A/N: Welcome to "Shadow of the Sun," the first story in my Gundam Wing trilogy! This story will follow along with the events of the series, but my focus will be primarily on Lista Di Nevella, who is trying to find her rightful place in the war and the world. Please feel free to leave a review and let me know what you think! Updates will be every Saturday, so be sure to add the story to your follows/favorites so you don't miss a chapter! Also check out my blog, Into the Inkwell, for story updates, general writing stuff, and sneak peeks into future chapters! You can find the link on my profile! Thank you in advance for reading, and I hope you enjoy Lista's story! ~Halo
Chapter 1
With high hopes, humans leave Earth to begin a new life in the space colonies.
But the United Earth Sphere Alliance gains military power and seizes control of one colony after the other
in the name of justice and peace.
The year is After Colony 195 – Operation Meteor.
To counter the Alliance's tyranny, rebel colonists bring new arsenals to the Earth,
disguising them as shooting stars…
She could hear her own footsteps echoing with each foot in front of the other, solid, firm, unrelenting. She said nothing to the soldiers on guard as she walked down the hall, tucking a stray piece of black hair behind her ear.
She knew what this was going to be about. She always knew.
She came to a stop at the closed door and said nothing to the soldier at the desk, flashing him a look of annoyance and boredom. The young man didn't even attempt to hide his smirk, shaking his head, and pushed a button on the telephone. "Colonel Bellegarde, Lista Di Nevella is here to see you, Sir."
An aged, masculine voice echoed back. "Good. Send her in."
But her hand was already on the doorknob to her superior's office before he could relay the permission. She walked inside and shut the door behind her, approaching the elder man's desk with her arms firm at her sides. She came to a swift stop and snapped her hand up in a salute. "Di Nevella reporting, Sir."
Colonel Augustus Bellegarde was an older man with streaks of gray hiding against his light blonde hair. His light green eyes only seemed to get more tired and lighter with age, or perhaps with every meeting he had with her.
He picked up a manila folder and waved it in front of her, the lines of his face hardening as he stared at her. "Do you know what this tells me, Di Nevella?"
She could hear the usual gruff irritation in his voice. It used to make her flinch, but she'd gotten used to it over the past months. Without lowering her salute, Lista continued to look ahead, fixating on the mobile suits standing at attention outside the window behind him. "No, Sir."
Sighing, he stood up and threw it back down upon his desk. "It tells me that your suspension from the battlefield expires in a week. And then…" He bent over and picked up another manila folder, waving it and tossing it down atop the other with a bit more force. "…I get notification that a special set of verniers were ordered by you for your Leo suit, an order that I didn't approve of. Mind explaining that?"
She cleared her throat. "I can't do the best of my ability for the Alliance with insufficient equipment, Sir. The standard Leo verniers are too slow," she answered without missing a beat. She'd rehearsed her explanation more times than she cared to count.
Bellegarde sighed, shaking his hand. "At ease, Di Nevella." He watched her lower her hand back to her side, her body relaxing slightly. He sat back down in his chair, leaning against the back rest with a soft creak. "I know you have higher than average agility than the other soldiers. But you can't just decide to order parts for your suit before going through the proper channels. You know this."
Lista nodded. "Yes, Sir. It won't happen again, Sir."
Bellegarde scoffed, mouth tweaking in mock amusement, as he shook his head. "I've heard that before." He folded his hands together and rested his forehead atop them for a short moment, Lista watching him intently. She hadn't realized she'd been holding her breath.
He lifted his head, his older, light-green eyes staring back into her much younger, emerald ones. "I can't keep looking the other way every time you break protocol. I've known you since you were practically born. But when you keep defying procedure, there's little I can do to keep you from being dishonorably discharged. And you know what that'll do to your old man."
There was a crack in Lista's hard expression at the mention of her father. She swallowed and curled her hands into fists at her sides, hoping to hide her sudden discomfort. "Yes, Sir."
"I'll allow the verniers," Bellegarde said after a short pause. "I know they'll be better than what you have now." He paused again, his eyes slitting slightly. "But I fail to see what good they'll do you when you haven't seen the battlefield in months due to your constant stack of suspensions."
The corner of Lista's mouth twitched, but she stayed silent.
"This is the last time," Bellegarde advised as he pointed his finger firmly in her direction. "Last warning. Last suspension. Once your verniers arrive, you will install them yourself. I'm not wasting manpower and time for something I didn't approve of to begin with."
He pushed himself from his desk, walking around it to close the distance between them, towering over her. "If you keep up your subordination, I will have no choice but to have you discharged, and I can't promise that actions won't be taken from my superiors to have you court-martialed. Got it?"
Lista nodded, pulling her hand up to salute him once more. "Yes, Sir. Understood, Sir."
Bellegarde nodded once and turned away, waving her off. "You better understand it this time around," he said. He rested his fists on his waist. "It's like dealing with a younger version of your old man." He shook his head. "But he grew out of it, thank God." He turned over his shoulder, flashing her a glare of warning. "I'm hoping you do the same."
Lista blinked, breaking their eye contact. She could feel her lungs constricting under the pressure of his stare.
"Anyway, head down to the Leo bays," Bellegarde continued as he moved back behind his desk. "The engineers have been working all day on repairs. You can clean up after them. I'll send someone down there to relieve you, but don't expect it to be anytime soon. But what you can expect is a lot of grunt work for the next two weeks. Hopefully it'll be enough to knock some sense back into that head of yours. Dismissed."
Lista said nothing as she gave him a hurried, sloppy salute before she forced herself out of the office, biting back a curse as she walked past the soldier manning the hall desk. As she turned a corner, she ran her fingers through her bangs, pushing them back, and sighed irksomely. She knew those engineers would make no effort to be tidy once they knew she would be following them around like their maid. She cringed at the thought.
But that wasn't what bothered her.
"I'm out of options," Lista muttered to herself. She clenched her hands into fists at her sides. "But no matter what, I'm not getting on that battlefield. No more."
Lista bit back a curse as she moved to her hands and knees with a rag, scrubbing hard back and forth over the stubborn oil mark on the concrete floor. Her uniform jacket was long forgotten propped on a pallet jack handle and her hair was now pulled messily atop her head. Several strands of hair stuck to the sides of her face, slick with a thin coat of sweat.
She swore they were doing this on purpose.
She heard muffled snickering from behind her. She snapped her head over her shoulder, eyes burning through the small group of her comrades watching her in amusement.
She forced out a purposeful exasperated sigh and turned back to the stain that seemingly continued to seep into the concrete beneath her knees, which now began to ache with every passing second.
She began to wonder if this was really the lesser of two evils.
"Put some back into it, Di Nevella."
Hearing the familiar masculine voice, she lowered her head with a disgusted sigh before peering up at the brown-haired soldier standing in front of her, wearing a cocky smirk. "You'll never get it out at this rate. The head engineer won't give Bellegarde the okay to dismiss you for the night if you don't get it clean."
Lista clenched her teeth and continued scrubbing at the stain. "Thanks for the advice, Starke. Now could you kindly get the hell out of my personal space before you drown me with your lack of brain activity? I have work to do."
Starke's face twisted in aggravation for a moment, and he crossed his hands over his chest in a huff. "You know, maybe you should just stop disobeying the rules. Then maybe you wouldn't get stuck doing this work all the time." He paused, his mouth curving up into a smirk once more. "Bellegarde won't be playing favorites with you for much longer."
Lista slammed the dirty rag into the bucket next to her before shoving herself to her feet, closing the distance between them. "Does it look to you as if he's playing favorites with me?" she snapped as she motioned towards her sweaty, dirty form. "I'm the damn resident maid."
Starke shrugged. "Serves you right for playing rogue and trying to do what you want," he said coolly. "Did you think Bellegarde being friends with your dad was going to get you a free pass?"
Lista scoffed, running her fingers through her damp bangs, pushing them atop her head. "Don't you have something better to do? Like, I don't know, take more beginner's piloting courses? You should be just about good enough to get out of the simulation cockpit and behind an actual mobile suit. Hell, maybe you'll actually be able to get a Leo to put one foot in front of the other."
Starke's face hardened, and his arms lowered to his sides, hands closed into fists. "This is why you have no friends around here."
"This is a war," Lista spat. "I'm not here to make friends. I'm here to fight the bad guys." She leaned towards him, shoving a finger pointedly into his chest. "You have five seconds to get out of my face or you're going to be the first one I come for when my suspension is up."
He scoffed and turned around, joining two fellow soldiers that stood next to one of the docked Leos. They whispered to him for a moment before pulling him from the bay, but not before stealing glances at her.
Lista shook her head with a scoff and rubbed her arm across her forehead before looking down at the oil stain at her feet. She waved it off, opting to come back to it later, and turned around, noticing the quick acclimation of plastic-wrapped pallets scattered about the bay with discarded mobile suit parts. Her aggravated groan vibrated against her throat, and she moved towards her pallet jack, yanking it behind her as she moved towards the nearest pallet.
As she positioned the forks underneath the pallet and began jacking it up, Starke's words, although obviously meant to bait her – and she'd bit – began to echo against her ears, much to her chagrin. She knew Bellegarde went easy on her, at least in the beginning, when she began deliberately defying the rules to purposefully bring about suspension, and she knew it was because of his friendship with her father.
She tugged the pallet from the docking bay, walking towards the salvage pickup area behind the base.
She knew this latest stunt of hers would be her last. She could see it in Bellegarde's face that all of her chances were up. She'd have to rejoin the battlefield in two weeks or risk being dishonorably discharged and quite possibly face punishment.
She pushed the pallet up against the many more stacked outside waiting to be transported for incineration or recycling. She heard the recognizably loud whoosh and felt a warm gust of air brush past her. She turned around, smelling the oil and fuel from the Leos that went through their practice rounds on the training yard across the field.
She missed the rush, the speed, the power under her hands.
If only she'd been fighting for the right side.
Lista shut and locked her door behind her. She dragged herself tiredly to her computer desk, dropping down into the chair with a loud sigh. She undid the buttons of her uniform, shrugging off her jacket and letting it fall to the floor behind her. She tied her hair up loosely in a ponytail and clicked a random button on her keyboard, waking the computer up from its sleep.
She clicked on her email and went down the line of new emails in her inbox that seemed too boring to even glance at.
She came to the final new email and felt her heart clamber to a halt against her chest.
An email from Colonel Lorenzo Di Nevella of the Alliance Space Forces. No subject heading.
Her father.
She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath before clicking on it. To her annoyance, there was a lengthy scolding. She could hear her father speaking the words in his booming, intimidating baritone.
"I heard from Gussy this morning. He told me your suspension was nearly up. Why would you destroy your chance to return to the battlefield by ordering a set of expensive verniers for your suit when you haven't been out to fight for the last two months? I don't understand what you're doing. This isn't like you.
I know protocol. You have too many strikes on your record. Gussy won't have any choice but to send your file to General Ventei for review on how to best deal with your insubordination. At this point, discharge is at the top of the list. No Di Nevella has ever been discharged. I'd rather my daughter not be the first one.
Whatever you're trying to accomplish, stop. The next time I'm on Earth, I'll be making a stop to New Edwards so we can talk about this, you, me, and Gussy. So until then, be on your best damn behavior. I didn't train you to act like this. Get your head together.
We'll talk soon."
Lista could feel her frustration bubbling in the pit of her stomach as she deleted the email with a loud, annoyed groan. She shut off her monitor and shoved herself to her feet, moving towards the single window in the room. The lights of the landing strips glowed bright against the black of night; she had no idea how long it had been since the sun disappeared behind the horizon. She hadn't measured how long she'd been in the docking bay scrubbing up oil spills – some purposeful just to piss her off – and evading her fellow soldiers as they stood back and laughed at her misfortune.
She pressed her hand against the windowsill. She knew she only had herself to blame for the work she'd have to put up with for the next two weeks. She'd suffered a good deal of annoyances of late, brought on by her own poor choices.
But the thought of getting behind the controls of a mobile suit and fighting for the Alliance caused a sour taste in the back of her throat. She'd seen firsthand what they'd done, what they were doing, and what they planned for the future.
They were spinning out of control, and they had to be stopped.
Her mind U-turned back to her father's email. She knew her father would demand an explanation for her actions when he made his way back to Earth. But she drew an inkling of comfort knowing that his trips to Earth were few and far between. He had too much to do in the Colonies.
Too much fighting against the Colonies, who wanted peace and nothing more.
She closed her eyes. She could see the faces of those her father and his regiment had terrorized and intimidated into following their rules. After the death of the Colonies' leader, Heero Yuy, there had been chaos, no true leader for the colonists to follow. And the Alliance had reaped the benefits of his brutal assassination and rained military control over each and every one of them.
And yet she willingly trained and enrolled as a soldier, because she could feel her soldier blood pumping, fueling her, pushing her to have a say in the way these wars would end.
She grew up watching the battles on television, hearing her father pour his wisdom into her on a daily basis that she would one day rise up and join him on the battlefield, much like he and his brothers had done with his own father.
But she knew that Lorenzo Di Nevella would have much preferred a son to join him on the battlefield rather than the eldest of four daughters. And perhaps that was why he'd pushed her so much. She was a woman. She would be judged and accosted for being weak. He wanted her to be strong. But she often believed it was for the sake of their family name, not for her own wellbeing.
Lista groaned in frustration and slammed her palm against the side of the window. She grabbed the blinds string and yanked it hard, allowing the plastic blades to fall to the window edge with a loud clatter. She spun around and pulled her tanktop over her head, tossing it to the floor at the foot of her cot. She shimmied out of her trousers, leaving them in a forest green pool where she stood.
She pulled back the thin sheets on her bed and climbed in, sighing at the feel of the cool cotton against her skin. Even the firm, creaky bed was comfortable after a long day tirelessly working in the docking bay playing maid to the engineers.
She fluffed the flat pillow as much as she could and propped it against the wall. She leaned against it, tugging the sheet up over her breasts. She stared at the bland wall in front of her, her mind reeling as to what her next course of action would be. She didn't want to be discharged; she would rather be in the know on the latest happenings within the Alliance. She'd more or less been using it as a well of information rather than lending her aid for their faulty cause.
And then the matter of her father rose to the surface once more. She didn't want to have to face him and the lecture of her failure to impress him, to uphold the family legacy.
She sunk against the wall, curling her fingers into the sheets. As tired as she was, she knew sleep would not visit her any time soon, if at all.
A familiar blaring jarred Lista awake just before dawn. She spun to her other side and slapped her palm over her clock, sliding the button to the "off" position with a tired groan. She kicked the rustled, tangled sheets away from her legs and shifted to her back, rubbing her eyes. She peered up at the ceiling for a moment, blinking the haze of sleep away. She was surprised she'd been able to get as much sleep as she did.
But the racing of her mind resumed where it'd left off, unable to shake off the unnerve of eventually facing her father with some kind of explanation for her actions of late.
She grumbled a curse under her breath and pushed herself to her feet, extending backwards with her arms over her head in a stretch. She sighed deeply as she lowered her arms to her sides and peered at the clock. She had time to take a shower and get a little breakfast from the cafeteria before heading to her arms drill at 0900 hours.
She moved to her computer, waking it up to find a single email from Colonel Bellegarde ordering her to report straight to the docking bay after her drill for cleaning, where she would be for the remainder of the day.
She deleted the email with a frown and moved towards the small adjoining bathroom, where she unclasped her bra and slid her panties down her legs. She turned on the shower, testing the water's temperature – she preferred it on the colder side to help wake her – and stepped inside. She hissed when the first drops of cold water hit her face, but she stood right under the unrelenting torrent of water. She could feel the water dripping through her hair and trickling down her back.
She didn't know how long she stood under the stream of water with her eyes closed, pushing all thoughts of her father, of the Alliance, of her suspension from her mind. She wanted calm, something she'd never truly felt her whole life. She was a child of war. But curiosity always plagued her on what a life filled with peace would be like.
She opened her eyes against the water and turned around, letting it spray onto her back. She stared at the white tile, unblinking, and wondered if she would see the conclusion of this war and find out just what a life of calm would be like, or if she would end up like many other dreamers before her and become a bloody, forgotten casualty.
Lista moved down the hall with her pistol strapped to her side. There were other soldiers in front of her also on their way to the gun range.
A soldier stood leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest. His eyes met hers, and he pushed himself from the wall just as she approached him.
"So, what did you do this time?" he asked with a smirk.
Lista frowned. "You mean the gossip hasn't reached you yet, Finn? That's a shocker."
He waved his hand with a chuckle. "Hey, I'm not saying it didn't. I just thought I'd get it from you. You know how some of the guys are around here. You can't trust their word as far as you can throw them."
Lista sighed and shook her head. "It's no one's business what I do around here."
Finn scoffed. "Don't you know anything about how this all works? It takes a grand total of 10 minutes for the whole base to find out you did something else to extend your suspension. And those whispers include something about a dishonorable discharge. I know a lot of people have been wondering why that hasn't come up a lot sooner with all the stuff you've been pulling."
Lista halted in her tracks, Finn stopping a step in front of her. She clenched her hands into fists at her sides. "Finnian, I'm telling you, tell your friends to stop gossiping about me. Don't they have anything else to talk about? Like, I don't know, seeing this war comes to an end so we can leave this godforsaken base?"
Finn stared at her for a moment, noting the tension in her body. A smile curled over his face, chuckling. "I find it ironic that you ordered a set of verniers for your Leo when it hasn't even seen the light of day in months."
Bringing a hand up to her head, Lista sighed exasperatingly. "Stop steering the conversation back to what I did. It's none of your business, Finn. I did it, and now I'm paying for it. I knew what I was doing."
Finn's face contorted, and he leaned towards her. She pulled back, brows furrowing into her face. "And what exactly was your aim in all of this? I know full well you're not afraid to go out there and fight. So what could be keeping you from going out there?"
Lista bit back a curse, knowing she'd said too much. Finnian was always too observant for his own good. Lista shook her head and stepped away from him. "I guess I just have an aversion to the rules."
He shook his head and propped his knuckles on his waist. "You probably shouldn't deflect. It makes you look even more guilty. And it makes you look like you hate everything and everyone. You should probably try loosening up a little bit. You're not a robot. You're a human being with feelings."
Lista said nothing, only folding her arms under her breasts in annoyance. She knew he was psychoanalyzing her.
"Di Nevella! Scott! Get a move on!" a man's booming voice echoed from the end of the hall. Both soldiers turned their heads, finding their drill instructor standing there in irritation. "Get in here and suit up! Gossip on your own time!"
"Saved by the boss," Finn said with a chuckle. He turned his attention back to Lista. "You know, in all seriousness, being the daughter of the colonel's best friend isn't going to save you when you're discharged. You might want to start following the rules while you still can."
Lista stomped up to him, shoving her finger in his face. "Stay out of my business, Finn. I mean it. I'm tired of people getting on my case." She pushed past him, adding, "And I've never been so happy to be going to drills this morning. I can let out my frustrations."
Finn followed after her, chuckling. "Then I'll make sure I'm clear on the other end of the room from you."
The drill instructor nodded once, his hands folded tight behind him. "Okay, all. Good job this morning. Get moving to your next assignments, and I'll see you back here in two days, as always."
Lista sheathed her pistol at her side, flicking a stray lock of her bangs from her eyes. She stared downrange at her target, pleased with the results of her drill. She had to admit she felt better.
And then she caught Finn approaching her from the corner of her eye. Not wanting to ruin her better mood before getting to the docking bay, she turned on her heel and walked quickly from the room, eager to get away from another question-and-answer session with him. She could only hope he wouldn't be persistent enough to follow her to the bay.
The sound of clanking and metal scraping grew louder in her ears as she rounded a corner, sighing in relief that Finnian had not pursued her for more information. It unnerved her that he'd questioned her sudden dislike for the rules and seemed to make some sort of correlation between her insubordination and staying away from the battlefield as punishment.
She could only hope he hadn't figured anything out and wouldn't push her further. If he was beginning to dance around the prospect, then she knew Bellegarde had to have suspicions of his own.
She had to be cautious.
She walked into the docking bay and saw the lead engineer on the far side of the room. She turned her head and saw her own Leo docked in the corner by itself, seemingly collecting dust. She moved over to it, placing her hand on the leg. She sighed deeply and moved to the wall for a cable gun. She took a quick look behind her to make sure no one was paying attention, fired the gun at the cockpit, and pulled herself up.
The cockpit shield door opened, and she moved inside, sitting in her cockpit seat for the first time in months. Or so her superiors were led to believe. She stole some time away here often to think, to re-memorize the feel of the control sticks under her palms, the smell of the leather of the seat, the quiet inside that cockpit.
She dragged her fingers along the buttons on the control panel. She missed the battlefield. She missed being needed. But that washed away when she remembered whose side she'd been fighting on. No, she wouldn't fight for them again. She wouldn't have a hand in the Alliance murdering innocent people who didn't wish to stand with them.
And she knew that if they discovered her true reasons for insubordination, they'd have no trouble throwing her in jail, or worse.
She swallowed the hard lump in her throat and frowned, shoving the nausea back into the pit of her stomach. She slid back against the seat with a heavy sigh. It was at times like these that she wished she had someone she could talk to, someone she could trust with her innermost feelings.
"I guess I have you to listen to me, Leo," she murmured. She sat in silence for a moment, her eyes darting back and forth, and she chuckled. "Too bad you don't talk back."
"Hey! Di Nevella!"
Lista perked up at the sound of her name, and she peeked her head out of the open cockpit. The lead engineer stood at her Leo's feet, staring up at her impatiently with a clipboard in his hand. "Get out of there! You have work down here waiting for you!" He waved the clipboard over his head. "I have a list of things for you to accomplish before the day is over!"
Lista gave him a half-hearted, sarcastic salute and leaned back into her cockpit. She slid her hands over the control sticks, gripping them tight, reveling in the feel under her hands, the control at her fingertips.
"I will find my rightful place in this war," she whispered to herself. She closed her eyes, releasing a long sigh of air through her nose. "And in this world. And just maybe I will make an impact worthy enough of the Di Nevella name. But until then…"
Her hands slid away from the control sticks and into her lap. "I just can't die, not before I know where I'm meant to be." She looked up, peering past the roof of her Leo, of the base, past the clouds, past Earth's atmosphere, and even past the Colonies floating above. "Help me find my place."