26 July 2000
Ever have one of those fics that demand to be written no matter what you do? This is one of those. Consider it a view from the other side of the war.
kumiko, wearing her flame-proof knickers
DISCLAIMER: All Gundam Wing characters are property of Sunrise, Bandai Visuals, Sotsu Agency, and Asahi TV. This work is not written for profit, but for entertainment purposes only.
Pairings: none
WARNING: Darkfic; violence; irony
Airman 1st Class Robert Gascoyne sat nervously in his Aries. Normally he was a very calm and self-assured young man, but today was different. There was someone waiting for him back at the base - someone whom he had just realized, last night, that he couldn't live without. Now, as he awaited his orders from Lt. Marquise to engage the unknown fighter they'd been chasing, he rehearsed what he would say when he ran into that precious person after today's engagement was over. He'd thought about it all last evening and this morning, and when he was called on at the last minute to replace a sick pilot, he'd put in a video call and asked to meet his beloved at 11 p.m. that night. He was finally going to admit he was in love. Just before the command to engage came, he took a somewhat battered photograph out of the overhead strap and smiled at it. "I'm going to do everything I can to make you happy..." Then he smiled and put it back.
"Airman," the speaker crackled to life. "Engage enemy fighter."
"Roger that," he confirmed. And followed the other two Aries out of the loading bay.
As it was, though, he was the first to go. The fighter had stunned them all by turning into a mobile suit and had brought our a beam weapon and sliced it through the middle of Airman Gascoyne's suit. He wasn't killed immediately, but his left side felt as if it were on fire and he could feel the charge building around him as the Aries fell. "I only wanted to make it to 11 o'clock," he whispered and grabbed the worn photograph. From the cockpit speakers, he thought he heard the sound of a raucous, teenaged voice. It was laughing at him... laughing at his death. Seconds later the Aries exploded.
Heero Yuy finally stopped laughing and turned to face the other suits.
Sailor Maria Innocencio smiled at the pilot of the Pisces as they made their way across the murky ocean floor. It was hard to act nonchalant, as all the other new recruits had done. She'd been wanting to join the Marina since she was 8-years-old and visited the bases with her father, a sergeant who specialized in sonar analysis. When her first chance to sit in on an operation came up, she had kept her roommate up half the night, she was so thrilled. It was simple enough - just a mission to recover an unknown MS that had crashed in the JAP sector. As she watched the pilot's every move, small teeth biting her lower lip in excitement, she tried to make conversation to ease the tension. "Do you have to be fairly big to pilot one of these?" she asked the young man navigating. He looked back for a moment and smiled at the fresh-faced girl. "No, that's the nice thing about them. Even pipsqueaks like you can be Pisces aces."
She smiled to herself. /Dad's going to be proud of me. He always told me to believe in myself, and here I am, doing it./ She smiled again and turned to give the pilot a hard time about how she wasn't a pipsqueak when something appeared in the water not ten feet from them. She heard the pilot scream and looked up to see a light that had an eerie greenish glow. There was a snippet of speech audible before the Pisces was sliced open along with the two people inside.
"C'mon, I'll take you bastards to hell where you *belong!!*"
A moment later the water was quiet, debris floating downward, as Duo Maxwell put on his famous smirk and thought, "Another two jerks outta the way..."
First Lieutenant Tian-Xiao He was determined to make a good showing in this battle. An older pilot, who had served in the military for six years before mobile suits became widely used, he was often assumed by the younger men and women in his battalion to be a dinosaur whose knowledge of the Leo was shaky at best. In truth, though, he had gone to extra training sessions when their unit had switched to Leo-only combat. He had stayed up countless nights, learning the parts, practicing in the simulators, forcing older nerves and muscles to do what younger ones did so much more easily. He had been persistent and dedicated because the last thing he wanted to do was react incorrectly in a combat situation and jeopardize the safety of his fellow pilots.
Now he was finally being considered for a promotion by his supervisor, a man who had told Lieutenant He that he'd never learn the Leo well enough to pilot in combat. This morning, the man had stopped him on his way to the hangar and, while the emergency sirens announced the arrival of an unknown enemy, Tian-Xiao had been told that his performance would be watched closely and that if he showed the skills they thought he had, the promotion would be his. He'd been so grateful. He would make his wife proud of him again, and could finally hold his head up among the young guns who regularly tormented him about being too old for the job. He knew he had the skills - now it was time to show them.
The battle had been fierce, and he'd been backing up the first wave of Leo's that had engaged the enemy on the ground. He saw the suit ahead of him move over to replace a damaged one and proudly he had stepped up to take his place. The pilot of the unknown suit seemed to be attracted to the movement he made because it turned around quickly and pointed a huge gatling gun at the older man. The next thing he knew, Lt. He's vid screen exploded with a spray of bullets, one of which lodged in his throat. He clawed desperately at his collar, trying anything to stop the damage, breathe again, and get his chance to show his battalion that he wasn't an old relic to be discarded. He had been so very close to doing that. But the wound was too great and he died within minutes, staring from the ruins of his Leo at the strange red suit that had brought his life to an end.
In his grim determination to press his advance on the Leo squadron, a cool and collected Trowa Barton didn't seem to even see the ruined Leo at his feet as he stepped squarely on the remains of the cockpit and headed forward across the battlefield.
Lieutenant Mueller took a last look at the officer he'd served with such devotion, and the base where he'd finally felt at home. As he climbed into the Aries to try to help defend his beloved Corsica, he told himself again how he was fighting for the soldiers of the future. Fighting so that, perhaps, there would come a day when the war would end and children wouldn't have these kinds of choices to look forward to. He was a brave man, not afraid to die, because he believed in what he was doing, and because he did it for the man who had cared so much for his soldiers, had encouraged them when the battle was at it toughest. Now he hoped to pay back some of that care and courage, so he powered up and headed off into the sky above Corsica.
He'd been flying about 10 minutes, getting his pilots into positions where they would be most effective and least vulnerable. He'd learned that from his former commander, as well - look after your men and don't take unnecessary risks with their lives. Suddenly, from the ground below a metallic giant appeared, taking out several Leos and three of Mueller's own best men. It was time. Time to make the sacrifice to those future soldiers and honor one he would leave behind. He swung the Aries around and activated the cockpit speaker so the MS pilot on the ground would hear him. "Come get me, you monster!!" he yelled, hoping to attract the killer's attention away from his men and the supporting Leos.
It worked like a charm. The shiny white gundam rocketed up off the ground and grasped Mueller's Aries in between its scimitars. Mueller felt the walls of the cockpit crunch inwards with the pressure and hit the thrusters hard as he could to attempt an escape, but before he could there was a horrendous screech - metal tearing through metal and the huge weapons were inside, dwarfing him as they moved relentlessly inward. "For the future," he whispered, and then disintegrated in the fiery explosion of him machine.
Quatre Raberba Winner shook the ruined MS off of his scimitars and kept on moving.
"Here's the photo I told you about. My wife sent it last week. She knew I'd be missing her about now."
Cadet Winston Ngozi handed a small photograph to his roommate and best friend at Victoria, Paul Bianci. Paul's face broadened into a wide smile. "Oh... she's adorable... look at that smile. She really looks like you!" He handed it back and grinned at his friend. They become close while in the early stages of training camp, a month earlier, and had requested a room together when they were moved to the real cadet barracks last week. There conversations had revolved mostly around their respective families and Winston was especially proud of his baby girl, now three months old. He kept the photo his wife had sent safely in his wallet and showed it to anyone who would look.
Paul frowned suddenly and looked up at his friend. "Did you hear something?"
Shaking his head, Winston took a last look at the photo before opening his wallet to put it back. And then the world exploded around them and the heavy steel-reinforced walls of their barracks crashed inward, killing Paul Bianci and Winston Ngozi where they had been sitting, talking of family and home.
Outside, a 15-year-old terrorist named Chang Wufei didn't flinch once as the cadet barracks collapsed, but simply walked away and found his motorcycle.
The five pilots were all fine, back at the safehouse, just a bit sore as they always were from the g-forces involved in MS piloting. Duo cracked open a beer and laughed, letting his braid drape down the back of the couch while he put his feet up on the small table in front of it. Heero was at his laptop, reporting on his victory against the Aries squad and looking for the next mission. Quatre and Trowa were snuggled up together on far side of the couch, gazing dreamily into each other's eyes. Wufei was doing Tai Chi in the corner.
Looking around in a satisfied fashion, Duo grinned and held the beer can aloft. "Well, guys - I'd say we really *got* those bastards today, didn't we?"
His fellow pilots (with the exception of Heero) nodded and smiled in agreement.
-- owari --
(:./kumiko/allsaint)
