Toy Soldiers

Flashback chapter this time....

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Book II: The Star Moves Not But In His Sphere

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Chapter Two

"Where forces overwhelm can be like a hard rock cast onto eggs--through contrasts in strength."

--Sun Tzu (The Art of War)

**A.C. 193**

The rhythmic clack of Une's bootheels echoed through the empty corridor. Ahead, the fierce African sun beat through the reinforced glass of the flight-deck door. She was early, she'd planned it that way, so that no-one else would be at the site while she greeted her new fighting companion alone.

She let the door close behind her and strode onto the tarmac, shrugging out of her jacket and draping it over her arm. It was too hot, and as this undertaking redefined the word 'classified,' it wouldn't really matter if she was out of uniform. They were hiding in a long-unused base in the Nairobi desert for a reason, after all, and if the Alliance top brass found out about them, they'd have bigger things to worry about than a little breach of dress code.

Like the giant mobile suit standing at solemn attention on the tarmac to greet her. One-quarter again larger than any of the suits the Alliance soldiers used, it still managed to look unassuming in its mottled-brown camouflage paint.

"So this is it. What do you think of her?" A soft, feminine voice interrupted Une's thoughts.

"Valkyrie...impressive," she confirmed, turning to greet the slight, russet-tressed woman who greeted her. "Leia. You're early."

The young woman nodded. "I am...I knew you'd be out here before anyone else." She was in tan slacks and a light blue t-shirt, her own lab coat bunched up under her arm. Apparently she thought it was too hot for uniforms as well.

"And you were looking for me," Une said. Leia nodded confirmation. "What's the matter?"

The redhead's smooth face was troubled, but she avoided the question. "I'm still impressed we finished her, really. I know the little data I brought wasn't much help--it makes me wonder who Treize had to sleep with to get the plans from the Tallgeese."

Une coughed delicately. "Treize is a married man," she reminded her companion wryly. "If anyone's honour was compromised getting that data, I expect it would have been Zechs."

"Hm." Leia cocked her head, considering. "Can't say I wouldn't enjoy being the one who--"

"And /you/," Une interrupted mildly, "are a married woman as well. In case you forgot."

"Not for a minute," the other answered honestly. "Truthfully, Nicole--the way the two of them act together, as close as they are--if I didn't have evidence to the contrary, I would've thought they were together."

Une rolled her eyes. "That's only because you've never seen Zechs when he gets around Lucrezia Noin. He's only a few months younger than I am, but he may as well be twelve and pulling on her pigtails. If she had any."

Leia laughed. "That's your old roommate, right? I hear the Academy likes to pair child prodigies together whenever possible."

"That's the one." Une shrugged diffidently; she had mixed feelings concerning the Lake Victoria Academy's other prize pilot. "It's sad really--she's the best thing to happen to the Alliance in an age, but she holds back on purpose so Zechs gets rated higher. And he /knows/ she does it, too--so why bother?"

"If it's working for her, who cares?" Leia countered playfully. "Though I can't see /you/ hiding your talent for any man's affection, Nic."

Une snorted. "And look where it's got me so far. I've only ever been interested in one anyway, and he's married to you."

The older girl's face fell, though she did her best to conceal it. "Yes, I know." Gamely she tried to bring their conversation back to its light-hearted tone. "You made it sound like Zechs is taken, but there's still Otto...or Nathan. He's a sweetheart."

"And I've known him since I was four," Une pointed out dryly. "It's hard to think romantically about someone who you /know/ used to wear superhero underwear and eat Play-doh." She sighed, resting a hand against the cold hard metal of the Valkyrie's leg, as if she were drawing strength from it.

"I want to hate you, you know," she confessed quietly. "But I can't."

"I'm glad," said Leia, just as softly. "Because I'd really like us to be friends."

Une forced a wan smile. "Just keep your slimy brother away from me. He scares the shit out of me."

Leia nodded. "I know. I told him to leave you alone, but I don't know if he listened. I couldn't tell him I knew about his trying to recruit you for Operation Meteor, so I'm afraid he thinks I just meant stay away from you romantically."

One dark eyebrow arched gracefully over a hazel eye. "Leia, there is nothing /romantic/ about Trowa. Nothing. Slimy, yes. Scary as shit, yes. But not romantic. You of all people should be able to tell the difference, you're married to Treize."

A blush suffused the other woman's cheek, a smile curving her lips involuntarily. "True. But look at it this way--if he /hadn't/ tried to recruit you to pilot Heavyarms, we would never have known what my family was planning."

Une frowned. "Which brings me to a question...Leia, does /Treize/ know what your family is planning? Have you told him?"

She shook her head, her eyes fixed momentarily on her feet. "No. I couldn't--I didn't know how to bring it up...especially after I'd already told him I'd found the research on my own in the lab."

The pieces fell into place only too quickly for Une. "Let me guess...he was so proud of you for it that you couldn't bear to shatter his illusions about being married to the earthsphere's greatest physicist."

Leia tossed her hair jauntily. "I /am/ the earthsphere's greatest physicist," she teased, winking, but almost immediately her expression turned serious again. "You're brave, Nicole. Have I told you that?"

Une blushed, scuffing at the melting ground with the toe of her over-polished boot. "Not brave, just stupid. Besides, there's nothing to worry about, right? I'm trusting you didn't build me something that's going to fall apart?"

"I didn't build it," the scientist reminded her mildly. "But that's not what I mean. The details on the cockpit system were a bit sketchy; I had to design a lot of it myself."

"If you're trying to tell me it's not finished after all--" Une began, and Leia shook her head.

"No, that's not it. It's just...complicated. I took the early code from the Tallgeese, but I had to modify it a bit. You'll see when you start. You'll manage it fine."

"That's the plan." Une broke off the conversation to raise one arm in greeting as the deck-door swung open and a trio of men, all tall, graceful and resplendant in Specials uniforms, strode out to join them.

"She is impressive, isn't she?" Treize Khushrenada gazed up the solid metal body of the Valkyrie with approval. "Well done, Zechs; you and Otto have outdone yourselves."

Zechs Merquise, a head shorter but more distinctive, if only because of the silver helmet he was never seen without, gave an indifferent shrug. "We just put the parts together, sir. Leia and Nicole have the hard parts."

Treize smiled easily. "Hopefully not too hard." From somewhere within the folds of his jacket--how was it, Une wondered, that he didn't seem to feel the heat as the rest of them did?--he drew out a bottle of champagne. "For a christening," he explained, "and a toast all in one. If you all swear never to tell another living soul you saw me drinking straight from the bottle."

"Who, us?" Nathan Blythe asked innocently, winking at Une from where he stood behind the others. Superhero underwear notwithstanding, her childhood playmate had grown up to be quite handsome, with perpetually-tousled dark hair and soft doe-brown eyes that would have been intoxicating on anyone, man or woman. He was the only civilian among them, having decided that the medical profession was his one true calling. "Healing people suits me better than hurting them," he had told Une in confidence before they had parted ways for their respective vocations.

Zechs had not been a part of their circle until he was almost ten, when he came to live under the care of one of the Khushrenada cousins. Treize' ancestors, it seemed, had felt the need to make sure their family line was in absolutely no danger of dying out, if only by collateral means. And it was Treize who had introduced Zechs to a younger Nathan and Nicole--presumably so he, already a teenager, would be spared having to act as playmate to the younger set. But they had all grown into each other in time. Nicole had grown into Treize more than he ever meant her to. She had been sixteen--that magical age when princesses are supposed to be whisked off into the sunset by their own Prince Charming--when her Prince Charming was married to a colony scientist who just happened to be heiress to a fortune far greater than Une's comparitably humble endowment. Now he had an adorable young daughter and a wife he adored, and seemed completely happy that way.

"Here." Zechs pressed the bottle into her hands and she tilted it back for a drink. Champagne was too dry for her taste, but she would never have admitted it. So she just drank, and passed the bottle on to Leia.

"To success!" Treize said, lifting the bottle when it made its way to him again. "And to secrets, and to those we trust enough to keep them."

They all chorused their agreement, and Treize held out his hands. "Leia...Nic...would you like to do the honours?"

Two slender women's hands grasped the neck of the bottle. "On three?" Leia asked, and Une nodded. "One..."

"Two..." Une whispered.

"Three!" they called in unison, smashing the bottle against the monstrous mobile suit's leg. Glass shattered and champagne sprayed everwhere, spotting Une's white uniform pants and Leia's t-shirt.

The Valkyrie was born.

****

"What the--Nic, what's going on?" Zechs punched frantically at the laptop keys, scowling at the rows of data scrolling down the screen. "Leia! What the hell do these numbers mean?"

Treize seized control of the microphone, calling into it desperately. "Nicole! Are you all right?"

In answer, Une's shrill scream scraped through the tiny speaker, thick with a pain that wrenched at his heart. Something was going wrong--none of them knew what, but it was fast becoming clear that if they didn't somehow extricate her from the Valkyrie, his prize pilot and oldest friend was going to die in her cockpit.

The giant mech, bursting out of her pilot's control, almost toppled to the ground, keeping herself aright only at the last moment by a quick pulse of one vernier engine. Already there was considerable structural damage to the building itself where she had smashed into it, and the smoking remains of one wall was all that was left after one blast of the Valkyrie's main weapon.

In the cockpit, Une yanked at the controls, cursing madly under her breath, trying to drag the mechanical beast into submission. But it beat at her mind, pounding incessantly in her temples til its pulse merged with her heartbeat and drew her inside it. It was quieter there, but not peaceful--it was like the eye of a hurricane, a cold centre surrounded by howling, unconquerable winds.

Valkyrie ripped her open and dove through her exposed self, stripping her mind of all its secrets, its fears, its hidden desires. It steeped them in chaos, warped them with rage, and fed them back into her, til its molten ire coursed through her blood and beat in her ears.

//Kill,// it told her. //Annihilate! Destroy!// Its urge was overwhelming, impossible to fight, though her soul, held prisoner in her body, strained against it with all its fading strength.

"Nicole!" Her name, screamed at her from outside--her friends. Nathan. Zechs. /Treize/. She had to protect Treize, no matter what. If it meant her own life, or the destruction of the Valkyrie, or the absolute failure of their secret project--the mobile suit /knew/ what was most important to her, and seized on it, making her secret goal its own.

She was losing control. Her innermost self was still being ripped away, all her thoughts used to fuel the Valkyrie's frenzy of destruction. The suit was alive, and it was war itself, just as the battle maiden it was named for. It knew too much about her. She was guiding it, however unwillingly, and it had already beaten her.

"Nicole! Shut it down--" Leia had run toward her, away from the relative shelter of the wall, and was screaming numbers and code at her that Une could no longer understand. She tried to yell to her, to make her get back, get away, out of reach of the psychotic machine that knew only hatred, and /knew/ somehow that the scientist was the chief obstacle between her and Treize--

"Leia! Get out of the way!" Treize was running toward his wife, but Valkyrie was already in motion. A shriek of defiance, of despair, ripped from Une's throat as she watched the skyline spinning on her viewscreen. She heaved desperately at the controls, every part of her conscious self pushing at the system dominating her mind.

The Valkyrie landed on its side with a crash. Une's voice broke--and so did her mind. She felt the /crack/, the sudden absence of a significant part of herself, and light swam dizzily in front of her eyes as they sunk closed.

But she could hear, even as the darkness swept in to claim her, Treize' heartbroken sobbing of Leia's name.

****