Disclaimer: I do not, nor will I ever, own Gundam Seed Destiny.
Author's Note: Sorry about the new story. I just had to get this one out of my head. I love Gundam Seed Destiny!
SUMMARY: What the heck happened to Yzak and Dearka during the Destiny series?? I mean, while the Destiny series mostly focuses on what Athrun, Shinn, Kira and the others are doing, this story tells what happened to Yzak and Dearka during a set period of time in the series. So, in other words, the second war is still almost happening and such.
The time I start this story is about the time Athrun meets Heine Westenfluss. (If I have the last name wrong, would you let me know what the real one is? Thank you.)
Chapter 1
'So that is the Voltaire?' she thought to herself as her transfer shuttle proceeded with its landing aboard the gigantic spaceship.
Risa Westenfluss watched as the shuttle slowly passed along an indoor runway toward the landing dock area. During the flight from her previous station on Earth, Risa had perused the file of names she had received. This file stated the names of the major squad, and the commander, she would be working with aboard the Voltaire. It also gave a short list of their previous assignments, but what it did not give was a nice little picture next to the names so Risa could get an idea of what these new people looked like.
The shuttle began slowing down even more and letting loose some air so that it touched down on the landing dock safely, 'Well, even if the file didn't come with pictures, I'll be meeting these people soon.'
"Sir, the transfer shuttle has landed."
"I know. I can see that." Yzak Jule snapped as he looked out to the landing dock from the observation platform. Dearka, from where he was standing, arms folded across his chest, a few feet behind Yzak and the other soldier, smiled and rolled his eyes.
Yzak ordered the soldier (who was incompetent in his view) away. Dearka laughed under his breath. "What are you laughing at?" Yzak demanded.
Dearka shrugged, "Nothing."
Yzak turned away from the view of the landing dock and the shuttle as its door opened, and he proceeded toward the automatic door to the hallway. Dearka, hands in his pockets, followed Yzak out.
"So what's this person's name?" Dearka heard Yzak ask as they were floating down the hall.
"Apparently, her name is Westenfluss. Although I seem to have forgotten the first name." Dearka replied matter-of-factly. Yzak closed his eyes and sighed in frustration at Dearka's forgetfulness.
An automatic door snapped open to reveal Yzak's relatively large room showing the neatly made bed (which was concealed behind a short wall, but had an archway to the bedroom portion) and a decent sized desk across the room with a high-backed leather chair behind it.
Yzak approached the chair, sat heavily into it and opened his laptop computer as Dearka leaned against the edge of the desk. "What 'ya looking for?" He asked as tried to get a view of the computer screen.
"Information on this new recruit. What else?"
Dearka stood up and walked over to the porthole window to his left, "Geez, I was just curious. No need to get snippy."
Yzak's face remained impassive as he rolled his eyes. Seriously, he enjoyed Dearka's company, but sometimes his jokes got old.
He then pulled up the file he was looking for: Westenfluss, Risa. According to the file, she was being transferred from a squad currently working at the Carpentaria base on Earth. It also said that she had served in the ZAFT Armed Forces for close to five years, almost as much as himself and Dearka, which meant that she was probably the same rank as Dearka or lower. This fact slightly worried Yzak because then he would have to help this newbie for a while, or he could just have Dearka train her…
Moving on, the file listed several of her accomplishments under the Carpentaria squad, which Yzak skimmed over as being mostly un-interesting. Except for one commendation, which said something about an undercover mission or other with her brother. 'Maybe she won't need training after all…' he thought.
The automatic door to his office opened and a purple-uniformed soldier appeared in the doorway, saluted Yzak and said, "Sir, the new recruit—
"Yeah, yeah. Send her here in a few minutes." Yzak interrupted without even looking up from the screen.
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"This way, please, Westenfluss-san." The soldier glided forward down the hallway, with Risa behind him, still carrying her small suitcase. Risa glanced from side-to-side as she glided in the zero gravity of space inside the white halls of the Voltaire. She could see the doors leading to the various rooms for the soldiers alternating on the walls. Eventually, the soldier decided to turn down a hall to their right and grabbed hold of the banister along the opposite wall to pull him self in that direction. Risa tried her best to imitate this action without throwing herself forward too quickly and smashing into the soldier's back. 'I should try to get used to this space-walking soon,' she thought.
"It's not far to the Commander's office now. It is the third door on our right." The soldier's description proved accurate, for within the next few seconds, Risa placed the soles of her boots onto the magnetic floor in front of the largest residence door. The soldier that had been leading her pressed a button next to the door and it snapped open.
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Dearka watched the scene unfold before him from his vantage point near the porthole along the opposite wall.
Dearka had disbelieved the reports, but the new recruit really was a girl. She was slightly shorter than himself and Yzak, and wearing the green uniform of the same military rank as himself. Except for the fact that she wore a knee-length skirt with the boots rising to meet the knees. Her hair was a pale orange and was pinned with a barrette at the neck, but she had apparently chosen to let her bangs hang free across her forehead. Overall, Dearka had to say that this new girl was slightly good-looking, but he knew better than to think that about a colleague. Right now, she stood in the customary salute in greeting to Yzak, all this while still holding her small suitcase in her right hand. The posture was wrong because the salute was usually given with the right hand not the left. Dearka smiled to suppress a chuckle.
Yzak rose from the chair and closed the laptop. "At ease. State your name."
"Risa Westenfluss, Sir."
"Now that you're here, I'll have you know that the actions you will be asked to make here aboard the Voltaire will be very different from what you are probably used to."
"Of course, Sir. I understand perfectly well. I did read the files on the way here--"
Ignoring this, Yzak continued, "Are you ready to take up this position?"
Dearka noticed that Risa seemed slightly surprised that Yzak would talk this way.
"Yes, Sir." She seemed to get over it quickly though.
"Good." Yzak turned to Dearka, "Dearka?"
"Yeah?"
"Show Miss Westenfluss to her quarters. It's the one next to yours across the hall."
"Yeah, yeah. Whatever you say, boss." Dearka gave a cocky smile in response to the glare he got from Yzak. Dearka guessed that meant: 'Idiot! Not in front of the newbie!'
As the automatic door snapped shut behind them, Dearka sighed loudly, "Sometimes I wish he would relax a little." He said as he scratched the back of his neck. He turned to face the girl, "But don't worry, he's like that most of the time!"
"I see."
After an awkward pause, "Well, anyway, I guess I should show you where you'll be living." Dearka turned left and proceeded to glide down the hall towards two more doors. He pointed to the first, "That's my room. If you need anything, just knock. And this, as Yzak already told you," he said as they approached the last door on the right, "Is yours for the rest of the time you'll be here." Dearka touched the tiny panel next to the door to open it. "You got your bed, shelves, drawers, your closet, a laptop computer on the desk, and pretty much anything else you'll need to survive around here." He explained as he watched Risa put her suitcase in the closet so it wouldn't float randomly around the room.
"Do you think I could go to help set up my machine?"
"Sure. As long as we don't get in the way of the staff down there. I'll show you where the machines are kept around here."
"Thank you. It would also be helpful to know your name as well." She smiled.
Embarrassed, Dearka laughed, "Oh yeah! You're right! I did forget to introduce myself didn't I? The name is Dearka. Dearka Elmsman. Nice to meet--" Dearka paused as Risa saluted him, "You don't have to do that. I'm not really into all that formal stuff like Yzak is." He extended his hand, "We can shake hands."
Risa seemed very surprised. "What do you look so surprised for? We're colleagues now."
Risa smiled and shook Dearka's hand, "Nice to meet you, too."
A LITTLE LATER: IN THE HANGER…
"Why do you call the Commander by his first name?" Risa asked as she began checking the settings of her Gundam.
"Why? Well, we've known each other since we joined ZAFT." Dearka, who was hanging onto the open hatch of Risa's Gundam watching her work, replied.
"So, you two are good friends, then?""Yeah, you could say that."
Risa reset the mobile setting for space flight. She realized that she didn't need to just check the settings; she also needed to change many things with her system because she would now be working in space. She needed to take into account that there was no gravity and such. Most of the calculations needed to be redone and the weapons needed to be reconfigured with her supervision because she was slightly worried that the maintenance crew would screw up everything. Although, Dearka had assured her many times now that the crew knew what they were doing. Risa still was unsure of that because her machine was more unique than some others that the crew had probably seen.
"Anyway," Dearka's voice brought her back to reality for a bit, "when did you decided to join up with the Army?"
Without thinking, Risa replied, "Actually, it was my brother's idea."
"Your brother?"
"Yes, my twin brother. After our parents were killed on Junius 7, we basically had to survive on our own. I mean; we did have a place to live with friendly people who we consider family and such, but we didn't really want to put too much pressure on them for monetary support. My brother told me he wanted to join the Army because it was really the only good job someone our age could get. So I followed him."
"Hmm. But isn't your brother worried that you'd get killed too?"
"Yes," Risa thought for a minute, "But I guess I wanted to show him that I could take care of myself."
Dearka said the one word he could think of, "Wow."
Risa laughed, "It's not really that amazing. Please don't think too much of me because of that. Besides I shouldn't be talking about something like that with someone I just met."
"I guess you must really look up to him. Your brother, I mean. By the way, what's his name?"
"Heine. Why did you want to know?"
"Just thought it might be a good idea to learn a little about this new person I'm trusting my life with here."
"That makes sense…" Risa replied while trying to concentrate on her calculations. She was normally pretty good at them, but with Dearka talking to her and the new surroundings, it was kind of tough to stay focused. She found this out when she realized she made a critical mistake in the math.
"Darn it!" She muttered.
"What? What happened?" Dearka asked.
Risa scowled at her mistake, "I can't believe I just did that. Now I have to start over on this one."
"Is the system on this thing really that picky?"
"Yes. Yes it is. If I make one mistake on these long calculations, I basically have to start over again. And that is a pain in the—
"Dearka! What are you doing?"
Dearka turned and saw Yzak floating up toward him from the floor of the hangar. He waved to Yzak, "Yo."
Yzak pulled up next to Dearka and looked in at the still busy Risa in the cockpit. "Why are you out here?"
"Showing Risa around. Why?"
Yzak sighed, "It looks more like you're watching her work."
"It's alright, Commander. He really was just showing me how to get here so I could do a system check." Risa answered from inside the cockpit.
Yzak glanced back at the girl in the cockpit. She was hard at work typing in sequences and calculations to modify her Gundam system. Her fingers nimbly tapped along the keyboard. 'Good, she's a hard worker.' He thought.
"Anyway, how do you expect her to find her way around this ship without getting some kind of tour first?" Dearka asked.
"It's alright, Dearka-san. I can find my way around alright on my own," came Risa's answer.
"Are you sure, Risa? Because I can show you around some more if you like."
"Please. There's no need for you to trouble yourself anymore with me. This system reset could take longer than I thought. You can go on back."
Dearka was surprised to hear this from Risa. He didn't know her all that well yet, but her response still surprised him.
Yzak, on the other hand, hadn't thought that this new girl could tune them out so easily.
Risa wasn't tuning them out though. She was just trying to get some peace to finish her calculations. 'But I should try to cut them some slack at least. As Dearka said, they are good friends. But apparently, they argue a lot, which I suppose I'll get used to over time.'
Risa paused in her typing and glanced out through the cockpit entrance, "It's really all right. You can both go. I'll be quite all right here on my own. I have a vague idea of how the ship is set up."
Yzak and Dearka both looked back at Risa's smiling face. An awkward silence passed. Although still unsure about leaving Risa by herself in the hangar, Dearka sighed, "Okay, fine. You can stay here." He turned around and pushed him self toward the floor, "Just ask for directions to wherever you want to go next." he waved.
Yzak watched Dearka leave then said, "Actually I came to bring you two to the bridge."
Risa paused her typing again when she heard this. "Eh? What about, Sir?" she said as she glanced out at Yzak again.
"Nothing major. All I need to do is I need to brief you two on our next mission. Which be your first with us by the way. So if you would follow me to the bridge now…"
"Yes, Sir." Risa abruptly stopped typing. She pushed the keyboard out of the way of her lap and began to pull herself out of the cockpit.
"I think it would be easier for the both of us if you would call me by my first name, like Dearka does. That way you don't have to waste valuable time during missions. It will also be harder for the enemy to determine which of us is the leader if they can hack our communications." Yzak turned and pushed himself toward the floor.
Risa was surprised to hear this from the Commander so soon. She had just gotten aboard the Voltaire. Why would he ask her to do that? 'Well, maybe that does make some sense,' she thought, 'it might be better if they did talk on a first name basis.' As Dearka had said before, she was going to trust them with her life and they trust their lives with her here.