Hello readers! I just want to tell you, I wrote the first song, but Michael Stipe really did write the second one. My Napoleon quote really is a rephrased Napoleon quote, and I'm hoping most of you recognize the prayers of Bishop Douglas as prayers that date back to the Early Christian Church. Summer's approaching, and I still hope reviews will come before autumn. This chapter is much larger than my past few, and contains less action than normal, but I hope it isn't boring. If I do have any readers, they must be wondering when Heero will show up. I promise you I'll reveal him from hiding. You may think this is almost wrapped up, but you have no idea.
Typewriter King
May 18, 2004

I don't own the rights to Gundam Wing, Early Christian Church prayers, Napoleon, or songs published by members of REM. I share knowledge of these things to better tell a non-profit story that practically no one is ever going to read anyway. The mobile-suit pledge is based on the American Soldier Creed. I used the creed as a reference necessary to add realism to the tale. It is also a form of unabashed flattery.

Havana Beach Bazaar, Cuba

All of Zechs' orchestrated elements came into play in perfect synchronicity, with an open-air served table ready, candle lit, with a waitress to seat them, and an electric folk band accompanying, performing an off-beat Southern bar song that leaves one wondering whether to laugh or cry: The officer chased crime a little late Unwound in a tavern that same date Wife Claudia called 'bout their son, Jake Impaled himself by garden rake He rushed off past four rounds of beer

Uncertainly the car he steered Reflexes shot, he could not veer A family van he dinged the rear Air bags deployed - shielded cargo dear But passenger husband was thrown clear Driver wife, neck whip lashed severe Shield stripped, dishonored, crowd Heckles a jeer. "Protect and Serve" chose not to hear. Salvation! A county road his instinct told Abandoned woman! "This headache- I'll die! It isn't fun." Without a care, he chose to run The sole witness; his career my hands now hold.

The electric organ and guitar wrapped up the song with the hopping bass as Noin emptied her wine flute of her nascent regurgitated contents. She applauded, and they kicked straight into a song written by Michael Stipe a long time ago:

"STAR 69!

you don't have to take the bar exam to see
what you've done is ignoramus 103
what've I got to hang my hat on
you don't have a pot to pee in
all this just to be your friend
I was there until the end.

extortion and arson, petty larceny
I know you called - I know you called - I know you called -
I know you called - I know you called - I know you hung up my line
star 69
I know all about the warehouse fire
I know squirrelys didn't chew the wires
3 people have my number
the other 2 were with me.
I don't like to tell-tell but I'm not your patsy.
this time you have gone too far with me.
I know you called - I know you called - I know you called -
I know you called - I know you called - I know you hung up my line
star 69
why'd you put your quarter down on me?
this reads like some dork inside edition hard copy.
I can't be your character witness
I can't be your alibi
doorbell rings it's the FBI
we learned spy vs. spy
you my friend, are guilty as can be.
I know you called - I know you called - I know you called -
I know you called - I know you called - I know you hung up my line
I know you called - I know you called - I know you called -
I know you called - I know you called - I can't be your alibi
star 69!"

The waitress returned to refill Noin's flute, and Zechs took the opportunity to gulp down his.

"Gracias! That was a song by that 'Happy shiny' band con el rapid eye movement," said the singer, in less than fluent English, meaning REM, "The first song is on our record,

'Occupation Poetica."'

'I didn't pay you to talk, I paid you to sing,' thought Zechs, vexed. He picked a pastry out of an attractive basket of dinner rolls, and critiqued the freshness. Steam wafted from the exposed area, and he smelled the sweet odor of baked grains.

"This is nice," he pronounced, looking over at Noin's face, "what do you think of your pita?"
She smiled mock-bemusedly.

"I've never known you to make small-talk, my Count," she made an exaggerated survey of her bread, "this reminds me a lot of the meals I had growing up in Italy; could this seasoning be pesto? I think I taste some wild truffles from Lombardy, some squid, well-aged string cheese," she squinted, tasting, "and very young lamb. The sauce is prepared from minced sweet golden Andean tomatoes, much like those being the presumed first to appear in Italian Gastronomy."

The band slowly climbed into a metal jam session, and the players worked hard to make their instruments talk. The keyboardist simply relied on his organ, and the guitarist simply relied on feedback, and the drummer just hammered away, and the bassist followed along. The vocalist blew into a harmonica, and the drummer adjusted into hitting his hats repetitively. Slowly, the keyboardist played a simple riff, and added to it every time. The guitarist played a loud 'WAH' every few seconds, and the rhythm section tightened up. Soon the keyboardist played a full-blown rag, and the vocalist, with his harmonica, was the only contributor to the occult sound. The drummer lightly tapped some wind chimes with one stick, and hit a snare with the other.

The same waitress returned to Zechs' side and set two baskets before him, one with a pair of pocket pizzas, and the other with a couple slices of whole wheat Texas toast, and a halved slice of cinnamon toast on white. She then emptied the wine bottle in the couple's flutes.

"Will that be all, Sir, Madam?" Zechs, nonchalant, said everything was fine, Noin seconded, and she parted company.
The Count glared into the horizon, witnessing a deep azure color flood out the sky. Hmm.

"Hold on, Ma'am, do you have anything resembling bird seed in stock; perhaps dried grits?"
She abandoned her route, turned, nestled her crooked index finger below her lower lip.

"Eh, hmm, sure, I'll fetch a satchel of gourmet cracker crumbs. Hold on." As he anticipated, he spied some early birds settle in a vacant park beside the beach.

"I remember one portion of Specials training that called for us to assist a friendly tribe in killing the waning crescent of the Moon, so a nascent Moon could rise to take it's place. Surely enough, the next night, no Moon would show up, then another night would pass, and a new crescent would wax into view," said Zechs, watching the sunrise, "I suspect we never tried the same with the sun because there was no noticeable decline over time. Oz also waned. Anne Une pushed extremely hard to push us from the organization, and the last straw was Siberia, at least for me. Soon forces inside branded us outlaws, then even Treize and Une exited, to be followed by a whole new splinter group. It declined to the point of feeding on itself with battles in Luxemburg and the Sanc Kingdom, pushing to undo what we'd been doing. Uncanny how an entire organization can have suicidal tendencies, when the right catalyst enters the mix." He stared the sea, as if to spy at neutrinos brushing the bottom.

"But Noin, the same material rises in the place of the old crescent; the same players make up the new order, but we all claim to be an original construct. We sat in with the Alliance, the next cycle, and we played on different teams during the transition, nevertheless, we're together policing the Earth Sphere together under the same boss as before. Does the majority really accept this, just because we brought them a relative peace?"
Noin finished breakfast, and swilled her flute contents down her throat.

"You overestimate our importance, Lover. We were allowed back as the simple grunts within the greater bureaucracy. We just perform a series of functions better than anyone else, and the powers that be loosen the leash only when dangers are clear to them," she disarmed his brooding with a high wattage smile, "like the Irish cops of a previous era. We keep the order in the gutter, and the Anglos in charge muse all day over how best to spend the Peon's tax money."
Zechs chuckled.

"Your analytical skills are acute, woman," he complimented, tossing a toast crumb at a blue-gray pigeon. Its beak pecked through it, then tried again. They watched it eat.

"Here you go, Sir," the waitress handed him the brown rice paper, and Zechs accepted, and asked for his bill.

"Thank you, Mr. Zechs." The couple discontinued their stay at the open-air café and strolled past the placid morning street for the more secluded park. The Count dribbled a trail of gourmet crumbs in a well-dispersed inviting wake, and assiduously tweaked his ears for the ruffled audio energy of descending wings. The early flock's customary welcoming swoop didn't disappoint.

"We had three flutes of wine each, right? So, if I'm guessing your weight correctly, you're legally intoxicated and I'm not quite, Lady," Zechs chuckled, "so let's take a break at this bench and throw food at the birds before heading into the surf." They staggered to the bench, then resumed seeding the earth for the benefit of some needy birds.

Behind them, unseen, older generously proportioned civilians dole out easily dispensed items to Havana's non-vacationing early morning jostle as they scramble for work. Many of these venders specialized in their services, while many more diversified into selling whatever they had the opportunity to earn a living from. Numerous venders erected shops of sophisticated workmanship, with commendable grandiosity, whilst still others kept more leisurely built shops. Street performers drew the attention of passersby, sometimes receiving token pay from those loaded down with marginal yet burdensome metallic hard currency.

After the mobile-suit pilots sat, a gradually increasing flow of vacationers walked the beach and sat in park benches.
Some even began surfing before Zechs decided they weren't too inebriated to walk across the following tide. He broadcasted a stealthy chortle.

"The bag's been empty a long time now, so what do you say we break for the hotel and wash up?"
Noin loosened her clinch on him.

"I'll second that. I haven't cleaned up since we left the CVA Camp yesterday," she sounded reserved, "so let's beat down the trail."
Zechs made note of the wind conditions.

"What are your feelings about flying kites?" She vibrantly smiled.

"I feel like a kite right now!" 'Victory!' The Gundam statesman thought, as they raced across white sand for the sleeping establishment.

Maxwell House, Mogadishu, Somalia

"Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you that hunger now, for you shall be satisfied. Blessed are you that weep now, for you shall laugh. Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets," Bishop Douglas finished a prayer he'd recited many times since childhood, under several variations, inside Maxwell House's small antiseptic hospital.

He'd found that soldiers in particular are fond of this prayer, so he took special care to address the entire hospital room. He and the medical staff noted a reassuring improvement in vital signs, and a staff nurse escorted the bishop to the intensive care unit, so he could speak to Marquee Wayridge. They'd had time to encase him in a full body case, and some bracing. An "iron" lung breathed life into him, red tubes circulated his blood, a dialysis machine filtered for him, they already inserted a feeding tube, and a U-239 battery pack powered a temporary mechanical heart.

A good first aid intravenous formula Should consist of sodium chloride, 3.5 grams; sodium bicarbonate, 2.5 grams; potassium chloride, 1.5 grams; glucose 20 grams (or sucrose 40 grams); and clean water up to one liter. The glucose assists absorption of the sodium and vice versa, and as they are absorbed, water is absorbed with them. The well-stocked staff kept a cornucopia of fluid bags on his IV tree, and the doctors held a high drip rate for him. His anesthetic was topically sprayed from a nozzle regularly, and it contained no sedatives. Douglas approached with pleasantries.

"Hello, Marquee Wayridge, I'm Bishop Douglas. I hope you remember the occasions where we have met in the past. We usually met under pleasant circumstances, when we rallied under humanitarian causes. Why don't we say something to the man upstairs together? Let's try an easy one. What do you say?" As if the patrician had replied, the holy man lead a prayer.

"Our Father in Heaven, Hallowed be your Name, Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in Heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our senses we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For the kingdom, the power, And the glory are yours Now and forever. Amen." A surgeon excused Douglas.

"Thank you, Reverend, so nice that you could lend a hand." He patted the medico's shoulder paternally.

"It was a pleasure, my brother; doing God's work is always a great pleasure," he said sincerely, as he excused himself, stalking others to comfort.

Noventa Cannon Complex

Things looked over in the auxiliary command station. Trowa successfully planted explosives that flushed out remaining resistance, and Sally returned with Count Townsend.
Resistance is down to a berserk machine gunner firing from deep inside the escape entrance to the submarine pen. Trowa has expended every bandolier of explosives, yet somebody still held on.

All could and did approach the entrance safely, however, and everyone got a chance to throw grenades and satchel charges, accompanied by a friend to blindly hose a clip around the corner.

"I know what the Catalonians are known for, but I think I'll play against type," Dorothy shouted, emptying her gun.

"Yeah, well, I'm going to step back and make a small target, and take a careful aim at him, while you guys still have the ammunition to grind him down," answered Trowa, before he sprinted to the back of the room.
Here goes.

The Noventa Cannon had unquestionably been lost. A Preventer assault team now occupies all relevant stations, and is now in the process of sweeping away the peripheral niches still in Conglomerate control. Commodore Norris is taking out the fleet, and Kale Sandstone is spearheading the rearguard operation with a three-barreled mini gun from behind a well-prepared sandbag pillbox. He has a thick transparent Lexan shield guarding his face from bullets and shrapnel, and a bipod stand for his gun. The gun also has a water hose supplying coolant, so he can sustain a high volume of fire for the duration of the fight.

"I am a Mobile-suit pilot. I am a member of the Allied Forces of the Earth Sphere Alliance- a protector of the great Earth Sphere Alliance. Because I am proud of the Mobile-suit I pilot, I will always act in ways creditable to the elite service and the people I'm sworn to protect. I take pride in my unit. I will do my best to make it the finest of all. I will be loyal to my superiors under our creed. I will faithfully see orders followed to completion. As a Military pilot, I recognize that I'm preserving an honorable tradition- that I am the vanguard of civilization and peace. Whatever the situation, I will never taint my honorable profession and service, and will maintain the standards the Alliance are founded on. I will go beyond the call of duty to keep my peers in line with the values of this organization. I am proud of the service I have joined, and I'll always live up to the ideal of my service, for I am an Alliance pilot."

He recited the pledge he'd learned long ago as an Earth Sphere Alliance mobile-suit pilot. These fiends have come to challenge his righteous stuff, but they didn't count on just how bright that stuff could glow. They didn't count on how well he could prepare a defensive position, but now they're starting to learn.

Like giving a humiliating kick in the crotch, Kale peppers their Tupperware sub guns, which they hold out like trout for a trained dolphin. Such a pansy way to fire a gun, Kale frowns on it. He counted at least four shattered firearms, all Oz assault weapons.

He changes tactics, and fire-hoses up and down the extreme edges of the corners where the unrighteous enemy hides. Stone chips peel away or fragment more violently.

The cannon is lost to these unrighteous bugs! Cockroaches, the whole lot of them; except that one. He's standing off a long distance for even a rifle shot, but even so, he's successfully nursed some SMG rounds off Kale's lexan faceplate. The round impacts cause an irritating distraction, and he should see that, yet still he remains cool, calm and collected, regularly depressing individual rounds across different points of the bulletproof transparent screen.

Kale reluctantly realizes that this guy, at least, has better stuff circulating through him. The shield's pockmarks stare directly at his vitals, and newer abrasions and scars indicate that this guy is actively probing for a weak place in the shield's integrity.

No, he's not better, because his dirty tricks will never truly give him the advantage. He uses drones, hackers, and overpowering rockets, but he's still right there, vulnerable to the righteous might of Kale's instrument.

He angrily showers the distance, spinning his gat at its highest rotation rate. He keeps it coming, landing short, correcting closer to the roof. The lithe dark form shuffles, and yet stays in view. His shots are wilder now, also more frequent. He's panicked, dodging, his impacts leaving less relevance. He falls. Kale's got him! That guy's still aiming! Sandstone perceived a muzzle flash, then the Jurassic shriek of steel on steel. Lying prone, that guy clones the feat. Kale spies on his tool, eyes the carbon-steel disk tying the barrel-bundle together. He's punctured it!

A micro-fire draws attention; he hit it a third time, and the hole gapes wider. To some astonishment, he discovers he'd never released the trigger.

Eyes up- he's scrambling away! "Filthy swine! You don't have the grit to see this through..." his bullets pursue the pig, a hair's width away, the ashen barrels show more fury... "my feet are all wet... oh sh-" The tri-barreled weapon parts broadly, taking the shape of a cluster of pinwheels. Trapped heat escapes, igniting exposed air, and Kale crashes into the stonewall, followed by his gun. "Clever, you breached my water hose early in the fight, then sacrificed yourself just to keep me firing throughout. I complement you, Preventer." He sank into a red pool, but fought that fate. The pilot battled to the last, rolling right down the stares, his only line of retreat. "Evacuate to the second defense line, and make sure to blow these mines at the right time," he told his comrades, who carried him away in their arms. "Roger."

Despite the startling setback, Chester Norris embraces the hope that his arsenal at this time can still extract a victory of sorts despite it all. Kale is leading a rearguard action, giving the Captain time to address his naval forces. He's not the paradigm of the perfect public speaker, but by rephrasing Napoleon Bonaparte a smidge, maybe he can give his forces a shot in the arm.

"Soldiers, you are naked, badly fed...Rich provinces and great towns will be in your power, and in them you will find honor, glory, and wealth. Soldiers of Africa, will you be wanting in courage and steadfastness?" Good.

"Even through misery, no! Why? These men have stolen the fruits of our sweat and blood, and that is a torture surpassing all other conditions! For now, our forces are to re deploy for the rendezvous point for Operation Spice Trade, where we will move forward with our razing of Diego Suarez, the UN harbor at the tip of Madagascar. Our mission hasn't changed. With Diego gone, and the canals closed, the UN will be slow to forestall further operations!"

A few minutes later

The manufacturers made the pen's steel hanger doors every bit as thick as canal locks, so when those heavy doors parted, the Preventer's passive sonar net just couldn't miss it, and when they didn't miss it, the crew snapped to the proper defense posture.

A number of large black cylinders were privileged to network information, and booted up more electrical systems once it knew just what had been sniffed out.
They spun up their screws and vented out their compressed air, their gas propulsion. That propulsive burp, besides kicking in a well-know Newtonian principal, also boosted the screws much more, and brought the "fish" fully up to speed.

Their targets, aquatic mobile-suits of the 'Pieces' and 'Cancer' varieties, were trapped in the pickle military men and traffic reporters like to call a "bottleneck," a narrow artery without much maneuvering space: the suits couldn't dodge, they could only hope to intercept the incoming ordinance.

Sad for those pilots, these incoming mines came with a special option, something tankers call "reactive armor," a little explosive canister with a proximity fuse, first seen in the 1982 war between Israel and Syria. It works as a "missile defense shield" for a single vehicle, shooting down an incoming missile like a CIWS battery loaded with buckshot.

The scheme cleared many swaths in the sea, and triggered incoming torpedoes into a mass chain-reaction, and the mines steeply climbed onto suit hulls, first jarring them with concussive kinetic force, and ramming shaped charges forward. These brave kamikazes completed their mission, beating fierce waves against a superior naval force.

Though their numbers ran in the single digits, the stunning success of these few advanced mines tore down what the mere words of the Commodore had built up. More mines, simpler stationary contact and magnetic mines, rose to take their place.

Those watching from Luxemburg smiled, for elements of the harassed fleet panicked ahead into the minefield, detonating more charges. Yet, despite another troubling setback- a cliché all leaders cringed at expressing- the indomitable Commodore regrouped his ranks one last time, and broke out into blue water.