Soldier of OZ: Walker's Account

Chapter 52 – The Gundam Called Zero

In the year After Colony 175, Heero Yuy, the leader of the radical Colonial Liberation movement in Outer Space, was assassinated. Five weapons of war, Gundams, were sent to Earth to take revenge, as part of Operation 'Meteor'. In the intervening twenty years, however, the men who had drafted Operation 'M' had neglected to consider the possibility of a new political climate, as had the Gundam pilots themselves.

The year is After Colony 195—OZ has extinguished the flames of the Alliance military in Outer Space. As OZ assumed the human and monetary cost of liberating them from that period of tyranny, the Colonies elected to coexist with Earth, rather than remain hostile. With the blessing of Luxembourg, many space colonies assumed the political status of independent states, and armed themselves in the interests of security and political stability. The Gundams, beholden to no one, were rejected as rogue elements, threats to the new age of peace.

The Regulus, a merchant ship belonging to Wincomfleet, was taking on mundane cargo—fresh water and foodstuffs—from an orbiting storehouse on the edges of the Fourth Lagrange Point, to be delivered to a resource satellite in L2. The vessel's commander much preferred large quantities of mundane cargo to the small quantities of highly sensitive, and almost certain illegal, materiel they'd been ordered to deliver in the previous weeks.

"Skipper, mind taking a look at this?" a crewman asked, presenting him with a clipboard.

"Not at all. Whatever it takes to keep corporate for giving us anything else in small, secure crates we can't open," he replied quickly, signing the page after barely looking at it.

The crewman nodded and took the clipboard back, floating down the stairs out of the bridge. The skipper reached into his baggy uniform, took out a cigar case, and withdrew an expensive cigar imported from Earth, one of the new luxuries now available with the ending of the blockade. He was appreciating its aroma when a crew station beeped twice.

"What was that?"

The sensor officer turned back to his station and stared at his monitor intently. "Nothing, Skipper."

"Excuse me?"

"Literally nothing. Something was pinged on the sensors but…it's not there anymore. I'm running directed sensor sweeps, but nothing's coming up." He looked forward through the large windows at the front of the bridge. "There's nothing out there sir."

"Maybe a micrometeoroid?" another crewman suggested.

"Whatever it was, it's not there anymore."

"Where was it?" the skipper asked.

"Directly at our twelve. No closer than two-hundred kilometers."

Still holding his cigar, the Skipper walked directly to the viewports and squinted: nothing but a few stars and a neighboring colony many times that distance away.

"I'll run a diagnostic test," the sensor officer announced.

"No, don't bother, it's probably just old data or…" the skipper began before a twinkling light silenced him. As he focused in its direction, the twinkle abruptly grew into a blinding cascade of light that illuminated the dim bridge.

The Regulus was bathed in a massive torrent of charged particles, wider than the ship itself, just before it melted and exploded in burst indistinguishable from the particle wave. The beam lasted a few seconds longer before dissipating, leaving nothing behind other than a few cinders and tiny, crystalized shards.

II

Lieutenant Colonel North arrived at L1-D-120 by means of courier shuttle, three days after the ceasefire had gone into effect, where a military motorcade was waiting to take him to Defense Ministry.

"No helicopter?" he asked the officer leading the motorcade.

"All the operational transport helicopters were shot down during the fighting, sir."

"Every last one?" North asked incredulously. The officer wasn't joking.

North took the opportunity to evaluate the level of urban destruction—rather varying, he found, based on locality. In particular, entire blocks in the Military Quarter and Old Town were completely leveled, and there were several gaping maws left in the street, where whole city blocks had collapsed into the torus superstructure, including one particularly massive one.

"Not as cold as I was led to believe," he asked as the armored car they rode splashed through a deep puddle of melted snow in a crater in the street.

"We've gotten the weather under control—some unscheduled rain, but nothing out of the ordinary, sir."

"Just like the two-hundred thousand years of homo sapiens," he said, before reaching over and pointing into the distance. "Is that where the mobile armor emerged?"

"Yes sir."

"Christ." He rubbed his forehead—the reconstruction costs were going to be astronomic. "Where is it now?"

"They're moving it out of the open, back into the military dock, sir. It's…taking time."

The Defense Ministry's neighborhood in Quirinale City, near the presidential residence, was in substantially better condition as neat lines of officers and soldiers began filing into the complex—North identified them as belonging different companies of the Second Aerospace Division. The whole event had a clear, unmistakable feeling of the formation of a garrison. North had witnessed the same occurrence on Earth more than once, before his reassignment to Barge.

"We're ahead of schedule, if you'll believe it," Lieutenant Colonel Singh explained. "When those naval infantry battalions arrive with CAST leaving, we'll have sixty thousand men for the garrison. The General Staff has ruled that acceptable for a colony…"

"For a colony of one and a half million," he muttered.

"Normal population was closer to two million. When the refugees and expatriates return, well, by then things should have settled down anyway. If they haven't, well, I doubt we'll have to call back the Seventh. I don't think two million Noventans are a match for full mobile suit division."

North nodded. "Where did you say the division's personnel was housed, in this district…?"

"Two kilometers downspin, the former Republican Guards Base," Singh explained. "They've already started packing up…" he began.

"I saw the order. Return to Earth, Western European Military District for evaluation and reorganization."

The older officer glanced at him. "To be frank, I thought you'd be happier. You get to go home, to Earth. I'm more than a little envious."

"You do know this is my last campaign?"

"My God, are you really going to go through with it? Stubborn, aren't you?" When Singh turned to him, North had already climbed into an unattended 4WD car and closed the door, resting his elbow on the windowsill.

"I've had four years as a lieutenant colonel, six as a division commander. I call that a good run, and I always quit while I'm ahead," he explained before pressing down on the accelerator and bouncing as the jeep lurched forward, over the curb, across the sidewalk and onto the adjoining road. "Give my regards to Her Excellency the Ambassador!" he shouted back at him.

III

"How's your leg?"

Walker was sitting towards the front of a commandeered city bus, a pencil board propped against his left leg. Against it, he was scribbling with a pen on a scrap of paper, official 1st Central Division of the Republican Guard stationary.

Flight Officer Kaneshiro was sitting next to him, apparently staring at his awkwardly propped leg, and not the letter. "My back was what hurt, my leg is just a side effect of that," he explained before looking back at the paper.

"Is that…?" Kanna asked.

Walker nodded. "You're not any good at writing, are you?"

Kanna didn't know how to respond to that, so he turned back to his pencil board and frowned. I wrote letters to His Excellency Himself, and I can't write a simple request-of-transfer. It's probably a good thing I stopped with those, I spend enough time incoherently stammering on in person, the last thing I need him reading is…

His train of thought was interrupted when the bus halted abruptly, sending his kneecap into his face and knocking Kanna forward on her chest. She fared better than him, and looked down to see part of his nose red from kneeing his own face, which she found funny beyond suppression.

"What the hell was that?"

"Looks like gridlock at the intersection. The navy's handing out food, looks like the line's backed up from traffic," Dac Bishop explained, rising from his seat for a better look out the window.

"No good deed goes unpunished," A. K. Mazuri announced.

"Huh?" Dac asked before following Mazuri's pointing finger out the window. Past the intersection, three troop trucks with Space Force's dark blue flag hanging from them were awkwardly parked on a curb, choking traffic behind them. Next to them was a familiar eight-wheeled armored personnel carrier overloaded with naval infantry in military police garb, their white helmets and belts flickering in the afternoon skylight. Dac squinted—the naval infantry were aiding uniformed sailors in offloading neatly-packed grey cartons from the truck beds, each about the size of a breadbasket. Watching them hand off the cartons to the civilians, Dac realized they were breadbaskets, literally, as the residents of Old Town torn them open. The sailors and MPs nonchalantly gave each civilian a carton, women, men, children, in a rather dispassionate, mechanical manner, who in turn ran off with their hard-won gains, shoving through the crowd. The other naval infantry brandishing rifles kept order.

"We're feeding them," Dac announced.

"Well, Earth is a net food exporter. So many of D-120's agricultural pods were cannibalized by the defensive fleet or destroyed by us," Walker pointed out. He recalled seeing at least one agricultural pod, separated from its network, turned into a beam gun and missile platform, leading it to be destroyed by a thermonuclear torpedo.

"Where else will they get food?" Kanna asked, glancing over Walker's shoulder.

"Food supplies are the responsibility of the victor to the vanquished," Walker mumbled. "And unlike the weather, they can't be supplied by flipping a switch."

Kanna gave an approving nod, while Dac elbowed her. "Hey, I don't think it's those trucks. Look over there!"

Almost a hundred meters downspin, well past the armored personnel carrier, a pair of military 4WD cars were parked in front of the gate to an expansive urban estate. One was using its towing winch to pull open the ornate front gate—after a few noisy seconds of tires spinning in reverse, the gate tore off its hinges and the driver slammed down on the breaks. From there it was a just a few meters to the tall French doors, where six naval infantry joined by a particularly short CAST man in full armor crowded around with their submachine guns. They brought out a battering ram—one swing knocked the door open and they vanished inside amid plenty of shouting but no gunfire. By then, a dozen onlookers had gathered, going as far as the outside gate, just in time to see the CAST man drag a sturdily-built older man, in an unbuttoned Alliance Space Forces uniform, by his collar as he continued to resist, followed by a hysterical older woman, presumably his wife, and a similar upset younger woman, presumably his daughter.

"What part of 'all flag officers are to remain under house arrest until further notice' do you not understand, ojisan?" the CAST snapped through the open visor of an armored helmet. While Walker couldn't hear the inquiry, looking closer her realized it wasn't an unusual short man but merely a particularly short woman, mostly by the narrow shoulders and the visible curvature of her full-body armor. To the surprise of all, the larger and older officer threw his shoulder into her, knocking her onto her back before two MPs piled on him and the others pushed the two family members away. The CAST fell on her back and her unsecured helmet popped off. She snapped back up to her feet and looking thoroughly annoyed, pulled off her balaclava, revealing a mop of vividly scarlet hair and blue eyes, along with a blooded lip. Anger turned to amusement; she wiped her lip with her glove and grinned at the man struggling beneath two barely-twenty-year-old naval infantry before spitting out some blood.

The old officer tried again: he threw his weight on one of the inexperienced naval infantry, knocking him to the ground before managing to break free of the other and running for the crowd. Walker winced after the CAST delivered a kick to the back hard enough to finally drop the officer and elicit screeches from his family—he thought she might have killed him with that armored boot until the two haggard and embarrassed infantrymen picked him up and he visibly locked his legs.

"Get him checked out in a medic, than to the Defense Ministry!" the short CAST ordered, her violent grin now replaced by a neutral expression that matched the sailors handing out food. A few onlookers got out of her way as she shoved past them, grabbed her helmet, and then climbed into the jeep.

"The victor and the vanquished indeed, Flight Lieutenant," Mazuri muttered quietly.

"Sirs, your attention please!" a junior officer at the front of the bus shouted. "It looks like traffic isn't really going anywhere, so we're going to have you disembark and complete the rest of the trip on foot."

This got a few groans from the passengers, causing Kanna to snicker. "It's barely a dozen blocks, sirs, you'll be fine. If any wounded need assistance, just ask, otherwise make sure you have your possessions and just follow the lines coming out the bus down Aurelia Boulevard, you can't miss it. That'll take you directly to your space port complex."

"Great, more walking," Mazuri muttered while Dac nodded in spiteful agreement. The four followed the procession out of the bus, Walker disembarking last and turning when he thought he heard something.

"Do you hear that?"

"I don't hear anything," Dac replied.

"No, I hear that, it's coming from over there," Kanna said, turning just in time to see another officer walking around the bus nearest to her stand at attention. "Lieutenant Colonel, sir!"

Mazuri and Dac immediately assumed her posture, standing at attention as Marcus North appeared in his dark crimson uniform underneath a light jacket. North immediately waved at them to be ease. "Flight Officer Kaneshiro, I'd like to borrow your flight lieutenant for a few minutes. I promise he won't miss his flight."

Realizing he meant him, Walker belatedly and awkwardly stood at attention. "Lieutenant Colonel North, sir, what can I do for you?" he asked as the three others slowly turned to join the procession. North stared at him for a moment longer, his jaw clenched and head cocked, before grabbing him by the shoulders and embracing him for a few seconds. Walker stood their awkwardly, hands still flat against his sides.

North released him, a frantic, toothy grin on his face. "I'm really sorry, I can't imagine how uncomfortable that must have been—but since you vanished on that colony, I've..."

He paused, clenched his jaw and smiled again. "I'm very glad to see you, Walker."

Walker finally lowered his arm. "Thank you, Colonel North…Marcus."

North patted him on the cheek, still smiling. "You look like hell."

"I've been hearing a lot of that recently."

"Well, you did pull one goddamn stunt or two, didn't you? God, sit down, you look like you're going to faint." North pushed him easily into an out-of-the-way bench and sat down next to him. "I read your report. What you had time to write, anyway."

Walker let his head fall back slightly. "I've violated the conventions on warfare," he said unmoving.

"Still always the pessimist, Walker? God, what a mess that red mobile armor made."

"Those conventions honored by OZ. Endangering people and failing to protect property unrelated to military operations, property of noncombatants. Bringing undue hardship not proportional to military necessity. Undue hardship and undue suffering," he remarked stiffly.

North looked at him sympathetically. "You know right before I entered D-120, I sent Treize Khushrenada my resignation?"

Walker turned to him rater abruptly but said nothing.

"There's no career in OZ for any military officer who uses nuclear weapons. But giving up a commission isn't the worst price to pay for the lives of sailors and pilots."

North leaned forward, resting and arm on a knee. "I really can't believe it—you get kidnapped in one colony, sent to another, held at enemy headquarters and drafted into the enemy war industry's last ditch plan. Then you manage to sabotage it and escape. I always thought you had about as much personality as a mobile doll, but here you are—one ingenious little…" he said before stopping.

"You know, a lot of people would consider that seriously cool," he said, chuckling.

"I never thought of myself as cool," Walker said, matter-of-factly.

"You should try! It'll do wonders for your self-esteem."

"I never thought I had a problem with my self-esteem."

North laughed again and shook his head. Listening to the unending clack and clomp of boots behind them, the two men sat quietly for a minute before Walker spoke.

"If you mind me asking, Colonel, why hand in your resignation?"

North raised an eyebrow, beckoning Walker to elaborate. "The way I see it, sir, you had permission as part of Operation 'Citadel' to authorize the use of nuclear weapons, and you only used them in accordance to the rules governing warfare."

"And by that you mean?"

Walker frowned. "I think if you presented the issue in that light, you wouldn't need to hand in your resignation, regardless of tradition."

Another minute of silence, North cocking his head before looking back at Walker. "Walker, you went to Lake Victoria, didn't you?"

Oh my, story inbound. "Yes sir, and you?"

"Yes, the New Mombasa campus. I was just transferring from the Alliance Air Force officer program to the Specials, and I had some money saved up, so I rented a nice flat with a different roommate who rotated in each year. My last year, my roommate was this much younger Italian man, younger than you in fact, who was studying to be a teacher or a lawyer or something—I don't remember what. What I do remember was that he was utterly capricious. He'd promise to do something, some chore or another, and then put it off for a week before he forgot it entirely, then he'd repeat the process three or four times. He'd string out a five-minute responsibility into a two week affair sometimes. And me being me, whenever he asked me to do something, I'd do it immediately, that minute. That, and he was a slob, an underage alcoholic, a hacking smoker would sleep on the couch instead of his own bed."

North extended both of his arms, stretching. "I promise this story as a point: after about six months of this, I finally snapped, cursing him out in private in my room. I didn't know at the time, though, that his allegedly bad hearing was good enough to make that out through my door and the cover of a news program, and he gave me an earful for it." He put his hands together and smiled wistfully. "Then I retaliated, telling him that if he wanted me to stop badmouthing him to myself, he had to at least pretend to give a shit about his responsibilities rather than lying and bullshit-excusing himself out of everything, like he did."

He glanced at Walker, still smiling, before looking away. "And then what happened, sir?"

"Oh, nothing. He stopped procrastinating for about a week before going back to exactly the way he was before, same slob, same drinking, same bullshit excuses like he was the only 'busy' person in the world." North leaned back. "The point of this story, Walker?"

Walker thought about it. "Keeping a healthy skepticism?'

He put a hand on Walker's shoulder. "You can't fix irresponsible, Walker. You can fix cruelty, you can even fix stupid, but you can't fix irresponsible. People just are, or they aren't, in which case they get jobs where their irresponsibility becomes the problem of others."

He paused. "Sometimes thermonuclear weapons enter the equation," he added quickly, as an afterthought.

Walker nodded slowly. "Another short story told long, sir."

"'Attaboy Walker. Keep up the good work," he told him briskly, patting him on the back before rising to his feet, newly-invigorated.

"If you mind me asking, Colonel…and then what?"

"You mean if I do resign? Probably write my memoirs, I think there might be readers for that sort of thing. I'll get to keep my pension, and it might be time for a well-earned sabbatical."

"And what of your friend, sir?"

North gave him an incredulous look.

"When people relate stories like this, there's a tendency to leave the cited example hanging, inconclusive, for whatever reason, perhaps to augment to story."

North snickered. "I don't know, unlike my other comrades from the Academy days, we didn't keep in touch. Probably having a ball employed in some high-paying job where you have to rub elbows. Or four beer cans deep into his alcoholism. Or smoking like a chimney to cure the common cold. Or all three, I don't know," he said dismissively. "He was the kind of chap who become positively giddy about wearing a shirt that said 'Fuck you' on it, but then throw a fit about being cursed in a private one-person rant. What kind of job is that suited for?"

Walker opened his mouth answer before North raised a finger. "That was rhetorical, Walker, just like all my rants."

"Yes sir, Lieutenant Colonel North."

North gave him an almost-fatherly smile. "Come on, Walker. You look like getting out of that bus tired you out, I'll drive you to the space port. Lucky me, you're barely three blocks from the Republican Guard barracks."

"That's…actually pretty disappointing, sir." They'd been on that bus for at least ten minutes.

North led him to his 4WD car, which he smacked twice on the hood. "Take this as a compliment, but I cannot believe a kid like you did what you did. For those sort of antics…a year ago, you would have gotten the Colonial Cross, First Class. But a year ago, we wouldn't have been attacking Alliance Headquarters in D-120."

And Zechs would be here with us. "How much things change in a year, sir," he answered as he climbed in.

Walker had privately hoped the drive with North would be quieter—it was a little, though not totally silent. "Well, how was the victory party, barely a day ago, was it? Even you must have enjoyed it."

Walker cocked his head and thought hard—he actually didn't remember the night as vividly as he should have, he'd consumed just enough champagne in his weakened state for most of it to be a vague blur. He did vividly remember the hour immediately following his short stint as a musician: ducking, he hoped, just out of Squadron Commander Ogasawara's field of vision, Nabiki dragging him into the crowd and the shorter, slender woman throwing her arm over him and holding more alcohol in the other, uniform unbuttoned to her navel and laughing hysterically the whole time. Separated from his closer comrades, he'd been pressured into dancing and some other juvenile hijinks—though "convinced" might have been a more accurate word. The rest was blurrier.

"Is that a smile? That's a smile, Walker! You're smiling!"

"Sir, please keep your eyes on the road!" he shouted.

North seemed to have no trouble swerving in and out of traffic at that speed while barely noticing the road. "What, did you…hook up?"

Staring forward, Walker glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. "I'm sorry, 'hook up'?"

Dark green military-issue kit bag in hand, Kanna led Mazuri and Dac down along the sidewalk, other Mobile Suit Troops officers in front and behind them.

"What do you think Colonel North wanted with Walker?" Dac asked, a little loudly.

"Well, he was with him at L1-B-991 when he was kidnapped, wasn't he? Maybe he just wanted to apologize," Mazuri suggested.

"OF-4s apologize? Since when?"

Across the street, some muffled shouting could be heard, in the direction of the intersection. Kanna stopped in the line, shouldered her kit bag and then crossed the street.

"I'll see you guys at the spaceport!"

"First Walker, now her. Where's she off to?" Dac asked irritably.

"Oh, I'll bet she 'smells blood' or something like that," Mazuri said with a sigh.

Kanna jogged to the intersection, forced her way through the crowd, and bumped against a naval infantryman, who promptly stood at attention. Looking easily over his head, she spotted the diminutive CAST woman, standing in her hunter green normal suit. One of the two civilian women from earlier, the younger one, was bawling uncontrollably, pulling uselessly on the flexible armored plates that lined her suit. Corporal Carver, as shown by her collar rank insignia and the name sewn onto her breast, saw Kanna just behind the naval infantry, took a last look at the civilian before shoving her off, and stood at attention. "Ma'am!"

Kanna almost greeted her when she was cut off from loud bawling from the civilian, who'd wriggled out from the grasp of the attending sailor. She attempt to strike the shorter Carver, who parried and took her closed fist before giving her a more spiteful look and pinning her down.

"You gonna' behave?" she snarled in an awkwardly high-pitched voice.

The woman bawled something Kanna couldn't make out before the sailor, joined by a military policewoman, took her and forced her into the crowd, leading her off. Given that there were two of them, it seemed to take an inordinate effort on their part.

"She's still upset about her dad," Carver explained to Kanna quickly before adding, "…ma'am."

Kanna stared at her being led off, then back at the comparatively tiny, trim strike trooper in her bulky suit. Even with a dispassionate expression devoid of any compassion and some blood smeared across her chin and mouth, she seemed like the last person one would find in a military occupation: she was too young, practically still a child, with large blue eyes and a round features.

She realized, just as Carver was waiting for her to say something, she had nothing to say. "I like your hair, Corporal," she said finally.

Carver put a hand in her hair, a different, deeper shade of red then Kanna's. "Thanks, Flight Officer, ma'am. I…like your height." Carver barely reached up to her chest.

"How old are you?"

A familiar desperate but angry howl of misery from the crowd gave her brief pause. "I'm sixteen, ma'am."

"And you're…not too short to be in in CAST?"

She raised an eyebrow. "And you're not too tall to pilot a mobile suit, ma'am?" she asked quickly. The reply seemed to allay Kanna and she laughed Carver, who smiled back smartly.

IV

The spaceport complex, one of the dozens that ringed the torus outer wall, was largely indistinguishable from its counterparts through the rest of the colony, all much smaller than the primary space docks, both military and civilian, located closer to the torus's equator and on the bracing arm. Currently, every one of those small complexes had been diverted for military use, with all civilian passengers and cargo going through part of one of the civilian docks.

Dac and Mazuri, having gone on foot directly to the complex—a more modern-looking above-ground concrete facility that stood out from its rustic surroundings—thought they'd beaten both Walker and Kanna there. Dac looked up at the arrivals and departures listings, which even he could tell were abnormally sparing.

"You happy to go back to Earth?"

Mazuri thought it through. "Not as much as I'd have thought," he confessed.

"Well, I am ecstatic," he admitted. "It couldn't happen soon enough. I bet Levinsky feels the same way, poor kid."

"Poor kid," Mazuri repeated. "You're twenty minutes older than him. And you know this is just a divisional reordering? It's entirely possible we'll be sent to Brussels, debriefed, given a weekend of leave and then just sent back to Outer Space," Mazuri pointed out. "It's not like our equipment is being sent back with us."

"At least it's a weekend, and at last we won't be coming back here. We're not part of the occupation," Dac fired back. He was certain of that much, apparently. "Otherwise, thanks for ruining all my hopes and dreams, Ajay."

"You're welcome, David."

In actuality North and Walker had arrived at almost the same time, coming up through the parking garage to the lobby and the escalators that led down to the boarding concourse, a few other eateries and stores and eventually the actual hangars. Though the whole facility looked completely undisturbed—not only were glass storefronts and barriers intact, but even the polished granite floor looked unusually clean, probably from disuse Walker thought—it had barely any civilian personnel present. Just a few uniformed employees of the L1 Inter-Colonial Transit Company dutifully behind their counters and barely a handful of store still open.

The two made a straight line for a vending machine that seemed to be working. North went first, but kept looking over his shoulder.

"So, you're thinking about requesting a transfer?"

"Yes sir."

"I guess we're more alike than I realized, Walker," he told him, pressing a button, then another. The machine didn't respond.

"You have to put in money, Colonel," Walker offered.

"Yes, I see that," he muttered, going through his uniform's pockets. "What I'm saying is that we've both got a crippling fear of success."

Walker didn't think that was true in either of their cases, but didn't vocalize his objection—his face made his thoughts quickly apparent though.

North sighed. "Now, I'm not saying there aren't any good reasons. Obviously, I think there are for me or I wouldn't give up what'll probably be the pinnacle of my professional life. And this'll be your…third time being shot down?"

"Fourth, sir," Walker added.

"Off the top of my head, I can't think of any pilot who's been shot down out of four mobile suits and didn't leave the M.S. Troops." He finally found a crumpled Nonventan banknote, cheaply-made paper money with elaborate designs on either side, and fed it to the machine. "To tell the truth, most of them are dead. The rest had their spines so badly messed up they weren't fit to be pilot."

"So what you're saying, Colonel, is that that I beat the odds and shouldn't squander that fact," Walker said, sounding quite unconvinced.

North tapped one of the buttons and after a loud series of clangs, a tall, narrow orange-white-red coffee can fell into the open slot at the bottom. He grabbed it and, instead of opening it, tossed it to Walker, who hastily caught it.

"Ueshima," he said, reading the side.

"Can you believe they have this stuff up here? Amazing."

"How long do you think canned liquid coffee takes to go bad, Colonel?"

North gave a disarming shrug and smile. "Drink up, Walker, you look like you haven't slept in since May."

Obliging, Walker pulled the tab and the can gave a reassuring hiss when it depressurized. "For what it's worth, Colonel, I don't think our cases are the same. And I really don't think you should resign."

"Well, now I have no choice—I can't be the one to consider your transfer, my judgments been compromised," he countered playfully. "Sleep on it, Walker. That's an order. I think what you've said Mr. Mazuri and Mr. Kaneshiro told you is correct: you're the only person who can make this decision."

"Thank you, sir."

"Though I'd like to ask—aside from the obvious, of course, why now? After all, you've been shot down three prior times. Some people might accuse you of not taking the bloody hint."

Holding the open can to his lips, Walker paused, then lowered it. His expression had gotten much graver, it even felt like he'd shrunk a little bit.

North immediately regretted asking. He recalled the first time he'd seen an image of Walker, sometime before they'd technically met at Hammaguir Cosmodrome on their way to Outer Space. It was a photo for an article in La Alba Nero, years ago, about a certain rising star in the Alliance Special Mobile Suit Troops. Walker's appearance was completely incidental.

"I'm very sorry, forget I asked," he muttered rather meekly.

"It's fine, sir," Walker assured him. It was apparent he knew the answer.

He frowned. "What does Kaneshiro think?"

"Kanna-…Flight Officer Kaneshiro doesn't think I should transfer. She thinks I'm in a bad funk of sorts because of everything that's happened, that it's temporary and I'll grown out of it, because I'm younger than her. She didn't say as much, but that's clearly what she thinks."

"Maybe she's right."

Walker gave him a rather informal, and unconvinced, look and he smiled back. "Kaneshiro was worried about you, you know that. Angry at me too, I'm sure. You're lucky to have her."

"I'm sure I am."

"Yes, but do you realize you might not be so lucky if you transfer out? Not everyone gets a Kaneshiro." He put a hand on Walker's left epaulet. "At least once, take stock of what you do have."

North looked around. "Where is she? Not to mention those other two losers in your unit, I could see why you wouldn't miss them," he asked casually, eliciting a visible frown on Walker's face. He led Walker away from the vending machines in the direction of voices by the escalators, only to have Walker abruptly stop at the corner and take hold of North's arm, his face frozen. North stared at Walker, then at his white-gloved hand holding back his arm, then back at Walker's locked visage.

"I'm afraid I don't feel that way about you, Flight Lieutenant," he joked kindly.

"I apologize, Colonel, but would you mind waiting just a few minutes?" Walker asked, jaw clenched.

North glanced around the corner. Squadron Commander Ogasawara was standing next to the comparatively-short Second Lieutenant Parsons, while the two tried to have as normal and civil a conversation as they could manage.

North looked at Walker, who'd released his arm, and grinned. "Something happen?"

"I'm trying to avoid to avoid Squadron Commander Ogasawara for at least the immediate future, or potentially the rest of my career in the Mobile Suit Troops. Neither of which sounds difficult."

"Well, that's boring."

"Again, very sorry, sir."

"Didn't the two of you…chat…during the celebrations? Like normal people?"

"Well, I was inebriated, which made it easier sir," Walker concluded gradually, causing North to shake his head.

"Jesus Christ, nineteen-year-olds."

Around the corner by the waiting area benches, Edward Parsons momentarily took his eyes off his mobile as he waited for the small screen to signal a completed decryption on a message from Earth. "Squadron Commander, is there something going on between you and I have to assume Flight Lieutenant Walker, seeing how inappropriately happy Colonel North seems?" he asked quietly.

Emi's stern expression grew a little colder and she didn't respond, to his disappointment. "And done. Luxembourg says Carmen Soletta's going to temporary holding in Evere, after that, probably Diekirch."

"Thanks," Emi muttered, staring slightly past his head at the body of other First Recon Battalion officers congregating by the escalator.

"You know ma'am, the Military Commissariat does offer some more high-tech solutions for interviews," he pointed out in a friendly tone. "Or on the other hand, you could leave it to us, ma'am, it's sort of what we do. I did have to review your moderately-entertaining dressing down of Soletta," he explained rapidly.

Emi looked back at him. "You watched that?"

"We watch everything ma'am," he reminded her. "You and the apathetic Ms. Armonia might want to consider leaving this to the professionals."

Emi didn't look impressed, but he continued. "See, ma'am, there are studies, courses about how to build a rapport with a prisoner. Now, Carmen Soletta's not exactly Alexander Fielding, and to be honest, pretending to be catatonic is a little rude," he began jovially. Emi just kept staring at him. "Though I should say ma'am, you did not strike me as the kind of person to be upset by a lack of decorum by a captured officer."

By then, he was showing off a smiling mouth full of white teeth. "Or you could…just not care, Squadron Commander!" he offered in as friendly a manner as he could manage.

Emi still didn't respond, so Parsons gave an annoyed sigh before pocketing his mobile. Due to their height differences, Emi could insolently stare over the top of his cap while he had to settle for staring just past her chest unless he wanted to visibly look upwards. He didn't like looking up while standing in general, but particularly to her.

What did Eva say—pick a point, the gold trim on collars, a medal, a pilot scarf, and keep staring at it. It's the same as staring people in the eye. "I suppose that's not an option until the Sun Queen loses interest," he muttered irreverently.

"I think that'll be it, Lieutenant."

"You should give it some thought, ma'am. You certainly didn't break any rules, but professionalism and…"

"Thank you, Second Lieutenant, and good luck until I see you Earthside again," she interrupted very evenly before spinning on her right boot and strolling off. Now alone, Parsons gave a dissatisfied grunt before turning to the group of pilots who were barely holding back their laughter, and jeered at them in return.

"Where's a Gundam when you need one?" he mumbled under his breath.

Past the First Recon pilots, just around the corner, Walker watched the strange conversation, North leaning just over his shoulder.

"That was very unusual," Walker said finally.

"I agree. I guess you won't miss that—there's no way the Engineering Corps, Earth or otherwise, will be as weird the Mobile Suit Troops. No one's weirder than pilots."

Walker gave a very faint nod as North patted him on the shoulder. "Who knows, maybe I'll see you Earthside. Goodbye and good luck, Walker," he told him before he turned to leave.

The response didn't come until North was already a few meters away. "Dio salvi l'Alleanza," Walker quietly said, just loud enough that North could hear him. The lieutenant colonel paused in his steps, smiled facing away from Walker, then continued.

V

"We're here, sir."

The taxi driver—one of a dozen still operating in all of the Military Quarter—looked over his seat into the passenger cabin of his vehicle. His lone fare that day, a tall, fatigued man in his thirties, wearing a warm wool coat over a three-piece suit, the quintessential style of dress for bourgeois men in L1-D-120 for at least sixty years, if not longer.

The man's head was tilted back, causing him to stare at the cabin's low ceiling with rather dead-looking eyes.

"Sir?" he repeated after a moment.

His passenger blinked twice. "I'm sorry, I'm a bit tired," he apologized.

"Are you sure you're all right, sir? Maybe I ought to drive you to a hospital, there's a clinic…"

"No, I'm fine, but thank you," he assured him.

The driver wasn't convinced, but didn't press the matter. "That'll be sixty-eight…" he began before his fare stuck two bank notes in his face, at least a hundred. "Sir, I can't…"

"Consider it a tip," he repeated, before he took it with some reluctance. His passenger stretched his back, then slowly made his way towards the door. The driver immediately opened his own and circled around to open the door. He'd seen his fare's movements when he entered his cab—it was obvious he had, at best, a bad left shoulder or more serious injury, and a new one at that.

"Thank you," the man said with a smile before walking towards the lobby.

"Any time, sir. You know they're barring nonessential travel," he called out. "You need certain documents."

Uamr bin Khattāb, formerly of the Noventan Republican Guard, waved back at him with his right arm the before climbing up the steps into the lobby. Taking the place of the regular transit security personnel, sailors and naval infantry from the OZ Space Navy dressed up as gendarmerie covered every entrance and exit, personnel wearing white helmets, belts and holsters. So these are the young women and men who triumphed over the United Earth Sphere Alliance Extraterrestrial Forces. It was rather depressing when put in that context. They didn't look like soldiers, they looked like kids.

There were only two other people not in some sort of uniform—an elderly couple in dull-colored kimonos and coats, slowly following behind an increasingly-impatient OZ military policewoman who was apparently serving as their guide. He beckoned the couple to the escalator, where a sailor dutifully checked their passes, ran a handheld scanner over them, and let them through. There didn't appear to be any other security measures in place. After a minute of awkward shuffling, the man realized he had forgotten something, and the two doubled-back to the lobby.

Let's see if he's here. It was completely by chance that he'd seen the lone soldier of OZ he come to know since the coup d'état on the street, when the noisy petrol-powered car he was riding in had cut hastily through an intersection. He was absolutely surprised: he thought Walker would be dead, or if not dead, off to somewhere else, OZ was everywhere after all. He certainly didn't expect to see him racing down Barberini Street, breaking traffic laws.

That had brought Khattāb here. In his right coat pocket, he had a North American snubnosed revolver, taken from a private cache in the Business District. Despite the laws, L1-D-120 was swimming in guns, mostly a consequence of the state of emergency declared months ago, practically all of them in the hands of the military and business leaders, along with their families. The difference being that, whereas D-120 had revolvers, semi-automatic pistols, and even sport and hunting rifles, OZ's Noventa Strategic Offensive Operation had squad machine guns, assault carbines, marksmen's rifles, and anti-tank rockets—the same equipment the Reserve Army possessed. OZ also had mobile suits.

It took him a few minutes of lingering by the ticket dispensers to spot him: Walker, now wearing a new, starched hunter green uniform, looking like an actual officer instead of a malnourished insomniac working in a military naval dock.

Except for the now-resolved uncertainty of Walker's whereabouts, everything else seemed completely within expectations. There was no extremely thorough security because, as with the dozen or more other small spaceports, it was more practical to approach personnel safety from a retaliatory than a preventative standpoint. Someone could walk into the Aurelia Boulevard Spaceport with bricks of plastic explosive under their coat and explode themselves by the entrance, but that would rather indiscriminately maim and kill the handful of civilians in the complex as well as their intended targets, and the normal military response—making it illegal to have even known the bomber—could be expected.

The less dramatic alternative—to pick one target, approach them directly while they were still in the lobby, and strike before the inevitable response—was more sensible. Khattāb waited until the obviously-higher-ranking officer parted ways with Walker, since it was more likely security was watching him, and considered his approach. Less than thirty paces, that's all it would take, to get close enough that it'd take just a second to draw his weapon and fire. The revolver carried six civilian self-defense cartridges, the kind that would grievously wound an unarmored target but not necessarily kill them unless hitting a vital area, so some aiming was necessary. The sights were also very rudimentary, and like most mobile suit pilots, he was a permissible, but not unusually good, shot.

Putting his right hand in his coat pocket, he felt the groves of the revolver's grip and its small safety catch. Walker was standing at the corner, apparently lost in thought, not moving. The nearest armed guard was around ten meters away, close but not close enough he felt. Walker seemed to hear something and then turned away from Khattāb, his back now facing him.

I came here for a reason, now's as good a time as any. Taking a deep breath, he flipped the safety and, hand still in his pocket, calmly paced towards Walker. Twenty meters left, fifteen, then ten. It was then he stopped.

From the direction Walker was looking, a particularly large officer with a white headband approached and stopped immediately before him, and the two began talking. It wasn't hard to imagine that the tall Asian woman was a colleague or subordinate of Walker's. It was problematic: he'd been confident he could fire at least one shot off at Walker before armed personnel responded, but with the tall woman standing as she did, he'd be seen coming, and possibly stopped.

Nothing's ever easy. He reconsidered his approach—Walker's conversation had the benefit of keeping him in one place, for now, and at least he seemed more distracted the more they spoke. He considered circling around and coming in from the side. After a minute of conversing, Walker's rigid posture had begun to relax, and he seemed more focused on the conversation than before.

Khattāb kept watching him. In the handful of occasions he'd seen Walker, he hadn't seen him relaxing or even acting naturally. He wasn't quite a nineteen-year-old man, but his body language, while tired, seem more natural and less planned. He even chuckled and smirked at the much livelier woman's observations. He continued watching, even as two more averaged-size men joined them, also carrying luggage. The two were practically raucous next to reserved Walker, particularly the other Caucasian.

He continued watching, even as the tall woman smacked the blonde man on the shoulders and the four proceeded to the escalator, were scanned, and began descending.

He'd missed his chance. "Sir."

Khattāb was still standing in the middle of the lobby, one hand in his coat pocket, when a CAST man in his bulky armor had quietly snuck up on him.

"Sir, can you take your hand out of your pocket please?"

He turned. The large strike trooper, in his armored normal suit, carried a sub-machinegun in one hand, the name 'Cameron' sewn to his chest.

Khattāb gave a sigh. He felt like he imagined how Walker had—dead tired. "What a waste," he mumbled.

"Sir, what's in your hand?" Warrant Officer Cameron asked him more directly. Some of the other OZ personnel had begun to notice the disruption, but remained calm until Khattāb took his hand out of his pocket, still holding the snubnosed revolver. Another much smaller CAST behind Cameron let her handheld scanner hang by its lanyard nd immediately aimed with her own sub-machinegun. A sailor tripped the alarm.

"What the hell's that?" Walker muttered, glancing over his shoulder as they stepped off the escalator.

"Nice to see they have turnstile jumping in Outer Space," Dac said with a laugh.

Kanna looked less amused, tossing her luggage at Dac who barely caught it before running back up the same escalator. "You three head to the shuttle, I'll take a look," she commanded.

Walker was about to object but said nothing, while Mazuri shook his head and shrugged. When Kanna reached the top of the escalator, she could clearly hear Warrant Officer Cameron shouting.

"Sir, put down the weapon!" he yelled over his weapon's sights. The older man was still holding his revolver, aimed at the ground, with an apathetic, even dazed face.

"What the hell…" To Kanna, it looked like a civilian with a pocket handgun had walked right into the spaceport.

"Ma'am, you need to stay back," a sailor announced, trying to push Kanna back down the escalator.

"Sir, put down the weapon now!" Cameron repeated.

The man gave him a look of unmistakable contempt, then saw Kanna being pushed back by a sailor. Without any impression of thought, he raised his right hand slightly, and the revolver with it.

"Last warning, put the weapon down now!" Cameron screamed.

The sailor succeeded in pushing Kanna back down onto the downwards-heading escalator, just as Cameron and the CAST woman let loose with a three-round burst from each of their weapons. The man crumpled so quickly he didn't seem cognizant of the fact he'd been shot six times. Bedlam broke out in the station, a pair of sailors half-shoving, half-shielding the elderly couple wearing the kimonos into a corner. The transit employees took cover behind their counters. The last thing Kanna saw as the escalator carried her back down to the concourse was the man in the coat, riddled with bullets and bleeding on the polished granite floor.

As Kanna had commanded, Walker, Mazuri and Dac were already in line to board the shuttle alongside other Seventh Division officers. They heard a diminished echo of the two gunfire bursts, just loud enough to ascertain it was gunfire.

"Oh goddamn it, what was that?" Dac asked unhappily. "You don't suppose…?"

"Relax," Mazuri ordered. "Kanna's going to outlive all of us, you just watch," he assured them rather convincingly.

Just as he promised, she came running down the course to them, looking perturbed but completely unharmed, violet-grey eyes wide open.

"What happened?"

Kanna took a second to answer, eyes still open. "Some dude in the lobby just committed suicide-by-MP," she said finally.

"Some dude?" Mazuri repeated.

"Well, that explains the gunfire," Walker muttered.

"He had a pocket pistol in his coat pocket—when he refused to disarm, they…they shot him," she concluded, unbuttoning her collar nervously.

The three men stared at him warily.

"Dead."

"Yes, that's usually what happens when people get shot, Kanna," Mazuri repeated quietly before Walker gave him a harsh glance, then tossed him his own luggage. "Take that, will you?"

"Yes sir." He got the message.

While the two others left, Walker stood next to Kanna, towering over him with her tensed, muscular shoulders and haphazard-looking hair.

He tried to look calm. "This…happens in military occupations, sooner or later. Would-be assassins, protestors turning violent, or just people who refuse to accept the new status quo." He looked in the directions of the escalators, as if waiting for something. "It's always worse right after the occupation starts. The future is still unpredictable, inscrutable at that point," he muttered.

He turned back to Kanna, who was still tensed, as though prepared to strike. "No alarms, no continued gunfire. It was just the one. What did he look like?"

Kanna slowly glanced at him and shrugged. "Just some…local."

Reaching up, Walker patted her on the back twice. "Your instincts, as usual, serve you well. Better than mine."

Kanna's nose twitched for a second, before she nodded and turned in the opposite direction. "Smell something?"

She took her time answering. "I smell blood."

"Is something the matter?"

Walker glanced over and raised a hand at the much older flight, mustachioed lieutenant who entered through an adjoining hallway, pulling a small suitcase on wheels behind him.

"Clarkson, no, nothing, we just heard the gunfire earlier. Nothing to worry about."

F/L Clarkson raised a skeptical eyebrow and pursed his lips under his white-grey mustache. "That's what they always say, don't they?" He looked at Kanna, her muscles still visibly tensed under her formfitting uniform, and gave her a somewhat abrupt but otherwise harmless open-palmed smack on her back. "Come on, young people should keep their schedules too," he commanded.

"Yes sir!" Kanna sputtered out, while Walker looked at Clarkson, then her, than back at Clarkson.

"Whatever works," he muttered as Kanna quickly followed the flight lieutenant through the concourse.

VI

25143 Itokawa, an S-type silicate asteroid with a maximum diameter of just over 500 meters, originally possessed a Mars-crosser orbit before being captured for mineral extraction by a United Nations mandate and dragged into orbit just beyond Luna. Thirty years later, in the early years of the Alliance the newly formed UESA Space Forces towed the remainder just past the edges of the Second Lagrange Point to serve as material for space colonies and agricultural pods. For sixty years, the much-decreased remainder floating in empty space, ignored even during the revolutions against the Alliance. Finally, in mid-AC 195, the decision was made to use what was left of 25143 Itokawa for the massive battleship commissioned by OZ at MO-V, on the edge of Earth Sphere.

Flight Lieutenant Usachov, from the 1st Aerospace Division's Engineering Battalion, had been sent to oversee the reconditioning of 25143 Itokawa for its transit burns and then subsequent mounting of the large, modular nuclear-powered satellite drive systems necessary to move the asteroid, which still had a mass of more than ten million tonnes, into its new location on the frontier. He was chosen because he had some industrial as well as military experience with resource satellites.

"You know Andropov, next time we're both on Earth, you really need to take me up in that little plane of yours," Usachov said with a chuckle into his headset. At a small axillary comm terminal leading up to Itokawa's command center, he floated in the microgravity while keeping the terminal's monitor in view. The video signal itself was degraded and constantly interrupted, frequently returning back to a black screen reading a few words.

OZ 194

L3-X-18999

SOUND ONLY

Captain Andropov's reply came back in grainy, distorted Russian. "Agreed-…it stands, that might be sooner than any of us had hoped."

Usachov nodded. "It certainly may. That news out of D-120 is the best we've had in a while." The video flickered and gave out again, this time accompanied by an error message. "Andropov, are you still there?"

"…interference. We'll catch up…give my regards to…-and good luck out there!"

"All right, Andropov, take care," Usachov shouted necessarily into the headset before pulling it off and disconnecting. The more powerful primary communications system could probably have cut through most of the interference, but it was a personal call anyway.

Taking a guiding rail, Usachov floated back into the command center, laid out much like what you'd find on a century-old space fortress, and gestured for a status update.

"Sir, we're ninety percent finished attaching the satellite drive mechanism," one of the two officers on duty announced in English.

Usachov checked a monitor. The last of the ten modular drive systems was propelling itself at the lowest possible power into position to be securely anchored into place by construction mobile suits. Past it, he could make out the OZ-06SMS 'Space Leos' piloted by Colonial volunteers from L2, posting guard.

"After the mounting is finished, we complete our first burn…that leaves ten days to transfer to MO-V and our final retroburn," he noted aloud. By some miracle, they were actually well ahead of schedule. He managed to keep his satisfaction from his face.

"Contact Colonel Une so I can give her a progress report."

"Sir, yes sir!"

"Sir, new contact, bogey approaching from heading zero-six-zero—looks like a shuttle," another officer announced calmly.

"Another shuttle?" Usachov asked. This again. Why the hell Wincomfleet and the rest of them not appreciate that this is no longer civilian space? This was the third such shuttle to wander in since work had begun earlier that week and the sixth ship since the whole area had been closed off to general civilian traffic.

"Yes sir, but it's quite small for a shuttle," he said. A small, angular shuttle was highlighted in a new video window on one of the large monitors—Itokawa's the sensor array claimed it was barely a few meters wide, but the actual telescopes suggested it was closer twenty meters in length.

Must be another glitch. "Are its lines open?"

"Pinged back—yes sir, they're open. I've hailed them, but its crew isn't responding."

A mechanical failure, or something more malicious? "Get ahold of the troops in the field and have them guard the first defensive line."

"Yes sir!"

Eight cobalt blue mobile suits armed with beam rifles rejoined formation and took the line—twice as many remained on or just above the surface of Itokawa, and still more scrambling into position. "Attention approaching shuttle, this is OZ's One-Hundred and Seventy-First Independent Battalion. This is your last warning—change your course at once! If you continue on your approach, we will open fire! We are not bluffing, this is your final warning!"

Usachov was getting annoyed. They'd run into incidents like this in the past, but this was the first time the offender had refused to acknowledge their warnings. Must be a particularly stupid type of brigand. "Go ahead, permission given to open fire!"

The Colonial pilots manning the mobile suits did not hesitate. The eight mobile suits on a direct intercept course let loose first, peppering the shuttle along its straight, unwavering vector with beam fire. A flight of four more Leos joined with their autocannons, and a further four fired with carefully-stabilized dober guns. The shuttle seemed to shrug off the first barrage of fire until it vanished in a blinding explosion that lit up the whole asteroid.

"Focus Actual to Itokawa Command. Bogey has been destroyed. Repeat, the unidentified shuttle has…wait, what?"

"What is it, Focus Actual? What do you see?"

"Itokawa Command, it has variable geometry! It's some kind of mobile suit, wait…no, it's a Gundam!"

As the fireball behind it faded, a single white, red and blue Gundam stood just a few kilometers in front of them as they killed their relative acceleration. "Fire! Fire! Fire!"

"Scramble every last mobile suit!" Uschachov ordered, as their telescopes tracked it. Since transforming, it had not maneuver very much—more rounds from dober guns and beam fire raked it, sending it adrift. He looked at another screen: the machine closely resembled, though differed from, the combat data for Unit Zero-One.

"This is Focus 2-1, we've hit it, it's off balance!"

"Idiots, if it's really a Gundam, it won't die that easily!" he warned.

Usachov's warning was proven correct immediately: with a short turn from its AMBAC system, the Gundam spun around to face the asteroid, a massive, long-barreled beam cannon held in its starboard manipulator. It stabilized itself with its vernier thrusters, aimed just beneath 25143 Itokawa's equator, and then fired a single, full-power shot.

He saw the charged particle wave make contact, tearing open a fissure. Vibrations began to climb steadily as warning sirens blared. And before the ancient interior fragments that made up the potato-shaped asteroid began tearing apart after eight million years conjoined, Flight Lieutenant Usachov tried to look on the positive side.

"At least I don't have to make my progress report to Une," he told himself. The command center, and all of 25143 Itokawa exploded apart seconds later, taking with it the modular drive systems, docked support ships and mobile suit compliment with it.


Author's Notes:

Published ahead of schedule, probably because this was actually a pretty easy to chapter to write. We have finally, after quite a long absence, returned to the actual plot of the television series (or the manga, as it might be).

Once again, I struggle with the time frames versus actually making a story people can bear reading. I think there's no harm in saying that the next chapter should cover the resignation of Treize Khushrenada and even the beginning of Operation 'Nova', along with Quatre's destruction of an entire space colony (remind me why people love that reprobate so much? Hahah.) Additionally,I hope to resolve the lone remaining "loose end" of the D-120 Plot Arc, as well as depict the actual surrender to OZ, but I can say with some confidence I am FINALLY actually finished with that entire arc. Thank God! Hopefully Don Cheadle's little story wasn't too boring, or too unrelated, even if Walker probably thought it was.

So stay tuned as always, and leave whatever feedback you can.