Parts of other works beyond the animated canon are in play (for example, portions of Frozen Teardrop and even the truly obscure Tiel's Impulse have been appropriated), but only parts. This is because when this story was drafted, Frozen Teardrop and its ilk did not exist. (I wrote the first version of this story over a decade ago.) What elements have been added are those it was possible to add without disrupting the original story a great deal.
Preflight
"It's never really over." Une said softly.
The problem with the Eve Wars was that the White Fang, World Nation, and any bystanders with enough brain cells to rub together had armed themselves to the teeth. There had been literally tens of thousands of mobile suits in circulation, and the Eve Wars had accounted for perhaps a two thousand of a theoretical thirty thousand. With the dissolution of all sides, they had become the property of whoever happened to be housing or piloting them at that moment. The efforts to clean them up had never been entirely successful, even when the Preventers got enough of a budget after the Mariemaia Crisis.
One thousand five hundred mobile suits in service with various colonial and local defense forces from Jupiter to the new Venus orbital colony. Just under five hundred in service with the Preventers, with an authorized expansion to six-fifty underway. And six thousand seven hundred twenty-eight still unaccounted for.
If Mariemaia had taught the world anything, it was that the definition of government as "the entity with the monopoly on the use of lethal force" was still a valid one. And the next time there would be no Gundams to save them. "What fools we were. So full of hope, so eager to ignore the truths of our pasts. The war never really ends." Une was looking out the window of her office at the nighttime Brussels skyline.
Her visitor offered a tired chuckle. "Trieze would have your hide for that." Lucrezia Noin had only started referring to Trieze Kushrenada by his first name after he was dead. It was a habit picked up from her on-again, off-again boyfriend, but even then having Trieze be dead was the only way it could ever not be awkward to refer to the boss of all her bosses by first name. That, and the man was owed some respect after all. He'd taken a bullet for her when they were younger.
"Trieze Kushrenada was an idealistic fool who left the rest of us to clean up his messes." Une was bitterly amused. "He selfishly quit because he was tired, charging others to complete his work. People think I'm doing this for him. I was, at some point, but by now I'm doing it because I'm good at it and because somebody has to. Trieze can go straight to hell." Une turned back. "But that's why you've come back too, isn't it? You're good at it."
Noin sighed. "Yeah. I am." Not exactly true.
"Well, that means I can cancel your surveillance detail." Une smiled tiredly at the expression that comment got. "We keep tabs on certain people who are sufficiently skilled that 'someone builds them a Gundam and they try to take over the world' is considered realistic." She turned to the computer. "We're building, or rather rebuilding, Space Mobile Suit Squadron Twenty-Two at New Edwards. Lightning fought for the Alliance and made a name for itself as both skilled and principled, and we had two original members on the roster. We're expanding and the unit insignia is one people will be glad to see come back. I need a squadron leader."
"I'm in."
"Commander." The woman who met Noin at the base of the ladder down her MS gantry was about her own height, brown hair pulled back in a very short ponytail. She wore the gray outfit that seemed to be the new Preventer duty uniform, which actually reminded Noin of Alliance uniform shorn of the usual scrollwork and tracery. "Welcome to New Edwards, again. Do you need help with the bag?" The uniform also seemed to fit her oddly well.
Noin grimaced a little. Her duffel was lighter than it looked, considering her uniform issue was actually here waiting for her rather than in the duffel. "No. It looked messy on the way in."
"Nobody ever cleaned up after...well, you know." The first location on Earth to get hit by all five Gundams was in appropriately bad shape. It had also been heavily fought over during Operation Daybreak as well. The woman's nametag read Forsythe, L. "We're cleaning it up while we're here. Fine motor control practice, and we get called in for every major disaster so the practice is good."
There were six other Taurus suits in the MS bay she'd been directed to. Four were painted in the grey with white trim the Preventers had adopted. One was painted black with midnight blue trim, and one was a flat all-gray. There were subtle differences in the shape and angling of the armor, slight variations in the size and placement of thrusters, that told Noin these were not standard Taurus suits; the Preventers used a modified version. The addition of shackle points on the chest, which would be under the suit in fighter mode...well, she'd often talked about Taurus external ordnance projects back in her days as a test pilot and instructor for the Specials and OZ, but somebody had finally gone through with it.
The other thing she noted was that in addition to the nametag on each suit's entry hatch, there was an insignia. Sometimes more than one. One of the Preventer ones had OZ Colonial Militia insignia. The black and blue Taurus had a simple gold "G" on it. She saw World Nation, White Fang, and various Alliance branches represented as well. A little reminder how diverse the Preventers actually were in practice.
"Where is everyone?" Noin asked.
"Two Section and Three Section are in the simulators. Lieutenant Dyer is probably supervising. And I'm here, of course." Forsythe replied. "We don't have much of squadron yet, and Dyer thinks some of them need to unlearn bad habits."
She hadn't looked at her, and it was weird to think of the squadron as hers, squadron's personnel records yet. Hadn't had the time. Noin mentally sighed. "Like what?"
"Reliance on Gundanium plate, I think." Forsythe replied.
Noin grimaced again. She had a Gundam pilot in the squadron. She wasn't surprised that Une hadn't told her this. She hadn't seen eye to eye with several of them. Heero Yuy gave pretty much everyone who met him the creeps with the flattened affect sociopath thing, though he didn't actually give the impression he was plotting to kill everyone he met; Yuy simply seemed like an alien wearing a human suit. Wufei Chang was a sexist with a superiority complex who worked out his anger issues by hitting things with giant robot fists. Maxwell...actually, the blue and black paint-schemed Taurus looked like something he'd do, and she could get along with Duo Maxwell. She could probably get along with Trowa Barton as well, though he'd always seemed weirdly reticent. Winner though, was fully consumed in his dead father's businesses and wouldn't be here.
The simulator area was actually adjacent to the MS hanger, only about ten meters down the hall. Opposite that was the squadron's eating and rec area; beyond it were individual doors for pilot quarters. It was a sharp contrast to the way the Victoria Space Combat Academy had been laid out, with quarters literally on the opposite side of the base from the MS hangers. This was a combat posting, of course. Victoria had been a training base, trainees separated from the mobile suits so nobody did something terminally stupid. New Edwards had been laid out with pilots kept close to their suits in case of a scramble order.
Noin poked her head into the simulator room. The man there at the control desk wore the same uniform that Forsythe did, a very dirty blond with green eyes. He noted her and nodded, but sitting at the control station didn't get up. "Commander." It was weird to be addressed by a naval rank. Noin kept thinking she should look around for the person being spoken to. She would have to adapt; the Preventer space service was naval now.
"Back in a moment." Noin replied, and proceeded down the hall. Somebody had already put a nametag on her door. Surreal. She'd only rejoined the service ten hours ago, six of which had been sleep, four of them in the air. In that time her uniforms had been created, her unit had been informed of her arrival and gotten a room in order for her, and it had all unfolded with perfect smoothness. OZ would have taken much longer. The military in her life kept getting smaller and more streamlined.
I wonder if I would have felt this out of place if I'd taken the Mars Colonial Militia offer. Her room was neat; the were seven uniforms in the closet, one on the bed. Forsythe excused herself to her own room briefly while Noin changed. The feeling of displacement grew; the Preventers had her measurements on file, from her last tour of duty, and the uniform was custom-tailored for her. She actually felt a little self-conscious considering how well it fit. This is a uniform, right?
The mirror insisted that yes, it was in fact the uniform Forsythe had been wearing. Rank insignia and a Mariemaia Coup campaign ribbon already attached. Noin straightened it again out of nervousness, and feeling still out of place, stepped out of her new quarters.
They wanted her to be an officer. She knew how to do that. Start with smothering that nervousness.
"How long have you all been here?" she asked Forsythe.
"A few weeks for me and Lieutenant Dyer. Maxwell and Schbeiker were here about the same time." Hilde Schbeiker; Duo's...sidekick seemed unkind, especially since she'd arguably won the Eve Wars with her little mad infiltration mission on Libra. Brave, but perhaps not smart about it. On the other hand she'd actually survived, and everyone loved a lucky pilot.
Forsythe's own career was apparently nothing to sniff at either, as Noin recognized several Alliance campaign of the ribbons above Forsythe's breast pocket; Operation Daybreak survivor, Alliance Space Forces Star with combat V. Come to think of it, Dyer had both those as well. That could be awkward, considering.
"Commander," he acknowledged her again as she entered the sim. "Running them through Operation Praying Mantis at the moment." There was a pause and he keyed his headset mic. "Maxwell, you're dead."
"Did anyone ever really try this?" Duo Maxwell's voice. "I mean, getting close enough to an MS to do this isn't very smart."
Operation Praying Mantis had the name of the Alliance operation against what been the only real attempted colony drop in history before Libra, in AC 189. If Noin remembered her tactics studies, the Leos that went in had been attacked in rather unconventional ways, everything from pit traps to man-portable missile launchers aimed at suspected vulnerable points to infantry who tried to swarm on them and stuff satchel charges in the leg and foot armor.
"Cost me an ankle actuator." Dyer replied, with a hint of amusement.
Duo's simulator module opened and he looked incredulously at the ex-Alliance lieutenant. "What happened to them?"
"I presume they're all dead, since I stomped on them with the suit's good leg." Dyer replied, with more than a little dark humor. Was he really that old? Noin couldn't tell. Or maybe he'd lied about his age to join up. That had been a pretty common thing for a few years. She'd done it too.
"That's cold, man." Duo looked over to Noin and drew himself up, saluting. A little sloppy, but not terrible. He was wearing a uniform cap backwards at an angle that might have been called jaunty if you were a civilian, but which suggested more of a drunken list to military eyes. "Commander! It's been awhile."
"At ease." Noin gave the command automatically. She wasn't wearing a cover, so she didn't return the salute. You can take the pilot out of the Gundam, but you can't make him THAT presentable I guess. OZ and the Specials had been sticklers for uniform, but the Preventers were apparently more relaxed given that neither Forsythe or Dyer looked mortified their new CO was being greeted this way. Or they had given up on Duo. That was possible too. "It has, Maxwell." Some friendly warmth, not too much, enough for the fact they'd fought together in the past. "Didn't really think you'd like the uniformed life."
"At some point you realize that you ought to be shot. Then you realize that the reason nobody has shot you is that the ability to shoot people isn't very common." Duo shrugged "I can shoot people, so I'm putting the talent to use."
"He makes it sound so noble." Hilde Schbeiker as advertized. Two other people, no, three.
One wore the rank bars of a Lieutenant Commander. "Introductions," he said. "Gerhard Focht, I'm your XO," pointing at himself. "Those two," he pointed at the other pair, "are Melissa Yin and John Buthelezi. They're your second section."
"Other organization?" Noin asked crisply.
"Dyer's my wing. Forsythe's yours. The comedy team will probably head up Three Flight when we have a Three Flight." Focht replied.
Noin raised an eyebrow at that, directing a look at Maxwell. He smirked and pointed at Hilde. Duo would either be a great success or a terrible failure as an officer. Apparently someone wasn't willing to risk the failure mode for a Duo-lead flight. Noin noted he seemed to be taking it well that Schbeiker had been promoted over him. "All right, done disrupting the routine for now. Focht, one moment of your time?"
The others cleared out. "So, what do I need to know I'm not going to find out from the personnel files?" Noin asked.
"Yin and Buthelezi were White Fang, there's been a little friction between them and the rest of the team." Focht paused, appeared to have a damn-the-consequences moment, and then continued. "In the interest of full disclosure, I think you would have been better off with Forsythe or maybe Dyer as your squadron XO. I can make a mobile suit do things the design specs insist aren't possible and I have seniority in the agency, but my first combat action was the Eve Wars. I'm a genius at making a mobile suit do things the designers never intended, but that's not necessarily what you need. They've got a lot more experience in the other aspects of command."
It took some courage to admit that, Noin thought. "We'll see, I suppose. The Director is a better of judge of character than most give her credit for though. She thought you could do this."
"I can." Focht confirmed. "I'm a working choice. I'm concerned I may not be the optimal choice."
Two days into her new squadron command, Noin felt that her feet were finally starting to touch the ground. Her Taurus was in refit, ETA about a week, she'd gotten a chance to look over her squadron's records and gotten to speak them all. Three more pilots had been transferred in and they were close to a full-size OZ squadron, but still short of the Alliance-style eighteen suits the Preventers used. The unit wasn't a disaster; the Preventers had the option of taking their pick of mobile suit pilots after all, so everyone was skilled, everyone was a professional.
Noin had actually been surprised by how much so. Focht was the least-experienced pilot in the squadron, with twenty-six hours combat time and thirteen kills. What he had done was get thrown into the Eve Wars as a raw recruit with his Space Leo, and killed seven Virgo II mobile dolls. When Mariemaia had launched her coup, he had taken the tarp off the Space Leo again and turned out to fight the diehards who hadn't surrendered with a stalk-and-kill action in the streets of Brussels. The fact he'd even survived fighting Virgos and Serpents with a Leo marked him as someone of exceptional ability. Hilde's record was actually longer, thirty hours combat time, fourteen kills, but covered purely post-Mariemaia actions against holdouts, rogues, and terrorists with mobile suits. The others had between four hundred and five hundred hours of combat time, and averaged about forty kills...excluding Duo's kill count to prevent the average being too inflated.
Noin had been given a great honor, to command such as these. She knew it, and she felt honored in turn. Not overwhelmed, though; this wasn't quite as bad as having to play team mom to the Gundam pilots back during and before the Eve Wars. Her parents had sent her a letter and she was contemplating expressing these things as she opened it.
A child of Italian nobility, to escape the Roman Catholic Church Noin would have had to kill herself. She hadn't, so here she was. Her family had given her a medallion on a chain when she joined the Specials, almost a decade ago now. On the face was Saint Joan of Arc, a patron saint of those in the military and ever-popular with female soldiers. On the reverse was Saint Joseph of Cupertino, patron of both pilots and space travelers. She'd kept it in a uniform or vacsuit pocket every day of her military life, and had given it back to her family when she left for Mars.
That medallion fell out of the envelope her parents had sent her. She managed to catch it. Noin had quick reflexes, after all. But as she cupped it she froze.
Suddenly reality threatened to collapse on her. Noin was here, on Earth, in a Preventer uniform again. Zechs was not. Her life had reset, the last two years had never happened. She'd told him she'd never leave his side, twice. She'd left.
Maxwell and Schbeiker knew they could kill, so they'd volunteered to put those skills to use for a society that saw those who could kill as monsters. Yin and Buthelezi were still soldiers because they liked soldiering. Forsythe and Focht were here because they were good at being mobile suit pilots. Dyer was still something of a mystery, and Noin suspected he didn't like her from his unwillingness to drop formality. And I am here because I ran away from a relationship I couldn't cope with.
She closed her hand around the medallion and swore softly. Zechs could be...well, Zechs, quiet, brooding, closed, letting no one in. There were limits to her patience, her ability to fight someone she didn't ever want to fight. The way everyone regarded him after the Eve Wars hadn't helped at all. Zechs had tried to kill a significant portion of humanity, and humanity remembered that. Noin sighed and looped the medallion's chain around her neck, finding some civilian clothes. She'd asked around, found out where Dyer went on his off-base passes. Maybe he'd talk about himself a little.
"Commander." Dyer greeted her formally, though they were both out of uniform and the setting was one of the off-base clubs usually frequented by New Edwards personnel.
Noin felt vaguely offended. "Do you just not like me or do you honestly think this looks like a uniform?"
"I like you fine as a commander, Commander." Dyer gestured with his drink, at first she thought to her chest, then she realized at the medallion. "And that earns you some points." He closed his eyes and leaned back against the bar. "Where was your family during Operation Daybreak?"
"Italy. Safe." Noin said softly. "I'm guessing yours wasn't."
"My mother was a naval aviator operating off the Nimitz. My father had a Leo regiment with First Armored here at New Edwards. My sister was with MMS Five at Portsmouth. My brother wasn't old enough to enlist and lived on-base here." Dyer opened his green eyes. "My family got a lot smaller. My dad died in the first twenty minutes. I don't think he ever knew what was happening. My brother didn't live much longer. My mom died on day three, flying cover for the battlegroup. Took five Aries with her, though. Proud of her for that. My aunts and uncles on both sides were dead by day five. My cousins were all dead by day six. My sister lost two Pisces in the first twenty days, in exchange for about twenty OZ suits. She lived, she's a Preventer too now. Four buildings down from us."
"MMS Two." Noin said. She was silent for a few more seconds. "You hate me, don't you?"
Dyer's expression softened considerably and he finished a small silver cross out of his left pocket, showing it to her briefly. "Luke, twenty-three thirty-four. No, I don't hate you. You were doing what you thought was right, and you were willing to admit your mistakes." The cross disappeared into his pocket again. "I'm worried, however, that I'm not as forgiving as I think I am. So we'll get along, but I'm not sure we can be friends...Noin."
Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. She'd met few people who could quote scripture in casual conversation. "I understand." Noin said. "I'll be out of your way, then."
He laughed softly. "You don't have to run, Commander. Dance?"
Noin gestured to the ring Zechs had given her, which she still wore even if she wasn't sure it meant something. "You're smarter than that."
"It lets me be polite with no pressure to actually perform," he acknowledged, with a faint grin. Noin shook her head and escaped.
Simulators existed for a lot of reasons. One of them was to exorcise a pilot's personal demons. It was technically after lights-out, but Noin knew she could make it through one night of inadequate sleep. She threw the Taurus into a maximum turn and watched the world rotate and turn around her. The Taurus was the only mobile suit that really flew well. The others represented various degrees of the triumph of raw engine power over aerodynamics, from the Aries' total ignorance of aerodynamic design to Wing Zero's mere inability to grasp what parasitic drag was.
The Preventer model had gained a couple of tons in improved armor and thrusters, and lost some aerodynamic drag from the reangled plating. The additional power meant it actually performed better than the Taurus she was used to, though she expected that wouldn't be the case once you strapped on the five tons of external ordnance it was rated for.
"You should be in bed, One." Forsythe's voice from her sim's radio.
"So should you, Two." Noin shot back.
"A good wing never sleeps while her lead is awake. Mind if I join you?" Forsythe asked.
"Just getting comfy with the Preventer mods." Her real Taurus was in the shop, but one thing the squadron maintenance crew had been specific about though was that they would only alter the Sanq Kingdom colors on her Taurus with her permission; the suit was still considered her personal property. She'd been surprised to discover it even retained those colors in the simulscape.
"Well, let me give a few tips." A second Taurus materialized in the simulscape and slid into wing position. "Make things quick. You tried to VIFF yet?"
VIFF stood for Vector In Forward Flight. A Taurus was a Space Mobile Suit and had orientation and maneuvering thrusters, but the original model's just weren't powerful enough to allow it to vector in atmosphere. "Not yet," Noin confirmed, and throttled down. "You have the lead, Two."
"Two has the lead. Give me a little more room, one of these stunts is involved." Forsythe throttled up slightly to make some more room in the wing pair. "Up." The directional thrusters fired and the Taurus leaped ten or fifteen meters. "Down." The same amount down, maybe a little more. "Throttling down to three hundred." That was nearer than the fighter-mode Taurus' rated stall speed than most people would be comfortable executing radical maneuvers at, and Noin was curious. "Kickflip."
The grey and white Taurus fired its orientation and maneuvering thrusters; the forward ones fired up, the aft ones down. The Taurus rapidly decelerated as it flipped end for end, then Forsythe slammed the throttles forward and the drive flare brightened immensely as the Taurus wobbled for a moment before accelerating smoothly in the opposite direction. Noin didn't even try to follow the maneuver, well aware she probably couldn't as a first-timer. "You have to get close to stall speed to have enough reserve power for that, don't you?"
"Pretty much. It's something for when you're low, slow, and out of other options." Forsythe slid back into the wing position again after turning around and leaving the invert she'd ended up in. "You have the lead, One. Some people do more thrusterwork and rotate so they don't invert, but it's a lot of extra hassle. Gravity messing with their heads or some such spacenoid propaganda. Want to give it a try?"
"One has the lead. All right. Give me some room, I'm probably going to blow this." Noin replied. "What sims are for."
Noin didn't manage the stall and added power quite well, and stalled out completely before adding power. It wasn't hard to recover, though, the Taurus had plenty of power in reserve. "Let's try that again." She climbed back to initial altitude again and slowed down once more. This time the Taurus completed the maneuver, with the wobble she'd noticed Forsythe's do.
It wasn't all teaching one way, either. Noin had been a test pilot for the Taurus, and had some old tricks up her sleeves that still worked. They were busy until dawn broke, when Hilde glanced into the sim area and found them at the control desk, chatting. "Aren't you two supposed to sleep?"
"Girl's night out." Forsythe replied, with a smirk.
"Girl's night in." Noin corrected, amused. "We'll invite you next time, Schbeiker. Breakfast on?"
"Yeah." Hilde did not look entirely sure how to take this. "You're coming?"
Noin got out of the control desk's chair, and Forsythe stood from where she'd been sitting on it. "Sure," Noin said. "Let's go."