Chapter 2
Civilian Judgements
The Year is AC 202, peace has been maintained between the earth and the colonies in the simplest sense. Both sides of the war have faced tremendous tragedies. Many wounds were left untreated, many scars left deep within the skin, and many may never fully recover.
Wu Fei Chang, ex-Gundam pilot of Gundam 05, veteran of both wars, was a man who fooled himself to believe that he suffered many wounds, collect many scars, and made a speedy full recovery.
"Many citizens of earth find Milliardo Zechs Marquise Peacecraft sentence unfair and a disservice to all those who suffered from the war of Operation Meteor and Endless Walts."
The news was the selected station on the paper-thin television, the two news anchors segment was nothing unique to what other new stations were covering this morning. The story of Milliardo Zechs Marquise Peacecraft return to earth for his tribunal was more than enough to keep their viewers glued to their screens.
The story of the cowardly Commander in Chief who almost sacrificed his life to destroy earth in the war of Operation Meteor, yet the brave Soldier who fought to protect the same planet in the war of Endless Walts. If only he remained on earth to attend his first tribunal after the war of Operations Meteor and accepted his pardon, the paper-thin screen would show a different sacrificial lamb. No one saw his return coming, not even Wu Fei.
"I'm just gonna be honest here-" the news anchor cheeks flapped like a wet peach pig, and the yellow reflection from the streetlight through the blinds made his skin look pale and unnatural.
"Go on Craig, let's hear it, I know the rest of the world is thinking it" Her painted lips gave the kind of condescending smile a middle age woman gives when she is trying to get her point across through a surrogate person.
"Those child terrorist Connie are gettin' off easy" Craig jabbed his finger directly at the camera. "Oh, but Peacecraft son was far from a child when he attempted to plunge the earth into eternal winter, essentially destroying the earth as we know and love today".
Connie tilted her head along with the flip of the hand, her blonde hair swooping, she pointed towards the screen behind her that had the Your News Earth logo of the earth spinning on it aces with the news channel acronym Y.N.E slowly orbiting the digitalized planet.
"Yeah!" His voice had become slight high pitch and raspy, "Old enough to know in full consciousness of what he was doing, and you know what kinda of sentence they gave the earth terrorist?"
"What kind of sentence Craig?"
"10 years - get this, probation on conditional a sentence that will be spent servicing the Earth's Government " He let the words spill out like they were a slimy taste on the tongue. "The Earth's Government!" Still feeling like his point didn't come across, he yelled the last part with exaggerated emphasis.
Her botox face blended into a mixture of mock disbelief and disgust "Well-" She gushed "you know he's from a privileged family when they get away with hiding a criminal at large on Mars! But then give him a slap on the wrist when he finally finds his big boy pants and fesses-up-" Her head shook as if she was scolding a child.
"Yeah! Yeah! He's a well breaded spoiled silver spoon feed blue blooded BRAT! That can literally attempt to destroy the earth and get away with it, pays to be the brother of the Vice foreign Minister Relena Peacecraft " He dramatically huffed as he tousled his large body about in his chair.
"It's not just him who got the special G-terrorist treatment, we got that little Khushrenada girl, and the traitors from L3 colony and L5 colony -"
"Oh, don't forget Connie, two of them got away free, not one, two! "
"You know what Craig?" She straightened in her chair.
"What Connie?"
"If it was up to the citizens of earth" She looked sternly into the camera, as if she was placing the final judgement "the G- terrorist would rot in jail for all the lives they took-"
The television went black and silence filled the small grey walled apartment. The apartment was a standard military housing for a single soldier, one bedroom with a half closet, one washroom with a stand in shower, and a kitchen attached to a dining room in full view the living room.
Wu Fei set the thin rectangular remote down a little to firmly on the circular glass table. He sat still, letting the words eat away at him for the fourth morning that week.
Lives they took.
Traitors.
G-terrorist.
He snorted at the last thought, G-terrorist. They could have at least come up with a slander more original.
He glanced at his black Preventers issued digital watch. It read;
Date: Thursday. Time: 04:54 am. Temperature: - 7°C. Weather: light rain.
It was three hours before the workday officially began. Sleep never really came easily to him, and he had already completed all his analysis reports due for the next three days in one night, he reviewed them again this morning. He looked down at his tablet and the scatter folders on his table and remembered a time when an analysis was not his job.
He stood up from his chair with more frustration than he expected and began compiling the folders and Preventer issued tablet in an organized fashion before placing them in his black leather satchel.
Walking over to his coat rack, he pulled on his long military grey trench coat over his Preventer Regular Forces uniform, then laced up his solid black boots next to his solid black trainers and grabbed his black umbrella. He then entered his sixteen-character security code into the pad robotically before grabbing his satchel and exiting through the back staircase only 15 ft from his grey apartment door.
He sat into his Preventers issued black sedan, placing his briefcase and umbrella on the front passenger's seat and shut the driver side door in one fluid motion. The car interior was spotless and undisturbed apart from the dust that accumulated on the dashboard and grey cloth seats.
His commute wasn't far, he lived on the far end of the Preventers North Continent campus, it was as far as the ESUN justice system would possibly allow. Wu Fei felt an imagined tinge on the nape of his neck, and subconsciously rubbed the barely visible small oval lump where the ESUN Military Police placed a tracking device. He gave a weary sigh and let his hand fall to it side, he remembered signing off on legalizing such a device for suspected flight risk war criminals six years ago. He snorted sarcastically at himself, oh how the irony of his life continued to mock him.
The car pulled up to the first checkpoint and he turned his radio off, the rain drum lightly on the roof as he waited for the commissionaire in the yellow translucent raincoat to approach his car. 'That woman this time' he noted whirly. He winded down the driver side window and held out his preventers ID badge without a word.
She gave him a double glance before snatching the red and white ID badge, and read over the key details in a loud voice;
"Rank: Preventers Regular Forces Member, Name: Wu Fei Chang, Citizenship: …." She paused before spitting out sarcastically, "Earth." She looked up at him before scoffing under her breath and then barked "Another piece of identification sir-"
Wu Fei already had his citizenship identification card held out the window positioned between his index and middle finger. His eyes were fixed on the grey gate in front of him as the fingers of his right hand rested on the gear bar beside him drummed in repetitive agitation.
She grabbed his ID and placed the two beside each other, without really looking at the second ID's she demanded to see his driver's licenses which just like before, Wu Fei had ready without so much of a glance in her direction.
She grabbed his driver license and asked, "Where and you going sir?"
"To work" the dryness in his tone had a hint of mockery.
She smirked before barking "don't move" and quickly began walking towards the commissionaire's post, a small grey concrete building stationed beside the security gate.
Wu Fei pressed his lips firm together and resisted the urge for a snappy rebuttal as he rolled-up his window. He glanced in his rear-view mirror and noted the dark empty stretch of wet pavement behind him and rolled his eyes taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly. The lack of a car line up meant she was at full liberty to take her time. He shifted his gear into park and turned his ignition into idle. Turning on his radio, he scrolled through the stations.
"Ex Colony rebel leader Zechs Marquise is no longer at large-"
-Switch-
"The Peacecraft family is at it again, showing favouritism of their own family members over provoked protestors of the Earth Alliance Supremacist, better known as the EAS"
-Switch-
"Just like the Chang tribunal, another Ex Gundam terrorist walks away fre-"
-Switch-
"How many rare ducks do you think the Andersons will adopt this year Mary? "Well Carl, the Andersons love their ducklings so-"
He switched the radio off and leaned his head back. The radio wasn't a choice of entertainment for him, only a means to an end when trying to gain additional information when analysing a case. Wu Fei had been the most successful pinpointing clues when he listened to multiple station presenting the same topic. Most times it was repetitive, but sometimes there is information that is the key to solving a case.
Unfortunately, for the past three months they only news besides the Andersons duck farm has been the exoneration of Mariemaia khushrenada, the acquitting of Trowa Barton, and the conditional sentencing of Wu Fei Change and Miliardo Zechs Marquise Peacecraft.
There was a loud double knock on Wu Fei's window, he looked into his rear-view mirror and noticed a vehicle had pulled up, just his luck. He turned on his car completely and pressed the window down button on his controls. She tilted her radio that was clipped to her teal uniform and spoke curtly threw the yellow plastic, "All clear!"
His eyes were still straight head with a blank expression. He stretched his left arm out sharply, feeling droplets of rain wetting his grey coat sleeve. With a strained smile the round face woman handed him the ID and stepped back to her posted. Wu Fei pressed the small window remote and the window winded up with a squeaking sound of water and rubber pressing together.
This routine was a common occurrence for Wu Fei for the past five years. Many of the members of the Preventers Secret Special Task Force were earth born and have a strong bias against anyone involved in the re-initiate of Operation Meteor in the second Earth Sphere War.
And since the spring of AC 199, they only had hatred towards him.
He drove through the metal gate and was alerted to the sound of his wireless SilverTouch technology giving him a message notification that read: PRF OFFICER CHANG REPORT TO MAJOR PO OFFICE 0500HRS FOR BRIEFING.
Major Sally…
He still smiled with gratification every time he was reminded of Sally's promotion, he didn't attend the promotion ceremony, nor was she present for his demotion, they didn't attend many things together anymore.
He remembered the last time he was sent a message for a 0500hrs briefing, five years ago, where his life in 6 months turned from peace, to his own personal war.
When my time comes by Dawes