12-Aug-2005
The final parts of Otto's saga... hope they don't disappoint! Thank you to everyone who's gotten me this far, especially the_reverand and ederyn, who kept encouraging me over the three years it took to get this monster finished, and redcancer, who was always there to fangirl about Ozzie possibilities whenever I needed her. :-D You guys rock!
On to the fic!
This time, waking up was infinitely harder. For a moment all I could do was lie there, limply floating, and blink, dimly amazed I was waking up at all. Then the pain hit, and I wished I hadn't.
"Scheisse... " I groaned, curling inward. There was blood and soot covering the faceplate of my mask, making it difficult to see. But it felt like I'd cracked more than a couple ribs--maybe even broken them. And something was wrong with my shoulder... I didn't dare look. But my arm wasn't moving like I was telling it to.
I have to get out of here. I had no idea how I was still alive. But I wasn't going to stay that way for long, if I couldn't get my ass moving. I bumped into something solid, and used it to push off without thinking, turning my aimless drifting into something resembling a direction. I was in the MS bay... maybe. It was hard to tell, there was so much damage. Swiping away some of the grime from my mask, I could see the drifting forms of a couple Suits, vacant and damaged, looking like oversized corpses in the dimness. My Taurus... It would be at the very back of the bay. I grabbed another stationary piece of debris with my good arm, and pushed off again. It hurt like a sonuvabitch. Behind me, I knew, was a odd floating trail of blood droplets, marking my progress. Please God... be watching just this once. Let it still be there.
It was.
Still docked, still where I left it--a bit scarred up, but still blessedly intact. I decided right then and there that the Gundams could go screw themselves. I'd never seen anything as beautiful as that Taurus.
Somehow I managed to get inside. Thank God for standard-issue medkits... I wasted precious seconds to slap a double-A patch on and spray some foam sealant over my shoulder. Having blood floating all over the cockpit was not going to help my concentration. Bringing the Taurus online was easily accomplished, even with scorched and shaky hands. The adrenacortisol was kicking in, making the pain bearable, letting me do what I needed to do. It hadn't taken much forethought to have everything in standby mode--despite the risk to my cover, an escape attempt with cold engines was something only an idiot would try. Screens snapped on obediently around me, surrounding me with light and data. The controls thrummed under my hands and feet--indicators flickering yellow, then green, signalling their readiness.
"Good girl... " I muttered hoarsely. Tactical would show me if there was a clear path out. I glanced at the screen--then did a double-take, unable to believe my eyes. For a fraction of a second I was convinced that the battle systems were on the fritz, damaged in the explosion. Then a icy cold knot twisted in my belly at the realization of what I was *really* seeing.
I'd thought I was going to have to fight my way clear of the Libra. What I hadn't realized was that I wasn't even on Libra--not anymore. Me, my Taurus, and almost the entirety of block A had been torn free from the main body of the battle station. My brain ticked over the new facts, scrambling to put the pieces together. That explosion--it hadn't been the fusion plant. It had been something else, something that was still pushing the main bulk of the Libra away, leaving a trail of twisted wreckage to fall in its wake. Wreckage that included me. And we *were* falling--caught in Earth's gravity well, without any engines to break us free.
Shit. shitshitshitSHIT. Oddly enough, our trajectory was the least of my problems at the moment. That fusion plant that I'd oh-so-cleverly sabotaged? It was still going to explode. Taurus or not, I was *not* going to hang around for that one.
My hands flew, firing up all the systems, bypassing the normal checks. Thrusters boiled into life in seconds, scorching the nearby bay walls and incinerating free-floating pieces of debris. A moment to orient, then I threw the Suit forward, heading for the freedom of open space. Metal wreckage clanged and bounced against armor plate as we bulled our way out of the destroyed bay. There was no time for finesse. I'd left the reactor at 0242. According to the chrono, it was 0257... I'd been out for fifteen minutes. Which gave me another five to get clear, at best. I shot through the twisting corridors desperately, pushing it recklessly fast. The block's internal atmosphere was almost entirely gone, but there were any number of chemicals still floating around in the wreckage, turning the interior into a murky haze. I wasn't quite flying blind, but I had to rely heavily on my sensor net to avoid any collisions. Thankfully, the further I got, the clearer the sensor data became, no longer hampered by layers upon layers of hull plating.
I hit another corridor, this one larger--a main access of some kind. Throwing the Taurus into a sharp turn, I bumped up the acceleration another notch, kicking in all the aft thrusters in our race towards freedom. I was dimly grateful for the relative ease of the maneuver out here in space. The doctors had been right. It was hard enough to breathe as it was, the heavy acceleration pressing me against the harness. If I'd had to deal with pulling Gs as well...
Four minutes left, the little voice in the back of my head said, bringing me back to attention. My hands clenched, sweating fingers white around the controls. Blips began springing to life on the readout as the sensors began registering Mobile Suits outside the wreckage. Most of them were aimless, drifting--the majority seemed to be inert MDs, with a few derelict Oz suits mixed in. Tactical was locking IDs and calculating odds. Most of the active MS were keeping their distance, the few close-in manned squadrons too busy retreating to interfere. My breath caught as the first Gundam ID popped on screen--it was close. Ungodly close... what the hell was it still *doing* here? But it was also bugging out, just like all the rest--followed by second Gundam, then a third. But there was fourth Gundam ID--an ID blip that wasn't moving at all, deep inside the wreckage. Something about that bothered me... Uneasy with the thought of a Gundam to my rear, I refocused my sensors on that blip, feeling the seconds crawl by as they struggled to obtain the data I wanted.
It was Gundam 01... .and Epyon.
I felt my heart stop. Zechs was inside the block. Right at the heart of it, in fact, deep inside the wreckage next to the reactor. A fusion reactor about to go critical. And as far as I could tell, the moron hadn't even noticed!
There was nothing I could do. The reactor could go at any moment--my countdown was guesswork at best. I was almost clear--I could see the jagged edge of my exit, framing the open stars. Zechs had to get out on his own. No doubt he was still caught up in the battle against his nemesis, 01. Even so, he had to realize where he was. Epyon was a fast MS--if he left now, he should still be able to get clear of the wreckage. I stared at the screen, willing those little dots to move. There was no way Marquise would continue such a stupid, suicidal...
"GodDAMMit!!" I wrenched at the controls, triggering secondary thrusters and spinning my Taurus around in a full one-eighty. I couldn't believe what I was doing, even while I was doing it. I'd obviously lost what few marbles I had left. I kicked on the afterburners, sending the Taurus screaming back into the wreckage, straight into the heart of that damn ticking bomb.
Three minutes...
The Gundam 01 blip had finally moved. It was rocketing away, insanely fast. But Epyon was still just sitting there like a lump. I ground my teeth, and blew apart another piece of interior wall with the beam cannon, speeding through the cloud of debris, unwilling to take the seconds needed to go around. The place was already starting to disintegrate around me, explosions rumbling and belching fire, blowing apart joined metal and blackened fibersteel. Motherfucking piece of shit... .why isn't Zechs MOVING? Banking and jinking madly, I cursed Zechs for being a moron, me for being an even bigger one, and OZ for making the Libra so damn *big*.
The black opening of a venting shaft opened up in front of me, and I dived down it nose-first, my Taurus dropping like a rock. It was like descending into the bowels of hell. We were close to the power plant now, my bones creaking as gravity flexed around us, lurching unnaturally as the confined plasma core of the reactor pressed outward, looking for more matter to consume. What little light I'd had left had disappeared as we dropped, heading ever deeper. The MS was quaking around me, my teeth rattling as it vibrated, keening with the nerve-wracking sound of armor plate stressed to its limits.
Two minutes...
Light, when it came, was a brilliant white that seared my eyes. My Taurus came screaming out of the shaft at full throttle, and hit an oncoming fireball face-first. All the viewscreens whited out in the blast, new alarms adding to the chorus of noise as the cockpit temperature jumped. But the armor held, scorched and slagged around the edges, and we came through the fire, falling into the open cavern of the power plant, straight towards where Zechs was waiting.
Epyon looked like shit. There was no other word for it; it looked like it had been through hell and back. It was listing, obviously badly damaged, most of its weaponry gone. There were entire sections of outer armor missing--for the first time I wondered if Zechs had stayed because he had no other choice. Dismissing the thought as irrelevant, I punched open a channel with a vindictive stab of a finger. Motivations later--rescue now.
"Zechs! I'm getting you out--do you copy?" I didn't wait for an answer. I didn't have time. I just charged forward, hoping like hell he didn't have the ammo left to blow me away. My landing was haphazard at best--I was going too fast for it to be otherwise.
//" ...what?"// It had taken a few seconds for Zechs' end of the channel to open, but now he was glaring up at me through the tiny image. Taking in the stubborn set of that jaw, I groaned inwardly.
"No time. We gotta go--this thing's going to blow!" My Taurus lunged forward, wrapping gauntlets around Zechs' Suit in a makeshift full nelson. Using the momentum, I piled on the thrust once more, intending to lift us both away--and then Epyon sent us both spinning as Zechs did his damndest to knock my block off.
//"No! I don't know who you are, but I've got to see this through!"//
One minute left... My frustration boiled over. All this, and he STILL didn't have a clue! I let him have it with both barrels.
"Godammit, Zechs!" He'd managed to fight partially free; I used that free arm to plunge a gauntleted fist into a hole in Epyon's armor, wrapping my hand around the frame of the MS itself. "I am not fucking dying for you twice!!" Like it or not, Zechs was coming with me. Epyon had gone still at my shout, and I used the opportunity, sending us both spiralling up towards the vent I'd entered by. Gotta find the shortest route out... Behind us, the decking had crumbled, the walls around them melting into slag as the final reductors on the reactor failed.
//... .Otto?// Zechs voice was... odd. Any other time, and I'd be enjoying his expression--it wasn't every day I got to throw his High-and-Mightiness for a loop. But there was no time for that, not if we wanted to live.
"Yeah. Now shut up and let me pilot this damn thing," I barked. There was no time to spare to worry about Zechs' reaction; my eyes were focused only on the nav screens. External temperatures were rising rapidly, flames chasing us up the exhaust shaft. I had piled on every inch of thrust, and it wasn't enough, not with Epyon's extra mass. In desperation, I brought up the defensor screen. The planet defensors I'd cannibalized from an unlucky Virgo weren't built for this kind of use, and I had no idea how long my cobbled-together attempt would last. But they were all I had.
The pipe we were in shuddered from another, larger explosion, and alarms started ringing as plasma boiled up behind us. My Taurus was racing upwards, an inch ahead of the destruction, smoke and blown apart metal turning my viewscreens into incoherent fiery chaos. There was no way to see where I was going--even my sensors were being blinded, overloaded by heat and radiation. I was flying blind, using my remaining instruments and my memory in a desperate attempt to keep us headed in the right direction. Trying to outrun the avalanche of cascading explosions that were consuming block A from the inside out.
My Taurus lost one planet defensor, then two, burning out and exploding under the strain. The others shifted to compensate like they'd been designed to, but the shield's effectiveness had dropped by over fifty percent. More debris was getting through, my Suit shuddering as they clanged off the headpiece and main body. Warnings were popping up all over my screens as systems began to overload: cooling systems leaking, engines starting to go critical, armor sections breached or failing.
"Don't you quit on me, you motherfucking piece of shit," I shouted at it. "Not after all the work I put into you!" There was a funny sort of noise from the com--I'd forgotten it was still open. Oops.
There! Through the fire, I caught the barest glimpse of stars. It was there and gone in a second, but I threw my Taurus after them anyway, hoping it wasn't a mirage, hoping they promised a way clear.
Then my main thrusters failed.
I'd been pushing them past redline for too long, ignoring the warnings as I attempted the impossible. They'd held out as long as they could, but... it hadn't been long enough. The vernier engines overloaded, their support systems already dead, and the emergency cutoffs kicked in. My remaining secondary thrusters sputtered unevenly, tossing our joined Suits against the walls of the exhaust shaft. We bounced--I had to fight against blacking out as I was thrown against my harness. The patch was wearing off; it was hard to see past old memories. Tallgeese had done this to me, just before--
"No, goddammit!!" I slammed both fists into my boards, not caring what I hit. My fit of fury was useless as we bounced again, and again, fire everywhere, smoke hazing the air. Zechs shouted something, I think, but I couldn't make it out. There was another massive explosion, snapping us around with a shuddering jolt, and I wondered if this was going to be it--
--and then there were stars.
Stars, all around us, and the dark deep emptiness of space. I blinked, my breathing harsh in the sudden silence, wondering for a moment if I'd died. Only two of my viewscreens still functioned, the rest blackened and cracked. But I could see the stars... and Epyon, still with me, battered and hanging limply. We spun slowly together, stars wheeling around us as we drifted off with the other debris. There was no way of breaking free--the gauntlets of my Taurus had been welded to Epyon's frame, armor plate slagged by the heat of the explosion, turning our Suits into a strange pair of Siamese twins.
" ....we're alive." My voice sounded hoarse and strange and not quite real, echoing in the silent confines of my cockpit. "Holy shit. We're still alive."
Static crackled in answer. I listened to it numbly, fitful fizzes and pops as what was left of my communications tried to stutter to life. More static... then Zechs' voice came through, broken and garbled over the comm. //"--tto. What--<b>fzzt!</b>-ou doing?"// The channel began to resolve itself, Zechs' face coming through the static. He looked... well, pretty much like I felt. Like a wet rag, wrung out and thrown into a corner. //"That is you, right? Otto?"//
Uncurling stiff fingers from their deathgrip on the controls, I blinked at the screen. "Who else would be stupid enough to try something like this? Of course it's me." The adrenaline was starting to wear off, and I was having a hard time focusing.
//"But... why? How? Why are you here?"// Zechs sounded genuinely baffled.
I couldn't help it. I began to laugh--deep, painful barks of laughter, the taste of smoke in my mouth. "Well, lieutenant--sorry, colonel--I was hoping you could tell me that." Zechs' puzzled expression had shifted into something more wary. I leaned forward, closer to the vid pickups. I knew I wasn't much to look at--covered in soot and blood, graying hair sticking up in all directions. No wonder Zechs didn't recognize me. "People aren't chess pieces, colonel. They don't always stay where you stick them."
//"Otto... I didn't mean... You're not just a chess piece."//
"No?" I wanted to be angry. I had a *right* to be angry, after all Zechs had done. But for some reason, somewhere along the line, my anger had bled away. What was left behind... was something else. Something empty and aching that I didn't recognize. "What am I, then? After Sanc... I woke up in that hospital, you know. After you wrote me off." I stuffed the rest of my accusations behind my teeth, afraid I wasn't making sense as it was. "What was I? An inconvenience?"
There was a long, stretched out silence. Finally, Zech said softly, //" ....I don't know."// Something must have told him that answer wasn't good enough, because he continued. //"You weren't an inconvenience. Hell, Otto--you damn near died, just to free Sanc. I owe you that. And I owe you for the Tallgeese... .it saved my life. And now I owe you for this, even--even if I didn't want it."// He took a deep, shuddering breath. //" ...I don't know, Otto. I just knew... after we pulled you out... that I didn't want any more of my men dying for me. And then... I lost sight of that as well."//
I scrubbed my hands over my face. Fine tremors were running through my fingers; leftover shock and adrenaline, my body realizing it was still alive. "Damn it, Zechs... ."
//... I'm sorry, Otto.// Zechs' quiet voice continued. //'I just... don't know anymore. Not you, not myself... I thought Treize had given me the answer, but even that wasn't right. And now... "// He looked down, his face drawn in tired lines. Other than that one brief moment in Tshabong, It was the first time I'd seen him up close without his mask. I was starting to realize just how much it had allowed Zechs to hide. I had always expected Zechs to have the answers; it had never occurred to me that he might not have any. That he might be just like the rest of us: running around doing the best he could, and fucking up along the way.
It was pretty sad that I had to blow up the Libra--and myself--to figure that out.
Speaking of which--as much as I wanted my answers, we still had a bit of a problem on our hands. A quick scan of my panels showed that most of my instruments were still out. Life support was still functional--for now--but my engines weren't. "Zechs." I said, catching his attention. "What's Epyon's status?"
He blinked at the sudden change of topic, but turned towards his boards. I could hear the click of toggle switches and the beeping of alarms in protest as Zechs took stock of the damage. //"Not good,"// came the verdict, finally. //"No engines, sensors offline, minimal power to systems--looks like the damage might be fixable, though, if we can unhook Epyon from your Suit. What kind of tools do you have?"//
I snorted and shook my head. "I can't go EVA--even if I was up to it, I don't have a suit." Which was breaking the most basic rule of MS piloting... it didn't matter if you were OZ, Alliance, or random spacer: you didn't climb into an MS without a flight suit, simple as that. Funny how that hadn't seemed quite so important when the Libra was crashing down around my ears.
//"No suit... wait. You're injured?"// Zechs came back into the range of the vid pickups, scrutinizing the bloody patches on my uniform. //"How badly?"//
"I've had worse." Which was the truth... I just didn't bother saying that this was probably pretty damn bad in their own right. It wasn't like Zechs had a surgical team to pull out of his back pocket. I hit another couple switches. The radiation had knocked out the high bandwidth tactical stuff, but suit-to-suit frequencies were still working, obviously... .and so were emergency beacons. "It shouldn't be a problem--even with White Fang IDs, no doubt Khushrenada will have teams out looking for survivors. We can just set a beacon and--"
//"Otto."// Zechs voice was harsh, his words rough. //"Treize is dead."//
"--and wait for... what?"
I stuttered for a halt. For a moment, I wasn't sure I'd heard him correctly. But looking at his face... "You're sure it wasn't someone else? I mean... General Khushrenada is--"
//"He's dead. Oz surrendered shortly afterwards."//
" ...how? When?" A sudden, uncomfortable thought popped up. "Did you... .?"
//"No."// Zechs replied flatly, face rigid. I'd seen that look before. Whatever issues he'd had with Treize... Zechs hadn't wanted him dead. //"One of the Gundams did it."//
I had to stop for a moment and absorb it. General Khushrenada was dead. It seemed impossible. For all I'd expected Zechs to get himself killed one day, doing some insane maneuver, Khushrenada had never fit into that category. He had been the driving force of OZ, long before Operation Daybreak. And for a long time, Khushrenada embodied everything I'd hated about it: the arrogance, the assumptions, the fancy attitudes about chivalry and the nobility of war. It was hard to believe that all of that had just... gone away.
Dead.
I closed my eyes for a moment. I couldn't mourn Khushrenada... not like I knew Zechs would. He had never been my friend. But he had been my commander-in-chief. I could give him a moment of silence, at least.
The moment passed, and I shook myself back into order. Or tried to--it proved to be tougher than I expected, my mind kept trying to go woozy and slip away. Scowling, I rummaged for the medkit and another double-A. Zechs figured out what I was doing about when I slapped the patch on.
//"Otto."// There was some of that old snap to his voice. It made me sit up and pay attention, whether I liked it or not. //"Report. How bad is it?"//
"Not good," I admitted reluctantly, panting slightly for breath. Everything was painfully sharp as the new drugs kicked in, my focus narrowing down, everything becoming so crisp and clear that it almost hurt my eyes. I could feel the thumping of my heart speed up, then settle. Two patches was pushing it. If I took another... "Cracked ribs, shoulder's torn up... I should be functional for a while longer, though." I had to be. "All right. We can't count on a rescue from OZ," I said, oh-so-subtly changing the subject. "We'll need to do something about our trajectory, then, before we end up in the asteroid belt."
//"How? The engines are down."//
"Secondary thrusters." I could see Zechs beginning to nod thoughtfully, even before I got to the rest of my makeshift plan. "The smaller ones are designed to be fired with minimal power drain--there should be enough of a charge left in the plant to allow for controlled burns. We've gotta get it right on the first try, though. Otherwise we're screwed."
//"All right. We have two Suits to work with. Which makes the calculations tougher, but gives us more maneuvering capability."// Zechs' voice had turned brisk, but I could still tell he was giving me little sideways looks whenever he thought I wasn't paying attention, like he was expecting me to take a nosedive into my panels. //"Then what?"//
"Then we set a beacon, get rescued, and live happily ever after, dammit." The universe owed me that much. "I know a couple of Sweeper frequencies. If we can get ourselves into a stable orbit, I can modify my beacon to transmit on those. After a battle like this, I'm sure they'll have ships out--it's too good an opportunity to waste."
//"Scavengers,"// Zechs said distastefully.
"Yeah, well, don't knock it. Those scavengers are the best hope we've got." Howard's boys didn't owe me anything. But they also wouldn't leave us to die. It was an unwritten rule, I'd learned. Enemy or friend, you didn't leave other spacers behind, not if you had any choice. Not when it could be you the next time, waiting to die in that endless cold night.
I bent my head over the boards, bringing up flickering status reports. The numbers weren't good--I had less reserve power than I'd thought. They were also jumping and wobbling sporadically at the periphery of my vision every time I glanced away. I didn't want to admit it... especially given my only other alternative. Said alternative being the man who did just try to destroy a good portion of the Earth. But a few minutes later, when I found myself running the same calculation for the fourth time... .I had to admit defeat. I needed help.
"Zechs. You're going to need to calculate the burn. I'm sending you my data--make sure to figure in for both sets of thrusters. I'll start reconfiguring the beacon." I tried to cover my reservations, make it nothing more than a brusque not-a-request.
From the look on Zechs' face, I wasn't fooling him one bit. Zechs was no engineer. But he was a pilot--not to mention a damned perceptive bastard--and like all pilots, had an innate knack for spatial equations. //"Are you sure?"//
I didn't know how to answer that. Truth be told, I hadn't been sure of anything since Sanc--since that one single half-remembered moment of clarity in which I'd understood what I needed to do. That moment was gone. We were both different--this war had changed us. Changed him. Now... both our lives were in his hands.
Looking down at the small image of Zechs' face, worried and drawn, I gave him the only answer I had.
"Do the calculations, sir. I trust you to get us home."
End Part 6
(:./hope/fealty6)
