Title: New Moon
Authors: EclipsedbytheSon and Cocowinterdeathangel
Summary: The Gundam boys discover a forgotten soldier at an abandoned base. Who is this girl? What was OZ training her for? And will she ever be able to regain her humanity? (At least, that's what we think this story is about so far...)
Pairing: Uh....we'll get back to you on that, but there won't be any Yaoi...we don't think...

Disclaimer: We don't own Gundam Wing or any of the characters associated with Gundam Wing (all though we both aim to each ahve a - DUO PLUSHIE - by the end of the year) We do however have joint custody of teh plot (whatever it ends up being...)

Author's Note: Yeah, so, we decided we wanted to co-author a story together, and we came up with a basic idea. We know sort of where this is going, but we are open to suggestions. We'll most likely be updating every Thursday night, so look for chapters on Friday morning.

PLEASE REVIEW!!!

Hope you enjoy,
EBTS and CocoWinterDeathAngel

Chapter one

She awoke on day four-hundred-seventy-five at exactly five-thirty in the morning, just as she had on every day before it. She couldn't remember when she had last needed an alarm to wake her, but she knew it had been several years before, when she was very young.

She stood, dressed, left her room, and began her daily activities. She jogged around the perimeter of the base. It was a cold morning, but she ignored the temperature as she had been trained. There were no signs of anyone having breached the perimeter. She went to the command room and recorded her report of the morning patrol: Perimeter secure.

After reporting, she went to the mess hall and got herself some food. The supplies were getting low. She pulled a can of soup from a shelf and opened it with a can opener. She did not heat the soup; instead she drank the cold chicken broth and noodles directly from the can. She was practically falling over from hunger, but she ignored the feeling and only ate half of the can. The rest of the soup was put into the refrigeration unit to be saved for the mid-day meal.

She then went to the battle simulation room and sat down in simulation cockpit. Pulling the helmet on over her head, she ordered the computer to commence with the battle simulations. There was no new data entered into the program. 'There hasn't been any new data for four-hundred-seventy-five days,' a nagging voice whispered in the back of her mind. She ignored it and ordered the computer to randomize data from a list of battles that had been entered.

At exactly noon, she finished her pilot training and went on her second check of the perimeter. Once again, there was no sign of a breech or anything suspicious. 'There hasn't been anything suspicious for over a year,' the nagging voice told her. She ignored it once again. The Sergeant's orders had been for her to check the perimeters every day at dawn, before the mid-day meal, and then again at dusk.

She reported on her patrol and then went to the mess hall and finished her can of soup. After her meal, she went to the firing arms ground. She had to practice her shooting. The Sergeant insisted that while she was supposed to be primarily a pilot, she had to be the best gunman in OZ as well.

She took a rifle off the wall and went to the ammunition case to load it. There were only two bullets for the gun. She frowned and put the rifle back on the rack. Two shots weren't enough to give her sufficient practice, and she decided it would be better for her to save the bullets in case she needed to use the rifle during an attack. She decided to practice with a hand gun. She was almost out of those bullets as well. In fact, she was almost completely out of all ammunition for hand-held weapons. She did not have enough to practice with.

Frowning, she turned and went back to the control center. Sitting down at a communication station, she placed the microphone and ear piece over her head and turned the radio to the first OZ radio channel.

"This is Pilot Seven, stationed at the OZ New Orleans Base. We are in need of more ammunition for the following firearms..." She listed off all the firearms held at the base. "Please respond, over." She sat and waited, but received no response besides the crackle of static. She repeated the message and waited again, but still did not receive an answer. She switched to the second channel and repeated her message again, and waited for a response. None came. She switched to each of the other twenty channels in turn, repeating her message. No one answered her on any of the channels.

Finally, having exhausted all OZ channels, she stood up and pulled on a coat. According to the weather equipment, there was a large storm coming, and the mobile suits had to be moved inside to avoid damage by lighting.

For the next two hours, she moved the mobile suits that had been outside into hangers. To others it would have been tedious work. For her though, it was what she was supposed to do, because it was what she had been trained and ordered to do. The tediousness of the task wasn't a factor in how well she preformed.

When the mobile suits were moved, she returned to the command center and radioed for ammunition again. Still no answer. The storm had started by the time she was done, the lukewarm winter rains of the sub-tropical environment were pounding against the windows of the base as lighting flashed in the sky.

She went out into the rain and checked the perimeter for the final time that day. She gave her report that the perimeter was secure and then went to the mess hall where she found a can of sardines. She ate them and washed them down with water from her canteen.

She spent the rest of the evening back in the simulation room, fighting battle after battle. After a few hours, she went back to her room, undressed and slid into bed. Pulling out the hand-held computer she had been given to keep personal reports in, she recorded the events of the day:

January 4, AC 197
475 days since the other soldiers left the base.
No sign of trouble on patrols. Battle simulation going well. Out of ammunition for firearms. Radioed for more, received no answer. Stormed today. Moved Leos into hanger. Food supply getting dangerously low. Will commence SOS signaling in two days if continue to receive no answer on radio.

Once her record was done, she plugged the device into the wall, laid down, and went to sleep.

The girl had been presented to Lieutenant McCave when she was no more than three years old. She was a war orphan, with bright green eyes and thick black hair. Her brain scans and other tests revealed that she would make the perfect candidate for the project. Under his suggestion, the Romafeller Foundation took her in as a ward and sent her to the New Orleans Base to be trained under the Specials.

However, Pilot Seven --as the girl was called-- underwent special training. She was kept alone and was never trained with other soldiers. She did not play, she trained. The only people she had close contact with were her instructors. They were given strict orders to train her to ignore pain, weather, hunger, and exhaustion until her missions were complete. They were forced to train her to ignore emotions as well. "A person who is not totally immune to emotion will not be able to completely handle this System," Lieutenant McCave insisted. He received a promotion to the level of Colonel two years after Pilot Seven arrived at the base for choosing such a perfect candidate.

And so the girl was trained. A plan was devised to make her easier to train. It was noticed by one of her trainers that she was enthralled by the moon. Upon questioning, Pilot Seven expressed a deep wish to go to the moon. She was given materials to read about the moon, and her interest just grew. She was then told that if she did all that she was told, never left the base, and completed her training to expectations; she would one day go to the moon. This idea of a visit to the moon was encouraged in her.

From then on, whenever she disobeyed her orders, expressed or followed her emotions, or did anything that displeased her trainers, she was given a warning: "Perhaps I should inform Colonel McCave that you do not deserve to go to the moon?" At the first hint that she would not be able to go to the moon, Pilot Seven immediately did as she was expected.

In the year AC 195, when Pilot Seven was 15, she was first introduced to the System. The first few simulations using the System ended in utter failure. Even after suppressing her emotions for ten years, Pilot Seven still could not keep them in check when the System was turned on. She ended each test simulation in a screaming fit, tearing the helmet from her head and throwing it across the room. She was rejecting the system. Sometimes she rejected it with hatred, other times with fear, other times with confusion. Finally after a few hours of her rejecting the system, Colonel McCave had enough. Stalking over to the simulation cockpit, he picked up the helmet from the floor and thrust it at the raven-haired girl. She didn't take the helmet, just stared at it and shook her head.

"Take it and put it on," Colonel McCave hissed through gritted teeth.

When she continued to refuse, he bent forward so that he was just inches from her face. "If you don't do as I say, you will not go to the moon. And if you fail to keep yourself in check and you continue to express emotion, you won't go to the moon. Ever."

Pilot Seven's eyes went wide. "Yes sir," she said, taking the helmet in her hands reluctantly and sliding it over her head.

"That's better," the Colonel said, nodding. He turned and went back to the observation room. "Commence simulation again."

This time, with the threat of not being able to go to the moon hanging over her head, Pilot Seven suppressed her emotions and managed to keep from going into a fit. She completed the simulation, much to the surprise of many people in the room.

"Well, gentlemen, it looks like we have a capable pilot for the Epyon," Colonel McCave beamed.

"I heard a rumor that Trieze Kushranada is planning on someone else instead of Pilot Seven to operate that mobile suit," one officer said.

McCave snorted. "Trieze Kushranada will not be in power of OZ forever. When he is finally gone, then this girl will be the pilot of the Epyon. She could easily kill anyone else filling the space. She will be the one to defeat the Gundams."

But Pilot Seven never had the chance to kill for her proper position or face the Gundams in battle. One night in late September of AC 195, the base was attacked by rebels. Believing the rebels had a nuclear warhead that they were ready to detonate, the OZ soldiers fled the base, abandoning it. The rebels didn't have a nuclear warhead, but they did cause significant damage to the base and they allowed the rumor circulate that the base had been booby-trapped so that if anyone returned to the base, the nuclear war head would detonate.

Pilot Seven knew none of this. She only knew that one night she heard explosions and shouts and gunfire. People ran past her room, but since she was not supposed to leave her room after her curfew, she did not ask them what was happening. Fear welled up inside her, but she suppressed and ignored it. Part of her wanted to flee the base, but a larger part knew that leaving the base meant disobeying her orders, and that would mean she would never go to the moon. If the disturbance was serious, someone would be sent to get her. No one came for her, and so she stayed.

The next morning she emerged from her room to find herself completely alone on the base. It did not occur to her that she had been forgotten, and so she decided that she had been left behind to hold the base until the rest of the soldiers returned. She went about her daily activities as usual. She patrolled the grounds, ran simulations with the System cockpit, repaired damaged mobile suits and repaired what she could of the buildings. She was certain that Colonel McCave and her instructors would eventually return to the base and commend her for her work by finally taking her to the moon. And as her food supplies started to get scarce, her conviction on the matter only grew.

It wasn't until late January of AC 197 that Pilot Seven learned –from her former enemies-- that Colonel McCave had died along with her instructors during the final battle between Earth and the White Fang. But still she continued on in hopes of one her instructors would come and fulfill their promise to her.

After the evacuation of the base peace was restored to the village near by that was what was left of the grand city of New Orleans. Of course, the odd sounds coming from the base caused uproar amongst the town's people. The adults convinced themselves that the government was working on some type of operation to keep the peace at the abandoned base. For the local children, however, it wasn't a government operation. For them, the base was haunted.

They had many stories of soldiers wondering the halls of the base, making noises to remind the town that they would forever be in charge. The stories grew to be very out landish, and soon were passed off as just a town myth.

But it was a town myth that had some grain of truth to it, for the noises, moving mobile dolls, and flickering lights were caused by Pilot Seven. But no one in the town knew of the forgotten girl, and so the myth about the soldiers continued on as just a myth.

The strange noises from the base continued for over a year until the towns people had enough. The mayor of the town was convinced that some type of government operation was going on at the base. He took a stand and called the head of security. It took months before he actually got through to Lady Une, the head of security of both the space colonies and earth. When he finally did, his voice of course was filled to the brim with frustration. Of course some of the younger couples saw his plan of action to be extreme, but they would not protest the elders in the town for they had great honor in this town.

Lady Une had been sitting in her office pouring over the latest reports from the Gundam pilots when her secretary came in. Lady Une didn't look up until the young lady made her presence known. "Miss, the mayor of New Orleans is on the phone and he keeps yelling on about some government operation going on the base there, that he doesn't approve of."

Lady Une shot up. 'There's no operation going on in New Orleans,' the voice screamed in her head. Without delay she picked up the phone. "Hello, Mayor. What's this I hear going on? There is no operation going on in New Orleans. I can assure you that nothing is going on there." Lady Une listened to the man's story about moving mobile dolls and strange noises before deciding that this was a definite emergency. "We'll send our best," assured Lady Une as she got off the phone.

Her light pink lips felt dry as she picked up the phone, and Heero's voice rang in her ear. "You and the others need to find out what is going on in New Orleans. Now. I fear we have an army of terrorists trying to start a rebellion."

"Mission accepted," replied the monotone Heero Yuy.