!"

"Right," she drew the word out sardonically. "Yeah, here's your name. Report to room 520, for your meeting with General Wesley. He'll get you situated in terms of your assignment."

"Yes, ma'am. Thank you ma'am." He started off to his right.

"Hold up a minute, soldier." The orderly called after him. He looked back over his shoulder questioningly.

"Lift's that way," she said, pointing to the big sign on the side of her desk.

Trowa smiled sheepishly and tried to laugh it off, as he started back in the right direction.

Moments later found him on the fifth floor of the massive complex, walking down a long corridor towards the Brigadier General's office.

Room 520. Two massive oak doors proved to be the barrier between the outside world and General Wesley's inner sanctum. Trowa felt infinitesimally small standing before the wooden entrance, and was uncertain that the sound of his knock would even reach the General's ears on the other side.

Still, knock he did. Within seconds the giant doors swung open, seemingly of their own accord, showing the way to the brightly lit office. Trowa stepped cautiously over the threshold and into the office, his footsteps muffled by the thick green carpet.

"Siddown, Barton," the General growled before Trowa had a chance to salute or otherwise display deference. General Wesley was apparently a straight to the point kind of man.

"Sir," Trowa sat.

"I understand that you're a recent transfer into our organisation." Not a question, a statement. "You'll find that we do things a little differently here than in the Federation regulars."

"Of course sir," Trowa began, "I was informed-"

"Irrelevant," Wesley cut him off. "What matters is that you are here. Your assignment is a simple one: until further notice, you are to be placed in charge of our weapons development programme."

"Sir?"

"Is there a problem lieutenant colonel?" Wesley asked, narrowing his eyes. "You came highly recommended as an expert on mobile suit combat, and your record in the One Year War was superb, was it not? This is data coming from your superiors back in Melbourne; you don't question the word of superior officers, do you lieutenant colonel?"

"No sir!" he said quickly.

"Very well then. As of 0745 to-morrow morning, you will report to the factory floor in the sub-basement of this facility and begin inspection of the fruits of `Operation Tsunami'. You do know what that is, correct?" It almost seemed as if he were being tested.

"Yes sir," Trowa said quietly, and then clammed up. Operation Tsunami was one of the most crucial of the Titans projects, and at the same time, one of the most secretive.

Wesley waited an intense split-second afterwards to see if Trowa intended to broach some detail about the project. Convinced that no further words would come past his new subordinate's lips, he continued, "very well, Lt. Col. you are dismissed for the day. Go and enjoy some of the sights of the island. You begin your assignment tomorrow morning at 0730. Be at the Hangar on the southern edge of the facility, promptly, and Captain McDaniels of the test pilot corps, and Dr. Bidan, the chief engineer, will bring you up to speed."

"Ah, the famous engineer from Side One. I look forward to working with him. Who did you say the commander of the test pilots was again, sir?"

"Captain Leon McDaniels," Wesley said, sounding irate at being asked to repeat himself.

`Squall?' Trowa thought, surprised that he would be working with his former comrade from his time at the New England front during the war. `How did that son of a bitch end up out here?'

"Anything else, Barton?"

"My timetable, sir?" He asked with some trepidation. The general's last comment was probably designed to end their conversation.

"You've a little over a year before the project is handed over to the factory on Green Noah in Side One for completion. Your subordinates will enlighten you as to any further questions you may have. If we're quite finished now, Lt. Colonel…?"

"Yes sir. Thank you sir." Trowa rose and started towards the heavy oak doors. He knew `get the hell out of my office' when he heard it, no matter how politely it had been couched.

"Oh, and Barton, one final thing…"

Trowa turned to face his new commander.

"Stay away from the pubs, Barton."

"Of course sir." Trowa forced himself to remain calm though rage buffeted him like the winds of a hurricane.

His superiors in Australia had obviously given a very thorough report on him.

"How did it go to-day, Trowa?" Asuka asked when he opened the door to the officer's cottage they shared.

He said nothing but went straight to the refrigerator for a beer. To his chagrin, the cool white interior held nothing but food, sodas, and a few bottles of water.

Trowa must've looked as disheartened as he felt for Asuka put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "I'm sorry, babe, but those are the rules. This base is totally dry, except for medicinal whiskey."

"Well then I need some medicine for God's sakes!" He cried.

"No you don't, Trowa," Asuka said firmly. Then her face softened and she smiled mischievously. "You don't need that to make you feel better. You've got something much, much better…"

"I…oh…" he laughed. "That is better than liquor…" The stress from the day suddenly dissolved, as he looked her over. She'd tanned very nicely that day, her coppery skin complimenting her auburn hair.

"…much better than liquor…"