Man, I really hate it when FFN goes down like that. Which reminds me, I really need to get my little subscription thingy. Can you believe I haven't done it yet? LAZY!!
It'll be nice to know that you won't have to check back for the new chapters, though. I finished this monster, and I'm going to start a new one. In chapter 15 I'll ask you guys what you think I should do next, but wait until then because I have a few stories I was going to outline!
I've got about twenty minutes before I have to go to bed (yuuuuuck, job tomorrow) so let's see how much of this I can get done . . .
AC 208: The Search for Truth (Part XI)
"Falling Stars"
"Well look at you," Relena gave her brother a hug, beaming at him. Both he and Noin stood on the Yuy's porch, looking haggard but happy. "I'm glad you were able to make it here so quickly. We have somewhat of an emergency situation."
"What's happened?"
"Don't worry about it this second. You guys get settled in first." Relena said firmly. It can wait. I know exactly how it is with a little one."
"I'll get the suitcases," Milliardo said. "Noin, why don't you go sit down?"
Noin hefted Quatre and gave him an appreciative smile. "I think that'll work fine. Who else is here?"
"Une, Quatre, Dorothy, Duo and Trowa. It seems like such a depleted crowd than what we used to have." Relena sighed. "It feels like the whole world is dying."
"Noin!" Noin was puzzled at the sight of the eight-year-old until she realized who it was.
"Akiko, honey! How are you?" She looked so different with short hair. That face of hers, though . . . she looked more like her father than ever.
"Me? I'm fine. You look tired, though. What's his name?"
~~@[~*,~]@~~
"What's the situation out there?" Trowa wrung his hands, trying not to worry. "I mean, I guess I've been out of the loop for a while, but—"
"Why don't you just ask what we all know you want to," Relena told him gently.
Trowa grimaced, almost afraid to bring it up. The eight pairs of eyes offering encouragement were almost too much. "H— how's Mariemaia?"
Relena nodded. "She's all right. She's lost some friends, I think, but she seems all right."
Trowa sighed, his shoulders sagging. Quatre patted his shoulder sympathetically. Trowa had been in a slump for a while now, ever since he'd seen her on the news.
"Which brings up some important issues, especially for the gundam pilots here. Deathscythe, Heavyarms, Sandrock and Shenlong (when he gets here) are going to have to work with Zero and Fortuna, and might have to cover for them. Heero called this morning from the ship where he and Mariemaia are heading here right now. Both the gundams have Inimicus to deal with, so you might have to work on your own. Beliv is bringing almost his entire active navy to earth as we speak, so we'll need a lot of help.
"I've no word from the Phantom Runners if they'll be here, but most of their members are from Earth so it's a good bet. Dorothy, do you have any ideas about attack strategy?"
Dorothy shook her head. "Captain Ingriham— on the Gayla— handled most of the strategy, and I've gotten news that he was murdered yesterday. Erik's never been too good with that, so I don't know that he'll be able to come up with anything brilliant. Lady, you've got experience with politics, and with how Beliv plays the game. You'd probably have a better guess than me."
"Beliv never did anything that wasn't full-blown, that was for sure," Une said, remembering the malicious boy who'd lavished the attention from the press with his father's murder. "He's not going to try being subtle, especially when his move's so obvious. He's not that dumb. We're just going to have to keep an eye out over populated areas, and watch for new weapons, that sort of thing. The problem is our own resources."
"Unfortunately," Quatre continued, "we won't be having much aid in that area. The colonies have all declined having anything to do with us."
"That will be a problem," Relena pondered. "We really depend on them."
"That's our own mistake," Milliardo interjected. "We could have let them have what they wanted—"
"Wrong!"
Everyone turned to Akiko, who was staring at her uncle defiantly. "If we'd given them what they'd wanted, they'd have gobbled it up and asked for more. If we had not given them support, they wouldn't have felt obligated to even come to our rescue at all."
"Akiko, please, let's not get into an argument over inter-colony politics," Une said wearily. It was obvious that had been a topic of discussion before Milliardo and Noin had arrived.
"And that's not the point anyway." Duo spoke up for the first time today. He'd been especially quiet, and Relena realized he must be extremely worried. "We have to get by with what we have accessible to us in very short order, so we must plan with what we do have. We can't keep worrying about past decisions or regrets or we'll be caught off guard anyway. Une's right: we must be vigilant. Relena, when did the crew aboard the Laiva say Beliv would be arriving?"
Relena answered his direct question promptly, so as to keep everyone focused. "Tomorrow, if his speed keeps constant. That also accounts for the time that it would take for him to slow down enough to deploy mobile suits and fighter ships. Heero and the others are hot on his tail, but they have to be cautious when navigating our solar system. They have some kind of strange interference that I didn't really understand when Heero tried to explain it to me. Speaking of interference, Heero said that Ihminen's men don't really have fighters, and their ship is not armed heavily. He's called backup ships, but none are close to our sector or nearly as familiar with us as the Laiva are. There's no guarantee we'll have any support."
"Let's pray the Phantom Runners have caught wind of this," Quatre said solemnly, echoing everyone's thoughts.
"But anyway, we have to plan about the gundam's placements," Relena pointed out. "We have a very limited supply of them." She tapped a finger for every gundam available to them. "Deathscythe, Heavyarms, Sandrock, and Tallgeese. That's four. That's not even enough for one per continent."
"We have to consider how fast the gundams would be able to travel, too," Une added. "If we put them at points equidistant from certain cities, would they be able to reach one in time? The answer to that is most definitely no; this planet's just too big. The best possible vantagepoint is to have them in space. They can fend early troops off, and come through the atmosphere if needed."
"Good idea," Quatre said. "We'll have troops to back us up, right?"
"As many as I can muster." There was a buzzing sound, and Une clasped her hand over her pocket. "Consequently, I should better get moving if we want that to happen."
~~@[~*,~]@~~
"They're here," Phailin whispered, opening her eyes to the dark of a tropical night. The smell of a storm was in the air. It so far had been a dry monsoon season, but she couldn't help but get the feeling that the heavy moisture in the air would be urging events forward. She could tell by the shiver in her spine that all was not right. Through her curtains, she could see the flickering torchlight and the guard's shifting movements (she had eight posted around her walls, on her roof, and a dozen more out among the village).
She gathered her robe around herself and struggled out of bed, trying to make no noise in the dead of the night. She instantly regretted that phrase as it popped into her head, but it certainly was still. As silently as she could manage, she brushed aside her cloth door-curtains, pushed the wood panels aside on its greased sliders, and moved straight into Chatalerm's bedroom. They'd constructed the door not even a month ago, and she was grateful for it. She called his name softly, and the man awoke swiftly.
"Is something the matter?" he asked just as quietly, reaching for the short sword under his pillow.
She nodded, and moved closer. "I feel something, a premonition of approaching danger. My intuition has never steered me wrong before."
He nodded. "Our scouts have too observed them circling closer and closer to the village. You do not wake quite so easy these days, so I doubt you're wrong."
"I need to be hidden now." Phailin felt the urgency grow stronger just as she spoke.
"You know we've prepared the underground well," Chatalerm told her with real concern in his voice. "Jen's already down there, probably asleep."
They'd water-sealed, soundproofed and stocked an underground cave a mile or so from the village. The entrance to the cavern began under her house, and they'd built stairs to lead from Chatalerm's floor straight to it. "Still, I'd feel better with someone to accompany me there."
"I'll go," he promised, pulling a thermal-crossbow from its hiding place and hooking his sword to his belt. He had been dressed in bed. "Let us hurry, for if they find us down there we'll be trapped, likely with no backup."
But before they could lower the stairs, one of the guards yelled and fired a gun. Phailin cursed and Chatalerm shoved her roughly— panicked— into his closet. "Don't make a sound," he warned her needlessly. She was already straining her ears to the fullest.
Within the next few seconds, the thin walls conveyed the fact that men had burst out of everywhere. Phailin had requested palace guards from her uncle, and cleverly put all of them in nearby houses and surrounding her own with villagers. She heard a whoosh and knew from the screams that somebody's house was on fire. It wasn't hers, but it would provide a distraction.
There were so many voices that Phailin couldn't count them. She'd had Chatalerm warn her neighbors to stay inside unless absolutely necessary when this happened, and consequently they were almost all male voices. Guns and energy weapons were being discharged at a rapid rate, and yells of pain were rapidly overtaking those of surprise. Phailin ignored the pulsing of her ears and listened intensely to the firefight, hoping a stray bullet wouldn't find her.
Her house shuddered as the door broke down to at least two invaders. Last reported, there had been nearly a dozen men in that "hunting" band close to the village. That was a lot of bounty hunters to split up one person's reward, and Phailin wondered if they weren't scheming against each other just as much as their quarry. A split second later, a powerful high-pitched energy discharge and an enraged shout announced Chatalerm's debut.
There was a very deafening silence, and then a "Phailin?"
Whoever was trying to sound like Chatalerm was almost succeeding, but Phailin had spent too many nights close to the man to mistake that voice. There was just the tiniest bit of accent, too. "You can come out now," he insisted. "We got rid of them."
I hope Chatalerm's all right, she thought desperately, freezing her muscles and opening her throat as wide as it would go so her breathing wouldn't make noise. She couldn't afford not to have oxygen.
There was a thumping sound, a painful yell, and a very angry hiss. Her mother's cat had come to like the carpet in the hall as a bed, and the thing was difficult to see in the dark. Thank Buddha for small favors, she thought, kissing her fingertips and touching it to her forehead in relief. The bounty hunter was cursing, and judging from the sound hopping around trying to dislodge the black cat. Bakkte was most likely clawing the man badly about the legs and midriff.
Normally, Phailin would have jumped right out to finish the bandit off while he was distracted, but she knew she had better stay put. Normally, she would have had great confidence in being able to survive the encounter, but this time she was apprehensive.
There was another familiar shot from Chatalerm's energy-bolt crossbow and then his voice called out, a bit strained but sounding confident. "Three wounded, eight dead, four being pursued into the jungle, expected out-of-action within the hour. We've got them, Phailin. You can come on out now."
Phailin found the handle to the closet door and pushed her way out. Chatalerm was standing stooped in the hall, favoring his right leg and pressing both palms against his thigh. "Swift work," she told him. "Are you all right."
"I took a bullet, but I'll be fine," he said, grunting as he attempted to stand up straighter.
"How many of our own down?" She braced herself, assuming an even count.
"Two of your palace guards were killed, and five were injured. Only one's looking bad. Oh, and one house has lost its 'authentic thatched roof' down to the insulation."
Phailin chuckled, despite the grim situation. She'd discovered that Chatalerm had developed much more of a wit since meeting Wu's sister, and it certainly helped her feel better. The bounty hunters had mistaken the carefully arranged facade that the village really was for a primitive community that didn't have any knowledge of fireproofing.
"Let's get you to the surgeon," she told him, slinging his arm around her shoulder. "The sooner we do, the sooner you can be back on your feet for your wedding."
The surgeon was already at the end of the street, treating wounded along with all the nurses and doctors in the village. There wasn't enough for each person, but most of the injuries were like Chatalerm's, not threatening. They took their own people as priority, naturally, and immediately started the injured fighter on painkillers and sedatives. The bounty hunters that hadn't been knocked out were stolidly taking their injuries with silent tongues, though each and every one of them gave Phailin a look of great surprise and respect. One of them had a face she recognized— he was the Chang who Wufei had saved her from in the market in Bangkok. He was the only one that really seemed embarrassed and ashamed. A bit odd, she thought.
Three men dressed in camouflage gear were being dragged back, bound by thick, well-knotted ropes. Another was being hauled limply along by the foot, obviously dead. The palace guard was noted for their environmental skills, and had spent days in disguise learning the terrain. Their uniforms were dirty, but the reward sanctioned by the king would no doubt compensate for a little mud and a few scratches. Phailin thanked them, taking charge of the other prisoners and questioning them each closely. Just as she'd thought, they simply hadn't expected anything as organized as they defense Phailin had organized. She began planning for a deal with the bounty's supporters.
She ordered for the dead bounty hunters to be burned and the ashes buried in the jungles, and the families of the dead guards to be contacted and asked of any funeral arrangements.
And without warning, a fierce pain ripped through her stomach. Jen emerged from the cavern at a villager's summoning just in time to see it.
~~@[~*,~]@~~
It hardly seemed like thirty-six hours since the notices had been sent out. The streets were abandoned everywhere. Workers had been sent home, businesses closed down, blackout curtains drawn and any shield available put up. People were frightened, but there was still a measure of faith stirring for Earth's soldiers. Une could feel it.
Her words had been broadcast across every television, every radio and burned into records that would stand the ages, words she had spoken mere hours ago to her raptly attentive officers.
"Today is the final battle. Today, Earth will live or it will die. Your enemy refuses to die, refuses to surrender, and will be utterly unmerciful. Many of our lives may be lost, so don't let those lives go to waste.
"Many colonies believe that Earth is no longer of use to them. They think they are more efficient, more stable, and more profitable in some places than the planet that gave birth to their own people. 'Will they suckle forever at the withered breast of that dying rock, or will they embrace the stars as their new and rightful home?' one campaigner asked not long ago. Let us show the colonies that we can defend ourselves, that we are proud of our mother and have not ruined ourselves.
"A great friend of mine once claimed that there will never be a place so beautiful, wise and ultimately eternal as this planet, because it has its own rhythm that even its most intelligent productions can't understand. Earth has existed long before us, and I for one will be satisfied if it survives us. Earth is all that is permanent in this universe, from a human perspective. If we lose it, we'll have lost ourselves."
Treize from long ago had whispered such to her in the long hours of the day and nights where she lay in fever from the bullet wound so many years ago. His gentile voice had been filled with such sorrow, such passion that it had pained her to speak those words, as anonymous as she made them sound. It had almost felt as if he'd been standing beside her, proud of her at last. Une had never learned how to understand the man, over her years of self-exile and meditation. She tried so hard not to lose what little she had left of him, but through the long moments of silence after her final speech she realized that all she needed to do was see a kind of beauty in everything, if only because it was human.
"Lady, they're here," the dispatch officer told her quietly as she stared sightlessly at the giant wall map. Her closest officers were with her in the protected bunker, watching Earth down to the smallest grain of sand perched upon the wind.
She nodded, bringing herself out of the memories, no longer so painful. "Let's make our stand count, gentlemen and ladies. Our last salvage of hope, as Ihminen put it, will not be lost because of its ungrateful child's greed. Attack when ready."
~~@[~*,~]@~~
The fleets paused in the silence of space, facing each other with the deepest loathing. The earth forces looked extremely pitiful in front of the spit-polished, glistening army of war-hardened colonist pilots, but the ragtag salvaged and pieced-together ships were more powerful then they would seem at first glance. Une had offered generous compensation for any spacer who was willing to pilot in Earth's defense, and the hoard had been so great that she'd been surprised that more of the volunteers hadn't asked for the money at all. Some had flatly refused payment, and the Lady had wondered what had gone on that suddenly made them selfless. Most of the ships were independent traders' vessels, lovingly cared for and packing more weaponry than it would seem at first glance. They made up the middle ranks, with the Karkadan and Kirin suits in front, large battleships in back.
There seemed to be endless minutes full of stillness, until Beliv got impatient and made the first move. Une had managed to hide a large portion of her fleet in the moon's shadow, out of sight of the Colony Alliance, and that took several of their larger ships by surprise. Ranks were cut down quickly before the Alliance managed to get organized again. They had succeeded in keeping the lines unbroken.
A dot, specially colored a light brownish orange on the map in Une's chamber darted out of the melee and approached one of Beliv's cruisers from a blind point. Quatre was no doubt ripping at the ship for all he was worth before they could turn their powerful Draco suits back on him, and by the time they were able to attain backup, the ship's marker was blinking furiously, indicating severe damage. "That one's out of commission for a while," Quatre's voice crackled through on the voice-only channel that connected the gundam pilots to Une. He sounded drained.
"Good job, Winner," Une told him. "Fall back and catch a little rest for now. You'll need it later, methinks."
"Thanks." Quatre ducked into the dogfights briefly before appearing on the other side of the battle line, hooking up to one of Une's vessels for some on-the-fly repairs. None of the other gundams had been able to make it through in the first surge of force, but even one of the giant battleships disabled increased survival chances.
"Lady, we've detected a strange craft emerging from behind the moon." One of the coordinators waved at her, jabbing to the new, khaki-green dot on his screen. He was the officer in charge of satellite monitoring.
"Who is it? Are the Phantom Runner's here?" Une felt her pulse quicken with the prospect of the powerful band arriving so soon, but it turned out that her assumption was false.
"No ma'am, it appears to be an asteroid," the other said carefully.
"It's no immediate danger, so ignore it," Une told him, though as soon as the words came out of her mouth she was incapable of doing just that.
~~@[~*,~]@~~
"Last call. Anyone want to jump?" Abdul surveyed his friends' faces as calmly as he could manage. The bridge lights had gone red on the reserve power, and their gaunt faces were eerie.
"Come on, man, you know we don't," Mohammed turned the last safety off and sat back. "We've got as little to live for now as it is."
"We all want to see our families, anyhow," Auda adjusted the trajectory and gunned their asteroid's gigantic engines. "Rashid would have told us the same. Either we all go, or none go. We've already decided to go ahead with it."
"Right, of course." They only had each other left, and they'd lived in their grief far too long as it was. Abdul sat back.
Their target had realized what they were far too late, and its sluggish acceleration made it seem almost comical. "For all the lives you've destroyed," Mohammed murmured, closing his eyes. "And everybody who still lives with that pain!" Then, when the two ships were on the verge of colliding, he released both red buttons at once.
~~@[~*,~]@~~
The Manguanac's ship blossomed spectacularly in a ball of flame, and in a moment the debris cleared enough to reveal an incredible, somehow gruesome sight. The ship that they had targeted was half-gutted, torn away like a rotted limb, and the engines had been completely dismantled. Une read the label on it, startled. "They . . . they killed the Gayla," she said quietly, disbelieving.
"I'm still reading activity on the bridge, Lady," the tech beside her said. "They're still giving out orders, but at least they won't be able to use their thermal cannons."
"That's enough relief as it is," Une told him. "How about our troops?"
"We've broken down to our last line of ships over the Argentina/Chili area. They're requesting backup."
Une looked back at her map. "Send them some squads from South Africa. They aren't having much trouble over there. Oh, and call Tallgeese to assist. He's near there, or should be."
"Yes ma'am."
Une jumped, startled, as the alarms went off suddenly. She was the first one to get to the switch, and she slammed her hand down on it angrily. The whooping alerts died, and it left several of her men shouting with glee. "What's happened?" she ordered, still a bit frazzled.
"The Phantom Runners are here!" two of them said at once.
Funny, how someone who was technically at war with Une's forces summoned such relief.
~~@[~*,~]@~~
"Everyone ready?" Wufei ran one last check on Shenlong's systems before calling the bridge.
"Affirmative," Ben told him, his voice a little fuzzy because of Beliv's attempted radio jamming. "No problems reported, and everyone's checked in."
"What's the situation out there?"
"Two of Beliv's battleships have been as destroyed, and the Gayla's missing its entire engine section," Dennis answered. "It looked like a single explosion, too. Man, I would have liked to have seen that."
Several of the others on Wufei's channel muttered agreements. The general atmosphere consisted of confident ease, signature of pilots who've seen too much battle for their own good. Experience had its own price.
"Anyway, looks like Une's moved pretty much all her troops from the daylight side of the planet to the night side to keep the Colony Alliance from surrounding the planet. It's working fine now, but they'll need backup sooner rather than later. You guys had best get going."
Wufei gave the order to launch.
~~@[~*,~]@~~
It felt as though someone had flipped a switch. Une had predicted the battle to rage for days . . . but it had been only hours since the Phantom Runners had arrived and Beliv's fleet was devastated. The rogue group had chosen to take on the fighters first, leaving the heavy battleships to the gundams. As soon as Une caught on to what Shenlong was doing, she adjusted her tactics.
Erik Beliv's face appeared on the large screen suddenly, the bearded menace making her scowl involuntarily. "I'm never giving up" were his only words, spoken in a deadly whisper.
She hadn't noticed the mobile suits he'd gathered behind his ship, and by the time she drew her attention to it they had enough to push the Gayla. His remaining four cruisers were gathering nearer to him, and with a shout Une ordered all capable ships and mobile suits to abandon their dogfights and head for the ships. Together, their power would be enough to destroy a large portion of Earth and disrupt everything that didn't burn, just like the meteor that killed the dinosours and the meteor that would have imitated it twelve years ago. "History has found yet another way to repeat itself," she muttered.
~~@[~*,~]@~~
Marie arrived just in time to see it happen. "Heero, look at that," she shouted, already accelerating out of the bay and into Earth's gravity field.
"What are those other ships?" he asked, referring to the brightly decorated Earth-designed carriers and battleships.
"Mine; the Phantom Runners," she corrected herself. "Looks like their trying to block those other ones from getting closer to Earth. "We've got to help them, and fast."
She noticed with a start the chunk taken out of the Gayla, and felt only fear. The ship was obviously still running, and even the Phantom Runners avoided the craft when possible. It had powerful thermal cannons, and could tap into any other of the ship's power supplies.
::He's going to ram Earth,:: Fortuna told her quietly. ::Nulles is right.::
"Operation Meteor all over again," Heero told her, his face gray. "But that monstrosity is much too big for Zero's Buster Rifle to take care of. We'll have to hope the Phantom Runners can handle it."
"Well, we can help!" Marie unlocked the shuriken from Fortuna's arm and sent it hurtling toward the mob of Draco suits pushing the Gayla along.
For a moment it looked like Heero was going to go for his Buster Rifle anyway, but he turned in mid-movement to his beam saber. Zero must have expressed a desire not to lose what feelings he'd gained. She felt Fortuna's relief and chuckled throwing the shuriken again as it returned to her.
Pennes Nulles and Fortuna dove into the thick of the Gayla's new "engines" and made slow progress at eliminating the mobile suits.
Without warning, Fortuna was slammed from behind and sent tumbling deep into the ship. Using reflexes honed with many furiously paced battles, Marie flipped around and stopped, great feet making long marks in the metal halls. Fortuna fluffed her wings angrily, and muttered only one word. ::Inimicus.::
"Can you reach Zero?" she asked.
::I'm being blocked. I'm not even sure he heard me yell before we entered the ship.::
Marie felt her stomach drop. No rescue, no communication, and they were being pursued by her sister gundam through a maze of twisted metal and unstable equipment. It felt a little familiar. "Wonderful."
The entire craft shook with the sound of an explosion, and Marie swore. The Gayla was going to be destroyed with them inside!
~~@[~*,~]@~~
"Ben, there's no way we'll be able to eat that thing down with our thermal cannons! Why are you wasting our energy with them?" Dennis looked at his comrade, who seemed half out of his wits.
"There's no other option," the man replied, bracing himself against the captain's console as their ship shook with the effort of expending its weapons. "If we don't do something, the whole planet's gonna die!"
"What the hell do you think you're doing?? Stop it!" An angry, panicked face appeared on Ben's monitor. "Cease fire, you guys!"
Ben motioned and the bridge stilled with mechanical relief. "Mr. Yuy, what the hell's going on? You can't order us around."
"I thought you might like to know," Heero growled, "that Mariemaia and Fortuna are trapped inside the Gayla. You're putting them at risk firing your equipment recklessly like that."
Ben paled.
"Target the ships attached to the Gayla," Heero suggested coldly when the red-haired commander didn't answer. "Try not to damage anything else." The screen reverted back to its battle map.
"Well you heard the man," Ben barked at the bridge crew, trying to hide his surprise. "Get to it!"
Once more, the ship shook as if in its death throes. Dennis steadied himself against his chair, fists clenched tight against the material.
~~@[~*,~]@~~
But no matter how many of the outside ships were scrapped, no one was unwilling to touch the Gayla now, and it was still drifting into Earth's gravity field. Heero had to fight Zero with every ounce of mental strength and cunning he possessed to keep the gundam from diving in after Fortuna and Inimicus. "It's no use!" he roared, wrestling the controls. "You might only cause more damage to the ship in there! She's better off trying to fight her way out on her own!"
::I can't— I won't— I will not allow myself to lose her again!:: Zero was slowly overriding his pilot, his emotions fueling some deep, brutal strength hidden deep inside the gundam. Heero knew that if his daughter was right, and somehow Zero could help Fortuna escape from her sister, he would lose the passion he was starting to feel again.
"Don't be a fool," he grunted, managing to snatch the gundam's hand away from the Buster Rifle. "You'll lose everything if you try and rescue her, and you know it. She's a strong one. She'll be all right on her own."
Zero's attention sagged for a moment, and Heero seized the opportunity to nab control back. "Listen to me," he continued. "I know exactly what's going through your head, and I understand, but you've got to let others play their own parts. If I thought I could help Relena by being by her side every day, I wouldn't be here, but I know that sometimes she can handle things better when I'm not being a distraction to her. Let her handle her sister on her own, and let her full concentration be dedicated to the task."
The gundam gave one last half-hearted attempt at wrenching control back, but finally let out a kind of anguished moan. ::The world is nothing . . . if I lose her.::
"I know," Heero said quietly, feeling everything through their lifebond and being utterly capable of remembering his own losses. "Trust me, friend, I know."
Zero's golden wings flapped sluggishly, retreating from among the dead mobile suits like a fleeing angel, back out into the safety of space, where the stillness of the aftermath was only interrupted by the flashes and silent explosions of the planet-wrecker.
He was soon joined by the other gundams, all of whose pilots spoke in hushed tones as if in the presence of someone dying. Quatre wasn't talking at all, lost in grieving over his friends. As if sensing Zero's pain, they moved in closer to him, supporting him.
It was a long story, peppered with questions and unknowns, but Heero finally got the story of deceit and betrayal across for those who hadn't heard it. Quatre was totally silent, though they all knew he'd been listening. He'd never told anyone how he'd been lured into becoming a pilot. It was probably a nasty shock for him to recall it.
"They— they killed my wife?" Wufei's expression was unreadable, but he was obviously angry and confused. "And all these years . . . an accident they'd called it . . . bastards."
"They planned Trowa Barton's death so I would fly . . . how very like that scheming rat Dekim," Trowa added, eyes hard.
"I'd never known anything about it," Milliardo told them all quietly. "Treize never said a word about Mariemaia or the gundams— or anything even about Barton's plans— to me. He must have told someone what this all means."
"According to Mariemaia, he didn't even tell Fortuna," Heero said. "Zero says that she always complained about it."
"And he left no one with any knowledge, though he seemed to have pieced everything together," Une's voice, which had been silent so far, finally came through. "Not even me. He left me with bits and pieces. I think, maybe he was afraid to tell anyone. I knew . . . I knew about Mariemaia, but little else. He didn't like to talk about all he'd found, as if it was painful for him to accept."
"Which leaves us with nothing to go on," Duo concluded. "This fighting may be over, Beliv may as well be dead, but if we can't understand what was meant by Ihminen's lecture about earth being a balance point, we might as well have just lost the war."
"Don't give up yet. Fortuna's still alive," Heero told the others, trying to keep them from sounding too dejected.
"How do you know?" Une sounded curious.
"Lifebonds are tricky things," Heero replied, patting the gundam's console unconsciously. "Zero would be able to feel it if she died, no matter how far away they are from each other."
Suddenly, Wufei cut his connection and fled.
"What was that?" Une asked.
"Dunno," Duo answered. "Kinda weird, though. Maybe he saw a stray suit still alive out there or something."
Milliardo sighed. "Well I don't know about the rest of you, but I think it's time I went home. I miss my wife . . . and my son."
"We're already letting the Phantom Runners finish this," Une told them. "You're all dismissed at your own judgement."
~~@[~*,~]@~~
"We just aren't doing enough damage," Ben said. "At this rate, the ship is still going to fall into the atmosphere. We've run out of options."
"Not necessarily," Dennis said quietly.
"What?" Several of the bridge crew turned at their commander's exclamation, and Dennis felt himself redden with the attention.
"I can think of one other thing," he told Ben quietly. "It's a last-ditch try, but it might work."
"For god sakes, tell me man!"
"We could ram them and knock them off-course."
The bridge was silent, and then exploded with comment. Ben grinned, a hint of mischief about his ice-blue eyes. "Don't know why I didn't think of that myself. All right, guys, anyone who wants to go home had better abandon ship. Tell the mobile suit pilots not to come back here. Dennis, you get going, too," he added as the boy braced himself. "You've got a lot of life left to live."
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I lied. I do that a lot. I'm going to be tired tomorrow, but I want to get the next chapter edited. Read on . . . (Oh, and I know this is a little late, but it looks like more people are reading these things when I get reviews for each chapter. I also like to know if there was something you didn't get or would like further explanation on. Helps with Chapter 15 much. No obligation, though ^_^).
So nothing looks bleaker for our pilots, until the perseverance of the human spirit and the human species begins to thrust itself forward. Inevitably, even in the worst times there will be AC 208: The Search for Truth (Part XII): "Unplanned Fortunes".