Shades of Grey by Laekin and bonnejeanne

Part Eight

Wufei watched Quatre and Duo head out the door, then stalked over to the communicator. Without saying a word to anyone, he called Sally Po's emergency line.

Sally answered promptly, almost as if she'd been waiting. "Po here."

"This is Chang Wufei. I need to schedule an appointment with you. How about now? Are you at home on in the office?" Wufei said grimly. "I can be either place in thirty minutes."

"Home. More private. In thirty."

Wufei slammed the communicator down, than he jogged out of the room so see if Duo and Quatre had left yet.

Wufei found both boys in the equipment room. They had changed and look identical in black turtlenecks and black combat pants. They were busy arming themselves with extra clips and small explosive devices disappearing into different pockets on the pants.

Duo was humming softly to himself as he loaded a couple of handguns and stuffed them into holsters on his hips. An automatic machine gun was also loaded and slung over his shoulder to lay across his back. A second automatic weapon swung at his side. Quatre was equally loaded for bear though he kept his two handguns in twin shoulder harnesses. He slung the machine gun over his shoulder and gave a whistle to Duo who began to flip explosives towards him which he deftly plucked out of the air and tucked into his pockets.

Wufei simply rested in the doorway watching. When there was a pause in the action, Wufei looked at each of them waiting to catch their eyes before saying, "Take care... of each other." He puts as much emotion in it as he dared, knowing he'd never said anything like this in a similar situation.

Quatre blinked at Wufei, then smiled shyly as he stowed the explosives in his pant's pocket.

Duo grins and bounced on his toes. "It'll be simply shit Wufei. Quatre will tell me what to do then I'll drag his ass through it. " Duo winked at Quatre who returned a mock glare to the braided boy.

Then Duo looked back to Wufei a little more seriously, "Thanks man. We'll see you soon."

Wufei pressed his lips together, but he nodded then he turned and headed out. As he passed Trowa he muttered, "Going to see Sally."

Then he left the house, got on his motorcycle and gunning it, took off down the drive way. He made across town to Sally Po's in the requisite thirty minutes by breaking several speeding laws. Sally was standing out on the porch waiting for him.

"Damn.. I thought for once you were actually gonna be late." She smiled but the expression looked strained.

"You may wish I had been." Wufei said grimly, getting off the bike and walking with a quick powerful stride up to the porch. He took her arm and moved her ahead of him into the house.

Sally jerked and glared at the way she was being manhandled into the house. "Hey!"

"There was a time when you all but begged me to act decisively," Wufei said. "So don't protest now. I'm not in the mood to deal with protocol. We have to talk now and no rules or points of order."

Sally gave a quick yank of her arm to break the hold, grabbing where his fingers had dug into her muscle and frowning at him. "All right Wufei. Something's got you wound up. As it could be at least three things... which is it?"

"Nothing has me 'wound up'. I am here to let you know that from today, there are going to be a few changes in how things are done with our team, or else there will be changes in the team. Namely me, out."

Sally sighed and rested her weight back against a chair."It wasn't my call to put Duo and Quatre out. Yurst overrode my protests."

"Onna," Wufei said sharply. "I said nothing about this mission. Stop assuming you know what I am going to say."

Sally opened her mouth then held her hands up in an agitated motion, shutting her mouth and looking at him expectantly. Something obviously had her a little hot under the collar. For the moment Wufei pressed on with his words.

"Here is the change - the rules that prohibit some members of the team from having the full details of all missions which *any* member goes on, are going to vanish. Period. No arguments, no protocols, no rule quoting. If one, two, three, or four go on any mission, the details will be known to all five of us. Period. From now on. Otherwise, you have a team of four." Wufei said grimly.

"The rules have always been stupid. None of us would betray any of the others. There is no security problem in our team. And it is stupid for you or your superiors to be playing psych games with us, deciding what we can handle and what we can't. It has caused problems in the team and it will cause problems again. It is dangerous and it will stop as of now."

Sally exhaled and looked a little deflated. "I understand Wufei and I agree with you." The next words she almost whispered. "Believe me.. I think things are going to get to a point where you will have a bargaining chip that will make everyone stand up and fall into line."

"I have no interest in bargain or chips. I want you word now that this goes into effect immediately, or you have my resignation," Wufei said. "It is beyond mission critical. We put our lives on the line without question when you tell us to. This is stacking the odds higher against us than they need to be. I know you don't make the rules, Sally but I have no choice in what I am saying. I cannot afford to let my friendship with you affect my stand on this. You will have to find a way to make it work or you work without me."

Sally's nostrils pinched and she straightened from her lean, making a crooking motion with her finger. "Come with me. Please."

As soon as she was certain Wufei was following her she lead him into a small office in which there is a large bank of equipment. Most of it is communication equipment. Walking over to a tall radio transmitter she begins to dial in a frequency.

"Duo and Quatre are out assisting a second team in the taking of a terrorist base. It's an old airfield and intel says that it's lightly manned at the moment. The second team is under the command of Captain Ruffin. A Yurst favorite. It's a 10 man team.. 12 with Quatre and Duo."

She stopped and looked over her shoulder directly into Wufei's dark eyes. "The intel comes from Fragile."

Wufei looked at Sally sharply. "You have Trowa's report?" he snapped.

Sally nodded." So does Yurst. Fragile is another one of Yurst's favorites."

Wufei looked at Sally levelly. "It's worse than I have let myself believe. This organization has become calcified in only twelve months. If there are not immediate drastic changes, one of us is going to die... maybe all of us."

Sally shifted a little."Yurst... signed off on the use of Quatre and Duo but people above him requested their use. Yurst's.. incompetence has not gone unnoticed.. but we're unsure the extent of the damage."

"This would have been better suited to Heero or I," Wufei snapped.

"We need Quatre." Sally said simply. "We need him to go up against Yurst. Quatre has the best chance of shutting Yurst down but he's got to be motivated to do it. He's.. got a better chance of successfully removing Yurst from the Preventers if he has first hand knowledge to work with. Duo... is most likely to be able to pull this mission off single handedly.. if it comes to that."

"Sally can you hear yourself... need Quatre to go up against Yurst? It is not our job to 'go up against' those who are supposedly our own people." Wufei made a rude sound.

"This is like Oz at it's worst. I repeat, you are going to kill one or all of us. This is not what we do. Do you think we all stayed alive through the war because we were lucky? No. We stayed alive because we were able to act independently when we had to. We were given missions but we never had to answer to anyone about how they were accomplished or even if they were. We were trusted to make those decisions and we made them. Maybe the others don't see what is happening here but I do. Even you are starting to think it's okay to use us as pawns against your own fellow officers..."

Sally looked at him sadly, then broke her gaze, looking down at the floor before turning to toggle a switch.

"It's already in motion." She whispered miserably.

Sally had dialed the communicator into the same frequency being used as the team. With just a hint of tuning the sounds of gunfire come across the speakers clearly. Next is the unmistakable voice of Duo.

"This is what they call.. skeleton crew?!?!? How fracking big is this group?"

The report of a handgun sounded from close to Duo. Than Quatre was yelling to be heard over his own weapon. "Someone screwed up. Just like with Trowa, Heero and Wufei's mission. Same person... same link."

"Yeah.. like that was a surprise." Duo snarled the moment before his battle howl erupted along with the sound of his machine gun as the braided boy laid down a hell of a fire storm.

"Alright short stuff, what we do now. Extract?"

"No. We've still got people pinned and we need to complete mission objective."

"Rriiiigggghhhttt. Got another clip?"

Wufei grabbed Sally's shoulders and looked into her eyes with eyes that were like e a blaster rifle beam.

"Lo - ca - tion - NOW!"

End Part 8

Laekin and bonnejeanne

Please send comments to: seregill@aol.com or bonnejeanne@yahoo.com

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