Heero could not remember a time in his life that he'd felt guiltier than when Duo Maxwell had stormed out of the room during the briefing. It seemed that Heero had said something to set him off, but Heero didn't know what it had been, and neither did anyone else. Whatever it was, Duo was more manic now than he'd been at any time in the past, and if anyone thought he'd been too quiet and too focused before, he now acknowledged no one at all with even so much as a look.
No one was pleased with the development, but no one could blame him either. Heero had given hours of thought to what Duo had said about calling upon the colonists to fight back, and the implications troubled him. On one hand, if the colonists backed down without violence there would be no need to ramp up military presence and therefore no need to increase mobile suit production. The profiteers would be crippled. But on the other hand, Heero couldn't honestly expect the colonists to sit back and take the current level of oppression lying down. He certainly wouldn't if he was in their shoes.
Still, what Duo had said had been radical, militant, and oddly out of character. He was a soldier above all things, yes, but Duo Maxwell had always been a relatively gentle soul, and whatever need for vengeance he'd felt over past events in his life had been overruled by compassion and optimism. His had settled to the point that Maxwell never spoke of such feelings, and if he ever felt them he removed himself to his bunk to deal with them privately. But that was before he'd been captured, before he'd destroyed the colony, before Hilde had been wounded. Heero wondered if it had all been too much. Perhaps Duo had been damaged beyond repair.
As he lay in bed the night of the briefing his mind raced. He thought of what Howard had said when he'd brought Heero the plans for the glass cannon mobile suit: Let it never be said that Duo Maxwell doesn't know how to have a breakdown. But Heero wondered if Duo truly did know how to break down. He wondered if Duo was self-aware enough to realize what a sorry state he'd fallen into.
Or was it a sorry state?
Heero had never seen such productivity out of one man before, not even during war time. To have two mobile suits almost completely dismantled in two weeks bordered on inhuman. To have begun assembling those salvaged parts into an entirely new frame in the few short hours since was absolutely insane. Heero wondered how long the pace could keep up before Duo collapsed from exhaustion. Certainly he wouldn't sleep on his own; likely he wouldn't eat or rest either.
And atop all of the drama with Maxwell, Relena had been a stressed out wreck since the briefing as well, worrying about her colleagues in the cabinet and what she might say to the press. Once in the privacy of their bedroom, Heero had watched her cry for near an hour over the thought of calling unarmed civilians to war, and even now that she was asleep her body gave the occasional uneasy shudder. He'd thought to wake her up once or twice, but he couldn't bring himself to do so. Better for her to sleep fitfully than stay up half the night sobbing. Only one of the two of them could be a tired mess the next day, and Heero had always been better at handling that.
Not a single person aboard the Peacemillion had gone unaffected by the meeting. Quatre, though he remained outwardly focused on Hilde's deteriorating health, seemed more distressed than ever. No doubt he had spent too much time blaming himself for all that had gone wrong as he was so apt to do. Sally, aside from troubling herself with Heero's care, had spent almost all of her time beside Wufei. They resolved themselves to combing through more paperwork to locate the misallocated funds Wufei had come across in the initial checks, reasoning that if they could find a paper trail it would solidify evidence against the corrupt. Noin and Milliardo had clammed up in their own quarters, and only Milliardo had been present at the briefing, explaining that Noin was under the weather. Through all his apparent cheerfulness, Howard had a look of utter despondency about him, particularly since Duo had stormed out, but this was not altogether unexpected considering the closeness of Howard and Duo's relationship. Then there was Relena, and Heero had seen enough of her reaction first hand to know she still harbored irrational fear about the assassination attempt made against her, though he could not be certain if she was more afraid for her own safety or his. Even Heero himself had felt off. If all was well in his own mind he knew that he would not be up so late, listening to Relena's shuddering breaths.
The only person who seemed in a normal state of mind was Trowa, but his inhuman detachment from matters such as these almost mandated that to be the case. In fact, aside from Heero, Trowa had been the most well-reasoned among the lot, explaining that everyone at one point or another had experienced something similar, if less severe, than what Maxwell was currently going through. All of them had lost people they loved to war and many of them were responsible for the deaths of civilians, though Quatre had been quick to point out that himself and Duo were the only two to fully destroy a colony. Trowa suggested that the best course of action at this point would be to leave Duo well enough alone and allow him to go about his grieving in his own way. After all, it was only through Duo's own efforts that he would be able to overcome his apparent madness.
By the time Heero settled to sleep Relena had begun to stir. She rolled to face him and grinned sleepily, but when he returned her gaze the smile faded. "What time is it?" she asked quietly.
"Six thirty."
"You've been up all night?"
Heero nodded curtly. "Yeah."
Relena propped herself on her elbow, her brow furrowed in what Heero might at another time have called anger. "Why?"
Heero draped his arm over his eyes. "Thinking."
"Oh," Relena replied, and he could tell that her expression had softened by the tone of her voice. "I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize," Heero said brusquely. "You didn't do anything to apologize for."
"I kept you awake."
"You were asleep before midnight. That's not keeping me awake."
They went quiet, and though Heero began to nod off he felt Relena shift. Then her arm was around his middle, and her head was on his shoulder, and he knew he wouldn't sleep.
"What did you come up with?" Relena asked, her voice scarcely a whisper. Heero noted the tiniest hint of desperation creeping back in.
"I'm going to talk to Maxwell later today about it."
"What are you going to say?"
"I haven't gotten that far yet."
"I think he should do it."
Heero's eyes popped open again and he dropped his arm to his chest. He grimaced when his elbow hit his ribs, and then stared at Relena indignantly. "What?"
"I think he should do it. The message to the colonists. I think Duo should be the one to do it." She paused and watched him, and she must have sensed his misunderstanding. "A call to war coming from me would be disingenuous."
Heero had not thought of this. "So what then?"
"I'll talk to the colonists. I'll tell them that I'm safe, and I'll tell them that all of you are innocent. I can explain that what the press has been releasing so far is only one side of the story and it's the wrong side to boot."
"So how does Maxwell come into this?" Heero stopped short and looked at the ceiling. He didn't want to be thinking about Duo right now, not while in bed with his wife, not with her arm draped over him. "I mean, how are you going to get him to do it?"
She shrugged and flopped back on her pillow. "I can talk to him, if you want," she said. "I'll let him know what I think."
Heero wasn't certain that was a good idea. He'd seen how Duo had reacted to everyone else who wanted to talk. Even Heero himself had been met with a somewhat rude welcome when he'd gone in, and Heero hadn't even required a response.
"He said he was going to lead the charge," Relena continued thoughtfully. "And from the way all of you talk, there isn't a lot that's going to change his mind." She paused and rolled to the side again, her head propped on her hand. "He's going to go out anyway, right?"
"That's what it seems like."
"Look at it this way. If you or I tell the colonists to fight, they're never going to see our faces out there, not in the real world. If we go that route we're just another pair of talking heads with personal interests in mind. But if Duo tells them to fight, they'll see him out there. They'll see him on the front lines. If war is unavoidable at this point—and it may just be unavoidable—doesn't it make sense for the people to have someone real to rally behind?"
Heero eyed Relena appraisingly. Everything she had just said would have made perfect sense coming from a war-minded person. But from her, the staunch pacifist she was, the words had been strangely fluid. He wondered for a moment if she'd been talking with her brother, but there could be no way. Heero had been at Relena's side since before the briefing, and she and Zechs had barely shared pleasantries in the last twenty-four hours.
"Where's all this coming from?" Heero asked at last.
Relena shrugged and sat upright. "I'm just trying to do what makes the most sense," she said. "I've been around for too much conflict to really believe that it's inevitable. Humans fight. It's in our nature. And while we can do everything in our power to stop fights from happening, I think we've got a duty to engage when it's called for."
"That's not how pacifism works."
"No, it's not," Relena conceded. "But I'm not trying to be a pacifist here. I'm trying to be a pragmatist."
Heero watched, impressed, as Relena rose from the bed and dressed. A feeling of pride swelled in his chest. Perhaps his bullheaded wife was loosening her iron hold on pacifistic thought.
"I'll talk to him after breakfast," she said, tying her hair back. "I don't want you to worry about it." She came around to his side of the bed, bent low, and pecked him on the forehead. "You need to sleep, not to worry. You're still injured, you know, and as exhausted as you were last night I can't imagine how you managed to stay awake."
"It's a gift."
Relena cast him a wry smile as she exited the room.
ф
Duo had been single-minded since the moment he exited the conference room. He'd returned immediately to the hangar where he began assembling the mobile suit he'd designed from the ground up. At any other point he may have been daunted by the enormity of the task, but this was not the first time he'd built a suit from scratch. Every one of the last seven builds in which he'd participated had come from designs of his own making. The only difference between then and now was that Duo was working alone, and if he was truthful with himself he did not mind the solitude. He didn't even think it strange.
He'd decided to build around the skeleton of the detonated suit, the suit he'd built with Heero, Howard, and Sally prior to blowing up the colony. As with all prototype machines, he'd drafted it with himself in mind, so the weighting and proportions felt comfortable and familiar every time. That suit's body paneling had been entirely removed in the wake of the colony, the parts discarded or salvaged in the month following its destruction, so building on top of its framework would be as simple as constructing a mobile suit could be. Duo had already built one of the feet—a simple part in itself—but the progress was reassuring, and seeing a piece of the machine complete bolstered Duo's spirit and drove him to continue.
Duo needed that drive now more than ever. Already fatigued from his prior salvages, Duo's stamina was low, and he knew that without days of rest and proper nutrition he would never be able to work to full capacity. Still, he reckoned that continuous work at eighty percent was better than several days at zero, so he persevered. His body would tell him in no uncertain terms when he had to rest, even if it meant collapsing on the spot. Duo promised himself that he'd get back to the hangar no matter what, even if Sally or Quatre tried to stuff him in a bed. He doubted that would happen, though. The only person who'd entered the hangar since Heero's briefing had been Howard, and Duo had proceeded to offend him so thoroughly that he'd not since returned.
Ignoring Howard had been the most difficult thing Duo had done since putting Hilde in stasis. The old man had looked so downcast, so utterly concerned, that when Duo initially cast eyes on him his first instinct was to drop the work and go talk. It had taken every ounce of his resolve to turn his attention back to the mobile suit and remain aloof to Howard's presence. Worse, Howard had started talking even in the silence, practically begging Duo to come out of the hangar and exchange words like a rational person. Howard had said so many things that struck too close to home: you're acting insane and this isn't who you are. Howard had asked if Duo even knew what he was getting into. It wasn't until Howard invoked Sister Helen's name that Duo snapped back at him. Duo remembered that exchange more clearly than any other, and he felt ashamed by it. Howard had asked him what Helen would've thought of his propagation of war, and in the heat of the moment Duo had growled so low that he scarcely recognized his own voice: "What the hell could you possibly know about that?"
He'd spat the words like a curse, and Howard had backed off immediately, silent as death. Duo could remember the look on Howard's face, a look of deepest hurt, a look of utter betrayal. But somewhere behind those usually understanding eyes had been concern and worry and genuine fear. Of all the people aboard the Peacemillion, Duo had not yet scared Howard away, but it seemed that such a visceral response to Howard's genuine attempt at conversation had done the trick.
In the wake of that exchange, Duo had expected to remain alone until the mobile suit was complete and he had abandoned ship. So when Relena strolled casually into the hangar he could only sit atop his work and stare at her in wonderment, imagining the earful she'd get from Heero if he found out she had approached.
"I'd like to talk to you," Relena called up to him brightly, and the fact that Duo turned to continue watching her was more of curiosity than interest. "I need your help."
Duo's legs dangled over the side of the mobile suit's foot structure. He felt comfortable looking down at her, in a position of power.
"What do you want?" he said bitterly, but Relena did not recoil.
"I want you to join me in making a colonial address," she explained, her voice no less bright than it had been when she'd first entered the room. "I'd like to discuss the matter with you, if you'd be willing."
Curiously, Duo slid down from his perch and approached Relena. She'd piqued his interest. "Talk, then."
"Have you eaten anything?"
Duo's face screwed up. "What?"
"You've been in here since the meeting yesterday afternoon, haven't you? Let's talk in the galley. Get you some food and relax for a while. I heard through Heero that you're not taking very good care of yourself, and we can't have our spokesman so out of shape."
Spokesman? Duo wondered. He could not guess what she meant by that, but he grabbed a towel from a nearby shelf and followed her from the room all the same. He wiped at his face and arms as he walked, rubbed at the back of his neck. His whole body seemed to be covered with a film of sweat, oil, and grease. When he next looked at it, the once blue cloth had gone almost completely black. He wondered what he must look like.
When they arrived in the otherwise empty galley, Relena escorted Duo to a corner table and bade him sit. "Coffee?" she asked, and though Duo did not respond she left him alone to fetch some refreshment. She returned with two steamy cups and a plate of pastry, which she pushed across the table as she sat. Duo watched her the whole while, and noted that she moved with specific purpose, similar to how Heero might move given the same situation. Truly the two had rubbed off on one another.
Duo accepted the coffee without expression. Even the smell of it calmed his nerves, woke his mind, but he did not show this outwardly. He had a facade to keep up, after all.
"What are you on about?" Duo asked with a sip.
"Heero told me that we had to make a statement as soon as possible. We've got to let the colonists know that we're okay. I've got to reassure them that all of you boys are innocent—particularly you—and I've got to lay out why the military has been so active."
"And where do I come into this?"
Relena herself took a drink now, and Duo thought that she had a sly look about her. She took her time to respond, and when she did her voice had taken a tone of calculation. "I can't declare war," she said plainly. "I don't have the power and I don't have the credibility."
"And you think I've got either of those things?"
"I think you could if you tried."
"So what are you suggesting?"
"I want you to do it because I can't. My entire career has been built on a foundation of pacifism. Yours hasn't."
"I blew up a colony. No one will listen to what I've got to say."
Relena shrugged. "They'll listen if I tell them to listen. Some of them will, anyway. The rest will come through word of mouth. But whether they believe what you've got to say will be up to you." She paused and stared at him as he drank again. She appeared to be trying to gauge his reaction. He kept his face a blank slate. "You said you were going to go lead the charge. Those were your exact words. How can you expect to lead a charge if you've got nobody behind you?"
For the first time, Duo truly thought on the matter. He'd been so caught up in planning his revenge that he'd not stopped to work out the details. All he'd known was that he would need a mobile suit, and that had been his only focus. He'd not planned what he'd do once the suit had been completed. He'd not considered how he would know where and whom to strike. This would not be like the One Year War, where missions and correspondence came to him from on high. Back then he'd merely been a soldier: Highly capable and valuable, but a soldier nonetheless. He'd not trained to be the one in charge.
"I struck a nerve, didn't I?" Relena said smugly.
But Duo didn't reply. He was going to need help from the Peacemillion to accomplish his task, but who would help him now that he'd burned every bridge he'd ever built?
Relena pressed the point. "So what do you say?"
"When do you plan to make this statement?"
"As soon as you're ready. I've done this sort of thing a thousand times before and will just need to work out some of the details with Heero. We plan to make the documents he found publicly available so that the colonists can check our claims for themselves."
"You're all right with war?"
"No, I'm not. But I don't have a choice in this matter. You know as well as I do that these operatives forced our hands. If we don't fight back, we'll never be able to return to colonial boundaries. Either way it seems that things are building toward war, whether we push the agenda or not. At least with our intervention the colonists will be unified in their efforts, fighting behind a single man with a single perfectly justifiable cause. Left on their own, the colonists will be fragmented, and their counter will be limited to disorganized rioting. They'll be squashed."
"So you want to incite a war for independence."
"You wanted to incite a war for independence. I'm just telling you that it might be the correct move."
Duo smirked despite himself. "You've been spending too much time with Heero."
"We do share a bed."
"Give me a few hours. I'll get something together."
"You ought to get yourself cleaned up, as well. And all the way this time. It wouldn't do to have you looking like a mechanic."
Duo shrugged. "That's what I am."
At this, Relena smiled. "No, you're not. You're a politician now, and you'll be a soldier later." She stood and nodded to him. "Finish your breakfast and let me know what time you'd like to film. I'll have things arranged."
"Fourteen hundred hours," Duo said curtly. "I'll meet you in the conference room then."
ф
At two twenty-five in the afternoon from the yet again crowded conference room, Relena's face appeared on every colonial television Heero could access. She stood at a makeshift podium; one Howard had dug up from an unused storage space, dressed in her finest formal attire with prepared words in hand. Heero did not know how long she and Duo would have to speak before they were cut off, so she began at once.
"This is Secretary General Relena Peacecraft, and I am broadcasting to you from the safety of the Peacemillion II warship on this nineteenth day of August, AC205, though I will not disclose our location. I want to convey to all of the colonists that I am safe and unharmed, and that I was never at any point in danger. The press has been releasing information stating that I was captured by some colonist group, but that is patently false. Almost two weeks ago I was attacked in my hotel room while under the care of the United Earth Sphere Military, and an attempt was made on my life. My husband was grievously wounded, and several colleagues assisted us in escaping. Since then, we have discovered incriminating documents that suggest that a rogue group of military personnel were behind the assassination attempt, and that those same men and women are behind the increased military presence in the colonies. They're trying to drive you to war to their own benefit. To better prove our point, we have made these documents publicly available to you through a number of databases, which you should see displayed on your screen. You can review them and a write-up of our findings at your own leisure. But for now my time is limited, and I wish to repeat: I am safe, and you are being manipulated. I cannot offer you any recommendation on further steps, as I am not a war-minded person, but I have a man with me who is. I ask only that for the respect you bear for me, you listen to him, even if you don't agree with his message. Do not prejudge, and do not blame. This man is innocent no matter what the press would have you believe, and he is a dear friend."
Relena nodded and stepped away, and Duo took her place, slightly tentative. Relena had insisted he take the stage in his dress uniform, though the only uniform left to him was his blues. Still, he looked the part, and that was all that mattered. Heero only hoped he would sound the part as well.
At once, Duo placed the familiar leather bound journal atop the podium and opened it to a page in its middle, cleared his throat, and spoke.
"Many of you know me as a result of the unfortunate events of the last few months." He paused and looked up from the journal, seemingly finished reading. He glanced at Heero, and then at Relena, and then drew a deep breath. He began as if the previous sentence had never even happened. "Look…I never thought that I would be the catalyst for war and I never believed I'd be the man standing before a group of people calling for them to fight. Yet here I am, for better or for worse, and I don't even know if you'll listen.
"In one way or another, most of you know who I am, and not necessarily due to recent events. The older among us may find some shred of familiarity in my face, as their generation remembers me as the demon of Maxwell Church, the hero of a massacre, the only survivor of that tragedy. Those my own age know me as a gundam pilot, one of five from the One Year War, whose faces were plastered on every television on Earth and in space in messages that called for our capture or execution. Most recently you've certainly seen me in courtroom footage, as shameful as it might have been, resultant from the detonation of M-204. Either way, you've seen me, and you know my name, but you don't know who I am. My name is Duo Maxwell, and I need your help.
"I'm not here to ask for your forgiveness but I'd be stupid not to acknowledge that the request needs to be made, because people cannot follow a leader they cannot trust. I am desperately sorry for the hurt I've caused to you, to your families, and to those in any way related to M-204. Not a minute goes by that I don't think of the innocent lives I ended on that day. And yes, I will say to your face that I ended those lives because that is the God's honest truth, and to deny that would betray the trust I hope to inspire in you. But a distinction must be made, and I see no better time to do it than now. Relena said that I am innocent. That was a lie. I'm not innocent in the matter of M-204, but neither am I guilty. I was manipulated by a corrupt cockpit system which drove me to madness, the same cockpit system that any who watched courtroom coverage saw me use very recently. I hope you can understand, and if you can't understand then I hope you can imagine. I take no pride in what happened.
"With this said, you as colonists have got to understand the difficult position you're in. No doubt you've seen the mobile suits invading your civilian space. No doubt you've seen heavily armed military personnel walking your streets. These people are there with purpose, and that purpose is war. We have lived in peace for years now, and that peace allowed us to expand colonization, build new infrastructure, and strengthen our universal economy. But such peace cannot, and never could, last forever. Peace isn't always profitable, and when the bottom line is jeopardized, someone will act to save it.
"The military has infiltrated your colonies to produce war. To them and their political interests, militarization and weapons production are the foremost profitable ventures available, and those in charge mean to exploit that fact. Worse than the profiteering itself is that they aim to do this at your expense, at the expense of every colonist. They accuse you of crimes no one committed and treat you as though guilty, and when you stand up for yourselves they push you down even more. You can't stand for that kind of treatment. We can't stand for that kind of treatment. We must act, and we must do it now.
"I admit that asking you to rise against these zealots would be asking you to do exactly what they want you to do. They want war, as I said. But they expect you to rise erratically and without true organization. I call upon you to join together in a unified effort to drive them out. Do not riot and do not engage in guerrilla tactics because that will only end in disaster. Instead, band together with like-minded people to put forth a unified offensive, and show those who would oppress you how little you're willing to budge. Push back.
"And for those of you who are looking at me, dressed in my fancy clothes and spewing traitorous rhetoric about revolution, and wondering what the hell stake I've got in this game: Know that I'll be out there fighting as well. You may see me or you may not, but I'll be on the front lines, because I will not suffer to have my name used in a campaign of fear and control against innocent human beings. I'll create my own campaign of fear and control against the corrupt politicians and military personnel who led me to destroying that colony. I'm going to fight back, and you should, too. Fight back, or live in a world where your liberty is a matter of their convenience. Fight back, and help me claim independence for all of the people of space."
Duo gave one last hard stare at the lens of the camera and walked away, and Heero cut the feed. The room lingered in thick silence, as if those present felt that speaking now might somehow ruin whatever strange event they had just witnessed. Duo, who had spoken barely a word to anyone in more than a week, had stunned them with his oration, with its eloquence and articulation, and no one knew how to react.
"That was well-spoken," Relena said at last, and she grasped Duo's hand professionally. "Thank you for your help."
But Duo shrugged. He offered no response.
"Do you mind if I have a look at your notes?" Relena continued, gesticulating toward Duo's journal. "I'd like a transcription of what you said to be available to colonists who couldn't see the broadcast."
"Mm," Duo hummed, and he thumbed through the pages to a bent corner, where he opened and stared for a moment. Then he closed it again, and handed the book to Relena. He excused himself without comment, and Heero knew that he was retreating back to the hangar.
Heero watched Relena stand for a while, flipping through the first filled pages of the book, until at last she reached the bent-corner page. Her face screwed up with confusion, and she turned the book around for all of them to see. The page was empty, but for the words: Many of you know me as a result of the unfortunate events of the last few months.
Duo Maxwell had used no notes.
