Tears of The Bloodstone

by Godshatter

non yaoi pairings; A mix of GW and some of my own imagination (NOT AU); A.C. Era, Releena gets word of Heero's possible death and goes to Mars with Hilde and Duo to see Dr. J (incomplete) ... PLEASE READ AND REVIEW

3. Tears of the Bloodstone Part III

"I think about you all the time, but I don't need to sing. It's lonely where you are so come back down, and I won't tell your name."

-'Name' by Googoo Dolls



1 Tears of the Bloodstone Part III

By: Godshatter

Disclaimer: (do I really have to do this every time?) I don't own Gundam Wing….



Pain: pain is nothing more than the transmission of electrons via nervous tissue in order to power receptor cells that transmit electrical pulses into our brain arranged in a pattern that allows us to discern the intensity of our bodies interaction with a foreign stimuli. Complicated right?

Pain wasn't the only thing filling the darkened cockpit, (dimmed and pitch colored except for a small display panel with a large wire frame globe: coordinate numbers glaring a dull amber color). Pain was something he had learned to shut out. Globules of blood sluggishly drifted about the small compartment; breath coming heavy and sporadic with hands laying limp on the two control sticks, a young man's body rested, battered and bleeding, in the pilot seat.

The autopilot was top of the line: it had had the same grid coordinates in its system for months in case something was to go wrong. During the mission, its internal AI had been constantly hacking the target's satellite network, scanning for signs of its pilot, downloading any relevant information. As the set return date approached the AI had dumped its physical memory (that which contained all of the mission downloads pertaining to its pilot and the mission itself,) into flight recorder disks and storing the entire cache in a Nutcracker (Nuclear- Chemical-Radiation-Resistant container.) The day of the departure arrived and the autopilot switched to a 24 hour countdown timer, upon reaching 0, the autopilot would make a bee-line for whatever its preset destination was.

Now in full control, the autopilot held true to its course and raced towards a low lunar orbit, where it would aerobrake in the weak atmosphere of the moon, and use its gravity to literally hurl it towards the earth. Its final destination was a manmade lake in a small Arabian desert.

* * *

The shuttle from earth was spacious, Duo walked down the blue carpeted isle at the front of the craft. He had 'abused' his rank, (seeing as how this was a military supervised flight) and reserved 3 first class seats for himself and his 2 companions. There was a quiet jazz tune drifting about the first class cabin while he, Releena, and Hilde all stuffed their carry on luggage into the racks above their heads.

"Thanks for getting us the seats Duo," said Releena, "I wouldn't have had the nerve to use my position like that," said Releena, reaching up on her tip-toes to stow her carry on bag in the top overhead luggage rack.

"Don't sweat it," replied Duo, giving her a hand getting her bag up and into the compartment. "You should try and have some fun with it though, after all its not only work that comes with your rank, so do certain… 'privileges'." He winked at her and grinned slyly. Hilde just rolled her eyes.

The passengers had started to board by then, they were of all types and descriptions, from the casual businessman to the small group of school children taking a class trip. Only one other person was sitting in first class with them: an old man with long graying hair and a stringy beard. He wore tan colored shorts that were frayed at the end, like they had been cut off of a longer pair of pants. He had on a plain black shirt and dark green hunting vest, on his feet were nothing more than a tattered pair of sandals. On the seat next to him was an old beat up military backpack that looked like it belonged in a museum, it's straps were torn or frayed and there were all kinds of stitch marks where it had been sewn back together. He was of a large build, and was still quite muscular even though he looked to be 50 or so. Duo watched him pull a leather bound book from his pack and scribble something down in it.

The captain's voice came on over the intercom, "Ladies and gentleman welcome to Federation Shuttle Flight 216, nonstop to Tranquility Hub, current weather is 72 degrees Fahrenheit, wind is 2 knots and we will be launching shortly. Our estimated travel time from here to the lunar halo is 13 hours. We request that you observe our restricted smoking policy and fasten your safety belts around yourself at this time."

After the captain switched off the intercom, the flight attendants made their way down the isle helping passengers secure their carryon and themselves. Hilde and Releena had both already strapped themselves in. Hilde glanced over at Duo, who was still fiddling with his harnesses and asked, "Ex-Gundam pilot Preventers Colonel and you can't even put on a shuttle's seat belt?" Releena laughed at this and reached over to help Duo.

"Its not that babe, its just… this is it? One damn strap is it? I'm looking around for like a shoulder harness or something, but nothing's there."

Hilde chuckled as Releena buckled Duo's seat belt and patted him on the knee, "You don't fly civilian shuttles often do you."

"Sure, all the time, I just always pilot them, the pilots have a waist belt, and a duel shoulder strap anchoring them into the seat." He emphasized the word 'anchor' by slamming himself back into his seat and making a show of trying to move.

"Duo, when did you ever pilot anything civilian?" asked Hilde, giggling in spite of herself.

"Uh, well," Duo fidgeted in his seat, "Well, there was that one time, when I was on site for the Tranquility refitting operation. You remember Hilde, you were doing that asteroid demo job at the hub, when the military was trying to move raw materials into orbit around the moon."

"I've never heard this story Duo," said Releena. She was about to say more when the fasten seat belt sign flickered and a tone sounded. The stewardesses dropped their tasks and made their way to the rear of the shuttle where they strapped themselves in. The tone sounded 2 more times followed by a loud whine in the background. Under their feet they heard humming as fuel was sucked up from the drooping wings through long siphon pipes. A 'switch' and a 'hiss' signified the pressurization of the cabin while the whine emanating from the rear of the shuttle steadily increased into a deafening roar.

The captain's voice once again came on over the intercom, just a barely audible squeak over the bellowing of the engines. "We have completed our final check and are cleared for takeoff, I will initiate the final countdown; all attendants to their stations please." On the backs of every chair, (and hovering in front of the first class passengers), a large holographic image of a countdown timer appeared. Starting at T- Minus: 15 seconds it counted down till 5, at which point a tone sounded and continued until the timer hit 0.

At first it felt like there was a single hand being pushed gently against her chest, Releena closed her eyes and waited for the grim weight of multiple-G acceleration. It had been a while since she had taken a trip off planet. Looking over at her friends, she saw Hilde looking out the window. The ground was rushing by under the shuttle. They passed the control tower along with the long gantry hanger beneath it, the line of aircraft and shuttles streaked by in a blurring splash of color, gradually becoming more distorted as their speed increased.

Duo, who was sitting at the far left on the isle seat, had called up a holoscreen: it displayed a view from an external camera mounted over the cockpit. "You two might want to brace yourselves a little bit, we're coming up to the boost ramp." Releena nodded and closed her eyes, resting her arms solidly on their armrests. Duo glanced over to Hilde and saw that she was still looking past Releena and out the window. He grinned and draped his arm around her. Another tone sounded and the shuttle hit the ramp.

The pilot opened up the throttle all the way, pouring fuel into the engines. They lit up the sky with a blinding light and drowned out the world with a roar that seemed to bellow from the very sky they were hurtling through.

The shuttle bucked violently, Releena jerked her eyes open and head up to look around. She thought she heard Duo say something but couldn't tell for sure over the engines. She looked over at him and he seemed to mouth something. Unable to read his lips she just shook her head. Duo nodded and leaned over in front of Hilde, "Sound barrier," he said. Not understanding, Releena just gave him a confused look. "Sound barrier," he said again, "We are breaking the sound barrier." The shuttle rocked again and threw Releena back in her seat. Duo just lay sprawled in Hilde's lap. She blushed and picked her friend up by his braid. Duo yelped and bolted upright in his seat. Unable to laugh because of the intense acceleration and G-force, Releena just smiled weakly at her friends. Apparently their time of service in the military had built up a tolerance for this sort of thing, and of course, Duo was a gundam pilot.

The windows were sealed by a metal plate that slid down to cover the glass from the outside while they passed through the upper atmosphere, though the heat buildup wasn't as extreme as it was during a reentry, it was still significant enough to cause concern during the early space- transit days.

Unable to look out the window, Hilde rested her head against Duo's shoulder and shut her eyes. Duo opened his eyes and blinked. Looking down at Hilde he kissed the top of her head and rested his own back against the seat.

To Releena, the weight of acceleration felt like a massive boot planted over her chest, slowly pressing her into the back of her seat. While not quite painful, the sensation was still very, very uncomfortable. The weight was growing and the boot felt as though it were going to punch through to her spine, then nothing. Her hair floated up and drifted about her face. She looked over at Duo and saw that his braid was twisting around in the air like some sort of snake.

Duo reached out and grabbed his braid; coiling it up behind his head he yawned and stretched his arms, popping his joints. "Ugh," said Hilde, "Do you always have to do that when we fly?"

"But babe, takeoff always makes me feel like I'm being smashed into a sardine can." Hilde shook her head and turned to Releena, who was busy trying to keep her hair from floating into her eyes. "Um, Hilde? Do you have a rubber band or something?" Hilde felt around in her pockets, but after a moment shook her head, "Nope, sorry Releena."

"I do," said Duo. Reaching into his pocket he managed to produce a black hair scrunchy and handed it to Releena.

"Thanks Duo, you're the only guy I know who would ever carry around one of these things." Duo noticed Releena looking at him, his braid in particular, "Well uh, yeah, sometimes I leave it unbraided… you know, to let it breath." He flushed somewhat and managed to flag down a flight attendant.

"Yes?" asked the young woman.

"Do you have any snacks or anything on here? I'm starving."

"If you can wait a little bit we should be bringing dinner out, we should be serving it in about 15 minutes." Duo seemed to consider it, but after a few moments his empty stomach made its presence known.

"Er," said Duo, "Is it any good? Cause, just between you and me, airline food isn't all that great, know what I mean?" The young woman smiled at him and pointed to the gold eagle on his jacket, "Well colonel, I bet you don't fly civilian flights very often do you."

"A… heheh, no I don't miss, ya got me there." Duo's braid had by now gotten loose from where he had coiled it up behind his head, and he was frantically trying to catch the end of it, but every time he moved his arm, his head would move and jerk the end of his braid out of reach again. Both Releena and Hilde were beside themselves trying to keep from laughing. Releena's entire face was a bright flush colored red, she had both hands over her mouth and teardrops were starting to brim. Hilde though, unable to contain herself had to quickly look away and was shaking with laughter.

Finally the young stewardess reached out and caught Duo's fidgety braid and handed it to him. "Oi, thanks, it can be a pain in the neck sometimes." Hilde chanced a quick look back at her boyfriend and burst out laughing again, it didn't seem possible for him to turn yet another shade of red, but him being Duo, he didn't disappoint.

After the group had managed to calm down (and Releena remembered to breath), the stewardess resumed her conversation. "Well, I think you'll find civilian flight food much more palatable than your standard MRE."

Duo seemed to think on the matter, and finally agreed, "Alright," he said, "But what exactly are you serving for dinner?"

The stewardess punched in a series of numbers on her clipboard and glanced over her display. "Choice of either turkey or beef on either rye bread or whole wheat, tomato basil soup or cream of potato soup, soft drink, apple or banana and a candy bar."

"That sounds pretty good," replied Duo. "Ok, I'll wait. But could I have a candy bar now?" Duo tried to look as puppy-faced as he could.

The girl laughed and nodded, with a swish of her blouse and skirt she floated off towards the back of the shuttle, leaving a light trail of perfume scented air.

"Duo, your so shameless."

"What was that babe?" Duo, still grinning, turned around in his seat to face back to Hilde and Releena.

"Oh nothing," she jabbed him playfully in the ribs and kissed him on the cheek.

The flight attendant made her way back from the back of the craft and handed Duo his candy bar, "One of the other attendants should be here in a few minutes to take your dinner requests," she said as she floated back towards the rear.

"You know," said Duo, munching on his candy bar, "I would think dinner in the first class cabin of a federation civilian shuttle flight to Tranquility would be a little better than a sandwich."

"Duo," said Hilde, stealing a bite from Duo's candy bar, "You know you can't eat extravagant meals in a null-G place like this, it would royally muck up the oxygen scrubbers with all that gunk floating around."

Duo pouted and Releena started chuckling, "Duo, you're really cute when you do that." Duo blushed and Hilde patted him on the head, "Yeah, he's my goofball alright." Both girls got a laugh out of that.

"Man, you two are mean, I'll just have to sit here and do nothing for the whole trip." Duo folded his arms over his chest and closed his eyes, turning his head to face out into the isle, away from the girls.

Hilde and Releena both exchanged knowing glances, "Duo, you won't last five minutes like that," said Releena. "Yeah," said Hilde, "Why don't you come back and play with us."

Duo didn't make a sound. A few minutes passed and he turned to look back at the girls, who were staring right back at him, unblinking. He closed his eyes and turned his head back away from them.

Air passed through the conduits overhead while the oxygen scrubbers hummed away. The engines continued to belch fire, but in the soundless environment of space the bellowing roar that had at first spewed out of the rocket nozzles drifted up through the cabins as little more than a dull rumble. Inside the cabin itself, air currents drifted lazily throughout the isles and passengers, occasionally a slight breeze would drift over someone's newspaper and it would rattle slightly.

Duo looked back at the girls, who continued to stare back at him unblinking. "You two are really starting to creep me out, you know?"

Both girls tried their hardest not to laugh, or even crack a smile. They seemed to do fine until Duo arched one of his eyebrows and gave them a funny leer. It was just too much, both girls burst out laughing and Hilde pounced on Duo. As the two were about to flout out into the isle, Releena reached out and grabbed hold of Duo's braid, tugging them back into their seats.

"Oow ow ow ow… Leena, that hurt," grumbled Duo, rubbing the top of his head.

"Sorry Duo, but the flight attendant was trying to get through the isle, you were about to fly into her. I just grabbed hold of the only thing on hand."

"Oi… but still," Duo continued to rub his head. Next to him Hilde was giggling, "Aw, stop your bitching Duo, be a man."

"But babe-" Duo was cut off when Hilde leaned over and planted a nice wet kiss right on his mouth. "Eheh… heh… in that case." Duo grinned and glomped Hilde, the two thrashed around in a midair for several moments while Duo tried to tickle Hilde

"Ack! Duo, you know how ticklish I am."

Duo grinned evilly and nodded his head vigorously.

"Uh…. If ya'll are busy I can come back and take your orders latter."

Releena tapped Duo on the shoulder and pointed to the stewardess who had brought Duo's candy bar. "I think it's dinner time," she said.

"Ah, so it is, so it is," said Duo, letting go of Hilde. Hilde floated back down into her seat and turned several shades of red. The flight attendant, trying very hard not to laugh, asked the group what they wanted and left.

"Dou, you were saying earlier, about how you had piloted a civilian shuttle during some sort of construction on the moon? I don't think I've ever heard that story," said Releena.

Do yawned and stretched like a cat, "Hmmph," was all he said. As he started to speak again, the flight attendant appeared with their sandwiches and fruit. "Ya, it was when we were rebuilding the Halo for Tranquility, the lunar station." Duo took a huge bite out of his sandwich and chewed thoughtfully. "This stuff is pretty good." Both Releena and Hilde took small bites from their own meals and nodded their heads in agreement.

"I wasn't a full colonel then, just a Lt. Colonel, I was there under the command of Fleet Marshal Hymie Wyise. Pretty level headed guy. Anyways," Duo continued, "That was when a fragment of the Sigon Clan was still roaming in space." Duo took a sip from his drink bulb and finished off his sandwich.

"I didn't know the Sigon had made it into space," said Releena, a concerned expression on her face."

"Well, we were pretty surprised at the news too, we had always thought that they were only an earthbound group. The real surprise is that they had started in space and had overtly taken over a colony long before the Eve Wars. Sigon Clan is older than the old federation."

"Duo," said Hilde "Is this the time your shuttle was attacked in that escort convoy? The one at the far side of the moon where all the attacks on the Halo were."

Duo nodded, "You got it babe." Hilde grimaced and replied, "That was an ugly incident; we all thought you'd died."

"I was in a 3 shuttle convoy, the first 2 were carrying engineers and parts for the Halo that had been attacked a few days prior. There were 2 fighter groups from the 104th fighter wing based out of Miramar on the moon, and a heavy bomber group from the152nd bomber wing from Tranquility Hub." Duo clenched his fists and crushed his empty drink bulb in his hand, it groaned and gave way with a loud crinkling noise.

"Skunkworks had thought up some new toy for me to use. It was based on the zero system data compiled from Heero's flight recorders. It was supposed to let me issue direct orders to the individual pilots in real time via the their flight computers. It let me show to them in a millisecond the overall objective I was trying to get them to accomplish. Basically it put a 3D image of what I was trying to come up with for a battle plan onto a readout that displayed directly on their retinas."

Hilde took hold of Duo's arm, sensing his overwhelming emotions washing over her, "Duo, you never told me about the new system."

"I couldn't babe, it was a classified eyes only type thing."

"Did it work?" asked Releena.

"Ya, it worked, it worked wonderfully well. But then those bastards played their trump card." Duo put his hands in his head and sighed animatedly, "I don't know what the fuck it was. At first it looked like we were gonna kick the shit out of em. They only had what looked to be a small contingent of fighters and maybe 2 or 3 mobile suits providing fire support, the mobile suits looked like first generation Leo's. The heavy bombers took out the mobile suits easily, but once the fighters were duking it out they pulled some crazy stuff. I'm talking stuff that defied physics, they just took the damn rulebook and tossed it out the airlock." Hilde was clutching to Duo's side while Releena just stared out the viewport, seemingly lost in thought. Turning her head back to face Duo, she closed her eyes and rested her head against the back of her seat and the fuselage side.

"But," said Duo, "It wasn't so much their fancy acrobatics that scared me, some of those moves a gundam could pull easily, but would be impossible for a fighter. What really scared me were their weapons. At first I thought the lines that would streak out from the enemy ships to mine were targeting lasers, just visible ones. I mean, I didn't think a beam of light that would travel the distance between one ship to another faster than I could actually see the beam move, would actually be a weapon. I realized it was a weapon when the shuttle in front of us was hit, and even if it was a weapon, such a small beam wouldn't look to cause a whole lot of damage either." Duo took a long draw from another drink bulb and let it float up, empty, it rotated slowly in the air currents and tumbled back into the rear section of the ship. Duo watched its slow spinning movements for a short time and continued his story.

"The shuttle at the front was already destroyed, I saw some of its debris drift past us after a minute or two, that was the one carrying generators and electrical conduits, no personnel save the pilot and navigator. I didn't actually see it explode but I saw what was left of it, and it wasn't much. By that time all of the bombers had been shot down and there was only half a fighter group left. They were still buzzing around about a hundred kilometers away; I think we actually got one or two of the buggers in that fight. So that was when the shuttle in front of us took a hit. One hit, one damn hit, right smack dab in the center. A green light beam lanced out from the fray going on above us and struck the ship square in its big white middle. The beam cut strait through the airframe and passed out the other end, the shuttle imploded at first, like the beam was trying to suck the shuttle right into it, and continue on through space. After a second or two, though it seemed like an eternity and then some, the shuttle exploded, a brilliant flash of light that shook our ship. That's when I looked out one of the side windows and saw our right wing take a hit: the wing exploded and sent the ship reeling. I managed to get to the airlock, but when I was in the middle of getting my spacesuit on, the hatch blew and the cabin instantly depressurized, I had just enough time to get my helmet on, I couldn't even grab a tank of air. I was flung out the hatch and drifted in space, watching the battle come to a close. All I had was the few minutes of air in an emergency supply bladder. Luckily our pilot had been smart enough to send a distress signal at the first sign of an attack. So I drifted, trying to breath as little and slowly as possible. I actually lasted half an hour like that, but by the time the shuttle came I was so high from oxygen deprivation and the suppressor drugs the suit had given me, that the shuttle looked like this giant white condor swooping down to snatch me up for a meal. I almost tore my helmet off trying to get away. But I was thrashing around so much I passed out: I'd used up all the oxygen in my system. Luckily the shuttle saw my transponder light and picked me up. The next thing I knew I had 30 people standing over me, all in civilian dress." Duo stopped his story and looked across the isle, out the far window, watching the stars drift ever so slowly in the window.

"Luckily," he continued, "I wasn't seriously injured, just a little leery from the loss of oxygen. After a few minutes my vision cleared and I could think strait. But," sighed Duo, "The bastards came back, they didn't bother to use that freaky ray gun either, so they used kinetic weapons instead. One of the impacts ended up throwing the pilot out of his chair, he snapped his neck when his face smashed into the cockpit window. I told the stewardesses I was capable of flying the ship and told them to take the pilot to the back of the shuttle. So all that was left was for me to pilot us to the closest base. By the time we were under way again a fighter contingent from the fleet carrier Indianapolis had responded to our threat- con signal and had engaged the enemy, but not before the shuttle suffered serious damage to the gimbals and aft thrusters. I was down to only half of the usual maneuverability and in the middle of a war zone. I didn't care where we went, just so long as it was somewhere other than where we were, so I punched the engines without even thinking. The starboard side engine exploded and ripped off a good portion of the right wing, but I managed to limp the shuttle back home while the fighters flew cover for me." Duo reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small gold star with a gold oak leaf on either side, in the center was an engraving of the earth sphere. On the back was etched: 'Lt. Colonel Duo Maxwell awarded for bravery above and beyond the call of duty' with the date Towards Stardate AC 03/24/198. It was attached to a dark blue ribbon with red stripes on either side. Duo handed the medal to Hilde so she could look at it.

"Duo, I never knew you got this, I never even heard of an award ceremony."

"Ya, I know," said Duo, running his hand through his bangs, "They gave it to me in a closed ceremony, President Une gave it to me, she is looking a lot better now that the war is over, not as pale." Releena nodded in agreement, Hilde handed her the medal and she held it up so she could see it. "It's heavy," she said, "No wonder you never wear it."

"Yeah, its heavy alright, it has the weigh of 15 dead enlisted men, 30 pilots, 10 navigator/bombers, 5 marines, 3 captains, a major and 4 civilians."

Hilde hugged Duo from beside him and stroked his cheek, "Why was it classified?"

Duo looked across the isle again to see out the viewport, "I don't really know, other than the obviously new weapons technology, and the fact that they were Sigon, the Preventers supposedly wiped them all out during Indo-China offensive." Duo shrugged and closed his eyes, folding his hands back behind his head he slouched down into his seat and said, "I'm gonna take a nap you two, I was never a big fan of shuttle flights. Wake me up when we get close to the Hub alright?"

"Sure Duo," Hilde said. Releena nodded and smiled at the tired pilot.

Duo yawned and fell asleep on the spot. Hilde turned to Releena and said, "I wish I could do that, fall asleep on the spot like he does."

"Yeah," Releena agreed, "I bet it really comes in handy." Hilde reached over and kissed Duo lightly on the cheek, "Sweet dreams," she whispered into his ear.

"I might as well try and get some sleep too," said Releena.

"I think I will too," said Hilde, already leaning her head against Duo's shoulder with her eyes closed. She breathed deeply for a little bit, but then her breath became shallower, and then finally she drifted off to sleep.

So she can do it after all, thought Releena. Closing her eyes she let her head rest against the back of her chair and the side of the airframe. Her hair drifted up in front of her face but she let it sway around in the air currents, after a few minutes sleep claimed her and she drifted off afloat in a dark pool of dreams.

* * *

Tranquility Halo: During the early days of the colony era, and the few years prior, it was decided that Earth was in need of an orbiting shipyard in order to produce the massive colonies and their various support ships. Work on the first earth Halo was started in the Before Colony Year 2147. It was a joint operation mounted by NASA, Great Britain, France, Germany, Indo- China and the UAC (Union Aerospace Corporation), a massive aeronautical company boasting affiliates in all major countries of the world.

The first colony, called Star Home, was completed in 2152, that year was thus designated After Colony Year 001, or AC 01. Work on the Mobius Halo was completed 4 years latter in A.C. 05. By that time, 3 other small- scale colonies were completed and christened Dawn Treader, Hyperion and Olympus. All three of these colonies were moved completely out of the earth sphere and petitioned for independence from the homeworld. A UN summit meeting was convened and after 2 long years of fierce debate, the 3 colonies were allowed their autonomy. In the face of such news, there was a rallying around the world for a unified global nation. At the same time a massive research operation was being conducted in high Mars orbit, it was considered by many to be the reason the governments of the world hadn't moved towards a unified government. Too many of the pencil pushers considered its operation to be an investment risk if the governments of the world unified. In light of the decision to hold off unification, many people from the earth started moving to the colonies.

In A.C. 021 construction of a new Halo was ordered by the UAC, which had become a very powerful influence within the earth sphere. The Atlas Halo, the 2nd of the two earth Halos, was completed in A.C. 027, its purpose was the construction of warships and research into interplanetary travel. The first warship out of the yard was the commodore class destroyer Hunter-Gratzna, she displaced 850,000 metric tons and was the largest non- colony class vessel to ever be created by any of the halos. However, the Hunter-Gratzna was lost during an inspection of the Mars colony area named Luna Sea. It, along with an entire colony group were reported lost by the research scientists stationed on Phobos. It was reported latter that the massive warship, along with 4 colonies, was completely destroyed in a freak accident involving the PRAI (Phobos Research Associates International), and one of their prototypes. This event sparked the first war between the space colonies and the fledgling GovCentral, the unified earth government, in A.C. 45. The colonies blamed GovCentral for the accident while GovCentral accused the colonies of attempted sabotage. The war lasted 3 years and saw the introduction of rudimentary mobile suits. After the war, and the colonies defeat at the battle of Spartan, a small battle at colony area D that resulted in the capture of the colonies' leader Fredrick Wiendhelm. One week latter an armistice was signed.

The colonies decided that in order for them to survive as a nation, they would need access to a massive shipyard of their own, but they knew that after the first space war, the GovCentral would never let them near either Mobius Halo or Atlas Halo. So they decided to build their own in lunar orbit.

Construction of Tranquility Halo began in A.C. 50 and was completed A.C. 61.

Tranquility Halo was the largest of the three Halos and even had its own hub, or gantry/starship docking arena. The Hub was basically an old colony that was gutted and refitted with malls, arcades, industrial sites, hotels and massive generators to power the hub. Tranquility Hub was the first orbiting starport. 4 years latter GovCentral initiated work on its own hub for Mobius Halo, though it was considerably smaller and less comfortable than Tranquility Hub.

During the Eve Wars, Tranquility was scrapped down to just the rotating colony hub in order to provide pre-fabricated materials for the heavy cruiser Libra. At 700,000 tons she was the 3rd largest warship to be produced by a terrestrial halo. The 2nd largest ship was the fleet carrier Garm, lost in the space war of A.C. 137 it was the flagship of the Earths Sphere Alliance. The Alliance was formed after the collapse of GovCentral, when, during the 2nd space war of A.C. 095, the colony armada dropped a frigate on the GovCentral capitol city Athens.

After the Eve Wars the Unified Earth Sphere under President Une reconstructed Tranquility Halo and repaired its Hub, at the same time they built several mammoth atmosphere generation stations along the moon's equator. While not possessing a viable atmosphere for human's to live in, it still has considerable density. Now Tranquility serves as a springboard for vessels traversing too and from the Mars Terraforming Project.

* * *

Duo opened his eyes partially and shut them again, squinting in the bright cabin light he rubbed his eyes blearily and grumbled. After a 7 hour nap, he was most certainly not a morning person.

"Oi Duo, I didn't think you would ever wake up, I was about to pull out my nine and start shooting blanks." Duo said something unintelligible, sounding like it had the word "breakfast" somewhere in there.

All of a sudden Duo felt a violent shuddering tear through the shuttle, his head lurched forward and he almost knocked heads with Hilde, "What the fuck?" he cursed.

"Relax Duo, we're just docking with the Hub, you know how green pilots always screw up in zero-G," said Hilde, rubbing the side of her head where she had collided with Releena's shoulder.

Duo leaned over and craned his neck so he could see past Releena and Hilde and out of the window. "Looks like he hit the gantry door while it was sliding open, what an idiot, how impatient to you have to be to not wait for the garage door to open." Duo smacked himself in the forehead and let loose with another string of curses.

By the time Hilde and Releena had managed to calm Duo back to his senses, and convinced him it would NOT be a good idea for him to go up front and teach the pilot "a thing or two," the shuttle had arrived at the gate and most of the passengers were up and about trying to grab their luggage.

The three waited for the other passengers to clear the isles and exit the shuttle before they got up and grabbed their own gear. Making their way up to the front of the shuttle they saw that the captain and his navigator were both standing at the exit so that they could say goodbye to the passengers. Both Releena and Hilde made their way out of the shuttle and were walking down the gate ramp when they turned and saw Duo put his bags down at the door of the shuttle and say something to the pilot.

"Have a nice day sir," said the pilot.

Duo turned to the pilot and said, "I just have one question."

"What's that?"

"Did we crash… or were we shot down." Duo picked up his bag and heaved it over his shoulder, exiting the craft, leaving a sputtering pilot and his laughing crewmate.

Walking along the main strip, the trio wondered into a small breakfast café, it was a simple shop, but had a wonderful view of the moon. Duo ordered hashbrowns, eggs, coffee, sausage and pancakes, the girls each had some orange juice, grapefruit and some eggs.

"Ya know," said Duo, his mouth full of sausage, "I don't remember the last time I had a breakfast like this, probably whenever the last time you and I both had a day off at the same time, right Hilde?" Hilde nodded and continued to chew her grapefruit. "Hilde's a great cook," Duo continued, "She always makes the best stuff." Duo grinned at a now blushing Hilde and shoveled another spoonful of eggs into his mouth.

"So I guess army food isn't all that great then," said Releena, trying to help Hilde out.

"It's alright," said Hilde, "At least the hot stuff is pretty good, like the meals we have on the base. But when we're in the field its MRE's." Duo and Hilde both blanched and shook their heads. "Terrible stuff," said Duo.

"M-R-E?" asked Releena.

"Ya, Meal Ready to Eat," replied Hilde, "It's like a T.V. dinner, only cold."

"Hey Releena? When is our flight out to Mars leaving? Pagan never told me or Hilde that bit of the trip."

Releena reached into her traveling purse and produced from it a small planner booklet and thumbed through its pages. Stuck in between two of the pages were 3 oblong sheets of paper: their tickets. "Lets see," she murmured to herself, flipping through the papers and glancing at the tickets, "Looks like we have an hour and a half to kill before the ship to Mars leaves."

Duo had finished up his breakfast and was downing a glass of water, after a long draft from the cup he said, "An hour and a half eh? I'm sure we'll find something to do."

"I dunno," said Hilde, "I'd rather talk about what the heck we're doing going to Mars, I mean Dr. J wasn't exactly specific when he told yall to go right?" Both Duo and Releena nodded. "So what could he want with us?"

"I don't know," said Releena, eating the last morsel of her grapefruit, "Duo, do you have any ideas?"

"Er… Um, not really… no" Duo took a nervous swig of water and hopped up from his seat, stretching quickly, "Why don't we go to like the viewport or something, the moon's quite a sight from there." And with that Duo bounded off down the corridor, heading for the docking area. "Well, at least he left some cash," said Releena, digging into her purse for her own wallet. "Yeah," said Hilde, doing the same.

By the time the two girls had caught up with Duo he had already grabbed a table on the terrace jutting out from one of the hub's viewing decks, there was a large dome shaped window that looked like a giant bubble bulging out from the side of the structure. Once they got over to the table Duo reached over and pulled out a chair for Hilde and did the same on his other side for Releena, "Thanks," the two girls said.

The two girls sat down and watch the moon break the horizon of the rotating hub, the three of them sat in silence for a few minutes until Hilde turned to Duo and asked, "What was that all about back there, is there something your not telling us Duo?" asked Hilde, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

"No, course not babe-"

"Duo," Releena cut in, putting her hand on his arm, "If there is something you know please tell us." Duo looked from one girl to the other, from Hilde to Releena, back and forth, "Alright," he said, "I fold." Duo sighed and looked out at the moon, slowing drifting by as the spaceport hub rotated. "A couple of days ago, maybe 3, if you include the jet lag, I got a peculiar email. There was no subject and didn't tell me who sent it, all there was, was a string of numbers. At the bottom was another string of numbers: Alpha-Zulo-01," Duo rattled off from memory. Turning to face the girls he continued, "The first string of numbers looked like map coordinates, I don't remember what they were exactly, but they put whatever it was supposed to be, right in the middle of Quatre's estate, specifically a small lake Q-man had put in just a few weeks prior. Also, right before the string that looked like Heero's mission confirmation code was 11/27- 2415, both Quatre and myself agreed that those numbers were a date and time for an event. The only thing we don't know is what the event is, but seeing as how today is the 25th, we both suspect that it's Heero trying to tell us when he is hoping to be back."

"I see," said Hilde, "But why wouldn't he just rendezvous with a Preventer's ship or at one of the Halos?"

"Well, because the message wasn't physically sent by Heero himself, I think something has happened, not to mention the letter Releena got from Dr. J." Hilde closed her eyes and shook her head, she really hated to see her friend go through all this, but she knew Releena was strong, stronger than most of them. "So," Duo continued, "From the looks of things Wing Zero sent the message to me, and simply signed it with the mission confirmation code. On the 27th Quatre is going to have Dorothy and some of the Maganacs go to the site." Duo shrugged, "An that's all I know."

"Do you think Heero is alive?" Releena asked, turning to Duo, her face suddenly looking tired and worn. "I don't know," said Duo, "But if he is, he must be in horrible shape, otherwise he would have sent the message himself, and not left it up to Zero's automation."

Releena closed her eyes and breathed quietly for a little while, "Heero…" she murmured. It seemed almost unfair to her, that she always had to be drawn to him, no matter how callous he was, he always managed to show a spec of humanity in him, just a tease to keep her going. She managed to fight back the tears this time, but just barely. She opened her eyes and looked back around. Both Duo and Hilde were gone. Glancing about herself Releena saw that a number of people had crowded up at the railing of the terrace, Hilde and Duo among them. Hilde managed to catch her eye and motioned for Releena to come join them.

"What's the fuss all about," asked Rleena once she had managed to push her way over to wear Hilde and Duo were leaning against the railing.

"That," said Duo, pointing below them, towards the bottom of the bubble-like window.

Passing right below Tranquility Halo and the hub was a queer white shaped craft. It was long and slightly needle shaped with what looked to be riffling grooves etched into its sides, running the entire length, and short stubby wings. The fuselage was spinning at a moderate speed as the ship skirted the lunar atmosphere. Fire trailing behind the oblong craft, it glowed an intense orange as its firry decent streaked across the background of the ashen colored moon. A second latter the grooves in the fuselage closed and left the airframe perfectly smooth. As the bizarre re- entry vehicle skipped across the moon's atmospheric envelope, the nose tilted up and a wave a fire rolled out from underneath the spacecraft. Lurching forward it rushed through the halo's sprawling array of metal girders, beams, gantry arms and vessels. Hurtling upwards its sleek frame blurred steadily as it accelerated passed the hub and out into space, its incredible speed siphoning up tongues of fire that lapped around the internal metal structure of the halo. After a few minutes the fires extinguished themselves in the vacuum of space.

"What the hell…" whispered Hilde to herself as people began to drift away from the terrace in the viewing dome.

"You took the words right out of my mouth babe," said Duo, staring out at the commotion going on outside the giant window. Grimy ovoid shaped repair ships and workmen in spacesuits swarmed the area where the craft had rocketed through the halo, within a few minutes sparks from welding crews and maintenance vehicles could be seen illuminating the dusky interior of the superstructure, casting eerie shadows into the viewing terrace.

The three had wondered back to their seats and were now situated around the table. Releena glanced down at her watch and said, more to herself, "We still have 45 minutes until check in for the flight begins."

Duo glanced around the large open room and fiddled with his braid for a few moments. Finally he reached over and pulled a hardbound book out of his duffel bag. He took of his jacket and draped it loosely over the back of his seat, then sitting down he propped up his feet on an empty chair he had swiped from an adjacent table and started to read quietly to himself. After a few minutes he glanced up from his book and noticed that the two girls had managed to sneak off without him noticing. Bah, I know better than to do that, I'm starting to get sloppy. Duo mentally kicked himself in the arse for not paying better attention, but let it go at that… this time.

Hilde and Releena sat across one another at a quaint little coffee shop about 10 minutes walking time from the main strip, where they had left Duo on the observation terrace. Hilde was munching on a small piece of pecan pie while Releena delicately sipped a piping cup of frothy white chocolate mocha. Both girls sat in silence for while and simply enjoyed one another's presence and the charming environment of the coffee shop.

"You know," said Releena, first to break the silence, "It's a shame we don't get a chance to do this more often, we're always so busy. I don't even remember the last time I saw Dorothy or Catherine."

"I haven't seen Sally for a while either," said Hilde, finishing up the last remnants of her pie crust, "And I used to see her a lot, back when I first joined the Preventers."

"I think," said Releena, eyes closed and in thought, "The last time we were all together was at the Preventer's Christmas Ball, I remember because that was when Noin and my brother announced their engagement."

"Say, that reminds me, Releena, do you think we'll have time to visit them? I thought Milliardo and Lucretzia both volunteered for the Mars terraforming project."

"I don't know, I don't even remember where they said they had moved, so many things have changed on Mars in the past few years. When I first started working with the Board of Colonization there was only one small colony of 500 people, it wasn't even self sufficient and that was something like 3 years ago." Hilde nodded and chewed on a coffee straw. "When we get back, we should throw a party or something, I know Duo would love to see the other pilots."

Releena nodded slightly, but had a distant look on her face, she seemed to be looking at Hilde, but Hilde knew she was seeing right through her, deep into the cold maw of space where she hoped, nay, knew Heero was adrift and alive, if just barely.

Hilde reached her hand out and touched Releena's, "He's alive you know, he wouldn't die on you."

"I know," murmured Releena.

"Duo always said what Heero lacked in common sense, he made up for in gundanium plated spandex shorts."

"You know," chuckled Releena, "I always wondered how the hell he managed to squeeze into those."

Hilde guffawed and drooped her head in her hands while her body shook with bouts of laughter, "What's an even more interesting question is, where does he keep that gun of his, its gotta get in the way of something." Releena and Hilde were both laughing so hard that the other patrons of the store were beginning to toss them odd sidelong glances.

"You know," ventured Hilde, "I think we should go back and see what Duo's up to, it may be hazardous to other people's health to leave him alone." Releena mockingly hit Hilde on her arm, "You're so cruel, Mrs. Maxwell indeed." Both girls walked out of the coffee shop laughing and in high spirits.

Hilde and Releena found Duo exactly where they had left him, with the addition of a book in his hand. He was leaning back in his metal chair with one arm propped up behind his head, while the other held an ornately bound blue hardback book.

"Whatcha reading sweetie?" asked Hilde.

"Something Quatre let me barrow."

"Oh really, mind if I take a look?" Duo marked his place with a silver bookmark and handed the book over to Hilde. Opening it up she skimmed through a couple of pages and looked back up at Duo with a perplexed expression.

Releena leaned over and craned her neck so that she could read over Hilde's shoulder. Squinting her eyes, she looked back up at Duo and said, "You can actually read that?"

"Of course," said Duo. Hilde handed it back to him and shrugged. "Would you mind reading a little of it to us?" she asked.

"Sure," said Duo, thumbing through the pages till he got the very beginning. "Its in Latin," he said, "The book is called The Aeneid, it's written by some ancient guy named Virgil."

"That's ok," said Hilde, somewhat interested now in what Duo was reading.

Duo nodded and started to read aloud:

"Arma virumque cano, Trojae qui primus ab oris Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit litora, multum ille et terries jactatus et alto vi superum, saevae memorem Junonis ob iram."

"And what is that in English?" asked Releena. Duo paused and reread a few times the lines he had just cited. "Just a sec," he said. A few more seconds passed and he nodded his head, "Alright," he said. "Now this is what it means, at least as best as I can translate." Duo read the lines over once more and began again:

"I sing of warfare and a man at war.

From the sea-coast of Troy in early days

He came to Italy by destiny,

To our Lavinian western shore,

A fugitive, this captain, buffeted

Cruelly on land as on the sea

By blows from powers of the air- behind them

Baleful Juno in her sleepless rage."

"I'm impressed Duo," said Releena, "I didn't think anyone ever bothered to read those old stories."

"No one ever does," replied Duo, "Quatre just happened to have this sitting on his shelf. So I asked him if I could barrow it. He didn't mind cause he didn't know enough Latin to understand it."

"I see," said Hilde, digging through her bag.

"What are you looking for honey?"

"Chapstick."

"Oh… hrm, I might have some in my duffel, lemme check." Duo hopped out of his seat and started rummaging through his bag. He managed to procure the desired object and tossed it over to Hilde, who promptly shared it with Releena. Duo stuffed his book back into his bag and heaved it up over his shoulder.

"Time to go already?" asked Releena, seeing that Duo was already picking up both her bag and Hilde's

"Yup," he said. Hilde looked up and grinned at him, she went up and kissed him on the cheek, "Thanks," she said.

"No problem," grunted Duo, lugging the bags over his shoulder. The trio headed off towards the terminal gate listed on Releena's ticket stubs, every time they passed one of the large blue numbered signs they would glance over at Releena, who would shake her head. Finally they reached the gate numbered 27D, both Hilde and Duo glanced at Releena who nodded vigorously, affirmative.

Coming up the brief staircase Duo started chuckling to himself, realizing how funny they must have looked, always expectantly staring over at Releena every time they came up to a terminal gate.

"Baggage check," declared a young dark skinned woman.

Releena went over to the large glass-polymer window and looked out at the docking gantry. Making a concerned face, she walked over to where the dark skinned lady was standing.

"Excuse me, ma'am, but where is the starship to Mars? Surely that little ship isn't it."

The lady craned her neck so she could see out the window from where she was standing, stretching the fabric of her white blouse. "No miss, it isn't. That's a spaceplane. It's going to take you to the starship that's at a refueling station, it will ferry your baggage there as well." Releena nodded and thanked the woman, then headed over to where Duo and Hilde were standing.

Duo had already dropped their baggage off at the register booth and paid the weigh in fee. "Oi," he said, "I don't know how I'm going to handle a two day flight."

"You could just sleep it off," said Hilde, rummaging through her carry on bag looking for a MD player. "Duo, do you know if we remembered to pack batteries?" Duo shrugged and started to look through his own duffel bag.

"Found em," called Duo, "We packed enough to power a gundam, I don't remember ever putting this many in here."

"Ah, so that's where I put em all," said Hilde, pulling out a half- dozen or so packages of batteries out of Duo's bag.

"Hey, Rleena? What do you plan to do for the flight? Its like 40 hours or something."

"I don't know Duo, I brought a book to read and some music, plus I have the two of you to talk too." Duo nodded and sauntered over to a young stewardess, "Excuse me miss," he said, "Do you know if there are any in flight movies on the Mars starship?"

"I don't know," replied the young lady, "This is my first time to fly on an interplanetary vessel."

"Ah," said Duo, a hint of disappointment sneaking into his tone, "How long have you been working as a stewardess?"

The girl thought for a moment and nodded her head slightly, counting mentally. "One year, 3 months and 12 days," she replied, a great deal of weariness in her tone.

Duo jumped when he felt someone tapping him on the shoulder, wheeling around he recognized the man standing in front of him as the older gentleman from the shuttle flight. The man extended his hand in greeting and smiled generously, "Colonel Maxwell, correct?"

"Uh, yeah, who are you," said Duo, hesitantly shaking the man's hand.

"Dr. Wade," said the gentleman, "It's far out to finally meet one of you kids, I'm a friend of Howard's, he'd always be telling me stories about yall, especially you Duo."

Duo withdrew his hand from the grasp of the strange man and eyed him curiously. He seemed nice enough, had a bit of a hippy streak in him, just like Howard. "How do you know Howard?" he asked.

"Howard and myself go way, way back. We worked with Dr. Yoshinto on the Vernier Project."

"Dr. Yoshinto? I've never heard of the guy," said Duo, now genuinely interested.

"Yeah," said Wade, "Dr. Joseph Yoshinto."

Duo scratched his head and thought to himself for a moment, then asked, "You don't mean Dr. J, do you?"

"That's the guy, all of the other fellas started calling themselves by the first letter of their first name to throw off the Alliance, back when we were designing the gundams."

"Er… right, right," said Duo, running his hand trough his bangs. Dr. Wade was quite the energetic fellow for being as old as the other "doctors".

"So, Duo, I'm assuming your on this flight as per Dr. J's request, am I right?" asked Dr. Wade, very serious all of a sudden.

"Yeah."

"Did he tell you why?"

"No, not really," said Duo shaking his head, "He sent a request to Releena, Pagan is actually the one who told us."

"Pagan?"

"He's kinda like her butler, really nice guy with a good taste for scotch."

"I see," Dr. Wade's already arched eyebrow amazed Duo by curly upwards even further, so far that his hair seemed to shift backwards somewhat.

"So who's the old guy talk'n to Duo?" asked Releena, leaning over so no one but Hilde could hear her. Hilde shrugged and said, "I dunno, never seen the guy before in my life, but I'm gonna find out." Hilde took Releena by the wrist and guided her friend over to Duo and the peculiar gentleman.

Hilde and Releena walked quietly up beside Duo while he and the man conversed back and forth for a minute or two. The man stopped talking and said, "Hey man, don't be rude, aren't you going to like, introduce me to your friends Duo?" Duo did a barely noticeable double take when he saw that both Hilde and Releena were now standing beside him.

"Er, yeah Wade. Hilde, Releena, this bizarre individual is Dr. Wade, physicist and associate of the other 'good doctors'." Duo turned and gestured to his two lady friends and spoke to Dr. Wade, "Wade, these two babes are my traveling companions, Ms. Releena Dorlin and Captain Schbieker, Hilde, she's my honey." Duo wrapped his arm around Hilde and gave her an extravagant hug.

"Er…" was all Hilde could say, blushing a bright crimson hue.

While the four were exchanging greetings and shaking hands the flight attendant that Duo had spoken to earlier sauntered up to them, tapping Hilde on the shoulder she said, "Excuse me miss, the spaceplane is boarding, have all of you gone through baggage check?"

"Yes," replied Duo, now turning to face the young lady.

"Alright," she said, "Please board the spaceplane through the gantry way."

Duo nodded at his compatriots and they all walked over to the steel gantry door, holding up their passports to a middle aged man in a blue flight captain's uniform, complete with gold epaulets on his shoulder. The flight captain took their passports and scanned the barcode on the back with a handheld scanner. Glancing down at the computer screen he verified their photo ID's and typed in his own designation code registering their destination: High Mars Orbit – PRAI Station, SatArray 4.

Handing back their passports, the captain smiled at them and said, "Enjoy your flight, and remember, no one loves you, or your money more than Orion Spaceways."

Both Duo's and Hilde's eyes ticked involuntarily while they received their passports, "I'm sure," muttered Wade as he handed the captain his own passport. The captain waved the scanning baton over Wade's passport barcode, it 'bleeped' at him twice and a large black screen filled his computer monitor, the words CLASSIFIED EYES ONLY blinking in large red military stencil print. "Um, Dr… Wade, would you please step forward and let me scan your retinas and left thumb." Dr. Wade did as asked and placed his chin against a small padded bar while a scanning machine appeared out of the wall right in front of him.

Duo had been expecting a standard scanning bar to materialize out of the wall and initiate a standard retina scan, but instead the machine that appeared looked like a bizarre spider: a center cubicle mechanism attached to a robotic arm that protruded from out of the opening in the wall, attached to the main body were 5 or 6 spindly looking metal arms, each with a micro laser fastened to a single robotic finger. The arms approached Wade's left eye while spinning adroitly on the gimbled body. One of the arms came within just millimeters of his eye, a small pinprick of light lanced out and struck a point somewhere on his iris, the next arm swung in with expert precision and tagged another point on Wade's eye, then a 3rd arm and 4th, eventually all 6 arms were spinning and maneuvering about trying to scan his iris, all movements absolutely precise and adroit. All told, the process only took a matter of seconds, perhaps 7 or 8 at the most.

Dr. Wade stepped back from the scanning mechanism and took his passport back from the outstretched arm of the captain. Duo and the two girls had both stood by and waited just inside the gantry door while he received the iris scan, coming up to the group he fell in step beside Duo. "New scanning method eh?" asked the pilot as the group made their way down the slate gray interior of the passage, light fixtures glowing every few feet.

"Yeah," said Wade, he took a moment or two to reposition his backpack on his shoulder before he continued, "The spacing industry decided to put it in, its supposed to be much, much harder to fool than the bar scanners, it's supposed to be able to see through contact lens-style fake irises, you know, espionage type stuff."

"I see," replied Duo.

The 4 of them reached the end of the gantry way and stepped into the immaculate white light of the spaceplane's interior. Though smaller than the earth shuttle, it was far more luxurious looking. Duo wasn't really surprised though, most of the spaceplanes were chartered out by businessmen to ferry themselves between the different colony groups, the moon, and the earth halos.

They were the last to board but weren't too hard pressed to find seats, seeing as there were probably only about 30 people onboard by Hilde's count (not including them).

The spaceplane's seating arrangement was different from the shuttle's, only 2 people could sit per side of the main isle, so Hilde and Releena sat together while Wade and Duo sat on the other side of the isle, (Hilde and Duo both taking isle seats).

They hadn't been seated long when the pilot's voice (in a thick Russian accent as far as Duo could tell), came over the com, "Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. We will be departing in roughly 2 minutes, our estimated flight time from here to fueling station 3 is approximately 17 minutes, we request that you observe our no smoking policy for the duration of this flight, and that you remain seated and with your safety belt fastened securely at all times. Thank you." The intercom bleeped as the captain turned it off.

After a minute or two, the pilot fired the chemical verniers and maneuvered the spaceplane away from the Tranquility Hub, after a few moments of he throttled up the main liquid fuel rocket and the spaceplane lurched forward, a G-force of 1.9 settled quietly against the passengers.

The burn lasted for approx. 2 minutes, after which the pilot powered down the engine to 27% output and set his course for the fuel depot. From the Halo, the spaceplane looked like a chunk of coal, hurtling through space attached to the tail of a comet.

The trip to the fueling station took slightly less time than expected, taking a mere 15 minutes. The group, along with the rest of the passengers, waited for their luggage to be transferred to the starship before they could make their way down the stations docking gantry to the cabin.

During their approach flight to the station, they had managed to get a glimpse of the massive fueling station, both Hilde and Duo having worked for the Preventers, had already seen many of them, showed a mild degree of interest in the gargantuan facility. Whereas Releena, though accustomed to space flight, had never seen such a place.

While the station was not anywhere near the size of a colony, it was still of an imposing stature. The station was all built around a massive rotating disk that measured roughly four and a half kilometers in width. Attached to the disk was a single steel tower the ran strait through the center of the station, reaching upwards a kilometer in both directions, attached to the 300 meter wide pole were the various fuel storage tanks. Every 350 meters was a pumping station: large ovoid contraptions bristling with pipes and conduits. Arrayed outwards from the central rotating disk were dozens of gantry arms and adjacent docking passages, starships and warships alike birthed in the gargantuan docking arenas. Based on top of the disk itself were various machine shops, spaceplane hangers, a handful of restaurants and, of course, passenger waiting areas. At the bottom of both poles (where the station merged with the fuel towers), was a large building, jutting outward from the metal disk a good 300 meters, almost to the first pump/lift station. That was the tower control station, all fuel was directed down (or up, depending on which tower) the fueling tower and into the desired piping conduit that ran through the station center out to the various docking arenas where the starships could suck down the much need propellant. 11 such stations dotted the space between the 17 colony areas, the moon and the earth sphere (both earth halos each had their own additional 5 support stations).

The spaceplane itself wasn't large enough to merit docking birth (though it was the largest class of spaceplanes, measuring 77 meters from stem to stern), so the captain received clearance from the flight tower to dock in one of the massive spaceplane hangers. Upon arrival, several large ATV type vehicles, each towing 3 or 4 trailers parked under the fuselage of the spaceplane, a ramp descended from its belly and luggage began to tumble out from the craft. The luggage was put on the trailers and after 10 minutes they departed, only 7 of the trailers were full.

The captain powered down the ships systems and opened the hatch to let the passengers disembark. The spaceplane sat a good 4 meters off the ground, so a staircase was wheeled over to mate with the opened hatch, a warm breeze ripe with the smell of machine tools drifted in through the hatch.

After making their way down the stairs, the group had wandered into one of the adjacent passenger waiting areas and had taken seats right next to the large viewport.

"Man," said Duo, plopping down in one of the black leather seats, "There has got to be an easier way to fly."

"I concur," said Releena, "But then again, not many people go to the Mars Project, so the spacing companies are all kinda stingy when it comes to passenger comfort for those of us going there."

Duo grumbled some more put his hand over his eyes. Hilde set beside him listening to music whiled Releena sat on the other side of him, Dr. Wade was standing up in front of the viewport checking out their starship.

Most people who envisioned star flight thought that everyone zipped around in sleek, sexy looking flashy spaceships, Wade knew that this was simply not true, the ship in front of him would attest to that. While it did have some simple elegance to it, there were no graceful curving lines and it was anything but sleek, and far, far from sexy.

In the early days of space transit, engineers had tried to sell their designs based on looks alone, and not practicality or performance. Most ship designs had sacrificed dependability or utilitarian usage for supra- aerodynamic looking spacecraft that were more reflective to the luxury super-yachts of the late 21st century (Before Colony Era).

After 125 years of spaceflight, in 2080, the first self-sustaining fusion torch was tested on an unmanned ship called the Out of Band. Before that, starship range had been limited by the amount of fissionable material (fission powered ships were extremely fuel dependant and inefficient) they could hold, but their flashy designs generally did not allow for room enough to contain large quantities of fuel, so travel was generally limited to the moon and a few Mars missions and one or two Jupiter missions (which lead to the discovery of H3 and the self-sustaining fusion torch). However, the OOB's first test flight was also its last, an error in one of the flight computer's sub routines injected the H3 containment pod with pure H+, the proton wave caused the uranium left over from the activation reaction mass (all fusion reactions first start with a uranium fission reaction) to achieve instant, uncontrolled critical mass. The resulting high radiation detonation in close proximity to earth rendered 3 of the 11 orbiting microwave power relays sterile, the power loss was felt all throughout the Congo, Chile, Mexico, Australia, and a large part of Northern Asia.

In 2083 the Out Of Band II flew the first fusion-powered flight from the Jovian Corporation's microwave station, orbiting 3200 km above earth, (the only spacebound structure capable of housing and maintaining the test craft), to Queng Ho Relay, a research station in orbit around Jupiter. The OOB II made the trip in a record time of 280 hours without so much as even a flicker in its drive flare. Within 7 months of the OOB II's flight, Pratt and Whitney, along with Grumman and Rolls Royce had gone from manufacturing fission/lox engines to fusion-torch drives; the era of interplanetary transit had officially been ushered in.

The resulting success of the OOB II finally convinced ship manufacturers that though it was nice to have sleek looking ships, for the rough and tumble world of vacuum space travel, sometimes it was better to take the no-frills approach. Though the first ships made with self- sustaining fusion drives were clunky, unattractive with airframes so convoluted they looked more like a piece of "modern" art than a high tech spacecraft; they got the job done.

Manned spaceflight was revolutionized even further when Dr. Wascheue designed the Adamist type starship. The Adamist was essentially a mass produced fusion drive mounted at the end of furro-fibrous tube that was made of indo-steel arranged in a honeycomb like lattice. The tube was then filled with all of the components and machines that monitored, and regulated the engines. The ship was also fitted with a standardized power plant that came with pre-fabricated solar panels (used as backups only, most of the power was generated from the energy overflow of the fusion reaction). The ship was fitted with nothing more than the generator, the central spine-like tube (and the mechanical components housed within), and the engine/drive tube; all other components such as crew quarters, electronic warfare modules, cargo modules etc, could then be attached as necessary in a double rotating manner about the central support tube (looking much like a double helix of DNA). The simple packaging style of Wascheue's prototype, nicknamed The Pelican, was a huge success. Compartment/module manufacturing companies cropped up everywhere, offering the latest and greatest technologies, while leaving the heavy hitting companies to vie over production rights of the main skeletal frame.

In over 300 years, not much had changed, resulting in the hulking ship that drifted lazily in the docking berth 20 meters from Dr. Wade and where he stood: leaning casually against the polymer glass window, light glinting in from the docking strobes.

The ship moored in front of the window was roughly 400 meters in length with a boom of 23 meters. The cockpit was a dark blister bulging from the top end of the nose, smaller sensor blisters and antennae were splotched all over the outer hull, which was painted a slate gray; bright strobes were placed up and down the length of the ship, acting as running lights. On the side of the ship, the name ALVA BARTON was stenciled onto the side, a few meters below the cockpit blister. The Alva Barton was essentially of the original adamist starship design, it had a few extra permanent features that were left out of the original design, but it still carried the basic concept of a single central spine connected to an immensely powerful engine. The main difference between the ship and her predecessors was a permanent cockpit, in the original design not even the cockpit terroid was meant to be permanent, it was figured that specific duties would call for specifically designed cockpits and bridge layouts. Eventually companies decided that it would be cheaper to simply retain a fleet of ships, each tailored to their specific duties, instead of constantly switching out various hull components whenever a ship would change tasks. Even with this change in production, the theory of compartmentalization still held strong and allowed for very precise customization, so the various module production companies stayed in business, and spaceflight was made even more convenient.

Fitted to the Alva Barton's hull was a small passenger module, the logo for the InGen Corporation was stamped on its starboard side in dark blue. Just aft of the passenger module was a massive storage bay, in it was held passenger luggage and the equipment ordered by the Mars Terraforming Project. Farthest aft, and just fore of the engine/power plant, was the fuel storage. All four compartments: passenger, cargo bay, fuel storage and power plant, were all spherical in shape, (though the power plant was considerably larger than the previous three), making the ship look like a giant snake that had wolfed down 4 massive eggs.

Dr. Wade turned from the glass window and paced back across the thin, mute brown shaded carpet to sit across from Duo, who was busily conversing with the blond headed girl next to him. He had been thinking, even though she didn't hold as prestigious a position as "queen of the world", Releena Peacecraft/Dorlin was still all but a household name. Wade found it somewhat curious that people weren't making much of a fuss over the fact that she was traveling around in public like this. Wade mentally shrugged it off and marked the stray thought up as due to simple human decency (as little of it as there seemed to be nowadays), and the fact that people were happy and content, so why not just let the poor girl live in peace?

Wade yawned and drifted off to sleep, his back arched uncomfortably in the hard backed chairs of the spaceport terminal, halogen light fixtures buzzing quietly above him.

Wade's eyes opened slowly and he blinked the sleep out of his eyelids. Sitting up slowly, he felt several of the joints in his back pop. Wade yawned and stood up, popping more joints in his legs. Looking across from him at where Duo was sleeping, he saw that both Hilde and Releena were leaning against his shoulders, both girls breathing shallowly, like they were on the verge of waking up.

Dr. Wade glanced down at his watch, 3:37 AM; they had slept for roughly three and a half hours. The flight board at fixed to the wall at the far end of the terminal showed that their flight would be boarding in a few minutes, Wade decided to let the 'kids' sleep a little longer.

He wondered around the terminal for a few minutes; buying a small strawberry shake from a wall vending machine Wade decided to go back and wake up his sleeping friends so that they could get all their luggage in order before the boarding announcement.

Duo awoke to someone shaking him by the shoulder, his eyes fluttered open, pupils suddenly expanding and contracting in the first few seconds of awareness.

"Good morning sleepy head," said Hilde, the last remnants of sleep still lingering in her voice. Duo grinned a half-crooked toothy smile and yawned. "Time to go already?" asked Duo, slowly raising himself out of the uncomfortable chair.

"Yup," said Dr. Wade, "The call for baggage check was made about 5 minutes ago, and all of the heavy stuff is already on the ship. All we have left is our carryon luggage."

Duo nodded, still half asleep, and heaved his duffel bag up over his shoulder, he then reached down and grabbed Hilde's bag for her. Making his way to the check in desk, Duo stole a quick look outside at their ship, it wasn't pretty, but he'd flown that type long enough to know they were a dependable breed of starship, though not as flashy as some of they larger warships.

Dr. Wade followed behind Duo, lugging his own bag over his shoulder, while carrying Releena's bag over his other shoulder.

"I'm sorry sir, but passenger check in doesn't start for another 10 minutes, I am going to have to ask you to sit back down," said the flight stewardess behind the counter in a tone so cheerful it almost made Duo wretch right there in front of her.

"Look miss, there aren't but a handful of folks on this flight," said Duo calmly, "Its three AM in the bloody morning for Christ sake, can't you just let us on so we can stow our gear and get some more sleep?" The amount of blood in Duo's eyes was beginning to alarm the stewardess, not to mention his apparent lack of sleep and high-strung attitude.

"A-alright," she stammered, "You may go ahead and board, just let me have your ticket stubs."

The four passed and each handed her their tickets, followed by another dozen or sow passengers, eager to get on board and resume sleeping.

The passenger cabin wasn't as luxurious as the cabin on board the shuttle from Tranquility (even though it had broken down right before their approach to the fueling station, leaving them several hours behind schedule, luckily their flight to the Mars Project hadn't been due to leave for several hours after their arrival). Duo reclined in the soft padded cushioned seat and closed his eyes, Hilde and Releena, one on either side of him, did the same. Across the isle, Dr. Wade spent several minutes looking out the viewpoint, watching the bustle of the starport.

By the time the pilot had ran all of the system checks and managed to slowly drift the hulking ship away from its berthing moor, Duo and his companions were lost to sleep. The pilot opened the throttle a hair and allowed small doses of fuel to seep into the engines, boosting the Alva Barton away from the rotating depot at an easy 1.4 G's. Once clear of the 500 km mark, he set the autopilot and retired to his own quarters.

The autopilot ran its opening system checks and started to slowly dump more and more power into the engines, the fusion torch bulged and spewed out even more heat and power. The ramp up time to its maximum rate of acceleration was estimated at 2 hours. The autopilot recalibrated it's gimbals and initiated a final role, after which its course was locked. The autopilot switched to passive maneuvering and receded back into the system's subroutine.

The Alva Barton rocketed away from the station at 13 km/second. Her eventual maximum speed would be achieved at 250 km/second, the flight was estimated to take 42 hours to traverse the 360,000,000 km to Mars. 2 hours were allotted for ramp up while the rest was to be spent at maximum thrust. From the fueling depot, her drive flare looked just like any other star burning bright amidst an armada of light.



* * *

Space travel has never been a simple affair. In the early days of space flight, the largest problem facing mankind was the simple matter of actually putting a person into orbit. However, in the After Colony Year 198 that aspect of travel was all but routine, and the real problem was keeping the spacing lanes open. Thousands of interplanetary vessels, support ships, pleasure boats and warships navigated the vacuum between the Earth, the moon, and the colony clusters. The problem was exactly like that of an air traffic controller, only cubed.

The dilemma of coordinating the every day travel of Earth's spaceways was left up to the halos: Mobius handled civilian flights of all descriptions while Atlas ran interdiction duties and orchestrated the movement military ships.

When Mobius detected an object that had seemingly originated from the moon, it opened a com channel hailing the unidentified vehicle, following standard procedure. When the vessel in question failed to respond to hails on all civilian band radio frequencies and the emergency frequencies, the object was tagged as a priority and handed over toAtlas which immediately notified the SD (strategic defense) network and began to actively track the approaching object.

Once the object crossed the 70,000 km mark, Atlas handed the contact over to SD Command. At 35,000 km the SD network continued to passively hail the oncoming craft and began to acquire a firing solution. At 20,000 km SD command ceased hailing the unidentified craft and loaded a firing solution into 7 of the 168 orbiting laser platforms and called up 2 of the patrolling guided missile frigates to acquire their own firing solution. At 19,500 km both guided missile frigates Armstrong and Valisk confirmed their firing solutions with the SD network. At 19,000 km the object was confirmed to be a mobile suit class machine after remote cameras documented the craft shunting off a large metal casing. The casing was painted pale white, while attached to the mobile suit it had completely encased the machine, making it look like an oddly shaped bullet. The casing, now in two pieces after separating itself from the mecha, tumbled through empty space for a number of seconds, then suddenly exploded: small fragments of burning metal shot out in all directions, their lights slowly dwindled as the chemical flames used up all of their fuel mass. SD Command relayed the image of the explosion to the two frigates, and logged the incident, re-designating the craft as an attack-capable vessel.

Fleet Captain Nuwen stood on the bridge of the Armstrong, ready to give the fire command. At 58, he had lived through two space wars and learned to trust his instincts. Another thing James Nuwen leaned during 38 years of service in the navy was that he was a man of no particular ambition. He didn't brownnose the higher ups and didn't ask for, nor expect favors from his junior officers, essentially he was willing to retain the relatively low rank of Fleet Captain (which was essentially an over glorified regular captain, or an underglorified major, depending on how you wanted to look at it).

After 25 minutes of silence from SD Command, Capt. Nuwen called up a visual image of the target craft. It was humanoid shaped, like most mobile suits, and was painted a pristine white, scarred with scorch marks and impact fractures. Capt. Nuwen noticed that it wasn't yawing or gyrating all over the place, and that even though its vernier thrusters weren't operating at the moment it was still making a strait beeline for earth. Small fragments of debris dislodged themselves from the arms and drifted up and behind the mecha in a cloud of silvery substance.

Capt. Nuwen was about to close the vidlink when he noticed that the mobile suit was wielding an incredibly large weapon on its left arm, the one that had been moving, causing chips of armor to flake off.

"Com, I want you to open a secure line to SD Command," said Capt. Nuwen.

"Yes sir!" barked that communications officer sharply, "Communication line open and secure sir."

Captain Nuwen cleared his throat and made it a point to speak clearly and distinctly, "Strategic Defense Command, this is Fleet Captain James Nuwen of the Earth Federation Naval vessel Armstrong. I have been issued orders to obtain a firing solution on an unidentified mobile suit approaching Earth space at a high rate of speed," Nuwen glanced over at his command console and continued: "The craft is currently 17,000 km from Earth, unless I receive a stand down command I will initiate fire at 15,000 km. Repeat, I will initiate fire at 15,000 km. The mobile suit class vessel is maintaining at least some level of operation and has both ignored all attempts at hailing and made no attempt to try and display either a state of emergency or a state of noncombatant. Again, if I receive no orders from SD Command OR Atlas Halo in approximately 20 minutes, I will fire upon this craft. Nuwen, out." The link closed with a hiss of static.

Capt. Nuwen sat down in his captain's chair and leaned back, head resting in the palms of his hands. Nuwen looked about the bridge and drew in a long breath of processed air. Looking down at his watch, he stared at the minute hand tick off a few notches. After a few more minutes he stood up, "Fire control, I want tubes1 and 2 loaded with flares, we'll see if he responds to a shot across the bow. Tell me when the missiles have been loaded with the firing solution."

The fire control officer issued orders to his men in the missile rooms and awaited their green light. A few seconds ticked by and a small pale green light flickered in the corner of his panel. Entering his own personal firing code he flipped up a large red safety latch and exposed a dull black button. "Firing solution accepted and ready."

"Alright, fire on my mark. Three, two, one, mark."

The fire control officer pressed the button and the entire frigate shuttered as the rockets leaped from their tubes and accelerated away from the ship, their fission engines leaving flashback spots in the eyes of the bridge crew.

The missiles streaked away from the ship at a solid 50 g's. Reaching their target in less than 9 seconds they detonated in a duel flash of sparks and sub-flares that sputtered around in space and spewed sparks in all directions.

"No visual response or attempt at communication from the target vehicle," confirmed the communications officer.

Capt. Nuwen nodded thoughtfully and gave the order for the missile rooms to stand down for the time being. More minutes ticked by, then ten, then fifteen. Nuwen looked up at his vidscreen that remained blank… and there were no new communiqués from either Halo or SD Command.

"Very well then, Mr. Ortiese, load tubes one and two with EMP warheads and tubes 27-39 with HEAT rounds, I want to avoid killing this lunatic, but I will if I have to. Launch tubes one and two as soon as you have recomputed the firing solution."

Fire control officer Lt. Ortiese punched a string of numbers into his console and waited for the green light at the corner of his desk to light up. After a moment or two it flickered; Lt. Ortise pressed the firing button and the Armstrong shuttered again as the missile engines roared to life.

From the bridge, the missile detonation set at 200 meters to target looked perfect, both warheads separated from their delivery rockets and coasted in to the preset range. Once at the location, their micro-nuclear payload detonated, causing a searing bright flash of white, followed by a dark blue electron pulse wave. The wave rolled over the target mobile suit and continued to expand outward into space. After a few seconds it was apparent that the EMP had no discernable effect on the target.

"Alright," said Capt. Nuwen, "Mr. Ortiese, if you would please re- compute our firing solution and arm tubes 27-39, once the target has reached the 15,000 km mark launch the missiles in two volleys of 6 missiles each, 2 second intervals please."

"Full missile payload aye," replied the fire control officer.

Nuwen watched the mobile suit target as it plowed through space, he didn't really care what its intentions were: he wasn't going to let it reach earth. If it had been a friendly it would have made at least some attempt to make that known to him. The fact that it had withstood a sizeable EMP attack suggested electronic warfare hardening, which in turn suggested some sort of military involvement, and it certainly wasn't listed as a Federation Navy craft.

"Target is approaching the 15,000 km mark, should I fire sir?"

Nuwen bent over his command console and flipped a switch to turn on a small recorder. Again he cleared his throat and spoke into the mike. "I am Fleet Captain James Nuwen of the Federation Naval Vessel Armstrong, I have been ordered by SD Command to acquire a target lock on an unidentified mobile suit on a direct course for Earth. After receiving no further instructions from SD Command, and with the target approaching the SD failsafe point of 15,000 km, I am now issuing a fire command without the direct order from either SD Command or Halo Port Authority. The time is 2023 hours and 22 seconds, my witness is Lt. Vincent Ortiese- Fire Control Officer." Nuwen turned to Lt. Ortiese and said, "State your full name and rank for the record please."

Mr. Ortiese nodded and spoke into the mike, "I am Lt. Vincent Sterling Ortiese, Federation Naval officer, serving as Fire Control Officer. I am the witness of Fleet Captain Nuwen, the time is 2023 hours and 57 seconds."

Nuwen turned off the mike and thanked the Mr. Ortiese. "Alright," he said, "Lieutenant, fire!"

Lt. Ortiese again pressed the firing button, this time the frigate bucked and shuttered against the immense thrust output of the missiles, their chemical rocket engines straining to propel the incredible mass of a full ordinance payload away from the ship and towards their target.

Accelerating away from the ship, and their chemical rockets exhausted, the missiles' fission drive kicked in, flaring their drive tube absolutely white, washing out all visible light spectrums in the immediate space around them.

The second battery of missiles ejected themselves from their launch cradles and trundled through space to intercept their target, their fission drives straining to propel the mass of a full weapons payload.

Aboard the Armstrong, Capt. Nuwen was watching the vidscreen and radar, the missiles were holding true to target, it was estimated that the first cluster would reach the mobile suit in 23 seconds.

"Sir! Atlas Halo is requesting a communication link," announced the communication officer.

"Well patch them through, bring it up on the big screen."

"Yes sir."

Half a second latter President Une's face appeared looming over the crew of the Armstrong. "Fleet Captain Nuwen, you are ordered to stand down, repeat, you are ordered to stand down. Disengage the target and return to your designated patrol route."

Nuwen risked a quick glance down at his command display, he had only 8 seconds until the missiles impacted the target. Without thinking, Captain Nuwen reached into the front of his shirt and produced a silver missile key, he plunged it into the lock at the top of his console and twisted it a quarter turn to the left, right beside it a clear plastic covering popped up, exposing a large red button underneath it, the words Missile Self Detonation were printed in large yellow letters right above it. Nuwen didn't hesitate to push it.

On board the missiles, their flight computers registered the self- destruct command: the flow of super hot ions out the thruster nozzle was instantly reversed by clamping the drive tube closed, causing a backwash of plasma to pour into the fission reaction's containment field and flow into the engine compartment, creating a miniature fusion reaction. The resulting heat spiked so incredibly high that the plasma backwash firing upwards towards the warhead broiled the warhead and all if its internal components, causing the very molecules that it was comprised of to disassociate instantaneously, rendering the weapon sterile.

At the exact same moment, all 12 missiles evaporated in a hazy cloud of super-energized sup atomic particles that erupted and sputtered from what used to be the mass-space occupied by the missiles.

* * *



Passing through the debris field left by the detonation of the missiles in front of Wing Zero, the autopilot raised the buster shield to guard against any possible collision damage. Once within 15,000 km of the Earth, the autopilot began the transformation into fighter mode, at the same time it injected an airborne stimulant into the cockpit.

The pilot stirred and wretched black blood into the freefall environment of the cockpit, dark globules of blood drifted about the cramped space, sticking to his sides and latching onto various surfaces, include the vidscreen.

Heero reached into a small bucket attached to the floor beside him and pulled out a large rag. Trying to wipe the blood off from his screen, the rag was already soaked in blood, smearing the burgundy substance all over his screen. Swearing weakly to himself he unbuckled his beaten body and removed an already blood drenched shirt to try and find a clean spot to use to wipe off his screen. While leaning forward trying to clean the vidscreen, Heero winced in pain, a dulling sensation slowly crept up his spine. Fighting the sensation Heero pulled back to sit upright in the pilot's chair breathing harshly. Eventually the freezing sensation seeped into his brain and he lost consciousness, his mind drifting afloat, lost in a numbing sea of ice.