Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Seed or any of the characters associated with it. This story is a major AU, so the plot and the specific setting do belong to me. Don't steal, please. There will be consequences.
Not many reviews I don't think but I haven't written well in months and this story jumped out at me.
Plus, I'm trying to update all my GS stories before I go away because….I finally got the series!
FINALLY! All fifty eps plus the movie for only thirty-eight and a half dollars!
Course, I haven't really had time to watch any yet but…meh.
Oh yeah; happy fourth of July everyone! Or at least those of you in the US; everyone who isn't: today is our independance day!
Woot.
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This chapter sux but I'm blaming it on my writer's block and fatigue.
Oh Yeah! And, thanks to the new ffnet feature, I can give reviewers a special sneak preview of the next chapter! Only if you review, of course, and if you're signed in.
Italics equal thoughts
>carrots> equal curan speech
Last Time:
Then the door opened. One set of confused curan eyes gazed out a tiny hole while four sets of human eyes widened in shock and horror.
"Oh my God."
"What happened?"
Oddity
Chapter 6: Teradome pt. 2
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Teradome lay in shambles, abandoned to the wilderness. Gaping eye-like windows gazed out at streets riddled with cracks and broken by weeds.
There wasn't a soul in what should have been a metropolis
"Well," Dearka's voice was soft. "I guess we know why we weren't hailed."
"There was…no one to hail us." Nicol looked a bit frightened as well as confused. He was recovering from the shock faster than the others, though. "Athrun, what do we do now?"
"We…uh…well…"
Their leader had no idea.
Kira blinked at the ghost town in confusion, flipping his ears forward.
This was where they were bringing him? It looked…well, it looked a little bit like Home had after the humans finished with it. Minus the fire, ash, blood, and bodies.
And the fact that there aren't any bodies means this situation is completely different even if it is unexpected. He transferred his gaze to the humans standing around the crate and felt a brief surge of vindication at the looks on their faces.
A low mumbling sound deep within the curan's chest resolved into whispered words too low pitched for any human to hear.
>How's it feel to see someplace you knew in shambles? To know everyone is gone for some unknown reason? And that's without the death…what you feel now isn't even a fraction of…>
He stopped, eyes widening. What am I saying? I don't want them to go through that! Nobody deserves it, not even them! How low have I fallen that I'm even considering thinking such a thing? I'm acting like a human!
Gentle violet eyes, more lively (in their shame) then they had been for several days, sought out the human who seemed most likely to understand or forgive Kira's muttering.
"I guess…we should go explore?"
Athrun mentally cursed himself for sounding weak. The 'authoritative command' had come out as a rather nervous, and squeaky, question. A slight blush, hopefully hidden by shadow, stole across his face.
"Is that really such a good idea?" Nicol looked just as nervous as Athrun felt. "I-I mean, what if there's loose masonry or a gas leak somewhere? Not to mention we don't even really know what happened. What if they were attacked by something vicious?"
"Ah, grow a backbone Doc." Dearka slung a friendly arm around his shoulders. "They probably just left on a supply run or to go see relatives or somethin'."
A dubious glower. "All at the same time?"
"Sure!" he grinned mischievously. "And if not, than they were probably eaten by…OH MY GOD WHAT'S THAT!"
"WHAT?"
"WHERE!"
"DEARKA!"
"You guys actually fell for that? Hah!" the blonde poacher cracked up, doubling over with laugher as Kira watched with confusion and the others glared.
"Enough of this crap." Stepping forward, Yzak began to bark orders. "Dearka, you and I will scout and try to find out what actually happened here. You two get the curan settled in. We're stuck here a few days according to the schedule so we might as well make it worthwhile."
"Good idea." Athrun nodded firmly, studiously ignoring the contemptuous glare leveled his way. "Make sure you've got your comm. units on; we'll all check in in two hours-."
"Three."
"What?"
The scarred boy smirked. "At least three hours will be needed to scout the city."
Clamping down on his annoyance at the insubordination, Athrun grit his teeth and nodded. "Alright then, three hours from now. Nicol and I will take the curan and go to the center of the nearest compound while you two secure the ship and explore. Nicol, let's go."
Without waiting for a response, the captain strode off down a street in the direction of what looked like a glass dome several blocks down.
Wondering what in the stars had just happened, Nicol scrambled after, pushing their captive's crate down the unkempt street.
"….what…?"
"…I…he…"
>Oof!> Kira slipped and banged his head yet again against the side of the box. Every bump, crack, and turn felt magnified ten times by his condition and about fifty billion more times by the way he was being transported.
It was so bad that he was only picking up every third or fourth word of the conversation going on overhead. Then…the lurching stopped.
"Unnngh…" Finally. (1)
Neither human heard him.
"So what now? There's no one to let us in."
"I still have the access codes. Hopefully one of them will work."
Several shuffled clicking sounds, beeping noises, and a whooshing thunk later, Kira once again found himself moving. He didn't look out the holes; distractions would just make the trip worse.
The curan never would have thought he'd be grateful for the monotonous metal the humans favored but when the wheels hit the smooth surface of a steel floor, he whimpered in relief.
"What was that?"
"I think it was the cub."
"Is he okay?"
"Probably. Hang on. You okay in there?" A loud thud and shout right overhead caused Kira to yelp and shuffle backwards instinctively.
"He's fine." Leader's voice was annoyingly smug, giving the impression he'd just been showing off for the one called Nicol.
Kira was too dazed and bruised to care.
"He's fine." Athrun smiled at Nicol but the expression faltered when the other boy gave him an immeasurable look.
"So I see."
"What's wrong? Did I do something?"
The hallways of the curan training compound –deserted, just like the rest of the city- passed by in silence for several moments.
"Nicol?" Maybe if I prompt him I can figure out what's wrong. "Does this have anything to do with what you said before? About the labs? Because-."
"No, no…well, yes…sorta. It has to do with what I said before but not about the labs."
"Oh?"
"I just…how can we do this? You saw him onboard; he looked human! I thought you cared but then his condition kept getting worse, I'm fairly certain you didn't give him the ear drops, and now we're going to deal with breaking him on our own? It just-."
Athrun stopped abruptly. "Nicol, our deal upon taking this mission was that we don't need to break him, remember?" he smiled in what he hoped was a warm manner as cold fingers of dread touched his spine.
I hadn't thought of that but he's right. This planet is the only place in the solar system to get curans trained and prepared. If there isn't anyone here… He shot the crate an uncomfortable look and began walking again.
"I guess." Nicol didn't sound convinced. Not surprising; it hadn't convinced Athrun either and he'd been saying it. But…Huh...I could have sworn I saw that door ten minutes ago…
"Nicol…do you…know where we're going?"
"Um, no. You're the one directing me."
"…"
"Aren't you?"
"Well…"
Dearka watched Yzak from a careful distance. The pale poacher had, after the others left, taken to kicking and throwing the smaller pieces of masonry around in anger at Athrun's 'attitude'.
Personally, Dearka thought just saying that made Yzak sound like an ornery housewife and mother hen but to state that out loud would be tantamount to suicidal.
"Who does he think he is? It was MY idea…"
"Um, Yzak?"
"WHAT!"
Discreetly pulling away a few meters, Dearka responded.
"We should probably lock up the ship and get going. It's already been a half hour."
Yzak didn't say anything; he didn't need to. He just looked at his crewmate.
"I mean-." Another meter. How had Yzak learned to look so terrifying? "We don't want there to be another fight later and it was a good idea to begin with; we should go see if we can find anything."
"MY idea."
"Yes, it was your idea. What say we act on it?"
Yzak paused, considered, then scowled and stopped destroying the junk around him.
"Fine. But if that self righteous bastard says one thing…"
"Yeah, yeah; 'it'll be the last thing he does'. I know."
"I was going to say 'he'll regret it'."
"Close enough."
"Hmph."
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An hour and a half later, the two scouts had made it to the edge of the city. They hadn't run across a single living being or explanation about the city's state of disrepair but there weren't any signs of struggle or catastrophe either.
"SO." Dearka dropped onto an old fashioned bench complete with peeling paint and rotted woodwork. "Here we are. Searching. What are we looking for again?"
Yzak sat down beside him, looking confused.
"I don't understand this. There should be signs of something! There's no blood, no marks to signify gunfire, no weapons, no bodies, no nothing! It's like this place was evacuated."
"Could it have been? Maybe they were warned of a disaster and it hasn't occurred yet."
"No. Evacuation would mean panic of some sort. There would be personal possessions all over the place and some ships ferrying people out. Not to mention scavengers looking for anything valuable left behind. If this place was evacuated, the residents had plenty of time to pack and load and enough space for all of them to bring everything they wanted."
"Which is completely unheard of in an evacuation because of the disaster of whatever looming overhead."
"Right." A sigh escaped Yzak's lips as he leaned back.
"Not to mention the state of the city."
"State of the city?"
"Yeah; don't tell me you haven't noticed."
A rather blank looking glare took the place of the omnipresent scowl/sneer in answer.
"Guess not. Ever since we got her I've been looking at the state of the buildings and streets. All of it looks aged. Not quite destroyed, just…old. Like it's been abandoned a long time.
"But we've only been out of the loop a month or so! Probably less! And you can't tell me we all missed the news on something as big as the abandonment of Teradome before that."
"It couldn't have happened in a month or even a year." Dearka quavered slightly under the dark look creeping into his companion's eyes. "In fact, I'd say something like this couldn't happen in under fifty years. I mean, have you looked at the buildings? They're literally falling apart."
"Teradome's only been around for thirty years and ten of those were spent without this city.
"Right."
"Which means there is something extremely wrong with this picture."
"No shit." Dearka groaned, putting his head in his hands. "And this was going so well! Now we're probably going to die on a suspiciously abandoned rock in the middle of nowhere!"
"What? Why? We still have the ship; we can fly off whenever we want to."
Dearka snorted, unamused. "Yeah, right."
"What do you mean?"
"We're out of fuel Yzak! That was one of our reasons for coming! If we leave now, we'll be dead in space in less than a day."
"And it's at least five days to the nearest colony."
"If we push the engines and to do that we'd need fuel."
"I see."
"You see? That's it? Yzak, that's not like you. What have you figured out?"
"Who gave us this mission?"
"Huh?"
"Just answer."
"The government. So?"
"Was what they had us do legal?"
"Not really but they paid a lot."
"Did they pay in cash?"
"No…" Dearka had a sneaking suspicion he knew where this was headed.
"Would it look accidental or purposeful if we died like this in a setting like this?"
"Accidental…"
"What was Teradome originally?"
"A research outpost."
"Funded by the government."
A low groan left the poacher's mouth as his head dropped even lower.
"Ah CRAP. They did this! On purpose!"
"And we fell for it. Hook line and sinker."
TBC?
REVIEW IF YOU WANT IT CONTINUED!
Good Lord, I made them sound like the military.
'Securing the ship'? Bleh, oh well.
(1) Sounds are in quotations cuz they're pretty much the same no matter what language. Kira can't speak English so the words are all in curan or in his thoughts.
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