16-Jul-2000
Title: Shades of Red
Author: Laekin (seregill@aol.com) and bonnejeanne (bonnejeanne@yahoo.com)
Archive: GW Addiction
Category: yaoi, angst
Rating: NC-17
Pairings: 1x2, 5x4x3 (or some weird order of the same)
Warnings: Lemon/Limey stuff, later; angst, suspense.
Spoilers: Series, EW but not really
Disclaimer: Gundam Wing characters and universe are the property of the
copyright owners. Our stuff is ours. No money being made here. As with all
our fics so far, while our goal is to stay as in character as possible, any
discrepancies are our mistakes.
Feedback: Any and all comments, feedback, critiques welcome, be they short
or long.
Note: ***This section entirely written by Laekin!***
Quatre watched the four men fan out through the passenger compartment of the shuttle, their automatic weapons causing fear and fumbling compliance with their requests for all valuables and ID. He took a slow breath, calming his own adrenaline chased heart rate, his mind jumping quickly along his options.
He'd headed up into space last night for a quick meeting this morning with a friend of his mother's. The Winner shuttle he'd taken up to the colony had developed a mild problem and unwilling to wait another day to get it fixed, he'd booked himself on a commercial flight to get back down to Earth before *Noon*.
An hour into the flight it had proved to be a mistake.
A team of eight armed men had stood up as if on cue. Two had headed up to the cockpit while two had stepped into the back compartments to subdue the attendants. The remaining four were currently terrorizing the few passages on board. Dressed in matching fatigues with what looked to Quatre's eye to be good quality weaponry they slowly panned the muzzles of their guns back and forth across the whimpering crowd while their partners moved through the rows.
"Give me your ID." The voice was gruff, as if trying to hide an accent.
Quatre forced himself to remain calm as the cold muzzle nudged his shoulder. He'd dressed down today in an over sized cable knit sweater and black trousers. Shifting very slowly he pulled his wallet out of his hip pocket and handed it up to the man. He cringed at the information he was giving to the terrorists but at the moment he was in no position to start something.
He needed to bide his time. He needed to look for the weak link in the chain and he would need to look for any hint of weakness, something he could exploit. He only hoped the innocents on the flight with him would remain calm and not do something stupid.
As the man moved on, Quatre looked over his fellow passengers. A well to do woman in her mid thirties with two young children. A couple men in their fifties, also well to do and a group of older women, a sight seeing club Quatre guessed. Quatre smiled reassuringly to the mother as his eyes met hers for a moment.
The sound of the gunshot made them all jump. The children screamed and the four men got instantly nervous. One of the gunmen jammed his weapon in the direction of the two men, obviously feeling they were a possible threat, while another man headed for the cockpit. Though it was subtle, Quatre could feel a shift in the tone of the shuttles engines and a pitch in the deck under his feet.
He groaned softly.
The fools, they must have shot the pilot and before entering the atmosphere. A shuttle was pretty easy to handle on either side of the Earth's atmosphere but getting it through the atmosphere was a tricky, tricky thing.
The cockpit door opened and a man Quatre quickly pegged as the "leader" stepped out. Blood and brains dotted his dark shirtfront. "Well... we have a small problem." The man calmly announced.
Quatre continued to watch the men as they conferred amongst themselves. The leader, whom Quatre learned was called Synclair, was trying to convince a rather sweaty, nervous looking man that he needed to start earning his keep.
"But Synclair, you don't understand. Bringing a shuttle like this through the atmosphere is a tricky thing, I've never done anything like it. If I do it wrong we could burn up and explode."
"Regis," Synclair began calmly, "When we talked about this plan you said you had no problem with piloting the shuttle."
"And I don't... as long as we're in space or already below the atmosphere. I can even take us back through the atmosphere from Earth to space, I just can't fly down into it."
Synclair looked less then thrilled. Quatre watched the large man very closely. There was a certain level of stillness and ferocious focus that reminded him of Heero. Synclair was definitely *not* the weak link.
"Well, I guess we're going to see how well you learn on the fly. Get in there and look for a manual to help you get us down to Earth."
Quatre felt himself pale. By Allah, if they insisted on taking the shuttle through the atmosphere, not knowing what they were doing, they would kill themselves and these people. Quatre stepped back and took stock of his situation once again. They had his ID they knew he was Master Winner, however, none of them seemed to recognize him as an ex-Gundam pilot.
Synclair had ordered all the hostages collected on one side of the shuttle for easier keeping. Quatre had kept himself a little apart from the rest of the group in case a *chance* had presented itself. Looking towards Synclair, Quatre fixed his eyes on the man, waiting for Synclair to cave to the preternatural urge to turn his head and look at whom was staring at him.
The tall terrorist finished his conversation with his men, calmly dismissing them before he swung around and locked eyes with Quatre. The man had the iciest gray eyes Quatre had seen in a long time. There was no emotion within those eyes, only pure logic and commitment to his mission objective.
"You have some interest in the proceedings, Master Winner?" Synclair spoke politely enough but there was just enough of a hint of anger to his words to alert Quatre to the man's hostile nature.
"Yes. You're going to try to take this shuttle through the atmosphere and you're going to kill us all. The nose is too low, you have to be at a 54% lift." Quatre kept his tone calm with just the barest hint of the proper desperation a *civilian* would feel.
"Really?" Synclair looked bored.
"MmmHmm. You're not waiting for a proper *window*. I'm guessing this shuttle is at a -2% turn and is rotating even further out of position. You're about 23 clicks away from atmospheric burn and closing fast. You need to adjust the stabilizers and get the nose back up and you've only got about 15 minutes to accomplish this." Quatre threw enough numbers out there to show he knew what he was talking about but he stayed away from pilot jargon. Trying to sound like a rich kid who'd just happened to get piloting lessons and could quote a textbook.
Synclair's eyes narrowed a bit and he leaned through the cockpit doorway and conversed with Regis. The sweaty man obviously relayed back the same numbers that Quatre had given Synclair and the terrorist's eyes swung back to the small blonde suspiciously.
"You seem to have some knowledge of this..." It was a question in the form of a statement.
Quatre affected the proper world-weary shrug. "My father insisted I have a well-rounded education. I enjoyed the lessons on piloting."
The tall terrorist nodded thoughtfully. Quatre took a slow breath and again had to remind himself to look properly concerned. Quatre was surprised to find how hard it was to maintain a *civilian* facade. As the war had ended, he'd become so busy in his *civilian* life. Running WEI, courting Trowa, building a sort of sibling bond with Duo. Working with the Preventers, still de facto leader of their little group. He'd thrown himself into the need to help the others adjust to the changes in their lives.
He knew that it had seemed easiest for him to leave behind the war and the life of a solider. Quatre knew that the other's looked upon him with kind smiles but each one thinking that the small blonde had never truly known a *soldier's* life. He'd never been left out in the woods by himself for weeks on end with just his Gundam and his wits. Quatre had never minded this view from the others. He knew that for the most part it was accurate. He'd had the Maganac bases as well as safe houses of his own to bolt to. He'd had the full weight of the Winner power, money and name behind him even if he'd never known how proud and silently supportive his father had been of him.
No. He'd never known the same level of Spartan existence that the others had survived. However, that didn't mean that Quatre didn't share the same warrior heart of his comrades. Quatre hadn't spoke of this to anyone not even Trowa or Wufei. He hadn't been able to pin the feelings down with words and until he could, he didn't want to say the wrong thing. Not when the balance between them all was still so delicate.
He'd gone up to the colonies to speak to an old friend of his mother's. The woman had cried on his shoulder and told him how much he looked like his mother, then had given him a number of old school photographs. Quatre had felt an ache in his chest as he looked at the beautiful woman with the kind blue-green eyes looking back at him from the photographs. Even though it was just her two dimensional image, Quatre could feel the kindness and the peace coming from her smiling gaze.
In that moment, he'd felt so tainted with blood. As he stood there looking at his mother, he'd come to realize that his father had not just feared for his physical safety but for his young soul. Quatre had recognized that he hadn't lost his warrior heart. That the spirit of the solider he'd become hadn't left him. He's just buried them both beneath the life he *thought* he was supposed to be living.
That was why now, he was trying to feel fear in a situation that just heightened the flow of the blood through his veins. The danger, the protection of innocents, the battle of mental wits with the enemy it focused him like no business meeting could. This was his life now and though he felt the keen edge of fear tickling his tongue he also felt the almost inexplicable *high* of the sharpening of all his senses as he prepared to take to the unorthodox battlefield.
Something in Synclair's gray eyes sparked, as if the terrorists recognized another hunter in his midst. The tall man smiled slowly. There was something about this young man that intrigued him and Synclair was just arrogant enough to wish to pit his own mental skills against a worthy adversary. Nodding, Synclair bowed Quatre towards the cockpit.
"By all means, young master, let us see what you can do."
TBC
Let us know what you think!
Laekin and bonnejeanne
Please send comments to: Seregill@aol.com or bonnejeanne@yahoo.com