06-Oct-2004
Title: Tetractys: Geburah, III
Author: Sol 1056
Rating: R for violence and language, some adult situations
Pairings (currently): 1+R, 1+2+3, 2x3x2, 4x5xM
Warnings: violence and bastardization of technical details, this chapter
Disclaimer: no, don't own this, nor the basis behind the mecha adaptation
Archived: sweetlysour and gwaddiction
Critiques: always welcome, natch!
0700 GMT; 0800 local
Tournous, France
The monk smiled politely at Cat's thankful words, and nodded to Heero, not even blinking at the fact that the two of them had no choice but to share a small cot in the cathedral's catacombs. The monk set down the basket of food, smiled again, and trundled off through the tunnels, his bones creaking but his footsteps light.
"A good man," Cat sighed, and pried the basket open. "Wine?"
"Wine?" Heero frowned, taking the bottle from her. "We're--"
"They drink it like water, around here," Cat interrupted, taking the bottle back. "Besides, Catholics. It's practically a way of life."
"Fine." Heero snorted and brought out two sandwiches, unwrapping one for himself. He sat cross-legged on the blanket, eyeing the empty tombs around them.
"Creepy, a little," Cat said, following his gaze. "I wonder where Lena is, now."
"Safe." Heero frowned at his sandwich, and refused to voice the rest of his thoughts: I hope, he wanted to add.
"How's your geography? We should discuss plans." Cat glanced sideways at him, then yanked the cork from the bottle. She dug through the basket, grinned, studied the bottle, and wiped the mouth of it off with the cuff of her flight jacket. Putting it to her lips, she took a long swallow. She lowered the bottle with a gasp. "Damn, that's some nice wine. Want some?"
Heero took it without a word, surprised and delighted by the cool, sharp tang of the thick liquid on his tongue. He'd not had red wine that good since Khushrenada's last major victory celebration. The memory tainted the flavor on his tongue, and he shoved the thought away, handing the bottle back to Cat.
"Another hour before the Gundams arrive," Cat said, checking her watch. "Sleep, and then wake? Or take shifts? Your call."
"I don't know the people here."
"I do." Cat sighed. "Dealt with them a few years back. The brothers are a quiet lot, mostly tending the old cathedral, but they still respect their alliance with Sanq."
"Sanq." Heero shook his head.
"You don't like politics," Cat observed.
"Not my job to like or dislike."
"Convenient," she replied, and bit into her sandwich.
They were quiet for a moment, and the cool air of the ancient catacombs settled in around them. Heero imagined he could hear bones shifting, the last breaths of relics accepting the temporary companionship of the living. He smiled internally, thinking Duo would have loved this place. Trowa, on the other hand, probably would have refused to enter out of some bizarre sense of respect for the dead. Odd, for a killer to fear the--
"What?" Cat tilted her head, her eyes narrowed. "What's so funny?"
Heero lost his train of thought, startled by her perceptivity, once again. He'd always been told he had a poker face, and none but his teammates had ever seen past that. This woman was unnerving, sometimes. Too much like Trowa, he thought, if a bit more cheerful on the exterior. He shrugged, and took another long drag of wine.
"Just thinking about my... teammates." He glanced around at the shelves, carved from solid rock, along the walls of their hiding place. "And this place."
Cat made a noncommittal sound. "My brother wouldn't have liked this place. He'd sleep out under the stars and risk it, rather than sleep among the dead."
"My Trowa, too." Heero nodded.
"Your Trowa." Cat raised an eyebrow.
Heero frowned, and turned away, slightly, picking at the remains of his sandwich.
She didn't say anything else, and after a few minutes, instead began discussing plans of attack for nightfall. Nine hours to wait, refuel, check systems and perform repairs, and perhaps sleep, as well... and then to determine what was left, and what they could still do.
0730 GMT; 2330 local
Moab, Utah
Meiran screamed inarticulately when the beam glaive sputtered, flared, and died. "Fuel at ten percent," she barked. Throwing the glaive down, she slammed Nataku into the enemy suit, carrying them both over the side into the canyon.
"Mei!" Quatre lunged forward in his harness, and kicked the foot controls. Sandstone carried his momentum, falling forward as he caught Nataku by the ankle. Over him, Shenlong spun to fire its Vulcan gun at the remaining two mobile suits.
"Winner," Meiran choked, and slammed Nataku's fist into the enemy suit's power generator. The metallic shell burst, energy sparking brighter than the sun flares off the river below. The suit's engines thrummed, then stilled, and Nataku released the suit to fall. "Done," she reported, and held onto the throttles while Sandstone jerkily pulled her back from the edge.
There was a long silence as the three caught their breaths. Finally Shenlong's hatch opened, and a moment later, Sandstone's opened to reveal Quatre, leaning one hand against the cockpit doorframe before he leapt nimbly to the ground. He yelped when he touched down, though, and Meiran laughed softly, wiping the blood from her forehead before hitting the release mechanism on Nataku.
She stumbled out, catching the guide rope by sheer instinct, and let it lower her without caring how fast she was falling. Wufei caught her, though, and she opened her eyes to see Quatre stumbling towards them.
"You're both injured," Wufei said, checking over her with a critical eye. "We need to get the Gundams under cover, too."
"I figured we could use the canyons," Quatre said. His voice was hoarse, and he was favoring his bad ankle. When Wufei glared at the bloodstains on Quatre's flight suit, Quatre waved him off. "Just a minor scratch. I'll bind it once we're hidden." He glanced up at the sun. "Right now, we're too exposed to the satellites."
"Long?" Wufei released Meiran slowly, and ran a hand over her forehead, then down the small of her back. When she gasped, he shook his head. "Get back in Nataku, and I'll tow you. We know a good place... "
"If it's in this world, too," Quatre said, winking. "And if not, we'll wake you up when we find something else."
"Okay," Meiran said, and tilted her head back to stare up at Nataku. Give me strength, she prayed to the mighty beast, and fought off the dizziness such a move prompted. "Sounds... " The world's brightness faded into darkness, and the edges of everything swam in her vision. "I need... " Her voice sounded a long way away.
"Blood loss," Quatre was saying.
"Meiran," Wufei snapped.
"Hunh." Meiran blinked, and clutched the guide rope being put in her hand. Automatically she raised a foot to hook onto the lift mechanism. "Right... " Her eyes closed again, but she didn't let go of the tow.
"Get in there," Wufei ordered. He shoved, and Meiran was lifted, sailing up towards the hatch.
Out of pure habit and total obstinacy, Meiran fell forwards into the cockpit, wondering why she'd bothered to step out of it in the first place. Catching the harness, she bit her lower lip to keep herself conscious long enough to lock it in place. Meiran slumped against the seat, searching out the visual link with numb hands until her fingers found the familiar button. The interior screens lit up, showing a world of rocks as ruddy as the blood on her hands. Quatre and Wufei flashed into view, their links inset into the external viewers. She blinked at them, opened her mouth to speak, and fell forward into oblivion.
0800 GMT; 1000 local
Kassala, Sudan
This is not my definition of thirty clicks, Duo thought glumly, wishing for ice to hold against his pounding head. The sandy rocks of the mountains had been beaten down into roads, but only by the roughest definition. The jeep bounced and struggled across the terrain, traveling at speeds three times what Duo would've expected were possible from such a decrepit vehicle; the driver and his friend yelled at each other over the engine, clearly unperturbed.
Even my driving's not this bad, Duo complained. He leaned over, covering his head with his hands, and the reduction in the sun's morning light was some small relief.
"Pilot," one of the men said, in accented Arabic. "We arrive. Gundam comes soon."
"Yeah, I hope so," Duo muttered, and climbed down from the jeep. "This was a long way to come."
The scenery hadn't changed much around them, although the mountains had eased into foothills at some point. The land rolled in high, soft yellow-ochre peaks away from them, broken only by the scattered white dots of nomadic tents. He could hear goats or sheep bleating in the distance. The door of one tent opened, and a young woman stepped out, dressed in blue jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, but her head was covered with the traditional scarf.
"We had good reason," the driver assured Duo. "My brother's wife's younger sister."
Duo struggled to remember the etiquette, and gave up immediately. He'd never been good at the formalities of family relationships, but a smile had usually worked. It didn't hurt the woman was good-looking - from what he could see of her bright eyes, crinkling at the edges even if the blue scarf hid her smile.
"We have something," she said, and beckoned to Duo.
Inside the tent, he realized it wasn't a traveling shepherd's arrangement, but the living wet dream of any Sweeper. Where he'd expected woolen rugs dyed in elaborate designs, he found himself standing among mobile suit parts.
"These... " In his shock, Duo couldn't remember the Arabic terms. He fell back into Standard. "Spare parts... " Failing that, he just waved his hand helplessly. The woman laughed softly, and Duo's two escorts pounded each other on the back and laughed much louder. Duo gave them a bewildered look.
"Dragon," the woman said, in clear Standard.
She knelt down, pushing aside a number of circuit boards, and brought out a large rolled-up document, laminated neatly. Unrolling it, she knelt back and pointed. The sheet was easily four feet high by six feet long; an impressive schematic made for hanging in a technicians' bay, made to be read from a distance while working on a mobile suit.
A quick reference guide, Duo thought, then stared at the schema.
He blinked, and knelt down to touch the plans reverently.
"It's for a motherfucking Long," he breathed, his eyes wide.
"Motherfucking Long!" The driver crowed, as if this were utterly hysterical. The second escort repeated the phrase, and even the woman joined in, laughing at Duo's complete shock.
After a minute, even Duo had to laugh. It was either that, or cry: he was completely out of reach of all the other pilots. Go figure that it would only be now he'd find a group of non-Standard-speaking nomads who'd somehow ended up with the Holy Grail for defeating the enemy's most vicious suits.
0900 GMT
Dublin, Ireland
Marco tapped on the door, turning the knob only once he heard Zhiyi's tiny voice call out that it was okay to enter.
"Decent?" He asked, and carefully balanced the tray of food in one hand while he shut the door behind him. "I didn't know what you'd like, so Katie made two of everything, I think." He gave the tray a dubious look. "It's heavy, so maybe three."
"I'm starving," Zhiyi admitted, scooting to the end of the small bed to make room. Marco set the tray between them, and she grabbed a scone, biting into it with gusto. "Wow," she said around the mouth of food.
"I've got news," Marco said, after a moment of nibbling a scone as well. He'd eaten in the kitchen, but figured eating with Zhiyi would put her at ease. He liked the kid, but he wouldn't have blamed her for freaking out at some point. Instead, she'd shocked him by being quite matter-of-fact about the whole affair. "We've gotten encrypted messages from Old America. Wufei shut down the planned attacks out there, and saved a lot of people by warning them. The base in the Midwest reported Nataku and Sandstone got away from the attack safely."
"That's all?" Zhiyi gave Marco a sharp look, and for a split second, he could see her mother staring out of those too-old eyes in a young face. "That's not a lot to go on."
"But it's better than nothing, and there's been no word on Foundation transmissions about capturing any of the pilots."
Zhiyi nodded thoughtfully, and licked her fingers. Her shoulders sagged, and she stared at the bowl of eggs. She picked up the fork and stabbed idly at the eggs, glancing up at Marco from under her thick black bangs.
"I don't know," Marco said, answering the unspoken question. "I'm just a technician, really."
"And I'm just a kid," Zhiyi shot back. "But we can't just sit here. What's Aunt Une doing?"
"She's... " Marco sighed. "She's been captured."
Zhiyi's mouth fell open, and then she seemed to pull in on herself with a frown. "We have to do something," she announced.
"What can be done, is," Marco replied. "Your mother, and aunts, and those men--"
"No," Zhiyi said, shaking her head. She bounced to her feet, and tugged her shirt down, apparently unaware or uncaring of the dirt on her knees, the scrape on her cheek, or the untidiness of her hair from their dash to safety and midnight boat-ride to Ireland. "You can sit here and wait, but I'm gonna do something."
"Zhiyi!" Marco stood up, annoyed, but Zhiyi had already thrown the door open and stomped downstairs to the small pub's back room. He looked at the scone, dropped it on the tray with the rest, and took off after the young girl.
He found her a few minutes later, standing on the table in the meeting room, surrounded by stunned and silenced Irishmen.
"Everyone talks too much!" Zhiyi put her hands on her hips. "My mother's out there fighting. We should be, too!"
"Like what, missy? You have extra Gundams and a way to teach us how to use them?" A younger man, leaning against the rusted gas stove, gave her a sardonic smile. "Our job isn't to fight, but to relay information. That's our base's purpose."
"Time to get a new purpose, then," Zhiyi retorted. "We can't let them be out there all on their own, doing all the fighting for us."
"We have lives, and we can't pay the price--" The young man halted, recognizing the look of irritation on Zhiyi's face. He scowled and looked away, shrugging.
"My mother pays the price in every battle, to protect me," Zhiyi said, stomping one foot childishly. None of the men laughed, and Marco remained in the doorway, waiting, uncertain. Zhiyi turned in a circle. "I'm not going to be protected anymore! I'll fight, too. I was born on Earth. Mother always says you fight for what's important to you, so I'll fight for Earth." She frowned, and her lower lip trembled. "And for my Mother. And my aunts. And my... uncles."
"Zhiyi," Marco said, stepping forward. "I don't want you holding a gun. And your mother wouldn't want you to, either."
Zhiyi gave him a suspicious look, but when he didn't back down, she nodded slowly and accepted his help down from the table.
"Gentlemen," Marco said, looking around. "I don't want her fighting, but the little lady is right. We need to fight, too."
"We're not--" The young man opened his mouth, but an older man cut him off.
"Ed, shut up," the second man said, and sighed heavily. "The kid's right. Maybe if we were just another bunch of drunken louts, we'd just cheer for the Gundams like they're the fighting doggies playing footy on the town green. But we're not, and they're not."
The declaration was met with several reluctant nods. Marco frowned in confusion. He wasn't sure whether the man was speaking in favor of Marco's request, or against it.
"We've let a bunch of kids fight for us," another man said. "Now it's the darkest hour... "
"Agreed," a fourth man said, standing up. "I'll talk to Trinity."
"Belfast was on the line this morning," a fifth man said. "I'll notify them."
"Sundown," the first man said, and stood. He gave Zhiyi a kind smile, settling his large callused hand on the top of Zhiyi's head. "Little lady, if you really want to fight, come with us and be our general."
"Your... " Zhiyi paused, and jutted out her lower lip. "You mean you want a mascot," she said, in a sulky tone.
The man laughed, a deep cheerful sound, echoed by chuckles from several other men. "General mascot," one called, and more laughter filled the meeting room.
"General Gee-yee," the first man said, shaking his head. "And Lieutenant Marco," he added, with a wink to Marco. "Come with us, and I'll show you our real headquarters. You can help us organize our first battle from there."
1000 GMT; 1200 local
Cantoira, Italy
Lena struggled with the last of the camo drape over Talon, tying it firmly against Talon's head-crest. She stepped back, shook her head at the shoddy attempt, and shouldered her pack. The sun had been up for several hours, and she couldn't be certain that no one had seen her pass, despite running close to the mountain ranges at the north-west edge of Old Sanq. It wasn't Sanq anymore, and hadn't been for six or seven years, but she still thought of the world in terms of her childhood geography.
An hour's hike through steep woods and alpine forests, and she came down into the lower lands and vineyards. Stepping out onto a gravel road, she followed it until entering the town. She kept her head down, a ball cap pulled low with the brim shading her face from the bright sun. Lena was ready and willing to keep walking into the next town and into Turin, if need be, but a cheerful sign over a restaurant - painted with an elaborate decoration of roses in the right order and colors - caught her eye.
The place was empty but for one waitress, straightening chairs around one of the back tables. When she approached, Lena smiled politely.
"Beautiful roses on the sign," Lena said, trying to remember her Italian.
The woman paused, blew a strand of gray hair from her eyes, and stared hard at Lena before backing up a step.
"Princess Relena," the woman said, in a shocked voice, and bobbed a curtsey. "Olivia Silva, your highness."
"Please, none of that," Lena replied, laughing self-consciously. "I'm just... " She sighed, and put her bag down. "Are you serving lunch yet?"
"Anytime for you, please, sit," the woman said, hustling Lena away from the front. "The chairs here are too hard. In the back, we have comfortable chairs," and she yelled out something in a flurry of Italian that Lena couldn't catch.
"I don't want to be a--"
Lena couldn't get much more out and three men had appeared, with the same round closed-off faces as the woman currently pushing and pulling her towards the back of the restaurant. They brightened at Lena, and began rushing about. One of the young men disappeared out the back, and Lena panicked for a half-second, then she was being pushed into an over-stuffed chair and handed a bowl of stew and a thick slice of bread.
"Sebastian Silva, your highness," the woman's husband said, sitting down across from her on a long wooden bench. "Things are very bad. We listen to the news. We're glad you're safe. My sons have gone to get the local leaders to speak with you."
The kitchen was crammed with an old stove, the family's table, a bench, the chair, and three dogs sleeping by the unlit fireplace. The overhead beams were thick and black from centuries of smoke, and the room was lit by a single bare light bulb and two small windows set in foot-thick stone walls.
Lena choked on a large piece of tomato, and gave him a startled look. "Speak to me?" She frowned, and shook her head. "I'm not royalty. I haven't been for years. I only wanted a safe place to eat before I keep going."
"In daylight?" Sebastian scowled. "It's not safe. You stay here," and he pointed emphatically downwards. "We will help. Where is your Gundam?"
"Hidden, outside of town," Lena answered, wary.
"Good," Sebastian replied, satisfied. "If we don't know, we can't tell, eh, Olivia?" He grinned at his wife, who rolled her eyes and put another thick slice of bread next to Lena's bowl.
"Eat, you're too skinny," she informed Lena sternly.
"That's Olivia," Sebastian said, winking at Lena. "She gets over her fear real fast, doesn't she."
Lena was saved from any answer by the appearance of the couple's son and two older men, about Sebastian's age. They bowed low, and stared at each other for several seconds. Lena sighed, aware they'd probably silently egg each other on while she finished the entire bowl before they'd work up the nerve to speak. She considered her rudimentary plans, and ditched them in favor of working with the local rebels instead of waiting until she got to Turin.
"Is there a Foundation base around here, or a headquarters for the local military presence?" Lena looked from face to face, waiting.
"Yes," the first man said. He was dark-haired, but shot with silver; his thick, neatly trimmed beard was completely silver. "Martin Lorenti, your highness. I'm the town's Deputy Mayor. This is Vincent Fiori, the resistance leader." Both men bowed again, and the Silvia family followed with a startled look to each other, uncertain whether continual bowing was necessary.
"Please, sit," Lena said, waving a hand to them. "I don't stand on formality," and she hoped that was enough to make them relax. She was getting tired just watching all the bowing. I'll outlaw bowing if I ever come back to Sanq officially, she promised herself. She'd forgotten how annoying it could be. When everyone had settled in, Lena stalled to organize her thoughts by having a few more bites of soup, and tried not to think about the five sets of eyes watching her every move. She set the spoon in the bowl, and leaned forward, her elbows on the old wooden table polished smooth by generations of elbows. "Do you know if the Foundation headquarters here have a broadcasting station?"
"Yes," Martin replied, his brow furrowed. "And large satellite dishes and antennae on top of the building. If you came from the south, you would have seen it, on the road out of town."
"Good." Lena smiled, aware it wasn't a feminine look, but a calculating one. "Does the Foundation's commandant have family in town?"
Martin nodded.
"And do you have someone trustworthy who knows his or her way around broadcasting equipment? I'll need access, with security and encryption." Lena tore a piece off the second slice of bread, and chewed while the group pondered.
"My son," Vincent said, in a deep voice, scratchy with age. His bald head shone in the lamplight. "He's a good boy."
"Excellent," Lena replied, and began to outline her idea.
1100 GMT; 1300 local
Kassala, Sudan
Not for the first time, Duo wished he had Trowa's knack with languages. The basic Arabic - badly accented on both sides - made things difficult, but the plethora of spare parts collected by the nomads was heartening.
Deathscythe Hell was looking a bit worse for wear, after three hours trundling through rough mountain roads under cover of a hundred head of sheep. Somehow the local nomads had rigged up boards across his buddy, and piled their sheep in overhead. Duo sighed at the catastrophe of sheep droppings spattering Deathscythe Hell's night-black paint job, and figured he'd just run the mecha through the rain the next chance he got. Glancing up at the clear blue sky, he scowled.
No rain likely here, he told himself.
"Pictures." One of the men - whom Duo had taken to calling Squeaky, for his light tenor voice and perpetually wide eyes - approached with a disk and a waterbag.
Duo gratefully took the water, sipping rather than guzzling. Last thing he needed was to get sick from rehydrating too quickly. Wiping his forehead with his forearm, he held up the disk and grinned at Squeaky.
"Thanks, man," he said, and hopped up on Deathscythe Hell's chest to begin stage two. The Standard phrase was repeated behind him, and he waved from the cockpit before dropping into the dark interior.
In two hours he'd managed to rip out the entire chair and harness system. It felt a bit odd, gutting Deathscythe Hell so completely, but if he wanted his mecha to duplicate the maneuverability of the vicious Long he had to start somewhere. Besides, he had a few ideas on improvements. Duo dropped down into the empty box of the cockpit, and slid the disk into the systems access panel slot. Deathscythe Hell flickered, reading the code, and Duo began setting up transmission encryption for all channels. He checked and double-checked, and then hit send.
"Anyone listening other than us," he told the silent mecha with a grin, "and they'll get it all. Hopefully they'll figure it out."
Then he set to work. Every few minutes he popped out of the cockpit to find another shepherd grinning from the perch on Deathscythe Hell's chest, ready to holler down to the ground for several of the waiting runners to fetch this piece of equipment or that tool. A great deal of the work was on the fly, but Duo had a basic idea of his design, and no fear using something in a manner completely unlike its origin. He began by bolting the original seat's base back to the floor, but using a catalytic shield as the seat. Slicing the cushion from his own seat, he rummaged in Deathscythe Hell's scant toolbox, coming up with a roll of duct tape. He grinned widely, and a few seconds later the cushion was securely attached to the shield.
It was awkward, sitting on the back of the cockpit wall, but it did provide easier access to the wiring harnesses for the foot pedals, which he'd removed along with the seat. A few shouted orders, some pauses for elaborations in rough Arabic, and Duo was opening his arms to accept a bevy of strange equipment torn from several mecha over the years. Some of it worked; what didn't fit his needs, he tossed out the cockpit for the men to gather and return to their storage tents.
Four hours later the sun was stretching Deathscythe Hell's shadow across the desert floor, and Duo had completed the bottom half of his adapted design. Holding onto the panel, he settled onto his stool. There was now a foot worth of space behind him, with no back support; he made a mental note to correct that once he had opportunity. With one hand clutching the overhead Temurah lock-bar, Duo suspended himself with his feet planted on the cockpit floor. Carefully he slipped his feet into the braces, and twisted until he could reach his shins to snap the braces shut. Still holding on, he gritted his teeth and reached out for the startup sequence, plugging in the security codes.
Deathscythe Hell fired into life, verniers rumbling a deep purr, and Duo grinned. Then he began moving his legs, and out the view screen, he could see Deathscythe Hell kicking against the ground as if throwing a temper tantrum. He started to laugh, almost letting go of the handle over his head and falling backwards. He caught himself with a jerk.
"Crap, don't need to knock myself out now, eh," he told the mecha. "We're halfway there!"
Deathscythe Hell didn't answer, but the purring engines sounded to Duo like the machine agreed.
1100 GMT; 0300 local
Hunter's Canyon, Utah
Quatre checked the bandage on Meiran's back, and sat back on his heels. Wufei raised his eyebrows, and shifted Meiran back into a comfortable position. Wufei stared down at her exhausted, dirt-lined face, and pushed the dark hair from her face.
"It's stopped bleeding, at least," Quatre said.
"Good," Wufei said, and yawned. He glowered at Quatre's amused look, and shifted Meiran in his arms a second time. "Stop that."
"We all need sleep. Unbroken, unstressed non-battle sleep," Quatre said, and leaned back to stare up at the night sky.
A million stars dotted the velvet overhead, and he sighed, shivering a bit in the chilly breeze. The canyon funneled the wind off the nearby river, dissipating the heat radiating off the canyon walls. The three Gundams were secreted a half-mile apart from each other, tucked into back canyons and under arches where Quatre and Wufei could find them. Quatre had taken Nataku while Wufei performed preliminary triage at the campsite, waiting for Quatre to return with the med-kit from Nataku, which was more complete than the one in Sandstone or Shenlong.
"I don't know if we should stay through the day," Quatre said, and pulled the blanket up and around his and Wufei's shoulders, with Meiran lying cradled between them. "From the sky, the satellites might pick up the shapes."
"By then, the heat signatures will be gone, so there won't be anything to alert them," Wufei replied. "And all three of us need a day, I think. We can't go on battle-mode permanently. This would have been the last night of the attack."
"I don't know if there is such a thing as a 'last night'," Quatre said. Meiran shifted, and he leaned back to let the moonlight illuminate her face. Her eyelashes fluttered, and she groaned softly.
"You bastards," she muttered. "Where's my Gundam?"
Wufei chuckled dryly.
"Safe," Quatre said. "Low on fuel, eighty-percent operational, but safe."
"Fuel," Meiran repeated. "First priority. Then ammunition."
Wufei snorted. "What, out of thin air? Do I look like Maxwell?"
"Is your Maxwell a thief, too?" Meiran twisted to look up at Wufei, amused. She reached up, and tugged on Wufei's battered ponytail. Strands hung down around his face, and she grasped one, twisting it around her finger. "You'd look good in a braid."
Wufei slapped her hand away. "Stop that, woman."
"No, man," Meiran replied, and grinned. She poked Wufei in the chest. "The Maxwell I knew was a thief, and a damn good one. What time is it?"
"Three," Quatre said. "Roughly."
"Sunrise at six, and we're... how far from a military base? Must be one nearby if we ran into those suits." Meiran narrowed her eyes, staring up at the sky. "Not too far; the Ma's fuel reservoir is too small to go for long without refueling capacity."
"What's not too far? Ten miles?" Wufei scrabbled around in the dirt, and brought up a rock. He leaned over and began scratching on the ground, deep grooves that showed up neatly in the moon's strong light. "That's where Quatre found us. We flew from there, past these landmarks... following the river, four canyons in, turn towards the south, and fifteen miles."
"That's the town," Meiran said, pointing to a spot half-way on the rudimentary drawing. "I saw it on Nataku's sensors. The base will be somewhere just outside of town."
"Which could be five miles plus or minus," Quatre replied, shaking his head.
"Do we have the fuel to get to the base?" Meiran looked at the two men. "Then we start there. Attack, refuel, reload, and then strike out separately and continue the battleplan."
"They're expecting us," Quatre warned.
"Then we need to attack when they're not expecting us," Meiran replied, unruffled.
The two men exchanged a look over her head, but said nothing. She tugged them both down to lie together, and curled up in the gap between them, scooting down so her head was pillowed on Quatre's stomach and her feet were tucked up against Wufei's knees.
"That can't be comfortable," Quatre observed.
"Shush, and connect," Meiran ordered, closing her eyes. She pulled the blanket over her head, pushing it up until Wufei and Quatre took the hint and brought it up to cover them, as well.
A quick tap on Quatre's hip from Meiran made him squirm. He pointed down at the lump in the blanket, and gave Wufei a puzzled look.
"I changed my mind," Wufei mouthed. "You can keep her. She's too bossy."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Quatre said back, also silently. "You take first watch?" When Wufei nodded, Quatre leaned forward, caught Wufei's mouth in a quick kiss, and settled down with his forehead against Wufei's. For all her imperious attitude, Meiran's intuition was right. Wufei and Quatre would need a night of connecting to relax the buffer if they were to be able to keep going.
He sent a mental feeling of gratitude towards the sleeping bundled curled up between them. Quatre yawned, and spared a moment to worry about his teammates before letting the cool canyon winds lull him into sleep.
1100 GMT; 1300 local
Massawa, Eritrea
Trowa sat back, a hand on his lower back as he stretched. He'd spent two hours so far, hunched over the radio connected to the laptop component he'd pulled from Broadarms. It was a risk; without connection to Broadarms' full system, the laptop's minor programs weren't fully protected from prying eyes. He'd left Broadarms in the care of several Beja back in the mountain range, though. It wasn't like he could leave a massive mecha laying along the shore of the Red Sea and not have someone notice.
Although, he thought, eventually someone might notice that I'm sitting here getting burnt to a crisp. If I'd known I'd be tanning, I would've brought more sunscreen and less ammo.
He smirked and pulled his shirt over his head again, ignoring the awkward pull it put on his arms to wear a shirt so oddly. So far, between the radio, the water, the cloudless sky, and the laptop, he'd been able to pick up seventeen different broadcasts from across the world, some piggy-backed, some encrypted, some on open channels. He'd listened to the Foundation's news reports - all boasting of successful retaliations on the terrorist Gundams. The private transmissions by the Foundation, however, assured Trowa that so far no Gundam had been caught.
The laptop ran another scan on available signals, and beeped. A new channel had opened, and Trowa frowned, narrowing it down to a satellite somewhere on the far side of the LaGrange system. If he were in Broadarms he could run Duo's trace program and find the source, or at least something farther back than the last stop, but he figured it was a safe bet the signal didn't come from its labeled origin. He sighed; the encryption was making everything too difficult. No one was doing what they said, and everyone was putting covers and codes in their broadcasts, and probably everyone was mostly capable of reading all the other broadcasts, anyway.
"You'd think they'd wise up and not bother with the effort," he told the silver laptop. The laptop continued to record the signal, and Trowa frowned. There was no sound, and no electronic signal. He narrowed the beam to a tenth of a degree, and tried again, startled when the signal erupted clearly and the laptop's screen filled with lines of code.
He stared at the gibberish, confused, until it paused, and started again. Trowa looked around, with the intense sensation someone was watching him, and stared down at the lines of gibberish.
Then he started to laugh.
There, at the bottom of the code, was a single line that clearly did not fit with the rest of the random strings of letters, numbers, and symbols.
<? ini_set('include_path', '.:../death/'); include_once("hell"); ?>
Duo.
Trowa chuckled, saved the massive string, and reopened it as an image. There, unfolding on the small screen, was a huge picture made up of twenty or so photographs pieced together. He scrolled across, then down, his eyes widening.
"Jackpot," he whispered, stunned. Saving the file, he hurriedly shut down the laptop, disconnected the radio, and tucked everything under his arms. Yanking the shirt back down off his head, he turned and ran across the rocks, balancing like a mountain goat leaping from promontory to peak until he reached the even grasslands.
Then he fell into a pace and ran hell-bent-for-leather for the hidden Broadarms. He had work to do, if he was to keep up with his teammate.
1200 GMT; 1400 local
Cantoira, Italy
Tritorelli's maid was willing to cooperate, but probably because she was dating the Silvia's elder son, Lena remarked in a rather irritated fashion. Maria was several years younger than Lena, with large dark eyes and glossy black hair - and an utterly pathetic actress. Knowing Lena's purpose, thanks to the Silvia's son, Maria was unable to look even remotely frightened. Instead, she just giggled.
Lena rolled her eyes, and pulled her .45 from the back of her jeans. She unlocked the safety - a resounding click in the Tritorelli's small foyer - and shoved the gun into Maria's nose.
"Now," Lena snarled.
Suddenly Maria was all business, and cowered suitably. She nodded, sinking down a little, and Lena spun her around. Moving the gun until it was pressed against the girl's hip, Lena followed Maria into the back room.
"Maria? Who was at the door?" A woman's cultured voice called from inside the room.
"A guest," Maria said, and pushed the door open.
Lena shoved Maria away harshly and stepped across the threshold. In one shot she took down the guard standing by the door. He gave her a stunned look even as his eyes went dull. She spun smoothly in a circle, catching the second guard in the chest. The silencer on the gun made a popping sound. Lena spun again, checking the room. It was empty but for some blood-spattered garden furniture, a few potted plants, two dead bodies and the wife of the local commandant.
"You," Lena said, and motioned with the gun to the petite woman, "are coming with me."
"Where are you taking me?" The woman shrank away from Lena, but obediently held still when Lena leveled the gun at her. "Whatever you want, take it, just don't--"
"Oh, shut up," Lena said, snappishly. "I'm not in the mood. We're going to visit your husband." She kept the gun on Mrs. Tritorelli, and with her free hand yanked a pillowcase from where it was tucked into her back jeans pocket. "Put this over your head."
"Why?" Mrs. Tritorelli frowned, staring at the bundle of fabric.
"You rather I knock you out instead?" Lena took a step forward, and swung the gun by the trigger until the butt was a few inches above the woman's head. Mrs. Tritorelli's eyes never left the gun, mesmerized, and she shook her head, an almost-imperceptible movement. Lena stepped back, returning the gun to its focus on the woman's chest. "Then do what I say."
A few minutes later the two were moving out the back door, Mrs. Tritorelli shuffling slowly despite Lena's best attempts to get the woman to move. Fortunately Martin and Sebastian were waiting in the alley, with local resistance forces running watch at the ends of the street. They shoved the whimpering woman into the back seat, and Lena climbed in beside her, covering them both with a blanket.
In the quiet of the car's muffled engine, and the heat of the late summer day, Lena could hear her own pounding heart drowning everything else out. What if Sebastian and the rest of the forces had been infiltrated? What if she'd just murdered two men only to find out she was heading for a trap of her own? What if there was an entire force waiting, armed and primed, at the commandant's headquarters? What if the radio didn't allow encrypted broadcasting on non-Foundation lines? What if...
Too late now, she scolded herself. Focus on the mission, and like she had for many years, she remembered blue eyes staring her down in a dormitory room over the muzzle of a gun. She'd stood up to that, and so much more, and if he could hold onto his mission despite all else, so could she.
Lena took a deep breath, felt along the barrel of the gun to make sure the safety was truly off, mentally counted the number of rounds left, and braced herself for the next stage of her mission.
The car pulled up and stopped, and Sebastian muttered something quietly in Italian.
Lena pushed the blanket off her head, and opened the door, pulling Mrs. Tritorelli out with her. They huddled behind the car, standing only as the car pulled away from the stoplight. To anyone at the commandant's office, it would seem as though they'd just appeared on the other side of the street, although the pillowcase over Mrs. Tritorelli's head was a bit unusual. Lena pulled it off with a flourish, and the petite woman blinked a few times before looking down at the gun pressed into her ribs.
"Is that really--"
"Yeah," Lena said, mentally cursing stupid women. She thought of herself at age fifteen, and decided to give Mrs. Tritorelli a bit more credit. Perhaps there was something about the complete uniqueness of the event that made a person incredulous. "Let's go for a visit," Lena said, and nudged the woman forward.
The guards at the front door stepped forward when the two women approached the low concrete building, but the sight of Mrs. Tritorelli's frightened eyes, or the flash of sun off a burnished metal barrel - and the two men stepped back immediately. Lena nodded, and smoothly moved past them.
"Radio office, and don't fuckin' lie to me," Lena whispered. "Let me get what I want, and you - and your sweetie - will get out alive."
"Please," the woman breathed, slumping in relief at having a task, a key to survival. "I pass it on the way to my husband's office. It's up here on the right. I think it's the second one."
"You think?" Lena looked around at the bland white walls, the row of seven or eight doors on each side, fire doors of solid metal. A wooden door was at the end of the hall; the commandant's office, she figured. "Which is it?"
"I saw people talking on radios there, when the door was open." Mrs. Tritorelli tried the second door, and it didn't budge. She moved to the next door, Lena trailing her closely, and it was locked, as well. "I can hear people in there," she whispered. "That's the door."
"You sure?" Lena stared at the woman for a second, aware of rushing feet down the hall. They were still keeping their distance, so she had some time. When Mrs. Tritorelli nodded, Lena steeled herself, grabbed the woman in a chokehold, aimed at the door and fired.
The lock exploded, and Mrs. Tritorelli screamed, slumping in Lena's arms. Spinning, Lena covered the hallways, checking anxiously before continuing the turn and shoving Mrs. Tritorelli into the room. Two men were standing, hands up, mouths open, and Lena shot both without flinching. She kicked the door closed behind her, shoved the woman away, and grabbed the nearest chair, prying it under the half-busted doorknob.
Even with her gun pointed away from the woman, Lena noted, Mrs. Tritorelli didn't seem to have much will to do more than cower. Lena shoved the gun in the back of her jeans, hoped her hostage didn't get any wise ideas, and began pushing at one of the heavy wooden desks until it blocked the door halfway.
"Good enough," she muttered. She dug in her pocket for the cell phone, hit the speed dial, and waited. "I'm in," she said, not waiting for the person to say anything.
The radio controls were a bank of dials and knobs. Above them were a line of small television screens; one was playing a local soccer game with the sound turned down. Lena studied the dials, hitting the buttons and shifting frequencies as Vincent's son directed her.
"All set?" He asked, in thickly accented Standard.
"Yeah. Now?" Lena pulled out her gun, training it on Mrs. Tritorelli just to make sure. There was banging in the hallway, as several guards tried to beat down the door. "Sit on the desk," Lena barked, motioning towards the door with her gun. "Don't let them in!"
Mrs. Tritorelli squeaked, and hurried to the door, but giving the two dead bodies the widest berth she could manage. When Lena glared, the woman hopped off the desk, shoved it closer to the door with a frightened grunt, and then took her place on it again. Lena grinned to herself, and turned her attention back to the radio. She grabbed the mike, prepared to hit the button to broadcast, when something on one of the televisions caught her eyes.
"Zhiyi," she whispered, almost dropping the phone.
End Part 23
(:./sol/tetra23)
