From space, MO-III looks like a giant mutant potato. It's roughly twice as long as it is high (and I know these are relative terms in space, so bear with me), it's a dull brown color with none of the twinkly bits you'd see on other natural resource satellites, and it has some bumps and stuff from the attitude jet housings that look like potato eyes. It was ugly.
My motion and heat sensors were flatlined, but I'd halfway expected that. After all, the Maguanacs had gone back to Earth after the wars, and it would have been pretty strange for Instructor H to have lived there all by himself. You can't be alone too long in outer space without going a little bonkers, and that isn't just my opinion—loony bins from Earth to Mars are packed full of the poor warped souls who've tried it. They even have a name for it: Infinity Syndrome.
Since we were only a half hour or so away from it, I turned on the comm link to the passenger area and started playing my wake-up music. And before you accuse me of anything, no, it wasn't something obnoxious. I'm too attached to my own life to risk waking up Wufei with my death thrash surf punk. It was Ravel's Bolero, which I picked out because it starts out nice and slow and gradually builds up to a tempo and volume that really gets your blood thumping. It's better than coffee.
"Are we there yet?" Wufei's voice asked. Or at least I think it was Wufei. The guy sounds about 300 years old when he first wakes up.
"Just about," I said. "Are Killer and Blondie awake back there?"
"More or less."
"What about the big guy?"
"I'm awake," Rashid said, but he sounded a little grumpy about it. I think he was still sort of pissed that we'd made him sleep while I did the piloting—after all, it was his shuttle. Oh well, he'd get over it.
"Good. We've got just about enough time to grab a snack and get suited up." At the word 'snack', my stomach rumbled. "Down, boy."
I heard a snort behind me. "Are you talking to your stomach again?" Heero asked.
"Hey, it started the conversation," I grinned. I accepted the meal bar he handed me and he slid into the copilot's seat.
"Any signs of life?" He asked, nodding at the satellite.
"Nope. It's dead as a doornail."
He gave me a weird look. "What's a doornail?"
"I dunno, but that satellite is as dead as one."
He dropped the subject, which was a good thing since we were approaching the landing bay and I needed to concentrate. It's been a while since I was able to do this in my sleep…man, losing your edge sucks.
December 28, AC 199The shuttle we had borrowed was large, but its owner was nearly dwarfing it. I'd never met Rashid face-to-face before, and while I'd been told that he was a large man, I hadn't grasped the fact that he was that large. I was worried at first; while Quatre told him the true story of where he'd been recently, the man got increasingly stern-looking and his coloring went darker and darker. I was afraid that I'd have to physically intervene since he looked like he was capable of breaking Quatre in half with two fingers.
I need not have worried, though. When the story was told, Rashid merely said something very loud and very fast in Arabic and then embraced Quatre tightly. I got the impression that he was upset that we had lied to him, but he was glad that Quatre was all right now. However, he's been sort of looming over him ever since.
Duo woke us up about twenty minutes before we landed. He'd suggested that we eat and get suited up, and I was amused to see Rashid first practically force a ration bar into Quatre and then put him into his EVA suit like he was putting an infant into a sleeper. Granted, with Quatre's broken wrist he probably needed some help anyway, but their size difference and the paternal attitude Rashid was taking made it very hard for me not to laugh.
Once I'd gotten my own suit on (with no assistance, I'd like to add), we had touched down and were ready to disembark. I'd already heard that there were no signs of life coming from the sensors, but once I floated down from the shuttle and set foot on the magnetized floor of the landing bay, I was sure of that fact. It just felt abandoned to me.
"Quat? Rashid? Which way do we go now?" Duo's voice came out a little too loudly in my right ear. I winced and touched the volume control at my wrist.
"The labs, perhaps?" Rashid boomed. I fiddled with the volume some more.
"There or the living quarters," Quatre added, and I could barely hear him. Once more with the volume control.
"The living quarters are on the opposite end of the satellite," said Heero in a normal tone of voice. Finally. "Let's check the labs first."
"Right. Follow me closely." Rashid said, taking the point position automatically. None of us objected. If both the sensors and my intuition were wrong and there were hostile parties around, he was so huge that he would provide a perfect shield for the rest of us.
Not that I hoped that would happen, of course. I was beginning to admire the man.
The corridors in the satellite had been carved out of the rock with laser cutters, which left the walls as smooth as glass, and almost as reflective. The effect would have been quite aesthetically pleasing if there had been more light than what came from the headlamps on our suits, but as it was, it was merely disorienting. I felt myself growing nervous as we took lefts and rights seemingly at random. What was this place modeled on, a rabbit's warren?
"Uh, Rashid," Duo asked after a while. "You sure you know where you're going, big guy?"
"We're halfway to the labs right now, Master Duo." Rashid said smoothly. If he had any doubts, he was certainly keeping them out of his voice. "We're passing through the supply areas, hydroponics farms, and the power-generation facilities right now."
"Sounds like you know where you're going, then," Duo conceded.
I'd have taken that as an insult, but our guide merely chuckled. "I've had to find my way through these corridors many times during power failures before, Master Duo. I dare say I could do it blindfolded. Don't worry; I won't let anyone get lost."
I don't know about Duo, but I certainly felt better. I took a quick glance over my shoulder to see that Heero was still in his rear guard position—he was—and then kicked myself forward so that I was between Quatre and Duo. "What will we be looking for, exactly?" I asked.
"Anything with either Quatre's or Instructor H's name on it." Heero answered.
My heart fell. With a satellite of this size, that could take days. "Could you be more specific?"
"Charts, records, documents, files…anything on paper or on computer." Heero said shortly. I twisted my neck and saw that he was busy kicking himself off the walls to keep all of our vulnerable areas in range of the energy gun in his hand.
As much as I admired his dedication to duty, I still fell annoyed with him as we slammed into Rashid's solid back when he stopped abruptly. If he even felt my weight crashing into him, he didn't let on.
"We're here," was all he said. He typed his personal code number into the control pad embedded in the wall and then ducked down to bring his right eye to the retinal scan. To my surprise, the door actually opened. We all filed inside, taking our customary positions against the inside wall to scan for enemies, and drew our sidearms. We need not have bothered.
The place had been gutted.