Author's Note: You know, I'm actually quite happy with the response that I've gotten with my first chapter. Especially considering that, you know, it was a first chapter. This one is going to be more expository, which is somewhat unfortunate, but this way it's mostly over and done with and I can start getting back to the action without having to explain (too much) how things have gotten to where they are.

Worth mentioning is the fact that my chapters are not usually this long. I plan to start writing shorter chapters, but this would (hopefully) allow me to keep posting at roughly the same posting schedule that I am on now. We'll see about that.

Gundam 00: The Wing Campaign

Chapter 2

[AD 2310]

"Finally decided to come?" Duo sputtered. "Where? How?" His eyes seemed to bulge out of their sockets. Duo's voice dropped. "We're in a different place."

Heero said nothing, but his eyes were shooting back and forth, his muscles taut and ready to react at a moment's notice.

Quatre let out a small laugh. "It's ok, you're among friends. I remember how you feel when you first find yourself here. Don't worry, we'll explain everything soon, I promise. We've been expecting you for a couple of months now."

"A couple of months?" Heero raised an eyebrow. "You've been gone for less than a month. We were recalled by Une a few days after you vanished."

Quatre winced slightly. "Right, I forgot. Time flows differently over here. Wufei, Trowa and I have been here for about ten months.

"Ten months?" Duo continued to sputter. "Let me repeat the question: Where the hell are we?"

Quatre slowly stood up. "It will be easier and quicker if I just take you to them. Follow me."

According to Quatre they were at a resource satellite, similar to the one they had left. Unlike that one however, it was bustling with activity. People that neither Duo nor Heero recognized walked past them and there was the sound of heavy machinery at work.

"Well, here we are." Quatre knocked on the door. "Doctor. You have visitors."

"Doctor?" In spite of his rigid discipline, Heero was unable to hide he lurch in his stomach. Did Quatre mean…

The door panel slid open. "Well hello 01. Here to see me off, are you?"

[AD 2311]

Ribbons Almark played the footage from the salvaged battle recorders once again. "Rewind." He ordered. A Jinx came back together on the screen, reforming itself as a scythe retracted itself and the black mobile suit backed up. "Play." The black machine darted forward again at shocking speed, repeating the attack.

Ribbons sat back on his couch, brow furrowed in thought. He was in his position of strength because he knew things. Veda had offered him a treasure trove about the movement of nations, GN technology and, most importantly, Aeolia's plan. With this knowledge, he had built himself and his Innovators into controlling the Earth Sphere Federation for all intents and purposes. The downside to this was that when you built your position by knowing everything, not knowing something could be deadly. And he had absolutely no idea who was responsible for this.

He had read the report the A-LAWS had made after the operation, which tried very hard to gloss over the fact that an enemy Gundam had annihilated one of their mobile suit squadrons. It was true that they had captured their targets, but Marina Ismail was worthless. It was an arrest made to make the new A-LAWS look good, to show that they were following up on every lead while providing a scapegoat in case something went wrong. Perhaps they would get a rise of some sort out of Celestial Being, but Ribbons couldn't count on that. The capture of the elusive businessman was much more promising, as it could possibly shed light on what exactly had happened.

Azadistan was in chaos. While the ESF military had taken the utmost care when placing their attacks around a nuclear power plant the capital city was now completely without power. An inspection of the plant had yielded no sign of fissionable materials. All power had been routed from the compound next door, where they had found four suspicious hookups in the floor.

GN Drive hookups. Ribbons could recognize them from the schematics of the Ptolemios. He had implemented them in the Baikal-class ship, but the effect was the reverse. The power supply of those ships powered the GN Tau drives. In this case, it seemed that the opposite was true.

That was the curious part. There was no denying that the machine that had been deployed did not use a true GN Drive. Analysis of particle composition had alerted him to that much. But if that was the case, how could four GN Tau drives power a city for any length of time?

"So, found yourself a troublesome problem?" Ribbons turned to the smirking face of Regene, one of the many Innovators he had awoken. Regene was troublesomely independent, but certainly had his uses, not the least of which was the insight it gave to his twin, the Gundam Meister Tieria Erde. "I took a quick look. Enough drives to power a city then?"

"A third world city."

"And that still eats you up inside, doesn't it?" Regene leaned over Ribbon's shoulder, smirking growing wider.

Ribbon's mentally synched with the computer, turning it off without moving a muscle. "I do believe that Mister Winner needs to experience our hospitality a bit more. It'll be there that we'll find the answers.

"You're supposed to be dead old man!" Duo was surprised to hear that much emotion in Heero's voice as he drew a pistol, leveling it against the man in front of him. But there were few people who would evoke such a response from Heero, and the man in front of him was certainly one of them.

"I am a great number of things 01." Doctor J, genius Gundam designer, revolutionary and defector from the Barton foundation returned. "Dead is not one of them." The man let out a cough, the reflex shaking his body. Heero hadn't noticed before, but J looked…older. Not that the Doctor had been anywhere near young the last time they met, but then he still had hair. Most strangely, Duo could have sworn that one of J's arms had been a prosthetic. He was thinner now too, and the coughing fit lasted almost a minute. "At least not yet. The medicine here is leaps and bounds over what it was back home, but even they have limits on how long one can preserve a life."

Duo looked over nervously at Heero, who still hadn't lowered his weapon. "I think the real question is, "Where is here?"

Heero cocked the hammer of his pistol. "No, I think the question is, "How are you still alive?"

J let out a sigh. "To tell you the truth, I don't know myself. All of us expected to die when we blew up Peacemillion. We were all ready to die. But when I woke up, we had been taken in by a ship who had found us drifting."

"We?" Heero choked. "All of you?"

"No." J let out another cough. "G survived as well. He's the one who found me in the ship's sick bay and helped get me out of there. In the chaos after the battle, no one missed us. I don't know how we got there. Maybe they assumed we were White Fang survivors who had gotten lucky. After that we ran here. H had told us all about it, and we planned to rendezvous there in case of emergency. G and I tried to communicate with the others for months but we never heard anything. We just heard…other thing. Rumors. Dekim Barton."

J let out another short cough. "G and I are hardly his favorite people. If he found us he would kill us. Or worse, force us to create new monstrosities in his name. And so, we ran to the one place where we were certain that he couldn't find us: here."

Duo cocked his head to the side. "Ok, I can buy that. Just one problem: where is here?"

J fidgeted in his seat. "Well, for that we have to go back a ways."

[AD 2311]

Quatre found himself yanked upright, carried by two guards. He could feel his feet dragged across the ground. He had taken a hit to the head earlier during the interrogation and was still dazed. In spite of that he could still see the tub in front of him. Moments later he found himself doused in icy water, bubbles of air shooting past his lips as they dunked him. After what seemed like an eternity he was yanked up.

"Was there a question to that?"

The guard didn't seem to like that response and Quatre found his head shoved back underneath the water.

[AD 2310]

"It all began back when were still with OZ." J leaned back in his seat. Heero had put away his gun and was leaning against the wall while Duo sat eagerly in a seat, turned around so that he could rest his chin against the back. "Some forty…well for me I suppose. The time difference really does catch you off guard. You two barely seem a day older…"

"It begins with a protégé of ours: Aeolia Schenberg. He was a prodigy, and we all mentored him at time. The man was incredibly gifted. Perhaps he never completely eclipsed one of us in any one field, but he became shockingly good at each. I know I shared my theories that later led to the beam technology that was later adopted into OZ mobile suits, and after asking G I know he heard more than a few lectures on stealth technology. In fact…" J turned a baleful eye at Heero. "He did much of the code writing for the ZERO system, but abandoned it. He was naïve, even more than we were. I think that he was hurt more than any of us when Heero Yuy, the original pacifist was assassinated by the people we worked for. It was enough to begin planning Project METEOR. For Aeolia…he dropped off the map entirely."

"H heard from him a little while after that. He was looking for a laboratory where he could work. H had already made contact with Quatre and managed to find him a space in L4. At that time, we were in a communications blackout, so it wasn't a surprise when we didn't hear anything after that. We were all too busy working on our own projects to care. It wasn't until we were all brought together by OZ that I had heard his name."

"As I said before, G and I arrived here after the battle for Libra. Alone, without contact, we had abundant time to look over Aeolia's notes. What we found…" J let him voice trail off happily. "He eclipsed us all. He did something that would make the theoretical physicists of the last hundred years giddy. He found a way to open a door to an alternate universe."

"An alternate universe?" Duo snorted. "Ain't that science fiction?"

J guffawed. "Young man, you piloted a robotic weapon made of an alloy only capable of being forged in the plasma fires of outer space. The Gundams were science fiction up until they were dropped on Earth. Now where was I…?"

"Right! An alternate universe. I didn't have enough time to fully analyze what he had done, only that it would take an immense power source to operate it. At that moment, we were expecting Dekim to bust down our door any day. We didn't think there would be any option. After a few experimental attempts, we managed to get the system powered. Aeolia had hidden it behind those blast doors and we found ourselves transported. To here." J gestured around. "As best we are able to tell, the connection is unstable unless you have a place to receive the signal. After taking some time to study it, it would appear that Aeolia had expected someone else to come through. Perhaps he was looking for a way back…but we'll never know. He was long dead by the time that we came through."

"The time delay." Heero responded, back into the low monotone of the Perfect Solider. "You mentioned it before. Time flows at an accelerated pace here?"

J nodded. "It's fascinating. By the time we arrived over two hundred years had passed. The change in the time stream isn't the only difference. Their medical technology is light years ahead of ours. They were able to regrow my arm. My arm!" J waved the new appendage. "But their engineering was far behind. After a few nasty accidents with nuclear power, it became a taboo. Rather than continue with the technology that would eventually lead to our fusion reactors nuclear technology withered on the vine. For a long time, the planet was relying on fossil fuels until Aeolia came up with a solution."

"Now, to us the idea of an orbital elevator, a structure that ferries materials via an elevator between the surface to space is a novel, but inefficient way to enter space. With abundant, safe, nuclear power it was much more efficient for us to place colonies at Lagrange points. Without it, they could not go as far but Aeolia counteracted his by making the structure capable of collecting solar power. Enough of it to effectively power the planet." J paused. "He probably thought that it would be enough to stop war. Obviously, it wasn't. As long as there have been two men and a rock, one has always tried to club the other-"

"Are you going to keep rambling or get to the point?" Duo groaned, tapping his foot in boredom.

J shot the Gundam pilot an exceptionally potent glare from his metallic eye lenses. "I'm getting there 02. But the important part doesn't make sense unless I get it all."

"There was a ship here for G and I to take, which led us back to Earth. With some creative work, we managed to create new identities for ourselves. We began work an engineers, learning how to work with the materials we had. We planned to spend the rest of our lives tinkering. That was…" J pulled out a laptop, which seemed impossibly slim. Moment later a flat screen in the room came to life, showing a spindly looking machine showing off.

"Umm, Doc? Is it me, or does that thing kind of remind you of an Aries?" Duo took a quick glance over at the doctor, whose eyes were still glued on the screen.

To J's credit, there was a small amount of guilt. "It's what G and I are good at. You should have seen what they were working with before we got there. Ugly, worthless things. And it was like knowing the workings of an internal combustion engine, and being put back in the days of steam. It-"

"That pilot is fairly skilled." Heero cut in. "But nothing special. Good mobility, but not much greater than a Taurus and not even approaching the firepower. What was it you were excited about?"

Heero's answer came a minute later when, from out of nowhere, a blue machine seemed to slice out of the sky, moving through the air with agility that he could only have dreamed of.

"That's…a Gundam!"

"Whoa." Duo whispered as he watched the blue machine promptly dismantle the machine in front of him.

J nodded. "Indeed. It seems that Aeolia had learned a few things after watching us design the Wing Zero. He created something, a combination of a powerplant and propulsion system that eclipsed anything that had been seen before, in our timeline on here. Four of these Gundams were released, set on wiping out anyone who instigated a conflict."

"His own Operation Meteor?" Heero raised an eyebrow.

"Perhaps. Aeolia released a recording made before his death once the Gundams appeared, declaring that his group "Celestial Being" would bring about the end of war. But the countries of the planet didn't much like having terms dictated by four machines. To make a very long story short, after it looked the Gundams were going to run the table the three Earth superpowers managed to get their hands on a knockoff of that powerplant. They united and used their new weapons. They weren't anywhere near as powerful, and had quite a few problems with operational time, but were able to fielded in greater numbers. The Gundams were defeated, and all but two were confirmed destroyed or captured."

"Oookaaayyyy." Duo spoke slowly. "That's interesting and all, but if the world in united and at peace, why the spiel?"

"This is why." J typed at his keyboard, bringing up a news headline. The screen proudly displayed a surprising title: "UN reformed into Earth Sphere Federation!"

"Earth. Sphere. Federation." Duo spoke slowly. "Not at all the same thing as the Earth Sphere United Nations. Next thing you'll tell me, they have their own OZ Specials."

J gave a grim smile. "Oh, they haven't announced it yet. But my sources within the old superpowers tell me that they have formed a group of elites. Officially their purpose is to help protect against the Gundams, but in order to do so, they have "special powers".

Duo made a face. "Oh, come on, you have to be shitting me. And no one sees what coming?"

"Hmmph. You should never underestimate mankind's ability to ignore what is going on right under their noses." J responded. "But there are a few for certain. Some groups on Earth are forming, but they are disorganized and have nowhere near the logistics to mount an effective resistance. Fortunately, we managed to have a stroke of luck. While G and I were poking around, we drew the attention of Celestial Being."

"I had been under the impression that they had been disbanded." Heero intoned, refusing to move a muscle as he continued to slouch against the wall.

"You know better than that 01." J chided. "An organization is hardly comprised of four people. It takes contacts and materials to build machines of war. We happened to encounter their support and reconnaissance division, while remaining invisible. To their credit, they managed to stay undetected this entire time. They are essentially the Sweepers, who work exclusively for Celestial Being."

"Nice!" Duo brightened considerably at the mention of the Sweepers. "They sound like my kind of people."

J raised an eyebrow and chuckled. "I suppose you could say that. They had hit a bit of a rough patch themselves and took to the idea of having a new base of operations and someone willing to help build machines for them. We believe it was restoring power to this station is what brought the corresponding station in our timeline online. You can imagine our surprise when we suddenly had visitors. Truth be told, I think Fereshte was more excited when Quatre, Trowa and Wufei arrived than when we offered to build them Gundams. Their chief pilot was…something of a psychopath."

Quatre gave a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "He thought that threatening us would bring us into line. Trowa disagreed."

"And what happened to him?" Duo asked wryly.

"Trowa. Disagreed." Quatre smiled, as if the two words answered everything. They did.

The base had fortunately been renovated to install a briefing room, hastily assembled over the past few months. The five Gundam pilots seated themselves around the table, with J and G taking a seat on either side. A white haired woman with a severe woman sat alone, unfamiliar.

"Chall Acustica. The woman is Fereshte's representative." Wufei whispered an explanation.

Sally Po took a position of prominence at the table. She was purely a military officer at this moment, offering only a small smile of acknowledgement at the new arrivals.

"It's good to see you Duo, Heero." Po began. "We were hoping to have you here for this. Before we get started we need to resolve something. Are the Gundam pilots going to join in this fight?"

Chall's jaw dropped. "But…you promised."

"The good doctors promised." Wufei smirked slightly. "I believe that we have been decidedly silent about our own choice in the matter."

Sensing discomfort, Quatre leaned in. "What we mean to say, Commander Acustica, is that we have the right to choose to fight. And part of that is knowing exactly what we are getting ourselves into. This is especially true for Heero and Duo, who have just arrived."

"Exactly right." Po rounded on Chall. "I think you have to understand: we need to ask if this is a fight that we can win. From what we can tell, the Earth Sphere Federation outnumbers us tremendously. We cannot even say that we hold a tremendous technological advantage now that they have machines which, for a limited time, can match the power of your original Gundams."

"But-But the Gundams are rebuilding. Being upgraded!" Chall responded, still shocked by this turn of events.

"Even if you do that, are these new machines going to have the same dominance that they displayed when they first arrived?" Po questioned, not giving up. "The ESF now has GN technology, and they are constantly producing more models. How are nine machines going to stand against that, especially when, at most, Celestial being has only enough GN drives for five machines?"

Chall sat mouth agape for a moment before her eyes hardened and she turned to J. "I do believe that you were working on a solution for that weren't you Doctor?"

J coughed, offering more of a smile than Heero thought he was capable of. "It's true that I cannot make a true GN drive. However, thanks to a few of our contacts I managed to get the notes on the plans from some of the machines that the UN had at their disposal. The design is rather simple: electricity is used an input to spin a converter to generate GN particles, which are used by the machine for thrust, defense and beam weaponry. Newer models have condensers to hold these particles for periods of extended operation, but they are reliant upon a ship or facility to power them in order to operate in the field. They are unable to operate perpetually, but because no more true GN Drives are available they are lethal in numbers. Which brings us to…"

A holographic image splashed above the table, which Duo and Heero immediately backed away from, a look of shock and surprise on their face. "What the…" Duo whispered, his eyes widening.

"My design for an artificial GN Drive." J announced proudly. "The main concern has been the power input, which I do believe I have solved. The supply will be given by an ultracompact fusion reactor. This should be more than enough stable power to keep the machines operational at a level similar to the original Gundams for an almost unlimited period of time."

"Well that's…" Chall studied the diagram. "Sufficient I suppose."

"And that still doesn't completely tip the scales. But we now have to get to the heart of the matter: the ESF hasn't done anything bad yet. Yes, they look incredibly suspicious, but so far we may have to deal with the possibility that nothing will come of it." Po turned to look at the five pilots. "You would have to go to back to being the people you were at the dawn of Operator Meteor. You would have to do things that cost you all dearly in the past. But all of us need to decide together, right now, whether we want to make this sacrifice."

There was silence for a moment. Finally, to everyone's surprise it was Wufei who spoke.

"I agree that we don't have anything other than suspicions. But what if we're wrong? What do we lose by investigating, and preparing in case he worse comes to pass? If nothing happens, we can begin work on going home. But if we do nothing…"

"Then we're back to the Christmas Invasion." Duo gritted his teeth. "And we know what kind of a reaming that was. I don't care what ya' say 'Fei. Power corrupts, and I don't want to see what happened to the colonies happen here twenty years down the line happen because we didn't do squat."

"They've begun embargos on all non-member states." Quatre chimed in. "They're leaving no room for neutrality."

"I can't help but notice the similarities." Trowa leaned in, keeping closer to Quatre. "And I have no intention of just sitting on the sidelines."

There was a pause as all turned to Heero Yuy. The man, the boy closed his eyes. When he opened them, the Perfect Soldier was in his place. "Mission Accepted."

[Celestial Being repair ship Euclides; later that day]

Chall Acustica sat frowning in her quarters. She had been dreading this update for the entirety of the trip back, and wanted to be sure that she was far enough away from her new partners for the message to be intercepted.

"Are you there Ian?" She finally spoke, bringing up the monitor. A few seconds later, the grizzled face of Celestial Being's chief engineer popped on the link.

"Chall!" Ian's face split into a grin. "How did your meeting with the new friends go?"

"Rocky. They seem willing to help, but they definitely seem to have their own agenda. Still, it's not like we have much of a choice. They have pilots willing to help us, and they have the resources and scientists who can build machines even stronger than the Thrones. If we try to break…"

"They might decide that they don't need us." Ian made a look of disgust. "And we can't let that happen until the Gundams return. Did you tell them how to make a GN Drive?"

Chall paused. "No. I don't think they need to know quite yet. But with their resources…we may be able to begin production of more. But that is going to take time. More time than we have, is the ESF shows any sign. Even if we get started now it will be a while before we can have more operational."

"Do you…" There was a pause. "Do you buy their story about another universe?"

"It does sound crazy. But they talk about event in passing that I've never heard of. They have advancement in nuclear physics which leaves us in the dust yet you should have seen how some of them jumped at holographs. It would explain a lot, like how Veda never discovered them. Of course, I wouldn't want you quoting me on that…"

"Hmmmm. You think they'll be able to be able to do anything at all?"

Chall flashed back to the display of the Doctor's design. "Oh, I think they will."

[Author's Note 2]

Yes, I'm playing a little fast and loose with the timeline. I am trying to realistically place Aeolia from a period that takes place over 25 years (give or take for AC) into almost ten times that (AD). To complicate things, I need the Gundam Engineers to spend a realistic amount of time developing and making new machines. It took Celestial Being four years to roll out the 4th generation Gundams, and that was when they already had people who worked on the machines before, with a preexisting infrastructure in place.

It is because of this that I decided to bring Fereshte in. For those of you who haven't read the sidestories, they aren't OC's (for the most part). They were disbanded after giving up the 0 Gundam's GN Drive so 00 could be developed, so I figured "why not use them?"