21-Mar-2006

Title: Launch 18/?
Author: TB
Archived: GWA and
http://www.geocities.com/brother_maxwell/TB_home_page.html
Category: yaoi
Pairing: 3x4
Disclaimer: The plot and characters of Gundam Wing are used here without permission or profit. Just so's you know.
Summary: Part 18: Quatre takes a swim, and subsequently opens a can of whupp-ass.

Launch by Erin Cayce

Part Eighteen

The wetsuit was full-length and fit well enough, a little too loose about the shoulders and waist and too long in the legs, but Quatre reminded himself that he wasn't buying it, just borrowing. It came with gloves that buttoned to the sleeves, and a tight hood that left only the circle of his face from eyebrows to chin bare.

Sally Po reappeared carrying a Vector Pro BC jacket, and Duo came immediately after with the Aqualung diving regulator and Octopus. The two Preventers helped Quatre don the jacket and buckle it securely at the shoulders, cummerbund and chest, and he checked the gauge console, buoyancy and weight modules himself. Albert and Camus, sensing they were nearing the excitement, began to chatter; Quatre reached a hand into the enclosure to rub Albert's snout, silently admitting to his own state of tense expectation.

Duo doubled checked him as Quatre sat on the bench running the wall of the bay and strapped on his flippers. "We just heard from Heero," he said. "He's still got coordinates on the IEO's position. We've transferred live feed to your GPS. Will the dolphins understand that?"

"They probably won't need it," Quatre reminded him gently. "They have their own echolocation."

"Humour me," Duo said drily. "Something else-- he and Benson are flying to Brussels. Heero thought that if they could break into Barton's personal system they might find some evidence-- passcodes or evidence or something." He frowned down at Quatre. "You could into Space with all this crap." He tightened the left shoulder strap again, and forced his hands down to his side. "Show me where you've got the gun." Quatre obediently touched the utility pocket at his side where his Beretta handgun was stored in a water-proof seal. Duo scowled down at it. "I'd still be happier if we could get another piece on you," he added.

"If I put on much more equipment, we'll lose the advantage of speed," Quatre told him. He was a little reluctant himself, but immediate practicality had to outweigh what would be practical once he got on the ship. Duo had already pushed the Longhorn well over the safety margin to ensure they'd have some night cover left when they entered the IEO's waters. Quatre had been uneasily sure that he'd felt the ship shudder more than once as they ran at the dangerous speed of thirty-four knots, not the thirty of which the Longhorn was dependably capable. They were perhaps an hour out from the IEO now, and only a greying of the sky and ocean outside the lowered wet-deck gate indicated that false dawn was upon them. A dense morning fog had already arisen, and flooded the wet deck with a dewy chill that Quatre could feel even through the wet suit. The fog was their first real blessing; it would be worse for the inexperienced sailors on the IEO, if it didn't burn off too quickly. It also kept visibility poor and light low, an advantage for Quatre more than anyone else.

"Watch the cameras," Duo repeated for at least the fifth time. "They're going to expect us to try an underwater approach."

Sally laughed. "Yes," she allowed, dropping a hand to Quatre's shoulder. "But we're dealing with colonials, and Quatre's the only spacer I know who talks to dolphins. I think we'll have the element of surprise on this one."

Quatre drew a deep breath, and let it out through his nose. "That's what I'm hoping," he agreed. "Besides, I'm relying on you to distract our friends on the IEO."

"I'll do my job," Duo promised, wearing his crooked grin. It faded a little, though he managed to keep it in place. "But you take care of yourself. Don't try to board if you think you can't. We'll pick you up-- someday."

"It will work," Quatre assured him confidently. "I trust you. So trust me."

Duo bent to hug him quick and hard. "I do," he murmured. "More than I'd trust just about anyone. Don't get killed, buddy." He squeezed extra tightly, then released Quatre reluctantly. "Good luck," he said more formally. He nodded to Sally, and left as if he wouldn't allow himself to look back. Quatre watched him go, feeling a fluttering in his stomach that brought back memories of a darker time.

A time Trowa and Wufei were doing their best to resurrect. Quatre breathed deeply again, and fitted his goggles over his eyes. He pressed Sally's hand, and said, "Wish me luck too?"

She grinned at him. "I'm sort of betting you don't need it." She tentatively stroked Camus's rubbery hide. "Time's against you," she warned him grimly. "It will be dawn by the time you reach the ship."

A dolphin carrying a human would be lucky to make twenty-four knots without serious injury. Quatre only nodded tensely. The four agents who'd been hovering in the back of the wet deck by the landing craft came forward at Sally's gesture and took up positions around the enclosure. Quatre flipped on his chest-mounted torch, and slipped between two of the men to grasp the steel edge, planting his feet to let his lower body do most of the hard work. Sally said, "Go!" and all together, they pushed the enclosure and the dolphins over the sill of the wet deck, sliding it out onto the deck grating until it began to float in the half-dozen inches of water there. Quatre and the team gave it a final push, and it sank off the edge of the deck.

Albert and Camus slipped free and into the water with squeals of relief and joy. Quatre let the other agents worry about retrieving the enclosure on its nylon tethers, inserting his regulator between his teeth and taking a few experimental breaths. He turned back in the ankle-deep water to find Sally right next to him, sweat and fog gathering damply in her hair.

She inclined her head to him, and he returned the gesture. Then he waded to the edge of the deck, and jumped off.

He sank into the freezing ocean water only to find Albert rubbing lovingly against him. Quatre returned the caresses, then concentrated on getting a solid grip on the grey strap running Albert's torso. Ready? he thought, tentatively pushing the emotion behind the words at his dolphin friends. Camus's mouth, visible in the watery beam of his torch, opened as if he were laughing. Quatre laughed back as Albert pumped effortlessly with his broad tail, and plunged them deep underwater.

They were out of the ship's shadow a minute later. Though the stream of oxygen from his regulator was normal, Quatre suffered a moment of panic, a sudden certainty that he would drown away from the safety of the ship. He forced himself to close his eyes, not stare wildly at the way his torch only barely illuminated the black water about him for a few feet in circumference, providing little comfort to an imagination that had shot into over-drive. With his eyes closed, he could feel Albert's solid presence better, nearly three times his size and six hundred kilograms of muscle between him and the endless ocean.

It was definitely cold, though the suit protected him from the worst of it. They had a long way to go. Quatre let himself hang limply from Albert's powerful body, careful not to inhibit the tail and fins in any way. The dull echoes of Camus's clicks and shrieks carried to him through the water, but he received more an impression of delight and adventure than a real communication. From Albert, there was only serenity, and focus. They streamed ahead, rising to the surface every five minutes for just the second it took for the dolphins to inhale fresh air. He knew they were stretching the time they could last without breathing in order to keep up their speed, but there was nothing he could do about a decision they'd made without his input. He clung tightly to Albert's strap as they zipped through the cold water. He did his best not to think about the vast depths below him, of how far he might fall if he lost his handhold. The sensation made him dizzy and ill very quickly, and he forced himself to conjugate the three Spanish verbs he knew until he was sufficiently in control of himself again. He made sure to think about the surface and its comforting nearness, after that.

They'd been traveling for nearly twenty minutes by Quatre's softly glowing watch when he realised, quite suddenly, that they were no longer alone. Moving cautiously, he directed his torch toward the prickling sensation of presence at his open right flank, and got a start for his effort. There were two dolphins he'd never seen before, swimming alongside Albert and Camus.

He had to grip the strap with his right hand and climb a bit over Alfred's broad back, but he managed to swing the light toward the left. His suspicion was confirmed. Three more dolphins there.

They were surrounded by a pod.

He'd never know why they'd come to join his mission, but Quatre was slammed with a feeling of deep humility and awe. A lone human almost ten nautical miles away from his ship, and he sensed nothing more than acceptance of his presence with Albert and Camus. He tentatively framed thought the most courteous welcome he would have given royalty, pushing it out toward the stranger dolphins with great caution. From all sides came flickers of greeting, some that felt old, some young, but all of them without that element of familiarity that Albert and Camus had from working with humans. Quatre was nothing more than a strange new variety of fish to this pod. He found himself smiling as he pressed his cheek against Albert's heaving hide.

He knew they were entering the perimetre of the IEO both by the amount of time elapsed and by the sharp increase of curiosity from the pod. He switched off his torch and made sure none of his gauges were glowing, and Albert slowed to accommodate him as he swung a flippered leg over the dolphin's back, stretching his arms to grab as much of Albert's thick body as possible. When he was pressed as close as he could get, they were on their way again, moving closer to a surface that was grey with dawn, not black. Minutes later that Quatre saw a shape resolving out of that blackness. Vague points of light producing silvery blobs became identifiable features, and the chitters and babbles from the dolphins around him rose audibly. They had found the hull.

To the back, he whispered silently to Albert, thinking very hard about the sub launch bay. He was too turned about to think in terms of direction, and had a very nervous five minutes as they passed the anchor port twice. Now that they were close enough, he could indeed make out the underwater cams and their attached broad-beams. He encouraged Albert to stay toward the bottom of the pod's formation, broadcasting his thanks over and over again in a mindless mantra. He interrupted himself only when he finally identified the aft by the shape of the hull. As one, the pod turned toward it, sweeping him up to the surface a final time. As his head broke the waves, Quatre instinctively tried to gasp, as though he'd been drowning beneath the weight of the ocean, but got only the steady, satisfied hiss of his regulator. Forcing away the thunderous beat of his own heart, Quatre freed a hand to rip it away from his mouth, and bobbed in place with Albert as he listened intently for alarms.

Nothing. There was no noise but an errant click or two from one of the pod dolphins to split the night air.

The sub launch was on a jutting platform nearly six feet above his head, shifting slowly as waves rocked the huge ship. Getting up to it was the part he hadn't been able to plan flawlessly. He had something like twenty minutes to board before Duo and the Preventers would arrive to take up station at missile distance from the IEO, and if he was being especially careful, it might take him that long to do it.

Quatre decided not to be especially careful.

He tugged at the zipper of one of his pockets, and freed the military grabber and its long length of silk cable. It would deploy under its own velocity, but he knew beyond doubt that the crash of the metal grappling hook on the metal platform six feet above him could alert anyone on Top Deck to his presence. He unraveled the cable, gave himself perhaps three feet of length, and tried to get a good swing started. He nearly went under for his efforts, and came up sputtering in the waves.

Grinning dolphin snouts tapped him from all sides as he spat salty water from his mouth, and he rubbed affectionately before remembering he wasn't with animals he knew. But his gesture seemed to be accepted, as he himself had been, and he completed it more respectfully, rubbing up between the eyes.

Help, he thought he heard. No, not heard, but somehow still understood. Quatre closed his eyes, relying on the dolphins to keep him at the surface, and rested his other hand, the one still holding the cable, on another smooth hide nearby. The grabber dangled by his legs, and he knocked it with a foot.

Jump. An exhilarating rush from deep to air, the weightless leap, the scream of pure freedom. The laughing crash back into the wet, the fantastic slap of impact.

Jump. Quatre opened his eyes, and saw gleaming dolphin eyes staring back at him.

He let go of the useless hook, reminding himself to apologise to Duo later for losing Preventer equipment. When the end of the rope slithered through his hands and he could no longer feel it near him, he kicked off his flippers, and let them fall away as well. He reinserted his regulator, and arranged himself along the hide of the dolphin directly before him, the one who had projected that thought-feeling about the jump. He slid over the dolphin's back, putting his backside to the dorsal fin and fitting his bare feet into the rough juncture of torso and flipper. He tried not to let himself think how crazy this was, and smoothed a hand down the dolphin's wide eyeridge. "Go," he said aloud, needing to hear it.

They plunged back below the surface as the other dolphins spread out to give them room. The dive was hard and fast, and Quatre fought vertigo, pinning his gaze to the dolphin's back as pressure gathered about his body. Just as he started to get uncomfortable, the dolphin whirled about sharply. He clung as hard as he could as they climbed back, the dolphin's flukes pumping madly, hard muscles bucking underneath him. He braced himself, thighs tense and knees spring-loaded; and then they burst out of the water as if shot from a canon. He couldn't repress the wild whoop that tore out of him any more than the dolphin could, though it was strangled by his regulator. Quatre, eyes wide open and screaming like a maniac, flung himself off the dolphin's back and toward the platform as they passed it.

He hit with what seemed a resounding clash and clang, rolling awkwardly to a stop against the sub winch. Breath knocked out of him, head ringing and limbs still convinced they were flailing in empty air, he listened for and heard the smacking thunderclap of the dolphin's impact on the waves.

And nothing else. Though he lay still as stone for nerve-wracking minutes, there were no shouts of alarm, no claxons ringing alert, no rush to investigate.

They'd done it. He was on.

He grappled with the jacket, finally managing to free himself and stagger to his feet. He'd acquired some bruises during his brief flight-- or at least the hard landing. He ripped the goggles and regulator off his face, and freed his head from the wet hood. Then he crawled to the edge of the platform, and looked over.

His pod were still there, noses turned up toward him in a very serious regard.

"Thank you," he whispered to all of them. "Thank you. All of you."

He knew it was only a trick of anatomy, but their ruthless grins stuck in his mind as they turned and swam away, disappearing beneath the choppy waves. Albert-- he knew it was Albert-- lingered longer, until Quatre pressed a firm good-bye on him. He waited until he was sure all his friends were gone, and then he scrambled for the shelter of the launch bay.

"I'm picking something up," Nootka announced, bending over his console. "Something's approaching. Small."

"Perhaps our enemies have finally decided to join us," Wufei answered, striding across the bridge to look at the monitor. "We've got several objects," he reported, frowning.

Mariemaia finished her tea and set aside the chipped mug that had been found for her from the galley. "Your predictions were excellent, as always," she told Wufei. "Exactly when we expected them." She turned her chair to face the man standing in the corner. "He's rather brilliant, Captain," she added.

Captain Mostyn, bound and gagged and watched by one of the black-clad fake Preventers, could only glare at her. His gaze more than made up for his inability to voice his reply.

"If we can confine our smirking," Trowa said, looking up from his own console-- a laptop computer interfaced with the ship's database and the nuclear guidance system for the missiles on the top deck, "then perhaps someone could inform me just what we're looking at?"

"Bring up the underwater cameras," Wufei instructed Nootka, leaning over him. "Heat sensors left screen." He turned to the neighbour console, and hit two buttons. The soft roar of white noise that was the ocean filled the bridge. Overlaying it, a sound like a creaking door, followed by a high-pitched squeal that made more than one of them wince.

"What the hell is that?" Baker demanded from beside the IEO's former captain. "Some kind of ship?"

Wufei straightened with a little exclamation of disgust. "Fish," he said flatly. He gestured to the screen, as several large, silvery animals swept past the camera, their bodies flopping sinuously.

"Dolphins," Kozlova said blankly. "Those are dolphins. I saw them in a movie once."

"Enough staring," Trowa told them all. "I don't care if we've got man-eating sharks out there. We're not looking for fish, we're looking for Preventers with big guns." Wufei turned down the audio, but he didn't turn it off, and his expression was thoughtful. Catalonia left her lounging stance against the window and came to stand next to him.

"You're thinking what I'm thinking," she said.

Wufei glanced at her. "I'm also thinking they'd have to be crazy. There isn't a ship anywhere near us."

"Could they have come from a stealth sub?"

"It's fish," Trowa emphasised without looking up from his work. "When we've got torpedoes out there, I'll start to worry."

"He's right," Wufei murmured, and flipped the audio off. "We can't be distracted by every little thing."

Catalonia scowled. "I want to go check on it."

"And I want you to shut up," Barton retorted, losing his thin patience. "Fine. Go. Be back here in ten minutes." If he knew she glared hotly at his back, he ignored it, his fingers moving sensitively over the keyboard of his computer. A moment later, she flipped her long hair over her shoulder, a gesture of dismissal as much as it was confidence. She turned sharply on her heel and left the bridge, climbing swiftly down to the top deck and the stairwell below them.

Mariemaia held her empty mug out to Martinez, the young woman who was most often at her side. Martinez padded silently to the cabinet where the coffee and tea brewed, one note of comfort for their tired and high-strung group of rebels. Mariemaia watched her prepare the tea, then looked back at Mostyn, catching him sagging wearily in his bonds.

"Not much longer, Captain," she comforted him. "Whether the President steps down or sends innocent soldiers to make war on us-- either way, the end is near."

The sub launch was like a cave, empty but for two large sheet-covered subs slumbering near the launch platform. Quatre had left the dawn light behind when he'd broken past the storm-crash panels. The bay itself was chilly and quite dark, though not, thankfully, as dark as it had been under the night-time ocean. Quatre moved carefully inward, focusing on where he knew the hatch to be on the far right wall. He thought about going back to the platform to retrieve his vest and the torch, but determined that to be an unnecessary risk. He had to proceed undetected for as long as possible. He did stop to free the pouch that held his gun, tearing at the plastic seal.

Something clanged to the metal deck, at least ten feet ahead of him. Quatre ducked into a tight crouch against a lab table, and froze, his hand over the gun.

There was an excruciating pause. Then a light that definitely did not belong to him switched on, revealing a slim body crowned by a generous fall of yellow hair. A woman.

She said, "Boys and girls, come out to play; the moon is shining bright as day."

Quatre could only be grateful that it wasn't. But any hope he had that the woman didn't know someone was actually in the bay vanished when she aimed the torch directly at him. He rose tensely, trying to finish freeing his Beretta surreptitiously.

"No weapons," she said sharply. There was a second pause, as Quatre reluctantly dropped his hand. It was too dark to see if the woman had a weapon trained on him. When she laughed suddenly, Quatre's eyes snapped to her face. "Quatre Raberba Winner," she said. "I thought it might be you."

He squinted against the beam of the torch. "Dorothy," he murmured, suddenly recognising her. It was not a very happy moment.

She bowed mockingly. "Quick as ever on the uptake." She kept the beam squarely in his eyes when he tried to turn his head away from it. "I told Barton you'd show up sooner or later," she announced. "He didn't believe me. He told me to check it out if it would keep me quiet." She switched off the torch abruptly, waited only a second, and flashed it in his face again. Blinded, he snapped his eyes closed, but too late. "For a man as in love with his own brains as he is," she continued almost lazily, "he's not very smart. I knew you'd come, after all, and I haven't seen you since... when was it? Ah. When you left me to die on Libra."

"That was a rather mutual problem," he recalled. "At least you were mobile. I had sizeable hole in my abdomen."

"And Barton to drag you to safety," she retorted. "You left me sitting there with the ruins of my entire life about me." She came cautiously closer to him. "For all your speeches on the necessity of kindness and compassion... I remember the look on your face as you left me behind, Quatre Winner. I remember the hate in your eyes when you looked at me."

"You're mistaken," he told her, unobtrusively palming a beaker that sloshed with some liquid. "You were hurt and upset. So was I, actually."

Dorothy came even closer. "You never get tired of playing therapist, do you." She flashed the beam at him again, but he was ready this time, and managed to close his eyes.

"How's this for psychology," he said, moving to put the table between them. "I'm the one who instituted the Zero System in mobile suit design. I know better than anyone what it was capable of doing to the mind. Whatever you did under its influence was only minimally under your control. It magnified your most violent impulses."

"But all this is old history," Dorothy said. "I find myself with an exciting opportunity. A chance to rectify my mistakes. When Chang told me about the plan to board your ship, I knew you wouldn't just watch from the sidelines as something so dear to you was used to incite a war." She laughed. It was a distinctly unbalanced sound. "Still fighting so that people like me will surrender? Still hoping for that elusive Peace?"

"I have some news for you," he said. "We had it until you boarded a scientific vessel with nuclear weaponry." He judged the distance between them, and launched the beaker at her right arm and the torch. She dropped it with a yell, and Quatre sprinted around the table and toward the hatch.

She recovered almost instantly and was right on him, catching him by the arm and making him stumble. She tripped him with a kick to his shin, and he crashed into a stool. He heard her draw a weapon, but the torch was rolling wildly on the floor, throwing crazed shadows about them. Dorothy clawed her way up his body, and Quatre dropped abruptly to the deck to throw her off. They scrambled across the floor, hitting furniture and tripping over strung power cords. She was between him and the hatch when he finally made it back to his feet, but he couldn't leave her behind him anyway and expect to move silently through the ship. Quatre ripped a peristaltic pump off a counter top and flung it at her, scoring a solid hit on her shoulder, and followed it with a heavy glass and metal contraption that might have been a rotary evaporator. It sailed over her head and crashed with a violent break against the wall. The ultrasonic bath was a miss as well, but it showered her with liquid and wrung a horrified gasp as she tried to wipe her eyes.

"Stand down," he ordered her. "Stand down and I'll--"

He knew a moment later that she'd only been faking chemical burn. She leapt for him, her arm arcing viciously, and as she slammed him back into the counter, her knife bit deep into unprotected side.

He felt the impact first, but the pain followed quickly. He punched her across the face and she reeled away, leaving the knife hilt-deep left of his stomach, scraping his hipbone. He wrenched another unit from the wall and threw it, so wide it earned nothing more than an instinctive dodge. Quatre stumbled back, sliding along the counter pressing into his back, gripping the handle of the knife and trying to determine what kind of weapon it was. It was a burning pit of agony running all the way up his torso.

"Why are you-- always-- sticking things in me?" he panted at her, reaching awkwardly for the centrifuge. The pull of muscles away from the wound brought gorge up into his throat. "Some kind of-- Freudian-- fantasy?" he gritted, and dropped the equipment when his arm spasmed.

A new voice, familiar and furious, shouted, "Over here, bitch!" Both Quatre and Dorothy whirled toward the new arrival, and Dorothy shrieked as an entire rack of fragile test tubes exploded in her face. Quatre glanced quickly at the counter and saw his best bet-- a stainless steel bottom corer laid out beside sample plates. He grabbed it with both hands, and swung all three feet of the hollow pipe at Dorothy's head. It connected with a meaty thunk, and when she went down, she didn't move.

The light of the torch bobbed, lifted, and came to rest on his chest. Quatre followed it to Kathleen Ehrlich's pale face.

"I've never been so glad to see someone in all my life," he told her, meaning every word.

He wrung a quick, nervous laugh from her. Ehrlich knelt beside Dorothy's body, checking the carotid pulse. "Thready," she reported. She shone the torch on the other woman's head, and whistled softly. Quatre looked, and winced. What had been solid skull before meeting the corer was now a gory mess. He realised he could smell the blood overlaying the salty smell of the ocean, and ran a hand over his nose and mouth.

"Are you the only one free?" he asked Ehrlich.

She looked up, and nodded after a moment. "When they boarded, they forced us all into our cabins. They brought magnetic locks." She stood, and came to his side. "You're bleeding," she said, level and calm. It slipped only a little when he moved his hand, and she saw the hilt of the knife. "Shit," she muttered.

"Feels about-- four inches," he explained shortly. "Think you can help me remove it?"

"Sit down first," she ordered, and brought him a stool. He sank down gratefully, but stopped her when she moved to touch him. "See if there's something to tie her up with," he said, pointing to Dorothy. "I don't want to be interrupted again."

He waited, forcing himself to breathe slowly and shallowly, to inspect the edges of his wound, to examine the handle. It was leather, and slim, and he thought the knife might be a Nahuarra dagger-- a lot of veterans carried them. Lightweight and aggressive, with a double, but thankfully un-serrated, edge. He watched while Ehrlich bound Dorothy at the wrists and ankles with electrical tape, thoughtfully adding a gag.

"Keep the tape," he advised her. "We can use it again." She returned to his side then with a water bottle from the fridge, and he titled his head back both so he couldn't see what she was doing to his side, and to look at her face while she worked. "Tell me more about what happened."

"They came in landing boats," she said. "We were just off Nova Scotia." Her shoulders bunched under her dark tee shirt, and then he felt cold water splashing about the wound. He bit down on a gasp and made himself breathe through his nose. "Boarded the same way you did, I guess. I wasn't down here. They took some of the students hostage and got to the Captain on the bridge. They told us we wouldn't be harmed if we cooperated, that they weren't after us, just what the ship could do. Then they started shutting us in the cabins. I heard the seals activate. That was maybe forty hours ago."

"How'd you get out?" he prodded. A painful twinge sparked up through his gut when she wrapped her fingers around the handle. He nodded once, sharply, and she gripped his shoulder with the other hand. He ground his teeth together as she ripped the knife out of him; there was no relief, only renewed pain. She dropped the blade to the counter and pressed her hand to his side. He could feel blood pumping out now that the knife wasn't blocking it. "Tape," he grunted.

"I can make a pressure bandage," Ehrlich extemporized. She waited until he replaced her hand with his own, pressing hard against the liquidy source of his hurt. She used the knife to slice a seam of Dorothy's trouser leg, and was soon rolling a tight package of cloth. She had him hold it to his wound while she cut a long length of tape. "I was a Specials officer," she told him abruptly. "Lieutenant JG. I was at Victoria Base when it was bombed by a Gundam pilot. I got trapped in my room when the blast tripped security codes and locked us in. After that, I always-- I always made sure I had more than one way out."

"I didn't know you were military," he said. She slipped her arms under his, strapping the tape tight to his waist and trapping the bandage tight to his side. Then she used tape straight off the roll to wrap it again and again.

"Navy." Their faces were close enough, her shoulders brushing his, that he could smell salt and sweat on her hair. "What were you?" she asked, not quite meeting his eyes as she straightened.

He tested the tape, and decided it would hold. He slid off the stool, and felt only a little dizzy. "Not a Specials officer," he answered.

Her mouth moved in a tiny, crooked frown. "We weren't all bad," she muttered. "We didn't all want to take over the colonies. It wasn't about that for everyone."

Quatre felt moved to put a hand on her shoulder. They were both wearing his blood now, and somehow that seemed significant. "And we didn't all hate Earth," he replied. "A lot of bad things happened during the war for bad reasons. The sooner we can get to the bridge, the sooner we can stop it from happening again."

"Two to thirteen isn't great odds," she warned him, picking up both the bloody knife and the torch. Quatre bent stiffly and searched Dorothy for a gun. He turned one up in a shoulder holster, and wondered why she hadn't used it. He flashed it at Ehrlich before checking the magazine and finding it full. "Tell me you have back-up coming," Ehrlich added as he gave her the gun, and removed his own, finally tearing it out of the plastic and feeling it for dampness. He was relieved to find it dry.

"There's a ship full of Preventers on its way," he said. "I'm just trying to make it a little easier for them when they get here." He glanced her over. She wore black jeans and a dark shirt, but she was hardly protected. Still, she was already striding toward the hatch, and he had no choice but to follow her. "You said thirteen?"

"At least," she confirmed. "I never saw all of them, but I listened while they herded us around. What is all this about?"

"Mariemaia Khushrenada broke out of prison. Her people have brought nuclear weapons. They're threatening to explode them underwater."

It took a marine biologist to feel the full horror of that, and he saw it on her face when she spun to stare at him. She'd gone white as a sheet. "They wouldn't," she whispered.

"These are the same people who tried to drop a colony on Earth," he said grimly. "They want power, and they'll use war and destruction to get it." He stopped her with a light touch. "Do you think you could free anybody else? What about the Captain?"

"Captain's on the bridge," Ehrlich said. "I heard one of them say that. As for getting the others out-- it took me nearly six hours to break the seal, and I had a mechanical jam."

"Are they patrolling?"

"Not the lower decks." She looked at him, then suddenly understood his train of thought. "We have network access from the dry lab."

"But only to certain systems." He pressed against his side, unable to tell if it was wet with new blood or if the pressure bandage was working. "They don't know we're out. If Catalonia was down here waiting for me, we may have some time before they check on her. If we start crashing systems, we can buy some confusion."

"We can set them up to crash on a time trigger," Ehrlich said. "They'll have to deploy to look for who's responsible. We can be waiting by the bridge."

"If we go busting in there with a knife and two handguns, they'll make hamburger out of us."

"You have a better idea?"

He thought about it, but they didn't have long to wait around. "No," he muttered. "All right. Let's get to the dry lab." Weapons ready, they opened the hatch quietly and slipped into the passageway. It, too, was dark, though emergency lights were running, spaced twenty feet apart and glowing a golden orange. They moved at a smooth, quick walk toward the ladders. Quatre, because he was smaller, went first, rolling out onto the fourth deck floor and checking both sides of the corridor before calling the all-clear to Ehrlich. She climbed out after him, looking as lethal as any Gundam pilot ever had in her dark clothes, blood-stained hands, and with the brightness of adrenaline and danger in her blue eyes. He found himself grinning, and was surprised when she returned the expression.

As they climbed toward Deck Three, she whispered up, "How did you get on the ship, anyway? These terrorists would have noticed a boat approaching."

Quatre was concentrating on ignoring the deep ache and sting that reaching for the next rung created. He murmured back, "I'll tell you when we're through with this. I think you'll like it."

End Part 18

(:./erin/launch18)