Dust
It was cold in the hangar, but then it always was cold. Today the temperature outside was forty degrees below zero, and this was Cape Canaveral, Florida.
The sky was always slightly sepia-tinted, too, but he didn't know whether that was because of all the dust cloaking the planet, or if it was just an effect of the treated glass in the environment-suit helmets. He couldn't remember ever seeing the sky bare.
It didn't matter, really. The roof of the hanger was so high he could barely see it from the concrete floor, and more often than not he took his sleep in a cocoon of greasy blankets under the belly of the behemoth he was currently repairing. The ringing out of hammers, the hiss of torches, the groan of metal were the sounds of his life; his landscape was the wires that lifted mechanics to the upper shells of the ships, the rattling metal staircases, the steel walkways from which the higher-ups could watch the little world of their own creation.
He listened carefully now, huddled up under his blanket, his back to the meters-high wheel of a shuttle, as the little portable TV chattered in front of him. Nobody else was around for meters, possibly even miles. Not that there was anything to overhear. The TV never had real answers. The world is this way because of war. Because of weakness. Because of evil. Every once in a while, members of the Cult of the Rose were caught and publicly executed; they seemed to believe the world could only be saved by a man named Treize Khushrenada, who had been killed nine years ago by a terrorist. Why did the terrorist kill this man? The TV never said.
Huddled with other mechanics around electric kettles and boiling bowls of noodles, he'd heard stories about Treize Khushrenada, and about OZ, and about battles in space over the future of the colonies. Everyone had a different story; he'd been a soldier for OZ himself, long ago. Now there was only fighting for the few crops that anyone could manage to grow. ESUN's planes and mobile suits flew out daily to battle with the hold-outs that rejected its rule - those lucky places where sunlight still shone through the dust, who refused to surrender their stores of grain to the Earth Sphere Unified Nation. Hunger was everywhere, although soon enough you learned to ignore your body's crying out. It became just another part of the noise, the dust, the calls to war.
And Queen Relena making announcements on the television. The Queen of the World. Peace was the answer, she said. Peace. Her crown glittered.
And then there was General Merquise, who some people said was Queen Relena's brother. His picture was everywhere. But the one you most often saw on broadcasts was General Catalonia. War was all we had left, she said. Glory can still be ours.
The mechanic sat up slightly. Here, this was what he had been waiting for. The news broadcast switched to the image of a small man behind a podium. Quatre Winner, the scion to the Winner business empire. He was from space, they said, the L4 colony cluster, but he visited Earth often. He was the one who had built and funded the Iria Hospitals all over the Earth and colonies; they were dedicated to healing the wars' injured.
Today, Quatre Winner looked more worried and tired than ever, his dirty-blond hair messy. "We have to work together," he was saying, looking out at the crowd gathered in front of him. "It's the most important thing of all. We must work together, and help each other."
Now the little figure on the television was shaking hands, pressing his hands over the hands of the hundreds crowding to see him. He wore a button-down shirt with its sleeves rolled up, and his hands reached out over and over again to touch those reaching out to him, as though that contact would make a difference.
The television said a lot of things about Quatre Winner - he was trying to create a cult of his own, he was mentally unbalanced, he was trying to weaken the Earth and make it part of his empire, he had been involved with the terrorist group who killed Treize Khushrenada - and he'd been imprisoned more than once for subversion against ESUN and Queen Relena's rule.
But Quatre Winner was still alive for now, still on the TV every now and then, just looking more and more tired, and more and more determined. What the mechanic watched the broadcasts so closely for was the day when Quatre Winner wasn't mentioned any more - when suddenly there would be no Quatre Winner, and there never would have been a Quatre Winner.
It would happen silently, without warning. Just like there had once been a General Une, and then suddenly there was someone else in her place, as though she had never existed.
The segment ended, and then it was another commercial exhorting him to enlist.
He picked up the TV to turn it off, and let his fingers stay for a moment on the place on the screen where Quatre Winner's image had been.
A/N: I am the coolest person, me and my Gundam Wing fanfiction. Oh dear. Anyways, I might write more of this eventually from the other pilots' POVs. (I could pretend like we don't all know this guy is really poor old Trowa with his memories still gone, but let's be realistic here.)
Anyways, let me know what you think! All . . . three people who are still in GW fandom . . . *sniff* How about that Frozen Teardrop, huh? Wish I could write crack that good.