Ch-4
Briefing room
The Gundam pilots walked into the Briefing room where Lady Une greeted them.
"Good to see you all today,"
Wu-Fei gave her an odd look "Where's Sally at, I thought she was going to give us the full briefing."
"She had some urgent business to attend to, so you and I will do the briefing."
Wu-Fei raised an eyebrow "Urgent business? She never told me about any of that."
Lady Une gave him a shrug "It was a last minute thing, now moving on, Before we begin we should go over some background information about the layout of the base," Heero and the others gave her a nod; Lady Une turned on a monitor showing an outline of MO-2 "As your all aware Kale has been using MO 2 as a staging area for his base, we also know he has an army of mobile dolls and 100 hostages. What we don't know however, is the size of his army or where the hostages are located, Zen did say we could find out there location by sending in some spy probes, however we have to assume he has told Kale about our technology and that they are ready for it."
Wu-Fei gave her a nod "Then our only option is to breach the base and take the security room, since we know that the interior is the same we can use existing maps to find it. Once we secure the security room we'll be able to locate the hostages."
"Wait a minute, Kale's already threatened to execute the hostages. What's to say he won't do it at the first sign of an attack?" Asked Duo
"Cause it was a bluff, Kale's no fool. He knows that if he executes the hostages, there will be nothing stopping us from bombing his base to hell well before he reaches earth" Said Heero
Duo looked at Heero then back to Wu-Fei "Makes sense, so how do we breach the base?"
Wu-Fei looked up to the monitor "As of right now every available Preventer and UMS soldier is arming up and readying the transport ships that we'll be using. When we signal the attack we will launch the Gundams first followed shortly by the transport ships. Now our scans have shown that the rear docking bays are still functional, so that's where our point of infiltration will be. Heero, Trowa, Quatre, Duo and Wu-Fei you will lead a full assault on the base. Your objective will be to clear a path for the transports, as well as provide cover for them. Now we also have to keep in mind of the fact that they have 3 Gundams"
"3 Gundams? How do we know this?" Asked Une
Heero looked at her arms crossed "Kale's subordinates both have Gundams, is it so preposterous to think that Kale would have one too?"
Une lowered her head slightly "That does make sense, I guess I haven't thought of that, so what do we do about that?"
Heero's eyes iced over "I can't speak for the others, but when Kale does show his face, I'll be the one to take him down."
Wu-Fei gave him a nod "I agree with that, I'll take Zen, me and him have unfinished business."
"The same goes for me and Ramirez, I'll take him." Said Quatre angrily
Trowa and Duo looked at each other briefly then back to Une "That just leaves me and Duo to take on an army of mobile dolls, I know we have the upgrades, but that still may be asking for too much."
"We also have to keep in mind that we don't know the exact size of Kales army. With only 2 Gundams we could be overwhelmed." Chimed in Duo
Quatre looked up at her "I could call in Rashid and the Maganacs, but they're still recovering from the battle on Earth, it could take some time for them to be ready."
Wu-Fei nodded in agreement "I think we need to rethink our strategy here, there's too much that could go wrong. Do we have a contingency plan?""
"Actually Wu-Fei, I may have an alternative." All the eyes in the room turned to Lady Une "First though let me apologize in advance for not letting you know this information sooner, but because of our recent leaks, it was beyond classified, you are all some of the first to see these."
She pressed a button on the monitor and five unknown mobile suits appeared on screen.
"Over the last 4 years we've secretly began creating five new Gundams in case of a threat like this, they're not as powerful as yours, but each one has a valuable skill that will make them the perfect allies in combat."
Wu-Fei stood up from his chair and gazed at the Gundams "MY god… did Howard help build these?"
Lady Une nodded "The same engineers that upgraded your suits also built these as well. We started on them not long after Duo's upgrades to your suits were finished."
The other pilots looked over at Duo, he just glared at them all "Oh don't even look at me like that, I've never seen these before in my life."
Quatre looked back over at Lady Une "How powerful are these suits?"
Lady Une handed them all a file "See for yourself."
The pilots began skimming thru the files to read up on each Gundam, Heero looked back up to Lady Une "I see you've rebuilt Epyon."
"Yes, I wasn't happy with the choice, but I cannot deny its power, you of all people should know what it's capable of." Said Lady Une
Heero nodded reluctantly "Agreed, I can see why you kept this secret, with these suits we'll be more than a match for Kale… but tell me, who will be piloting these Gundams?"
Lady Une smiled slightly as they remained oblivious to what was going on behind them "Why don't you turn around and see for yourself?"
The pilots turned around at the same time, and all their jaws hit the floor, there before them stood Relena, Hilde, Noin, Sally, and Catherine.
Duo stood there dumbfounded "WHAT THE F…"
"This is a joke, this is just a joke right!" Interrupted Wu-Fei
"It's no joke Wu-Fei, we're your back up." Said Relena with a grin
"Back up, are you insane? Your not even a pilot!" Yelled Heero
Trowa looked over at Catherine "And neither are you Cathy, what the hell is going on?"
Lady Une held up a hand "That's enough, Relena came up to me several years ago with the idea to build 5 new Gundams based on designs she made. Naturally because of the costs to build them, I was reluctant at first. But after looking over the designs I decided the benefits of having more Gundams at my disposal outweighed the cons."
"That still doesn't explain how you 5 are involved in this!" Demanded Quatre
Relena stepped forward "Shortly after I pitched the idea of the Gundams I informed Lady Une of my intent to be the pilot of one of them, and that I wanted the other woman to do the same. Naturally she was skeptical to say the least, but we worked out a compromise. If we were to beat Wu-Fei's training program, and if we could convince you to allow this, she would let us pilot the Gundams."
Wu-Fei looked over to her shocked "That test is always random and has an 80% fail rate, are you telling me you've all beaten it?"
Relena handed Wu-Fei a file, which he took "I'll admit it wasn't easy, but yes we've all beaten it… many times to be exact"
The guys all looked over at Catherine.
"You've beaten it too?" Exclaimed Trowa
Catherine smiled slyly and gave him a nod; Noin gave her a brief pat on the back.
"What can I say, the girls a natural."
"Beating a simulation is one thing, but I know for a fact none of you have done any sort of field training." Said Heero flatly
Sally looked over at him "Actually baring that you don't have us restrained, we were hoping to start training with you guys."
"Absolutely not, it's out of the question!" Yelled Duo
"Look your going to need help, we can do this, let us help you!" Pleaded Catherine
"Look its not that we're ungrateful, we all appreciate the gesture, but why should we risk having you fight when we could get other soldiers to do the job?" Asked Quatre
Relena "It's because we're tired of only watching. We watched you fight the eve wars, we watched you fight against Marimaea, and we watched as Zechs, my own brother, had to sacrifice his life to protect us…" Relena tightened her fists as she tried to keep her emotions in check "And not a day goes by where I wish that I could've done something, anything to have him with us right now… but I couldn't, I could only watch… well I'm not doing that anymore. I want to be by your sides when you fight, I want to make a difference, but most importantly I want to make sure that I'll never again lose a person I love…"
Noin walked up next to her and looked at them "All we're asking for is a chance, let us prove to you that we can do this."
Quatre was about to object put Wu-Fei put a hand on his shoulder "Alright, if all of you can beat my test again, I will consider allowing you to train with us."
Everyone in the room looked wide-eye at him.
"Are you serious?" exclaimed Hilde
Wu-Fei gave her a nod "Dead serious, you have one hour to prepare, I'll meet you in the training area," Wu-Fei looked at Lady Une "In light of these revelations I suggest we postpone this briefing."
"Agreed," She looked over at the women "You are all dismissed, report to the training area in one hour."
The women saluted her and made their way out of the briefing room.
Lady Une looked at the men "I'll leave you to discuss this matter." And with that left the room, all eyes went to Wu-Fei
"Would you mind telling me what that was about Wu-Fei?" Asked Trowa sharply
Wu-Fei looked at him indifferently "Like I said I made that simulation nearly impossible to beat, they're part of only 15 percent of all the pilots that have beaten it."
Duo's eyes narrowed "Then why don't we find another one of those 15 percent and let them pilot the Gundams!"
"Because the fastest time it's ever taken to beat my test is almost 2 months." Said Wu-Fei as he read over the file again
"What's your point Wu-Fei?" Asked Quatre
Wu-Fei placed the file down on the table "They've all beaten it in 5 weeks or less."
A silence went over the room as the other pilots all looked at the file. Wu-Fei began walking towards the door.
"Where are you going?" Asked Heero
"To the training room, I have to see it with my own eyes, you all coming?"
2 Hours Later
Heero and the others looked at the monitors, not quiet believing what they were seeing. One by one each screen went blank as it signaled that the simulation was over. The girls then began exiting the machines and looked over the results
Duo slouched back into his chair "That so did not just happen. I thought you made the test harder for them Wu-Fei."
Wu-Fei's eyes went over the data then back to the girls who were now erupting in to a chorus of cheers as they read the results.
"I did."
Trowa looked down at the floor in disbelief "They beat it like it was nothing… even Catherine… this is unreal."
"I hear you, I wouldn't have believed it if I haven't seen it myself." Said Quatre
Heero let out a sigh and looked at Wu-Fei "So what now Wu-Fei?"
Wu-Fei looked at him "A promise is a promise, besides as it stands right now, your looking at the 5 best pilots we have at this base, next to us of course."
"You seem to be awfully calm about this Wu-Fei." Said Duo slightly annoyed
Wu-Fei smirked slightly "Don't get me wrong it's not as if I don't care, I like this about as much as you guys… but I also know that those 5 women over there are the best chance we have to win this war."
All the eyes went back to the women as they continued celebrating.
End Ch-4
Another Chapter down, another fan fic recommendation:
"With or Without You" AnitaRealityCheck, Vampykitty-kun
Just when I thought I was the only one left that wrote Quatre/Noin stories I run across not one, but two that write 4x9 stories, and damn good ones at that. However it's their story "With or Without You" that is quickly becoming one of my favorites. It's posted by AnitaRealityCheck but is co-authored by Vampykitty-kun, It has it all, romance, humor, drama, and plenty of plot twists and turns that will have you eagerly awaiting their next update. This story is so well written and a lot of fun to read, and I cannot say enough how much I recommend this to everybody that loves great fan fiction. Be sure to give it a read and review, they deserve it.
Update: The story "With or Without You" has been moved to a joint account under the title "Meet Me Halfway" by "Ryu-and-Lali" While in a sense it's the same story the authors seem to be doing quiet a bit of revisions. However if this story is anything like "With or Without you" then I feel we are all in for a treat. Just be sure to give them your support.
Also be sure to give me a review too, that way I can know what I'm doing right or wrong. That's all for now, time to work on Ch-5!