"I don't like this, something ain't right," Duo muttered as the five of them crept, still unopposed, into the main chamber at the Oz research facility. "This is too easy."
"The base is supposed to be shut down for a week, while they update the security systems," Quatre murmured. "It makes sense that there'd be no one around."
"It's just too damned convenient."
"Duo... "
"Yeah, Heero?"
"Shut up."
"He's right," Wufei growled.
"You see that? I heard him, did you hear that?" Duo exclaimed. "The Wu-man said I was right! This is a historic moment!"
"Duo?"
"Yeah, Wu-man?"
"Shut up. He is right, though. There's no need for all five of us to come on this mission. Any one of us could have handled it by ourselves. There's something very wrong here."
That was when the device they had supposedly come to get info on flickered to life.
"Oh, shit," Duo muttered, staring at the slowly expanding ball of light originating from a metal sphere in the middle of the device. "What's it doing?"
"I think we should get out of here," Quatre muttered, backing up. They were all backing up, trying to stay out of the range of the light. Then there was a brilliant flash of light, followed by an instant of darkness and a stomach-twisting lurch.
When his eyes cleared, Duo was sitting on the floor in front of the machine, which hadn't moved. There was only one problem. When the light had gone off, they'd been standing in a small, darkened room in the back of a supposedly abandoned Oz base. Now they were in a huge, well-lit room with dozens of other machines all around. As there was a shout of alarm from somewhere nearby, he closed his eyes for a second, anticipating a headache. I knew I shouldn't have gotten out of bed this morning, I just knew it.
Then he drew his gun and, glancing at the others, prepared to figure out what the hell was going on.
Elsewhere in the base, a figure dressed entirely in black with a mask over their head cursed. A low, gravely voice emerged from the mask, and the body was definitely masculine, solving the question of the sex of intruder. "There's something going on with project 3285. According to this, something just came through it."
"That wasn't supposed to work!" said a second masked figure.
"I know that! I'm going to go check it out."
"We have to be out of here in three twenty-eight," the second figure said.
"I know. But if they've got it working, it has to be destroyed. And one of us has to get out of here with that data," the first said, nodding towards a computer where the seconds was working furiously, even as they talked.
"You have to get out of here."
"You're the only one that can break the code in time to download the data and get out of here. I can't get that job done. This other thing has to be done. If I don't make it to the rendezvous in time, you leave without me, understand?"
"But... "
"We need that data. If it weren't so important, we wouldn't have risked coming here. Any of these projects could be deadly. That's why, if they finally got one working, it has to be destroyed."
"Be careful."
"Get the job done. I'll see you at the rendezvous."
The first figure drew a gun and, stepping over the bodies of the lab technicians, started running down the hall towards the storage chamber where all of the non-operational experiments were kept. It took one minute, twenty-one seconds to reach the chamber. Two-oh-seven left. Shit. The intruder froze when he arrived on the scene to find that there was some sort of firefight going on between the Alliance forces and... who else? There was slight chance that the Alliance had happened to bring a group of prisoners by their top-secret base, and the intruder knew that none of the team should be down here. So who the hell were they fighting?
The intruder raised his gun and started firing. There wasn't much cover in the hallway, but it didn't matter much. By the time the small security force realized that they were being attacked from two directions, it was too late, they were already dead, most from the intruder's gun, but when they started to turn to face the new danger, someone in the storage chamber started picking them off with lethal precision, one-by-one. In a few seconds there were twelve bodies on the ground, and the intruder proceeded cautiously forward.
A voice echoed down the hall. "Shit! Heero, that guy's almost as good a shot as you!"
The intruder paused. That voice sounds very familiar. No, it can't be. He should be miles away by now.
Even more wary than before, the intruder continued forward.
"He's coming this way," Quatre reported nervously from the security monitor, occasionally glancing down guiltily at the man he'd killed to get to this position.
"You think he's on our side or not?" Duo asked, speaking to the group in general. "He did kill those... whoever they were."
"Don't make assumptions," Heero growled.
"I don't think it's going to matter much," Wufei said, pointing at another screen where they could clearly see another squad of men running down the halls, coming in this direction. "They'll probably kill him."
"Unless we get to them first," Duo replied with an evil grin, withdrawing something from his pocket. The others stared at him.
"Do you always carry around grenades?" Quatre asked.
"Yup. Never leave home without them. It's my safety blanket. But I'm pretty sure, if we wait long enough, they'll all come running right by that door... "
"Do it," Heero said shortly, and went back to searching through the computer, trying to figure out where the hell they were, why the men weren't wearing Oz uniforms, and what the hell was going on. So far, not much luck. Judging by the level of security that he was working through, someone had designed a very very good security system.
Duo grinned at Heero's words, and went back to watching the cameras, waiting for the men to come within reach, fingering the pin of the grenade.
"What about him?" Quatre asked, pointing at the masked man.
"He'll turn around and run when he sees the soldiers, if he's got any sense, and if he doesn't then he doesn't deserve to live anyway."
They watched as the intruder froze, seeing the men running at him. Almost as quickly as Heero, the gun came up and the man started firing. Three soldiers dropped immediately. "Shit, maybe he doesn't have the sense to run," Duo muttered. "Or maybe he doesn't need to."
As they watched, though, the intruder turned and started to run back down the hall, firing over his shoulder as he ran. Duo grinned. "Here they come!" He pulled the pin and threw the grenade with a practiced arc. "Three, two, one... "
They all saw the intruder throw himself forward, covering his head with his arms an instant before the grenade went off. The soldiers were all instantly killed, and the intruder was caught by the force of the blast and thrown a dozen feet down the hallway until he crashed into the wall. Suddenly the screens went blank. "What the fuck... "
"They've cut me off," Heero reported. "They must have figured out our position."
Suddenly the doors to the hallway slammed shut with an authoritative sound, and they all heard the hiss of gas being released. A few seconds later five unconscious bodies slumped to the floor.
When Duo woke up, his head hurt a lot. A lot. Did he mention that it hurt a lot? He moaned and managed to maneuver himself into a sitting position, trying to tell himself that it was just his imagination, that Oz hadn't really chosen to have a parade of every single one of their mobile suits across the top of his head. He was fairly certain it was actually true.
When he finally got up the courage to open his eyes, the dim light immediately sent stabs of pain through his eyes and directly into his brain. He closed them again, breathing deeply, then opened them again. The pain was marginally less this time, and he kept them open, momentarily grateful for whoever it was that had decided to keep the lights low. His gratitude faded, however, when he noticed the metal cuffs that sheathed his arms from wrists to elbows, and held them together, forcing his elbows in at an unnatural angle. He couldn't move his arms at all, not even twist them a little to ease the pressure. Even Oz wasn't this crazy. Of course, they'd been able to get off the cuffs Oz used with no problems. These looked like they might be a little more difficult.
"Is anyone else awake?" he asked as his eyes refused to focus on anything more than a foot away.
"Hn." That would be Heero. He would wake up first.
"I think I'm here. I'm not sure if I'd hurt so much if I was dead," Quatre said quietly. "Trowa?" he asked.
"Here."
"What gas was that?" Wufei asked, and Duo frowned. Was I the last one to wake up? How embarrassing.
There was a long silence, then Heero muttered. "I can't identify it."
That was a surprise. "You mean the Perfect Soldier actually can't identify some sort of weapon?" Duo hooted. "I never thought I'd see the day."
Silence. Duo's eyes were clearing now, and he looked around the dimly-lighted room, he saw the others all laying around in varying stages of consciousness. Duo forced himself to get to his feet, ignoring the jackhammer it set off in his skull. He walked very carefully over to the door and examined the lock. Electronic, with the mechanism on the outside, damn it. He wasn't going to be able to pick this one. He sank back down to a sitting position, leaning against the wall. "So who do you think they are?"
Silence.
Duo was about to start joking about the various types of gas there were in the world, starting with the type exuded from the body, when suddenly the lights came on full force. He winced as the light seemed to stab into his brain, and raised his arms to protect his eyes. After a few seconds, the pain started to fade, and his eyesight returned, slowly. He saw the others also covering their eyes, and Quatre whimpered in pain. Duo looked around the featureless room, containing a camera in the corner and not much else. Not even a mattress to lie on. These guys were about as considerate as Oz. The door to his left suddenly slid open, and before he could react, a booted foot kicked him in the shoulder, sending him sprawling away from the door.
"Hey, tiger, we have a surprise for you," someone outside said, and a figure was shoved through the door. Duo blinked in surprise as he identified the intruder, still masked but now with his hands also bound in front of him, and legs shackled together by a short chain. The intruder tripped up on the chain and stumbled, falling to the floor, but partway through the fall he somehow tucked his head down and managed to turn the fall into a graceful roll. Acts like Heero, Duo noted.
The intruder turned to face the soldiers, hands held in front of him defensively, but the soldiers just laughed and closed the door, leaving them in the bright light. The intruder turned to look at them, and Duo saw the intruder's eyes open slightly, and thought he heard a faint gasp, so faint that it was barely audible. "No!" he hissed, fingers clenching in a fist. "How did they get you all?"
Before they could react to that statement, he turned towards Quatre, eyes narrowing accusingly. "I ordered you to go to the rendezvous!" he said. "How could you be so stupid?! I ordered you not to wait for me!"
Quatre backed up a step before the rage in the man's eyes. "I... I'm sorry, sir. I think you must be mistaken. I've never seen you before."
"Sir?" the man growled. Suddenly, with a speed Duo had never seen before in anyone except Heero, the man ran across the room to Quatre. He grabbed the front of Quatre's shirt with his bound arms, and lifted him into the air, pushing him up against the wall.
Quatre gasped and tried to pull at the hands which held him pressed firmly against the wall. It was obvious from the way he was gasping that he was having trouble breathing. Then his eyes flew open wide. "Allah!" he gasped. "His eyes!" The man suddenly dropped Quatre on the ground and backed up several steps, eyeing them suspiciously.
"Who are you?" he growled.
Quatre looked up from where he was sitting on the ground, gasping for breath. "Look... look at his eyes," he wheezed, eyes still wide.
Given that clue, Duo looked at the man's eyes, and got a shock. They were completely white around two very tiny pupils, with no sign of color at all. What the hell did that mean? "Why did you attack him?" he asked.
"Who the hell are you?" the intruder repeated, then continued with the more insulting: "What the hell are you? What game are they playing?"
Duo glanced at Heero, and saw that they were thinking along the same lines. Then he exchanged a glance with Wufei, who also nodded. At an unspoken sign, they threw themselves at the intruder, intending to grab and control him, at least take off the mask and probably demand some answers. Their arms were tied in front of them, but the intruder was also bound and wore a pair of cuffs on his ankles. It should not have been a problem for three highly-trained and highly-skilled Gundam pilots.
Shouldn't have been, but it was. Whoever he was, he was incredibly strong and fast. After Duo got thrown halfway across the room and slammed into the wall by an apparently effortless push by the man, he resorted to dirty tricks, and tackled the man, secure in the knowledge that the man couldn't kick him because of the manacles on his ankles. The man went down with a grunt, and Heero placed his knee in the center of the man's back, preventing him from rising. With his arms pinned to the ground beneath him and Heero kneeling on his back, he had no leverage to push them off, so although he kicked his legs like mad for a few seconds, he couldn't get free.
"Enough!" Wufei said, and pulled the mask off. There was a long white braid concealed under the mask, and the intruder was facing downward, but that couldn't distract them from one very important fact:
The intruder was a girl.
"Onna!" Wufei exclaimed, sounding disgusted. Heero actually loosened his grip on his... her shoulders, so she was able to roll away.
"How observant of you," she remarked in that low growl that couldn't possibly be natural. It definitely belonged to a large, burly man, not a girl their own age. There was also no explication of why she had a body that looked like a man's with huge shoulders and no chest to speak of. "I guess there's no need for this anymore," she remarked, and reached up to her throat where there were a few circles with wires sticking out of them taped to her neck. She pulled them off. "So now that you've displayed your astonishing powers of observation in determining that I am indeed a woman, why don't we try again." Now her voice was quite feminine, high and soft. She tossed her braid over her shoulder, then reached up and touched something under her shirt over her shoulders. Then she reached down and pulled at something by her waist. Suddenly a mass of padding fell out of her shirt to the ground at her feet. It was generally shaped like a man's torso, and she suddenly looked very like a girl. She looked directly at Heero and said in a threatening voice, "Who the hell are you?"
"We could ask the same question," Duo exclaimed, rubbing his hip as best he could with his hands bound in front of him. He'd hit it very hard when she threw him across the room. "You're awfully strong for a girl."
Her face was absolutely expressionless. "You're awfully strong yourselves. What game are they playing?"
"What game is who playing?" Quatre asked, having long since regained his breath.
The girl peered at him through those white eyes. Duo realized that the rest of her body was like that too, very, very pale, if not white. Her skin was like chalk, and her hair was yellow-white. An albino?
Whatever she saw, she apparently didn't like, because she walked over to the door and sat against the wall right next to it, facing them. Her face was a blank mask, and her mouth was firmly sealed. Duo knew that expression well - she wasn't talking any more.
The door slid open, and she rolled out of the way to avoid the kick a guard aimed in her direction. "Away from the door, Eight," he said. Her expression didn't change as she stood up and backed up a few steps. The guard gestured with the rather large gun he was holding, and she took another few steps back. Eight guards carrying guns trooped into the room, five of them keeping their weapons as trained on each of the five boys, two of them aimed their weapons at the girl, and the last stayed back, eyeing them all suspiciously. Duo glanced at Heero and hoped he wasn't having any bright ideas on ways to self-destruct without a Gundam.
"Very interesting. Would you mind telling me what exactly you intended with that little charade?" asked a man in a neat uniform with red hair. Duo's jaw dropped open as he recognized the man, but realized that both the uniform and the short hair were new.
"Treize!" Wufei gasped.
What in the world was Treize Khushrenada doing on some supposedly abandoned, back-water base? It could be that the information they'd been sent to get was more important than anyone was letting them know, but that didn't explain why he'd cut his hair, or why he was wearing a strange uniform that was neither Oz nor Federation, wasn't anything that he could identify at all. All the data they had on Treize indicated that he was a nobleman to the core, and no one had ever seen him in anything even vaguely resembling a uniform.
Treize looked at him coldly, then for some reason turned back to the girl. "What do you expect to accomplish with this insanity? Or is that it, that you have lost your mind?" he asked in ultra-refined tones.
"Velanz, if I ever go crazy, you'll know, because it will be marked by a suicidal attempt on your life. Not an attempt, actually, I'll kill myself, but I will get you in the process. They're not mine," her eyes flicked briefly to Quatre.
"Yes, so you were trying to show me with that little display."
"I don't expect you to believe me, but it happens to be the truth. I don't know who they are, and I've never seen them before in my life. I was under the assumption you made them somehow, although why you would want to make Earthlings that looked like us is beyond me."
"Hey, wait a second!" Duo protested. "We're not from Earth! We're colonists. And who are we supposed to look like?!"
The girl and Treize exchanged a glance. "Fascinating," he finally remarked. "I will have to remember to find out what this was supposed to accomplish during your interrogation. I also wish to know why you accessed the same information twice, and how you managed to activate the machine in the storage room. I thought I'd give you one opportunity to give me the information I want before we do this the hard way."
She turned her eyes away from him, letting them settle on the wall, not speaking. He glanced around the room, and they all stared at him, but didn't say anything. He sighed. "So be it." His eyes rested on the girl again, and something akin to a smile flickered across his face. "Did I ever give you my condolences on the death of Ambassador Dorlian?"
Something flashed in the girl's eyes for a second, although her expression didn't change. "No, I believe not. Even if you had, I don't think I would have accepted them. I'd have to consider them insincere, considering you had him assassinated, don't you think?"
"Not necessarily. I had the utmost respect for the Ambassador. He was an obstruction, but one that might have been dealt with in another way, if the circumstances were different. If you must know the truth, his assassination was put on a high priority solely because of his relationship to you."
The girl stared at him calmly. "Very clever," she remarked in a cold voice. "Pleased to see you've finally learned something about me from all those months you held me. It took you long enough."
"We learned enough to break you," he said with a pleasant smile. "But it isn't you that we're starting with." He looked across the room. "Four."
Quatre stood up smoothly despite the restraints, a look of resignation on his face, but also one of determination. "Yes sir?"
A flicker of confusion passed over his face, but was quickly replaced by that pleasant mask. "You're first in the chamber, I'm afraid."
Quatre didn't reveal anything, only shrugged slightly. "Whenever you're ready, Treize."
Treize looked at the girl again. "What game are you playing at, Tiger?"
"I already told you," she repeated with an air of exhausted patience. "He's not mine. I don't know who the hell he is. You're not going to get anything about us out of him."
"Still with the tired stories?"
"Don't torture him, he's just a boy."
"Is that your plan? To spare them this? That's pathetic. Take him."
"Velanz, I'm telling you, he doesn't know anything," she repeated in a low voice, but there was a hint of urgency to it, and she took a step towards him.
"I warned you," he said simply, and nodded to the free guard, who walked up to her and slammed the butt of his rifle into her jaw. She staggered backwards, but didn't fall, so he struck her again, and again. On the third time she was finally driven to her knees, and the guard raised the rifle again, but Treize raised his hand. "Enough. Bring him," he said simply, and two of the guards took Quatre's upper arms, fastened chains around his ankles, and dragged him out of the room.
The girl stared after him for a minute after the door closed. "What sort of person is he?" she asked quietly, without looking at them.
"What do you mean?" Trowa asked, just as quietly.
"I don't know who you are, but it's obvious you aren't normal kids. Is he a strong person? Strong willed?"
"Why?"
"Because they think he's someone he's not. And that particular person is very resistant to torture, and has information that they want. They're going to torture him for that information."
"Don't worry," Duo told her. "He won't tell them anything."
She stared at him, then smiled slightly. It wasn't a pretty expression, for all that she was incredibly beautiful. "I wasn't talking about him telling them anything. You have no idea what they're doing to him. I was trying to figure out if he will return with his mind intact."
"What?!" Trowa asked sharply.
"The device they're going to use has driven many strong people insane before. I don't know your... friend, or partner, or whatever he is. But I'm trying to warn you now that he may not be the same person when they bring him back."
Trowa was hard-pressed to sit quietly and maintain the facade of control, when what he really wanted to do is go charging through the door and find Quatre, or at least pace back and forth for a while, or maybe punch the wall. After delivering her disturbing message of warning about Quatre's possible mental state, the girl had fallen silent and refused to talk again. It had been almost three hours, and they still didn't know anything about her at all, not even her name or what she was doing here, or who was the man who looked like Treize, but somehow wasn't.
Suddenly the door slid open, and the guards tossed a figure inside. "Quatre!" Duo exclaimed as Trowa caught sight of a familiar head of blond hair. Duo was instantly at Quatre's side, trying to pull him to his feet, but Quatre curled up in the fetal position and wouldn't - or couldn't - move. He just sat on the floor, shaking, rocking back and forth, and occasionally moaning to himself. There also wasn't a mark on him - what was wrong with him?
"What's wrong with him?" Trowa asked the girl, becoming more panicked as Quatre refused to respond to anything they said or did.
"I told you before."
"What did they do to him?"
"They tortured him." A critical eye ran quickly over Quatre before she went back to staring into space. "He isn't broken." There was a hint of surprise in her voice.
Without really meaning to, Trowa took several steps towards her, intending to push her up against the wall, maybe force some answers out of her, but as his hands reached for her, she suddenly rose and twisted her arms, knocking his aside and grabbing his shirt. She shoved him against the wall, then dropped him. "I warned you this might happen," she said quietly. "He isn't broken, that much I can tell. And it's more than you had any right to expect. He'll come out of it on his own, eventually."
There was an odd tone to her voice as she said that, and Duo caught on to what it was first. "He'll come out of it eventually on his own, but you know a way to help him now, don't you?"
She avoided Trowa's gaze.
That was enough of an answer for Trowa, who stepped towards her. She backed up a step, then another, finally running into the wall as she tried to avoid him. "How can we help him?" he asked quietly, aware that she would read the threat in his words without any effort on his part.
"I can't tell you."
"Why not?"
"It connected to the way that people resist the chamber, and they're watching us now," she said with a slight nod towards the camera in the corner. "There are a half-dozen cameras on us right now."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Duo demanded.
"Knowledge is power," she said seriously. "The more they know about me, the more dangerous they are. If I help him... they may learn something about me that they can use against me in the future. Maybe."
"You'll leave him like this... on the off-chance that they might learn something that they might be able to use in the future?" Duo repeated incredulously.
"Coward," Wufei remarked disparagingly.
"There is more at stake here than him, or me! Thousands of lives could hang in the balance! Do you want me to risk that for him?!" she demanded. "You don't know their torture techniques, I do. I've fought them for months at a time, and I've beat them by the slimmest of margins. Don't judge my actions until you know me!"
Trowa stared at her. "I don't know who you are, or what is going on here, but thousands of lives hang on his actions, as well. If he does not survive... " he couldn't bring himself to face that. "Please." Seeing her expression harden, he added, "I love him."
She stared at him, and her eyes widened almost imperceptibly. Suddenly she stood up and walked over to where Quatre lay on the floor. "Touch him," she instructed, crouching down next to him. "He needs to know that he's with friends, that he's not alone. He can't see you now, he's locked himself off from the physical world as a defense. Let him know that he won't be tortured if he returns." As Trowa moved closer to touch Quatre's shoulders and cheek, she started murmuring to him. "Shhh. Open your eyes, you're back here. Open your eyes."
"No, Allah, it hurts," he murmured.
"They're not torturing you anymore," she said firmly. "Open your eyes now." There was a hint of anger and command in her voice.
Quatre shivered. "No," he whimpered.
"Now!" she commanded sharply, and slapped his face.
Trowa grabbed her hand. "What are you doing?!"
"I'm bringing him back. Open your eyes!" she repeated, and pulling her hands free, she slapped him again.
Quatre started, and then suddenly sat up, his eyes opening wide. "Where am I?" he demanded.
"You're back in the cell," the girl replied, standing up and backing away. "Talk to him," she instructed. "He's back."
"Quatre, are you all right?" Trowa asked, wishing he could embrace the smaller boy, but that was impossible with the cuffs on his arms. He settled for getting as close as possible, and Quatre leaned heavily into his chest, tears streaming down his face.
"It hurt so much... I wanted... " he couldn't seem to get out a full sentence. "But I didn't break. I thought of you and I didn't break." He suddenly turned to look at the girl. "And you brought me back. How did you know how?"
"I've been where you were a couple of times," she replied. "And I've always managed to come back. The key is to learn to bring yourself back. I probably won't be there the next time."
Trowa felt Quatre stiffen when she mentioned a next time, but before he could say anything the door opened again. In came the eight guards, followed by the man who looked like Treize. He turned to the girl. "What made you say that he wasn't one of yours?" he asked immediately.
"What makes you think I would ever tell you?" she asked coldly.
"Because there is something here that is out of both our control, and until we figure out what it is, it could hurt either of us, both of us, or just a lot of innocents. I know you don't want that, so I am proposing a kind of truce on the subject until one of us figures out what is going on. Of course you will remain a prisoner."
"Of course. So you're just going to tell me what you know?" she asked sarcastically.
"Of course not. But in order to get your opinion it will be necessary to give you certain information, and I know that you will probably get as much information out of our discussions as most people would get in a report."
She glanced at Quatre, then said, "Bone density."
"Excuse me?"
"Bone density. That's how I knew that he wasn't mine. I knew something was wrong when he called me 'sir,' which I'm assuming you guessed. So I picked him up. We're slightly heavier than normal humans, due to your work. Thicker bones mean that they don't break as easily, but it makes us a little heavier. He's normal, even a little light. That's when I knew. He also said 'Allah', which is an old word for a particular God that was in use several hundred years ago on Earth. None of us would ever swear by any god, for obvious reasons."
"Indeed," he remarked. "And, of course, he responded easily when I called him Four. I remember that surprised me at the time."
"There is that," she replied. "Now it's your turn."
"I believed that this was some sort of elaborate trick, until we put him in the chamber. He went into himself, the same way Four does, but before he did, he was muttering about stopping something called Oz, and just before he withdrew entirely, he started crying for his father. Obviously, since none of you has a father, and he was at the most unconscious levels at that point, there was something wrong. I had a full genetic scan done." He handed her a few pieces of paper.
She looked at them, then back up at him. "This is impossible. You made this up."
"I assure you, those are his genes."
"It can't be."
"It is."
"What game are you playing?"
"Assume that this data is accurate. What conclusion would you draw from it?"
She shook her head. "It can't be true."
He frowned. "I thought we agreed to discuss this. You're hiding something from me."
She gazed at him evenly.
He made a gesture of disgust. "Take her!"
They didn't bring her back for almost eight hours, or so Heero's internal clock told him. When they did, they simply tossed her on the floor, the way they had with Quatre. The guards had been carrying her, and when she hit the ground, she went completely limp, not even trying to roll. The door slid closed again.
"Is she... " Quatre asked slowly.
"She's not dead," Duo reported. "Looks about like you did when they brought you back."
Quatre blanched, and actually started shaking again. He had adamantly refused to tell them what their captors had done to him.
"Good." There was a hint of anger in his voice as he drew the trembling Quatre towards him.
"Trowa, we can't leave her like that!" Quatre protested.
"Why not?" Wufei asked, walking over and looking down at the girl. He nudged her with a toe. "She wanted to do that to you. It's justice."
A low moan interrupted their conversation as the girl slowly rolled over and got to her knees. Unfocussed eyes traveled around the room. "Andrew?" she asked, looking at Quatre. "What? How... "
"I'm not Andrew," he said quietly, staring at her with a disturbing intensity. One hand pressed at his heart.
Her eyes closed, and when they opened, they were hard again, and completely, carefully blank. "It's all right. I remember you." She sat back on her heels and closed her eyes again. "Eight hours?" she asked. "Was it eight hours?"
Heero nodded. "You have an internal clock?"
"Yes. They really don't like me very much, do they?" She laughed once - it was a bitter sound. "No, you don't have to answer that. I know that you don't have any answers."
They all heard the sounds of an explosion somewhere nearby, and the girl's head snapped up. Her eyes traveled to the door, and she snapped, "Get back!"
They stared at her. "What the hell are you talking about?" Duo asked.
"It's an attack! He'll have left orders to kill us to prevent the others from helping us! There are soldiers coming!"
Heero sprung forward, standing next to her, plastered against the wall next to the door. A few seconds later the doors opened, and two soldiers came in, eyes wild, guns drawn. In almost identical movements, Heero and the girl raised their cuffed arms and slammed them into the back of the soldier's necks. The soldiers dropped to the ground, and Heero and the girl scooped up the fallen guns.
"Don't bother," the girl said. Heero was examining the cuffs - maybe they could use the guns to get them off. "You'll only wreck the lock and then we'll never get those things off. But shoot anyone in that uniform that comes through the door. There will be others on their way to rescue me - don't shoot them."
Heero nodded, then aimed out the door and pulled the trigger of his gun.
"Good shot," she murmured, and also fired. More and more soldiers came after them, until first Heero, then the girl ran out of bullets. "Get out of sight of the door," she urged. "If they don't see us, they may have thought we made a run for it."
"Why don't we?" Duo ventured.
"Not with these on," the girl said, holding out her wrists to display the cuffs. "They've got sensors in them - if we try to leave the room with them on, without them disabling the stupid things, we'll be blown to bits. My people will come here, and they'll be able to get these things off."
Heero looked out the door again, his eyes automatically dismissing the bodies of the soldiers who'd come for them. Or rather, come for the girl. She was important, somehow. His mind automatically filed that fact away - in an emergency, she could make a useful hostage. There were lights flashing and alarms sounding all over the base, but the hall remained empty. Then there was a flash of movement at the end of the hall, and his enhanced vision allowed him to pick out several masked figures moving swiftly down the hall, pausing by each body to make sure they were dead. A part of his mind admired their efficiency and thoroughness. The other part was assessing them as a potential threat as he turned to the girl. "Someone's coming."
"I know. Those are my people."
"Your people?" Quatre asked. "Are you some sort of princess?"
Heero barely managed to withhold a grimace, thinking of the only other princess he knew, who happened to be one of the major irritations in his life.
"A princess?" she actually snorted, a very unladylike and reassuring sound. "Here!" she called to the people outside, standing up and holding out her wrists without putting them through the doorway.
"Diana!" one of the figures exclaimed in a growl. Then all-white eyes turned on the group, and almost instantly a gun appeared in his hands. "What the... "
"It's a long story. They're not the enemy. Get these things off."
"Yes, sir," the man said, putting the gun away and pulling out a metallic strip. He slid it through a slit in the cuffs, and they suddenly fell away with a click as a second masked man appeared. He also aimed a gun at the five pilots.
"Who... Is this some Alliance trick?"
"I don't think so," the girl... Diana?... said, rubbing her wrists. She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second, just long enough so that he was certain that it wasn't just her blinking. "Bring them along."
"What?" demanded one of them. They all had identical voices, Heero noticed, which probably meant that they were all using voice modifiers like the girl had.
"Bring them. That's an order. I think that they got mixed up in this by accident, and I'm not leaving them for the Alliance doctors to experiment on."
The one with the metal strip reached for Heero's cuffs, while one of the others kept a gun trained on him. The cuffs fell away, and Heero flexed his hands carefully. They seemed just as strong as from before the temporary imprisonment. One by one the man with the strip freed them.
"What now?" Duo asked, eyes flashing.
Diana looked at him oddly, then turned to one of her companions. "Give them weapons." She turned back to the five pilots. "I'm assuming that you know how to use guns?" there was an edge to her voice that suggested that anyone who didn't was somehow deficient.
"You want to give them weapons?!" one of the intruders asked. "But you don't... "
"We've got double the number of people to get out of here, and it's going to take more time. Give them guns now. That's another order."
The intruder hesitated, then turned and offered a firearm to Duo, who took it with a grin. "Thanks, man."
"You take orders from an onna?" Wufei smirked. "Weak."
Diana turned suddenly, aiming a gun precisely at his forehead. "Well you'd better get used to it, because it's me that's rescuing you, and if you come to my base, you're going to obey my orders. If not, we can leave you to the tender mercies of the Alliance. I can tell you that you'll wish you were dead in a very short period of time. Are you coming, or are we going to continue with the smart remarks?"
Wufei looked like he was about to go into apoplectic seizures. His mouth opened and closed several times, and finally he exploded, "I would never follow a weak wo... " his words were cut off as one of the intruders lunged forward and delivered a sharp blow to the junction of his neck and shoulder. Wufei collapsed in a boneless heap on the floor.
The intruder looked at him for a minute, then looked at Diana and shrugged. "My apologies. We do not have time to argue, however."
"I know. Bring him." She gave the others a cold look. "Any other problems?"
"Are we getting out of here or not?" Duo asked as the intruder bent and swung Wufei's body up onto his shoulders with no sign of effort.
"Yes. Now."
At an unseen signal, she and three of the intruders, including the one carrying Wufei, started running down the hall. The four pilots ran after them, with the other two intruders taking up the back. They ran down three halls, the four in the front efficiently gunning down any resistance they found. Suddenly the intruders swerved right into a room. The pilots followed, and saw that one of the intruders was already in an overhead air vent, reaching down to pull Wufei into the vent. He did so with only one arm and again, with now sign of effort.
Heero looked at Diana for instruction, and she jerked her head at the vent. "Follow them. They'll lead us to another room where we can escape. Move it!"
Heero stuck the gun in the back of his pants, then easily pulled himself up into the hole, aware of Diana's eyes on him the entire time. That was a test. She wants to know what we can do, he realized, too late to do anything about it. He simply started following the pair who were dragging Wufei down the ventilation shaft.
Several minutes later, they emerged in another room. It was an very nicely appointed office of some sort, and one of the intruders was already at the desk, typing at a computer. To the right, a panel of wood slid away, revealing some sort of escape hatch. "I'll prep the engines," one of them said, and slid through the open hole and disappeared.
Heero started to move towards the hole, but the intruder still holding Wufei held up a hand. "Not yet. It's rigged to lock if more than one person goes through it. We managed to arrange it so that it resets every minute, but we have to wait that long between jumps." He shifted Wufei slightly. "One of you might want to go through before I toss his body down, if you don't want him just dropping."
"I'll go," Quatre said quickly, looking almost competent holding a gun in his hand. It was just that he was so small...
"Somehow I thought you might. Get ready."
Quatre walked up to the hole, watching the intruder for a signal.
"Now!"
With instincts only a Gundam pilot would have, Quatre launched himself down the tube, and the intruder gave a grunt of satisfaction. "Who's next?"
"I'll go," Trowa said. "Then send him through."
"Fine. Get ready."
It seemed like a very long wait until Trowa also left. A minute after that, they sent Wufei down the shoot, and the three intruder and Diana, who had lagged behind, finally arrived. "All set," Diana remarked.
"What's all set?" Duo asked as he waited to go.
"Go now!" the intruder barked, and Duo left, his question unanswered.
Heero set himself to go, counting down the seconds in his head. At exactly one minute, before the intruder could say anything, he jumped feet-first into the tube. He slid down the smooth surface, quickly picking up speed, although the inclination wasn't that great. Thirty-eight point two seconds later, he emerged into the light. And into the middle of a firefight. Quatre and Trowa were pinned down behind a stack of boxes, an unconscious Wufei between them, and were exchanging fire with a bunch of soldiers, who were firing from the doorway. Duo was nowhere to be seen.
Heero automatically raised his weapon and fired several shots. He was exposed, but he had the element of surprise, and the soldiers were pathetically vulnerable. Six fell to his fire before they realized what was happening. As expected, they panicked and scrambled to get out of his range of fire, forgetting that Trowa and Quatre were still waiting. As soon as they made that mistake, the pair of pilots took advantage of that, gunning down the soldiers as they hesitated between two equally deadly sources of fire. That hesitation cost them dearly, and they all fell.
"Move, now!" Heero shouted, and Trowa and Quatre lifted an unconscious Wufei between them and sprinted towards a shuttle. Suddenly Duo was running towards the door, his long braid streaming behind him. He reached it, kicked several bodies out of the way, and then shoved it closed through brute force. He turned his head away from the door, then fired a shot into the lock, destroying any chance at opening it, at least temporarily. "Hiya, Heero!" he shouted gleefully, waving an arm. "Nice shooting!"
"Where were you?" Heero demanded as Duo jogged up to him. They turned in unison, drawing weapons as one of the intruders emerged from the shoot, gun already drawn.
He trained it on them, then holstered it. "You guys are good," there was some grudging respect in his voice. "Get in the shuttle."
"Well?" Heero asked again, hiding his irritation at being ordered around by snapping at the braided pilot. He was quite used to it by now - he'd done it often enough.
"I was trying to get to the door to shut it before they started shooting," Duo said with a broad grin. "But I didn't make it. When the first volley passed me without hitting anything, I decided that even they couldn't all miss the next time, not with their numbers and my position, so I just fell like I was hurt and didn't move until you finished them off. Nice job," he repeated.
Heero resisted the urge to draw his gun and shoot Duo, instead, he wrapped his hand around Duo's braid and dragged him into the shuttle where Quatre was strapping Wufei into a seat. "Yow! Stop that! Hey, leggo!" Duo shouted as Heero continued to exert considerable pressure on his head.
The unnamed intruder, who'd followed them into the shuttle, immediately headed for the front, where his companion was still performing warm-up protocols. A few seconds later Diana arrived. One of the intruders came out of the cockpit as she entered. "They're trying to cut through the door," she reported. "I don't suppose you cooked up a temporary diversion until we're clear."
"Actually," the man said with some relish, and pulled out a small detonator. He activated it, and they all felt an explosion, somewhere else. "Don't worry, nothing crucial, but it ought to buy us a few minutes. Your new friends are good shots."
"Hm." For a second she sounded very familiar.
The minutes seemed to crawl by as they waited for everyone else to arrive. Finally the man in the cockpit took off, although the last of his comrades hadn't arrived yet. The shuttle rose smoothly from the floor, and slowly turned around. "Here he comes," Diana murmured, looking out the still-open door. "Get back," she said to Duo, who had gotten close in an attempt to see out. "Strap yourself in. This may be a bumpy ride."
"Hey, a little shaking isn't going to break anything," Duo stated.
In the next few seconds the last man came flying through the door, Diana slapped the control for the door and it slammed shut, then they accelerated so rapidly that Duo was thrown to the floor and slid against a wall. Everyone else had braced themselves against some part of the shuttle, so they got to watch as he slammed his head hard on unforgiving metal. Duo let out a loud curse, then managed to get to his feet, glaring at everyone. "If you say anything... " he warned them.
"Distraction 2?" Diana said to the last man, who pulled a second detonator out of his belt as the shuttle began to jerk back and forth. The pilots (those who were conscious, anyway) all recognized the pattern of those trying to avoid enemy fire.
The man pressed the button, and they heard the sound of explosions - many of them, and big ones. Duo groaned. "You're all acting like Heero now, you know that? There are other ways to deal with problems other than blowing them up. Not as much fun, I'll grant you, but there are other ways!"
Diana ignored him. "How long until we're clear?" she asked intently.
"We're clear now," said a voice from the cockpit. The jolting had stopped almost as soon as the explosions had gone off. The distraction had worked.
There were several minutes of silence, then the two who had been in the cockpit came back. "We have about eight hours until we reach the colony," one of them reported. "What are we going to do with them?"
"I'm not sure, but I don't think they're a danger. Or at least I don't think they're our enemies."
"Excuse me, but we're right here," Duo said. "And what do you mean, not our enemies? Will someone please tell me what the hell's going on here?"
Diana studied him. "I think that you're from another dimension," she finally said. "That's the only explanation."
"What?" Duo exclaimed. "Have you lost it or something?"
"Or something," she agreed. Her eyes traveled to one of her companions. "Take it off," she instructed.
"Are you sure?" growled the man.
"What are you afraid of?" Duo cut in, and Heero wished he still had his hand around that baka's braid. Maybe then he'd shut up and they'd learn something. "If you're all girls, I don't mind, I like girls."
One of them laughed softly. "That's not the problem," he said in that low voice, then reached and pulled off the mask. Quatre's face stared calmly at them. "We're not girls," he said with a slow smile, pulling the disks off his neck.
"What the... " Duo broke off as another of them pulled off his mask, and a huge braid fell out.
His double grinned. "Talks a lot, doesn't he?"
"You're saying you don't?" asked a third, pulling off his mask. It was the one who had punched out Wufei before, and he looked just like him.
Trowa just stared at his double, who stared back with the same lack of an expression.
And then Heero was unable to look at anything else, as the one closest to him, the one who'd triggered the last detonation, pulled off his mask, and he found himself staring at his own face.
End Part 1
(:./marika/others1)
