He and Sally split up, again, each being very familiar with the layout. Trowa stuck with Wufei. Sally was searching the East Wing of the second story while Wufei and Trowa looked West. They reached Relena's office early on, and Wufei felt it would be a good idea to search there. After all, Kav had had connections with Relena.
Somebody had been in there. The desk was a mess, as if somebody had searched it thoroughly for papers. Wufei had no idea of telling how recently that had been.
"I'll start searching the offices on the other side of the hall. It'll be quicker," Trowa said.
Wufei nodded and listened to him leave. The Preventers had, of course, had a lot of hard assignments in the past year. But nothing as big as this. Usually it was a minor uprising; Some ex-OZ officer wanting to bring back the old days of glory. Why couldn't they just leave well enough alone? Was peace really that bad for some people?
Nobody was there. The office was empty. Wufei turned and went back into the hallway. He didn't see Trowa, but he figured that he was probably in one of the rooms further down.
Before Wufei could even move to look, somebody yanked him into one of the side rooms. His attacker punched him in the stomach before Wufei had time to react. Wufei didn't fall that easily, though. He lashed out, punching the man across the face. He got a clear look at him. It was Kav, sure enough. What he was still doing here was anybody's guess.
Wufei pulled his gun out, but Kav was a split second faster. He'd brought his gun out and shot Wufei's gun out of his hand. Wufei smiled. What an idiot. Now Trowa would come and give him some backup.
"What are you smiling at?" Kav asked, looking confident.
Before Wufei had a chance to reply, another shot was heard. Kav's face changed from one of smug confidence to disbelief. He fell to the ground. Wufei turned to the door, crossing his arms.
"Thanks for the rescue, Trowa." Wufei did a double-take. It wasn't Trowa who had shot Kav. Quatre was standing in the doorway to the office, slowly lowering the gun he was holding.
****
Quatre should have felt a mixture of satisfaction and guilt over what he'd done. Probably also some amusement at Wufei's facial expression. However, the only thing he could think about was the pain in his back.
"Trowa said you weren't coming." Wufei said.
"Quatre?"
Quatre turned around to see Trowa standing in the hallway, weapon out. Quatre had wondered, on the way to Earth, whether Trowa would get mad at him or not. He shouldn't have worried.
Trowa just nodded and said, "I guess you're feeling better."
Quatre shook his head, "Not really. But I want to help you guys. Two of the warships are dangerously close to falling to the Earth. We have to do something."
Wufei stepped past Quatre and out of the office, "I'm not sure what we can do. We don't have any ships."
"Let's check to see if there's anything in the city." Quatre said.
Wufei nodded and started walking quickly down the hallway. Quatre walked alongside Trowa. Without a word, Quatre grabbed Trowa's hand and held it tight. Trowa glanced at him but didn't say anything.
****
Either Cathy had gone nuts or Quatre had snuck past her. Trowa decided that it must be the latter. He could tell that Quatre was in a great deal of pain, but he couldn't keep him from this battle. It wouldn't be right.
Ahead of them, Wufei had his communicator out and was contacting Sally and Duo. Wufei turned around, "Heero somehow made it here. He's already commandeered the last fighter in the city and has gone to try to stop Blanc." If Wufei noticed the handholding, he apparently didn't care enough to comment.
"Where's Duo and Sally now?" Quatre asked.
"Sally's in the east part of the building. She'll meet up with us. Duo's downstairs on the grounds, heading towards a military center a bit aways from this building."
"Tell Duo to continue to the military center. He can at least monitor what's going on from there. We'll meet him down there and see what we can do." Quatre said.
Wufei nodded and turned around to give the messages to Duo and Sally.
****
This just wasn't Duo's day. Of course, he should have figured that the military center would be full of rebels. He peered over the hood of the car he was taking cover behind. Dorothy and Hilde sat beside him.
"How's it look?" Hilde asked.
"Crowded," Duo replied. "With a lot of rebels. And I'm low on ammo."
"Same here," Hilde said.
Dorothy smiled, holding up a bag she'd had slung across her back, "Ammo shouldn't be a problem. Heero Yuy packs like a demolition man."
Duo silently thanked whatever god was listening that Heero liked to blow stuff up.
****
"There they are!" Sally said, noticing the three soldiers taking cover behind a car.
Wufei and Sally ducked around the corner of a nearby building. It looked like the rebels didn't want anybody getting into the military center.
Wufei poked his head around the corner to see Duo waving back at him. He turned to his partner, "Looks like they're stuck for the moment."
"So are we. We can't even get close to the building with all this shooting." Sally was checking her gun for ammo.
Wufei nodded, "We'll have to use the gas bombs."
"Without masks? Plus, we'd just knock out Duo and the others."
Wufei slipped the pack from his shoulder. "We'll just have to hold our breaths going in. I'm handing this off to Duo."
Sally looked skeptical but didn't stop him. "Do what you have to."
Wufei looked back around the corner. Duo seemed very far away. He brought his arm back and did a sidearm throw to Duo, hoping it wouldn't set the bombs off. It didn't. The pack hit Duo's foot, and he grabbed at it triumphantly. He gave Wufei the thumbs up sign before handing out the goods to Hilde and Dorothy.
Wufei turned back to Sally. "They have them. Give them a few seconds to take affect, then we move in."
Sally nodded.
****
Wufei was having some difficulties getting in through the front. Fortunately, the back was not nearly as well guarded. The rebels had underestimated them. Quatre waited patiently while Trowa tried to crack through the security systems to open up the back door. He sat with his back to the wall of the building, and pushed himself against it. Sometimes the pressure would make the pain lessen slightly.
He glanced over at Trowa, who's full attention was on hacking into the system. He wondered why they had decided to separate after the war. No, he knew why. But looking back on it, he thought it was for some rather unimportant reasons. Because when it came down to it, Quatre didn't want to leave Trowa again. Ever.
****
"Got it," Trowa announced, getting his gun out. Beside him, Quatre stood up, ready to enter the building. Trowa could tell that Quatre was in a lot of pain, but he didn't feel that he should stop him from fighting. Quatre was smart enough to know when he should quit.
Upon seeing that Quatre was ready to go, Trowa gave him a curt nod and headed in, taking the front to see if anybody were there. Nobody was. It seemed as if the rebels had sent all their troops to the front to try to hold off Wufei and Duo. Trowa mentally shook his head at their tactical error.
With Quatre close behind him, Trowa delved further into the center. The main control room had to be near the middle of the building. If they could get there without any incident -
"Down!" Quatre yelled and pushed Trowa to the ground and around a corner. Some rebels had come up behind them. Quatre fired off some blind shots around the corner as Trowa stood, searching through his pack for the small explosives Wufei had given him. He grabbed Quatre's shoulder and pulled him back from the other corridor, throwing the grenades.
Quatre and Trowa both braced themselves against the floor as the explosion rumbled past them. They waited, listening to see if any of the rebels had survived. They hadn't.
"So much for stealth," Quatre said.
That much was true. The explosion had undoubtedly alerted the rebels as to their presence. Trowa stood quickly, giving Quatre a hand in getting up. He wished he had had a chance to study the layout of the building. As it was, he had Wufei's hurried instructions to go on.
But he would have to make do. Trowa recognized the corridor he was in and kept running down it, relying on Quatre to bring up the rear.
"Trowa!" Quatre exclaimed. Trowa whirled around. He could tell that that was an exclamation of surprise, not of a threat. Trowa's eyes widened slowly as he saw what was behind them.
****
Run, run, run, dodge, and run some more. Duo really missed fighting with a Gundam. Less monotony. Plus, if somebody hit your Gundam, it would really hurt them more than it hurt you.
"Left!" Sally yelled from behind him. They'd split up. Duo and Hilde going with Sally, and Wufei and Dorothy were taking another route to the control room. Less targets for the enemies to shoot at.
Duo could see it. A lone door at the end of the hall. They'd made it.
"You'll need a card to get in. They've probably changed the protocols. We'll have to hack in." Sally said.
"That'll take too long," Duo said, while raising his gun. He shot at the card slot, hoping to fry enough of the circuits to convince the computer that there was an emergency. Most buildings had it so the doors would open in an emergency so as to not trap anybody inside. Thank goodness this building had the same programming.
The door flew open and the three were greeted with a lot of gunfire, but no real place to take cover. Duo crouched in the space beside the door, Hilde huddled against him. Sally glared at him from the other side.
"Maybe that wasn't my brightest idea," Duo admitted.
Then he heard the gunfire slow. He risked a look around the corner and saw Wufei and Dorothy taking care of most of the rebels, shooting carefully so as not to harm any of the systems.
Duo and Sally both stood at the same time, firing at the remaining rebels. Finally, they were gone.
Duo looked across the room at Wufei, who just nodded at him.
"Now what?" Duo asked.
As he said that, the door on the far side of the room opened. Duo's jaw dropped. Lady Une entered, looking around at the number of bodies on the floor, then at the band of soldiers that had retaken the room. Then, without a word, she stepped aside. An exhausted-looking Relena Darlian with an arm around Trowa's shoulders entered. Duo could tell that if Trowa removed his arm from her waist, she would collapse. He set her down on a chair as Quatre walked in last.
Relena looked down at the console in front of her. "I need to send a message out."
****
"Noin, what's your status?"
Noin had to grin. She wondered if Zechs asked the other pilots about their status. She wiped some of the sweat from her brow. The cockpit tended to get hot when the system was running at full power like this. "Weapons are almost out. We're getting a little tired out here."
"No good. The Pax ship is breaking away, but a small fighter has left. We think it's Blanc."
Noin checked her system's status. "Damn," she said softly. The Pax's ships were in better condition then they had been to begin with. "Don't know if we're up to getting him. We'll try."
There was a pause. Noin knew that somebody was informing Zechs of something. His voice came back, "Noin, another ship has just joined us from Earth."
"Earth? Just one ship? It isn't a rebel?" Noin asked.
"No, it's not threatening us. It's Heero Yuy."
Noin remained silent for a few seconds, then smiled. "Then this fight is nearly over."
****
There had been one working fighter left. Although, "working" was probably an exaggeration. Heero wouldn't trust this fighter to climb trees with, much less fight. But he had to use what he had.
Heero checked his scanners. He'd noticed the small fighter leaving the Pax vessel. He had no doubt that it was Blanc. The man was persistent in getting to Earth. Heero ignored the various Earth forces and zeroed in on Blanc.
His monitor switched on unexpectedly. Somebody was sending a wideband transmission. Heero hurried to shut it off and froze when he saw who it was. His hand moved away from the switch.
"Relena."
****
"This is Relena Peacecraft speaking," Relena said. She had no idea what she was going to say. Lady Une had briefly told her what had happened while she was out. But she hadn't had a chance to get her thoughts together. Not to mention that she was really tired. She paused. What could she say?
No, Relena, she thought. Don't think about it. Just talk.
"For the past year, we have lived in a time of relative peace. However, it seems as though there were some problems with that peace. Could we truly call it a peace when a rebellion is forming or when an organization such as Pax is gathering weapons?"
****
Blanc at first just tried to go around Heero, but Heero wasn't about to let him do that. He fired a shot at the other fighter's engines, trying to disable it. Blanc was a good pilot, though. He turned and dived towards Heero's ship.
A couple shots hit, but didn't do any damage. Heero turned starboard and fired some more. No good. Blanc was on his tail now. Not a good position for a fighter pilot to be in.
Heero pulled up sharply. He could hear the ship straining around him. His controls froze up for a second, then came back. Blanc didn't attempt to follow him. Heero curved to the port side and dove to where he was head-to-head with Blanc. Nobody could ignore that.
****
"Perhaps there can be no real peace. Because if only one person in the world wants to fight, then that will destroy the peace we've been trying to make. Perhaps people just forget what real war is like, so they have no fear of starting another one."
****
Blanc fired, but Heero slipped to the side quickly to avoid the shots. He couldn't let his ship get hit too much. It wouldn't be able to withstand too many shots. Heero replied with some shots of his own, aiming for critical systems on the ship.
At the last moment, Heero dove down under Blanc's ship. As effective as it may be, Heero wasn't on a suicide mission this time. He intended to live past this incident.
****
"However, I think you all remember. You remember the sacrifices that were made during the war. You remember the pointless lives lost. You remember the homes that were destroyed. But does anybody even remember what we were fighting about? How about now? What's this fight all about? Freedom of the colonies...or one man's lust for battle?"
****
Heero turned as quickly as he could, but Blanc was faster. A lucky shot had hit one of Heero's port engines. He felt the fighter shudder as the one port engine left worked overtime to compensate for the loss.
He cut back power to the starboard engines. No use burning the port one out to keeping from turning circles in space. He just would lose even more speed. He glanced out the window and saw Earth. No space. No colonies. Just Earth. Maybe this time, the earth could help him...
****
"Many of you may not be aware that the leader of the so-called Pax organization is also the leader of the rebels. His mission is not one to liberate the colonies, as he says. His mission is purely that of war. And he's manipulated the colonies into working for him."
****
While at first, Blanc may have just wanted to get past Heero to get to the earth. It now seemed obvious that Blanc wanted to kill Heero before going. That suited Heero just fine. He would play the one card he had left.
Heero let Blanc tail him, leading him into Earth's orbit. Blanc was firing, but Heero made sure to keep wiggling around, making it hard for Blanc to get a lock on him. When he noticed the ship struggling against Earth's gravity, he turned sharply 180 degrees. Then he put full thrust to his engines, not really caring if they burned out after this.
Blanc was caught by surprise. He slowed, not wanting to risk injuring his own engines with the sharp turn. That gave Heero the time he needed.
****
"Earth does not want to and will not fight the colonies. We are aware of the problems within the colonies, however those problems are not isolated to the colonies. Those problems occur even on the earth. Fighting over them would be pointless. Instead, we can work together to take care of it."
****
Heero fired all his weapons, draining his ammo. He'd risked everything on this. He felt his engines give out and started floating dead in space, yet he still fired.
It worked. Blanc's ship exploded. It was over. Without the ringleader, the rest of this circus of a rebellion would fall apart.
"Mission accomplished," Heero said.
****
"We all need to remember that peace is something that can only be obtained if we all believe in it. We all need to want it. Otherwise we'll be forced to see more lives lost in meaningless battles."