Quatre woke up that morning as any other since the attack by the Kai Kingdom on the planet Earth. He was tired. Even as he trudged to the bathroom he could barely keep his eyes opened. He started the shower and washed himself and took time enough to look at his clock. He scowled. " Three o' clock in the morning and I am up." He idly grabbed into his closet and threw back in a pair of shorts that didn't match the shirt and opened his drawer to grab clean boxers and a pair of shorts that did go with the shirt.
As he dressed himself he reflected over the past information that Heero had given to him about the Queen Dawnty. He had known that she was the one they were fighting. She became Queen of the Kai Kingdom after the mysterious death of the former king, queen, and their daughter the princess. After she assumed all military control she began planning for war. That planning turned into this war. And since their Gundam's had been scraped after the Maria Maya War they had no real way to do great damage to Dawnty forces which have been dubbed "The Assails" or "A's" for short. He and the other Gundam pilot's had all been working around the clock accepting missions from Poe and Noin to do real damage to the A's forces. And for the moment Relena was living with all of the Gundam boys at one of the secure safe houses that were left to him by his late father. Heero at the very beginning of this war had found someway to fake Relena's security so that he could personally keep an eye on her. And when one of the A's forces tried to destroy her Heero got her out of there before she had lost her life. Though she had been badly injured and was still recovering only a limited number of people knew that she was still alive. Since then she had been living with the Gundam Boys as she called them.
Quatre and the others also found she had hidden talents for persuasion and talking at well at strategizing for battles and infiltration into A's storehouses. Though she rarely offered her services they always knew that they were open and if a dire situation would come up she would be able to handle that part of a mission. She still refused to be taught to defend herself physically but that was her choice to make. Quatre finished dressing and made his way out of his bedroom. Trowa's room was across from his own and Wufei's right beside his. Duo's room was on the other side of the building along with Relena's and Heero's. Relena took up the room his mother had slept in and the others all used to belong to his sisters. Still he didn't want to wake up everyone in the house so he crept softly down the stairs. He made his way into the kitchen and reached into the refrigerator for some breakfast. Taking an orange and grabbing the bread from the pantry he headed to the toaster. After it was cooked he spread some butter on the bread peeled the orange and headed into the parlor room.
He idly began eating while he booted up his computer and reviewed the notes on Dawnty. She was born the only female child of the Queen Amalthia and King Corus. But she was second born and that is why she didn't inherit the kingdom. Her older brother Prince Daniel inherited the Kai Kingdom. Their parents died on the same plane as Martial Noventa at the beginning of the OZ War. After that her brother inherited the kingdom and allied himself with the Sank Kingdom until it fell. Before the fall of the Sank Kingdom he married a woman by the name of Maria Maxwell and they had a child named Kari. After the end of the Mari Maya War Kari was seven years old.
After the end of the Mari Maya War the Kai Kingdom flourished. But it wasn't until three years later that the entire royal family was killed leaving Dawnty the only one open to accept the thrown. After she accepted the thrown the military power increased and a year later she attacked the Sank Kingdom beginning this war. What and odd quirk of fate that no matter how the Sank Kingdom wishes to prevent war it always ends up starting one Quatre thought. Though it wasn't documented they knew that Dawnty hated the G-boys for killing her parents and she hated that her brother had allied himself with a kingdom that harbored them. They also knew that it was probably Dawnty who had arranged the deaths of her brother and his wife and child so she could inherit the kingdom. A picture of the Princess Kari of the Kai Kingdom appeared on the screen. The bodies of the king and queen had been found but this young girl of about ten years of age had not. That brought up the question could the princess still be alive. And if she is still alive how did she get away and where is she now?
The princess was quiet pretty though. She had a shoulder length chestnut colored hair with pretty green eyes she inherited from her father. She seemed like she had a well upbringing just like he himself. She was know to be well mannered, intelligent, and all around fun loving. But it was her mothers last named that intrigued him the most. Maxwell was the same last name as Duo and he said she looked familiar but he couldn't say where. They all thought that maybe she was a part of his family but he said he couldn't know because he was an orphan who had lived on the streets with a guy named Solo until he died and Duo was taken to Maxwell church. That is how Duo received the name he goes by now which is Duo Maxwell. So maybe this woman was part of the Maxwell family. Another strange thing about the queen besides that she shared a last name with a gundam pilot is that almost all of her files had been deleted prior to meeting the king, her future husband. This all was very strange to Quatre.
After he finished reading the report he checked his Email and found a coded message from Poe. After using his decoder on the laptop it revealed a mission for all of the Gundam Pilots and new information. He quickly read over the stat of this new mission. It entailed that the Gundam Pilots were to go to the colony in the cluster of L3 to infiltrate a base and try to extract detailed information on the information that Poe had just sent.
Quatre proceeded to open the other file that would contain information on what they were going to steal from the A's forces. "So your up little one." Quatre turn quickly turned in his chair and found Heero standing behind him looking at the monitor. It always surprised him how Heero could sneak up on someone without them knowing it. "What are you doing up?" Quatre asked politely.
"I could ask you the same question. You have been getting up early since the start of the war and I don't think I have ever seen you have a decent night sleep since. What are you looking up?"
"I am over looking the information you gave us last night. Also Poe has sent us another mission. From what I have read we are going to sneak into a base and steal information concerning this." Quatre waved his hand toward the monitor and what was downloading on the screen. Heero pulled up a chair next to Quatre and they both read over the new information.
What they read shocked them. On the screen appeared a blurred image of what seemed to be a group of five people. Quatre could make out a long braid that fell below the knees of one of the people on the screen so he assumed it was a picture of the five gundam pilots on the last mission they had all been on together. But strange enough he could not recognize any thing else about the people in the picture. The information read: Dear Gundam pilots,
This picture is not of you though I am sure you can all make out the long braid. It is a picture of a group of terrorist FEMALES who are working like the rest of us against the Assails. They are said to have a lot of "special skills" that resemble those of you pilots. This is questionable. Is there a group of females working like you pilots against the Assails? And if they are how did they acquired the same fighting tact as you pilots. From what we can acquire from own spies there is more information on this group in the base as well as the ideas of the whereabouts of the Princess Kari. You have three options. Delete this message and pretend you never received it. Accept this mission and prepare to infiltrate the base for the desired information. Or reject this mission. Your choice.
Poe
She was right to think we would recognize the long braid. Duo had hair that was always in one long braid that fell below his knees. But now that she said it was a woman it made some sort of sense and now Quatre could make out the outline of her body. The picture was still blurry and you couldn't make out the faces or anything else for that matter so he quit staring and turn to discuses this with Heero. His face was furrowed in concentration. "So what do you think of this new twist? Do you really think there could be a group of girls fighting like us?"
"Possible. It is possible," was all he said.
"Morning Quatre, morning Heero. Whats for breakfast?" Duo wasn't too quiet coming down the stairs. Quatre turned to the digital alarm clock. "Duo its only four in the morning what are you doing up?"
"Couldn't sleep all that well," he was able to say through a yawn. Behind Duo were Trowa and Wufei. They all noticed the laptop. "Yo Quatre what's up? Do we have a new mission?"
"Yeah," he said as he began printing off six copies of the information. When they were done he passed the papers to the pilots leaving one for himself and Relena and deleted the information off of the computer.
"So are we going to accept the information or not?" That was the major question at the dinner table.
"I don't see any reason not to. It could be quit beneficial if we were to find someone to help us. Who knows maybe they have more information about the A's forces than we do." Duo said through a mouth full of bacon.
"Because we don't need help. Especially help from females." Came Wufei's immediate response.
" You really shouldn't be stereotyping females Wufei. These girls could be very important allies to you." Relena's soft response from the shadows caught all of them off guard.
"Onna! I could kill you for meddling in our affairs!" Wufei announced throwing himself at her. The funny thing about living with five teen terrorists is you seem to develop fast reflexes. She was able to step out of Wufei's path just as he came within an inch of her body. He was able to throw his hands out to stop himself from busting his head against the wall.
"What if I told you I could help you find where these women are?" She said narrowing her eyes at them.
That threw them all off guard. She had never before offered her help to them and they had never asked for it. But here she was offering information that she thought she could get. "Listen you all are going to be to preoccupied with getting ready for this mission. After all you do leave tonight. So if I got as much information as I could on the base the surrounding area and if I have time these girls so you five will have more time to get you asses in gear so you don't get yourselves irreparably damaged like the last time."
" Relena you really shouldn't be offering to do this. After all you could be harmed or traced. Plus after this war is over with you are going to have to take your place as the foreign minister and this would look really bad in the public eye" came Trowa's whisper of a response.
"I am tired of every one saving me and me doing nothing to help myself or those who are helping me. I can't stand by and not do anything any more. I will remain pacifistic always. I am just going to help you guys stay safe. You have all done so much for me that I need to return the favor now. Let me do this."
"Sure." Heero said finally looking up from his eggs.
She walked out of the room not giving a moment for anyone to reject his order.
Quatre smiled. She was really a good person. It was just so sad that she is constantly involved in something that she stands so strongly against. Quatre realized that at the end of the Mari Maya War that she finally understood where they as Gundam pilots had always been coming from. What he really admired about her was her ability to adapt and understand people. It just took her a little bit longer to understand them. But now she did and was willing to help. And who was he to step in the way of her taking a little bit of the load off of them.
Quatre headed upstairs to get ready for an eight-day mission to the L3 colony clusters.
Meanwhile in a safe house on one of the L3 colony cluster two figures are waking up.
Jade's eyes fluttered open and she remembered that everything that had happened in her life wasn't just some bad nightmare that she could wake up from. She heard steady breathing in the bed next to her own and looked over to see Kari's pretty brown hair buried comfortably in the strong protective arms of Woo. Looking up from Kari's peaceful head she saw that Woo's eyes were also opened. Their eyes met. Jade smiled and Woo returned her smile. Then they both looked down to the sleeping chestnut brown head.
"I'll go and contact the others and make some coffee for you." She whispered to her. Woo nodded her Oriental head. Jade made her way as slowly and quietly so as not to wake up Kari. Her deep brown hair in its long braid swished behind her as she booted up the computer. As the computer booted up she made her way into the tiny kitchen and began a coffee pot. She herself hated the stuff but Woo Li Wufei couldn't get her ass to respond properly without the stuff. While the computer was working and the coffee brewing she made her way over to the bathroom and undid the tie of her hair. She began brushing it and redid it into a looser braid mentally telling herself that it would have to do until she could get the tresses wet allowing her hair to become more manageable and stable. She heard the computer beep and made her way back to it and over looked the information that had been sent to them by Stephanie.
Oh Man! She said mentally to herself. How could they have been so careless? A blurry picture of the five of them showed up on the screen. Her own brown braid seemed to be the only thing that was really distinguished from it but still they should not have been photographed at all. Pure carelessness. But there wasn't much they could do about it now. They were going to the base near by to extract whatever information the A's had been able to get on them including the whereabouts of Kari anyway so they would take that out while they were there too. She checked on the coffee and sent Lily and Stephanie an email finalizing the last of their plans. She heard Kari waking up in the other room. She got up and went into the room that she, Kari, and Woo had shared the night before.
"Woo girl where are we now? How did we get here? I don't remember?" Kari made out through a yawn.
"Well you wouldn't have remembered it because we transported you while you were sleeping. Right now we are in a safe house in one of the L3 colony clusters. We got here by riding on the Gundams." Was her response to Kari's endless questions while Woo playfully ruffled her hair. "By the way," Woo said a smile crinkling the corners of her mouth, " don't you think you should hop into the shower?"
"Oh all right." Kari said agreeably. They both smiled as she bounced her way into the bathroom and closed the door. Woo shook her head and stood up walking into the kitchen. She was clothed in a sports bra and loose tie pants while Jade was in a sports bra and loose tank top with a loose pair of flannel shorts. Woo pour herself a cup of coffee. "So what did Steph say?"
"We were photographed Woo. All five of us on that last mission were photographed." Jade said without any emotion.
Woo turned with a shocked look on her face. "You're not joking, are you? This is crazy! There was no way that could have happened!" She said in a harsh whisper.
"Just means we are going to have to extract that information along with the other when we hit that base." She said in monotone. When it comes to missions and the safety of her crew Jade's very serious. She prided herself on her ability to take care of herself and others. But they were skills that Jade wished she didn't have to use anymore. She had used and been taught those skills since the very beginning of her life. She was almost twenty now and wars had plagued her world for as far back as she could remember. But she continued to use them because there were people out there who shouldn't see the horror of war. People like Kari. Yes, when it came to the safety of those she trusted and those she protected Jade would go to any means possible to ensure their safety before even her own.
"So what now? We leave for the colony that the others are on?"
"Yes. First, all of us are going to get dressed, disposing of anything that would even remotely suggest that someone had been here. Then we leave on that carrier with Hydra and Starlight."
"Sounds good to me." She said taking a sip of the warm brew.
"Next we are going to head off to another colony to meet up with Zech so we can get those key cards. And after that we hit the base." She said all of this with coldness in her voice.
"Jade are you all right? You don't seem to be yourself lately. You're so serious all the time and you never have fun like you used to. But I guess it is understandable. This is a war not a time for fun. But Kari misses the way you used to have fun with her. And well, we all miss the person you used to be before you upgraded Light to Starlight. Maybe the Zero system is as dangerous as it is said to be. It has changed you." Woo said setting down her coffee and looking straight at Jade with worry in her voice.
She knew that the Zero system had changed her. Before, she had piloted Light, which was just as upgraded of a Gundam as the regular, but with out the Zero system installed. She had later found a copy of the Zero system that had been duplicated by Zechs himself. That is how she had found out that Zechs wanted to help the resistance by being a spy for their forces. Since then he had become a reliable spy and had time after time proven himself worthy of their respect and trust. That is how they had come by the information that the A's had limited knowledge of them and the whereabouts of Kari. That is probably how they had come by the blurry picture. In three nights there was to be a drop off of the key cards to the base allowing their access to that information. Five nights after that they were going to destroy that information before anyone got a good look at it.
"You should get into the shower after Kari, Woo. I will take one once we reach the colony VNT34668. While you are in the shower Kari and I will get everything cleaned up and ready to go. Then, we stay only long enough to allow you enough time to get dressed then we leave. Its going to take us eight hours to get to that other colony not to mention we've got to drop of Kari at Heldi's on colony VNT34667."
"Yeah. Thank God for Heldi. The girl's a lifesaver. When do we pick Kari up?"
"Three nights after the base infiltration." Jade said with a nod of her head.
"Am I going to Aunt Heldi's again? I wish for once you guys would think I am old enough to help you with missions." Came Kari's response from the other room. The sound of fabric told Jade that she was getting dressed.
"Because you are inexperienced in the matters of warfare and we don't want you getting hurt. Heidi is a good person who is willing to hide you until we can find a permanent place for you so we can watch over you but still be free to do our duty and fight against Dawnty. We can't leave you with Heldi because she is a fighter for Dawnty and a spy for us just like Zechs. How many times do we have to go over it with you until you understand that? It is because you were able to slip into one of our Gudam's the last time that we were photographed and now we have to extract that information from the base along with the rest." Woo yelled to her in the other room.
"Anyway Kari you need to start getting your things packed we are leaving for colony VNT34667 in an hour." Jade yelled to Kari. She then turned to Woo. "And you need to get into the shower. We have got a long eight days ahead of us."