Diana was very, very tired by the time they left the party at two in the morning. She knew that she'd told Quatre she was fine, and that she didn't need as much sleep as a human, but the truth was she was pushing it now. She hadn't slept for a full day before the raid on the Alliance base that had led to her capture - the fifteen minutes she spent unconscious because of a mild concussion when she barely got clear of that explosion didn't count - then there'd been the lengthy beating the soldiers had given to her, and they broke her leg, not too badly, just enough to keep her in pain. Then came several hours of interrogation, then they tossed her in with Quatre and the others. She hadn't dared to sleep while they were torturing Quatre, because she didn't know who the others were and what they would do if she slept. Then came her own torture session - and she didn't count time spent in a self-induced-coma to count as rest, either. Then they'd escaped. She supposed that she could (and probably should) have rested when the Gundam pilots did on the way back, but it seemed like a waste of the only vacation time she was going to get, so she spent the time talking with the others and snuggling with Andrew. So she didn't get any sleep then. Then came the catch-up work at the base and then this stupid party... all told she'd probably been up for more than three days straight, and they hadn't been easy days. At least she'd met her contact, and had arranged another meeting in a more secret location, so they could talk seriously. The man was just as flighty as she'd feared, but he was willing to give them money. Quatre had done very well - she doubted anyone except Velanz had noticed. Which reminded her...
The truth was that she was about to drop, but her own stubbornness and curiosity was keeping her awake. She had thought, during the party, that she'd seen Velanz beat a hasty retreat across the room, his face rather pale. What in the galaxy could Quatre have said to upset a man who had ordered the deaths of thousands without batting an eyelash? Her curiosity had been eating away at her for hours now, so the second they were safely away in her limo, she turned to Quatre. "Well?"
He looked as tired as she felt. "What?"
"What did you say to Velanz? I don't think I've ever seen that expression on his face before. He looked terrified."
Quatre sat up a little straighter and frowned. "I didn't mean to upset him," he murmured.
Diana stared at him in disbelief. They'd told her that back on their own world, they were all soldiers fighting in some sort of huge robots and had each personally killed hundreds of people. They were terrorists, assassins, and outlaws, with thousands of people out to kill them or worse. It wasn't possible that anyone could go through all that and remain as innocent and... well, good as Quatre seemed to be. It wasn't possible. Was it?
Holding firmly onto her temper, Diana asked, "What did you say to him?"
"I told him I was sorry. He's in so much pain, even if he doesn't realize it," Quatre said. "He lost his father... just like me. It drove me crazy," he said sadly. "I think it did the same thing for him. I had some wonderful friends to help me come through it. I don't think he has any. I... I feel sorry for him."
Diana continued to stare at him, examining him as if he was some sort of foreign life form. She knew, intellectually, that science had never proven the existence of alien life in the universe, but she was about ready to hand Quatre over to some of those scientists and see what they got. She was beginning to see why Velanz had run.
"I see," she said neutrally.
He turned to look at her. "I know you probably think I'm crazy," he said seriously. "The others all do, even Trowa. But I can't help the way I feel."
There went her theory that the five of them were really some new species. So Quatre was the only one who was crazy.
"It's all right," she said with a shake of her head. "Don't worry about it. I don't know how I'll ever be able to repay you for what you did tonight. You saved a lot of lives."
"I'm honored, but we really need to get back to our world. Things may be happening there, and we need to be there when they happen."
"I promise that we'll do everything we can to figure out what happened, and figure out how to send you back as soon as possible," Diana said, meaning every word of what she said, for a change.
"Quatre!" Trowa exclaimed softly as the limo arrived in the hangar. Diana climbed out first, looking as poised as ever, but Trowa noticed that her shoulders were drooping slightly, and thought that she was probably exhausted. When Quatre climbed out after her, he definitely looked exhausted.
"Diana... " Andrew suddenly stepped forward, offering a supporting arm to Diana as Trowa stepped forward to offer the same service to Quatre, who gratefully threw an arm over his shoulder and leaned heavily on him.
"This way," Andrew said with a jerk of his head. "We have a room upstairs with some half-way comfortable bunks. It should be deserted this time of day."
"I'm... fine," Diana said unconvincingly.
"Sure, anything you say, sir," Andrew said, completely ignoring her as he helped her to the elevator.
A minute later Trowa helped Quatre out of the tuxedo, which he insisted on removing before he went to bed. Apparently Andrew was having similar problems with Diana, since she emerged from another room dressed in a pair of pants and a long-sleeve shirt. She was giving Andrew a long, complicated series of instructions that Trowa did not understand, and continued to speak as Andrew calmly guided her to a bunk and pushed her down until she was lying down. Then, in a motion almost to fast to actually see, he pulled something out of his pocket and touched it to her neck.
Suddenly Diana's eyes flew open and she sat upright. "You sneaky little bastard!" she exclaimed as Andrew calmly pushed her back onto the bed. Surprisingly, Diana didn't openly resist him, although she continued cursing for several seconds, finally trailing off to silence. Trowa looked over and saw that she was apparently asleep.
He raised an eyebrow and looked at Andrew. "You drugged your commanding officer?" he asked.
Andrew shrugged. "She doesn't always rest when she needs to. This was made specifically for her. It'll wear off in four hours." He shot a glance at Quatre. "Now, are you going to be reasonable, or am I going to have to estimate the dosage for you?" he asked, sounding perfectly reasonable.
Quatre looked at Andrew for a second, then at Trowa, who raised one eyebrow slightly, letting his lover know that he was quite willing to let Andrew drug him if he didn't cooperate. Quate turned a little pale and hurriedly lay down. "I'll go to sleep," he said quickly.
"Good choice," Andrew remarked, then glanced at Trowa. "If you're not out of here in five minutes, I'll come back in and drag you out," he instructed, and then walked out the door.
"He has a bedside manner like Heero's," Quatre commented.
"But he's right, you need rest," Trowa said softly, leaning over to give Quatre a kiss. "Sleep well."
"I will, koi."
Trowa smiled slightly, then left the room, turning off the lights as he did. Not that it would make much difference - Diana was going to sleep whether or not she liked it, and Quatre was a Gundam pilot - they could sleep anytime and anywhere they wanted, but it seemed right. Andrew was waiting for him outside. "We can't thank you guys enough for what he just did. Good as we are, I wasn't going to be able to be in two places at one time, and Diana said that he did great."
"We really need to get back to our own world," Trowa responded.
"We're working on it, really. Shin's been at it non-stop since we got back."
"Shin?" there was no emotion in his voice, but Trowa knew that Andrew would understand the question and all the implied questions that followed it.
"He may not look like it, but he's a mathematical genius. He's the one with the head for numbers, quantum theory and suchlike. We're all capable of processing the data, but he's the one who can put it all together. If anyone can find out what happened and how to get you back, it will be him."
"Thank you," Trowa said, wishing they'd been able to give him a more positive answer, but slightly reassured that they were working on the problem. He knew that Heero and Duo were doing something about it, too, although he wasn't sure if right now that something involved sex or not. It seemed entirely possible - they'd disappeared an hour ago to do some sort of 'special research' and had locked themselves in a room, much to the distress of Diana's people, who were trying not to let it show.
"They're back?" Wufei asked as Trowa walked into the room where Wufei was exercising with a practice blade.
"Mm."
"And Heero and Duo are still... "
Trowa nodded, and Wufei snorted derisively, although Trowa knew for a fact that Wufei had a lover of his own back on their world. A male lover. Maybe Wufei was just snorting at them abandoning whatever work they were doing. Or maybe he was irritated because they'd probably invited him to join them - again. Or maybe he was just in a bad mood. That was always a possibility.
The question was answered a second later when a woman came striding out of the women's locker room, her hair still wet from a shower. She smiled at Wufei. "Nice spar, kid," she told him, as Wufei's body suddenly became one long string of tense muscles. "Remember to keep your guard up for that kick. Otherwise you would have had me. Good luck." And, with a slight nod to Trowa, she left the room, whistling cheerfully to herself, and Trowa hid a smile.
He glanced at Wufei, who'd gone back to his practice, but there was a definite air of anger about him now as he made the movements.
"She beat you?" Trowa asked, and a growl was his only answer. Trowa felt his lips twist upwards as he left the exercise room. Who would have guessed?
Quatre and Trowa were the last to arrive. Diana had woken up after four hours of apparently drugged sleep, because Duo had heard the scolding she gave to an unrepentant Andrew. Quatre had slept for several hours after that, but when he got up, he told them the entire story, about what he'd seen at the party. From what he'd heard, the people in charge around here were just as duplicitous as Romafeller was. The only change was that for some strange reason, Diana was able to meet with them both in battle and in a party - Duo didn't get that part, and wasn't sure he wanted to. He was crazy enough as it was, and he had the disturbing impression that their doubles here were even farther gone than he was, even if they didn't show it very often.
"So, what's the deal?" Duo asked immediately.
"We have lots and lots of good and bad news," Diana said simply. "Shin's been working on your problem, and he thinks he figured out how the hell you ended up here."
"How?" Quatre asked.
"Luck," Shin said, sounding disgusted. "The most amazing set of coincidences I've ever seen. The two devices in the two different universes are linked, and don't ask me how that happened, because I have no idea. But they're linked at a level that transcends both universes - it was something to do with the construction, despite the fact that they were built for different purposes, from what you've told me. Anyway, nothing would have happened, except for some other pretty startling coincidences. Apparently the two universes are sort of... spinning, in different directions. They only align once a month, again for reasons that I can't begin to comprehend."
"Let me guess, the two universes were aligned when we came over."
"Yes, but that's not the end of it. Now, you can only travel between universes when they're aligned, but even that wouldn't have happened if not for the two linked machines. It couldn't - people would be jumping back and forth every month if that was the case. So what appears to have happened was that the two machines were triggered simultaneously - and I'm talking down to one one-hundredth of a second - and that somehow opened a tunnel from one universe to the other, and you got sucked in. Of course, this is all just theoretical."
Duo stared at him. "Was that the good news or the bad news?"
"Neither. That was the background. The first good news is that I think we can get you back. The first bad news is that we have to wait until the universes align again, in twenty-one days, eight hours... " he closed his eyes briefly. "... thirteen minutes, and fifteen seconds, approximately. The timing there isn't quite as precise as the timing for the machines."
"We have to wait twenty-one days to go back?" Duo exclaimed. That was three weeks. They'd already been here for five days - almost a month would have passed by the time they got back. A lot of things could happen in a month. Way too many things could happen in a month.
"Yes, but there's some good news on that account. According to what I've seen - no time should have passed - or very little, anyway. I think that less than a day will have passed in your world when you get back."
"How is that possible?" Wufei asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Do you really want me to get into the physics?" Shin replied with an identical raised eyebrow, and Wufei shook his head. "Anyway, you don't have to worry about that, at least."
Duo didn't like the sound of that. "What do we have to worry about?"
"Well, there is the little fact that the machine in question on our side is currently in the hands of the Alliance, and is likely to stay that way for some time. And from what you've told us, the machine on your side isn't particularly accessible, either. And, when we send you back, you're still going to be in an enemy base. And we don't know who activated either machine. It is possible that activating one machine somehow triggered the other, but I still don't know which machine was activated first. Ours shouldn't have been, but neither should have yours, based on what you told us. There are quite a few unexplained occurrences here, and I'm not sure what else to do to get those answers."
"Can you get us back?" Heero asked, the first thing he'd said since they started.
"Yes. Of course, we're going to have to break you guys back into that base, assuming that they haven't moved that device - Andrew's looking for it now. There will probably be some increased security, but the six of us can handle it, and we've already got some diversions set up."
"The six of you?" Quatre asked, astonished. "But don't you... " he looked at Diana, who was watching all of them.
"I told you we owed you for helping me last night," she said quietly. "Besides that, we have a personal stake in the matter. We're going to get you back." There was a hint of danger in her voice for anyone who dared to get in her way - or even disagree with her. Duo wasn't about to be that person.
"So we're stuck here for another three weeks?" he asked unnecessarily. "What do have to do around here for fun?"
They stared at him like he was crazy.
Dev sorted through the list of expenses that the various rebel bases throughout the colony had accumulated with ease. He'd been taking care of this stuff for years, ever since Diana had taken on the name Tiger when she took over the rebels in Alpha. How long had it been since then? Three years? Four? The years seemed to flow together sometimes. It didn't really matter, not now. The point was that he had been doing this for a long time now, and it was almost automatic. By doing the routine record-keeping (the Alliance would have a fit if they ever found out the level of organization that the rebels actually possessed - they liked to think that there were only a few hundred rebels at best, squatting in a couple of abandoned buildings clinging to their outdated guns and waiting for the Alliance to hunt them down - the truth would probably scare them out of their minds) he left Diana free to handle the thousand and one daily emergencies that only the Tiger could take care of.
He finished his work, and went on to check his mail. There was one new message waiting for him on the computer, and he automatically clicked on it.
The screen was suddenly filled with a variety of very dirty images, the sort that people weren't supposed to have access to until they turned twenty-one, if ever. Each of the pictures was accompanied by a short phrase describing what the authors thought his appropriate use of each picture should be, varying from 'stimulation' to 'a how-to guide'. There were also numerous references to someone called 'the Lightening Count' which gave him a clue as to the identities of the authors of the mail. He sighed, deleted it, and went to look for Diana.
"You have to give them something to do," he declared after he'd pulled her out of a training session with some of the newer recruits, teaching them the basics of how to use a gun. For her, this was relaxation time, and he regretted doing this to her, but this was the fourth message with that sort of image on it to arrive in three days, and they were beginning to get to them, harmless as they seemed.
"Who?" she asked.
"The... the other five. The pilots. They're bored, and that's dangerous."
"What do you mean?" she asked, frowning slightly.
"Duo is spending most of his time putting together... strange... messages for me and sending them. It's getting irritating. I don't want to think what the others are doing."
"Probably nothing. Duo's the troublemaker," she said. "Just like Kane. How are the messages strange?"
Dev trusted Diana with his life, had placed his life in her hand numerous times, and had briefly worked with the scientists who created her, so he was quite aware of the fact that she was smarter than he was, stronger, and had never been a child, despite how young she appeared. She wasn't even human, technically. But there were some things that he was not going to discuss with her. "Just... unusual."
"I want to see them. What's wrong?" she asked as Dev started to sputter. "You've never hidden anything from me before," she said sharply.
"It's not that, Diana... "
"Now I know there's something wrong. You never call me Diana unless there's something upsetting you."
"I just don't think you need to see this."
"Show it to me now." There was no doubt that this was an order.
"I deleted it."
"Get it now."
Dev sighed and went through the deleted files, finally finding the latest one, and pulled it up on the screen, averting his eyes as he did so. He glanced at Diana out of the corner of his eye as she scrolled down. Her eyebrows rose several times, and she was smiling faintly when she finished. "Quite a collection here," she remarked as if it had been a set of car pictures instead of porn. "That looks difficult. Andrew and I will have to try it sometime."
Dev kept his eyes riveted on the wall, resolutely not looking down to see what picture she'd been pointing at. He did not want to know.
"Dev, don't ever scare me like that again. I thought he was giving secrets away to the Alliance. I can't believe that you were embarrassed over this, after all we've been through together."
Dev flushed slightly at the memory. "I just... "
"It's all right," she said softly. "Forget about it. But I do see what you mean about boredom. It would take some time to get all of this together, and the fact that they called you 'the Lightning Count' a few times gives away the identity of the perpetrator. Your double on their world is called the Lightning Count. But it does seem fairly harmless." She smiled again, and he realized that she was still teasing her.
He decided to ignore that. "That's because they're not sending stuff to you," he retorted.
"True enough. All right. Why don't you go down there and see if you can get them to tell you about these mobile suit thingees of theirs? We could use a weapon like that."
Although Dev had been looking for less in the way of contact with the boys, not more, he had to admit that what little he'd heard about these robot things they fought with in their own world had him intrigued. "Yes sir." He turned to leave, but stopped when she spoke again.
"Oh, and Dev?" she asked, her voice almost bursting with contained laugher. "Can you forward me a copy of this thing?"
Dev decided not to dignify that with a response. He walked down to one of the empty rooms that the boys had taken to spending their time in, and luckily, all five of them were there. Trowa and Quatre were engaged in a game of chess, Wufei was meditating, Heero was typing away at a laptop he'd found somewhere, and Duo was doing his hardest to distract Heero. As Dev watched, Heero's hand sneaked out and unerringly clamped down on Duo's braid and gave a sharp tug.
Dev just stood there, watching them for a minute. They were like his five, but different - more like an undiluted version. His five showed most of the same personality quirks, but they were much more subdued than these five. Is this what Brian, Kane, Devin, Andrew, and Shin would have been like if they'd been born human? An interesting thought, and one he was willing to play with for a while.
Suddenly the door opened, and Kane came tearing into the room. "Duo! He opened it! And... " Kane trailed off, staring at Dev.
Dev glared at him. "Why do I think that you had something to do with the message I received this morning?"
"What message?" Kane asked, his face perfectly innocent. Yeah, sure.
"Did you help him?" Dev asked, pointing at Duo, who wasn't bothering to hide his snickering.
"Why would you think such a thing?!" Kane exclaimed, sounding very insulted. Unfortunately for him, Dev had seen that technique before.
"You're avoiding the question," Dev said. "Did you?"
"Yes?" Kane replied meekly. Of course, this new attitude was no more realistic than the insulted one he'd had seconds earlier.
"So, what'd ya think?" Duo asked, walking over and exchanging a smirk with his double.
"Diana was very entertained by the pictures."
Kane noticeably paled. "You showed it to Diana?"
Dev nodded, and Kane swallowed.
"How many weeks of cleanup duty do I have?"
Cleanup duty meant going through all the old files in the central computer, making sure that there was no information going out that shouldn't be, and that all copies of old files were deleted, and many other minor details. It also required the person in charge (or victim, as they were often called) to go through the files one at a time. It was the most boring task imaginable, and Diana usually gave it to people who'd irritated her for various reasons. It was a punishment duty.
"She didn't mention anything about cleanup duty," Dev said offhandedly. "She did say that she wanted to try one of those positions with Andrew."
Kane stared at him, and his eyes widened slightly. A smile slowly spread across his face, and he burst out laughing. "Which one?"
"I didn't see."
"Heero and I have tried a few of those," Duo offered helpfully. "If you want, I can show you which ones we tried... "
"That was a lot too much information, thank you very much," Dev said quickly. Heero had glanced up once when Duo said his name, then went back to his typing, but not before Dev saw a flash of something that resembled lust in his eyes. Not a picture he wanted in his head, not when he had to deal with Brian and Kane on a daily basis.
"Well, I'm glad it all worked out," Kane said quickly, flashed one more grin at Duo, and then ran off. He was running almost at full speed, and Dev caught one brief glimpse of him running, braid streaming out behind him, before he went around a corner and was gone.
"So, was that it?" Duo asked, eyeing him thoughtfully.
"No, actually. I wanted to talk to you about these... what did you call them? Mobile suits? The robot things that you keep talking about."
Duo actually winced, and glanced at Wufei, who gave no indication that he'd heard. "I wouldn't let Wufei hear you calling our Gundams robots. They're called Mobile Suits, and ours are called Gundams. Got it straight?"
"Yes."
"Good. And we can't talk about them."
"What?!"
"Sorry." Duo looked uncomfortable. "Can't do it."
"Why? Diana asked me to ask you. They could be a great asset to us, and we need all the help we can get." Dev couldn't believe what he was saying, after Diana had shown them the entire base, risked her life to get them away from the Alliance. Maybe they didn't realize how much Diana had risked for them.
"Yeah, sorry."
"Can you at least give me a reason?" Dev asked, holding onto his temper firmly.
"Yeah. We talked about this before," Duo said with a guilty glance around the room, and Dev suddenly became aware that all eyes in the room were riveted on him. Even Heero, who had actually stopped typing, and Wufei, who'd come out of his trance, were staring at him. "We're not going to tell you, because we don't want your world to end up like ours."
"I'm afraid I don't understand."
"Look, say we told you everything we knew about mobile suits, and between the five of us, we know almost everything there is to know. So we tell you, and you make a mobile suit. Or you make ten of them. It doesn't really matter. You make them, and you fight against your Alliance, and everything's going great until the Alliance puts all of their best scientists onto it, and they build their own mobile suits. Then you've got the same situation you have now, except that every battle won't be fought between men with guns, it will be fought between men in machines that each have the capability to level one of your colonies. Most of our battles are fought on Earth, and its doing enough damage there. You have to know how much more fragile the colonies are than Earth - you just can't sustain battles of that magnitude up here. Several colonies in our world have been completely destroyed because of the war," he glanced, first at Wufei, whose frown deepened, and then at Quatre, who looked away, biting his lip and blinking back tears. "... and we're no closer to ending it now then we were when we first started fighting. The fighting has been going on for two hundred years now. Do you really want that sort of stuff here?"
Dev stared at him. No matter how many times he heard it from Diana and the others, he could never get used to philosophy coming out of the mouths of children. And these boys were born normal human - what had they been through that gave them a similar attitude and philosophy as a bunch of human weapons who knew they'd been created? "You sound like you've spent some time thinking about this."
Duo snorted. "We spend a lot of time sitting by ourselves in the cockpit of a mobile suit, waiting to attack, or waiting for orders. You'll think of a lot of crazy shit after enough time alone."
Dev nodded, feeling somewhat overwhelmed, although he could see why they didn't want to give him information.
"So do you understand why we can't tell you?"
"I think so. Diana will, but I don't think she's going to be happy."
"If it makes you feel any better, we're all volunteering to help you out any other way we can. We do most of our fighting in the Gundams, but most of us have done some work with bombs and stuff, and we're pretty good at that, too. Any help that Diana wants with that stuff, she's got it."
"I'll let her know," Dev said, wondering if Diana would take him up on his offer. He thought she probably would.
"You do that. I've got to have some fun around here, and the mail thing's getting old fast."
They're insane, Diana reflected three weeks later. But I'm going to miss them anyway. I wish that someone had told me that Duo's idea of fun involved large amounts of explosives, though.
She'd discovered that little fact after the boys had volunteered to go on some destructive missions. Duo's exhilarant whooping and cheering as the building had gone up in flames had almost given her a heart attack, and she'd had to fight the urge to bite his head off for shouting like that over the com. The only thing that had restored her good humor was the terror that the Alliance soldiers displayed when faced with a cheerful, laughing, homicidal teenager with access to firearms and explosives. More than one batch had turned and run as Duo's laugh echoed around corners of corridors.
The five of them were... different. And disturbing, sometimes. They were enough like their doubles that it was sometimes difficult to tell them apart, and different enough that Diana was frequently shocked by what they said, as a random comment brought her face-to-face with the realization that they weren't the same. And it hurt, sometimes, when she saw Quatre smiling easily or Duo laughing about something, emotions that both of her people had to fake, to see what they might have been like. She liked the other five, but truth be told, she was relieved to see them leaving.
Which left them where they were now, crouched in a back room of the same base they'd infiltrated a month before, waiting for a signal to tell them that the distraction was underway. They'd gotten this far with few problems - the stolen codes had been sufficient to get them into the main hangar of the base, but they hadn't gone much farther than that. They'd gone down two hallways and into a locked storage room, and had been sitting here since. Diana was keeping an eye on the five boys from the other world while her five set up some sort of distraction that would allow a girl and five boys to slip into one of the more heavily guarded areas of the base.
The other five were arranging diversions, and were going to try to meet them at the machine to activate it and then escort Diana out. Not that she couldn't take care of herself, but they were a little overprotective, especially considering what had happened the last time that they'd been to this base.
Suddenly she heard the distant sounds of an explosion. That's the signal?! I'm going to have a talk with those people about subtlety! She glanced at Duo, who had a very familiar expression on his face. "You haven't been talking to Kane, have you?"
"Who me?" Duo said with a knowing grin, and Diana stifled a groan.
"Let's go."
There was surprisingly little resistance as they basically plowed their way through the hall - they saw less than a dozen soldiers as they ran through the whole base. Diana frowned as they reached the store-room and saw five figures waiting. This was too easy. "Any signs of resistance?" she asked.
"No," Brian said darkly, shooting a suspicious look around. They'd opted not to wear masks for this operation, thinking that letting people see their faces might be more efficient. There was a certain advantage in having completely terrified, panicked opponents.
"Let's get this over with. Shin, how much time?"
"Five minutes and twenty seconds, approximately," Shin said as they headed into the dimly-lit storage room.
"I hope you've got a better approximation than that," Andrew said as he tucked his gun back into the holster under his shoulder. His hands started flying across the keyboard set into the device they'd arrived in front of. "I do need a little more detail."
"I'll take care of that when we get to it. Let me know when you've set up the program."
"Give me one minute," Andrew muttered as he typed. "I have to create a program to run this machine on a timer. I can't imagine why they didn't do it in the first place. It's not hard," he continued in a conversational voice as lines and lines of numbers appeared on the screen. "It just takes a few minutes to do it."
"You now have four minutes," Shin told him.
"Got it!" Arthur told him. "Just set the time here... " he pointed, and then let Shin take his spot.
Shin's hands moved almost as fast as Andrew's had as he imput data. For various reasons, he was letting the computer figure out the time itself, rather than just typing in the timed countdown. One reason was that the computer could easily get the timing down to thousandths of a second, far more precision than was needed, and although Shin could keep track of hundredths of a second in his head, even they weren't fast enough to set a timer like that with their bare hands. It took Shin two minutes to input all the variables, then suddenly a small counter appeared in the bottom-right corner of the screen, counting down from just under two minutes.
"All set. We'd just better make sure that we aren't within it's radius when it goes off," Shin said with a frown for that possibility.
"How big a radius?" Diana asked, eyes narrowing, and Shin shrugged.
"We probably want to be out of the room when it happens, just to be sure," he said. "I don't think it would be that big, but just in case... "
"All right," Diana said, keeping one eye on the countdown. "It's been... very interesting," she said, failing, with all her diplomacy, to find a better word. "I think that Dev is going to be very glad that you're gone, especially Duo. He thinks you're a bad influence on Kane."
"Well of course I am!" Duo exclaimed, throwing his arm around Kane. The two of them grinned at her with identical expressions on their faces, and she held back a groan.
"Diana," Andrew murmured.
"Honestly, it's been a pleasure meeting you. If circumstances were otherwise, I'd love to come back with you and see your world, but... " she smiled and shrugged slightly. "Good luck against Oz."
"Thank you for all your help," Quatre said with a slight bow. "Good luck to you as well. I... " he trailed off as Diana raised a hand for silence.
"I thought I heard something."
Everyone fell silent, and Diana focused most of her attention on what her ears were picking up. A faint murmur of sound, continuous, but not the sound of the air coming in through the vents. Then she heard it.
"What now?" someone whispered, and it wasn't someone in our group.
"It's a trap!" she shouted, drawing her gun. There was a stinging sensation in her wrist, and she dropped the gun, staring at the small hole in her wrist where it had been pierced by a bullet.
"Diana!" Andrew shouted, feeling her pain.
"Freeze!" shouted a half-dozen voices. "Hands in the air!"
Most of the others were caught in the process of drawing their weapons, and the few that had managed to get them drawn froze when they saw the two dozen or so guns pointed directly at their heads.
"Drop your weapons now!" shouted one of the soldiers, and those who had grasped weapons now let them fall to the floor, then everyone slowly raised their hands into the air. Shit. We are soooo fucked, was Diana's first thought as Velanz stepped out of concealment.
"How long have you been here?" she asked, noticing out of the corner of her eye Quatre and Andrew exchange a glance, then move slightly closer together. To the casual observer, it might not be noticeable or they might look as if they were simply nervous and drawing closer to each other for comfort, but Diana noticed that they were quietly blocking the screen, so that Velanz couldn't see the counter. Less than a minute remained.
Please don't let them be planning what I think they're planning, she thought silently, then caught a hint of a smile on Andrew's face. Fuck. They really were going to do it. Diana considered her alternatives - death, or imprisonment and torture for all of them at the hands of the Alliance. Maybe they were right. They couldn't afford to have all five of them in the hands of the Alliance. Almost anything was preferable to that - between the five of them they had enough information to bring the rebels to their knees quite easily. Anything was better than that. She could see the countdown in her head. Forty seconds left.
"Long enough," Velanz said, stepping closer, although not within range of attack. "How much longer were you planning on staying?"
"Ten minutes," she growled, making herself sound furious. She feigned a struggle for control, then made it look as if she managed to get control of herself. "We overestimated how long it would take us to get through your forces," she said scornfully. "I thought it would take much longer than that." Thirty seconds. "This was a little pathetic, even for you. The five of us could have taken over the base on our own. I expect better."
"Not good on normal defenses," he countered, "but an excellent trap, wouldn't you say?" Twenty seconds.
Diana shrugged and averted her eyes.
Velanz grinned and decided to follow up on his advantage. "That hurt much?" he asked maliciously, looking at the blood trickling out of the wound on her arm.
"Not much." Ten seconds. "Actually, I hadn't noticed it," she lied. It stung, and she'd noticed it, but it really didn't hurt that much, which had her concerned. It wasn't numb, but it didn't hurt, so either she was getting far too used to getting injured, or there was something wrong with her arm that was messing up the pain receptors. She wasn't sure whether or not to hope it was the first.
Five seconds.
"That's sloppy," he said with a frown. "That's a rather transparent lie. What are you planning?"
"Just passing the time," she said pleasantly, then tensed as the timer in her head went off. There was a flash of blindingly bright light from behind her, and everything disappeared.
End Part 4
(:./marika/others4)
