PART SEVEN:
Disclaimers: Since this story is set about three hundred years after the Gundam characters existed, there isn't much here I don't own. Except maybe any characters I use in flashbacks or the actual names of the characters, which pop up a few times. Some OOC, but no yaoi.
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Everything around Via was dark, and she was cold. She wanted to rub her eyes, but found that she couldn't move without pain flooding through her. Via wondered vaguely if this was what death was like, but banished the thought as soon as it came. There was no way death hurt that much.
"I think she's awake."
Via shifted uneasily, all of her muscles screaming at her in irritation. She didn't recognize this voice, but it sounded comfortable. Something cool touched her forehead, and she let out a small moan of surprise. Something spoke to her in Chance's voice this time.
"Can you open your eyes, Via?"
"Let her rest. That drug did a number on her system."
"I thought you said the drug would be safe," Chance protested quietly, in a strange tone. Via cracked one eye open to see a man, almost sixty years old, with disappearing gray hair, tanned skin and dark eyes standing over her, a long white lab coat covering most of his body.
"It should have been fine," the man said. "It was just supposed to make her lose control of her mobile functions so you three could remove her as quickly and quietly as possible, as I told you it would do. My guess is that she either had an allergic reaction to the drugs fumes or some sort of outside force altered the drug drastically."
Chance ran a hand through his hair. "Cheery thought, especially when you consider all the stuff that's been happening here lately. So knocking her out wasn't supposed to happen?"
"Nor was the slowed heart rate. But we couldn't foresee that."
"What in the name of Shinigami is going on here?" Via asked with a low moan, too tied to even open her eyes all of the way. Her voice sounded strained.
Chance moved into her view. "Well, you're alive. I guess that's a plus." He smiled. "You really do take after your great grandfather, don't you? Even when you've been kicked, you want to know everything that's going on."
"Let's just say I don't like being kept in the dark."
"Fair enough." Chance's smile faltered. "Do you want to hear about what's happening? You won't like it and I don't want you any madder than you already are."
"I'm fairly pissed off as it is. I'm simply too tired to strangle you right now. So I doubt anything you say could make me any worse."
"Good, I guess." Chance hesitated. "Are you sure you're too tired to strangle me?"
"Fairly positive, yes."
There was a long pause. "Okay, it's like this. As you've probably figured out, Khans and I took your disks last night, when we ran out of your house."
"No, really? I never would have guessed."
"Right, that's what I thought. We brought the disks back here, to our base, and did everything we could to decode them. With eleven operators on the job, it didn't take us long to go through every single one of them. But all we could get was a scrambled voice in a jumble of static that sounded like it was laughing at us. And we really need the stuff on those disks. So Khans decided we should get you to figure the things out for us, since you seem to know them backwards and forwards and upside down. It didn't take long for us to get back down to the colony and even less time to get you. The plan was to drug you and get you to some safe place on the colony where you could help with the disks. But something went wrong, and the drug Khans made you inhale knocked you out instead of whatever it was supposed to do, as well as decreased your heart rate, so we had to bring you back up here to our base."
"Great." Via sighed. She wasn't hurting as much now, which she considered to be a good thing. "So where am I now?"
The older man was the one who answered. "You are in the medical bay of our satellite strategy base. Currently we're somewhere near Mars."
"We're in space?"
"Yes."
Via paused, then grinned. "Cool!"
Chance looked puzzled. "You aren't upset that we kidnapped you and took you to outer space?"
"Oh, I'm plenty upset," Via told him. "See, I'm just tired and happy that I'm in space. Once the shock wears off and I realize that I've been kidnapped, I'll hurt you. Badly. You should probably run far, far away before I can get a hold of you."
She heard Chance sigh. "Maybe I should just show you the hangar now, since you're already planning to beat me senseless. It'll save you the effort later." The doctor cleared his throat, and Chance shot a look that way. "I mean, if the good doctor thinks you're ready for the tour of the hangar."
"It's fine." The man smiled. "I just wanted someone to ask permission for a change." He winked cheerfully. "Just take it easy, little miss."
"Thanks." Via sat up slowly, setting her feet on the floor and smiling at the doctor.
Chance smiled timidly, leading her out of the room. "The hangar isn't much," he told her. "But I guess it's one of the most important rooms in the entire base. We've all put our lives into it. Come on, I'll introduce you to the Gundams."
As he led her out the door, Via looked briefly over her shoulder, back to the window that proved she really was in space, for the first time in her memory. As she followed Chance down the hall, a lump settled in her throat when the view disappeared. For the very first time, she was off her humble home colony, away from the troubles of school, her uncles, friends... And yet she didn't feel happy or sad about the entire situation. Just kind of... empty.
After a brief while, Chance threw open a door. "This is it."
The hangar was green. Via suppressed an urge to giggle at the bright, fluorescent décor of the war room, since she gathered that Chance was rather fond of the place, but she couldn't stop a smile. Besides, it was pretty ridiculous looking.
Via quickly got over her initial amusement and gasped. There were three other people in the room, drinking coffee and laughing in a little glass room to one side. Everywhere there were heaps of mechanical tools and engines, a dream to any machine-interested person like Via, and directly to her left were six closet-like enclosures. Four of them had a large sheet of metal shielding the inside from view and one was empty, but the first one… Via could see a large mobile suit, at least twice the size she had imagined it would be. White-feathered wings enveloped it.
"Is that…?"
"Wing Zero, customized by Heero Yuy--and several other people as the years went by." Chance smiled. "It's mine, now. Rules of our organization state that the suits are inherited by the closest living relative, and I guess I'm as close as they come in our family line."
"Which one is Khans'?"
Chance's smile dimmed a little, but Via noted that he was regarding her with interest. It was warranted, she supposed. She had just been kidnapped, and here she was, acting agreeable and interested instead of aloof and disagreeable as she should have been. That had to be a little bit strange.
"It's the second from the end. It's covered right now, since it's not being used, but we can look at it later. The empty hangar to its right is Sandrock's place, but Natasha, one of Quatre's grand-nieces, is probably out on patrol for right now."
"And the others?"
Chance waved that away. "Not now. Look at the numbers written on the wall, near the Zero hangar. Do you know what they mean?"
Via squinted at the numbers and something clicked in her mind. She smiled. "Maybe." She made a mental note to check something later on, if she could. "So where's the junk heap you want me to fix?"
Chance shifted uneasily. "Yeah. It's in the sixth hangar. It's kind of…" He sighed. "It's probably beyond repair, but it's a shot in the dark. Our engineers here can make basic repairs, but this suit hasn't been able to run properly for years now. It's virtually useless to us unless we can make it work at all. When I came to the colony, I was supposed to be doing undercover research on someone working for the OZ organization, but when I found out about you, I reported back to here and they told me to try and see if you could help."
"Stop with the small talk. Which suit is it?"
"Well…" There was a long pause. "It's Deathscythe."
Via's blood flared. "You broke Duo's Gundam?"
Chance cringed. "Technically, according to our rules, it's really your Gundam, Via. Being Duo's closest living descendent."
This took a minute to process. "You wrecked my Gundam?" she shrieked.
"It's not really wrecked, Via. It's just kind of... not working."
She swore. "So you dragged me up here to kick a Gundam that's technically mine into shape so you all can use it to murder a bunch of people? Beautiful…"
Chance hesitated. "Something along those lines."
"Well, it's not going to work that way. I'm taking my disks and going home, you understand? You aren't they guy I thought you were, Chance, you know that? You're nothing more than a killing machine. Like Heero."
"Quiet, Via." Chance lay a finger on his temple. "I'm not the person Heero was, and I never want to be like that, not ever. And you don't understand. The people who die for our cause aren't as innocent as you seem to think they are. People know what they're getting into, and a majority of the people who end up dying would destroy the colonies if they could."
"Get a life." Via was about to turn and leave when a red light came on and a mechanical voice began to chant a warning.
"Incoming flight suit, authorized 04-a0cxym. Please evacuate the area authorized 04-tpul13hz. Repeat, authorized flight suit 04-a0cxym is entering authorized area 04-tpul13hz. Please evacuate area 04-tpul3hz as quickly as possible."
Chance frowned and handed something to Via. "Put this on over your nose and mouth," he told her shortly.
"What is it?" she asked hesitantly, putting it on as Chance had instructed. Chance did the same.
"Air mask. Sandrock is coming in, and when the hangar opens a lot of stray particles are going to be exchanged, some of which could be deadly. It's best not to try and find out."
"Sandrock?"
"Natasha's Gundam." He pointed to a clear window over by the spot Wing Zero was in. "Watch through there."
Via followed his finger and watched the black sky. After a moment, a white streak that seemed to attract the starlight to it appeared in a furious blaze of fire and light and Via gasped. It was the most amazing thing she had ever seen in her life, and she tried desperately to implant the image in her mind before it could disappear.
Once the view was gone, there was a long creaking nose of metal scraping against metal. Chance took a step back, towards her, hands grasping her arms loosely.
"The doors are opening up top," he explained quickly. Via nodded. The sound was almost deafening and Via resisted the urge to cover her ears. She bit her lip under the mask, trying to remind herself to stay strong.
Another moment passed and the noise ended with a loud thud. The ceiling opened, split in two, and a metal platform lowered, hefting Sandrock to its spot on the floor of the hangar. Once the platform was down all the way, the ceiling returned to its previous position and both Via and Chance removed their masks. A hatch on the suit opened and Via saw a slim woman slide out and lower herself to the floor by a thin rope. Via shrank back as the woman approached, helmet under her arm, recognizing her to be the same woman who had helped abduct her before.
"Natasha, how did the patrol go?"
Natasha shrugged, wrenching off her red flight suit. Her blond hair flashed against her extremely tanned skin and her green eyes flickered. "Looks pretty calm out there right now, which I find a little strange. But perhaps things have gotten better since last night."
"Yeah. That would be nice." Chance grinned. "Oh yeah. Natasha, meet Via. Via, meet Natasha. And now that formal introductions are over, let's get down to business."
"Which would be?" Natasha narrowed her eyes at Via's scowling face. "Oh. That. It was your job to explain the situation to her, Subduar."
"I know." Chance shrugged. "She didn't want to listen to me, between my admission to kidnapping and her accusations of murder."
"I wonder why." Natasha sighed, turning to Via. "We need you to analyze the Maxwell disks and tell us how to put Deathscythe back into working order. In return you may have one boon. Anything you want--within proper reasoning."
"What if I refuse?"
"Then I will tell you that you know too much and we will dispose of you. It's up to you, Miss Maxwell, but the choice is easy enough."
She narrowed her eyes. "No."
Natasha sighed. "Very well. Subduar. Shoot her."
Hesitating only slightly, Chance pulled a gun out of the back of his jeans and leveled it to Via's temple. Via's eyes widened.
"Whoa, hold on here! Never mind; I'll do it!" She sighed, relieved, as Chance replaced his gun in the back of his jeans. "I didn't think you would actually kill me!"
"I always keep my promises," Natasha said, walking past her towards the door. "Get used to it, because you're going to be working with us from now on."
As Natasha left, Via turned to Chance, scowling. "You were actually going to kill me!"
"Only because you wanted me to," Chance muttered. "You shouldn't have challenged her like that. Natasha doesn't joke around."
"I noticed," Via said sourly, crossing her arms over her chest. "But you were actually going to shoot me!"
"I've shot people before. I didn't necessarily dislike some of them either." Chance dropped the subject there. "Come on. I've got to formally introduce you to Shatajit."
"Which one is he? Does he want to kill me, too? Is he Trowa's descendant? We seem to have everyone else covered."
"Hardly." Chance smiled faintly. "Shatajit is Rashid's great-grandson. The Maganac. One of the only three currently in the company."
"Oh. Is he a jerk like Natasha?"
"No, actually. Shatajit's okay. Odd at times, but okay." Chance smiled. "I think you might get to like him."
"Whatever."
"He's the ship's cook."
Via's face lit up. "Really? Great, I'm starved!"
"I thought that would be the case." Chance smiled. "Come on. We'll get you fed, but right after that we'll need to get to work. I figure that the first thing I'll do is show you the interior of one of our Gundams--possibly Wing, if I'm allowed to breach the current access code on it. Khans seems to think it's his duty to keep Wing in good shape, so I'm only allowed in it when I've been given boarding permission. I'd have to say that our best bet would be Heavyarms."
"Trowa's Gundam?"
"Right. His legacy died with him, I'm afraid, so it doesn't see much action anymore, but the suit is still in pretty good shape. We think of it as an emergency Gundam."
Via didn't say anything. All of this information… Well, it was a lot to absorb in the first twenty minutes of her arrival, and the fact that Chance had been more than willing to shoot her was a bit bothersome. But a lot of things seemed to be happening all around her, and Via really did not have the time to worry about little details like that all day. Besides, Chance's pace was quickening, and Via knew better than to get left behind in a place she hardly knew.
She'd made that mistake once or twice with her uncle and she'd learned her lesson well enough. Her uncle had taught her a lot of things, usually by way of his fists, but this one had stuck. You don't ever want to be left behind, because someday people might not stop to let you catch up.
--to be continued--