28-Jun-2005
Well, here's the next part, as promised. Otto is about to meet a certain freaky Gundam designer... I think I should have titled it 'When Mechanics Collide'. :-D
Six hours later, I was on a plane and heading for the Pacific. The Lachesis was a salvage ship, ostensibly. Operating under the auspices of a Sweepers salvage group, it was currently moored in Hawaii, indistinguishable from all the other freighters except for its sheer size; the thing was fully the size of a MS carrier. And if my suspicions were correct, that's exactly what it had been--at least before the Gundams had gone back into space. Hiding in plain sight... what was one more freighter in an ocean full of them? The terrorists had balls, I'll give them that.
So I decided to take a leaf from their book. They were looking for crew, as most freighters did while in port. I told them I needed a berth, and didn't even pretend to be anything other than I was--a one ex-lieutenant Otto, surly engineer in need of work. It was a risk--given the kind of stuff they'd apparently been sticking their noses into, I half-expected them to shy away from anything that smacked of the military--but not as much as if I had tried to make up some kind of flimsy cover story. I wasn't OZ intelligence; I didn't have the resources to make sure it was deep enough to stand up against any real sort of background check, much less the suspicions of a crew full of colony sympathizers.
But with the splintering of the Alliance after Operation Daybreak, not to mention the problems with the Romefeller and the Treize factions, ex-military anything was a dime a dozen. My time in Zechs' squad was so classified that most of OZ hadn't known what we were doing, much less the colonies. Without it, I was just another out of work grease monkey.
My best cover, oddly enough, would be no cover at all. After all, what kind of spy announces he's from OZ?
It worked, amazingly enough--though the way I managed to tear down and rebuild a good portion of their diesels in less than a day probably had something to with it. A brief talk with the mate, and I was in. We sailed a few days after, heading for Los Angeles.
Most of the crew were Sweepers, and fairly standoffish, which I'd expected. I was the new guy, after all--and I knew I was being watched. So for the most part I kept my eyes open, my head down, and did my job. This whole cloak and dagger thing wasn't exactly something I was trained for, and the last thing I wanted was to seem too interested in anything.
The first time I actually saw the man I was after was a shock, though. The fabled Howard McClure looked a hell of a lot like a deranged beach bum. Standing at a bare couple inches over five feet, he was a bizarre figure in shades, Hawaiian shirt and sandals--about as far from a sober freighter captain as one could get and still be part of the same species. Mexican beer in hand, he ran the ship with the careless attitude of a preoccupied genius, leaving Russell--the first mate--to handle most of the day to day jobs that needed to get done.
Still, there was no mistake. His hair and clothing might have changed, but the face was pretty much the same--this was the Howard I'd been looking for. Which left me with a real problem. I'd found my Gundam connection... so now what the hell was I supposed to do? I couldn't exactly walk up to the man and say, "I know you helped build the Gundams. Wanna compare notes?" Talk about a good way to get turned into fish food.
It was times like this that I really, really wished I was still a part of OZ. I could really have used some backup right about then.
I dithered for a while, watching Howard and worrying. We crossed the Pacific several times in the meantime, doing random salvage runs, nothing out of the ordinary. No one said anything suspicious, no one did anything suspicious--if Howard hadn't been on board, I would have been convinced I'd gotten on the wrong damn ship. As it was, I was damn frustrated. The war wouldn't wait for me, and the longer it took me to find the Gundams, the more chances Zechs would have to try one damnfool stunt too many and get himself killed for real.
Eventually my stubbornness paid off, though--and when it did, it paid off big.
My big discovery happened in Singapore, at the end of another deep-sea run. I'd been helping on the shipside end of things, hooking up odd-shaped bits of salvage to be lifted off by the cranes. It had taken most of the day to unload--big ship, remember?--and once we were done, I decided to grab a breather.
Pouring myself a cup of black-tar coffee, I left the stuffy break room in favor of one of the upper decks. From there I watched the mate run around with a shipper's foreman, squawking at each other and pointing out at things on an oversized sheaf of papers. I wasn't looking at anything in particular, just letting my eyes wander as I tried to figure out what it was that was bothering me. It was on the tip of my brain, just skirting the edge of memory... .and then I felt the hair on the back of my neck prickle. Straightening, I leaned over the rail as I realized what I was looking at, damn near dropping my mug in the process.
"I'll be damned... " There on that empty deck, cast into relief by the late afternoon sun, was the evidence I had been looking for.
Almost no one else would have recognized it--only someone who had worked with Mobile Suits day in and day out would have understood exactly it was they were looking at. But if I'd seen it once, I'd seen it a hundred times: the telltale signs of where a MS had lain. Shifting back and forth with the rocking of a ship, reinforced armor plate etching grooves into the softer steel of the deck... the pattern was unmistakable. And from the layout of the marks, the MS they'd carried had been a big fucker.
The deck didn't stay empty for long, of course. I spent a good amount of time pacing out those wear marks under the guise of moving equipment around, taking rough measurements and muttering to myself. The Gundam--by this point I was sure that's what it had been--had been almost as large as the Tallgeese, and that was saying something. It was also much bulkier; I found grooves that seemed to point towards wing extensions or flaps of some kind, though tucked in closer to the chest unit than was normal... or useful, for that matter. Another variable-geometry design? I couldn't tell. It wasn't until I managed to scribble out a rough outline on a bit of graph paper that I even realized which one I'd found. Gundam 02. The one we never seemed to see coming--the one that had rescued its buddy, 01.
The one that had killed Vance.
I crumpled the paper in my fist, remembering. We had been so close... and no doubt these were the people that had helped that bastard get away. The sudden rush of anger surprised me. I hadn't realized how much a part of me still hated the Gundams, even now. Not so much for Vance's sake, or even Walker's--but for all of those poor bastards who'd had to die just so the colonies could prove a point.
Looking around, I slowly unclenched my fist. No one had noticed my little fit inside the noisy, cramped confines of the pump room, and I folded the paper, tucking it into an inside pocket. It wasn't much in the way of information, but it was a start. In the end, it didn't matter whether I loved the Gundams or hated them. They were still the key to this whole mess, and that meant that I had to figure them out.
Unfortunately, the Sweepers figured me out first.
It was my own damn fault, really. We were a week out of Guam when it hit us: a monster storm that blew up out of nowhere. It was one of those freakishly fast tropical weather changes that seemed almost designed to fuck up the shipping lanes. Normally a ship the size of the Lachesis wouldn't even notice, but this particular storm was bidding to become a hurricane, and doing its level best to swamp us under in the process. Still, we managed to hold our own.
Then we sprang a leak. It wasn't a gusher, and we were too damn busy to notice until too late that the water had gotten into the electrical system. An entire series of breakers fried, taking down a good portion of the ship's power--including one of the engines, which was bad, and all of the bilge pumps, which was worse. We ended up with every capable hand we could muster working belowdecks, trying to fix the damage. Much to my surprise, that included the ship's captain, which meant I finally got to see the legendary Howard in action.
"Shine a light over here, Simons--yeah, there!" With water dripping everywhere, everyone resembled drowned rats--greasy rats, at that. Posabella, the ship's engineer, looked like a troll in the dim light, with oil smeared over a dark-tanned face and arms as he tried to resurrect our failing power grid. "Fuck! Howard!" The floor tilted under our feet, water sloshing around ankles.
"Working on it!" Howard snapped back. "Backups are overloaded--we're starting to lose them!" He glared at Posabella, though the effect was ruined by the waterlogged gray fringe hanging limply around his face.
"Motherfuckin'--" Someone finally managed to slap a patch in place over the worst of the leak, and the spray of water petered out to a trickle. I was grateful, considering what we were working with--death by electrocution is not a fun way to go. Posabella didn't even notice as he continued to rewire the scorched and melted sections of paneling, the rest of us slapping in replacement fuses where we could and rerouting around where we couldn't. Muttering something ugly in Italian, Posabella connected up a last wire and ran a meter over it. "We're live--try it!"
Howard opened up a panel, and thumbed the main reset--when it didn't work, he gave it a thump. Lights sputtered on, flickered, then died. We could hear the asthmatic rumble of the pumps as they did the same.
Posabella kicked the bulkhead. "Flaming bitch--she's got juice, so what the hell is wrong *now*?" This ship didn't seem to like that much. It shuddered, and new alarms wailed as she slipped further sideways, the decking now at a dangerous angle.
The intercom crackled open. "Captain! We're listing badly --the wind is pushing us hard astern!"
"Tell me something I don't know," Howard snapped, hands wrist deep in cabling. He ripped a panel out, did something I couldn't quite see, then shoved it back in. "Stevens, gimme some readings!"
"All green over here!" came the shout from the hallway.
"Drake?"
"The same. Everything five point five through five point eight--all green!"
"Why the hell... ?" Howard muttered to himself, scratching his head. Posabella started running the meter along the main lines, checking for dead zones.
"Otto!" he snapped. "Check the engine that's down--see if the problem is over there. Goddamned motherFUCKing piece of obsolete shit that it is... " He continued to mutter as he worked his way down the hall.
"Got it." I snagged a light, using anything handy for balance as I waded my way up the deck. Hanging on to the housing for support, I popped the top panel off and peered in. Indicators flickered red in the shadows, and I grunted in satisfaction. I shoved another panel out of the way, tacking the light by its magnetic 'feet' to the wall.
"I've got something!" I hollered back at the others, fingers busily tracing loops of wire. "Looks like it's a feedback problem." The dim-witted little processor that monitored this particular engine had obviously failed to switch back from the emergency circuit series to the main. The ISCE card configuration was weird too, I noticed.
"What?" I'd forgotten about Howard, who began splashing his way up the deck. "Wait, don't--!"
I didn't even think about it. I knew exactly what this custom configuration was supposed to do--hell, had gotten my fingers scorched by it more than once. And if I was really, really lucky, the controller card itself wasn't fried... I reached in, yanked out two wires, reconnected another, and bypassed the problem altogether. A press of the reset button, and we were good to go.
"Try it now!"
Posabella hit the switch again, and the engine rumbled to life under my hands. The lights flickered on--and stayed on--and a cheer went up from the rest of the crew. I grinned as I began shoving the engine cover back into place, giving it a satisfied thump to latch it.
The chief engineer wasn't done just yet, though. "Party time comes later, boys!" he barked. "Drake, Isano--take lights and go check for more leaks! Stevens, check the bilge pumps. Otto, nice work. Now get your ass down to engine number two and make sure nothing got fried while we were playing around with this piece of shit!"
I had to resist the urge to salute. "Anything you say, boss," I remarked instead, stepping around Howard and grabbing the light to take with me.
It was too bad I was so damn satisfied with myself--otherwise it might have occurred to me to wonder what Howard might have seen.
Two days later, Howard cornered me in the break room.
"It's Otto, right?" The question came from behind, interrupting me in mid-pour. I glanced over my shoulder to see Howard leaning against the doorway, cigar in hand.
"Yeah, that's right." My reply probably sounded pretty damn wary--which would be only natural, because I was. From what I'd seen, Howard didn't make idle chitchat with random crew members. Hell, two months aboard ship and I'd barely spoken to the man: usually along the lines of 'move that over there', followed by a 'yessir'. For Howard to track me down and start up a conversation... something was up.
"Just wanted to say that you did some good work on that engine. You found the problem pretty damn fast--good job."
I shrugged a shoulder, and finished pouring my coffee. "It wasn't that big a deal. The chief did most of it."
"True. Posabella's a good engineer. I've worked with him for years," he said casually. I turned to face him, trying to get a sense of where he was going with this as Howard continued. "He was working for me back when I first figured out the in-series power augmentation. Said it was the most crack-brained idea I'd ever come up with, and that I'd blow the whole damn board."
Since I didn't know what to say, I tried to put on an interested face. "Oh?" He was still wearing those damn shades of his, which made it impossible to read his eyes.
"Yep. And he was right. Board I was working on fried faster than a greased greyhound. He called me a damn fool when I decided to try it on the Lachesis' engines, too."
"Really." Oh crap...
"Yep. It worked, though. Boosted efficiency about twenty-six percent. Even if he did damn near electrocute himself the first few times he worked with it--caused a power surge that fried half the bridge, too. He was pretty pissed about that."
"I'll bet." I resisted the urge to fidget nervously. This had to be Howard's version of Chinese water torture--interrogation through polite chitchat.
"Yeah. Good thing you knew just how to reset it, huh? I gotta admit, I'm impressed. It's not every day I run across someone who knows how to handle one of my custom jobs." Howard tilted his shades down, looking over them with narrowed eyes. I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my back.
Well, shit.
Stalling for time, I lifted my mug and took a sip, thinking furiously. Maybe Howard was the only one who had figured it out? Maybe so, but I couldn't count on it. The Sweepers were a tight bunch--close-mouthed gypsies with an eye for salvage--and Howard was far from stupid. He wouldn't have confronted me without some kind of plan. Not when he didn't know what my reaction would be.
Fuck it. I set the mug back down on the counter and crossed my arms. "Well, I should. After all, your biggest 'custom job' did its damnedest to kill me. Twice," I added as an afterthought.
"You don't say." Howard seemed a bit taken aback. No doubt he thought he'd cornered himself some kind of smooth-talking OZ operative. The fact that I wasn't trying to weasel out of his accusations was probably throwing him for loop.
"Yeah. I'm sure you remember it. Mobile Suit prototype, big fucker? Goes by the name of the Tallgeese?"
Howard didn't say anything for a moment. Then a corner of his mouth curled up in a lopsided smirk. "Oh, I remember it." Looking me up and down, he said pointedly, "But I don't remember you."
"No reason you should." I snagged my mug again, and took a gulp of coffee. "I'm just the guy who took over after you moved on to bigger and better things." I gave him the hairy eyeball, my meaning plain. "Someone had to put the thing back together after we'd hauled it out of mothballs, after all."
"We?"
"Yeah, 'we'. As in myself and Zechs Marquise." And Walker, but I doubted the name would mean anything to him. The mention of Zechs, on the other hand, had caused a definite shift of... *something* in the conversation, though I'd be damned if I could figure out what.
"You know Zechs?" Howard asked skeptically. I gave him a nasty look. Shouldn't that be my line?
"Yeah. Served with him for about a year and half, up until the Sanc operation." Now it was my turn to smirk. For a man with a bucket on his head, Zechs certainly got around. "I take it you know him too?"
Thankfully Howard didn't try to feed me any bull about seeing 'the Lightning Count' on the news, or anything. "Yeah. Me and the boys fished him out of the ocean after Khushrenada's little demonstration."
Well, damn. *That* hadn't been in the report. One of the risks of secondhand intel, I supposed. "Oh? Was it your idea to send him up to play Prince Peacecraft?"
Howard shook his head, confirming my suspicions. That whole idea had 'lame-brained Marquise stunt' written all over it. "Nah. Why would we? All I did was help him fix the Tallgeese."
"Feeling nostalgic, were we?" Either that, or Howard was playing a much deeper game than I gave him credit for.
"A bit." He shrugged. "Gave me a real turn to see the Tallgeese in action after all these years. Gotta admit, I was curious to meet the guy good enough to pilot it." He pushed away from the doorframe and stuck the cigar in his mouth, chewing on it thoughtfully. "Never figured I'd meet the person who'd managed to put my Humpty Dumpty back together again, though."
"Yeah, well... " Should I feed Howard a line of bull, and hope he swallowed it? Or just tell him the truth, and hope it didn't get me shot?
What the hell. In for a penny... I'd always been a lousy liar.
"... I figured if you wanted to chase Gundams, the best place to start is with the people behind 'em," I sat down on a chair, mug in hand, and braced a foot on one table leg. If I was going to get shot, I wanted at least to be comfortable. "Howard K. McClure--along with Dr. Jerrod Slator, you two were the geniuses of the original Mobile Suit development team. But you quit the project after the Tallgeese was developed, and then apparently turned your attentions to making Gundams." Ignoring the hot prickle of sweat down my neck, I looked at him, daring him to call me on it. "Am I wrong?"
Howard was very still. I watched him glance to the side, and shake his head very slightly. Then he focused his attention back on me, saying mildly, "I'm impressed... I haven't heard those names in years. How the hell did you figure it out?"
I gave him a slight smirk. So he had brought backup after all. "Are you kidding? I could recite the original specs of that metal monster in my sleep. If Zechs noticed the similarity between the Tallgeese and the Gundams, what makes you think I wouldn't?" I shrugged. "Tracking you down was the trickiest part."
"Well, you've found me. Congratulations." Howard didn't look all that pleased. Go figure. "Now what?"
I snorted in amusement--mostly at myself. If Howard expected some kind of diabolical master plan from me, he was going to be disappointed. I'd been flying by the seat of my pants for *months*.
"Actually, I was hoping you could tell me that." I shrugged, setting the mug back down. If I survived past the next few minutes, I was definitely going to break out part of my stash. Nothing better to celebrate a near-death experience than large amounts of alcohol. "You're one of the movers and shakers behind the Gundams--or at least you were. I'm just a grease monkey with a few connections. Ask anybody."
"So you've gone to all this trouble for... what? Just to get my autograph?"
"Nope." I looked up from the table, wondering what he was thinking. The moment of truth... cheesy, but true. "Zechs has been chasing after the Gundams for years now, and I don't think he's going to let a little thing like common sense stop him. So to find Zechs, I have to find the Gundams. And to find the Gundams, well... that's what I need you for."
Howard let me sweat for a several long minutes. Then he half-shrugged, pushing away from the doorframe. "Considering what you just told me, I'd say you're assuming a hell of a lot." He poured himself a cup of coffee, and turned to stare at me with narrowed eyes. "Don't you think it's a bit risky chasing around after known terrorists?"
"Like I have anything to lose?" I said in bitter amusement. "I'm throwing myself on your mercy, since it's fairly obvious I suck as a snoop. If you want to help me, great. If not... " I shrugged. "I'll have to try something else." Despite my bravado, though, I knew Howard was my best--hell, my only chance at getting the inside track on the war. If he turned me down--and didn't use me as shark bait--then I would be out of options. Any options short of trying to commandeer a colony-bound shuttle and getting my fool head blown off, anyway.
Howard snorted. "Right." Rifling through a half-empty box of doughnuts, he grabbed one and began heading for the door.
All this, and he was just going to walk away? Torn between relief and anger, I called after him, "So... what's it going to be?"
"I'll let you know." Coffee in one hand, danish in the other, Howard gave me a smirk. "After all, it's not like you're going anywhere."
After that I found myself with too much time to think--something I'd been doing my best to avoid for a while. My shipboard duties hadn't changed, and no one said anything to my face, but I could still tell that word had gotten out. It hung in the air, like the extra uncertain space given to a condemned man; no one wanted to talk too long or sit too close. Instead they just watched, waiting for Howard to make his decision. And I continued to do my job, even as I wondered how the hell I'd gotten myself into all this in the first place.
Who was I kidding? I wasn't some kind of black ops superspy. And as badly as I wanted to confront Zechs, to kick his ass and find out why he had buried me in that hospital, I was under no illusions about being anything other than a very small fish swimming with some very big sharks. Poking my nose into the affairs of the likes of Romefeller and the Alliance--hell, even radicals like White Fang, was stupid bordering on the suicidal.
But... I'd be damned if I'd spend the rest of my life wondering if I'd been used. Wondering if anything I'd done was worth anything. So if that meant tracking Marquise all the way to hell and back, then that's where I needed to go. I guess Walker hadn't been the only one infected with the Marquise Disease.
Some days I'm just a little slow on the uptake.
Meanwhile, Howard was playing games of his own.
The first time it happened, I was in the bathroom, razor in hand and a face full of shaving cream. Howard popped his head around the corner.
"You were a second lieutenant in OZ, right?"
I froze in mid-lather. "Uh... yes?" What was I supposed to say, anyway?
"All right. See ya!" And he was gone.
What the hell... ?
He hit me again, oh-so-casually over breakfast, in full earshot of most of the crew.
"Court-martialed twice, were you?" I damn near choked to death on the piece of toast I'd been chewing. How the hell had he found out about *that*??
I sent my best glare his way. Unfortunately for me, he seemed to be immune. "One and a half times, actually. They dropped the charges the second time around."
The bastard had the gall to smirk at me. "You don't say. Lucky for you, huh?" Then he turned and engaged the first mate in conversation, ignoring me completely.
It was about then that I realized that whatever the hell Howard really was, he had connections that made mine look like a couple tin cans tied together with string. That wasn't the last time he pulled his little sneak attack, either. He kept popping up over the course of the next couple of weeks, asking questions about things so classified I couldn't even begin to figure out how he'd learned about them.
Down in the engine room, elbow deep in grease:
"--so, how did the Victoria facilities work for ya? They make good Leos, but I bet they had a hissy fit when you told 'em they were going to work on my Tallgeese, eh?"
A few days later, cornered in one of the hallways:
"--You were with Marquise on L3 a year or so ago, weren't ya? Some kind of attached embassy to the Alliance bigwigs?"
Then even later, as I took a breather on one of the aft cargo deck:
"--faced off with Wing, didja?" At my baffled look, he elaborated. "Gundam 01. Intercepting it during re-entry--that must have been hairy."
What was I supposed to do? The questions Howard asked made it obvious he already had the answers. I had no counter to this bizarre little game of cat-and-mouse, so I answered him as straight as I could. I certainly didn't owe OZ anything anymore, that's for sure.
The last time he caught me, I was on the foredeck, getting some air. I wasn't doing anything in particular, really... just leaning on the rail, fidgeting with the ragged little sketch of Gundam 02 between my fingers and thinking. It was almost impossible to sneak up on someone up there, and I heard him clomping up the decking long before I saw him.
"Heya." Howard raised a hand in greeting. The day was pretty overcast, grey and hazy, but those shades were still parked firmly on his nose. If it had been anyone else, I would have called it a pathetic attempt to be cool, but even I could figure out that Howard didn't give a rat's ass about what other people thought. The shades were just part of the whole Howard package deal.
"Hey." I watched him approach warily, waiting for the next oddball question. So far the only thing he hadn't questioned me on was my sex life or my motives. To tell the truth, I wasn't sure which I'd want to answer less.
But he didn't say anything, just walked up the rail and draped his arms over it, looking out at the ocean. I waited for him to say something, make some joke--when the silence stretched on, I had to resist the urge to twitch nervously. I'd almost decided to leave when he finally spoke.
"I've decided to help ya out."
"What?" I shouldn't have been so surprised, but I'd almost given up hope. Despite all the questions he'd asked me, not one of them had been about anything that mattered. Or so I'd thought. And now... "Just like that?"
"Just like that." Howard turned, looking at me over the tops of his sunglasses. "Wasn't that what you wanted?"
"Well yeah, but... " I'd expected to have to do some pretty hefty bargaining to get it--or at least a good deal of groveling, being an ex-Ozzie and all. But Howard had found me out, cut me off at the knees--and now he was handing me a blank check. Every ounce of paranoia I possessed was screaming that this was too good to be true. "Why?" I asked, trying to keep from sounding as off-kilter as I felt.
"Do I need a reason?" Howard said, grinning a little. I wasn't fooling him one bit.
"No, but I'd feel better if you did," I told him bluntly. Sudden bouts of altruism made me nervous.
"You're an interesting fellow, for one. Do you realize that of all the people I've met during the course of this war, you're the only one without an agenda?" Howard raised his arms over his head and stretched, then rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand. "It's amazing how many great and noble causes we have running around out there."
I snorted. "I have an agenda." I fully planned to kick Zechs' ass at the first opportunity.
"Is that what you call it?" Howard grinned at me, and I felt my ears turning red. "Well, I guess it doesn't matter." He sobered. "That was one helluva stunt you pulled in Sanc, you know."
I felt the hair prickle along my neck. Memories of fire and fear roughened my voice. "I guess. I don't remember much of it."
Howard snorted softly. "That's okay. Everyone else I talked to sure as hell does." He glanced over and gave me a crooked smirk. "Don't look so worried. I'm not going to bug you about it."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Look, I'll be straight with you." Howard leaned his elbows on the rail, looking across the deck at the blue-grey horizon. "I'm not sure you know exactly how much shit you've gotten yourself into. But you've gotten this far, and that says something."
Yeah, it says I'm an idiot. But I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to jinx it, and listened.
"You're a wild card, Otto. It's something you've got in common with the Gundams, y'know. Ever since the Arctic mission, anyway. The day they stopped taking orders was the day those kids got really dangerous. No one knows where they'll go or what they'll do next anymore--not even me." Howard gave me a sideways glance, then pushed up his sunglasses. "And that might be the only thing that could end this damn war."
"I don't understand. Are you telling me you can help me, or that you can't?" Frustration made my voice harsh. "Don't tell me you came all the way out here just to tell me I'm wasting my time."
"Hey, I said I'd help you. But I'm going to do it my way--and you're gonna have to trust me." That smug little smirk was back. I found it oddly reassuring. "Because let's face it, unless you have a spare Gundam tucked in your back pocket, you're not going to get anywhere near Zechs without getting blown into a million pieces by one side or the other. Space travel isn't too healthy these days."
"I, on the other hand, have a problem." Howard grimaced. "A problem by the name of White Fang. No one's paying attention to them yet, but that'll change soon enough, if my info is right. Look--OZ is on the way out, and unless I miss my guess, Romefeller isn't far behind. With the old Alliance gone, people are finally starting to realize how pointless this whole damn war is. But those stupid bastards--they don't care. And unless they're stopped, they'll refuse to let the fighting end. Not until they--" he stopped short, clamping his lips together in a thin, angry line.
"They what?"
Howard gave me a long look. "Until they do something really damn stupid." Apparently that was all he was going to say about it. "I'm doing my best to put a spike in their wheel, but Quinze knows me too well. He wouldn't let me or any of my boys within a parsec of his precious organization. "
I gave him a skeptical look. "Are you saying what I think you're saying?"
"You're going after Zechs, right?" At my nod, Howard gave me a slow, toothy smile. "Well, I can guarantee you won't find him out where the Gundams are. But White Fang--they're gonna be in the middle of this war, I guarantee it. Scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours--and I think you'll get a lot closer to what you want this way."
The plot had thickened--either that, or Howard was shoveling something a helluva lot more pungent. It didn't take a genius to figure out that there was a small mountain of things he wasn't telling me about all this, and that it was probably a lot more dangerous than he was letting on.
"Let me get this straight. You're asking me--the world's worst snoop--to be your spy?" I shook my head. "Look Howard, I may be stupid, but I'm not suicidal." I tended to leave that to Zechs.
Howard snorted. "I need another spy inside White Fang like I need a hole in my head. That's not what I need you for."
"Then why?"
"Basically... .I want as many pieces in place as I can for when Quinze makes his move." The cockiness had slipped away, and watching Howard, I got the feeling that this was as honest as I'd ever seen him. "I'm pretty sure I know what he's going to do--but I don't know *how* he's going to do it. So I'm trying to cover all my bases."
He gave me a weird, lopsided grin. "You're something I never counted on. So I'm hoping Quinze won't see you coming, either. Beyond that--" Howard shook his head. "Do what you need to find Zechs. Anything else will be just icing on the cake, at least for me."
I didn't like it. I'd seen the intel, back when I still had the clearance, and I knew what White Fang did to spies--especially Earther spies. They weren't just radicals. They were fanatics. Still, if Howard was right... .
He knew the Gundams, but I knew Zechs. The man was a magnet for trouble, and damn near the patron saint for lost causes. Right now the lines in this bloody war were changing every day, and I had no idea which side he'd end up on. Despite Howard's assurances, I had to face the possibility that hooking up with White Fang could very well mean that I'd end up on the wrong end of that damned dobergun. And that wasn't even counting the Gundams' propensity for blowing up everything that got in their way. The situation Howard wanted to put me in was about as safe as juggling old nitroglycerine--I had to be utterly, achingly careful, or I'd end up utterly and very dead. But as much as I didn't want to admit it, I'd never get in--or out--without his help.
But when it came right down to it, I'd be damned if I was going to get scared off now. Hell, I'd already cheated death twice. What were a few terrorists compared to that?
"All right. I'll do it."
The End
(:./hope/fealty3)
