Royal Palace, Cinq Kingdom

"The group calling itself the Coalition for Earth and Colony Independence is taking credit for Commander Noin's death."

Miliardo stared at Colonel Nelson's face on his communicator screen. "Are they based on a colony?"

"Unknown. They may be based on Earth." Nelson's insulted tone reminded Miliardo to use more tact with the man. He was responsible for Cinq Kingdom security in space, and suggesting the threat came from a colony hinted that he might not be performing his duties adequately.

"I will inform my men to find any groups allied with the Coalition." Miliardo reached out to close the communication, but Nelson's voice stopped him.

"I was very sorry to hear of Commander Noin's death and regret missing her funeral."

Miliardo sighed. "That was two weeks ago." Nelson's belated sympathies were almost offensive. Again, he was about to close out the screen when Nelson laughed softly.

"You have moved on quickly. The news reports from Earth are filled with your romance with that blond actress. What is her name? Oh yes, Roxana Rivera."

Miliardo frowned. He disliked discussing his personal life with his subordinates. "Lucrezia Noin was a friend. That was it."

"I would hope there wasn't anything more between you!" Nelson's voice was slick and annoying. "How could she have commanded your army and been at your personal beck and call? That would not have pleased the Cinq Kingdom Assembly, and with their reluctance to recognize you as king, I would not want to irritate them, were I you."

His tone was offensive, but Miliardo managed to remain calm. "A moot point, Lionel, as I already told you. I was fond of her, but Noin was just a fellow soldier and a dear friend."

"She was a friend of mine also." Nelson closed the communication.

Miliardo looked across the room where the bleached blond woman leaned her back against the wall, her arms crossed as her pale blue eyes watched him over the rims of her dark sunglasses. She was wearing a skintight, short black leather skirt and a matching halter that barely covered her. Her shiny black boots reached her thighs. OZ issue, he thought with a raised brow.

"When did you get here?" he asked as he tried to keep his eyes on her face. The rest of her was quite distracting.

"Didn't you hear the commotion? The press blocked traffic and my limo could barely park outside the palace."

"Dressed like that, you no doubt stopped the traffic on your own," he remarked, trying to turn his attention to the work on his desk.

She pushed away from the wall and crossed the room. Miliardo gave up trying to work and concentrated on breathing normally as he watched her. The latter was very nearly impossible when she put her hands on the edge of his desk and leaned forward.

"Give the public what they want, my little prince." She puckered her bright pink lips.

Miliardo sat back with a nervous laugh. "I am wondering who I like better, Lucrezia Noin or Roxie Rivera."

She hopped up to sit on the corner of his desk and bent backward to prop on her elbow. Miliardo could see more of than he wanted in his office in the middle of the afternoon. "I think you know the answer to that, loverboy."

The door opened and Benton stuck his head in. Seeing the woman perched on his desk in her provocative pose, he frowned. "Miss Sally Po is on line three, Your Excellency."

"I'll take it." Miliardo was both glad of the interruption and annoyed by it.

"Miss Rivera," prompted Benton, frowning as he held the door open.

"I can take a hint." She stretched across the desk and kissed Miliardo's cheek. "I shall see you later."

Pushing up her sunglasses, she sauntered to the door where she paused by Benton to turn her head back to Miliardo, giving him one last lingering gaze over the top of her sunglasses while blowing him a kiss. When she disappeared out the door, Benton rubbed his nose and sneezed, an obvious reaction to her strong perfume. The young man closed the door with a slight bang. Disapproval loud and clear.

"Your Excellency, are you feeling all right? You look flushed." The former medical officer laughed and tapped her cheek. "Is your actress friend still there?"

Miliardo reached up to touch his cheek and his fingers came away with bright pink lipstick. He laughed. "She just left."

"You are shocking the kingdom with your wild behavior. Noin's death has not left you as unaffected as you would like to claim."

He sighed. "Relena is furious. She hasn't spoken to me in days."

Sally picked up a newspaper. "The critics are unkind towards your new friend. This paper calls her a blond bimbo who delivers her lines with all the emotion of a first generation computer. He says she owes her career to the patronage of a certain prince who should spare the public her questionable performances and hide her in his boudoir."

Miliardo chucked although he could still feel a blush warming his cheeks. "That certain actress would love to hide in my boudoir, but I am not yet ready to forsake every shred of decency."

Sally set aside the newspaper. "Any new information about the Shadowhawk?"

"No, but the Coalition is claiming responsibility, so it has obviously gotten its hands on a rather deadly gundam. Nelson is investigating the colonies."

"You may be interested to learn that inter-space communications logs show that Dr. Stryfe exchanged messages with that very group a few weeks before his disappearance." Sally's face was very serious.

Miliardo frowned. "Have you asked Trynity about it?"

"She doesn't discuss her father." Sally sighed. "She is prickly, like a cactus. Period. About anything! She doesn't let anyone get close to her. Her father's death has hit her very hard."

Sitting back in his chair, Miliardo steepled his fingers. "You might think she would fit in with our reclusive group of orphans. Her mother died when she was barely walking on an attack on Colony L3, then her father was sent to L10 to complete a gundam that was ultimately destroyed by a laboratory accident. Before that failure sent his staff scurrying back to civilization, scientists and technicians surrounded her. Hardly the family life of which movies are made."

"You are very well informed," commented Sally.

"I learned most of this when Treize Kushranada contacted Dr. Stryfe in hopes of bringing him into OZ. But Stryfe refused to have anything to do with him. I took the liberty of tapping his computer system to find the records of his work."

"And?" prompted Sally who didn't seem surprised by his tactics.

"I could find nothing. Even the most sophisticated search yielded no record of any calculation or design of the gundam he had been building."

"Very interesting. I have also noted that Trynity does not make calculations on paper, nor does she take notes for any class. Her physics teacher has all but accused her of cheating. Her mathematics teacher cannot get her to demonstrate how she arrives at her answers and is very frustrated by her." Sally looked exasperated and Miliardo knew the reason before she voiced it. "I am spending more time at that academy than we originally intended. The place is a joke to our pilots and a waste of time for Trynity Stryfe."

"Nonetheless, I believe it is important for their future to attempt some semblance of normalcy. Someday there may be no need for the gundams, and what will become of their pilots? They have been trained to do nothing else." Miliardo frowned. "If Trynity is a reflection of Ivan Stryfe, then it is highly likely that his brain was his computer. Dead or not, we owe it to him to keep his daughter safe. He entrusted her care to me, and if someone is holding him against his will, we need to ensure that his daughter cannot be used to force him to do something against his principles."

*****

"Trynity, do not give in to the demands of these jackals!"

Before Trynity could reply, her father was dragged away and she found herself looking into the cold, sinister black eyes of his captor.

"There, Miss Stryfe, you can see that your father is alive and well. I congratulate you on completing your mission. The outpouring of grief for Commander Noin was most gratifying. I almost shed a few tears myself."

His insincerity disgusted Trynity. "Let my father go! I have done what you asked of me."

"I regret that I cannot let your father go just yet. He has been very helpful. Very helpful indeed! Today, we captured a transport of Taurus suits intended for Cinq Kingdom space security and he has graciously agreed to modify their design."

Trynity despaired that her father was forced to work for them, probably under threat of her safety. But she stared at the Coalition commander without betraying her feelings. "What more do you want of me?"

"I am not a greedy man. While he might deny it to the world, you and I know that Miliardo Peacecraft has gundams at his command."

"I have information on three," she volunteered. "The gundams designated in OZ files as 03 and 04 came close enough in my last encounter to scan completely. I have downloaded all the information you need. As for gundam 02, when I briefly engaged it, it appeared to have a cloaking device similar to the Shadowhawk, but I did complete a partial scan."

"That should be enough for now. Transmit the information you have gathered. I will see to it that your father studies your findings. He may find them useful in redesigning the Taurus suits."

Trynity entered the codes to upload the information. "Is that enough?"

"You must get information on the remaining gundams, especially the gundam that used the zero system. I expect it within the week."

Within the week! "Just how do you expect me to do that? Shall I send an engraved invitation?"

"I will leave that in your capable hands, Trynity Stryfe. I want that information."

"Shall I destroy the gundams?"

A slow, malicious smile curved his thick lips as he stroked his black mustache. "Much as I sense you would like to do just that, my bloodthirsty young amazon, I may have need of them in the future. It would give me great pleasure to use his own gundams against Zechs Merquise."

The communication ended.

Trynity sat in her gundam staring at the blank screen for several moments before she double-checked the Shadowhawk's energy levels. After assuring herself that it would remain cloaked and undiscovered she reluctantly left the comfortable cockpit that had been her playground when her father worked tirelessly to complete his project for the Barton Foundation. Shadowhawk had been her home, her guardian, her only friend. Now she had made Shadowhawk a killer. And Shadowhawk had made her a killer.

After leaving behind the rocky shoreline, Trynity kicked off her shoes and carried them as she walked in the wet sand on the beach. This was new to her: the sand, the water, the soft breeze not created by an air recycling system. When she was below Seaside Laboratory, she sat on the shore's edge, hugging her legs to her as the water lapped at her toes. Her father had never cared that she ran about in her bare feet. It was easier to climb about on the scraps of gundanium if she weren't wearing shoes. Now she just enjoyed digging her toes into the sand as she leaned back to look up at the sky. The stars were different here, she thought, but still distant.

Space was lonely.

Seaside Lab was lonely.

Trynity was lonely.

Looking through the moonlit night toward the rocky stretch where she had left the Shadowhawk, Trynity felt hot tears stinging her eyes. Was she a 'bloodthirsty amazon'? Part of her had felt immense pleasure at completing her mission as she watched the Aires suit explode. Trynity reasoned that it meant she had gained her father more time, but she knew her training had driven all empathy for the woman she had killed from her. Trynity would do it again. There was no one for her but her father, and she would do anything to keep him safe.

"There you are!"

Hearing Duo Maxwell's voice, Trynity quickly wiped her eyes and nose on her sleeve, then slipped on her glasses. He was the last person on Earth she wanted to see. "What do you want?"

"Miss Sally checked on you before going to bed, but you weren't in your room."

Trynity frowned. "Let me guess; you drew the short straw."

"Nope! Rock beats scissors. I lost."

Trynity raised a brow as he sat near her in the sand. "How did you manage to lose that ridiculous game?" She had observed her fellow orphans using that game to see who would earn some petty reward such as the choice of movie to watch. Or to determine who would be forced to do an unpleasant task such as putting out the trash or, apparently, looking for her on the beach.

"My rotten luck," he responded as he took a rock and skipped it along the water.

Trynity tried not to be hurt by his remark. "There is no luck involved." Without realizing what she was doing, she chose a stone and felt pleased when it skipped further than his had.

Duo glanced at her after watching the stone.

She looked away toward the water. "Against Chang Wufei, you should choose paper because he always chooses rock. To him, rock symbolizes strength."

"I never noticed that!"

"Trowa chooses scissors on the first try, paper on the second and on the third round he chooses paper again, and continues in that fashion. He never chooses rock."

Duo made a stone skip four times. "And Quatre?"

"He alternates between paper and rock, and after six such alterations, he changes to scissors. He shrugs before he chooses scissors." Trynity skipped a rock five times and smiled.

After it plopped into the water, Duo turned his head to look at her. "Heero?"

Trynity sighed. "His method could be considered a challenge. Heero is so quick that he can see his opponent's throw before he chooses his own. To beat him, you must be quicker and change in a split second." She added. "But to help you, he blinks once before paper, twitches his nose before rock, and he slightly lifts his left shoulder before he chooses scissors."

Duo laughed. "I will remember that!"

"I doubt it," she remarked under her breath, but Duo heard her.

"You might be surprised, Miss Stryfe!" He carefully chose a stone from the beach and stood. He flung it, and they both watched as it skittered away, hopping along the water until it disappeared.

"Fourteen," she reported with awe as she stood and slapped sand from her pants.

Duo reached down to grab the shoes she had forgotten. "Thirteen actually. I never count the last because the stone sinks."

"My mistake!" She snatched her shoes, irritated that he had corrected her. She marched away fuming.

"Don't worry, Miss Stryfe! I won't tell anyone you made a mistake!" he called after her, and she heard him laughing.

For some reason, his laughter hurt.