Royal Palace, Cinq Kingdom

"I'm sorry, your Excellency, but she wouldn't leave, and I did not think you would want an armed guard dragging her out!"

Miliardo sighed and looked at his aide. Benton was thoroughly disgusted. "You are quite right. You may go for the evening, lieutenant."

The other man did not go. "If I might be permitted to speak my mind…"

"No," interrupted his commander. "You may not."

Benton spun on his heel and walked stiffly away. Miliardo shook his head and entered his personal apartments. There was a leather jacket tossed over a chair and a wide hat perched on an expensive rare vase. He passed through the salon and almost tripped over shiny black boots lying in the hall on the way to his bedroom.

He feared what he would find inside and paused before pushing open the door. His eyes went to the bed first. The velvet covering was rumpled, the pillows depressed and two glasses of wine, one filled, one empty sat on a table beside the bed. Miliardo let go of the breath he had been holding until he saw a blouse and a skirt lying on the floor. Where was she and did he really want to find her?

There were several rooms off his bedroom, and the last one he tried was his private exercise room. On the floor he saw a long staff. He picked it up as he pushed open the door to an indoor pool. The lights were dim, and he saw lit candles floating in the water. Slicing through the aqua water toward him was the object of his search. His eyes widened as he watched her pale body approach. She was naked!

When she burst from the water at the edge of the pool, he stumbled back, averting his eyes.

"Miliardo! Where have you been? I've been so bored waiting for you."

A sweat broke out over his brow. Miliardo loosened his shirt and tie, then spun away to find the lights. "We did not have plans," he reminded her. When the pool area was lit, he glanced quickly at her and was relieved to see that she was wearing a bikini that matched the color of her skin.

"That is a dirty trick," he muttered.

She laughed softly as she hung on the edge of the pool and kicked her legs out behind her. "Don't you like it, my little prince?"

He ignored her as he removed his heavily decorated ceremonial jacket. "Roxie, you shouldn't be here. It is very improper."

"Not to mention deliciously scandalous." She floated on her back. "Join me, loverboy. The pool is nicely heated."

The computer built into the wall was on, so Miliardo crossed to it and flipped down the keyboard. "I don't have my bathing suit."

"You don't need one," laughed Roxie as she swam to the side of the room where he was checking his messages. "There is something from Nelson," she told him even before he keyed in the code to retrieve it.

Miliardo leaned against the wall as he listened to Nelson's report, then he commented aloud, "Three dozen Taurus suits have been captured by the Coalition."

He heard her get out of the pool and resisted the strong urge to look at her. Her footsteps sloshed through water along the edge of the pool as she approached, then he heard the clink of ice in a glass. By the time he was able to direct his attention back to the screen, Roxie was at his side pressing a glass of whisky into his hand.

Leaning her back against the wall, she watched him take a drink. Her wig was gone, and her bleached hair was plastered back accenting the beautiful lines of her face. She had tied a towel at her waist to cover her almost indecent bottom.

"Did you see the report?"

Nodding, she reached out to unbutton the top few buttons of his shirt. "His report is sadly incomplete."

"I thought so also." Roxie was tugging the shirt from his breeches. "What are you doing?"

"Making you more comfortable." She moved between him and the screen. "I missed you."

Despite his annoyance over Nelson's report, he smiled and pulled her into his arms. "I thought about you during that deadly dull banquet."

She was tangling the hair at the back of his neck between her fingers. "Next time you can take Roxie Rivera with you."

Miliardo laughed and leaned into her. "I can imagine what the nobility would think of you in their midst. The Assembly would call a special session and I'd be out of a job before morning."

A beeping from the computer indicated an incoming call. Roxie turned in his arms so that the caller would see them together.

"Roxana Rivera! I wasn't expecting to see you there at this time of the night." Sally Po was smiling.

"I actually thought the diligent, loyal Benton was going to shoot me." Roxie laughed.

"I was in the city and tried to get tickets to your play, but the performance was sold out."

Roxie sighed. "My understudy played the role tonight. I stubbed my toe this afternoon and the director hustled me to the door, telling me to take some time off to heal."

Sally shook with laughter. "I think your career as an actress is in jeopardy."

"I have something to fall back on." She leaned against Miliardo, then brushed against him as she moved away, the towel dropping at his feet. He turned to watch her saunter to the pool, shocked by how little her swimsuit covered, but more so by the tattoo on her left buttock, a bolt of lightening.

"Zechs, put your tongue back in your mouth," admonished Sally playfully.

He snapped his eyes back to the screen, but he feared he wouldn't be able to concentrate what she had to report. "What is it?"

"I'm sure you are aware of what transpired at the academy today."

"How could I not? Relena did not attend the banquet with me because she was too distraught." His sister could be very annoying.

"The school was shut down for the afternoon, so the boys spent that time running diagnostics on their gundams. Gundams 02, 03 and 04 detected scans of their systems although 02 was able to jam it before Shadowhawk discovered anything significant about its system."

Miliardo leaned a hand against the wall. "Shadowhawk sent the information via sub-space communications to an indeterminate point, according to Nelson."

Sally frowned. "The Coalition. But I am surprised Nelson would not be able to pinpoint its location."

Miliardo sipped from his drink. He could hear Roxie splashing in the water. "If there is any trouble with the Shadowhawk, do not send out 03 and 04. I assume 02 is still under repairs."

"Duo was very busy this afternoon. He helped Heero download information from Deathscythe's scan of the Shadowhawk, and what little he did learn he uploaded to both 01 and 05. Shadowhawk seems to have a disrupter similar to the Deathscythe. Heero is making modifications to Wing gundam 01 to offset it."

"Keep me informed." Miliardo ended the communication and drained his glass. Setting it aside, he picked up the staff he had entered the room with and walked to the edge of the pool.

Roxie swam to the edge. "What are you going to do with that big stick, Miliardo Peacecraft?"

"Why don't you come out of the water and find out?" He chuckled as he turned and headed toward the exercise room.

"I like the sound of that!"

When she entered the exercise room, he tossed the staff to her and took up another.

She smiled as she caught it in one hand and deftly spun it. "Oh, Miliardo, you are a naughty boy! Are you going to attack me with that stick of yours?"

"You would love it if I did."

"You know you want to!"

When he did attack, she deflected his blow and countered. He barely managed to avoid contact.

"My, my, little prince, you are getting soft!" She swung the staff and he jumped back.

He swung. She leapt over the staff and struck back, hitting him in the backside and sending him sprawling to the floor. Rolling, he threw up the staff to deflect another strike. She was laughing as he jumped to his feet.

"You think you're going to beat me my lightening baronet?" he taunted.

"You like that?" As he suspected she might, she turned to present him with the tattoo. The surprised look on her face when he whacked it with his staff made him laugh.

"You're going to regret that!" Now she was angry and attacked him, but after a prolonged battle, he managed to knock her back and she stumbled to fall flat on the mat.

Miliardo straddled her although she still held the staff defensively between them. "I think you have gotten soft, Roxie Rivera."

She grinned up at him. "Who says I don't want to be here, just as we are?" She jerked up her arms and the movement of her swimsuit top gave him a view that disoriented him.

Twisting the staff, she jerked it apart in the middle and moved so fast that he had no time to react. There was a buzzing in his head and he could hear laughter as if from far away as he fell like a downed tree to the mat.

"You men are all alike!" She pushed her swimsuit top back in place, and tossing aside her reconnected staff, she disappeared from his blurry line of vision. He heard her dive into the water a moment later.

What a woman! he thought, as he tasted blood in his mouth from a cut at the corner. She could and would use every dirty trick in her arsenal. It was a damn good thing she wasn't his enemy.

Standing, he pulled off his shirt, dabbed at the cut on his lip, then tossed it aside. He pulled off his boots and socks on the way to the pool, and he paused when he saw her swimsuit on the tiled floor. He stared at it for moment, then switched off the lights so that only the candles on the water and the eerie glow of the computer screen lighted the room.

Then he began to unbuckle his belt.

**********

Trynity thought the shopping nightmare would never end. When they finally returned home, she feared the boys might question them on their purchases, but they were absent the entire evening. Even Sally was preoccupied. To relieve her boredom, Trynity went to the science lab where she helped run a few experiments. The work was a welcome distraction from thinking about her dilemma. There was very little time left before the Coalition expected her report. And Trynity was anxious to engage the last two gundams as well. Her gundam grew stronger with each fight after incorporating the information received in its own systems, so Shadowhawk needed the information as much as the Coalition.

When the scientists left for the night, Trynity returned to the residence. As she passed by the salon she heard Sally Po's voice, and Trynity caught only a phrase. "…making modifications to Wing gundam 01 to offset it."

Trynity almost stopped walking to hear more, but the call ended with Prince Miliardo ordering her to keep him informed. Apparently Sally Po did more than wait at the residence for calls from school! When Trynity reached her room, she put on her dark pants and tee shirt. She sat on her bed cross-legged and pulled her portable computer on her lap.

It was amazingly simple to break into the defense system of the Cinq Kingdom. She found a folder for Sally Po and read information any citizen would be able to uncover. She had been a medical officer for the Alliance, a resistance fighter to Oz. A prominent officer in the Preventer corps, she had been most recently assigned to Seaside Laboratory where her duties included the guardianship of the prince's wards.

Another folder was attached to Sally Po's. Trynity opened it and read a public relations blurb about the five young men from the colonies who had lost everything and who symbolized the future of the Cinq Kingdom so torn by war. That sentimental nonsense made her stomach churn. If they symbolized hope, the Cinq Kingdom was doomed. Five more folders were attached. Trynity guessed they contained information about her fellow orphans. She tried to open one and was blocked by password security. She tried many different ways to open each one of the five files, but to preserve their privacy, she assumed, they had been locked tight. She thought it notable that her own file had not been added to the list of Sally Po's charges. She managed to find it attached to a file about her father. As she read the information about Dr. Ivan Stryfe she didn't learn anything she didn't already know. Her own file had been easy to access, and it did contain information about her stay at Seaside Laboratory.

Trynity returned to the defensive department's files, and after failing to find one shred of information about the gundams, she determined the location of the nearest mobile suit base and flipped off the computer. It was time to extend an invitation! After pulling on her jacket, jerking up her sleeves and slipping on her leather gloves, she opened the window and dropped to the beach below.

She felt as if she were coming home as she settled into the seat in the cockpit. All systems were at optimum levels, so she lifted off and waited until she was over the sea to raise the cloak. Shadowhawk warned her that they were being tracked by radar, but that suited her purpose. On the way to the mobile suit base, she disabled four Aries suits and a ship that launched missiles at the gundam. She wasn't surprised to find an army waiting for her upon arrival. Her objective was not these weak suits, so she toyed with them, using evasive tactics, laughing when two of them shot each other out of the sky when she darted from their line of fire. This was child's play!

The gundam she hunted appeared over the horizon, and as she received warnings, Trynity barely had enough time to shift to the side to avoid a deadly laser blast. As the pulsing light flashed past her, Trynity quickly activated the scan, and seeing one performed on her own gundam, she scrambled it, then spun to shoot what her father had called "heaven's tears", plasma blasts that exploded around the attacking gundam. Trynity took the opportunity to leave, her mission fulfilled. She was already transmitting the information to the Coalition when she heard the cool, arrogant voice of the pilot of gundam 05.

"So you are only a cowardly spy! You don't have the courage to fight one who may be your equal!"

Although she knew she was finished here, the pilot's attitude was so much like the smug Chang Wufei that Trynity could not resist returning to fight.

Loading the bow, she swung around and fired. The other gundam swept aside the arrow with its long shaft, but she followed up so quickly with the flail that it hit her opponent on a shoulder. The gundam fell back with the impact, but suddenly the other arm shot out and its claw hand attached to the shoulder of the Shadowhawk.

Trynity tried to swipe it off, hearing the arrogant laughter of the other pilot, and infuriated, she swung the flail again, wrapping it around the arm. They struggled for the longest moment in her life before Shadowhawk broke free. The flail released and she swung it again, pounding back the gundam far enough so that she could reload the bow. He shot his blasting gun, and Shadowhawk deflected it with its shields, scattering rays to hit Aries that were suddenly attacking from all sides.

A communication appeared on her screen. "Pilot of the gundam Shadowhawk, this is Prince Miliardo Peacecraft of the Cinq Kingdom. Surrender yourself and your gundam. You cannot escape."

Fire shot from the dragonhead claw of Gundam 05, but having anticipated the attack, Shadowhawk threw up a winged shield again, and Trynity swung the flail, landing yet another blow.

Her shields flew back to form wings, spreading out behind. "You cannot trap this hawk!" she proclaimed, then soared high, chased by the gundam. Just before she reached the atmosphere, Trynity quickly stopped and spun to scatter heaven's tears, stunning it. She swung the flail, and it buckled in the middle, so she kicked it and watched as it tumbled back.

She laughed as it spiraled downwards out of control, knocking into Aires suits in pursuit. On her radar she detected Taurus suits approaching from space, so she soared away through the atmosphere, and when she was out of visual contact, she engaged the cloak.

When she returned to the rocky resting place for her Shadowhawk, she found that there was damage to the shoulder that had been grasped by gundam 05. Although she knew she could hand it, she would need days to repair it. She wasn't sure how many days her father had before the Coalition commander lost his patience.