Coalition Base
Pain came rushing from every part of her body as Trynity's lashes fluttered open and a bright light flooded her eyes. Where was she? She blinked from the discomfort caused by the light.
"Inform Dr. Stryfe that his daughter is conscious."
Dr. Stryfe? Where was she? The last thing she remembered was facing a force of manned Taurus suits and mobile dolls sent to attack her by the Cinq Kingdom Space Fleet. The fight with the Wing Gundam and the unknown gundam whose pilot had obviously discovered the energy field that cloaked the Shadowhawk had already weakened the Shadowhawk. Something had driven both gundams away from their fight in the sky, and as Trynity cleared the atmosphere, she saw that the two gundams were battling each other. By then she knew that escape was almost impossible for her. A blow to the Shadowhawk's arm had jerked her own from the socket, leaving her unable to control the flail or draw the bow. Even so, the energy used during the fight to keep her cloaked to defend her and to act left barely enough to escape Earth's orbit. Throwing out heaven's tears had shut down all but life-support systems, and she could do nothing but to drift helplessly in space in her gundam.
Trynity knew what had to be done. The Shadowhawk could not be allowed to fall into the hands of the enemy. So with what little strength she had remaining after taking blow after blow from the two gundams, she flipped the switch to activate the self-destruct sequence. Then she fell weakly against the back of the cockpit seat to wait for the pain to end. A cold sweat had broken out and she knew she was injured internally. Red light glowed around her, and she could hear the gundam creaking and groaning under the onslaught of the Taurus suit's attacks. When she finally heard the blast, Trynity fell into unconsciousness, certain that she would never open her eyes again.
So where was she? How did she survive the explosion?
The door to the infirmary slid open and she turned her head to see her father enter the room. He conversed with the doctor in a low voice she could not hear, and then he came to her bedside.
Trynity focused her blurry vision to see his face. "Father? Is it really you?"
He looked older than she remembered. There seemed to be more lines in his face and dark circles under his eyes. Trynity knew he was probably working too hard, and there was no one here to escort him to his bed. Many nights Trynity forced him to leave the laboratory and had to stay by his side until he was deep asleep before she could trust that he would not sneak back to his work.
"So, you are awake, pumpkin." He grinned at her as he sat on the edge of the narrow infirmary bed. He reached out to touch her cheek. "The doctor tells me that you are out of danger."
"Where are we? What happened?" Hot tears sprang to her eyes and made his face blur. "I am so sorry, father! I destroyed the Shadowhawk!"
He chuckled and put his hand on her cheek. "Shadowhawk is fine."
Trynity shook her head. "I activated the self-destruct sequence. There was no more power! We couldn't fight!"
Dr. Stryfe wiped her tears with the back of his hand. "You didn't think I would ever let you self-destruct?"
As he explained to her that he had overridden the self-destruct commands, Trynity closed her eyes and clenched her teeth to keep from crying. To save his precious gundam, he had replaced the explosives with a system that folded the Shadowhawk into a tight bird-mode. Then as it burst away from the field of battle, it sent distress signals, which Dr. Stryfe answered with a homing beacon that brought the battered gundam to this location.
"We have been busy making repairs and improvements based on the information in your final transmission." He patted her hand. "I will be happy to have you back at my side, pumpkin."
Trynity swallowed her emotion. Part of her was relieved that Shadowhawk had not been destroyed. But part of her wished they both had perished. "How long have I been here? And where is here?"
"This is the Coalition base," he told her as he ran a hand through his iron peppered red hair. "It is an abandoned colony located somewhere behind the moon. Apparently the World and Space Alliance thought it more feasible to evacuate the colony than to repair it after it sustained heavy damage during the war. The Coalition moved in."
"Like rats in a deserted building," commented Trynity.
Dr. Stryfe grunted. "They may be rats, pumpkin, but they have enabled me to continue my research into long-range propulsion."
"Father, that research is dangerous!" She tried to sit up, but he gently pushed her back down.
"You need more time to recover, Trynity Stryfe. The surgeon removed your spleen. You broke three ribs and dislocated your shoulder. Don't go wrecking his efforts to keep you alive." He leaned forward to kiss the top of her head. "We will talk later."
Without waiting for her argument, he left her in the care of the doctor. At first she was angry that he hadn't discussed his work with her, then she realized he was right. The catalog of her injuries was even more extensive than he had revealed. The fight with the two gundams had almost killed her. Trynity knew she had to rest to recover fully, then she could return to her father's laboratory to protect him from himself.
Several days passed before she was able to leave the bed and a few more before she dressed in the uniform of the Coalition that had been left for her. Over a short, zippered black dress, she wore a red jacket that had been embroidered with her name and an insignia that she guessed was the symbol of the Coalition: a hawk. After slipping on the black boots, she looked at herself in the mirror as she latched the golden chain Duo Maxwell had given her around her neck. That pack of morons at Seaside Lab wouldn't recognize her, she thought as she clipped back most of her hair. She didn't recognize the soldier that looked back at her.
As she moved slowly through the corridor away from the infirmary, she encountered several soldiers who saluted her respectfully, but Trynity ignored them as she limped onward. By the time she found the laboratory, she was exhausted, but she managed to make it to her father's side.
He stood alone at a worktable, concentrating on a thick, green substance in a beaker set over a blue flame. Trynity held her breath as he sprinkled something into the bubbling liquid. A flame shot up.
"Father!" she cried in alarm. The fuels he had been working with were highly volatile!
He turned to her. "Don't get in the way, pumpkin! I know what I am doing!"
She was sure he didn't but she reached out only to flip his safety goggles over his eyes.
Dr. Stryfe grunted. She stepped back nervously and noticed many of the other lab technicians were backing away. As he added more powder, Trynity cringed and held her breath. Suddenly he reached out, lifted the beaker and brought it to his lips.
"Father!"
"Delicious!" he announced after taking a long swallow. He held it up and looked around. "Anyone care to try?" The lab assistants laughed nervously but shook their heads and turned back to their own work. Dr. Stryfe looked at her. "How about you? It's my own special recipe. Has a bit of a kick to it!"
Trynity dropped weakly back on a stool before shaking her head. "I thought…"
Dr. Stryfe chuckled as he drained the beaker and set it aside. "I know what you thought." He patted her shoulder indulgently. "You have to stop underestimating people. Should you be out of the infirmary?"
"The doctor told me I could be out for a short while. I feel much better."
"This is no place for you." He glanced around and she noticed that not only was the lab staffed with technicians, but there were also soldiers carrying guns garbed in Coalition colors. "There are men everywhere."
He was worried about that? "I can take care of myself," she snapped. "Besides, on my way here, I was saluted. I must be an officer."
"They have great respect for the gundam pilot," he commented. "Very few have what it takes."
She looked around the large laboratory and her gaze fell on the dark form of the Shadowhawk on the other side of a steel and glass partition, standing as a sentinel in the shadows.
Her father followed her gaze. "You will be quite pleased with the changes."
Trynity closed her eyes. "I can't take it out again. Ever."
"You can and you will."
She was surprised by his uncharacteristically stern voice. "You don't understand."
He sighed and turned to look at the giant gundam. "You chose to pilot it, Trynity. The Shadowhawk is yours."
"I also chose to destroy it," she pointed out bitterly. "You took that choice away from me."
Dr. Stryfe continued to stare at the Shadowhawk without responding.
Trynity continued. "Shadowhawk has killed many. I have killed many."
"What did you expect when you allowed that snake Dekim Barton to train you?" He turned to look at her. "The Shadowhawk is a machine for killing."
"What does that make me?" she cried angrily, forcing back tears.
"You chose to pilot the gundam," he reminded her again. He ran hands through his shaggy hair, lacing his fingers at the back of his head. "I wanted to destroy the gundam, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I couldn't take it away from you, because it had become a big part of your life."
She stared silently at the Shadowhawk. Trynity could not imagine life without the gundam. Her first steps had been around her father's project, and as she grew, the Shadowhawk emerged.
"I never dreamed my own daughter would pilot gundam 06." He sighed. "Your mother was my life, Trynity. Together we hoped to help in building a peaceful future. We believed in the peace advocated by the pacifist leader Heero Yuy, and while I devoted myself to making deep space travel possible, your mother worked in medical research to find better treatment for space related illnesses while volunteering in colony hospitals in need of her expertise. We thought we could make a difference peacefully. But when Heero Yuy was assassinated, I became disillusioned. I was weak, and I allowed myself to be sucked into the schemes of the Barton Foundation."
Trynity looked at him. "The Barton Foundation funded your research, did it not?"
"Your mother never trusted them. She had been so right. At first, Barton pretended to be pleased with my work on propulsion. Your mother warned me again and again not to rely too heavily on his funding, that he wanted something far different from me." His voice was husky with emotion. "I was furious when they approached me with the plan for the gundam, and I refused to make their weapon. By the time you were born, war was waged all around us, and I wanted no part of their wars. I wanted to protect you and Quinlyn from it. Barton nagged me to work on the gundam, but I ignored him."
"Why did you change your mind?" Trynity realized that she knew very little about her father's past. Even less about her mother. Her mother had been a doctor?
"Your mother persuaded me to leave my work so that she could take you to visit her parents on colony L3. While we were there, I received an urgent demand to return to the laboratory, that there had been an accident needing my immediate attention. After I left, the colony was attacked. Your mother and her family were killed. I almost lost you too."
Trynity wished he would not bring up memories that were painful for him. "I know all that. Is that why you created the Shadowhawk?"
He put his hand on her shoulder. "Barton's men saved you, and I was grateful. Too grateful. Fool that I was, I did whatever they wanted and with much pleasure. You can't imagine how difficult it had been to lose your mother. I became bitter and consumed with revenge."
Trynity put her hand over his. "Please, father, don't torture yourself like this."
"I have to tell you this pumpkin. I believed that the Alliance had attacked the colony. All those years I worked for revenge, making the killing machine Barton asked of me, delighted to think it would be used to destroy the Alliance. Shortly before Operation Meteor, I discovered the truth. Barton had sent his own personal army to attack the colony. He had caused the death of innocent people so that I would work to avenge them. I had played right into his hands."
Trynity swallowed nervously, realizing that she, too, had played into Dekim Barton's hands. She used to hide and watch the pilots train to handle her father's masterpiece, and she had envied them. Barton had caught her once, and seeing her intense interest, secretly tested her and found her skills superior to the two pilots in training. Unknown to Ivan Stryfe at the time, she had been trained to pilot the Shadowhawk, to become a soldier for the Foundation. When he did discover it, he had no way of undoing the damage Barton's training had done to her. His only child had betrayed all his beliefs, and he had given her the means to do so.
"You need to rest," said Dr. Stryfe. He smiled at her although she felt utterly miserable. "Come back tomorrow. I have something to show you."
"Does it concern the Shadowhawk?"
He didn't answer her question. "Tomorrow, pumpkin. You are white as a ghost. Get back to your bed."
After returning to the infirmary, she slept the rest of the day and the night through. In the morning she was eager to get back to the lab after eating a hearty breakfast. Putting on her uniform, she snatched up her glasses, perched them on her nose and smiling to herself, she headed to the laboratory to see her father.
When she was only several yards away from the lab, an explosion shook the corridor and Trynity was thrown against the wall. Fearing the worst, she ignored her own safety and rushed into the lab in a frantic search for her father. Amid the broken glass and fires now being extinguished by technicians, she found Ivan Stryfe scratching his head, his hair only slightly singed. She sighed with relief as she came to him.
He looked at her. "That combination was very volatile," was his only comment. Then he reached out to take the glasses from her nose and placed them on his own. "Thank you for bringing these, pumpkin. I realized too late that I had left them on L10. I've had a hell of a hard time without them." He kissed her cheek, then proceed to tell her the equation of the formula that had caused the explosion.
When he finished, she shook her head. "Father, you should have predicted that result."
He leaned close to her and whispered, "Things were getting a little boring around here. I thought I'd make them earn their pay."
Trynity bit her lip to keep from laughing as she watched the lab workers scurry about to clean up. "Father!"
He winked, then put his arm around her shoulder. She winced from the nagging pain. That arm still was not completely healed. The doctor assured her that in a few days she could begin working the arm to regain the strength.
"Now that you are here, we can work together," her father was saying as they left the lab, passing through an airlock and entering the mobile suit hangar where the Shadowhawk was stored.
Trynity kept her eyes on the gundam. "What damage was done?"
He listed the repairs, most already completed by the efficient technicians and engineers of the Coalition. There were some further adjustments that required the fine-tuning of Ivan Stryfe, and Trynity wanted to run her own tests before she would consider the Shadowhawk recovered.
They sat at a computer screen together for much of the day reviewing the data she had collected during her encounters with the Cinq Kingdom gundams. They found the strengths and weaknesses of each gundam, including the unknown gundam they designated as gundam 08. There was one notable exception to their discussion that her father did not fail to point out.
"Gundam 02's data is incomplete." He looked at her with a raised brow.
Trynity felt her face redden. He might as well be scolding her aloud because his admonishment was loud and clear.
Then he did just that. "It's not like you to leave loose ends."
"I encountered it only once," she told him.
"You allowed it to run a scan on the Shadowhawk," he informed her.
"I jammed the scan before it could finish," she pointed out.
"Someone used that data to unlock Shadowhawk's secret. The next time you go into action, it will be on an even playing field. The cloak will do you no good."
"I will work on it, make some modifications," she argued.
He shrugged. "As for Gundam 02, I have referenced its weaponry. It appears to use a scythe of some type with a powerful beam. Look at the readings picked up by Shadowhawk when it tried to attack."
Trynity looked at the image of the gundam attacking with the scythe and shuddered. She would never forget it! It looked like a demon from hell. She could not imagine the type of ruthless devil that would pilot such a beast.
Dr. Stryfe chuckled as the playback came to an end with the gundam plummeting into the atmosphere. "There must have been a malfunction to cause such an incredible loss of energy." Then he sobered as he looked at her. "You showed considerable restraint in not destroying it."
She disappointed him by telling him, "My orders were to destroy Wing gundam 01 and the Epyon. I had no orders concerning that one."
He sighed and put his hand on her cheek. "Pumpkin, you have become a soldier, blindly following orders."
"I have to," she replied and moved her face so that his hand fell away.
Her father sat down. "I suppose I should be blamed. I knew what type of person they sought to pilot the gundam, one with nothing to lose, with no conscience, a soulless person who could be trained to do anything without question or remorse. I never realized until too late that I had neglected to tend your heart, Trynity. Now you have none."
She put her hands on his shoulders. "That is not true, father. I love you."
He smiled and patted her hands. "I am certainly the chink in your armor. But I would be lost without you, pumpkin." He turned back to the screen to replay the abbreviated battle.
As they watched yet again, Trynity absent-mindedly toyed with the charm hanging around her neck. Then she started to think of Duo Maxwell without wanting to. Trynity was ashamed of her foolishness where he was concerned. He was a buffoon, an idiot, and a moron of the lowest degree! Not once had he shown the slightest hint of intelligence. While she risked her neck for her father, he showed a lack of maturity and seriousness that was exasperating. Yet she had been drawn to him, against her will, against her better sense. Why? How?
"Are you listening, pumpkin?"
Her hand fell away from the charm.
Dr. Stryfe looked at it for a moment, then directed her attention to the screen. She was looking at the design for a new weapon. "That looks like the weapon gundam 08 was using," she remarked.
"With some modifications. It is a double edged beam saber. I am quite sure that you will have to battle 02 again, but it will be even more prepared for the attack. In that case, your only alternative is to best it in a physical battle, hand to hand, so to speak."
Trynity stared at the weapon. "I have no experience with a long-handled weapon like that."
"You will have to train," interrupted a voice from behind them. She turned around, and at first she didn't recognize the tall man watching them with his arms folded over his chest. And when she did recognize the dark, handsome young man, she crushed a wave of embarrassment that rolled through her.
Lars Nelson. Trynity had hoped to see the last of him two years ago when he left L10 furious that his chance to pilot the Shadowhawk ended in a fiery explosion. He had never been anything but cruel to her when she had been suffering the worst case of puppy love for the young pilot training on L10. When Dekim Barton had caught her, she had been spying on him as much as she had been observing the training. But that last day, he had sought her to say goodbye, and she had been surprised and overjoyed. She had been stupid enough to reveal her feelings, and he had tried to take advantage of them. In retrospect, Trynity knew his mauling had been motivated out of revenge against her father for taking away his golden opportunity to pilot a gundam. She ended her disastrous crush on him with a well-placed knee. After he left the research post for good, she hid in her room for days to keep her father from seeing her bruises and the marks he had made. She incinerated her ripped clothing, and as she watched them burn, her heart had burned as well. Her first lesson about men; they were beasts.
Now as they looked at each other, her hand went back to the scythe at her neck. Her second lesson; they couldn't be trusted.
Before he could say anything more, A Coalition soldier approached and saluted them both. "Captain Nelson, Lieutenant Stryfe, the commander awaits you."
Hearing her rank, Trynity felt a little embarrassed that she had decided not to wear the boots which pinched her feet. Instead she wore her comfortable tennis shoes with her uniform.
As if reading her mind, Lars glanced at the untied footwear with faint amusement. "Still not tying your shoes?"
Trynity did not respond as they followed the soldier from the lab. She hated to admit even to herself that Lars Nelson made her feel nervous. She wasn't a fifteen year old lovesick girl anymore! She wasn't going to take crap from men!
They entered an office that must have once belonged to the former colony administrator. Now a tall man stood with his hands behind his back contemplating space from the huge windows ringing the office. Trynity saw mobile suits leaving the colony, others being worked on my mechanics.
"What do you think of our army, Lieutenant Stryfe?"
Trynity looked back at the commander. He wore the garb of the Cinq Kingdom! One word came to Trynity's mind immediately: traitor. But she pushed back her contempt. This was the man who held the power of life or death over her father; he was the one who gave her orders.
Lars put his hand on her shoulder and propelled her forward. To her annoyance, he did not remove it, but slid it lower to rest on the small of her back. "Allow me to introduce my brother, Colonel Lionel Nelson."
Trynity had heard the name before. "You are the commander of Miliardo Peacecraft's Space Fleet."
His smile was eerie. "You are well-informed."
"I am his ward," she pointed out.
"A fact that amuses me greatly." Nelson came forward and Trynity fought the feeling of being trapped. "I never thanked you for disposing of Lucrezia Noin." He extended his hand.
She didn't take it. "A soldier doesn't need thanks for carrying out orders."
Nelson turned back to admire his fleet. "You did not give me your assessment of my armaments."
She stepped away from Lars. He had been standing so close that she could feel his warm breath in her hair. Did he think she would find him at all attractive after…after…? Trynity was annoyed to catch herself touching the scythe. She jerked her hand away. She couldn't afford a distraction now.
"Two dozen Taurus suits," she counted as she looked at the mobile suits filling the space around the colony. "Mobile dolls? I think I see three dozen." She turned to look at Nelson. "Not much to take against one gundam let alone six, seven including the Epyon if it has been rebuilt."
Lars came forward to grab her arm. "Who do you think you are talking to? How dare you!"
"Let her go!" snapped his brother, who then smiled at Trynity when the sulking Lars stepped back. "Quite correct, Lieutenant Stryfe. But I have other resources beyond what you see here."
She raised a brow. "I assume that a man of Miliardo Peacecraft's sly ingenuity has been building a space fleet from some location."
"Quite right, my dear." Nelson chuckled. "I have control of his secret factory." He reminded Trynity of a snake. "And the suits it has been producing have been redesigned to your father's specifications. We call them Sagitariens as each is able to fire ten disrupter bolts from a mounted crossbow. They are also equipped with the standard beam rifle, but those bolts are quite effective. A suitable complement to the Shadowhawk, wouldn't you say?"
"The crossbow doesn't have the range or power of the longbow used on the Shadowhawk," she commented. "But the Sagitariens will be effective against the mobile dolls and the prince's fleet of manned Taurus suits. It may even be minimally effective against the gundams as a distraction."
"Very astute, lieutenant. But then, that is why I find you a valuable asset to the Coalition. Your father assures me that with the changes he has made to the Shadowhawk, only the pilot's skill will be the difference in a prolonged battle."
"I will not fail," she stated.
Lars snorted. "Strong words from you, Trynity Stryfe. You were ordered twice to remove the commander of the Cinq Kingdom forces."
Trynity didn't hide her disgust as she glared at him. "The mission was ultimately successful."
"Indeed." Nelson was stroking his mustache. "Noin was a stumbling block. For many years she was content to stand behind Zechs Merquise. A foolish choice for a woman of her intelligence and fire." Trynity saw that he was clenching his fists. He must have had feelings other than admiration for Commander Noin. "With her in control of his forces, it would have been difficult to get as far as we have."
"It is too bad there was no other way," commented Lars. "She was an admirable person."
His brother glared at him. "You wear your weakness on your sleeve, brother."
Lars shifted his gaze away, embarrassed.
"What is your ultimate goal?" asked Trynity. The brothers obviously had little love of each other.
"Freedom from the Cinq Kingdom and the tyrant Zechs Merquise," Lars told her.
Trynity turned her attention back to him. Did Lars really believe that idealistic nonsense? She noticed the elder Nelson smiling indulgently. His motives were probably a little more basic and less idealistic than those of his brother: power, greed, jealousy. Lars seemed to earnestly believe in the official line. Fool!
"You are recovering quickly," remarked Colonel Nelson. "I have assigned my brother to train you in the use of the new weapon that your father is designing to use against gundam 02. Lars was a student of Lucrezia Noin, and she praised his skill with the staff, which was one of her particular strong points. That is why it was incorporated on the new gundam which had been designed exclusively for her. Unfortunately, the pilot who replaced her could not handle it. As for you, Lieutenant Stryfe, you will train Lars in the use of the longbow as he trains you."
Trynity started with surprise. "He will not pilot the Shadowhawk!"
"No, that is your gundam. We have completed building a superior mobile suit of titanium alloy. Unfortunately, gundanium is impossible to get without causing suspicion. Seems that only Miliardo Peacecraft is capable of such feats."
Trynity heard his resentment though Lars was completely oblivious.
"My father will not disappoint you," she said.
Nelson's smile unnerved her. "Nor will you."
Lars saluted his brother, but Trynity did not before they left. She was his pilot and took his orders, but she had no intention of giving him any deference. Colonel Nelson merely smiled at her insubordination as he returned his brother's salute.
Trynity followed Lars from the room. They did not speak until they were well away from his brother's office. When they entered a deserted corridor, he suddenly seized her and threw her against the wall. Trynity groaned from the pain that shot down her injured arm from the impact.
He put a hand on the wall by her head and leaned forward. "Surprised to see me again? I never thought I'd see you, Trynity Stryfe."
She tried to move away, but he shoved her back and grabbed her chin to force her to look at him. Trynity said nothing as she glared at him.
"My dear Trynity, imagine how I felt when I learned that my gundam was being piloted by you!"
"Shadowhawk was never your gundam!" she retorted.
"And I thought you had destroyed your father's work so that he would turn his attention to you! But you only wanted to steal it from me. I will get it back."
"You could never handle it," she stated coolly.
He laughed and pressed against her, crushing her against the wall with his body. "I will handle it, and I will handle you, too, Trynity Stryfe."
When he leaned forward to kiss her, she brought up her knee, but Lars was ready for her move and caught it, then took the opportunity to slide his hand up the inside of her thigh. But as he was grinning with triumph, she poked him sharply in the rib, balled her hand into a first and hit him so hard in the jaw that she was afraid that she had broken bones in her own hand. Lars stumbled back, and she launched herself at him, shoving him against the opposite wall.
Trynity put her forearm under his chin and pressed it into his neck, cutting off his air. He tried to struggle, so she shoved her knee between his legs and was amused to see his eyes bulge. Trynity wondered which frightened him more: the oxygen deprivation or permanent injury to a part of him he apparently cherished.
"I am not a naïve little girl anymore," she told him, stretching up to speak to him nose to nose. His face was darkening from lack of air. "Don't make this mistake again or you will regret it." She waited a moment until his eyes started to roll back, then jerked her knee upward and let him fall gasping and wheezing to the floor. "Don't you ever touch me like that again."
Trynity stepped over his writhing body and continued on her way back to the lab. By the time she re-joined her father, she had regained her composure. She didn't tell him about Lars' attack. What could he do anyway? She had to handle him on her own.
But she didn't see Lars again until a few days later. While working in the lab, a soldier arrived to escort her to training with Captain Nelson. He was waiting in a deck area that overlooked the dark side of the moon. Weapons lined the walls and on the far end stood a target. Lars was holding a longbow.
"I thought we would wait until I was healed," she told him as she picked up an arrow, wondering if she would have to use it as a defensive weapon against him.
"I think you are healed enough." He was twanging the bowstring as he looked her over from head to foot. Lars was too thick skulled to learn his lesson. How would he look with arrow protruding from his eye? Better yet, much lower?
Disgusted, she turned to look at the moon. It was so dark and desolate, unlike the face of the moon she had seen from Earth. Sighing, she could not help but think of her last night on the planet, dancing under the moon reflecting on the pond. Trynity would never be able to look at the moon without thinking of Duo Maxwell. And it hurt to think of him.
"Let's get started," growled Lars impatiently.
Her warning must have sunk in because Lars did not make any attempt to bully her or touch her except when necessary. He didn't have any natural talent with the bow, but then she had expected that. Lars had trained hard to be the Shadowhawk's pilot because it did not come easy to him. This day after many failed attempts, he finally sent an arrow sailing to the target. When it missed, he swore and Trynity tried to hide her smile.
But Lars saw it. "Are you mocking me? I will pay you back, Trynity Stryfe." He took up another arrow and prepared to shoot. "Of course, fighting with a staff can be quite entertaining. I plan to have you flat on your back as often as I can."
Trynity didn't respond. She was annoyed to have to rely on him for training. They both knew she would be at his mercy and he was going to take as much advantage of that as possible.
For hours, he ignored her unless she gave him advice. To his credit, he followed her instructions without question and he worked with determination. It took no small amount of strength for a man to use the longbow, and she caught herself admiring the rippling movements of his muscles as he tried again and again to hit the center of the target. He was a jerk, but not an unattractive jerk. Watching him was no great task.
By the end of the day when she was starting to feel hungry, his shots were moving closer to the center of the target. She suggested leaving to eat, but he merely grunted his permission for her to go. As she left him behind digging his arrows from the target, she thought of the determination of Heero Yuy and his ridiculous video game. Lars was a lot like him.
Her father was working on some project for which he used the computer, but when Trynity approached, he quickly changed his screen. Trynity frowned at him.
"You know," he commented, "this is a very useful machine."
She didn't reply as she sat on a stool by him. What had he been doing?
He dug an apple from the pocket of his lab coat and tossed it to her. "I am too busy to leave. Perhaps that nice young Captain Nelson would eat supper with you."
Trynity glared at him.
He chuckled. "Were it not for his brother's influence, Lars might be a likable fellow."
"I don't need you to play cupid for me," she said, annoyed. She took a bite of the apple.
"I just thought you might want some advice on how to forget the young man who gave you this." He reached out to touch the scythe dangling from the gold chain.
Trynity jerked back and choked on the chunk of apple she had bitten off. Her father pounded on her back then took the apple from her hand.
"Perhaps you should eat pureed food," he commented with a grin. He tossed the apple up and down as he looked at her. "Are you going to talk about him, pumpkin?"
"No!"
"A ha! So I was right! Some young man gave you that necklace." Dr. Stryfe was pleased with himself.
"An idiot!" she snarled as she tried to get the apple from him, but he managed to swipe it out of the air before she could grab it.
"Well, that is a promising start! Where did you meet this idiot?"
"Does it matter?" She seized the apple and took another bite.
"Of course it does! I'd like to know something about this young man you have fallen in love with."
She choked again.
"Ha!" Her father took back the apple. This time she cleared her throat on her own.
"That is ridiculous!" Trynity could feel that her face was red.
Dr. Stryfe merely smiled at his daughter.
She glared back at him.
He tossed the apple, and when Trynity tried to get it, she accidentally batted it. The apple flew through the air, and they watched as it bounced off a worktable, then crashed into several beakers, spilling the contents over the counter. Trynity threw herself at her father, and they landed on the floor just as an explosion rocked the laboratory. As glass and tubing rained around them, Trynity heard the Coalition scientific research staff cursing.
She looked her father in the eye.
They both shook with laughter.
The following days blended together as she divided her time between the practice deck with Lars, the laboratory with her father and test piloting the Sagitarien mobile suits. Her arm no longer troubled her, so she was forced to spar with Lars, to take his lessons like a bitter pill. True to his word, he took delight in knocking her down, which he did quite frequently. She finished each day feeling bruised both physically and mentally, and she hated to admit that he had some remarkable skill. His skill on the bow was improving also, so she congratulated herself on her teaching although he was far from proficient. Lars spent all his spare time practicing with dogged determination so that when her father completed work on the advanced mobile suit that he dubbed the Artemis after the Greek goddess of the hunt, Lars was ready to pilot it.
Troubling Trynity was the fact that she looked forward to working with Lars Nelson. Her father teased her, but she was at least smart enough not to trust the young captain. That had already gotten her into trouble. And Lars was smart enough not to test her.
Another troubling development was the work her father did with the aid of his computer. He did not share it with her, and when she entered the lab, he quickly closed out the screen and ended the program before she could even get a hint of what he was doing. Trynity could only hope that he was not designing something that would kill them all.
The previous day Colonel Nelson took off on a shuttle to take him to Earth per the order of Miliardo Peacecraft. Lars had been furious at the rude order, but his brother cautioned him to be patient. Trynity had discovered that Nelson had been ordered to stop the Shadowhawk, and the only reason she had not been destroyed was that Nelson had programmed the mobile dolls to blast away the manned Taurus suits sent out to stop her. His official explanation of the incident was that the gundam was cloaked, that it had destroyed the Taurus suits and jammed the signals sent to the mobile dolls. No witnesses remained to refute him. Trynity despised the lying rat, but he was her commander; her father was still his prisoner.
When Nelson had gone, Lars decided to forgo their afternoon training to take out the Artemis which had been programmed with data from his training. Trynity stayed in the lab, trying to get a peak at her father's secret work, but he had locked his files with a tight code that she couldn't crack. So she wandered to her father who was in another part of the lab monitoring the training exercise testing his latest project, the Artemis. Space mines had been scattered for Lars to use for target practice. At first, he stayed still as he shot the bow, and after a few misses, he managed to take out a couple of the mines. Then he was ordered to maneuver the suit in different directions while taking aim. Trynity hoped for her own sake that he didn't make an ass of himself, and she was relieved when he hit two of the three targets. Lars was more than a passable pilot, no doubt more due to the training he had received in the special forces under Commander Noin than the training on L10.
During the exercises, a call from Earth was transmitted to his mobile suit from the Space Fleet Operations communications center.
Her father flipped on the telecom to monitor. Trynity hoped it was a report that Nelson had been arrested, that Miliardo Peacecraft had wised up and realized the commander of his Space Defense fleet was a liar and a traitor. She was quite enjoying her little fantasy when a voice she thought she would never hear again and a face she would never see again, appeared on the screen.
"What can I do for you, Duo Maxwell?" Lars was speaking.
She felt her heart beating frantically as she looked at his face. "I am investigating Dr. Ivan Stryfe for a report at school. I know that you were stationed there and must have known him personally."
Her father raised his brows. "So now young people are writing reports about me! I am so flattered!"
Lars responded. "I was training to pilot Gundam 06."
"Hey, that sounds like hard work!" Trynity gritted her teeth as Duo grinned at Lars. What a dimwit!
"What do you really want, Duo Maxwell? Trynity Stryfe could have told you all you wanted to know about her father when she was staying at your little orphanage."
Trynity narrowed her eyes. Duo had tried to question her. So what did he want now? She didn't remember any such reports being assigned.
He scratched his head. Trynity caught herself smiling about his nervous tick. Her father wriggled his brows at her and she stopped smiling.
"Okay, so you got me! I'm looking for Trynity. Did she have any family beside her father?"
As Lars explained what happened to her mother, Trynity stared at Duo's face. He was looking for her! Her father was watching her, so she tried to curb her excitement. In fact, she berated herself for her feelings. Why did she care if Duo Maxwell was looking for her? She could never go back there!
"So all she had was her father."
"She adored that fool."
Dr. Stryfe sighed sadly. "One moment I am the stuff of which school papers are written, the next, I am a fool."
Trynity smiled and put her hand on his shoulder to comfort him, but her smile faded when she heard Lars' next words.
"Trynity was quite amusing during my stay at L10. Did you find her as…amusing?"
His meaning was clear. Although Trynity gasped with outrage, her father chuckled. Duo's eyes widened, then he yelped.
"Oops!"
"Duo!" Another voice could be heard in the background. "What are you doing? You just fried Dr. J's desk!"
Trynity tried to check where the transmission was coming from just as Lars demanded to know.
"I think they call it a Leo. We are on a field trip to Dover Mobile Suit base. Just thought I'd steal a little air time and contact you."
Trynity made a sound of disgust. "The mobile suit base will be history before he leaves, if that is any indication."
She didn't hear the rest of the conversation, but she did hear Duo ask, "Hey, how does one become a gundam pilot?" There was such a cow stupid look on his face that Trynity cringed.
"Brains," responded Lars.
Something that Duo Maxwell lacked considerable thought Trynity.
Her father switched off the transmission, then turned to look at her. "Takes more than brains," he commented with a chuckle. "I'm not sure your little friend has that special something."
"He's an idiot."
Dr. Stryfe smiled and his gaze fell to her necklace.
Trynity blushed.
Fortunately, he asked no more questions, but she knew the damage was done. Instead of waiting around for her father to ask embarrassing questions, she went down to the docking bay to await Lars' return. When he finally entered the airlock, she marched up to him.
"Just what did you mean?"
Lars' dark eyes met hers and she wasn't mollified to see that he appeared to be ashamed.
"Did you think we weren't watching and listening?" she demanded.
He pulled off his space suit and tossed it aside. "I thought I would give the half-wit something to think about. Why do you care?"
"I don't!" She spun around to leave, but he suddenly grabbed her hand and pulled her back to him.
"I don't like that he is looking for you!" Before she could react, he was kissing her, and not the sweet kissing she had experienced with Duo. Nor was it like the fumbling, angry kisses he had given her on L10. This was the kiss of a man with experience in manipulating women, and for several moments she was lost in his arms. A dark part of her responded to his passion, and she wrestled with that part until she lost and relaxed against him, letting him lead her where he would.
But he released her so suddenly that she fell back weakly. His smug grin and crass words ruined whatever effect he hoped to have on her. "I told you I would learn to handle you."
Trynity slapped his face and stalked away with his laughter ringing in her ears. When she returned to her room, she paced as she thought of Duo's call, then Lars' kiss. She was becoming confused by her feelings, and she didn't like it one bit!
Finally she gave in to her most secret desire and sat down at her computer. She called up the transmission from Earth, and as she replayed it again and again, she laid her hand over the scythe and stared at Duo Maxwell in all his moronic glory.
She had completely lost her mind!