The group of four arrived back at the ship to find that Argo had gone to sleep. Not wanting to wake the giant (each had noticed the lines under his eyes from depression and lack of sleep quite easily), they began to make plans on their own. Nastasha had attended their meeting in place of her husband, though they all knew her too well—she had joined because each of them had been like family to the Gulskiis from the very beginning. She could not possibly sleep if they died, as well.
"It would have to be a swift blow," Chen was saying to the group. "If we can take out his father, then Kier will be easy to deal with."
"No!"
"Eva, what are you doing here," Vateen growled, taking a step closer to her. She startled backing up, and he stopped, cocking his head in the silent question 'what?'
"Y-you cannot hurt my brother," she told them, rushing in, now. "And even if you tried, Kier would not let you harm father. He still needs father to complete his project, you see. So, it would be pointless—Father is trapped!"
The small group looked at one another in silent conference for only a moment. In that amount of time, they were able to decide.
"Alright," Josh said, clearly willing to do anything at this point. "We'll take you with us."
Eva gasped. "No… N-no, please. I cannot watch you harm them, even if they are not nice people. " She backed away, slowly. Nastasha frowned at the girl, looking quite sympathetic for her. Josh stepped in before she could say anything.
"Don't have a choice," he informed her lazily. "We have to locate the hideout before anything else happens. Obviously they wouldn't be dumb enough to stick their base in the New Nations."
"Why," Vateen started, reverting back to his old self, "do they still call themselves the 'New Nations?' They've been around since we were little kids…"
Nastasha smirked, shaking her head at him. He had a point, but what a time to bring it up. "Perhaps they simple do not wish to name it," she told him. She really didn't know either.
Vateen nodded, deep in thought. "Well, we stumbled on a lot of underground tunnels when we were kids—"
"When you would run away in your fathers' gundams? Brothers in others' cases?"
"U-um…" Vateen nodded again, looking awkward. He shook his head to rid himself of the uncomfortable feeling. "W-well, anyway. There were underground tunnels, and they did look like they were just being built at the time. Maybe if we try those tunnels… "
Josh watched him, making a sound of approval in the back of his throat. He reached out and grabbed Eva, who had stopped to listen to Vateen talk and glare at him, startling her. "That sounds logical. You'll hafta lead since I wasn't around at that time."
"It was shockingly obvious," Thomas told him, crossing his arms delicately over his chest. He ignored Jamie's snort of laughter as he continued on. "In fact, the area we had stumbled on was so obvious, that others would not have thought to look in such places. Although, the tunnels did save our lives when we were nearly killed by the New Nations' attempts to fight us."
Josh sighed, shaking his head. "Doesn't sound like a very good plan. And if they did plant bases like that around, then we'd still hafta head out to find their exact locations—if they planted bases around like that, then there would hafta be one real base, and other false bases."
Nastasha tilted her head, clearly amused. "My, my! You are quite talented in tactics, aren't you?"
Josh looked uncomfortably at her. "I guess so. I was an orphan, which put me up for military tactics." He looked rather grim about the whole situation, but also proud of himself. "Was never as good as Nicolas…" he mumbled.
Nastasha became quiet, watching the boy with a deep understand that the other children could not read.
Josh shook his head again. "Never mind," he sighed. "C'mon." He led Eva out, putting an unsure hand on her shoulder as she cried.
Vateen looked to the others, sharing a quick thought. "We'll head out in the morning," he told them.
"For what?" Nastasha asked, quickly snapping from her thoughts.
"To find that base. We'll use a decoy to draw them out." He looked at Thomas quietly. "You'll have to go, Thomas. If the rest of our gundams are destroyed—"
"We're screwed," Jamie put in. Thomas looked at her, clearly offended by her vulgar language.
"You cannot throw away your lives so quickly," she told them, looking first to Vateen, then to Thomas. Both boys looked down, listening, but at the same time, not listening to her. "What would your parents think?"
"Tell father to take good care of them, "Thomas told her quietly. "I mean Mother and Fleur, of course. At this point," he hurried on, cutting Nastasha from what she intended to say, "we have no choice. We all swore revenge, and will not quit so easily."
Vateen stepped forward, serious about his decision. "I know that you're worried, but we have no choice, anymore. Let Argo sleep through the morning, then wake him up at around noon if we have not reported back to you. "
"And make sure also to inform our parents if we don't report." Jamie told her, starting to leave. "They could help us if we need it."
Nastasha was speechless. Unless she did something, five young adults were going to get themselves killed. She would inform their parents, alright. But she would inform them just as soon as the children retreated to the beds Argo lent to them. She could not truly respect herself if she did not…
"Goodnight," Thomas told her, smiling pleasantly as he left. Vateen followed with a grunt as his parting.
Nastasha sighed, sinking into a nearby pale cream sitting chair, her hands covering her face. This was too much too fast. She could not possibly let them go, and yet if they did, she could not follow. Argo would never agree to taking the risk of losing her as well.
She stood, going into the communications room and started to contact each of the parents. Surely they would drop their duties long enough to save the lives of their children…
Josh was wondering the halls of the ship by himself, having fallen deep into thought. He had gotten lost while looking around, so thinking was his next best option. If he could come up with a good, safe plot to lead the group into finding and infiltrating the New Nations' main base, he would have completed his goal; hopefully he would also find a way to finish without bloodshed of anyone… Even Kier. That, however, did not seem likely—the boy had made quite a few "friends" when he had killed Nicolas Gulskii. Especially Argo, whom even Joshua would not have wanted to have to fight if given the choice.
He turned a corner, looking briefly around him for familiar surroundings, before going back to his thoughts when he could find none.
Perhaps if he…? No. That would result in losing one, if not, two of his comrades. That would not be an option. Besides, that would also risk major damage to his Nightmare Gundam, and he could not really have that, either. If Nightmare Gundam was damaged, then Neo-Australia would know that he had left for this sort of thing. Since they had not given the orders, the officials could easily twist his words into something new and count treason against him.
He turned another corner, looking around as he had before. This time, there still was no familiar surroundings, but he could clearly hear a female voice inside the voice ahead of him. But what would anyone be doing up at an hour like this…? Unless…
This was dangerous—if she informed the Neo-Australian officials—he could not risk it. Slinging the door open, he witnessed Nastasha, startled and pale, at the communications screen. It was Chibodee Crocket.
"What are you doing out of bed," she sighed, placing a hand over her racing heart.
"Hey, you!" Chibodee growled. "Are you the one coming up with all this?"
Josh shook his head frantically. "I'll explain in a minute," he told the floating head. "Please tell me that Neo-Australia is uninformed of this."
"I…" Nastasha watched him with mild shock for a moment. She shook her head. "You aren't the one I'm worried about, Joshua. You would plan out your situation beforehand, correct?"
Josh looked at her with genuine confusion. "Of course. Why wouldn't I? If this mission is to succeed, measures hafta be taken to ensure both the safety of our fighters and steps to retreat should things go wrong. I'm still in the planning stage… Why?"
"Earlier, after you left with Eva, Vateen, Thomas, and Jamie came to their conclusion," Nastasha explained, gripping the chair in front of her. "They have decided that Thomas will act as a decoy to uncover where the base is located."
"What?" Josh took a breath, leaning on the wall, an unusual look of fear crossing his face. "If they go by that, the New Nations would consider their goal and set up a different means of defense. Of course, they wouldn't possibly miss the chance of taking out Thomas' gundam—it is one of our fastest…"
Nastasha smirked. "You've thought over this carefully, haven't you?"
"Now, you listen here," Chibodee cried out over the screen. "Jamie is my only little girl, and if she is hurt—"
"If she listens to me and does what I say, she shouldn't be hurt," Josh argued, cutting the older man off. "I don't want her involved—I don't want any of the girls involved." He groaned. "I… Jamie is special to me, and Tiso reminds me of one of my sisters; I couldn't possibly let them go out. As for Thomas and Vateen… I won't be able to control them, only protect. They're too stubborn to listen otherwise."
This time, Nastasha was truly impressed with the young man. If he took the time to think things over, then perhaps there was a reason he had become Neo-Australia at such a young age…
"If I could just find a way to separate all three of us and attack in three different locations, then just maybe…" Josh stood thinking, one hand supporting his chin as he thought.
"You could use Argo," Nastasha offered quietly, a sad tone in her voice that made Josh look slowly up at her.
"No," he told her. "Let Argo sleep. I certainly don't envy him, and he needs to catch up on sleep. He could… Could be backup, perhaps."
Nastasha sighed. "Just when I think that you may be different from the other children, you are still the same."
"You don't understand. If Argo doesn't sleep, the stress can hurt him. Also, we'll need his gundam to be with us when we infiltrate the base. It's a bad idea to throw out the best of weapons in the beginning. Since the Shuffle Alliance is far more experienced that we are, they are that weapon we will need.
Again with the logic… How could Nastasha argue with that? She stood painfully quiet as Josh thought.
A/N: TO BE CONTINUED!! D:
