AN Well, this is chapter one. Still nothing much happening in here. It'll take a while before the action starts taking place, I tell ya,
but Heero just got himself on a little sidetrack here. One that will bite him in the ass, so to speak. Hope you enjoy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Under Pressure
Chapter 1
Heero shoveled his way through a pile of gravel. It wasn't exactly like he had been promoted, first a Gundam pilot,
now a tunnel-redigger on a mining asteroid. Still, somehow this work was more honest, felt better. Despite the fact that it was
very uneventful. Throwing shovel after shovel full of dirt behind you didn't really cause an adrenaline rush. But the work was
satisfying.
He sighed. Who am I kidding? Herding sheep in rural South Dakota is more exciting than this. Well, maybe I should
take that up instead. That would crack Duo up. At least someone has some fun then. I'm bored. Maybe Wufei can use some
help, if somebody has the stomach to work with him. No one had seen much of Wufei lately. He traveled around the world taking
on jobs that took him anywhere. He had been sited in the Amazon, the Sahara, Iceland and anywhere in between. I wonder what
he's looking for that he's searching so frantically.
He drove his shovel in the last bits of the pile he was working on and was halted. Rock? There could be rock under there,
the whole meteor was made out of rock. He moved his shovel around and heard the scraping sound of metal against metal. Quickly
he cleared it. It was a vertical metal plate and it disappeared underneath a thin layer of rock higher up the wall. The metal was
smooth and definitely handmade. But how did it get here, and how big was it? He grabbed his pickaxe and attacked the wall.
"Hey, what's wrong pall?" Anton asked. "Don't you think we got enough rubble for a day?"
"I found something," Heero commented, between hacking. "Seems like a metal wall's been covered. I wanna know what it is."
"Well, now. That is certainly more interesting then throwing dirt in the face of the man standing behind you. Let's see what it is."
The older man grabbed his own pickaxe and started working on the wall as well. The thin rock flaked easily enough. In mere moments they
had uncovered a large metal plate. Heero search it with his fingertips until he felt a crack. He followed the crack all the way around. It had
the shape and size of a doorway, but there was no lock, not even an electronic one. Perhaps on the wall next to it. He pressed his hand against
the wall, while Anton looked on.
Click. A small panel opened. Buttons lit up.
"I will need tools to crack this lock." Heero wiped the dust of his watch. "It's late. Let's tell the chef and get back to it tomorrow."
The chef agreed to wait working on that tunnel until the mysterious door had been examined. He assigned Heero to guide a small
team of scientists to investigate the phenomenon. They would return to the Winner company in a few days with a report on the mining
asteroid and so they could include their findings of the mysterious room. And so the next day they had the tunnel all to themselves.
Heero locked in on the panel with a small computer and started hacking the entrance code. It wasn't before long that the door
opened. The four people put on their helmets in case the air was toxic or nonexistent. Strangely enough the door did not lead to any kind
of room, more like an air vent. Perhaps the space behind the next door was supposed to be a vacuum. They all entered the vent, the doors
closed, but no decompression came. There was an air current though. The other doors slid open, revealing a large laboratory.
"Watch where you're going," Heero warned his small team through the communicators inside the helmets. "Check the air's composition,
see if it's toxic."
Two men immediately got around to it, while the third and Heero, went to investigate the lab. It looked like any laboratory where bio
experiments were conducted. The walls were covered with shelves and shelves of labeled bottles and preparations of animals and plants. It
all looked very sterile.
"The air is clean," chimed a voice in his ear. "The composition is different from earth's atmosphere, but it is breathable."
Heero took of his helmet and walked over to where the two men were bent over some equipment. "How is it different?" he asked.
"Well, there is virtually no nitrogen present, but there are no traced of toxic gasses in it's place."
"Hey, Heero, look at this," the other one called from the other side of the room.
Since when am I in charge of this operation? He zigzagged through the room to where the man was standing. When he got closer
he saw what the man meant. A skeleton was lying on the floor.
"What do you suppose he died from?"
Heero shrugged. "It could be anything, from undernourishment to a failed experiment. Let's see what we can find. And bag the remains
of this one, alright?"
"Euch. Do I have to?" Grumbling the man set to his gruesome task.
Heero sat down to a computer and looked of it was still working. It was, although it was very old. It was easy enough to excess it, there
was no password required. He looked through the files and eventually found a log.
His eyes skimmed the entries. Some parts caught his attention. 'Specimen could not be contained in open air.' 'Specimen cannot exist in
a nitrogen enriched environment. Creating new air composition.' 'Adjustments required to sustain life form on earth.'
He continued to search the database until he found a name. Professor McConnoll. And a date. Heero blinked in surprise. 22 AC. That was
a long time ago. This lab has been preserved for a long time. Strange the former miners had no knowledge of it.
He investigated the computer, looking for a data output. Unfortunately he found none. This computer is stone aged. I'm gonna have to remove
the hard drive and hope someone can salvage the data from it. He turned the computer of and got down on his knees. It wasn't difficult to open the
computer or remove the drive. Looking at the dust and corrosion it was a miracle the machine had still worked. The drive seemed intact.
"Did you find anything interesting?" he called to the others.
"Some documents, notes. A refrigerator full of mould," answered one.
"He most have died suddenly. There's still on object on the microscope. But that doesn't get us anywhere. It has completely dried up. Nothing
visible anymore."
"I think we had best seal of this place and see what we can get from this drive." Heero got up and wiped the dust from his knees.
The man who had found the skeleton nodded. "Yeah, this doesn't get us anywhere. Hey, would anyone care to help me carry these bones out
of here?"
Heero walked over to him and together they picked up the rattling sack of bones. The other two carried the equipment they had brought in
and a pile of the notes they had found. In the air vent they had to wait for the other doors to open.
"Well, that was a waste of time," Heero grunted. "We didn't find anything. I think I had best just get to my team and start digging again."
He left the three at their quarters and went to pick up his tools.
~~~~~~
Quatre looked at his screen in surprise. "And one of the workmen found this?"
The man standing at his shoulder nodded. "Yes, and since we would leave within a few days, we came along to see what it was and then
bring our findings here."
"I see." Quatre turned his attention back to the screen. This was intriguing. A lab from the early days of the space colonies. But why had
it been so well hidden? And why was it abandoned? And who was this professor McConnoll? So far only a tenth of the data on the drive had
been recovered and that didn't include the log the scientists had mentioned. All they had now were some unexplained equations and diagrams.
"Well, keep this up and report to me when you're done."
"Yes, Mr Winner."
Quatre got up and walked out of the room. This was actually ver disturbing news. If one asteroid contained a lab, there was no reason
why others wouldn't. And those labs could very well prove dangerous. He had to warn every mining facility in space and tell them to look out
for any signs of metal in the rock.
"This is not what I was waiting for. I'm busy enough as it is, I don't need some stone aged lab in one of my mines as well."
~~~~~~
Hilde leaned against a tree in the park. All it needs is a bright blue sky, but that's impossible in the colonies. She would meet Duo here
on his way home from work. She had something very important to tell him. Her hand went to her belly and she smiled. She had probably made the
doctor deaf when he had told her. She had been so happy she had screamed it out loud.
"Hey, Hilde, what are you doing here?"
She looked up in surprise. Duo stood grinning down on her. She hadn't even seen him coming. Well, great lookout she turned out to be.
"I had something I wanted to tell you."
"And it couldn't wait until I got home?" he smiled. "Well, it doesn't matter, I wanted to ask you something, anyway."
"Oh, yeah? What?"
He shook his head. "No, no, ladies first."
"Alright." They turned around to stroll home quietly. "Well, I went to see a doctor today, for some test results."
"You're not sick are you?" he asked, sounding alarmed.
"No, don't worry. It's nothing serious. I didn't think it was, either. It was more of a confirmation of my own suspicion."
She was cut short when Duo grabbed her by the shoulders. "Will you stop beating around the bush, woman, and just tell me what's going on?"
"I'm pregnant."
The answer was silence. He looked at her wide_eyed. "Ye... you mean it?" he finally managed to say.
She only nodded.
His face split into the widest grin she had ever seen. "But that's great," he yelled and he picked her up and swirled her round and round until
she got dizzy. And when he finally stopped tossing her about she didn't even get the time to pull herself together, because he kissed her so forcefully,
she couldn't tell up from down.
"That's wonderful," he whispered in her ear. "I love you. I love you so much. Will you marry me?"
Her heart stopped. "Was that what you wanted to ask me?" she squeaked, out of breath.
"Yeah. So what do you say? Will you?"
"Wow," she said. Then she looked up. "I'd be mad if I didn't." She imagined her grin mirrored his.
Later that night Hilde laid in her fiancé's arms very much content with the world. A marriage coming up and a baby. Everything was absolutely
perfect. Aside from the fact Duo needed a shave. She lay in the darkness listening to the sound of his breathing as she had done many nights before, but
this time it somehow felt different. From this time on, she could be certain to always hear that. She breathed in deeply, happy with everything.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, that's it for know, next update is scheduled for the 10/19, in case someone is reading this and interested. I know the fic is very uneventful for the
time being, but I promise that will change. Please make me happy and review? And please no flames? makes cute pouty face to plee with readers
but Heero just got himself on a little sidetrack here. One that will bite him in the ass, so to speak. Hope you enjoy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Under Pressure
Chapter 1
Heero shoveled his way through a pile of gravel. It wasn't exactly like he had been promoted, first a Gundam pilot,
now a tunnel-redigger on a mining asteroid. Still, somehow this work was more honest, felt better. Despite the fact that it was
very uneventful. Throwing shovel after shovel full of dirt behind you didn't really cause an adrenaline rush. But the work was
satisfying.
He sighed. Who am I kidding? Herding sheep in rural South Dakota is more exciting than this. Well, maybe I should
take that up instead. That would crack Duo up. At least someone has some fun then. I'm bored. Maybe Wufei can use some
help, if somebody has the stomach to work with him. No one had seen much of Wufei lately. He traveled around the world taking
on jobs that took him anywhere. He had been sited in the Amazon, the Sahara, Iceland and anywhere in between. I wonder what
he's looking for that he's searching so frantically.
He drove his shovel in the last bits of the pile he was working on and was halted. Rock? There could be rock under there,
the whole meteor was made out of rock. He moved his shovel around and heard the scraping sound of metal against metal. Quickly
he cleared it. It was a vertical metal plate and it disappeared underneath a thin layer of rock higher up the wall. The metal was
smooth and definitely handmade. But how did it get here, and how big was it? He grabbed his pickaxe and attacked the wall.
"Hey, what's wrong pall?" Anton asked. "Don't you think we got enough rubble for a day?"
"I found something," Heero commented, between hacking. "Seems like a metal wall's been covered. I wanna know what it is."
"Well, now. That is certainly more interesting then throwing dirt in the face of the man standing behind you. Let's see what it is."
The older man grabbed his own pickaxe and started working on the wall as well. The thin rock flaked easily enough. In mere moments they
had uncovered a large metal plate. Heero search it with his fingertips until he felt a crack. He followed the crack all the way around. It had
the shape and size of a doorway, but there was no lock, not even an electronic one. Perhaps on the wall next to it. He pressed his hand against
the wall, while Anton looked on.
Click. A small panel opened. Buttons lit up.
"I will need tools to crack this lock." Heero wiped the dust of his watch. "It's late. Let's tell the chef and get back to it tomorrow."
The chef agreed to wait working on that tunnel until the mysterious door had been examined. He assigned Heero to guide a small
team of scientists to investigate the phenomenon. They would return to the Winner company in a few days with a report on the mining
asteroid and so they could include their findings of the mysterious room. And so the next day they had the tunnel all to themselves.
Heero locked in on the panel with a small computer and started hacking the entrance code. It wasn't before long that the door
opened. The four people put on their helmets in case the air was toxic or nonexistent. Strangely enough the door did not lead to any kind
of room, more like an air vent. Perhaps the space behind the next door was supposed to be a vacuum. They all entered the vent, the doors
closed, but no decompression came. There was an air current though. The other doors slid open, revealing a large laboratory.
"Watch where you're going," Heero warned his small team through the communicators inside the helmets. "Check the air's composition,
see if it's toxic."
Two men immediately got around to it, while the third and Heero, went to investigate the lab. It looked like any laboratory where bio
experiments were conducted. The walls were covered with shelves and shelves of labeled bottles and preparations of animals and plants. It
all looked very sterile.
"The air is clean," chimed a voice in his ear. "The composition is different from earth's atmosphere, but it is breathable."
Heero took of his helmet and walked over to where the two men were bent over some equipment. "How is it different?" he asked.
"Well, there is virtually no nitrogen present, but there are no traced of toxic gasses in it's place."
"Hey, Heero, look at this," the other one called from the other side of the room.
Since when am I in charge of this operation? He zigzagged through the room to where the man was standing. When he got closer
he saw what the man meant. A skeleton was lying on the floor.
"What do you suppose he died from?"
Heero shrugged. "It could be anything, from undernourishment to a failed experiment. Let's see what we can find. And bag the remains
of this one, alright?"
"Euch. Do I have to?" Grumbling the man set to his gruesome task.
Heero sat down to a computer and looked of it was still working. It was, although it was very old. It was easy enough to excess it, there
was no password required. He looked through the files and eventually found a log.
His eyes skimmed the entries. Some parts caught his attention. 'Specimen could not be contained in open air.' 'Specimen cannot exist in
a nitrogen enriched environment. Creating new air composition.' 'Adjustments required to sustain life form on earth.'
He continued to search the database until he found a name. Professor McConnoll. And a date. Heero blinked in surprise. 22 AC. That was
a long time ago. This lab has been preserved for a long time. Strange the former miners had no knowledge of it.
He investigated the computer, looking for a data output. Unfortunately he found none. This computer is stone aged. I'm gonna have to remove
the hard drive and hope someone can salvage the data from it. He turned the computer of and got down on his knees. It wasn't difficult to open the
computer or remove the drive. Looking at the dust and corrosion it was a miracle the machine had still worked. The drive seemed intact.
"Did you find anything interesting?" he called to the others.
"Some documents, notes. A refrigerator full of mould," answered one.
"He most have died suddenly. There's still on object on the microscope. But that doesn't get us anywhere. It has completely dried up. Nothing
visible anymore."
"I think we had best seal of this place and see what we can get from this drive." Heero got up and wiped the dust from his knees.
The man who had found the skeleton nodded. "Yeah, this doesn't get us anywhere. Hey, would anyone care to help me carry these bones out
of here?"
Heero walked over to him and together they picked up the rattling sack of bones. The other two carried the equipment they had brought in
and a pile of the notes they had found. In the air vent they had to wait for the other doors to open.
"Well, that was a waste of time," Heero grunted. "We didn't find anything. I think I had best just get to my team and start digging again."
He left the three at their quarters and went to pick up his tools.
~~~~~~
Quatre looked at his screen in surprise. "And one of the workmen found this?"
The man standing at his shoulder nodded. "Yes, and since we would leave within a few days, we came along to see what it was and then
bring our findings here."
"I see." Quatre turned his attention back to the screen. This was intriguing. A lab from the early days of the space colonies. But why had
it been so well hidden? And why was it abandoned? And who was this professor McConnoll? So far only a tenth of the data on the drive had
been recovered and that didn't include the log the scientists had mentioned. All they had now were some unexplained equations and diagrams.
"Well, keep this up and report to me when you're done."
"Yes, Mr Winner."
Quatre got up and walked out of the room. This was actually ver disturbing news. If one asteroid contained a lab, there was no reason
why others wouldn't. And those labs could very well prove dangerous. He had to warn every mining facility in space and tell them to look out
for any signs of metal in the rock.
"This is not what I was waiting for. I'm busy enough as it is, I don't need some stone aged lab in one of my mines as well."
~~~~~~
Hilde leaned against a tree in the park. All it needs is a bright blue sky, but that's impossible in the colonies. She would meet Duo here
on his way home from work. She had something very important to tell him. Her hand went to her belly and she smiled. She had probably made the
doctor deaf when he had told her. She had been so happy she had screamed it out loud.
"Hey, Hilde, what are you doing here?"
She looked up in surprise. Duo stood grinning down on her. She hadn't even seen him coming. Well, great lookout she turned out to be.
"I had something I wanted to tell you."
"And it couldn't wait until I got home?" he smiled. "Well, it doesn't matter, I wanted to ask you something, anyway."
"Oh, yeah? What?"
He shook his head. "No, no, ladies first."
"Alright." They turned around to stroll home quietly. "Well, I went to see a doctor today, for some test results."
"You're not sick are you?" he asked, sounding alarmed.
"No, don't worry. It's nothing serious. I didn't think it was, either. It was more of a confirmation of my own suspicion."
She was cut short when Duo grabbed her by the shoulders. "Will you stop beating around the bush, woman, and just tell me what's going on?"
"I'm pregnant."
The answer was silence. He looked at her wide_eyed. "Ye... you mean it?" he finally managed to say.
She only nodded.
His face split into the widest grin she had ever seen. "But that's great," he yelled and he picked her up and swirled her round and round until
she got dizzy. And when he finally stopped tossing her about she didn't even get the time to pull herself together, because he kissed her so forcefully,
she couldn't tell up from down.
"That's wonderful," he whispered in her ear. "I love you. I love you so much. Will you marry me?"
Her heart stopped. "Was that what you wanted to ask me?" she squeaked, out of breath.
"Yeah. So what do you say? Will you?"
"Wow," she said. Then she looked up. "I'd be mad if I didn't." She imagined her grin mirrored his.
Later that night Hilde laid in her fiancé's arms very much content with the world. A marriage coming up and a baby. Everything was absolutely
perfect. Aside from the fact Duo needed a shave. She lay in the darkness listening to the sound of his breathing as she had done many nights before, but
this time it somehow felt different. From this time on, she could be certain to always hear that. She breathed in deeply, happy with everything.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, that's it for know, next update is scheduled for the 10/19, in case someone is reading this and interested. I know the fic is very uneventful for the
time being, but I promise that will change. Please make me happy and review? And please no flames? makes cute pouty face to plee with readers