We are the things we carry with us day by day. We are our past, we are our memories, we are the hopes and fears of yesterday. Everything that has come before now makes us who we are, everything that has affected us has shaped the metal of our souls. It is in our nature to accept a past that cannot change, but neglect a future that can.
- Char Aznable

Chapter 22: Remember


- June 1, UC 0084 -
- 2140 hours (LST) -
Gwen looked up from her book and listened for a few moments, not sure if she had heard anything at all. She'd been so engrossed in the story the rest of the world had faded into the background, but when she listened for another moment she heard it again; a very faint knocking on the other side of the metal door to her quarters. "Just a minute," She said, marking her page and setting the book down on the pillow of the bed.

She tapped the control panel and opened the door, and immediately her heart skipped a beat. It would have been far less of a shock if not for the nervous expression on Naomi's face. "Hi." She said softly, just above a whisper.

"Hi." Gwen shifted her weight awkwardly, noting only as an afterthought that Naomi was doing the same. Something in the back of her mind reassured her that both of them were equally uncomfortable, but the fact that the younger officer hadn't pulled a knife on her yet was a good sign. "Come inside, I'll fix you a drink."

Naomi nodded and stepped into her quarters, closing the door behind her but still not leaving the doorway. Gwen figured that was about as far as she would get her to go. "I came to ask about this mission." Naomi started slowly, trying to keep the awkwardness of the situation from her tone.

"Oh?" Gwen opened the mini-fridge in the corner, pulled out a bottle of iced tea, "You have a specific question?"

"Well this operation will take us some time to complete. Is there any specific timeframe for this?"

Gwen shrugged as she poured two tall glasses and dropped a pair of ice cubes in both. "I wouldn't know. Sweetwater hasn't said anything about it, so for now you have all the time you need."

"What if we need more support?"

"We don't have any units to spare for this, so you shouldn't call for support unless the survival of the ship is in jeopardy. If it does come to that, the Scarface will be standing by cover your retreat." She handed one glass to Naomi, and sipped her own in the pause. "Challenger will be patrolling nearby if you need a fallback point."

"I see." Naomi took a sip of the iced tea, then looked at the glass and squinted. "What'd you spike this with?"

"Vodka."

Naomi smiled slightly. "It's good."

"It's an old family recipe. Glad you like it."

The mention of it returned some of the awkwardness to the air, but at the same time it moved the conversation closer to the point of this visit. "Speaking of family," No turning back now, She took a deep breath and stepped across the room to a chair at the desk next to the bed. Gwen sat down on the mattress across from her and took another long sip from the iced tea. "Have you had a chance to visit Anna's grave?"

Gwen shook her head sadly. "It's been twelve years since I've been to Granada. I'm still afraid to go back."

Naomi stared at her blankly, "Why?"

"You wouldn't understand... I know you used to think it was because of you, but that really has nothing to do with it."

"You're afraid of ghosts, Gwen?"

"Something like that." Gwen stared off into the distance, a memory surfacing from the back of her mind to manifest before her eyes, then to disappearing just as quickly as it came. "I came to Granada from Side 3 with my first husband. We were supposed to start a better life there, with all the new development and new construction... it was like a frontier city. Land of opportunity..."

"Bullshit. It was a wastebasket for the trash of mankind."

Gwen sighed, "Not at first. There was a time when the lunar cities were an urban paradise. The economy was booming, business was always good, the streets and the neighborhoods were safe. All that changed when Granada signed the treaty with Zeon."

"But why don't you go back?" Naomi asked again, "At least to visit Anna..."

"Bad memories." She looked up slowly, exploring Naomi's eyes, "You understand THAT don't you?"

Naomi nodded, starting to understand it better herself. Both sat in silence for a moment, sipping iced tea and letting the vodka do its work against their bloodstream until, at length, Naomi finally asked what she had come here to ask, "How did you find out about Dyson?"

Gwen stiffened at the question. Just thinking about it brought a twinge of anger in the corner of her heart. "Rico told me. Shortly after the Tarawa arrived."

She raised a brow. "Rico did?"

"In a little more detail than I would have preferred. Apparently he's not quite gotten over it himself."

That came as no surprise. Ever since the moment he came on board, Naomi had found the Lieutenant to his illustrious uncle's total opposite. On the other hand it still left a bit of a mystery as to just why Rico would have told her about it to begin with. "I need to ask you something... something I've been wanting to ask you for a long time."

Gwen could guess what the question was, and didn't wait for it to be asked. "The Doros was burning in space, the fleet was getting cut to pieces, my Gelgoog was loosing power. I heard you calling to me on the radio and I just..."

"But that wasn't the first time, Gwen." She took one last sip and drained the iced tea, then set the glass down on the desk and stood up in front of her. "You left me defenseless, expecting me to die. Not once, but TWICE. Why did you do it?"

Gwen stared at her feet and buried her face in her hands. "I wish I knew."

"Not good enough!" Naomi's fists tightened into a pair of cannon balls. "What in the hell could have possessed you to go and do something like that?! Why?! Tell me why!"

"Because I..." She looked up again, and tears were flowing down her cheeks. "I first came to Granada with my husband, my brother and two children... and one day something terrible happened, and just like that, they were gone. It left me so cold and dead inside... I swore to myself I would never care about anything that much as long as I lived..." She stood up slowly and put her hand on Naomi's shoulder, something that immediately made both of them tremble. "And then there was you. I caught myself getting so attached to you and Anna, and I started to feel safe again. I was afraid one day I would loose you just like I lost the others. I didn't want to feel that kind of pain again, so I ran away and didn't feel anything."

Naomi brushed her hand off her shoulder and stared at her, a growing expression of contempt on her face. "And did it work?"

Gwen shook her head. "I went back to being dead inside. I did a lot of different things to survive... some things I would rather you not know about. I wandered aimlessly for years looking for something to live for. And then I met Char Aznable, and... and he fixed me."

"Fixed you?"

"Some newtype trick. He made me whole again, and I stopped being afraid. That's when I tried to contact you. And then a few years later, I run into you at Abau-Aqu..." She could tell Naomi was only half interested in the explanation, but focusing more on the emotions she could see in her at this moment. Something about her scrutiny made her feel all the worse. "I can't ask you to forgive me. I know you never will."

Naomi nodded in agreement, yet somewhere from a forgotten corner of her soul a set of vestigial words boiled to her mouth, "I miss my mother." She said sadly.

Gwen slumped and sat back on the bed. "I do too."

"Can you bring her back?"

"What?" Gwen looked up in surprise and wiped the tears from her eyes, "Bring her back?"

Naomi nodded and knelt down in front of her. "They way I remember her. The way she used to be."

"If that's what you want then..." They sat in silence for a moment, then Gwen smiled softly. "I'll see what I can do."

- June 5, UC 0084 -
- 0820 hours (CST) -
It was a curious thing how a man could feel so heavy in a weightless environment. Admiral Carter felt the burden of four years of hard work all but wasted, dragging behind him like a ball and chain, one for each day he had spent on furthering the development of Project N. This had been his baby, his favorite pet project, the showcase of innovation and vision on which a hundred officers would make their careers and Carter would use as his stepping stone to early retirement. Now it was a sideshow curiosity.

He slumped against the door to his office, weighed down by a non-existent gravity that had his heart sagging in his chest. "So are we back to square one?" He muttered to himself as he slipped inside. The office lights were dimmed, his chair was turned half away from the desk as if waiting for him to sit in it along with an empty float cup sitting next to a steaming pot of hot coffee. He took the seat gladly and relaxed at last, but eyed the drink wearily, "Now how did you get here?" He said, eyeing the coffee pot suspiciously.

The monitor beeped as a page came to the office from the bridge and the Admiral tapped the flashing red light in the corner of the screen. "Carter here."

The ship's Executive Officer saluted on the monitor and gave his report, "We've made arrangements with a civilian merchantman in Side 2 to purchase the extra fuel we needed. Thanks to this blockade situation they're charging us an arm and a leg, but if we wait for the supply corp it'll take another six days at least."

Admiral Carter filled the float cup through a tub from the coffee pot and added cream and sugar. "Let ME worry about the merchants. Just put us into port and we'll make contact later."

"You think it's wise to deal with these civilians with the blockade going on?"

"I don't intend to pay their price, since you ask. Just put into port and I'll take it from there."

"Yes sir." The officer saluted again, then his image on the monitor snapped back into blackness. Carter slouched in his chair for a moment and rubbed his temples, then reached for the float cup where he had set it on the desk. An instant before his fingers closed around it, a second hand snatched it up from the desk and the arm attached to it brought the straw to a small mouth with an equally small face. "You don't use enough sugar." She said, turning a face in bitterness of the first sip.

Carter was no longer surprised with these intrusions, but he had not yet ceased to by annoyed with them. "Don't you ever knock?"

Nine took another sip of his coffee, then handed it back to him with another bitter expression. "I never ask permission for something I haven't done yet."

"Well if you always do whatever you want, asking permission is just a formality isn't it?"

"Exactly. It's easier to ask for something you already have... this way you have no arguments." Nine chuckled and drifted across the office to the far wall near the door. "I ran a few simulations with Lucifer."

Carter's mood shifted for the better. "Impressed?"

"Nope."

"What's wrong with it?"

Nine sighed and felt her way along the wall until she found a chair next to the bookshelf. "Everything about it feels less like a mobile armor and more like a battleship. It's fast in a straightaway, but it has no turn radius and it maneuvers like a pregnant cow."

The Admiral shrugged. "With all that firepower and equipment you don't really need to maneuver that much. Besides, in it's mobile suit configuration it's plenty fast enough..."

"For a regular unit, maybe. But against a pilot with any kind of combat experience it's David and Goliath."

"Goliath didn't have an I-field." He sipped his coffee and thought it over; all at once he changed his mind. "Maybe this is the kind of thing Bosque was talking about?"

"If you mean building overpowered weapons that aren't worth a damn, you're right." Nine left her chair and felt along the wall again to get back to the door. "The only thing Lucifer's good for is sinking battleships. The only way it can hurt the mobile suits is by blasting the Tarawa into space dust. Naomi won't be so troublesome if that happens."

"I'll agree to that. Just as long as we're able to finish them off..."

"But YOU remember our agreement, Carter." Nine tapped the keypad and opened the door.

The Admiral found himself smirking at the entire arrangement. "I'm curious, Lieutenant. You want your eyesight restored more than your memories? I don't quite understand why that is."

She paused in the doorway for a long moment, staring blindly down the corridor in silent reflection before turning slowly and looking dead at him; the Admiral's blood ran cold from the intensity of her stare. "I know who I am, Carter, even if I don't remember who I used to be. My eyes are more useful than my memories."

"You don't even care about your memories do you?"

She closed the door without another word and left him in solitude with a new troublesome revelation to contemplate. Naomi had been the way during her enrollment: despite the conditioning, she seemed barely if at all concerned with recovering memories of her past and her identity. In fact, from the moment she entered the program to the day her memories returned, her key motivation seemed to be some kind of hateful grudge against an unnamed third party—Admiral Dyson, as it turned out. The fact that Naomi had retained that motivation even after her memory was erased was troubling in light of Nine's statements, but it also spoke volumes to the nature of newtypes...

The book he needed was on the shelf, next to the very chair Nine had just been sitting in. He moved across his office and opened it to a page he had marked years ago as a curiosity, but in this time and place took on new significance. He read it silently as he returned to his desk, "The soul of man is the combination of mind and spirit. The mind encompasses all worldly knowledge we accumulate in our lives, and in the spirit dwells the emotional currents shaped by our experiences. The ancients believed that the spirit is eternal, everlasting and transcendent to our physical bodies and the limitations of our minds—and there is truth in this. For in the absence of the mind, the spirit takes control."

- 1150 hours (CST) -
Ryo was in a pilot's paradise with the new mobile suit strapped to his shoulders. It was easily twice as fast as the Galbaldy, even more responsive than the Gundam. It's reflexes were much slower on the whole, but the sheer power of its verniers offset the disadvantage by an order of magnitude. If he closed his eyes, it almost felt like piloting a fighter. "You look like you're enjoying yourself," Rico said from the distance, still adjusting to his own mobile suit in much the same way.

"Damn right. This thing moves like a fireball."

Rico chuckled at a private joke, "The Gerbera Tetra holds a dozen speed records for any combat mobile suit, but..." He moved up alongside Ryo's suit and glared directly at him with his mono-eye, "It's a big-time gas guzzler."

At the mention of it, Ryo looked at his fuel gage and then growled loudly in annoyance. "Dammit, Rico, you're spoilin my fun!"

Mike laughed out loud as he moved up on the other side, straddling him between his and Rico's Galbaldy. "According to the specs, it's flight range is about 30 percent of a GM's, which is even lower than Alex's range. You can extend that with the Sturm Booster, but you have to jettison them when they're exhausted and we only have two spares for each of you."

"Unless we recover them..."

"Which isn't likely, especially considering the Gerbera Tetra was designed for hit-and-run missions."

Ryo reversed thrust and pulled away from his two companions, spinning the suit in a wide corkscrew just to get a better feel for its turn radius. He imagined himself surrounded by a host of enemy mobile suits and practiced shadow-boxing with the beam machinegun in his hand as he shot them down one-by-one in the battlefield of his mind. "I doubt they'll ever mass produce this freak."

"Not this one, but the technology in that unit is being refined for a new mobile suit. Anaheim doesn't have a prototype, but we've seen some of the schematics on it and it looks pretty nice."

Ryo paused in space and beamed at them in a tiny swell of excitement. "New Gundam model?"

Rico chuckled. "They look like Rickdoms only hard-core."

"I'll hold my opinions until I see it in action." Ryo fired his thrusters straight up and raced away from them, scanning in space for any fragment of space debris to use for target practice. He spotted an asteroid in the distance, almost a hundred meters from end to end. "What's with this thing, again? Beam machinegun?"

Mike followed along as best he could as Ryo closed in on his prospective target. "It's something the Zeeks were playing around with in the One Year War. A couple of Gelgoog variants used em, but they had a few problems."

"What kinda problems?"

"Well you end up with a tradeoff of power vs. range. If you increase the net charge of the particles you get more range, but the particle density goes down so you get less power. If you up the density, each particle gets a smaller charge so it dissipates faster. If I'm not mistaken, your beam guns are configured for short range firing."

Ryo locked into the asteroid from this distance and held his position. "Well let's see..." He fired a long burst from the beam gun into the side of the asteroid, kicking up a spray of molten rock as the beams chopped up the face of it, then he held his fire and waited for the dust to clear. The face of the rock was scorched in dozens of places, but none of the beams had penetrated especially deeply. "That's not good."

"It's enough against a mobile suit, but for a battleship you have to get closer."

Ryo fired his thrusters again and closed the distance, this time to less than one kilometer and fired again with a long burst. This time the beams sliced right through the asteroid, chopping it to bits in seconds and sending the fragments spinning off into space in all directions.

Mike and Rico locked onto some of the smaller fragments and maneuvered as if avoiding enemy fire, blasting a rock here and there as they would an enemy mobile suit. They sparred with their imaginary targets for a few moments more, until another shot burst out from the darkness, crossed in front of all of them and shattered the largest rock in the thinning debris field. "Damn, Naomi tuned the hell outa this thing!" Lucy's voice was saturated with excitement. "No wonder she was so fond of this Gundam."

"It's been upgraded a dozen times since the war. Mainly just to keep up with the Commander."

Lucy moved the Gundam into the midst of them and stowed the beam rifle in her rear waist armor. "When I first met Commander Wilson I thought she was some stuck-up brat trying to usurp my mobile suit team. But when you see her in combat, it's really something."

Ryo checked his fuel gauge again and groaned at the readings. He turned and started back to the ship while the others followed just a dozen meters behind in a loose formation. "I always wonder about that, Lucy. You're five years older than her, yet she outranks you."

"Six years, actually. And the reason is simple: Naomi knows everything there is to know about mobile suit combat. Her Project N training is just that thorough."

"They didn't teach her how to read?" Mike said with a chuckle.

"She can read her instruments just fine, ss long as the computer doesn't give her any big words."

Normally he would have laughed at the comment, but for some reason Ryo found it a little less than humorous. "What do you think she would do if she had to leave the military?"

Lucy tried to imagine Naomi in a business pantsuit answering phones at some major corporation somewhere; somehow the image was as natural as a chimpanzee on bicycle. "Probably the same thing she did before she joined."

Rico chuckled. "She'd be impressive as a mercenary or some kinda gangster."

"Isn't that all the military is?" Mike quipped, "Gangsters with mobile suits?"

"You're thinking of the Titans, Mike." Lucy corrected gently, "And personally I couldn't see her as either of those. She's too idealistic."

Mike and Rico both laughed out loud. "We're thinking about the same Naomi, right?"

Ryo joined in on Lucy's behalf, "Commander Wilson wears her principles up her sleeve. They usually take a backseat to business... and Rico, you of all people know what kind of business I'm talking about."

"Don't remind me. I've got my own score to settle."

The veil of Minovsky particles thinned out and at last the Tarawa came through on the communication's channel. The new radio officer was an AEUG replacement, wise beyond her years but cursed with a voice that sounded much younger than she actually was. "Tarawa to Matsui team, Bay Two is clear. Lieutenant Izumi, set down in Bay One."

"Roger that." Ryo adjusted his angle towards the ship as the main door to the MS deck opened in front of him. He lined up the mobile suit along the laser track, closing on the ship at a standard speed for a hard landing to save fuel. The flight deck operator extended the catapult sled to the edge of the deck and a pair of flashing light between the footrests marked his target. Ryo made a few tiny adjustments with his verniers and his computer adjusted the feet and legs to lock perfectly onto the sled. The last few seconds before he touched down he fired his thrusters to reduce his speed, then the feet locked into the sled rode it's momentum the rest of the way into the mobile suit deck as the shock absorbers slowed it to a halt.

Captain Anderson watched the other three approaching the ship to land in the same way, a maneuver used to save time and fuel during extended operations like this one. Somehow he was impressed with how quickly his long-time friend had mastered such a tricky landing procedure, while the other three more experienced pilots landing behind him still had need of practice. "This will be an interesting operation." He muttered to himself, but loud enough for Naomi to hear him. "The crew's getting used to all the changes, I think."

"They're used to change. You have to be, in order to serve on the Tarawa. But I can't get used to the AEUG uniforms."

Brian smirked. "Is that why you're still in Feddy colors?"

"Partly. But with the lack of regulation in this fleet I'm thinking I might update my wardrobe."

Brian chuckled, "You know on the Merrimac, Captain Eisen would've tossed you in the brig for having your collar unbuttoned like that."

"Really?" Naomi fiddled with her shirt and undid the next one down from her collar, rolled her shoulders around and adjusted the fit, then smiled. "I feel better already." She turned back to the hatch to leave the bridge, floating across the room in a leisurely yet graceful spiral.

"Where're you off to now?" Brian said to her back.

"Pearson says I'm overdue for my next physical. I wanna get that out of the way before we get to Side 2."

"I thought you hated Doctors?"

"You thought correctly!" She shouted as she disappeared into the corridor behind the bridge.

-1220 hours (CST) -
Admiral Dyson glanced at his watch at the very same moment he heard someone knocking on the door on the other side. Dieter Cunningham was punctual as always. "It's unlocked. Come in."

The door slid open and the Major stepped inside, wearing his Titans uniform like a suit of armor. He looked much better in Titans black and red than in Zeon officer's colors. Respectable even, even despite the scruffy look of his hair and the eternal five-o'clock shadow that adorned his square-shaped face. "You wanted to see me, Admiral?" He said as officially as possible.

Dyson handed him a stack of papers and gestured for him to take a seat. "These are the stats on the Tarawa's pilots, their backgrounds and abilities."

Dieter thumbed through the reports and came immediately to the dossier and service records of Lieutenant Izumi and Brian Anderson. "I'm familiar with some of them. I fought against Izumi in the One Year War."

"Correction, you were shot down by Izumi in the One Year War. I've done my homework, Lieutenant."

Dieter smirked at the admiral. "So you have. Then you must also know the man wants me dead. Along with his numbskull sidekick, Anderson."

"Anderson comes from Zeon nobility. His problem with you is political. But this is beside the point... you have extensive experience with the two of them, don't you?"

Dieter looked up with renewed interest. "They were apair during the war. I fought against both of them at least a dozen times until Izumi shot me down at Abau-Aqu."

"Then you know that Izumi is an ace pilot with thirty one mobile suit kills, and that with the destruction of the Tarawa's bridge, it is likely that Lieutenant Anderson is now in command of that vessel."

Dieter raised a brow. "No sir, I was not aware of that."

"We're having enough trouble contending with that Commander Wilson without those two screwing things up. And it doesn't help that Carter is betting everything on those lunatic children he's bringing up in Project N..." Dyson paused for a moment and chuckled at a thought. "My boy Ricardo was right after all."

"About what?"

"It seems every time I pressure Commander Wilson she only becomes more rebellious. The spacenoids seem to be the same way."

Dieter shrugged. "That's exactly why Lord Gihren ordered theme exterminated. Proletarians have a knack for wasting valuable resources fighting the inevitable. Tarawa and her pilots are much more useful to the progress of mankind than they are for some lofty idealistic plan."

Admiral Dyson raised a brow. He had never figured Dieter to have an eye for this sort of thing, but then from the back of his mind came a reminder that this man had been heavily indoctrinated by the Zabi's fanatical contolist cult. "You mean to say I should have killed her when I had the chance."

"I mean to say you should have killed her the moment she dared to resist you."

"She ALWAYS resisted me. She didn't always want to though. She was a street urchin who sheltered in a mosque and picked pockets to make a living. To her, I represented the kind of power and authority she would never have, so she both admired me and resented me at the same time."

When the conversation began, Dieter had had a general idea as to what was being discussed; now he wasn't sure. "I take it you abused that power, at least in her eyes."

"To abuse a thing is to use it improperly. Power is only abused when a man refrains from using it. And little Naomi was within my power, so I took her."

Dieter felt a chill navigate his spine. "Took her?"

"I always get what I want, Lieutenant. And Naomi's is an attractive young woman. She has a kind of youthful charm, don't you think?"

Dieter suppressed the shaking of his hands. He forced himself to agree with the Admiral, despite the awkward twisting in his gut. "When did this happen? Recently?"

"No, it was a few days before the Federation embassy in Granada was destroyed. The war was already in progress, and I decided it was best to take action while I had the chance."

His hands persisted on shaking despite his best controls. He set the papers floating in the air next to him and folded his arms boldly. "So you didn't actually abuse your power... you abused HER."

"I told you, to abuse a thing is to use it improperly. Peons like Naomi Wilson are stepping stones for the powerful. Spacenoids are like that too, they were created so the elite would have something to stand on."

"Interesting thought, Admiral." He took the papers in hand and started for the door. "I have other business to take care of, but I'll get to these papers as soon as possible."

"Very well, Lieutenant." Dyson closed the door behind him, and Dieter made a beeline down the corridor, around a corner and down a ladder to his own quarters, slipped inside and closed the door behind him. The conversation he had just left was mind-numbingly familiar; it was Gihren Zabi, but in reverse. For years he had been taught that the spacenoid elite existed to dominate the evolutionary dead-end that was the Earthnoid race. He had lived almost his entire life with this belief, so strongly was it engraved in his mind that even now he tended to look at even Admiral Dyson as an inferior being. And yet the thing that had called him to the Titans—the kindred spirit of excellence that only the elite could possess—had led him to be commanded by a man that would abuse a child just for entertainment.

His ideals faded to mist, the righteousness of his teachings evaporated, and the ideals of the "elite" began to sting his ears in an air of bitterness. Everything in his mind told him that the Admiral's actions were perfectly just: he had power, he used it, as was his right to do so. But his heart spoke another tale, of a man so drunk with power he would destroy even a thing of beauty if it suited him. Admiral Dyson was a symbol of the Titans.

And staring in the mirror, Dieter was confronted by an exhausted looking man with weary eyes, the black/red uniform and jackboots of the elite Titans forces. "I hope you're proud of yourself, Dieter." He said, speaking in honesty for the first time in nearly a decade. "Because we both know you're not."

- 1325 hours (CST) -
"The test results show," Dr. Pearson said with a straight face, "Your ego has cancer."

"So I'm gonna die?" Naomi said with a raised eyebrow.

"Probably."

"How soon?"

"Depends. For mobile suit pilots, this kind of cancer can kill you almost instantly."

Naomi sighed and stared at her knees. "Is there a cure?"

"Nothing a good ass whooping wouldn't fix."

"That can be arranged... anything else?"

"Your blood sugar is low. You've been skipping meals again."

Naomi rolled her eyes at Pearson's almost fatherly nagging. "You see, this is why I hate doctors."

Pearson grinned. "I'm not all bad. Came through for you last time, didn't I?"

"Forgive me if I wasn't in a position to appreciate it at the time."

Pearson grinned wider. "I don't blame you. Anyway, we're almost done. Take off your shirt."

Naomi tossed the shirt across the exam room to drape across the back of a chair in the corner, then turned on the bed and sat up as straight as possible. Her back was a patchwork of jagged scars and old wounds. Pearson stepped up behind her and placed a stethoscope against her back; she flinched from the cold metal on her skin. "Why do you never warm that up first?"

Pearson took the plate up, rubbed it against his palm for a few moments and put it against her back again. "Better?"

"Thank you."

"Deep breath."

Naomi did as she was told, and three more times as Pearson listened from different spots along her back. After the fourth time, he couldn't help but loose himself in the memory of the scars on her back, and even the two hours of surgery to remove from her shoulder blade the weapon that had put them there. "Do these still hurt?" He brushed one of the deeper ones with his finger.

"Only up here." She tapped her temple with her finger.

Pearson nodded in understanding. "Well your lungs are healthy, but your heartbeat is slower than it was last time."

"Funny you should mention that."

Pearson stepped across the exam room and tossed her shirt back to her. "Something wrong?"

She hesitated to continue, but given that Dr. Pearson was about the closest thing on the ship she had to a confidant she decided it was better to let him in on it. "Can you keep a secret?"

Pearson chuckled. "Remember who you're talking to."

"Right... Um, Doc..." She looked up into his eyes with a kind of sad desperation that almost melted his heart, "Well one of the junior officers, a mechanic... she has sort of a problem."

Pearson folded his arms. "Go on."

"She says she's gotten sort of involved with one of the other mechanics, but after the fight with the Titans the guy got promoted so he's her superior officer. It's okay now, because the AEUG doesn't have strict regulations against this sort of thing, but... well..." She hesitated again and her cheeks started to flush.

"I'm listening."

"Well the problem is there's another officer from the same unit, and... uh... well they're really good friends but... but... she's kinda falling for him."

Pearson raised a brow. "Really?"

"Yeah. But you see the real problem is that other officer is uh... is kinda her superior's brother..."

"Uh huh,"

Naomi began sub-consciously wringing her hands in a dance of nervous energy, "You ever been in a situation like this?"

Pearson shook his head anxiously. "Can't say that I have. And might I say, this is a little out of character for you... er... for a mechanic I mean."

"No shit. And I have no idea what to do about it."

He gave it a few moment's thought, and from the position he was in he had only one piece of advice to give. "Well your mechanic friend has had her eye on that Lieutenant for a long time, even back before the war. He was her inspiration for joining the military in the first place. It's only natural that meeting him in person, she would feel this way."

"But is that a good thing, or is it just some conceited hero worship?"

Pearson thought for a moment, then smiled at a bit of his own experience, "My wife used to consider me HER personal hero, but that was a little different. I guess it depends on the person."

"But what if...?"

"Dammit, Naomi, I'm a doctor not a guidance counselor! Follow your heart, it'll work out for the best."

Naomi nodded, and buttoned her shirt up to just below top button and nodded. "Anyways, thanks for listening."

"No problem." Pearson watched her leave the exam room, then leaned against the wall and chuckled in amusement. I guess I'm her acting father-figure until Captain Shiden recovers.

- June 6, UC 0084 -
- 1830 hours (CST) -
Even though she couldn't see the colony, the sounds of the people and animals moving about was soothing in its own way. She could feel the rotation of the cylinder and she knew exactly which way she was facing and where she was. The cane in her right hand tested every step of her path, the sidewalk beneath her feet along the edge of the a forest area filled with animals. The air smelled charged as if at any moment it might start to rain; if Nine could see she would have noticed a sky filled with storm clouds.

Even so, she stuck by her decision. With Dogos Gaia in port, sneaking off the ship had been all too easy, and to be out in fresh air and out of the starched Titans uniform for the first time in who knew how long felt like a kind of blessing from above.

Somewhere behind her, she heard the screech of an eagle is if passed overhead. Even in a sightless would she could tell where it was; when she focused on it enough she could sense it's presence, track it's movement in the sky as it circled the forest in search of food. It was a fabulous bird, even without looking at it. "I wish I could do that..." She muttered to herself as she walked, "I wish I could fly away..."

She stopped on her path, startled as a raindrop bounced off her nose, then again as another one hit her ear and three more on the top of her head. She looked up to the sky as if pleading for a few more minutes; the sky answered her with a sudden torrential downpour that left her immediately soaked. Typical. She opened her mouth and caught some of the rain on her tongue, slicked her hair back in the water and went on her way without a complaint. This feels like a memory resurfacing, she thought warmly, I've always loved the rain.

A few blocks down the sidewalk on her trek she encountered another familiar feeling, but this one was much harder to trace. She sensed it nearby, but couldn't understand it any more than she could see it with her eyes. "I wonder if I've ever been here before?" She thought out loud, "This feels like..."

"Excuse me ma'am," Someone shouted from behind her, "Do you need help with something?"

Nine turned around slowly and listened for the sound of footsteps on the wet sidewalk. Someone was running towards her from half a block away, and as he came closer she heard the patter of raindrops against his umbrella. There was something non-threatening about him, a friendly air she found as comfortable as the light from the sun. From the sound of his voice she guessed he was close to her age, but he was at least a head taller. "I'm a little lost." She said with a friendly smile, "I'm not from this colony."

He glanced at the white stick in her hand and sunglasses and understood immediately. "Where are you trying to get to?"

"Nowhere really, I was just out for a walk."

"Nobody told you it was gonna rain?"

Nine shrugged innocently. "I don't have a TV where I live."

He took her by the hand and guided her under the cover of his umbrella, then carefully reached up and took off her sunglasses and dried them on his shirt. "This is a pretty safe colony, but I'm not sure you wanna be wandering off on your..." He stopped in mid motion and stared at her for a long moment, his jaw falling open in surprise, "Alice?"

Nine's heart skipped a beat. "Excuse me?"

He stared at her for a moment longer, then smiled in elation, "Alice, it IS you! Oh man, I'm sorry! I didn't even recognize you!"

Nine took her sunglasses back, her comfort with this stranger turning into nervous anxiety. "Have we met before?"

"Are you kidding?! You used to come over to my house every Friday and my mom would tutor you with your social studies class."

Nine's brain drilled at the wall of emptiness surrounding her memories again, and for the thousandth time she came up with nothing. There was truth in his voice, he believed what he said, but whether or not he actually knew her was another question entirely. "I'm sorry... I..."

"You really don't remember?"

Nine shook her head sadly. "I don't remember anything. I don't even know my name."

From the tone of his voice she could tell he was drawing on some conclusions. "Oh... I'm sorry to hear that... I'm Alfred, Alfred Izuruha. We used to hang out in in Side 6 together before... well, I guess before what happened to you." He paused for a moment and pressed on awkwardly, "Did anyone tell you what happened? We all heard it on the news, but there weren't any details."

Nine shrugged distantly. "All I know is that there was an accident a few months ago and a Titans ship recovered me from space. Nobody knows who my family is, or where I came from..."

"A few months ago... yeah that's right." Alfred slid all the dates back into place, "It was all over the news, they said the Merrimac was destroyed by a terrorist attack. We all thought you were dead, we had a memorial for you and everything!"

The name wreaked of familiarity. "Merrimac?"

"You moved to the Merrimac on refugee status two years ago. You probably don't remember."

Nine shook her head again. "Well if that was my ship... well what did they say on TV?"

Alfred took her hand and started walking along the sidewalk again with her following along under the umbrella with him, "Well the Merrimac was assigned to escort duty on a Feddy carrier, and one day in battle it got destroyed by terrorists."

"Which carrier?"

"The Tarawa. One of the old Pegasus from the Midway series."

Nine stopped on the sidewalk and stiffened up. There was no longer any doubt that he knew her from before the incident, but now her mind was filled with an entirely new host of doubts. "Merrimac escorted the Tarawa?"

Alfred pulled her back under the umbrella. "Yeah. Of course I read in Angler the other day that the Tarawa's gone renegade. They said it has something to do with a Titans secret weapon but nobody knows the details... and it's too bad too. Maybe someone onboard knows what happened to your family?"

Nine sighed. Even classified information wasn't classified anymore. "So you used to know me on Side 6?"

Alfred nodded, but after a moment remembered himself and said aloud, "Yeah. We moved away though, right before the Titans invaded it."

"What was I like back then?"

Alfred smiled at the fondness of memories. "You were really cool. You used to come to our football games even though you couldn't see anything. And you and your brother used to sled down the big hill on the West Block every Christmas..." Alfred paused for a moment at the memories that same hill brought back, "It's a shame you don't remember anything. You're the only other person I ever told about my friend Bernie."

"That Zeon pilot?"

"Yeah, that's the..." Alfred stopped and stared at her in surprise, and in the same moment Nine stopped and rubbed her temples in frustration. "You... okay?"

"My head hurts." Even as she said it the pain started to intensify to a steady throbbing. There was a whisper in the back of her mind to go with it, but the words it spoke were not yet audible. "Do we have a place we can sit down?"

Alfred took her hand again and guided her across the street towards the town. "C'mon, I'll take you to my house. We'll make you something to eat."