07-May-2006
Title: The X Faction 9b/?
Author: Kitty Chou
Archive: GW Addiction
Category: AU, Yaoi, Angst, Possible OOC
Pairing: 1x2, 3x4, 2+4, 5+H
Disclaimer: *clears throat* I do not in any way, shape, or form own Gundam Wing or its wonderful characters! I just pull them out to play and then clean them up and put them back when I'm done! I'm making no money and if you sue me you will receive no money because *shock* I have none.
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, yaoi, angst, violence, lime
Spoilers: Well, if you don't know who won on the show, then yes.
Author's Notes: Good news, I am OUT FOR THE SUMMER! That means I have time to WRITE! HURRAY! Here's part B of Chapter Nine and the official start of new stuff! Yaaaaaaay! Aren't you excited? I sure kept you waiting... Special thanks to Quillan for inspiring me with fanart, as well as to everyone who sends me feedback! <3 To those who don't, thank you for reading!
Feedback: Please send feedback! ARNIE HUNGRY!!!
"Wow... this is a really nice ship!" Hilde whistled, looking around the moderately sized docking bay where she and Wufei had parked two of the MRCs. The third would have to wait on the satellite, as towing it between them would have been hell. Of course, they could have brought someone else along to pilot it, but Wufei was more than a little uptight about who boarded his ship.
Wufei grunted in answer as he plugged his MRC into the thick electrical cord that would juice it with energy from the ship's battery. Rolling her eyes, Hilde plugged in the other MRC, running a hand through her slightly matted hair, which always flattened after being in helmets, and she'd already been in two that day.
"Why thank you, Hilde," she spoke in a mockingly deep tone as she un-strapped her heavy magnetic flight boots. "She was a rust bucket at first, but with a little love and tenderness, you can really bring out the beauty of a fine ship. I can't tell you how wonderful it is to be able to go home to such a beauty at the end of the day. Someone who will hold you in the-"
"Are you finished?" Wufei asked, giving her a derisive look.
"No, but as I fear your wrath, I'll let it lie," she replied and unzipped her flight suit, peeling it off with a grin. "For now."
Wufei looked away, lips pursed slightly as he undid his own flight suit, hanging it in the lockers when he was thru. Hilde left hers out, as she'd be taking it back onto the satellite when they returned. Underneath they wore... well as little as possible. It wasn't comfortable to be wearing too much clothing under a skintight flight suit.
He pulled on a pair of khaki pants from the locker, not exactly comfortable walking around in spandex shorts and a tank top with a woman on board. Besides, it was far too reminiscent of Yuy's younger days, and he most certainly did not want to be badgered about copying his fashion sense. Wufei didn't bother with a shirt though; the tank top would do.
Hilde hadn't brought extra clothing, so she stayed in her one piece black leotard, which had a 'X' over the left breast and "If you can read this, stop looking at my ass", over, well, her ass. It practically screamed, "PRESENT FROM DUO", but Wufei didn't comment, as it would insinuate that had indeed looked at her ass. Instead, he nodded toward the main door.
"Come on. The bridge is this way," he started walking toward it, remembering to slip into his shoes before he did. The floor in the dock was quite cold.
Hilde put her hands on her hips, making a face. "What, no grand tour? And after I took the time to show you around this morning... "
Sighing in exasperation, Wufei gestured broadly at the dock. "This is the dock. The bridge is this way. End of tour."
She grinned and finally followed after him. "Careful, 'Fei... people will think you're trying to be funny."
Wufei suppressed a smirk and didn't reply.
"Heeeeeeeee-chan!"
Heero poked his head from out of the bathroom, hair wet and spiked around his head, face half covered in shaving cream. "Are you trying to get me to me kill you?" he asked as Duo just blinked innocently at him. After a moment, he disappeared into the bathroom again.
Duo grinned and called to him in a singsong tone once again. "Poooookie pants! Bumpkin!"
Blinking, Heero almost nicked himself before looking back out at him. " ...Bumpkin?"
Laughing, Duo nodded. "Yeah, you know. 'Baby' plus 'pumpkin'!"
Heero stared at him incredulously for a long moment and then decided it wasn't worth it as he went back to shaving, shaking his head. "Baka... "
"Quite possibly, but I like to think of it as being exclusively your baka. It's less derogatory that way," Duo commented with a smile as he came into the bathroom behind him. Being on a satellite with limited space, the bathroom wasn't meant to hold more than one person at a time, but Duo solved this problem by squeezing in behind Heero, pressing up against him. The currently shaving man gave him a look in the mirror.
"I am scraping a sharp object over my face right now."
Duo laughed softly and kissed his shoulder, putting his hands on the counter on the other side of Heero. "Well then, I had better not distract you," he replied as he used his tongue to capture stray drops of water as they trailed down Heero's neck from his hair.
Heero finally nicked himself and hissed. "Duo."
Giving him a childishly silly pout, Duo pulled away, sitting down on the closed toilet seat to watch him instead. "Spoil sport."
Grunting, Heero finished shaving in peace and washed the excess bits of cream from his face, rinsing the sink afterward. As he patted his face dry, he looked over at Duo, who was mournfully watching drops of water tail down his chest un-licked. "What's behind that door beside the EA? Hilde never showed us."
Duo looked up at him, frowning a little before looking as though it dawned on him. "Oh, that," he said, waving it off. "Storage room. Extra boxes of tissues and stuff like that."
Heero's face was blank and disinterested as he nodded. "Nothing worth seeing then." Looking away, he washed his hands, which felt suddenly dirty.
Hilde had said it was empty.
"So, what does this button do?"
"Engages the auto-pilot."
"And this one?"
"Raises the radar cloak."
"And what about this one?"
"Kills the passenger in the co-pilot's seat."
Hilde made a face at Wufei and sat back, folding her arms. "Very funny." She, of course, knew perfectly well what every button, lever, and switch did, but loved giving him hell for no apparent reason other than to give him hell. It had been a while since she had someone to badger, as Quatre and Duo were used to her by now.
"I thought so, yes," Wufei answered indifferently, nodding idly as he finished running a systems check before starting up the main computer. The large, flat panel vid screens opened to flash the Preventers' logo before going black, the words, 'Trust No One' appearing in bold, white lettering. Wufei frowned.
"I have to admit, that's a little nerdier than I would have expected from you. 'Good Morning, Dave' maybe... " Hilde commented, raising an eyebrow.
Wufei scowled at her. "I didn't put that there, woman." His frown deepened as he tried to get rid of it, to no avail. "If that idiot put a virus on my ship, I will shave his head and paint his ship pink... "
Hilde shook her head, leaning forward. "No, 'X Files' isn't really Duo's style. Too cliché or something," she mused, before pointing at a blinking light. "Ah, there! It's just an e-mail, see? So just, you know, delete it and check your trash to see who it's from."
With a grunt that might have been, 'Thank you' or, 'I know it's a damn e-mail,' Wufei deleted it and checked his trash folder. The e-mail was gone. With a frown, he checked all the other folders, searching for some sign of the mysterious message. He found it, of all places, in the 'Sent Items' folder. He had sent it to himself.
Frowning now herself, Hilde leaned further forward. "What the... 'Fei, are you trying to be funny again? Come on, now be honest... "
He glared over at her. "Don't be a fool, look at the time it was sent. I was on your satellite by then."
Hilde looked over at Wufei apprehensively. "So... are you saying there's someone hiding out on your ship?"
Scowling, Wufei tightened his hands on the flight controls as he piloted them toward the satellite. "No, I'd know if someone were on my damn ship," he growled, very displeased by the whole affair. "I'm saying someone hacked my mail network from the outside and sent that message to me. I'm saying someone knows."
"Oh. Well... shit."
"You know... this would have been a good thing to do before my shower."
With a soft laugh, Quatre nuzzled the Trowa's chest, kissing his slightly damp skin with a smile. "I know... but can you blame me? You were wet and naked, and how often does that opportunity come along?"
Snorting softly in amusement, Trowa looked down at him, visible eye looking rather sated. "I think you're going to find it happens a lot, actually," he commented dryly.
"Good," Quatre replied, grinning as he nibbled at his neck lightly.
Trowa made a soft, but deep sound of approval in his throat, tilting his head a little. "Mmm... would it be safe for me to take another shower, or are you just going to ravish me again?"
Pushing himself up to give Trowa a wicked look, the blonde smirked, eyes gleaming slightly. "Why don't you do it and find out?" he challenged with a predator's grin. Blinking a little, his eyes went distant as earpiece he hadn't bothered to remove crackled slightly. He moved off him with a sigh, sitting up. "Or not... they're back."
Making a face, Trowa sat up as well. "I ought to just go as I am then, smelling like I do."
Quatre laughed at that, watching as he got up to get their clothing. "I'm not complaining. But I wouldn't worry, after Duo and Heero's antics in the Control Room last night I don't think anyone will notice."
The acrobat raised an eyebrow at him as he came to sit on the edge of the bed, handing him his clothes. "The Control Room? We should have thought of that... " He laughed as Quatre swatted him with a sock. "I take it you've been in there?"
Humming a little, Quatre shook his head as he pulled the swatting sock onto his limp foot. "No, Duo and I talked this morning."
"Gossiping on your nightly affairs? You trollop," Trowa deadpanned as Quatre laughed in surprise, flushing. "You were gone a long time, I didn't think there was that much to tell."
Smiling at the subtle questioning, the blonde leaned forward to brush his lips over Trowa's jaw. "I love you," he said honestly, leaning against him.
Looking down at him, Trowa smiled softly. "I know. But?"
Quatre shook his head with a sigh. "No 'but'," he replied and hesitated before he spoke again, closing his eyes briefly.
"I need to tell you something."
"Wow... I'm a little embarrassed... " Duo admitted as he and Heero stepped into the Control Room, the first to arrive. "I really thought we had better ventilation systems installed."
Heero snorted, shaking his head as he went ahead and took a seat at the table where they'd had several bouts of mind-blowing sex the night before. Leaning against a console instead, Duo gave him a half-hearted glare.
"It was your fault, you know... you started it."
Shaking his head with an amused look, Heero smirked at him. "And you certainly helped me finish it."
Duo laughed at that. "Well it never did take much for you to convince me... But I still blame you for the harassment we're likely to face for the rest of our lives."
"Oh longer than that, Duo... much longer than that," Quatre remarked from the doorway, shaking out his damp hair slightly as Trowa followed him in. They were both smiling in one form or another, but there was something imperceptivity off between them.
But if Duo noticed it, he didn't act as though he had as he folded his arms with a heavy sigh. "I can't get a break with you guys... It was Heero's fault! His! Not mine! Why doesn't anyone pick on him?"
"Well that's a dumb question," Hilde quipped as she came in, pulling a black sweatshirt over her head since she hadn't had time to change to warmer clothes. "Wufei will be here in a few minutes, he's sweeping his ship for bugs."
Quatre frowned at that, looking at her seriously as the mood in the room instantly changed. "Bugs? Why, did something happen?"
She nodded, taking a seat at the table. "When he brought the main systems back online, a message appeared. 'Trust no one.'" Immediately everyone but Hilde looked at Duo, who bristled and gave them all a hard look in return.
"What?" he snapped, "You just assume it was me?"
Hilde gave him a sheepish smile at that. "It was our initial reaction too... but we ruled you out. The message was actually an e-mail programmed to open with the system from the trash file of Wufei's message center."
"Who sent it?" Trowa asked, looking troubled. It wasn't easy to hack the secure network of the Preventers... and he knew that Wufei's private message center was unlisted except through Une and a few select others, including himself.
"Wufei did. Or at least, that's what the e-mail says. The time signature says it was sent after he came onboard the satellite yesterday, but he's positive there's no one else on board. He's sweeping for a Leech."
Heero frowned at that. Over the past two years the small data devices, commonly called Leeches, had risen out of the black market, causing a lot of problems and paperwork at Preventers. They were small and could be easily stuck in an air duct on a ship, or a potted plant in a government building.
The earlier models were simple; piggybacking onto whatever systems were in the short-range proximity, the Leech would record a steady stream of whatever data was processed on the server until the battery ran down. Once that happened, the Leech would use the final burst of power to send out a signal with the information gathered to the matching receiver.
It had caused Heero and Sally many headaches and pots of coffee to write the firewalls capable of keeping the Leeches from riding their systems. Of course, that spawned a new generation, larger and easier to detect, but harder to keep from allowing the user to directly communicate with the system from a remote location. If Heero ever found out who invented the damn things in the first place... he'd probably end up getting his Preventer status revoked.
"Who would know to put a Leech on Wufei's ship, though? And why would they use it to send such a cryptic message?" Quatre wondered, folding his hands with a thoughtful frown.
"I'm hoping Yuy will figure that out," Wufei said unhappily as he came into the room, tossing the Leech to Heero. "It was in one of the guest cabins."
Catching it, Heero frowned, turning it in his hands. "You have cameras running on your ship when you aren't onboard, correct? Motion detectors?"
Wufei nodded as he sat down at the table. "Both of which I check regularly for signs of tampering."
Moving to look at the device in Heero's hands, Duo frowned. "Well this isn't good... Can you find out where it came from, Heero?"
Slipping it inside his pocket, Heero nodded. "It may take me a day or two, but I should be able to locate the receiver."
"Good, I want to know as soon as you've determined the source. Now, let's get started with the meeting," Duo said as he moved to one of the consoles, bringing up the information they had discovered the night before. "Last night Heero hacked the database of the Foreign Minister, where we discovered a file under the codename 'Omega Freeze'. Inside were the plans for a new mobile doll. They're calling it 'Delta'."
"A new mobile doll?" Trowa repeated with a small frown. "How many are in production?"
Duo shook his head with a sigh. "Heero and I couldn't find a number, or a date of when they will be completed. We did find out that they're under production at the Antarctica base."
"So Relena reopened Antarctica... guess if you don't want to be found out, you hide at the ends of the earth," Hilde mused, frowning thoughtfully. "Are we going in?"
"No, not until we have more information," Quatre said as he shook his head. "For all we know, they haven't yet begun production. But if my guess it right, they will be timed to be complete when Tembin is. Dolls we can handle... Tembin is the bigger threat."
Wufei nodded. "I agree, especially if Zechs is the one behind its production."
"We don't know that for certain yet... He and Noin are still Preventers, right?" Duo asked, looking at Wufei.
"Yes, as far as I know, Zechs and Noin are still active Preventers working on the Mars Project," Wufei confirmed.
Quatre looked at Wufei seriously, the light in his eyes reminiscent of the war as he began to plan. "Wufei, can you take your ship and go to Mars? I was unable to locate either Zechs or Noin, but as a Preventers agent, you should have the clearance to move around easily."
Raising an eyebrow, Wufei inclined his head slightly in a nod. "Very well... but what will be my reason for being there? If Zechs is working with Relena, my presence could raise questions and lead them to realize we are aware of their plans."
The blonde gave him a slightly impish look at that as he smirked. "Why, you will be celebrating your honeymoon, of course. Chang Hilde has always wanted to visit Mars, you realize."
Wufei balked a bit before frowning, trying not to look at Hilde, who grinned and put a hand to her chest, batting her eyelashes. "Oh how you spoil me, husband mine... "
Quatre laughed softly, but became serious again. "We need Preventers support now more than ever if we can get it. Trowa, I want you to return to headquarters and speak with Une, she's always held you in high regard."
"You should go with him, Q," Duo cut in, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Our story sounds like a conspiracy theory, and I'm sure from Trowa it would sound even crazier. No offense."
Shrugging, Trowa only raised an eyebrow. "None taken. Given my current reputation back at headquarters, I'll need all the proof I can get. How about it, Quatre?"
Looking at the two, he nodded thoughtfully. "You're probably right... we'll take Shi then."
"I will contact Sally and let her know you're coming," Heero said, already thinking of how his partner would react to the news. "She can prepare Une and lessen the shock a bit."
Nodding, Quatre smiled. "Thank you, Heero. You and Duo should remain here on the satellite. You need to figure out where that Leech came from and get any information you can on the Antarctica base. Duo-"
Duo waved a hand with a sigh. "I know, I know... Train the recruits, babysit the satellite, blah, blah, blah... "
"I'm sorry, Duo... " Quatre said sheepishly, looking up at him. "Maybe you should go see Une, I just got back from a trip anyway... "
Shaking his head, Duo grinned. "Don't worry about it, Q. I'll be fine, really. I just need to take Azrael out and beat the crap out of some trainees. Besides, I've already been labeled as a conspirator. I wont make as good an impression as a dead man."
"Then it's settled," Hilde declared, putting her hands on her hips. "Start saddling up, boys. I've got a honeymoon waiting."
End Part 9b
Next Chapter: Mission time.
(:./kitty/faction10)
