05-Jul-2005
Hello everyone... hope you all survived the Fourth of July intact. (The Americans, at least.) :-) And speaking of surviving, Otto's saga continues...
I soon came to realize that infiltrating White Fang was a whole different level of espionage compared to my previous efforts. It was a good thing Howard knew what he was doing, because getting a native-born Earther like myself into White Fang was going to redefine the term 'deep cover'.
Howard didn't waste any time, and his urgency seemed to transfer over to the Sweepers as well. I went from persona non grata to being rather forcibly adopted within the space of a week. There was no affection in it; this was simply the first practical step in my indoctrination. If I was going to pass as a colony-born engineer, I needed to eat like a colonist, sleep like a colonist, walk and talk like a colonist. A certain few mannerisms could be explained away as being acquired during an extended stay on Earth, but the rest of me had to pass the critical eyes of any potential White Fang 'comrades'.
The process was started on the Lachesis, but we didn't stay there for long. Howard made a beeline for Australia, and we abandoned the Lachesisin a berth in Adelaide in favor of a private colony-bound shuttle. I wasn't surprised--I'd already known Howard's connections were extensive. My indifference didn't last long though. Especially once we hit space, and I got my first look at the Peacemillon.
From the outside, it looked like nothing so much as a rich man's expensive yacht--sleek and pretty, sure, but nothing like the military cruisers I was used to. But inside--inside was a whole different story. Howard said she had taken him five years to build, and it was obvious he'd spared no expense. Under that pretty façade his ship had *teeth*, and power to spare--and I wanted nothing so much as to take her apart.
Howard was no fool. He saw that gleam in my eye and used it. Under the guise of an extended tour, he had me climbing over and through every inch of the Peacemillon, accompanied by the most hard-assed Sweepers he could find--crotchety old bastards who gave advice in between torrents of heavily accented profanity, and casually despised anything that wasn't built to withstand vacuum. I was no rookie when it came to space--there had been enough inter-colony jaunts in my excuse for a military career that I knew the drill: how to pilot, the allowances you had to make. But if there was one thing I learned from those old bastards, it was that there was a world of difference between traveling in space and living in it. A difference that I had to learn from the ground--or deck plating--up.
Weeks passed, and the Sweepers were relentless. My table manners were too prissy--'whaddaya think you're doing, boy? You gotta *squeeze* the ferikkin' food pouches, not play patty cake with em!'--the way I walked too upright--'lookit Mr. Military. You keep running round all like that, you gonna go straight inta the bulkhead next time the grav gets buggered'--and the only thing that seemed to even pass muster was my MS knowhow. Even that needed tweaking; I kept thinking in terms of Gs and stress tolerances that simply didn't matter in space. But... near as I could tell, Howard's total immersion tactics seemed to be working.
He didn't stop there, either. I had background info drummed into me until my brains were puddling out my ears. Where I had supposedly lived, worked, who I knew, who I didn't... faces and names and mannerisms and neighborhoods. Howard had it all concocted, right down to the last detail--and even he had to admit it wasn't as thorough as he would have liked.
"It's times like this I wasn't so damn personable," he admitted sourly in the middle of one of our briefings. "But I'm too well known around these parts. The Sweepers, too. So wherever we set you down, it's gotta be far away from us. If Quinze gets so much as a sniff of Sweeper anywhere in your direction, you'll get spaced faster than you can say 'holy corpsicle'."
"Even if they think I'm a colonist?" I asked, leaning back and kicking a heel against a bulkhead.
Howard snorted. "You can't lump colonists all in one pile like that, no matter what those idiots in White Fang think. Colonists have just as many grudges against each other as any Earther born. Just ask any L1 prime what he thinks about the L4 first families. I guarantee you that 'jumped up towel-heads' is probably the least of what you'll hear." He looked down at a piece of paper, made a face, then crumpled it up and threw it at the wastebasket. The paper ball floated casually past the target and joined its fellows on the floor. Howard didn't seem to notice. "That's why we picked L3. It's like L2, only cleaner, and all the colonists there are mutts. Europeans, Latinos, Chinese, Japanese, Americans, every kind of African you can think of... you name it, L3's got it. You don't have none of that preferred selection population crap the way you do with some of the other colonies. And it's not known for a lot of Sweeper activity like L2 is. We insert the right info into the right databases, scruff you up a bit and throw you on a tramp freighter... as long as you don't screw up, Quinze will never know we're involved."
"Yeah?" I raised a skeptical eyebrow. "If I'm going to be so damn invisible, then how the hell is White Fang going to pick me up?"
Howard looked smug. "Oh they'll pick you up. Because you're mister whiz-bang with Mobile Suits, and Quinze has *these*--" He tossed a stack of schematics across the desk. "--to play with. Romefeller's latest and greatest. They call 'em Mobile Dolls."
Stepping forward, I picked up the schematics and looked them over. There was a lot of information there--too much to take in at one go--along with some grainy photographs of the actual Suits, obviously taken from a distance. At first glance, they looked like nothing more interesting than a trimmed down Taurus. The body style was the same, modified for deep space. The interior specs told me the real story, though; the cockpit had been almost completely eliminated, except for a few leftover remnants. Romefeller's great leap forward wasn't in the hardware--it was in the software. Thanks to this new AI, they had taken the pilot out of the equation entirely.
Was this the straw that had broken the camel's back? Looking at these drones, I thought maybe it had been. No soldier likes to be made obsolete.
"Mobile Dolls, huh? I guess Romefeller finally has the toy soldiers it always wanted." I continued reading. These Dolls must have been what had given Romefeller such an edge on Earth--they could probably outgun and outflank normal infantry without even trying. "They're dreaming if they think drones are going to win against real pilots in a dogfight, though." Marquise wouldn't have been the only one to have a hissy fit--I doubted Khushrenada had planned for machines to do the fighting in his 'noble' war. I wasn´t sure I agreed or not, but it was pretty irrelevant as far as I was concerned. Either way, I could still appreciate the elegance of the design. These Mobile Dolls were a true breakthrough in terms of systems integration.
"Normally I'd agree with ya," Howard said soberly. "But they've got something else on their side. It's called the Zero system." I looked up, and watched him shift in his chair and frown. Whatever this system was, it had him worried. It took a lot to penetrate Howard's two-steps-ahead sense of superiority.
"Zero system? What's that--a new OS?"
Howard laughed harshly. "You could say that. It's not really accurate, though. The Zero system is a lot of things--but mostly it's our biggest mistake."
Putting the papers aside, I crossed my arms and leaned back, giving Howard my full attention. A few uncomfortable moments later, he continued.
"It was J's baby more than mine. But I had a hand in it." At my puzzled look, he backtracked a bit. "Jerrod Slator. Your other missing 'genius'. We all continued our work on developing MS technology, of course--wouldn't have Gundams otherwise. But J took a different tack. He was convinced that the pilot was half of the problem--that it was the pilot's response time that was holding back Suit development. So we worked the problem. Our solution was the Zero system. It's a tactical system that, once fully integrated, could analyze all incoming data and have the pilot react according to the best possible outcome. All of this would have happened in nanoseconds... before a normal person would have even realized that there was even a problem."
"You're telling me that you guys invented a system that could predict the future?" I asked, not bothering to hide my skepticism. "If it was so great, why hasn't anyone heard about it?"
"Because the project was a damn failure, that's why," Howard snapped. "We lost over ninety percent of the pilots who ever tried to use that thing. It drove them nuts. They'd snap and start shooting everything in sight." He sighed heavily, turning to look out through the unshielded window behind his desk. "We never did figure out for sure what the problem was. I always thought it was information overload, though. The poor bastards just couldn't handle all the data, the potentialities... all the things that could go wrong. When it came to the Zero system, ignorance was definitely bliss."
"Wonderful. And you think Quinze has somehow fixed that problem?" I scowled, not happy with the potential complication to my cover. Why was it anything having to do with those damn Gundams--not to mention Zechs--was so damn convoluted? "How did he get his hands on the system anyway?"
"That's a long story. And honestly, it's one you're better off not knowing," Howard said, his face grim. At my disgusted look, he shook his head stubbornly. "You don't have to trust me on this, Otto, but it's the truth. There are a lot of things out there right now that only a few people know about, and that's one of 'em. You haven't been playing these kinds of games long enough. If I tell you, you might let something slip, word would get back, and then-" Using thumb and forefingers, he mimed shooting himself in the temple. "-game over, pal."
"All right." I wasn't happy about it, and I knew it showed. But there was no point in pissing off Howard by pushing him on it. "I don't like it, but I'll take your word for it. So--White Fang has these Dolls. I take it you think they'll be hurting for engineers?"
"Yeah," Howard confirmed. "With all those Suits, normally they'd be desperate for pilots. But since the Dolls don't need pilots, the crunch comes down to support personnel. The systems on these MS are fairly specialized, and they're going to need top-notch people to keep them running once they hit combat. And believe me, they're expecting to."
"Perfect." I grimaced, pushing away from the bulkhead and kicking at a stray paper ball with the side of my foot. Nothing like the threat of imminent death to make a person sit up and pay attention. I didn't complain, though. Howard was just telling it like it was--and it wasn't like I hadn't known what I was getting into. Walking over to the port window, I finally said, "All right. Assuming that all goes as planned, once White Fang makes contact, what then?"
"What then?" Howard gave me a smirk, but it didn't quite reach his eyes. "After that, it's your show, bud. You're on your own; I can't touch you once you're inside, much less help ya." He leaned back, the chair creaking under his weight, and laced his fingers over his middle. "I hope you know what you're doing."
I looked out at the stars, and all the cold space between them. "Yeah. Me too."
L3 was pretty much just as Howard had said. As a favored transfer point between Earth and the other colonies, a large part of L3 was devoted completely to shipping, and the war hadn't slowed that down much. Stepping off the mining freighter, duffle in hand, the words that came to mind were 'busy' and... well, 'busy'. The place was crowded, especially by Earth standards--there were hundreds of people everywhere, towing freight, doing maintenance, walking and shouting and just generally getting in the way with very little regard for the personal space of either ships or people. Strike that. The ships got more respect than people did.
He hadn't been kidding about the mixed population, either. I'm pretty sure I heard at least fifteen different languages (not counting Standard) just by crossing from one end of the hangar to the other. I did my best not to keep my head down and not gawk like a typical Earther rube. It helped that I'd done colony trips before, so I at least knew where to go and who to check with. But I'd never quite realized how much extra space colonists had given OZ officers until I wasn't one anymore. It didn't take me long to get fed up with it, and about the third time I received an elbow in the ribs I started doing some shouldering of my own, boots clomping along the decking.
My newly-minted credentials stood up to the test. Somehow I managed to get through customs and quarantine without starting a fight, and it was with a definite sense of déjà vu that I went hunting for lodging and the other basic necessities of life. I wasn't planning on staying here that long, but White Fang didn't know that. I tried not to stop and think about what I was doing too much. When I did, it felt like this whole thing was just one big inside joke--me, former OZ flunky and current idiot, playing the starring role as yet another version of myself. This time I was a disaffected colony engineer; all part of Howard's 'keep-it-simple-stupid' idea of infiltration.
Settling in, I did my best not to pay too much attention to the various Gundam rumors floating around the colony. I had the feeling that too much attention in that direction would definitely be unhealthy, especially around here. Instead I kicked back and acted like any grease monkey between jobs and with money to burn would, and spent most of my time acquainting myself with L3's nightlife. Most of it was pretty rough and ready: this part of L3 didn't have much in the way of pretensions. It knew who it needed to cater to--the thousands of dockhands, pilots, engineers, mechanics and scrub workers that kept the place alive. All the better for me. It was easy enough to be unremembered among all the comings and goings, and easier still to establish the kind of temporary hangout I needed. Even my nonexistent acting skills could stretch to a little gambling, a lot of drinking, and some judicious mutterings about 'those OZ bastards trying to tell us what we can do' alongside the usual male bonding bullshit. Even if I never managed to make contact with White Fang, I was still several steps closer to chasing down Marquise. I was in space, not to mention a major colony cluster, and while I hadn't heard much about 'Ambassador Peacecraft' lately, my instincts agreed with Howard. The real fight was out here, in space.
"You Adler?"
I glanced over at the man, giving him an unfriendly once-over. "Maybe. Who the hell are you?" I threw another dart at the board, my low-G aim perfected by endless games on the Peacemillon. The dart flew in an unnaturally straight line, smacking solidly into the board and giving me another meager ten points. My opponent--Raz, a systems engineer from the Mickey V--hooted in derision and stepped up for his turn. Giving him a one-finger salute, I leaned against the bar and looked back at the new guy.
"The name's Johansson." The man was scruffy and anonymous in the grey-bluish coveralls used by mechanics everywhere. There was grime worn in on his hands, and stains on those coveralls. The olive skin and curly hair didn't match up with the name, but in a place like L3, that wasn't unexpected. Still, I didn't like him. The clothes were a little too new, and there weren't any worn out spots or frayed edges, despite the dirt. His face was the same way: stubbled and ferrety, with eager little eyes. "I'm looking for a first class engineer, and I've heard you're the man to find."
"Yeah? Who told you that?" I watched Raz throw, showing only the barest shred of interest in the conversation.
"Oh, word gets around." The little ferret-bastard was being coy now, and I gave him a disgusted look. He must have realized he was losing his audience, and he scrambled to make up for it. "We're hiring good mechanical engineers. Especially ones with experience dealing with MS. It's good pay and steady work. And a big improvement over hopping from freighter to freighter."
He had my full attention now, but not for the reasons he thought. There was no way this bastard was White Fang. He was way too blatant. He bothered me in other ways, too. He was trying to look like just another tech, but he was cocky enough to pass for one of Oz's little lord-officers... and he was just a little too pleased with himself.
"Good pay, huh?" I watched his face carefully, waiting for the flinch. "Let me see your arm." I didn't what for him to finish his sputtered, "--what? I don't--" I just grabbed the hand he had draped along the bar and shoved his sleeve up in one motion.
"What the hell--?" Johanssen made an attempt to yank his hand back, his other one hovering over a pocket. He must have decided his odds weren't good, though, because he didn't go for whatever he had.
I ignored his screeching, and surveyed the unmarked skin of his forearm. Then I dropped his hand and turned away. "I don't think so." I didn't bother to check his other arm; I was pretty sure what I'd find. Raz sniggered, and there was a low mutter of agreement from nearby bargoers. They'd seen the same thing I had. They knew what it meant.
Earthside, it wasn't that unusual for civvies to be clean. There were a lot of hidebound bureaucracies in the old Earth Alliance who still frowned on that sort of thing. But it was a different story for spacers, especially the enlisted variety. Everyone had tattoos, something saying where they'd been, where they'd served, what ship they belonged to--hell, on some colonies, they'd even made it mandatory as a form of alternate ID. Some of the more isolated spacers--the miners, the engineers, the freighter crews--had taken it a step further. Their entire career was inked into their skin, from first berth to last. I was no spacer, but even I had an Academy tattoo, now camouflaged with synthskin and temporary ink into a L3 enlisted mark, courtesy of Howard.
Out here, people who didn't have tattoos were usually people who had something to hide. A person who stayed clean was someone who didn't want anyone digging up the past: criminals, gunrunners, gangers and the like, trying not to be connected to the dirt they dealt with. Given what ferret-face was recruiting for, I was betting on some branch of mafia. With the Alliance in disarray and OZ distracted by infighting, they'd probably gotten their hands on a bunch of ancient, black-market Mobile Suits. They wouldn't be sniffing around for someone with my skills, otherwise. Unfortunately for them, they weren't what I was fishing for.
Johanssen's face was dark. He probably didn't get rejected much. "You haven't even heard what I'm offering, and you're already turning me down? That's not very bright."
"Maybe so. But I'd have to be pretty stupid to sign up to work on what you guys probably have." I gave him a scornful look. "I'm willing to bet fifty creds you don't have anything better than a few old Mark II Leos, do you?" From the sputtering, it sounded like I would have won that bet. "What are you trying to do, bore me to death? Plus, you guys have a lousy pension plan," I added as an afterthought.
"We'll pay you--"
I cut him off before he could even start.
"Forget it. I take jobs on my terms, and I don't need yours." It was my turn at the dartboard, but I didn't want to turn my back on Johanssen. If he decided to take this personally, I wanted at least a shot at ducking.
Fortunately for me, Johanssen remembered he was a pro. He visibly pulled himself back, face still red with anger, and took a deep breath. "If that's what you want, then I won't stop you. But I should warn you that you're making a big mistake." The threat had all the subtlety of a kick to the head. The bastard shrugged, trying to make like he didn't care. "You're not the only engineer on L3, after all."
"You're right, I'm not," I said, indifferent. Stepping up the mark, I hefted a dart, eyeing the board. I could see Johanssen still glaring at me out of the corner of my eye. After a moment, he turned on his heel and stalked away without a word. I snorted and threw, ignoring the sideways stares of some of the bystanders. Just my luck--I go fishing for White Fang, and end up with the mob. Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.
It took a few more job offers--legitimate ones, most of them--before I finally landed the one I wanted. Both Howard and I had underestimated how valuable an engineer with the right certs and a good rep was on L3, and I'd had to turn down some pretty good berths. So far I'd managed to pass off my refusals as a guy who didn't want to cut his playtime short, but sooner or later I knew I'd have to take a job. It would be too suspicious if I didn't. Besides, my money wouldn't last forever.
The war had swung back into space, and in a big way. Howard had been right--White Fang was a threat, and they proved it in one big stroke, taking out Fortress Barge and the OZ-controlled lunar base in an orchestrated rebellion that had all eyes turned towards the colonies once more. For a while I was sure I'd lost my chance, now that White Fang had gone public. Hell, I'd almost resigned myself to sitting on the sidelines with the rest of the colonists, watching the war rage around us.
My grumblings must have fallen on the right ears, though. In a way, the mafia fiasco had done me a favor--I was now more than a little infamous among certain circles. That got me a early morning vid-call from a woman I'd never seen before. Forget that gentler sex bullshit: this woman had a face like granite, wary black eyes, and she wasn't bothering to smile much.
"You Adler?"
Déjà vu all over again. I scratched at my hair and yawned, leaning backward. "Yeah. Who're you?"
"The name's Isaacs--Miriam Isaacs. I'm the chief engineer of the Libra." My eyebrows shot up, and I didn't even bother to try to hide my surprise. I'd heard of the Libra--who hadn't? It was only the biggest, baddest and newest bit of hardware left over from OZ's push into space, and White Fang's newest prize. With Fortress Barge and the lunar base gone, the half-finished Libra was now their flagship. That single battle station elevated their status from vocal terrorist group to a powerful faction in their own right. Opinions were mixed from the colonies about whether this was a good thing or not. Me... well, knowing what I did about White Fang, I just tried not to think about it too hard.
"It's an honor, ma'am. What can I do for you?" For once I was being honest. If the captain of a ship was God, then the chief engineer was the archangel Michael. When things went wrong, they were the ones that decided whether or not a spacer crew lived or died. A chief engineer for a battle station the size of the Libra was damn near the undisputed master of his--or her--own domain, and it was beyond rare to have one calling around for new recruits. Usually that was left to the clerking types.
"I'm hiring on some additional crew--good colony engineers to help finish the work OZ started. We need tactical systems specialists, especially ones with military know-how. Word has it you've got what it takes for the job," came the reply, blunt and unadorned. She didn't appear overly enthusiastic at the prospect, though I couldn't tell whether it was me in particular or just the whole general concept of training in new crew.
"Libra--yeah, I'd heard about it. You guys were pretty amazing, taking it away from OZ like that." I shrugged, trying not to sound overeager, even as my heart thumped harder. This was probably my only shot.
"Well, you've got good credentials, and your previous captain says good things about you. If you want the job, come down to the Belt of Orion, dock R-317, sector twelve, and we'll talk terms." She looked down, off the camera, and there was the sound of shuffling paperwork. "Unless you've got something better to do?" From the look on her face, I'd damn well better not.
"I can be there in a couple of hours. Will that work?"
"That will be fine. Ask any of the crew--they'll show you where to go." She waved a dismissive hand. "See you there."
The screen blipped and went dark. "Doesn't waste time, does she?" I muttered at it, rubbing both hands over my face. Then I pushed myself out of the chair and headed for the closet. No time to celebrate: in a couple hours, I'd better be ready to walk into the lion's den.
Three days later and I was stepping foot on the Libra. It was now official--Adler, engineer second class, was now part of White Fang. That part of the recruitment was a funny process; I'd never asked, and no one really offered. It just seemed to be assumed, though I wasn't too dense to notice the sharp eye the older rebels kept on the new recruits. Still, the assumption seemed to be that all the colonists who'd joined up at this point were true believers, or at the very least had a healthy dislike for OZ and the Earth Alliance. Sloppy of them, but it made my job easier.
And to a certain amount, it was true. I had to work hard not to be appalled by the sheer amount of hate directed towards OZ, the Alliance, and damn near anything that came from Earth. It was pervasive, not to mention borderline irrational. Even the milder voices of my fellow techies got progressively more angry inside the closed environment of the Libra. Every new sally by OZ was seen as a mortal insult towards all colonists, pushing the crew to redouble their efforts. The worst offenders were the Quinze, Sedici, and their inner circle--they redefined the word 'fanatical'. The rest of the crew wasn't quite that bad, but the attitude was everywhere. It scared me sometimes, how easy it was to fall in and spout the party line. It was like an invisible, rancid stink--one that you couldn't smell anymore once you'd been saturated in it long enough. I felt more like a traitor now than I ever had as part of OZ. The constant tension did nothing to improve my temper, which probably wasn't a bad thing. It cut down on the stupid questions, at least.
Isaacs, the chief engineer, was another chip off the Quinze block, though not quite as bad. She was a mean old biddy with a serious grudge against Romefeller, but at least she had the sense not to proselytize to the rest of her crew. Politics were all well and good, but they wouldn't get the Libra finished, and any grease monkey caught ranting instead of working was certain to get his ass kicked. Unfortunately for me, after the first few weeks of scut duty, I wasn't working on the station itself anymore. Instead I was working on their Mobile Suits--the new model Virgos and Tauruses--and that meant I had to deal the mess left behind by that fuckhead Tsuberov.
Tsuberov himself was dead, killed in the battle over the lunar base. His crew wasn't, on the other hand, and they reminded me of some of the worst civilian engineers I'd had to work with, back in my Alliance days--the ones so convinced of their own brilliance that any common sense had to be pounded forcibly in between their ears. The Dolls had been these guys' pet project for quite some time, and they never wasted an opportunity to remind us newbies of that fact, or how 'revolutionary' they were. They were also nominally in charge, which was probably the only thing that saved them. Anyone else would have had their head bashed in by a bolt hammer by the end of the first week; unfortunately, we needed the fuckers.
The Dolls themselves weren't quite as high maintenance as their development crew, but they weren't exactly easy to handle either. The Taurus was a pretty rugged MS. It had to be, in order to deal with the extremes of outer space. Nothing radical in the way weapons systems or engines had been added, so all we had to deal with were the usual glitches and workarounds. The hardware for the Zero system, though... that was a bitch and a half to integrate. Response time was fast--too fast. The native microprocessors for the Taurus simply couldn't keep up, and the resulting bottlenecks meant that the system choked and lagged. A lot. Adding more microprocessors to handle the load was pointless--the Zero system chewed them up and spit them out too. And if there was a way to throttle back the Zero system, I sure as hell couldn't find it. Ignoring Sedici's hissy fit every time the idea got brought up, the plain truth was that my eyes started to cross whenever I even started looking at the architecture in that thing.
It took us a good deal of blood, sweat, and elbow grease to find a workaround on those damn things, not to mention every ounce of programming skill the Libra's techs could offer. We ended up stripping out every bit of leftover code that had been designed with a pilot in mind: environmental systems, viewscreens and pilot interfaces, even Terran-based tactical systems. The job was tedious and tricky; there were a lot of subsystems in there that we had to keep intact, even as we cut away at all the deadwood around them. For instance, the Dolls didn't need to monitor or pressurize a cockpit for a pilot anymore. However, they did need to regulate internal temperatures on processors, vernier systems, and so on. Deactivating one system meant we ended up deactivating most of the other, and separating the two was a royal pain in the ass. It was tempting to try and sabotage our work--given the complexity of what we were doing, I might have gotten away with it. But I didn't dare, not with Quinze and Sedici breathing down our necks like a pair of twin vultures. Instead, I kept my head down like a good little flunky, and waited for my chance.
Not all of the former OZ crew had defected to the side of White Fang. There had been a good chunk that had fought the good fight, right until the end--and they'd paid for it. Most of them had been executed right there on the Libra.
I remember repairing a section of power conduit, up in a little hallway off of the secondary bridge. The wall was still flecked with rusty-red stains from where part of the original crew had made their last stand. There was a section of alloy paneling that we had to remove, pockmarked with dents, all around waist high. No one talked about it. We just kept working, eyes sliding away from each other. My rebel 'comrades' didn't want to know about the people who had died there in that hallway, their loyalty rewarded by being forced to their knees and gunned down like dogs. White Fang didn't bother with prisoners. Especially ones with no political value.
It was selfish of me, but I was glad I hadn't been there. I wasn't sure what I would have done, if I'd been given the order to turn against my fellow officers. I hadn't known those men, but I found myself angry on their behalf anyway. No one deserved to die like that.
White Fang did have other POWs, though; valuable ones. They were also the ones that gave me the chance I'd been waiting for.
Somehow Quinze had managed to get his hands on the architects behind the Libra. They were isolated from the rest of the crew, of course--Quinze wasn't taking any chances. It didn't matter, though; gossip flies faster than any Gundam. These guys were bona fide geniuses, even as prisoners. Hardly a day went by without someone babbling away about something incredible they'd done, so I decided to get a closer look. The enemy of my enemy, and all that. Volunteering to work on the weapons array crew was pathetically easy. Most of us were pulling double duty at that point, and one more engineer running between sections wasn't anything new. It helped that the weapons array was giving the White Fang engineers fits. What with Quinze demanding progress reports almost hourly, they were happy with any help they could get. As for me--well, who needed sleep anyway?
Once I got a good look at Quinze's prize prisoners, it didn't take me long to recognize them. The files I had on the Tallgeese had included security clearances... and pictures. Pictures now over twenty years old, but those guys had been a pretty motley lot. They were going by initials now, apparently: 'Professor G', 'Master O', that sort of thing. But trust me, faces--and noses--like theirs are hard to forget. Of them all, Professor Slator was the hardest to recognize, what with all the prosthetics. But there was no mistake--this was Howard's partner in crime, Dr. J. And if I had one Gundam designer here... . I eyed the others, watching them work. It didn't take much to convince me Quinze had managed to snag them all.
Problem was, there was no way I could talk to them. Quinze apparently had a healthy appreciation for his fellow terrorist masterminds. They were kept under guard 24/7, even while working. Any contact beyond the basics--'hand me that', 'go over there and give me those readings'--would no doubt be overheard and reported, which was the last thing I wanted. I stewed over the problem for quite a while as I worked, watching their progress. In the meantime, Walker's maverick geniuses didn't disappoint. I learned more in those few weeks then I did in the entire rest of my military career, just by following in their footsteps. I would have cheerfully gnawed off my left arm just for the opportunity to actually talk with them about their Gundam designs. The things I could have learned... these guys were light years ahead of OZ. Instead, I had to content myself with picking apart every little design change they made, scavenging the scraps of engineering genius they left behind.
Which is how I found out they were sabotaging the Libra, even as they built it.
The first time I found the problem, even I wasn't sure what I was seeing. It wasn't an obvious design flaw by any means--even the other engineers hadn't picked up on it. Hell, the only reason I did was probably the time I'd spent working with--and around--Howard's lunatic designs. It was a riff off of one of his power conversion workarounds. But this time, instead of focusing and regulating the power necessary to fuel the Libra's main cannon, the system was inverted--designed so that the regulator circuit for the main array would overheat, frying any number of fragile components in the process. It was slick. It was subtle. And even seeing what I had, I had the hardest time believing it wasn't an accidental oversight. So I decided to test my theory. I went in, and rewired the regulator circuit back the right way--Howard's way, making sure I used the exact same configuration they'd used on the Tallgeese. Then I sat back, fiddled around with another part of the system and waited to see how the geniuses would react.
It didn't take them long to find it. The round little guy--H--was the first to run into my little message. I had to give him credit; that guy was cool as a cucumber. He never even blinked. For a moment I wondered if he'd even noticed. Then he called J over into a little huddle over the power conduits, and I knew they had.
I suppressed a smirk. They were working on the regulator circuits again, along with a great deal of associated grumbling I was too far away to hear. But they were glancing sideways, looking at the crew around them--wondering who'd left the message, no doubt.
I knew it wouldn't take them long to figure it out. I still desperately wanted to make contact. Considering the deep game I was playing, it would have been nice to know I wasn't stepping on any toes. But since that was impossible, I settled for what I could do. Using their work, I tweaked their subtle little flaws deep inside the heart of the weapons array--and the next time I made sure to do it right in front of J. When he shot me a sharp glance, I met it levelly, trying to convey with my eyes what I couldn't show on my face. Then he looked back down at what I was doing--tying in another data switch to the regulator, right in line to get fried when the thing blew. He let me finish, saying only, "Make sure you power down before to wire up the polymer connections."
That was all I needed; I knew he understood. When you got right down to it, secret signals and cryptic codes weren't necessary. All they needed to know was that I was willing to aid and abet their sabotage any way possible.
With the Gundam scientists on board, I was starting to believe we could spike White Fang's wheel but good. And then I saw Zechs--and all my clever little plans fell flat.
For once, I hadn't been working on either the weapons array or the MDs. Instead I was chest-deep inside a Virgo, learning the ins and outs of these new weapons systems that OZ had come up with. Even with the Zero System and the MDs, Quinze wasn't quite ready to convert all his regular Suits over just yet. The man wasn't stupid, and he had no intentions of putting all his eggs in one basket. The Dolls may have been our first priority, but they weren't our only one.
End result? I got lucky, and was safely in the background when Quinze decided to give his new 'leader' the grand tour.
I'd been concentrating on what I was doing, and it was the sudden lull in the shouted conversations around me that clued me in to what was going on. I'd looked up, fingers tangled in wiring and a probe between my teeth. Then I got my first glimpse of that distinctive blond head--sans bucket, for once--and froze solid.
I wasn't the only one staring. There was a ripple effect through pretty much every grease monkey and tech in the joint, as they gradually realized that Someone Important had just arrived to inspect their work. I'm sure Marquise's looks didn't hurt much, either. Conversations stopped, and the whispers started... they knew him from the colony vidcasts, knew him as Milliardo Peacecraft, 'ambassador for peace'. There were enough ex-military scattered around the place, though, that Zechs' OZ origins wouldn't stay secret for long. And maybe that's what Quinze wanted.
As for me, I was still struggling with the concept of Zechs *here*. Right in front of me, in the Libra--and part of White Fang. Of all the scenarios I'd run through in my head, all the places I thought he might have disappeared to... I'd never thought he'd be here. Much less joined up with the very terrorists we had spent so much time fighting. I watched him walk around the MDs with Quinze, chatting like they were old friends, and felt... betrayed.
End Part 4
(:./hope/fealty4)
