Chapter Two
The Wing-One command console was located on a smaller cruiser called the Zhànshì*, though Heero soon learned that Wufei tended to call it Zàn for short. The cruiser** was medium-sized as far as assault ships went and was equipped with all of the latest jamming and cloaking devices available. It's primary purpose was for support of the Gundam, though it had its own various disabling weapons.
It was Wufei's baby. As far as Heero could tell Wufei appeared very comfortable in the ship, and had customized and outfitted it to all of his own personal specifications.
He followed the Chinese pilot in silence as he was given the tour.
"This is the medical lab. Most of the basic medical procedures here are automated." He was gesturing casually to a bright white, square room with a single operating table fused to the floor in the center. He continued floating down a narrow hall and led him to a wide, open doorway that exposed what Heero already recognized as the Wing-One and ZERO*^ command room.
Heero was in awe. The setup was impressive***. Two seats were situated toboggan-style, one in front of the other. The seat in the rear had been lifted so that the feet of the higher pilot were level with the head of the lower. The lower pilot seat was nearly identical to that within Snow White, modeled after Wing ZERO with the system's translucent sphere.
"Won't my connection with ZERO effect your ability to control the ship?" Heero asked as he inspected his new equipment.
"No. I'll be wearing a neural shield in my helmet. ZERO can't penetrate it, but I will still be able to pair^*** with you through Wing-One so we can communicate freely that way. The two of us and the Gundam pilot," Wufei explained as he retrieved his own Ouroboros styled navy blue helmet tethered to his upper seat. He fixed it carefully over his head and retracted the Wing-One immersion shield from his view and regarded him for a long moment before adding softly, "it's good to have you back."
Heero nodded and grabbed his own sleek black helmet from his lower seat and hopped over the railing and began to settle himself into the familiar replica of his old system. Unlike Wufei, who was sporting the new blue Ouroboros uniform, Heero had changed into the ferroelectric black G-suit to facilitate his pair and bond through Wing-One with Duo in Gundam Snow White. The thick, inky black flight suit pulsed with static energy as he sat on the seat and he could feel it secure his back through magnetism. No longer did he need the typical five-point harness when piloting with Wing-One. He could hear Wufei fastening himself into his own pilot seat with a faint rustle.
Heero waited for Wufei to give him the signal before activating ZERO.
Wufei's intricate signal consisted of kicking Heero in the back of the head^***. Heero grunted as his head was knocked forward unexpectedly and glared over his shoulder before shoving his own helmet on and activated the raw, original ZERO system.
Within moments his vision was filled with the bright, familiar golden light of ZERO as it pulled at his thoughts and searched for what his goals were. Heero had spent the majority of his life training with the system, and connecting to it had become second nature. Immediately ZERO began presenting him with options, potential scenarios, and outcomes for the upcoming intervention. It weighed his thoughts against reality and began to force raw data from his surroundings into his mind.
It was easy for Heero to consciously override ZERO. He allowed it to tell him arrival times and show him their upcoming mission before he suppressed it's intervening energy for the moment and focused on connecting to its sister system Wing-One.
Wing-One's musical alert tone chimed as it began pairing the three pilots together.
Wing-One activation complete. Black Alpha, Pilot 02, and Pilot 05 paired, the smooth computerized female voice of Wing-One announced.
"Yo? Testing… testing… Wufei, you there?" Duo's voice was, naturally, the first one to come through the connection.
"Confirmed. I hear you, 02." Wufei was practically grumbling.
"Not a big fan of these code names. Let's change it up! Why does Heero get to be Black Alpha and we get stuck with these old numbers? I wanna be … um… Cobra. And Wufei, you should be Serpent." Duo was rambling.
"They are practically the same thing, Maxwell." Wufei was clearly annoyed. "05 is fine with me. I don't need a new code name."
"Aw come on, aren't you tired of that corny number game by now? I got it! Mamba."
"I don't want to be a snake."
"Mantis!"
"Maxwell…"
"Mantis, let's begin moving to the coordinates," Heero announced, his own thoughts overriding the two as they bickered.
"Ha! See, even Heero thinks Mantis is good. Wing-One, from now on I'm Cobra Commander, and Pilot 05 will be known as Proud Mantis. Got it?" Duo instructed brightly.
Affirmative. New code names confirmed.
Heero could hear Wufei breathe a long, heavy sigh of defeat from the seat behind him. He smiled into his immersion helmet and waited as the system began to scan his surroundings and present him with the images from the hull cameras of the Zàn. The ship was moving slowly away from the much larger, dark grey painted Lennon station hiding within a loose wall of asteroids. Heero could see that some of the asteroids themselves were fused together and fastened into a makeshift barrier that provided a visual shield for the enormous, triangular Lennon.
As they began moving away from the larger ship it disappeared from their scanners. It was outfitted with sophisticated cloaking technology that even the Zàn couldn't detect.
Heero could see from his portside that Gundam Snow White was cruising along beside him. The suit was weaving effortlessly through the asteroid field with Duo as its pilot. The enormous nanomachine-enhanced angel wings were glistening and glowing in the otherwise darkened field. The viridescent green Search Eye on the suit's chest was leaving a faint motion blur in its wake.
Once they cleared the asteroid field the Zàn began picking up speed and activated low level cloaking. Heero could see Duo pushing Snow White to its limits. The Gundam was gradually pulling ahead of them.
"You're moving out of range," Heero reminded Duo as he was vanishing into the distance.
"Yeah-yeah, I won't lose your precious suit, Heero. Relax, huh?" Duo replied playfully. Heero could see him rolling the suit around in impressive tumbles and shifting back and forth with barrel rolls, occasionally unfurling Snow White's enormous, sparkling wings as he did so.
It was strange to see a suit that so closely resembled Wing Zero being piloted by someone else. However, Heero was still satisfied with the decision he had made with Dr. J a year before to make the former Deathscythe pilot Snow White's primary. Duo Maxwell was the most talented pilot he had ever met and even though the American had very little confidence in his own ability he had proven himself time and again that he was extremely skilled, despite the fact that he had received very little training.
Heero had found Duo's file in Jay's database and had read various reports made by Professor G about his partner's progress during his couple of formative years before the start of Operation Meteor. His reaction times during cognitive control tasks had been measured at 197 milliseconds. Heero's personal best was only 195^^.
The similar reaction times made sense. Duo had bested him a few times during Operation Meteor, namely when they had first met at the naval base. He had caught Heero off his guard and shot him while he was distracted by Relena, and then managed to shoot him a second time when Heero has attempted to retaliate. He had not expected to meet anyone planetside who could do that. His first couple of encounters with people on Earth had made him overconfident, and the Deathscythe pilot had quickly put him in check.
Heero reflexively crossed his arms over his chest as the Zàn began cruising past the gravitational field of Mars. Duo had doubled back with Snow White and was only 200km to the starboard side.
"Wing-One, initiate pilot-command bond." Heero instructed through his conscious connection with the system.
Cobra Commander and Black Alpha, bonded. Wing-One reported.
Heero could feel the tsunami of Duo's emotions crashing against his mental seawall, churning and foaming with a level of chaos that was uniquely his partner. It had been a while since they had bonded through Wing-One, and it took Heero a couple of minutes go navigate the complex maze of scattered thoughts.
How can anyone live like this? Heero wondered.
"Hey! Welcome to my brain!" Duo's mental connection exclaimed. Heero could feel Duo's warm amusement as he intruded on his feelings. "Just think of it as a theme park."
"More like a carnival funhouse," Heero suggested. He felt Duo's confidence swell as he saw Snow White unfurl it's feathery wings and shoot off at breakneck speed in front of them.
"There's method to this madness," Duo said enthusiastically as he doubled back again.
"Stop showing off, you're going to exhaust yourself." Heero scolded.
"Aw, you regrettin' giving me the keys to this thing?" Duo teased as he rolled suit across the hull of the Zàn.
"Yes." Heero replied. He knew Duo would be able to feel the discrepancy between his words and how he truly felt.
"ETA ten minutes," Wufei announced. "Maxwell, you will need to-"
"Cobra Commander," Duo corrected.
"I'm not calling you-"
"Wing-One, what's my code name?"
Pilot Duo Maxwell's code name is "Cobra Commander", the system replied.
Heero felt Duo's satisfaction from teasing the Chinese pilot.
"... Cobra Commander, you need to start cloaking and prepare for intervention." Wufei finally grumbled, defeated.
"Yeah, okay. So this is pretty straightforward, right? L4 police forces are having a shootout with some thugs on a mining station?" Duo asked. Heero could feel the other pilot's excitement building as they neared their destination.
"Yes," Heero replied as he began performing long-range scans of the area. He could pick up most of the details on the moon and the faint magnetic waves arcing around Earth's orbit. "Disable both sides of the conflict with no human casualty."
Duo's confidence was stifling. "Roger that, they'll never see me coming."
And they hadn't. Wufei had situated the Zàn in open space just outside of the range of the L4 Colony Defense cannons. They watched cloaked and on standby as Snow White deployed to the scene and began evading the beam volleys peppering the open space between the colony and it's mining facility. Heero could see the rebellion group's rudimentary mining mobile suits attempting to retreat into the darkness of the hatches and folds of the mining station as Snow White burst onto the scene and began slicing their legs and arms off with surgical precision.
"Try using the EMP pulse gun to disable," Wufei suggested.
"Hey, man. Don't tell me how to do my job," Duo replied irritably. Despite the comment Heero saw that Duo had taken the suggestion and shot at an incoming L4 Colony Police Virgo with the EMP weapon. A large web of purple electricity slammed into the Virgo and overloaded its flight controls, leaving it to float helplessly in the direction it has last thrusted.
Heero heard Duo chuckling over the normal COM speakers.
ZERO was even having trouble keeping up with Snow White as Duo began quickly knocking out the targets. Heero sat back and took in all of the projections ZERO was providing him, but the results weren't necessary. The task had been too simple, and there was only one suit to manage at this point. Eventually Heero deactivated ZERO and crossed his arms over his chest as he watched Duo expertly disable all of the targets.
"All targets neutralized," Wufei reported as he began a speedy retreat with the Zàn.
"Wait a minute, that was it?" Duo whined. Heero could feel his disappointment overriding his former unrestrained excitement.
"Yes. The conflict is over, you have disabled both sides. It's time to retreat," Heero informed him.
"Not bad for a first run," Wufei conceded mildly as he plotted their course to return to Lennon.
"Wow, that was anticlimactic as hell," Duo's energy was deflating rapidly.
"These missions will only involve small skirmishes, you can't expect to have the same challenges of full on war," Heero reasoned. He could feel Duo bristling abruptly in response.
"You think I don't know that?" Snow White's pilot's words burned across Heero's consciousness. "I've been training on these kind of missions for a fucking year. You know, while you were having a slumber party with Relena."
There it was. Heero had wondered how long it would be until the issue had been brought up. He could feel Duo's now uncapped bitterness pressing through their connection. Heero frowned, his former guilt about having to ask Duo to wait so long alone moved to the forefront of his thoughts. He knew that the other pilot would be able to feel it. He started to reply, to apologize to him, but their connection was abruptly ended. A hollow, empty sensation replaced the part of Heero's mind that Duo had formerly inhabited through their bond. Both the pair and bond were gone, leaving only Wufei remaining on the paired connection.
"Looks like you have some cleaning up to do," Wufei verbalized over the COM. "I don't envy you."
"Yeah." Heero watched as Gundam Snow White shot past the Zàn towards Lennon at excessive speed and vanished out of scanning range.
Footnotes:
* "Zhànshì" = warrior. "Zhàn/Zàn" = to support, to help. (Mandarin Chinese)
** Ouroboros Zhànshì, stealth cruiser length 250m, main thrusters, gravity control, vernier thrusters, fold system, Zero-One pair and bond capable.
*** Zàn Dual-Pilot Cockpit Setup similar to this configuration but less bulky, and with ZERO implemented for the bottom pilot.
^* "The ZERO (Zoning & Emotional Range Omitted) System is a technology for interfacing the brain of the pilot with the mobile suit's computer". - Gundam Wing, Source: Gundam Wikia.
^** (From GWO: What Friends Are For) - Wing-One is a new operating and interfacing system developed by Preventer to advance the cooperation of two or more pilots in a squad. Originally developed by Zechs and Treize, though never implemented due to the lack of available technology at the time, Noin worked with Heero to integrate aspects of ZERO into a new communication system. There are three main functions of this system. PAIR - allows communications between pilots through conscious thought. BOND - Allows the pilots to feel emotions and anticipations of the pilots connected to it. JOIN - Allows two or more pilots to coordinate seamlessly in attack by sharing all aspects of their minds, creating a single entity functioning through the cooperation of multiple parts. (JOIN feature is limited to 3 minutes and the suits involved must be within close proximity to one another for it to work. In part one Heero and Duo JOINED but it exhausted Duo and he passed out after the 3 minute mark.)
^*** Gunners on tanks often sit below the tank commander in a similar configuration to what Heero and Wufei have. The tank commander will often kick the gunner in the shoulder or the back of the helmet to get his attention. - Source: Army bros.
^^ Navy Top Gun pilots average 200 - 225 milliseconds reaction time.
/AN: I have a images and schematics to include in this work. To get the complete experience with media, please check my Archive of our own account for more. Psud: BHG /
