Who called Trowa? You'll soon find out. In this chapter, you finally get to learn who those mystery people are. The gang needs to go rescue them (meaning, of course, that they need to acquire disguises). Meanwhile, on Earth, Relena and Sophie are perilously close to having their husbands miss one of the most important events in their lives . . .

AC 206: The Change Time Brings (Part XIII)

Rescue Mission

There was a knock on the door. That's odd, Relena thought. "Akiko, honey, would you go get the door for me?"

From the sitting room Relena heard the door open and a familiar voice say, "Is Ms Relena Darlian here?"

"Uh, hold on," Akiko said. She ran back to her mother. "It's that lady from the contract negotiations thing. The one in the blue uniform, with brown hair?"

"Oh, Une!" Relena sat up, awkward with her large stomach. How is this going to look? she thought suddenly. Oh well, she'd better keep a secret.

"Lady Une! What's dragged you all the way out here?"

Une opened her mouth and paused, taking into account Relena's rather different appearance.

Relena waved her hand. "Please, come in."

The Lady shook her head. "No, I really don't have the time. I'm terribly sorry to disturb you, Relena, but I have some rather urgent news."

"Yes?"

"Two of the independently-operating Preventers I have working for me have been missing for several days, and they're not the first. Over the past few months I've lost six of them in the same area, between the colony clusters L3 and L8."

"Une, I can't help you look for them. That's your department."

"Wait, I think you need to hear more." She held out a data tape. "The last two I lost were special operatives. They've been watching over you and the pilots since the contract was put into effect, unofficially of course. I think I may have figured out what the kidnappers want, and, more importantly, that my two officers are still alive. I was sent death logs of the first four. I need to get in contact with Heero and the others."

Relena accepted the tape reluctantly. "Why don't you just call them yourself?"

"Because the department that holds the contract with them won't let me. You, however, do have that power."

"I get the feeling that's not it." Relena said. How did Une get the impression she knew how to get in contact with Heero?

"Relena, those officers will be killed if I don't come up with a ransom in ten days' time."

"And?"

"Jesus, you're sharp. All right, but this is extremely confidential. The two people I sent to watch you were Lt. Noin and Lt. Peacecraft."

"My brother?"

"Yes."

Relena clutched the tape. "I'll see this gets to them right away."

"Thank you." Lady Une bowed and dismissed herself, climbing back into her helicopter. "You won't regret it!"

"No, I'm sure I won't," Relena whispered.

Akiko peered at her questioningly when she went to Heero's computer. "Mom, what's going on? You look worried again."

"I have to talk to your father, Akiko. Please, now's not the time."

She shrugged her small shoulders. "All right . . ."

Relena punched in the number for the space carrier. Trowa's face appeared on the screen. "Yes? Oh, hello Relena."

"I need to speak with Heero. Quickly, please, Trowa."

"I'll go get him," she heard Quatre say. In the background she saw the door slide open and Quatre leave.

"What's up?" Trowa said. "You look frightened. Did you hear already?"

"Hear what?"

"About our little trip."

"Yes, of course, but that's not what I called about." Relena held up the tape. "I have something Heero and I need to discuss."

"Oh, it's private. That's fine."

"Not private as in just he and I," Relena said, "but let's call it a family issue."

Trowa shrugged. "I won't push you."

"You'll know about it soon enough anyway. Heero!"

Trowa relinquished his seat. Heero took it, looking surprised. "What's up? No, what's wrong?"

She explained everything and sent him the files on the data tape. "If it was other people, I would've told her to handle it herself, Heero, but my brother . . ."

"But why now?" He asked, upset. "Do you know how hard that place would be to break into, keeping in mind the fact that no one's even tried? We could be gone for months! Duo and I would miss everything."

"Heero, stop being so selfish. Don't you think I want you to be home? They are going to die if we don't do something, and Une isn't allowed to bargain with whoever's holding them hostage. Milliardo and Noin are important players right now. Losing them would be like losing you boys. If they're killed, history will be all tangled up. This wasn't supposed to happen, I feel it. You have to do this. Two and a half months is long enough. Please, Heero." She was begging now, desperate. She wanted him home, of course, but she was more worried about her brother.

Heero turned away, rubbing his eyelids. His face was so grey. After a moment of careful thought, he looked at her again. "I understand," Heero told her, touching his fingertips to the screen. "Ninmu ryoukai. Leave everything to us."

"I want to hear 'ninmu kanryou' when you get home," she told him, returning the gesture.

"When have I never completed a mission?"

"You haven't killed me yet." She tried to smile, just a little. He looked so down.

He smiled back, though his eyes were still saddened. "It's not that I wouldn't . . . I couldn't. I love you."

"I love you too. Akiko says hi." Relena felt a little better, and smiled a little more.

"Give her a kiss for me. I'll be home soon, sweetheart. I promise."

"I'll hold you to that." Relena stared at the impression of his face on the screen after he terminated the connection. I know you don't make promises you can't keep, after all. Feeling slightly less disheartened, she got up. It was time to go spend a little time with her daughter.

~~@[~*~]@~~

Heero walked into the rec room. The other four were already there. "Heero, what the hell's up now?"

Heero braced his hands on the table. The chessboard was set, but only pawns had been moved. "We've got a new mission," he said.

Duo and Wufei both began to complain. They stopped for a second, looked at each other strangely, and started complaining again.

"Oh, come on man, Sophie's gonna have a baby any day now—"

"I didn't want to come on this trip in the first place—"

"What about Relena? Weren't she and Sophie due around the same time—?"

"I told Phailin I'd take her on a honeymoon—"

"Milliardo Peacecraft and Lucrezia Noin have been kidnapped, and will be killed in ten days if we don't do something!" Heero shouted. The two big-mouths stopped complaining but stared at him with their jaws dropped.

"Truth?" Trowa asked.

"Truth. Milliardo and Noin have been keeping an eye on Relena and us; they're the reason we haven't gotten into even more trouble. They chased out here after us and were captured. They'll soon follow their four former comrades into a state of blissful nonlivingness if we don't get involved right now. I want to go home too, but Relena's very upset and I think it's the least we can do for them. They've saved our lives a hundred times over the past four months.

"Were they at my wedding?" Wufei stopped pretending to be angry.

"We'll have to ask them, won't we?"

"Where are they being held?" Quatre asked.

"Wilharris Space Force Base."

They stared at him.

"Are you insane?" Screeched Duo. "We can't break into Wilharris!"

"That place has tighter security than anything even close to being like it. If they chose to take Noin and Zec— Milliardo there, there must be something really big going down out there," Trowa said, leaning forward. "Could they really be preparing for war?"

"Relena said they've been demanding ransom for the Preventers they've been capturing."

"Who's 'they?'"

"Whoever's running the base, I imagine." Heero folded his arms. "I only know the information that Lady Une passed to Relena. I have a sketchy map of the interior of the base and couple of access codes. Strictly speaking, Une wasn't even supposed to possess these, so I need everybody to keep quiet."

They all agreed readily. "I think that I speak for us all when I say those two deserve to be rescued." Quatre said. "Their deaths could really ignite a bomb on Earth"

"Exactly. I'm glad you guys are seeing this, too. Let's have a strategy meeting, shall we?" Heero collapsed back into his hammock, looking exhausted.

"You okay, buddy?" Duo asked quietly.

"Are you kidding?"

"Thought not." Duo gave him a sympathetic look and scooted his chair over to the table.

Wufei went across the room and plugged the data disc Heero had downloaded. "Considering that all we know is that— let's call them Officers Six and Nine—" (See Footnote)"— are being held somewhere inside the prison section of the base, that only narrows our search by only chopping off the eastern half of the area we have to search. Any suggestions?"

"Burn 'em!" Duo shouted, whooping. "Torch the damn place!"

"Impractical," Wufei said, ignoring the obvious annoyance intended.

"Yeah, we have to leave— uh— Six and Nine alive, you bonehead," Heero said.

"We need to get into their computers," Trowa said. "You said Une sent us codes?"

"Some lower-level ones that won't be tracked. I doubt that they'll be enough to find out the cell locations." Heero told him.

"Point," Trowa conceded.

Quatre looked at the other four nervously. "It looks to me like we're going to have to play it by ear. The base is near a colony, so we can try and hide ourselves there."

Duo cleared his throat and said "Gundams?"

"We have the technology to disguise them as another type of cargo."

"Then what do we do?" Wufei asked. "Wilharris would have scanners strong enough to penetrate those disguises."

Quatre thought for a minute. "We could stash our plane on the colony and fly the ship to the base."

"But that would mean having to run back to the colony to retrieve the plane. That could endanger the lives of civilians if the people at the base decide to chase us." Wufei said pointedly. "I thought we weren't going to try anything like that."

"Someone could stay behind with the plane and we could do an air-docking on our spin by," Heero said, pondering it. "It would take precise maneuvering, but we could do it. It would pose minimal civilian risk and still give us enough time to run."

"Who'll be doing all this?" Duo asked.

Quatre waved a hand. "We can work out those kinds of details later. Let's make sure our plan is drawn up the way we want it first."

"So what would we do after we got to the colony?"

They sat in silence for a moment, looking at each other dumbly.

Heero clapped his hands. "We can use the access codes we've been given to disguise ourselves as transfer soldiers to gain entrance to the base. From there, we may be able to fake a request by the Commander to have the prisoners Six and Nine brought to him/her, load them up and fly toward the colony with the base none the wiser. We'd have enough of a lead then to fly by, pick up our plane and get the hell out of there."

"But how would we disguise ourselves? Our faces are easily recognizable, in case you didn't know. That's the one downside to being the entire species' hero," Duo said.

Trowa crossed his arms. "Have you seen the new military-issue space uniforms? The helmets are totally black. If we could get hold of some of those, we'd be fine."

"Standard guard on a prisoner is a two-to-one ratio, which makes four, two for Six, two for Nine. Duo, it'll be hard to cram that braid of yours into a helmet, so I think you should stay behind on the plane and cover for us should there be trouble. You have some of the best plane-piloting skills of the group, which will help with the air-docking." Wufei said.

Duo blinked. "Why are you being nice, Chang?"

"You've been taking this seriously," replied Wufei. "Is that good, do you think?"

"That's about as far as we can go for pre-mission planning. How long until we reach the colony, Trowa?"

"About ten hours. We should get rested up now so we'll have energy for this operation, whenever it goes down. What did we call it?"

Heero shook his head. "We didn't."

"How's 'Operation Shooting Star?'" Quatre asked.

"Nah. Doesn't fit."

"'Operation Sixty-Nine?'" Trowa asked, making Quatre jump under the table.

"Ugh," Wufei groaned.

"How about 'Operation Unprecedented?' No one's ever broken into Wilharris before."

"Sounds good to me." Heero said. Duo was on a roll.

"I'm going to take a nap," Duo said, yawning. "Quatre, Trowa, you two behave yourselves and have respect for those of us who can't sleep when there's something going on in the corner, huh?"

~~@[~*~]@~~

"Cargo freighter Messenger, we seem to be having trouble with our equipment. Could you please tell us what you're carrying?" The man at the control tower looked puzzled. Behind them, Trowa cursed silently. The disguise wasn't supposed to affect their scanners.

"Uh—" Heero looked down at the paper Trowa had handed him. "It's just steel, electronics and other building material for that new hotel. Do you need the weights?"

"No, ah, there's the problem. Charlie, didn't you calibrate this thing yesterday?"

"No, boss, you told me to skip it and go home."

"Ah, well, adjust this thing as soon as I get this ship docked. Anyway, do you need to make unloading arrangements?"

"No, we'll take care of that ourselves."

He shrugged. "Okay, just follow the beacon. Welcome to Colony X-30688."

"Thank you." Heero switched off the comm and sighed. "That was close. I thought you had everything all right, Trowa."

"As far as I can tell, I do. There must be something wrong with the masking device."

"We'd better put an electro-net over it, then," Wufei said. "It'd make the cargo bay look empty, too."

Duo guided the ship through an airlock and set down. "Let's go."

The colony seemed clean, well kept and peaceful. There were signs of militarization everywhere, however. Many restaurants had signs that proclaimed "Soldiers eat at a discount!" The hotels were the same way.

"This is kind of fun," Duo giggled. He'd pulled his braid up in a large even more girly do, and disguised his gender.

"Do you think I look good with black hair, Wufei?" Quatre asked.

"No." Wufei kept smoothing his down nervously. His head was fuzzy without gel

"What about me?" Trowa's hair was bleached white and shoulder-length. (how long did you think it would be, hanging that far in front of his face?) He kept brushing it off his shoulders uncomfortably.

"I get to make blonde jokes about you now," Quatre said.

"You look a little like my brother-in-law," Heero admitted. He had combed his (for the first time since Wufei's wedding).

"Aww, Wuffie, you look cute like that!" Duo giggled girlishly and brushed up against him.

Wufei shoved him into the wall. "The little respect I had for you is gone, Maxwell."

"Well I'll be damned."

"What do you think? Two rooms or three?" Heero asked them at the motel counter.

"Three," Wufei said immediately.

"Two rooms, please," Heero said, handing the girl a credit card. He kicked Duo, who had forgotten himself and was trying to flirt with her.

She handed them the keys and Trowa and Quatre ran off.

"Well, boys, it looks like I've got you all to myself," Duo whispered playfully, putting his arms around their shoulders.

"Get off, Maxwell, before I break something."

"Well put," Heero told Wufei.

Dejected, Duo snatched the key from Heero and went to go change genders.

~~@[~*~]@~~

Quatre, in a leather jacket (with a pink shirt hidden underneath) and grubby jeans he'd borrowed from Trowa sighed, frustrated. "We're going to have to go to the docking area and snatch some guys and steal their uniforms."

"Heeey, like the new look, Quat," Duo said, batting his eyelashes. "Where'd you get the leather?"

"Some of us carry pocket change." Quatre held out another data tape. "I was able to get us a more detailed map of the base, though."

"Good job." Heero plugged it in. "Duo, did you unload the Messenger?"

"Dur," Duo said, "you expected me to do otherwise? No one suspected a thing."

"Somebody give Maxwell a treat," Wufei said. "Winner, you packing any of those milkbone things on you?"

"Shut up, Chang."

"Beg, Maxwell, beg. I think you've got 'speak' down well enough."

"Wufei, stop," Heero said.

"Fine," Wufei grumbled.

"We should probably assume that they are not holding Six and Nine close together, for obvious reasons," Heero said to stop further interruption. "We should also assume that they are valuable prisoners, and are being kept under the highest-level security. That puts them in the southwest end, second and/or third floor. Quatre, how do you think we'll be going about finding disguises?"

"I said this earlier: we're going to have to steal them. The officers around here are apparently very meticulous about their uniforms, especially the high-tech space suits, however his might give us the advantage of being registered at the base. The soldiers come to the colony a lot, so I think all we'll need to do is hang around the dock area for a while until we spot four of them. Since Duo's staying behind, he'll be able to keep an eye on them while we're off rescuing Six and Nine." Quatre shifted inside the coat. "Mind you, this isn't my ideal plan."

Trowa squeezed his hand. "Don't assume it's ours either."

~~@[~*~]@~~

"Go Operation Unprecedented!" Heero shouted over the comm when the base gave them confirmation to dock. Duo whooped before shutting down their private line. "Ready to go, you three?"

Wufei and Quatre slipped on their black helmets. "Roger."

"I'll be before we land," said Trowa, computer hack. "I just have to adjust our "orders".

"You have the authorization card, don't you?"

"Yeah, but I have to tweak these guy's orders in case someone crosschecks."

"I love these high-technology suits. They're so easy to get information from. Whoever designed these must've been planning for something like this." Quatre played with his wrist display, where the man's passcodes were stored. "This should get us into any computer terminal. The officers we captured were of quite high rank."

"Done," Trowa announced, tapping a final key. "Everything should be set."

Heero sealed his helmet with a click. "Let's go."

At the on-ramp to the ship two guards met them. "Authorization?"

Heero showed them the chit with their "orders." As Trowa had predicted, they cross-checked it immediately. "Everything seems to be in order. Lt. Shaw, we'll wait here for you to come with the prisoners."

"Yes sir."

Heero led them into the base, marching forward like he knew where he was going. Up until they got to the prison blocks, he did. "Quickly, Trowa!" He urged his taller comrade at the computer terminal on the second floor."

Trowa's hands flew across the keyboard. "Nine is down here, cell 218. Uh . . . Six is upstairs, cell 345. How do you want us to split up?"

"You come with me to get Six. Wufei goes with Quatre to get Nine. Got it?"

"Hey, what are you four doing??" Another guard came running.

"Oh shit," Wufei said in a very matter-of-fact way.

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Footnote: In German, Zechs and Noin literally mean Six and Nine, just like in other languages Heero means One, Duo means Two, Trowa means Three, Quatre means Four, Chang means Five and Treize means Thirteen. (I can't figure out who Seven and Eight are, I think it's Poe and Une.) I love those little wordplay things they stick in there.

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Our boys are in troouuble! Do they get caught or can they squirm their way out of it? Will they have a reunion behind bars or running for home? Find out in the next chapter of AC 206: The Change Time Brings: "Reunion".