Chapter 10: Destiny
The pilots kept what had happened to themselves, even going so far as to hide their injuries, once they were onboard and they learned about what had happened to the other group.
The ship was in mourning as it was revealed that the fake Lacus, Meer Campbell, had saved Lacus from an assassination attempt.
While Kira and the others learned about the girl who would become the fake Lacus, Meer laid in state waiting for funeral preparations to be made.
"I'll contact Milliardo and tell them what we found… you two please go to the medical bay and get them to check you out… especially you Trowa." Quatre said when they were alone in their room and Trowa was examining his leg with a grimace.
"I'm fine." Wufei growled.
"You may be fine, but unfortunately I will need to have this looked after… it may be worse than I first thought. He didn't hold back against me." Trowa said in annoyance.
"Take him to the medical bay; it'll be hard for him to walk on his own." Quatre said in concern before leaving the room.
As he went to the hangar, he passed Athrun and Kira on one of the ship's balconies, but instead of checking on them like he wanted to, he forced himself to keep going to the hangar bay.
They had designated certain times when they would contact each other to avoid sitting in their cockpits for long periods of time for no reason.
Quatre started up the Sandrock and opened a channel to the Tallgeese III. Just as he had hoped, Milliardo was waiting. "We found Heero on Copernicus. He wounded Wufei and Trowa when they tried to catch him. Trowa's hurt worse than Wufei and may be out of action for a bit."
Milliardo frowned in anger. "What about Duo?"
"I can only assume that if Heero is there, Duo must be too. I wish I could go back out to investigate, but the ship is unsettled right now. Lacus was attacked, but she was saved by the girl who had been pretending to be her."
"Andrew won't like to hear that. Lacus is like Relena: too important to the state of peace to let die before her time."
Quatre nodded in agreement. "Although if they hear us say that, they may just hurt us…"
Milliardo couldn't help but chuckle and nod. "Thank you for keeping me up to date… now that things are settling down in the Plants, Andrew thinks this Durandal man will make his intentions known. Keep an eye on things and try to translate for us what the hell is going on, especially since you guys are more familiar with this universe than we are."
"You're trying to keep your knowledge of this universe to a minimum, aren't you?"
"Yes… it wouldn't do well for us to learn much about this universe because it could cause perspective problems when we return home."
"I understand. Please be careful. If he does make his speech, I'll meet you here at our next appointed time."
Milliardo nodded and cut off communications.
Quatre sighed and shut down the Sandrock.
"There you are!" Neo said as he stood beneath the Sandrock.
"Hurry up, Durandal's going to be making his speech."
"All right… let's go." Quatre said as he walked beside Neo.
"Where are your other two buddies?"
"They're around."
Neo looked at him suspiciously, but nodded in understanding.
"How are you doing, Mwu?" Quatre asked absently, although he knew Neo was there when Meer was killed.
"Normally I'd say 'I'm not this Mwu guy!', but recently I've been second guessing myself… so I've been letting it slide. As for me… I wish I could have protected them, but…" He shook his head as Quatre nodded in understanding.
"Wishing doesn't help change the past."
"You sound like you know from experience."
"I'm a Gundam pilot of almost ten years… there is almost nothing that I don't know about when it comes to pain."
Neo sighed and remained silent as they continued walking towards the Archangel's bridge.
Trowa arrived on the bridge with a cast on his leg and Wufei at his side, waving away concerned questions as he nodded towards the monitor where Durandal had just appeared.
The silence on the bridge was grim as Durandal made his speech, unleashing the Destiny Plan upon the unsuspecting public.
Once he was finished, a cheery female voice with cheery music took over to explain how the Destiny Plan would work.
Everyone aboard the Archangel wore dark expressions until the female voice stopped speaking.
Once the broadcast was finished, discussions began aboard the Archangel, which contacted the Eternal in order to discuss what would eventually occur on Earth if Durandal wasn't stopped before his plans entered their main phases.
Only two nations had rejected the proposal immediately: Orb and the Kingdom of Scandinavia, but every other nation on the Earth were still up in the air about the Destiny Plan.
"So what do you make of it?" Quatre asked Trowa and Wufei as they left the bridge.
"This universe just got a bit more messed up than it was before… but we will stay by the Archangel's side and stop this plan from coming to fruition." Trowa said grimly.
Wufei nodded in silence as Kira called them back onto the bridge.
"What's wrong?" Quatre asked in concern.
"ZAFT rebuilt the Requiem and fired it at the Earth Forces' other base on the moon." Murrue answered grimly.
"Showing off his power… it's a fear tactic to force the other nations to fall in with him and not follow Orb's lead." Wufei growled.
"Considering that thing is on par with the GENESIS for power… it wouldn't surprise me if it works. Especially since it can target anywhere on Earth if the relay points are aligned properly." Athrun's calculating tone made the others nod in agreement.
Lacus took control of the situation and ordered Murrue to get in contact with Orb and unite the Archangel with the forces of Terminal and the Eternal.
As the Archangel prepared to launch with the Orb space fleet stationed at Copernicus, everyone was sitting in the lounge, belted down and waiting for it to be safe to resume free roaming.
"Quatre… what do you think Heero and Duo will do now?" Kira asked suddenly, causing Neo and Athrun to look at him in surprise.
"Honestly… since they left… I don't know what they'll do. I know they'll return to the battlefield when things are at their worst though, because they know that's usually when our ticket home shows up. Despite saying we'll be here to help you guys… well…" Quatre looked down at the floor.
"Your first loyalty is to your leader and getting her home safely…"
"If the chance comes up: take it. Don't worry about us, we'll be fine. In fact, we'll make sure to keep enemy forces from hampering your escape if it comes up and there's still fighting."
Now it was the pilot's turn to be surprised by Kira and Athrun's words.
"Thank you… just please make sure not to get caught by it yourselves."
"Don't worry; we'll keep ourselves at a distance."
As soon as the all clear was given, the pilots all headed towards the hangar to make last minute inspections of their respective Gundams.
Once the Archangel and the Eternal were reunited, crews began working to load the Strike Freedom and Infinite Justice onto the Eternal.
There was a brief period of reunion for both crews as Lacus, Kira, Athrun and Meyrin were to be transferred over to the Eternal's crew.
"You know… I've never been a big fan of these 'failure is not an option' missions. It makes things too tense." Andrew said as he handed Murrue and Neo each a cup of coffee while they oversaw the transfer from the safety of the observation deck overlooking the hangar.
"I have to agree with you on that part. Knowing that failure means handing the fate of the world over to that man…" Murrue shook her head in disgust at the thought.
As she took a sip of coffee, she couldn't help but smirk in amusement. "Still experimenting?"
"No good?" Andrew asked in concern.
"No actually, it tastes good; I was just surprised you could still find time to experiment with everything that's been happening."
"Experimenting with different blends of coffee helps me to relax, especially before a big mission. I find it helps increase your focus when you're relaxed; you're able to see things more clearly than you could if you were tense and worried about what problems could happen on the mission. Don't you do anything like that?"
Neo and Murrue both shook their heads, leading Andrew to shrug in defeat.
"Oh well… let's just hope we can end this before it can escalate any further than it has…"
Murrue and Neo nodded in agreement as they were notified that the Strike Freedom was successfully on board the Eternal.
"We're sorry you have to stay aboard the Eternal… but it's got the shuttle set up in the emergency hangar ready to launch if something should appear and the Eternal can just fit those three DOM Troopers, Andrew's Gaia, the Tallgeese III, the Freedom and the Justice. We can't transfer and nor can you, so the arrangements will just have to stay the way they are." Quatre said apologetically as their group passed the three elder soldiers.
Both groups exchanged quick greetings before Quatre and the others moved on in order to get Relena and the Defence Council back on board the Eternal before the two ships broke apart.
"Having those five back with us have certainly made things interesting around here, haven't they?"
Murrue sighed in annoyance with Andrew's question. "I can't argue with that… but interesting is hardly the word I'd choose to describe the way they've turned things on their heads around here."
"Really? Compared to what you and Kira have told me about their last visit here, things seem pretty normal."
"Then again, two of them went off on their own without telling their friends or any of us, so that should count against the normalcy claim." Neo chipped in as he stared out at the gleaming Akatsuki, which he was entrusted with by Cagalli.
Notice went out that the Infinite Justice was successfully loaded onto the Eternal and both crews quickly said their goodbyes before returning to their respective ships so they could begin leading the attack against ZAFT and Durandal's Destiny Plan…
Author's Note: Not much to say about this chapter. Trowa's leg is heavily fractured, for those of you wondering how bad the damage was. Nothing much else to say about this chapter. Sorry about that.