Chapter Three: Return To Base
Just a few seconds after, Trowa was contacted by his fallen comrade on his commscreen. "Trowa, get the hell outta here.. Get to base..."
Trowa protested, "Are you nuts? I can't leave you here!"
Heero snarled, "Yes you can...and you will! Who'll tell High Command what happened, huh? You've got to get back to base! That is an order! Heavyarms, acknowledge!"
The Gundam's computer responded, "Command acknowledged. Returning to base."
Heero's image disappeared soon after as his Gundam lost the ability to transmit. Trowa looked out Heavyarms' view screen and saw Heero's Gundam...all three pieces of it.
"NOOOOOOOOO!!"
Trowa raged and screamed and pounded the controls of his Gundam as the machine turned on its emergency boosters and flew to base. To no avail. Trowa was a lieutenant, while Heero was a commander; though the two never thought about rank, if Heero ordered the Gundams to retreat, Trowa couldn't do anything to override the command. Even if not overriding meant leaving his best friend and brother-in-arms behind...
As the orange and white Gundam left the battlefield, the two remaining Gundams looked at each other. They weren't in good shape. But at least they were whole, as opposed to the three pieces of mecha burning at their feet.
****
Relena turned on her heel and again paced the length of the gleaming control room. The various technicians scattered throughout the room paid her no mind, as the young security expert had been imitating a caged tiger for nearly an hour now.
"Where are they?" Relena muttered under her breath as she began her 269th circuit of the room. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Noin sitting quietly at a console. Despite her apparent calmness, Relena knew that the young Italian lieutenant was deeply worried.
'Especially about oniisan, I bet,' snickered Relena to herself. Her momentary amusement slipped away as she remembered the events of a while back: Hilde, in a panic, had burst into base, jabbering about a life-and-death battle between their Gundams and two enemy units of equal power. The base had exploded into action, the flurry of activity ending with Hilde leading a reinforcement squad of Aries to where Duo and Zechs were roughing it up with two Rebel pilots.
Relena recalled the frantic look on Hilde's face and gulped. Something told her to fear the worst...
"They're here!" yelped a tech. "I mean, um, ma'ams..." Relena rushed to the screen, noting that Noin had jumped up and bolted for the technician's console simultaneously. 'So much for being cool-headed...'
The Aries squad trudged in through the hangar doors, escorting two rather beat-up Gundams. Beat up, but their pilots were still alive!
They were down in the hangars in the blink of an eye. Hilde leaped down from her Aries and stood beside Relena and Noin; they all watched anxiously. Relena chewed on her lower lip nervously as mechanics trundled staircases to the chests of the massive Gundams. The first mechanic climbed up and opened Deathscythe's door...and stuck out his arms just in time to catch Duo's half-conscious figure as it slumped forward.
Hilde gave a little shriek and was up the stairs and cradling Duo's head before Relena could fully comprehend the situation. Relena looked again, and noticed Noin standing at the top of Tallgeese's staircase. Zechs stumbled out of his Gundam, only a bit more coherent than Duo. Gently, Noin slipped his arm across her shoulders and helped the blond colonel down.
Relena shifted on her feet, suddenly unsure as to where she should be. As Zechs and Duo reached the floor, Zechs looked around and ordered everyone except his 'team' out. As the hangar emptied, Relena drew closer to her brother, curious as to what Zechs wanted.
Zechs lifted his head and caught his sister's eye with his own. "Relena, can you get a small room, totally shielded from surveillance..._all_ surveillance?"
Relena nodded. "Sure. I'll rig one up in an hour. It'll be pretty crude at first, but by the time it's been long enough for those dorks in FedSec to catch on, I'll have it double-shielded and everything. Why do you need it?" Relena inquired.
Zechs sighed, and used one hand to push his bangs out of his sea blue eyes. He nodded to Duo, who pressed a button on a small gray box. The American boy gestured at his Gundam; the girls looked to it. They watched as one gigantic fist slowly loosened, revealing a boy cradled in its fingers.
The girls gasped. The boy's dark hair was matted down with something; sweat or, Relena suspected, blood. He wore a thin green tanktop, with reddish-brown streaks staining it. His face was pale and twisted in pain. Hilde's eyes widened in recognition.
"That's the pilot of one of the other Gundams...the one Zechs was fighting!"
"WHAT?!" yelped Relena and Noin in unison. They turned to the two Gundam pilots, demanding answers. Zechs explained, "He is our link to the Rebels. If we can get him to talk, we have some serious firepower on our hands. And if we let Fed Intelligence take him away, sure as hell he'll either die from insufficient medical attention or escape."
"What's that got to do with us?" asked Relena, although she already knew the answer. Zechs knew that she knew and gave her an exasperated look. "_WE_ will have to take care of him. You can keep him a secret from FedSec, our very discreet doc can provide medical treatment, and as fellow Gundam pilots, me and Duo know him better...and therefore interrogate him better."
Relena had to admit his reasons made a lot of sense. Out of sheer habit, she was about to open her mouth and argue when something drew her attention.
Shinigami's leg, battered from the fight, groaned ominously and gave slightly to one side. The movement caused the whole of Shinigami to move, and the giant hand's fingers loosened. The boy in the Gundam's hand slid out and fell to the ground, a fifteen-foot drop. He landed on his belly, and bounced once on the steel floor.
"Ouch. That's gotta hurt."
They all turned to stare incredulously at Duo, who looked supremely unconcerned about his wisecrack.
"Duo..." Hilde began slowly. "The boy just fell over _fifteen_feet_ to the ground. He _bounced_ upon impact. The human body is not _supposed_ to bounce!"
Duo shrugged. "Well, excuse me for not being very concerned about a guy who, just an hour or so ago, was attempting to slice me up like cheap bread!"
Nobody noticed the young Rebel soldier struggle to his feet, shaking his head. He brought a hand up to his temples, and touched the cloth of his bandanna. It was stiff with dried blood, and as he brought his hand away he saw that flakes of dark brown stained his fingertips. Still, his young body and mind had been trained and toughened so that he was able to regain consciousness even after all his injuries-one of the very few upsides to being brought up like he had been.
He noticed that the two OZ pilots, and three unfamiliar girls, were only some twenty yards away, but not paying attention to him. Their mistake.
Heero was no fool, and certainly no stranger to military strategy. He knew why he'd been brought here, and he knew he wanted to get out as soon as possible.
He was hurt, and moving his left leg sent jolts of pain up his spine, but he was still able to move fairly silently to where the small group was. He withdrew a sharp-edged dagger from its hidden sheath and held it in the knife-fighting grip he'd been taught-loose but firm, held away from himself in such a way he could strike from any angle or parry a blow easily.
He slunk as close as he could, then suddenly leaped. He grabbed one of the girls-the one with the sandy blond hair in the ponytail-and pressed the knife's edge to her neck. The other people stared at him in shock and growing anger as he backed away warily, making sure his eyes were trained on them the whole time.
"Nobody move, or I'll kill her!"
"Let her go!" Zechs roared, eye twitching. Tallgeese's pilot clenched his hands into fists and started for the two when a hand stopped him.
"Hey!" Duo stepped forward. "Let me handle this." If this piece had a soundtrack, now would be the time for the melodramatic music to flare as Duo struck a pose. "You! Release yon damsel from thy wicked hands!"
Zechs stared at Duo. "Stop acting like an idiot, Duo!"
Duo just flashed a 'don't-worry' smile as his foot jerked in an upward motion and made his shoe fly up to his waiting hand.
"Let her go or else," said Duo in a menacing voice.
"Or else what? You going to make me smell your socks? Now, that's scary," Heero said mockingly.
Duo growled, "That's it! I'm fed up with you, you suicidal maniac! Take this!" With that, Duo threw his shoe at Heero.
Wing Zero's pilot smiled smugly as he deftly snatched Duo's shoe from the air, inches before his face. He held the shoe in his free hand and taunted, "Nice pitch. Jeez, my grandmother could throw better'n you." 'Because she was trained as a ninja since the age of five,' Heero added mentally.
"You idiot!" Relena screamed at her brother's best friend.
"Ow! Have mercy on our eardrums!" Duo reached in his pocket and took out a control box that looked very much like the remote control for a television.
"At a time like this you're going to watch TV?!" Hilde shrieked at her boyfriend.
"Watch and learn, boys and girls." He pressed a button on his 'remote control'. A short hiss was heard and Duo's shoe exploded right in the grasp of Relena's startled captor.
The blast was small, so all Relena felt was a wave of heat near her right ear. It was also self-contained enough that Heero fell to the ground, unconscious.
Relena stumbled as Heero fell. Since his arms were still around her, when he fell, he took her with him. She ended up practically kneeling on the cold permacrete floor, the Rebel pilot's head on her shoulder. Hilde walked over and helped her up.
Relena got to her feet shakily. Turning to Duo, she demanded, "What the _hell_ was that trick, Maxwell?!"
Duo looked hurt. "Jeez, that's gratitude for ya. I save her life, and she's yelling at me!" he complained to Zechs in a wounded tone.
Relena yelled, "An EXPLOSIVE went off three inches from my HEAD!" She took a deep breath to calm herself. It worked only a little. "I could have taken care of it MYSELF!"
Duo smirked. "Sure, Relena," he said condescendingly.
Relena fumed. Of course, all OZ personnel were trained in hand-to-hand combat, but Relena lagged far behind her teammates in that area. He didn't have to rub it IN!
She glanced at the rebel who had held her hostage. He'd seemed so dangerous when he was in a fighter's crouch, a knife gripped in his fist. But now...he looked so helpless there, lying on the ground; actually, he looked kinda cute with his messy hair and his...
She bit down-HARD-on the inside of her cheek. 'What is _wrong_ with me? I've never been boy-crazy; why should I start now? It's probably an after-effect of all that fear and stuff when Zechs and Duo weren't here...' That firmly settled in her mind, she turned on her heel and started to go, to prepare that shielded room her older brother had requested.
After everyone but Duo and Zechs were gone, they got down to business. Duo gently kicked Heero's limp leg. "What're we goin' to do with him?" he asked as the rebel started groaning.
"I don't know, what do you think?" Zechs looked at the sullen expression on Duo's face- as usual, the expression didn't last long. "Let's torture him! And then when he's had enough, and he's begging for mercy-" He smirked.
"We'll make him start giving information?" Zechs guessed.
"No... we torture him some more! Cool plan, huh?"
"No, it'll kill him."
"Oh, yeah." Duo scratched his head. "Aww, this isn't so fun anymore!" he complained.
Zechs smiled tolerantly. He knew that his friend wasn't really like that. He'd no more torture a prisoner than he'd get up on a table and start singing 'the Barney Theme Song'.
"Come off it, Duo. We'll take care of him until his wounds heal-including the ones _you_ gave him with that exploding-shoe trick-and when we can, we'll interrogate him. In a _humane_ manner, not like those sadists in the Federation."
Duo nodded his head in acquiescence. "Hai, hai." The two slung Heero over their shoulders and started for the room Relena had prepared.
***
"Nice room," Duo said appreciatively. He dumped the boy he'd been carrying onto the white cot in the middle of the room. Relena, who was twisting some wires together in the innards of a dismantled control panel, didn't look up at the boys' entrance.
Duo continued, "This jerk better appreciate the good treatment he's getting."
Zechs continued to appraise the room carefully. Everything met his approval, and he gave his sister a nod. She didn't answer the nod, but instead walked right out the door after she placed the control panel's cover back on.
"Probably didn't see me..." Zechs turned his attention to his rival on the field. Duo just grinned and asked, "Can we use a scalpel?" Zechs just chuckled at Duo's remark and answered with great knowledge and understanding, "No."
A tall, blond haired woman came into the room. She was followed by a young man carrying a white medkit.
"Dr. Po," greeted Zechs. "Colonel Marquise," she returned. "I came as soon as your sister called. This is my assistant and a medical student, Chang Wufei," she said, gesturing at the dark-haired young man behind her.
The studious-looking boy gave a polite nod to the two pilots and began efficiently setting up the equipment Sally needed. Zechs conversed quietly with the OZ medical specialist while Duo annoyed Wufei by trying to take a look at his scalpels.
Finally, just as Wufei seemed about ready to operate on Duo without anesthesia, Zechs turned from his conversation with the doctor and motioned to Duo. "We have to go for debriefing now, Doc. We will be back in an hour; we shall expect your report by then."
Sally nodded. Zechs turned on his heel and walked out the door. Duo whined as he was shoved out of the med room by a grinning Wufei.
"But I wanna see the scalpels!" Duo cried as the door slid closed.
****
Sally slid the door to the makeshift ward and stepped out. Wufei was still inside, tidying up the medical equipment.
"Well, doc?" inquired Zechs. "What's the verdict?"
"Well, he won't be feeling exactly great for the next few days. Or weeks. Or months... But he'll pull through. His skeletal structure is simply...I mean, he's in better shape than most Olympic athletes...what kind of training did he...?...I don't know how he does it...and his coninal archs..."
Zechs had begun to look lost after her third sentence. In desperation, he held up a hand to halt her medical report. "Please, so a dumb flyboy like me can understand."
Sally smiled at him apologetically. "Sorry, Colonel. Well, I think we can treat him sufficiently well. Some of his wounds look nasty, but none are infected...that's a good sign. He's got several fractures and a concussion, but nothing that won't set soon. I'd like to recommend placing him in an ICS- Induced Comatose State-to further facilitate his healing process. The only problem is that you won't be able to interrogate him till he wakes up. You'll also need to leave a watch on him, to see when he regains consciousness."
Zechs waved his hand to indicate it was no problem. "Don't worry, doc. I wouldn't think of interrogating him until he regained full health anyway."
"Fine," Sally said, snapping into what Duo referred to as 'crisp-and-clean speech mode'. "I'll begin the treatment as soon as possible."
"Thank you, doctor."