Yay! Update! Sorry this is a day later than we said it would be, but EBTS was unable to get to a computer yesterday.
New Moon
by Cocowinterdeathangel and EclipsedbytheSon
Disclaimer: We don't own anything. (except EBTS has found a site that sells Gundam Wing Plushies, and she has ordered a Duo plushie from it!!!)
Shai Moonflower: This is a Non-Yaoi fic, and we agree that there need to be fewer Yaoi fics.
.0. means a break in either time or point of view (because no other markers would work)
Chapter Two
Duo rubbed his eyes wearily as he dragged his feet to the private shuttle. They were being over worked, and he felt like he'd been slammed into a brick wall. Usually headquarters sent rookies to handle this type of stuff. The chance of a real threat had gotten wicked low, and usually when some superstitious elderly person called, it usually ended up being a false alarm. That's why rookies were sent first. But Duo guessed that it was finally time to do some work to earn the pay check.
He felt like the only one in the group who needed some extreme R&R. He buckled himself in and forced a smile as everyone got ready for departure. Most people were asleep in the colonies……..sleeping. Warm comfy bed, thought Duo with a small pout. He smiled though when he noticed that he wasn't the only one who was feeling burnt out.
Next to Duo sat Quatre, who looked like the living dead. Of course Heero, Trowa, and WuFei didn't show any sign of weariness, but they weren't good enough examples. Hell, they weren't even human, or at least that was what Duo was thinking at the moment.
They had spent this year juggling missions and false alarms. Not to mention school, a basic social life, and to top it all off they hadn't slept for a good week or so because of end of the semester finals. Basically, Duo had spent hours pouring over thick text books trying to memorize the stuff he needed to know. But he had to admit that Quatre had it even worse. He had to juggle the family business, not to mention everything else.
But other than work their basic social lives were down the drain. Their fellow peers just didn't understand the amount of stuff that was required of them, and lost interest in them quickly since they couldn't hang out all the time.
Duo knew one thing though, and even Heero had to admit to this: they all wanted an easy mission that could last the whole summer, not too strenuous, simple, like babysitting, a mission that would allow R&R.
The shuttle shook violently as it took off. The approximate landing time would be a half an hour. He leaned back and closed his eyes, "Please let this be the dream mission."
"Maxwell, up," came a sharp irritated voice.
"Huh?" mumbled Duo. He stretched and realized WuFei was glaring at him.
"Stop being a lazy oaf," lectured WuFei.
"Sorry for being human," mumbled Duo. He joined the others out by the limo.
"We're going to New Orleans Base. It's an abandoned Oz base, but the town's folk say they hear sounds of mobile suits. They contacted Lady Une, and told her that it was becoming a problem. The problem is the towns' people were convinced that it was a government operation. We all know that nothing is going on in New Orleans that involves government security. Lady Une wants a full report before noon," Heero explained.
They all got in a truck provided for them and drove to the town of New Orleans. It wasn't a long drive at all. The scene was out of an old movie where it seemed nothing could go wrong.
"No wonder they freaked out about noise," laughed Duo. He had to admit to himself that this town was a little too happy for his liking.
They continued and drove out of the little town and up a dirt road. They came to a sudden stop. There was an old mobile suit blocking the road.
They would have to continue on foot. They all climbed up and over the mobile suit, and continued up the hill. The road was hidden by trees on both sides. However on the right side was a steep cliff to sharp jagged rocks on the bottom. The other side was over grown with wild flowers and trees and other plants.
They continued walking and found what they had been looking for. The New Orleans OZ Base. It was in ruins, how could anything be going on there? The walls were over grown with vines, moss, mold, and it had half of the building missing. Not to mention that the roof had several holes and several of the windows were broken. The grass around the base was at least a foot tall, except for what seemed to be a small path to walk around the perimeter of the base.
"You guys. I highly doubt someone is here causing any anti-peace warfare. So can we go now," laughed Duo. He had expected a false alarm, and it looked like he was right.
"Maxwell's right, there's nothing here," agreed WuFei.
Heero nodded, and they turned to start walking back toward the road.
BANG. All of them stopped dead, and their eyes widened. "Did you just hear that?" Quatre asked, turning to look around the base.
"That sounded like a mobile suit," let out Duo.
They ran on the small path to the back of the base and peeked past the corner. The thing they thought they were least likely to see was standing right in front of them. There was a girl with black hair and green eyes standing on top of a mobile suit with a tool box. Not to mention the fact she was wearing an OZ uniform.
"Aww man," Duo mumbled. "So much for an easy mission."
.0.
It had been a difficult day for Pilot Seven. She had finished up her last can of soup that morning, and so now she was down to cans of sausages and sardines and other things that were filling, but didn't give her much energy. Her stomach had been growling all day, and it was getting difficult for her to ignore it. Her hunger distracted her, and had made her morning simulations with the System a lot more difficult. She had almost lost control a few times, and had just barely kept herself from rejecting the System.
After a meager lunch of a few sardines, Pilot Seven made her way out to the hanger. Earlier in the week when she had been moving the mobile suits into the hanger, she had noticed that a camera on one of the Leos was malfunctioning. She needed to fix it, and since it was fairly warm out that day, she decided to do the repairs then.
She grabbed a tool box and climbed into the mobile suit. She carefully maneuvered the Leo outside to the tarmac, since the repair buildings had been destroyed beyond repair the night the base had been abandoned. Once outside, she climbed up to the shoulder of the suit and began working on repairing the camera.
Things went well for about the first hour. After that, Pilot Seven couldn't keep her mind off her rumbling stomach. The harder she tried to ignore it, the louder it seemed to get. She was so busy worrying about her stomach she wasn't concentrating on what her hands were doing. She grabbed the wrong wire and let out a yelp as a jolt of electricity snapped through her. In her surprise, she dropped the wrench in her hands. It fell twenty feet and hit the foot of the mobile suit with a bang loud enough to wake the dead.
Slightly frustrated, Pilot Seven stood and began the long climb down the suit to retrieve the wrench. Her stomach was still growling, and now her hand hurt. She had heard of bad days, but she had never really experienced one before.
She reached the foot and picked up the wrench with her uninjured hand. She noticed it had left a dent in the mobile suit. She made a mental note of it as she turned to climb back up the suit.
As she turned, Pilot Seven thought she heard something behind her. Turning, she saw a group of five young men standing about twenty feet away. After a quick assessment of the situation, she decided they must have come from around the corner of Hanger B.
Her first instinct was to run to them and --for some strange reason-- throw her arms around them. She hadn't seen other humans for so long! But her training was too good to allow her to do that. She didn't know these people, and therefore she needed to find out who they were and what they were there for.
"HALT!" she ordered, pointing at them. She reached down to her holster, checking that her gun was there. It was there, but she didn't take it out. She would interrogate the men first, and then decide if they were intruders or not. "State your names, ranks, and purpose of being here."
The young men all exchanged looks, and then the one in front nodded to them. He had black hair and blue eyes. "I am Officer Yuy. This is Officer Maxwell, Officer Barton, Officer Winner, and Officer Chang. We are here under orders from our superiors."
Pilot Seven thought this over for a second. They weren't wearing OZ uniforms, but then maybe they were wearing the Space Force uniforms. She had never seen the space uniforms for OZ. But maybe they weren't wearing the space uniforms, and they were from some other military. If that was the case, then they were enemies. But they hadn't fired a shot at her, so maybe they weren't enemies but allies?
Pilot Seven shook her head, trying to concentrate. Every part of her was yelling at her, telling her to eat. She shoved the idea of food down and thought some more. She remembered one of her trainers mentioning new cadets coming to the base a few days before the base was evacuated.
"Are you the new cadets?" she asked, jumping down from the Leo and walking towards them. Officer Maxwell made a noise, but then Officer Chang yanked on his long hair, silencing him. Officer Yuy spoke again. "Yes, we're the new cadets."
Pilot Seven nodded. "Do you have your papers?" She didn't know the exact protocol for welcoming new cadets to the base, but she did the best she could. She knew that this was another test from Colnel McCave, and if she did well on it, then maybe she would finally go to the moon
"No," Officer Yuy said. "Everything's done electronically now. Our information should have been sent to you this morning via telecommunications."
"I recieved nothing this morning," Pilot Seven replied.
"Perhaps it was delayed," Officer Barton put in. "The telecommunications lines do get lagged every now and then. I'm sure the files should have arrived by now. Perhaps they are waiting in the control room?"
Pilot Seven thought about all of this. If everything had been changed over to telecommunications, then that would be why she hadn't received an answer on the radio. "Follow me." She turned and led them through the base to the control center.
"Is it just me, or is she the only person here?" Duo mumbled to Quatre as they walked through the deserted halls of the base. Plaster had fallen from the ceiling, and at points they had to take long detours to avoid collapsed hallways.
"Are you the officer in charge?" Heero asked the girl.
"I am not an officer," she replied. "But I am in charge."
Duo shuttered. The way the girl talked, she sounded almost like an android. She hadn't smiled, laughed, frowned, or changed her facial expression in anyway since they had first seen her. She was kind of scary.
Like the rest of the base, the control room was deserted. It was becoming clear that she was the only one left at the base.
"If you're not an officer, what is your rank?" Trowa asked her.
"I do not have a rank. My identification is Pilot Seven," she replied.
"And they left you here?" Trowa asked.
"Yes, they left me here to hold the base until they return. What console would your files be sent to?" The girl asked.
"The one that reports are recorded on," Trowa replied.
Pilot Seven walked over to a computer and began working on it. Heero walked over to the radio console. He called up the records for the latest transmissions. He frowned at what he saw. She had been radioing on every radio signal she had access to everyday for the past few days. And it had been an SOS signal she had been sending out.
"You're the only one on the base?" Heero asked the girl. WuFei came over and peered at the screen Heero was looking at. He frowned as well.
"Yes."
"How long has it been since everyone else left?" Heero asked.
The girl turned from the console. "They should have briefed you on that before you came." The console behind her beeped. "I haven't received any records of cadets being sent here." She pulled out her gun and pointed it at Heero, who seemed to be the leader. "You are all under arrest for entering a base without authorization and impersonating OZ officers."
"Uh, newsflash girly," Duo broke in. "But there's no such thing as OZ anymore. OZ was gotten rid of more than a year ago."
The girl turned her gun on Duo. "Silence. You are under arrest." Duo gulped and looked at the gun. God, why did this always happen to him?
Heero frowned. He had thought something was funny about this girl, and now that he saw her holding the gun, he noticed her arm was shaking...almost as though she was fighting to keep it raised and holding the gun.
'She's weak,' Heero thought. 'If she's been here for over a year, she can't have much food left.' She wasn't a threat, Heero realized. In fact, she needed their help.
He walked towards the girl. She turned her gun back on him. "HALT!" she ordered, cocking the gun. Her arm was shaking more violently from the effort. Heero was amazed that she was till able to hold it up.
Heero stopped moving, but Trowa had caught on. While Pilot Seven's attention was turned onto Heero, Trowa rushed forward and grabbed her arm, pointing her gun at the ceiling. In surprise, she fired the gun and the bullets shot up into the ceiling. Duo and Quatre then leapt forward and held the struggling girl back as Trowa took the gun from her hand.
She struggled against the young men, trying to free herself. But her hunger was making her too weak, and after a few minutes she stopped fighting back, unable to continue.
Heero stepped forward. "We're not going to hurt you," he said. "We were sent here to investigate this abandoned base because the towns' people were hearing mobile suits moving around. I'm assuming you're the one who's been moving the suits?"
The girl didn't answer. She just stared straight ahead with a blank expression.
"We're here to help you. You're the only one on this base. You have been sending out SOS signals from the radio. OZ is no longer in existence, and you are not under arrest. We are just going to take you somewhere safe. Do you understand?" The girl didn't reply. "We're not going to handcuff you because you're too weak to fight back anyway. Do you understand?" Again, she didn't answer. She just stood silently, looking like a statue.
Nodding to his comrades, Heero turned. "Duo and Quatre, help her. Let's go."
Pilot Seven walked obediently along with her captors. What would Colonel McCave think of this? She had failed to identify intruders to the base, and now she was their captive. She had failed in her duty. Now she might not be able to go to the moon.
As they approached the gate, a light went on in Pilot Seven's head. They were leaving the base. No, she couldn't leave the base. Colonel McCave had told her when she was very small that if she ever left the base without him, she would definitely never go to the moon. These strange men were going to keep her from the moon!
"No," she said, trying to break free from the two boys helping her along. "No. I can't leave the base."
"You have to," the blond one said. "You'll die if you stay here."
"No! I can't leave! If I leave, I can't go to the moon! No! Let me go!" She tried to struggle, but she was too weak. Instead of breaking away from them, Pilot Seven was picked up by the boy with the long brown hair.
"I don't know what your problem is, girly, but you can't stay here," he said. "You need to get help."
Pilot Seven continued to protest until they crossed through the gate and were off the base. At that moment, she fell silent. It had happened, she had left the base. There was no point in protesting at all anymore. There was no chance she would ever go to the moon now. Colonel McCave would never forgive her for this.
She watched as the base became smaller behind them. It had been the only world she had ever really known and she...missed it. She had never felt the feeling of missing something until then, and she didn't like it. She pushed the feeling down and looked away from the base, wondering what was in store for her now.