Conservative, (n) A statesman who is enamored by existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others. Conservatives are best well known for their perpetual cruelty and cynicism, much the same way Liberals are known for their infinite stupidity and repeated flights of fancy.
-- The Devil's Dictionary, 3rd Edition.

Chapter 8: Buried Treasure

 - February 6, UC 0084 -
- 1045 hours (CST) -
A re-entry maneuver was hardly a spectacular thing for the Tarawa's crew, but it happened so rarely that everyone had a sense of excitement over the occurrence. Ship's helmsman, Erin Garcia, had done this maneuver three times before, and this time around she was more confident with it than she had ever been. Captain Shiden didn't even need to be on the bridge for such an otherwise simple operation, but for the sake of the younger officers he rode out the entire procedure from the main bridge.

Lucy and Mike watched proceedings from the secondary bridge/fire control center, marveling at the screen images from the external cameras as the carrier road through the inferno of re-entry without so much as a heavy bump. They all felt the onset of gravity all over the ship, and the engineering officers secured the gravity block and locked it into place with the crew quarters and mess hall on the bottom. Chase was reading in his room when he felt the deck buck and lock into place beneath him, took a note that the gravity block had stopped and went back to his book. Three seconds later he heard a sound of a different nature, the sound of someone pounding on his door and screaming on the other side. Curious, he put the book down on the desk and walked carefully across the gently rocking deck to open it...

Alice flung herself into the room and into his arms as soon as he did, shouting and hollering close to hysteria, "You gotta help me! Something's wrong with the ship and the deck stopped spinning and we're all gonna crash and we're gonna die and I can't find my room and I HAVE TO PEE...!"

"Whoa, whoa slow down a minute! One thing at a time!" He steadied himself on the deck as the ship swayed in the upper atmosphere like a boat in choppy waters. He didn't blame her for being scared, and as before in the mess hall he felt guilty for not doing something to help her sooner. "Okay... uh... what do you want me to do?"

Alice took a few breaths to calm herself down. "Um... Can I use your bathroom?"

"Sure." He stood there and waited for her to move there on his own, but she just stood there and stared at his chest until he finally remembered himself, "Oh, that's right. It's this way." He kept his balance and supported hers, leading her all the way to the door and putting her hand on the light switch. "The layout's the same as your room. You need some... some help or something?"

"No, I can take it from here." She closed the door behind her disappeared inside, then emerged again not two seconds later. "Never mind, it went away."

"Oh. Well, glad I could help then..."

He didn't get more than half a step away from the door before she flung herself into his arms again, this time not letting go. "Can I stay here? This feels really funny and I'm really really scared."

"No problem, you can stay." He managed to peel her away from him just a bit, but she clung to his arm like a life jacket and followed him around the room wherever he went. Eventually he sat down on the bed again and went back to his book, trying not to notice the trembling little girl clinging to him like some frightened animal. He couldn't keep his attention on the text for more than a few seconds at a time, and as the ship started to shake more violently he decided to make conversation. "So... where are you from again?"

"Riah." She said, her voice catching in her throat.

"Side 6, huh? Nice place?"

"Sounded nice. I never got to see it."

"Oh..." He knew he would regret asking, but his curiosity was peaked now. "Were you... well, were you born blind or did you...?"

"G-3 gas. It was only brief exposure, but it destroyed all the blood vessels in my face. They got to me in time to keep me from being all disfigured and stuff, but they couldn't save my eyes."

The ship started shaking more than ever at peak deceleration, but Chase felt her relaxing a bit despite it all. He knew he just needed to keep her talking. "So how did you like it on Riah? I bet you've got a dozen boyfriends waiting for you..."

"I've lived on the Merrimac since the end of the war. And besides, boys don't like me anyway."

"Why not?"

"Nobody likes blind kids. One girl used to make fun of me because she thought I was faking it, and most boys in my class treated me like I was retarded or something. They all kept acting all surprised cause I was getting better grades than they were in all the math classes."

"So you went to a regular school?"

"That's all they have on Libot, these days. My brother scanned all the books and printed them on textured paper so I could read them, and then he spent hours every day helping me study so I wouldn't fall behind."

He tried to picture what that might have been like, seeing the new student in class for the first time and realizing that the new student couldn't see him. Even now he wondered how in the world she pulled it off, but obviously she'd not only succeeded but somehow found a way to excel. That is, of course, unless she was making it up. "Wasn't there anybody there you liked?"

"Not really. A lot people were nice to me and all, but I never met anyone at Side 6 who I'd really trust. And when you can't see, trust is really important." The ship lurched heavily, more than Chase would have expected from a routine maneuver. The deck started to tilt to one side, a little bit at first but then more and more as time went on. The ship's alarm siren went off; Alice suddenly wished she'd used the bathroom when she had a chance. "This is it, we're gonna die!"

"Relax, Garcia's just turning the ship."

"What if she's not?! What if one of the wing's broke off?! What if there's a hole in the ship?! Chase, this is really bad..."

Captain Shiden exploded over the loud speaker, he voice powerful yet overly relaxed considering the situation. "Attention all decks, I apologize for the rough ride. Seems we've overestimated the reliability of Federation weather bulletins and we're gonna have to avoid rather nasty sand storm over Saudi Arabia. All decks secure for mild atmospheric maneuvers for the next twelve minutes, then resume normal operations."

Chase breathed a sigh of relief and put his arm around Alice's shoulders. "See, kid? It's nothing big, just a little sand and wind. We're gonna be fine."

Alice hugged him tighter and curled up into ball at his side. "Just in case, I want you to do me a big favor."

"What?"

"I want you to kiss me."

It took him more than half a minute for the words to make it from his ears to his brain. "You want me to what?"

"I've never been kissed before and I don't wanna die a... a... kissing-virgin!"

The ONE DAY I run out of tranquilizers... "Get over yourself, we're gonna be fine!"

"But what if...!"

"No buts, nothing's gonna happen! I've been through this already, it's always rough like this!"

"I just... oh." She let go of his arm and shrank away from him now, curling up on the bed in a little ball, no longer trembling. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you."

"Huh?"

"I just thought... well I just thought maybe you weren't like all the others who made fun of me."

Any other day he might have noticed she was just toying with him, but with the ship bucking beneath them and the alarms wailing in the background, his immediate concern was digging himself out of what felt like a moral grave his conscience had him in. "Hey that's not it, it's just that... well... I'm worried your brother's gonna kick my ass for this. And I'd never hear the end of this from Lucy..."

"But you would do it if you knew they'd never find out, right?"

It was a deadly trap, and little by little it started to feel like one. "I... sure, I guess I, maybe would. You know, if I was younger..."

"So what's the problem? Am I... I'm too ugly or something?"

"Well, I wouldn't exactly say..." Alice was tired of playing. She followed the sound of his voice when she moved, springing up from where she was coiled in the mattress and flung herself toward him again, seeking out his face with a luck guess and locking her lips against his in a fit of childish passion. Nothing else in the world had ever caught Chase Fokker so completely off guard, and after a few seconds to clear his initial shock he pushed her away and looked at her in shock. "Geez, kid! What the hell was that?!"

"Spur of the moment. I couldn't help myself."

"Well help yourself! Shit!"

Alice pushed forward again, knocking him off the bed as the ship turned and sending them both rolling on the floor. "Chase, don't you wanna be my boyfriend?"

"No! Get off me!" He tried to pull away, but every time he did she pulled him right back in with a surprisingly strong grip of her arms.

The ship's flight evened out finally and the alarms cut off, and right then, in that most compromising position in the corner of the room, Chase's door slid open to the two officers in full normal suits. "Hey Fokker, we're coming out of reentry and the Captain wants..." Lucy and Mike both caste their eyes on the corner of the room, seeing Ensign Fokker sprawled out on his back in an extremely compromising position with Brian's kid sister. They were both completely flabbergasted at the sight of it, but the two of them needed only a few seconds to put the pieces together and figure out exactly what was going on. At that point, Lucy exploded into laughter and Mike whistled at them.

The expression on his face was one of pure desperation. "Guy's I'm getting molested over here...!"

Mike took a deep breath and tried to keep from laughing. "What can I say, Chase? You've been chosen, you're just gonna have to live with it."

Chase growled in frustration. They seemed to find all this hilarious, but the situation was quickly spiraling out of his control. "Mike, seriously...!"

Alice took all this as encouragement and hugged him even tighter, then pulled away and made for the door. "Call me, Chase! You know where to find me!"

She slipped past the two laughing officers, leaving Chase dumbfounded in the corner as Lucy walked up and knelt down in front of him. "Poor thing." She said sadly. "It must be so difficult."

Chase nodded strongly. "Yeah. It's because she feels out of place here, she's trying to latch onto somebody to fit in better or something."

"Exactly."

"It's a weird thing to, because I wanna tell her to get a grip, but I don't want to hurt her feelings. You know what I'm sayin?"

"You're absolutely right, Chase..." Lucy laughed and headed towards the door. "...But I was talking about you."


- 1150 hours (EST) -
Even with its previous occupants, the abandoned mine had never been this active before. More than a dozen MS-04s and MS-05Bs of the Mujahadeen had already moved into the base, marching alongside jeeps, tanks, half-track APCs and trucks carrying men and equipment into the underground facility to secure it for their own use. Some of the men on the ground guided mobile suits into positions in the abandoned hangars, while a few others worked to clear the collapsed tunnel system from the hangars to the underground exit. The dozen or more captured men were placed in one of the holding cells below while the living quarters were cleared out for the new soldiers to claim as their own.

Naomi had to fight the urge to join in with the work here, working again with these people she'd called her friends years ago before the Federation, before Project N recruited her for their outlandish experiments. She marched her Gundam through the frenzied scramble of workers and soldiers pouring into the base by the hundreds, storming about left and right, dashing off towards their tasks until she reached the lowest bowels of the mine where Samir was waiting for her. The hollowed out chamber on the bottom level was the most impressive of all; it was a huge cavern, easily a kilometer or two from end to end. She entered through one of many large tunnel openings connected to a network of mining tunnels where ores and materials were drawn from and looked around as she walked. The biggest feature in sightr was a gigantic smelting furnace and processing plant in one isolated corner of the cavern, adjacent to a field of robotics and machinery that would shame most modern factories. The rock floor of the cave was divided lengthwise by a wide stream, flowing from a small hollow in one wall into a small lake disappearing under the opposite side. Everything about this looked eerily familiar to her... She stopped the Gundam and crouched on the ground next to the other mobile suits, directly between Samir's Zaku and the three Gundams. As soon as she opened her cockpit, Lieutenant Swanson shouted up to her, "Wilson, that foundry's got ZEEK written all over it!"

Naomi pulled a wince cable from the frame of the cockpit, lowered herself to their level to talk to then without shouting. "This place kinda reminds me of something..."

Eric nodded in agreement. "The mobile suit factory at Jaburo."

"Yeah, exactly! They're using the subterranean waterways to cool the metal, vent exhausts through a shaft that leads a few miles from here so you can't trace it..."

"Over here, Naomi." Samir shouted over to them from behind his mobile suit, standing next to a guard rail overlooking a very deep, square-cut pit big enough to fit a battleship into it. "This is what I wanted you all to see."

All four Federation pilots walked up alongside him and looked down into it, squinting through the harsh glare of a set of floodlights at the spread below them. A total of fourteen mobile suits were laid out head-to-toe on trailers along the bottom of the pit, each in various states of disassembly the further the trailers got to the end and parts of the very last unit were in the process of being stowed into cargo containers for shipping. The machines were crude, boxy designs with simple looking frames and even simpler looking parts going into them. They looked like combat machines, but only with a little imagination, and none of them had any markings of any kind save for a dark green paint over the shoulders and torso and a unit number painted on the chest.

All of them looked up at Samir, but at a glance they saw his face saturated with suspicion. "Imagine my surprise when we came into this chamber and found these things lying around. We agreed to help you all capture this place, but you never said a word about new models down here."

Naomi shrugged absently. "This is all news to me, buddy. I gave you all the information Jaburo gave me. So what if 98% of it turned out to be complete bullshit?"

Samir nodded. He'd already figured as much himself, and that left them on equal and perilous ground. "So now what?"

"Let's start with what we DO know."

"Okay." Samir glanced at Ryo, catching him relatively unaware for a moment.

"Well... the computer banks are empty, they scrubbed em before they left. Trouble is they left the software drivers intact, so it's just a simple matter of restoring the files in the mainframe boot memory. I could have it done in a couple of hours, piece a cake."

Naomi nodded and moved on to Brian. "Did you check out the adjacent chamber?"

"Yeah, there's a launch track tunneled into the side of the mountain. There's not much left, looks like the workers demolished everything when they Zanzibar launched, but from the looks of things those launch tracks have seen a lot of use. I'd guess at least ten launches in the past couple weeks."

Naomi nodded again and moved onto Eric, who looked surprisingly confident with his own work. "I don't suppose you managed to get some information out of those pilots we captured?"

Eric smiled triumphantly. "I actually did good this time. Seems our little mercenaries work for a gang called the Anti-Earth Union Group. That's about all I could get out of him, that and the fact that he comes from Side 4."

Every one of them suddenly exchanged a worried glance as the implications fell into place. Brian started thinking out loud. "You know, we recovered the bodies from those mobile suits and tanks we nailed. Most of those guys were wearing Colonial Defense Force uniforms. The only Zeeks we found were registered as AWOL with the Republic..."

"Something pretty big was gonna happen here." Ryo was the first to say what all of them were thinking, "You think another rebellion or guerilla campaign?"

They all stood in silence for a few moments, then turned and looked back at the mobile suits laid out below them. "Well I'll say this much," Samir broke the silence after a moment, "If my mechanics are right, and they usually are at a glance, this aint exactly prime hardware we're looking at. On the one hand, they've got good mobility, decent weapons, good thrust ratio and a high center of gravity to make maneuvering easier. On the other hand the main thrusters are shit. It's got a garbage reactor, less armor than a snow-blower, a non-welded frame, and as for the sensor package... all it's got are the forward-looking opticals and six digital cameras mounted on the head. And no backup cameras either."

Eric chuckled at the notion. "So it has more blind spots than Brian's sister in a dark room."

Brian had the same thought at the exact same time, but made a mental note to chew Swanson out for the comment. "What kind of performance are we looking at? GM level?"

Samir laughed at the suggestion. "Yeah, right. Think of a Zaku, only slower but with a faster turn radius."

"Yuck." Naomi turned away from the pit and started back towards her Gundam. "Do me a favor, would you Samir?"

"What?"

"Don't repair any of the defenses topside and keep it low key for a couple weeks with surface activity. If anyone asks, we caved the entrance and the inner chambers after we pulled out."

Samir's lips curled into a ghost of a smile. "And here I was gonna try and work out a deal with the Feddies..."

"...IF you promise to destroy these machines and the rest of the spare parts. You try reopening this little retail, you could get me into a lot of trouble."

"Heh. You have to ask?"

Naomi tugged on the wince line and began to raise herself into the Gundam's cockpit. "Leave two mobile suits for us. We'll drop them off at Jaburo and let the techies there pick em apart."

Ryo and Brian started towards their own suits, each taking one last look at the strange machines in the pit behind them as they did. "What do you think, Brian?" Ryo muttered over his shoulder.

"I think it's a hell of a coincidence that this base has been in operation for about six months."

"Why?"

"Think about it."

He stopped dead in his tracks, slapped in the face by the sudden truth in the words. "Oh man, you don't mean...!"


- February 9, UC 0084 -
- 0520 hours (CST) -
It was early in the morning. The life support systems were damaged and the air had become oppressively humid again. The water pumps had jammed, and the ship's quarters were unable to get anything but scalding hot water in very sparse amounts. The supply ship had finally made the rendezvous and was transferring equipment, along with replacement pilots and a two additional Rickdom Snipers. Repairs to the Titov were almost complete, but nothing would work until the last of them were finished.

And on top of all that, Duncan Marquis had a toothache. Seeing his ReGelg laid out in pieces across the Titov's MS deck wasn't doing much to help his mood either. He just stood there, leaning on the railing over the hangar, watching the mechanics catalogue all the damaged parts and reactor components to be replaced sometime later. The ReGelg was only a prototype when they stole the unit from Axis, which meant the mechanics would be repairing it with re-machined Rickdom parts. The more he thought about it, the more angry he became.

Vanessa was finally up and about after a few days of recuperating, not that it made him feel much better in light of recent developments. Coming out of the corridor into the MS deck behind him, she didn't even have to look on his face to see how truly depressed he was. "Hey Deuce. What's new?"

Duncan turned slowly as she landed against the railing next to him. "Gretta, Frankie, Angie and Braun."

Exactly as she figured, but solving his pickle would be vastly more complicated. "They knew the risks, Deuce. Don't beat yourself up, it wasn't your fault."

"That's what pisses me off about this. I KNOW it wasn't my fault. What the hell are we doing out here?!"

She'd often asked herself that same question, but hearing it in the open stung her somehow. "That's a stupid question and you know it. Do you have any idea what would happen if someone like Bosque Ohm got his hands on a newtype weapon?"

Duncan nodded. It was good to get a reminder of this, though the logic of their chosen method eluded him even now. "Sis, I'm not sure, but I don't think Alicia's part of their crew. I mean, I don't think she fights with them."

"How could she not? Put someone like that in a mobile suit, there'd be no stopping her. And I'm sure THEY know that by now. You read the reports, so you know how they operate."

He remembered it. Project N, the most ambitious weapons program since the Federation's Project V so many years ago. There were eight newtypes, four on Earth, four in space, each trained for combat by researchers at the Murasame Psychic institute on a variety of advanced prototype weapons. The Titans had taken a theoretical concept and proven it for all its horrid implications, bringing to life a nightmare that left Daikun spinning in his grave.

Duncan turned and headed back down the corridor, deciding mid way to check in with Captain Emeril on the bridge. "I'm just saying I don't like it. We've hit the Tarawa three times now and she still hasn't gotten involved yet. Maybe there's some new weapon they're waiting for or maybe they're keeping her in reserve, I don't know. I do know there's something we're not seeing here."

He slipped into an elevator to the bridge and Vanessa closed the door behind them. "Look Deuce, you know as well as I do it's dangerous to have someone like that in the hands of the Feddies, especially a unit that answers to the Titans. Even if they haven't noticed her abilities yet, which is very unlikely, it's only a matter of time before somebody catches on. Either way, sooner or later..."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. I just keep wondering why Frankie and the gang had to die for that."

The doors opened again and both of them pushed off the deck onto the ship's main bridge. Captain Emeril put a headset down on the consol and greeted them with an anxious expression. "I was just about to call you. We've got something interesting on scanners." He gestured towards the main radar screen in the back of the room.

Duncan and Vanessa squinted at it, but all they saw was a fuzzy blob surrounded by two other fuzzy blobs. "What is it?"

"We were tracking it a few minutes ago until the Minovsky density picked up. Profile suggests a Pegasus class and two cruisers."

Duncan looked more closely, looking for anything that might give it away. After a long pause, he added, "Is it the Tarawa?"

"We're not sure, but we think so. It's very unusual to have two Pegasus class ships operating in the same area, even during large scale operations. Besides, our last reports suggested all of their carriers except the Tarawa and the Albion were still in port."

He would have agreed with the suggestion, but something in his gut told him they were on a wild goose chase with this new ship. The again, the projected course the monitor seemed alittle odd. "Where's it headed?"

"That's what we can't figure out. They keep changing course, I don't think THEY know where they're going either."

It seemed all at once obvious to Vanessa. "I bet they're following somebody. Have any of our ships gone missing recently?"

Captain Emeril shook his head. "The whole fleet's accounted for. Aside from us and the Leonov's group, everyone else is helping to move the civilians into Side 7."

All this speculation was good for tactical considerations, but it wouldn't get them very far unless something was done and soon. Duncan looked at his watch again; the ReGelg wouldn't be combat ready for at least another seven hours. "Might as well check it out. Are we close enough to launch mobile suits?"

"If you take a sled, yeah. We can't pinpoint their position, but we can start you in the right direction."

Both of them headed back to the elevator and disappeared from the bridge as quickly as they had come. "I haven't flown a Rickdom in a year. I wonder if I'm rusty?"

"I'm sure you got used to that panoramic monitor." The elevator stopped below decks again and both pushed off and headed back towards the MS deck. "Listen, Deuce, if your girlfriend becomes too much of a problem, I think we'll have to take a trip to Tycho city."

Duncan floated into the large chamber and immediately sought out the two spare Rickdom Snipers in the maintenance slots. "Let's hope it doesn't come to that." If we ever need to use the Zeong, then it's already too late.


- 0920 hours (CST) -
"So Riah's behind it after all." Jamitov slapped the report on his desk and smiled grimly. "Typical. It's like I said, Bosque, never trust the spacenoids. They'll say and do anything to get what they want."

Bosque looked at his own copy of the report, admitting finally that Jamitov had been right all along. "How did we miss that? They completely disregarded our defense treaty with this stunt..."

"I don't blame them. It's a pretty one-sided contract." Admiral Dyson had been sitting silently in the corner until now, but with Bosque quieting down it seemed like a perfect time to make himself felt again. "If you ask me, it's an ingenious program. The mobile suits are manufactured on Earth, smuggled into Side 1 in pieces and then moved to Side 6 to be reassembled by their mechanics. If you think about the terms of the treaty, this doesn't constitute a material breach. Someone's been doing their homework."

This time it was Jamitov's turn to accept his mistake. "I should've figured they wouldn't take that resolution lying down. They've been trying to get the treaty revised since before the war even ended. Spacenoids some of the most stubborn people in the universe."

Bosque nodded in agreement. "And then the Delaz Fleet got us looking the other way. They set up that whole operation right under our noses." He set the report down on the table and stood up in the middle of that office. "Colonel, you DO realize what we're looking at here? In six months, we could have another Zeon on our hands. If we don't move now, it could be too late..."

"Too late for what, Bosque?" Dyson stepped up next to Jamitov's desk, facing both men at the same time. "Riah has always been one of the wimpier democracies in the Earth Sphere. Besides, Lieutenant Wilson's report describes the new models as..." He thumbed through the papers for a quotation, "Third-rate pieces of shit. So what if they ARE building up weapons? They're still not a threat to us. In fact, the worse they could do is give us a reason to pull out our presence in Side 6, and then we could redeploy those forces where they'd be more useful."

"The tech department at Jaburo had a different opinion. Admiral Cowen's people suggest they can easily match if not surpass the performance of our GMs." Bosque tried to remain civil, but his voice was still saturated with contempt despite his best efforts. "Remember, Admiral, most of the Tarawa's crew are spacenoids themselves. We have to take everything they say with a grain of salt until we're in a position to replace them entirely."

Jamitov sighed and leaned back lazily in his chair. "Where's the Trafalgar now?"

Bosque looked at his watch. "Still trailing that Zanzibar. The way they're going, they'll reach Lunar orbit in about three days."

"Do you know where they're headed yet?"

"Not yet. We expect they'll make a course correction at Side 4, then swing around towards wherever it is they're going."

No one had to say what that "wherever" probably would be. The question now fell to what Side 6's reaction would be to the move. Will Riah pass up this opportunity to piss off the Federation? They'll have most of the colonies supporting them. Even Side 3 wouldn't pass up a chance like this. "We are at a crossroads, gentlemen. There are those of us within the Titans who think we should work towards an understanding with the colonies to enlist their support with our goals. On the other hand, many of us insist that the colonies should be made to cooperate whether they like it or not." He stood up behind his desk and looked both of them in the eye, making sure each of them knew who as who. "We can't afford to waste time, but we mustn't rush into things while we still have options. We'll wait for Side 6 to make their move, and then we will try to persuade them..." Bosque stomped his foot in anger, but Jamitov stopped him in place with a stern glance, "... we will PERSUADE them to cooperate with the Titans."

Bosque sighed and stepped back from the desk. "Yes, Colonel."

Jamitov looked now and Admiral Dyson, a powerful intensity behind his stare. "I'm sending you because I believe we can still do this the easy way, IF the colonies can be reasoned with. If not..." He shot a glance at Bosque, who started to grin. "... then I'll send someone a bit more persuasive. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Good." Jamitov sat back behind his chair and leaned back lazily. "The Agamemnon is waiting for you, I suggest you head for Side 6 immediately. The Alexandria will launch exactly thirty days behind you with orders to resolve the situation by any means necessary, if you have not already done so when Bosque arrives."

Both men saluted, turned around and left the room through different doors.

Six doors down the hall in the VIP quarters, Lieutenant Larson pulled the microphone out of her ear and stuffed it into her pocket, her mind racing to digest the information. As much as she hated to admit it, she found herself praying for Dyson's success in this operation. The entire Marquis fleet was operating on a principle of allying itself with the Titans in exchange for their protection, but if Dyson failed it meant all bets would be off. And it didn't take much imagination to see the future from there: First Riah, then he'll turn on us. I bet he'd turn Green Noa-II into a Titans base or something, just wipe out the rest of us... She didn't consider herself that bright a character, but if she could tell that much she could barely imagine the look on Admiral Marquis' face when he heard the news. "That's a shame. Looks like I'll be cutting this little exchange program short."


- 2140 hours (EST) -
It was night time in this part of the world, which meant little to Jaburo except that the overhead lights were dimmed and most of the restaurants were closed. The local dives, though, were still in force, and on a Friday night like today were their busiest hours of the week.

Naomi wasn't truly in a bad mood today, just weighted down and soggy from years of regrets. Anyone could see it for themselves, even in the dull lighting of the bar that hid half her face in shadows no matter where she looked. The dream was long dead, all she had left was a chunk of reality waiting for her on a stool at the bar. She'd been sitting there for an hour already, staring at the wood grain pattern with her mind wandering before she finally took it upon herself to place her sacrifice on the altar and be done with it. "Barkeep, heavy one over here. Leave the bottle."

The bartender fetched one for her at first, but then taking a second look at her hesitated for a moment. "Isn't it alittle past your bedtime, kid?"

Naomi adjusted her posture and directed more of his attention to the Lieutenant Commander's pins on her collar. "The Admiral changes my diapers."

"Whatever." He left the bottle there and moved on down the bar.

Naomi popped off the top of the bottle with her thumb, caught it behind her back and reached into her breast pocket and put the picture on the counter. Anna was sixteen then, two weeks before the bombing at the bus station, with the same vivacious smile she always had despite the sadness everyone knew was slowly eating her alive from the inside. "Happy Birthday, Anna." She tilted the bottle back and took a giant gulp, then held it out to the side and poured the rest of it onto the empty stool next to her. She already noticed the bartender becoming extremely annoyed, as was his right. On one side of the room she saw herself in the mirror as she emptied the bottle, but then she did a double take and realized there was no mirror in the room.

Lieutenant Izumi grinned at the now beer-soaked stool next to him as if expecting the ghost there to smile back at him. He saved the last bit of the bottle for himself and gulped it down in one sitting, then picked up the picture and stared at it for a few moments. As usual he felt a bit more at ease, the sacrifice made and the Gods of fate appeased for another year or so until the next anniversary of Emma's death. He was so lost in thought it took him over a minute to notice her take up the stool next to him, looking over his shoulder at the picture in his hands. Eventually he glanced up slowly and stared at her in annoyance. "What is it, Lieutenant?"

"It's called a photograph." She said, still looking at the picture, completely oblivious to his frustration. The girl in the picture was an athletic, dark skinned girl in a bomber jacket and a bandana around her next, leaning half out of the hatch of a construction pod with a smile on her face brighter and more energetic than anyone she'd ever seen. Everything about her seemed to indicate a person of extremely high energy. "Spunky looking thing. That's your fiancé, isn't it?"

Ryo nodded. "Emily Regan, the one and only." He lost himself in the picture, remembering exactly the day and place he had taken it. "She had the enthusiasm of fifty people and the willpower of a thousand. Anything she tried to do, she always succeeded and made it look easy. She was one in a million."

"I know what you mean."

This time it was his turn for jokes, "You had a girlfriend like that?"

She let that one go, hardly in a mood to fight him over this. "She was really special to you, huh?"

He nodded, slapping the picture down on the bar and gesturing for the bartender to send another beer. The man seemed reluctant given his abuse of the last one, but the wad of bills in his pocket seemed to encourage a little forgiveness. "So what brings you to the altar?"

She found his choice of words interesting, as if he knew something about her she hadn't told him yet. In any case, she pulled the picture out of her pocket again and slapped it down in front of her. "Some hooker."

Ryo looked at the picture as long as Naomi had looked at his. "That your sister?"

"Good guess." The barkeep returned with two bottles and planted them on the counter in front of them. "Anna was incredibly stupid, but she was always looking on the bright side of things. No matter how bad things got or what happened to me or her or my brother she always pointed out ways it could be worse."

They stared at each other's pictures for a moment, then went back to their own. Ryo's brain seemed to go on vacation, but for some odd reason his mouth decided to put in some work. "We were working in the docks when the Zeeks gassed the colony. There were fourteen of us, and all we had were construction pods and some equipment but we figured it was enough to make a stand. Tow cables, laser torch, nothing fancy. Between me and Emma we took out three mobile suits, but their squad leader, I guy named Dieter Cunningham caught her off guard and..." Ryo punched his fist into his palm to demonstrate. "... splat. Two days later, the Feddies try to destroy the colony before it falls, I get blown out of the bay block and the Merrimac picks me up... actually, I crashed through the windows on the command bridge and broke almost every bone in my body."

Naomi grunted and answered him right back, "My mother disappeared when I was three, and my sister had to take care of us after that. Trouble is, she wasn't too bright and the only thing she could do was work the streets for horny retards and perverts. She would work the corners, I'd hang out with some street gangs and stuff and we'd go robbing people, mugging tourists, separating rich people from their money a little at a time."

"That's when you met Samir, isn't it?"

"Among other people, yeah. Then the war starts, the Zeeks capture Granada, and then some guerilla bands start fighting back. Right after the Battle of Loum, a car bomb takes out the army barracks where Anna gets most of her johns, blows her to bits and leaves me and my little brother shit outa luck." She tucked the picture back into her pocket and finally took up the beer bottle, popped the cap off and took a gulp. Ryo did the same with his, and they sat at the bar in silence as the night grew old, taking their time with it and letting memories march on past to be forgotten in time.

An hour went by, and Naomi took her picture out again, Ryo did the same, and both looked at theirs for a long time before Naomi spoke again. "Maybe this is just the booze talking, but we're not that different. There's a lot of things about you that remind me of myself."

"Like what?"

"You complain a lot, and you internalize everything so whenever anything happens you take it personally. And besides that, you're a real pain in the ass."

"That's true..." Ryo thought about it, and matching Naomi's declaration found something in her that mirrored his own self, "You put on a lot of faces, Lieutenant. You never show anyone how you really feel or what you're really thinking. In fact, any time you get upset or lonely you either lock yourself in your mobile suit or sit in your quarters staring at the wall for hours. Either way, you're reclusive and anti-social, and it really turns people off."

Now it was her turn to be impressed. She looked at the beer bottles and saw just enough left in either for one last big gulp. Most of it had already gone to her head, but even without the drinks it would have been exactly the same. "You wanna trade?"

"Trade?"

"Yeah, try on each other's memories for a while. Could be interesting."

Ryo looked at his picture again, then at Naomi's picture on the counter between them. "Yeah, what the hell?" Naomi slid hers across the counter, Ryo did the same, both picked up the other's and tucked it away for safekeeping. With one last movement they finished the beers, left their tab on the counter for the barkeep and left the bar through different doors on opposite sides of the building.