Epilogue

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

-George Bernard Shaw

Depths of the Indian Ocean

The Hyman Rickover-Class Kinnaird R. McKee hunter-killer SSN, lead by the capable Commodore Chester Norris, lurked deep and slow as the crew watched news broadcasts picked up by a buoy-mounted antenna floating on the surface.

Norris let a thin cigar burn down to his fingers without ever puffing it, as rapt as he was by the satellite feed. Polk Browning offered an ashtray.

"Thank you, Mr. Browning, I- my mind wanders." Norris fanned his singed hand, rubbed it around his mercury-tarnished wedding band. He sat, rested his chin on one hand, no, that wasn't comfortable.

"I don't know how that surface fleet managed to survive," he sounded grave. The crew expected him to speculate out loud, but instead, the chin rested on the hand. He curled up in the chair in a way the crew considered feminine, but then decided he didn't enjoy the pose. He levered the footrest, and gave that a try. He crossed one leg over the other knee, resumed a different thinking pose.

"XO, I want you and the COB to meet me in the Captain's quarters," he paused a long moment, rubbed a thumb across his jaw line, "um, Bull has the conning tower."

Bull?

"Aye Sir, Bull has the conn."

"Bull has the conn, aye."

"Affirmative, Bull owns the conn."

Norris cleared his throat.

"I changed my mind. Master Chief has the conn."

"Aye Sir, Master Chief has the conn."

"Master Chief, aye. He has the conn."

He walked the corridor, turned back with an afterthought.

"Send Bull to my quarters, too."

Columbia

Heero Yuy drove the Tercel toward General Caballero's encampment settled to the East of Medellin, to one side of a major highway, in a camping zone. The spot came cleared of overgrowth, and had electric outlets, latrines, a fishing dock, water utility, and a heap of other stuff waiting for an army to settle in.

Heero commented on the logistical ingenuity as he drove in.

"They have a thinking staff. This country may go the right direction after all."

The girls didn't respond, oddly enough. After the Bartista era came to a close, Heero got around to asking "The Dorothy" her real name.

"Dot Lindsey, from Fort Benning, Georgia." He'd shaken her hand, and asked if she wanted to go home.

"Strange, I always told everyone that would listen that I'd get out of town the moment I could. But, I would have never chosen to leave like that." Heero pressed her.

"Does that mean you want to stay, go home, or go somewhere else?"

"It would be awkward seeing everyone again, living as if nothing ever happened. I think I'll do my own thing until I'm ready."

"They've suffered, too," Heero pointed out, "They deserve to know if you're alright, and what happened." Heero parked the car behind an open-topped jeep.

"I'll make a deal with you," said the gundam pilot, "you meet the parents, go through the 'welcome home' phase, and I'll arrange for a shrink to get the parents off your back while you go figure things out on your own."

Dot, no longer Dorothy, took sudden interest in the horizon.

"You can do that?"

"I've never encountered something beyond my capabilities. I know a doc named Sally Poe that could and would do this as a favor for me."

"Dr Po, huh? Alright, I'd like to call her up before giving this a try."

Heero suddenly dialed the cell. It rang several times, but came through.

"Hello, this is Zero. Would you kindly patch me to Relena, please? Sure, I'll hold."

Geneva

Sanc's leader didn't hesitate picking up at her end.

"Hello Heero?"

"Ohayo gozaimsu, Hime (Good morning, Princess). I think the war is closing up here."

" Girlish laughter the television agrees. Lady Une is talking 'month of miracles' here, and we're all rooting for you!"

Heero could probably hear the festivities in the background.

"So desu ka? ("Is that so?) I can't hear Duo from my end. O kudasai Sally Poe-Sama (please give me Ms. Sally Poe).

She let him hear her dejected sigh.

"Okay. She's in a flight in. Give me a second to patch this through," she said, meaning she had a secretary do it.

"Sayonara, Ouji."

Author's note: Japanese isn't my first language, so constructively instruct me how to fix this, or else give me a break.

Columbia

Heero patiently let the switchboard bring in Sally. WuFei and Duo were there, too. He finally spoke in Mandarin (the greetings are standard, so it isn't vital for the reader to understand, but heck, I'll translate).

"Nee how-ma (Hola; que gusto?)?"

"Hun-how. (Bien; Mucho gusto)"

He asked how Sally felt, and Sally said she felt well. He translated the Mandarin to Spanish, so those in the car could follow the conversation.

"I have a sitch in over here you could fix real easy."

He handed the phone over to Dot, and let doctor and client hammer out an agreement.

Berlin

"Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more."

-Mark Twain

He didn't adapt a Moslem name. Instead, he lived his days as Sung Lo. He didn't go out much, and regrettably, snubbed the mosque, to better assimilate in Germany. Sung typically spent his days before a PC, gaming as he smoked excessively. Games varied, but they were usually PC versions of traditional Chinese hobbies.

Today, Father called, saying: "Son, I know you are set in your ways. Go ahead, I won't stop you." To any spyware, it sounds a sarcastic father is saying in a roundabout way is son is dead to him, and indeed he will be soon.

Columbia

Heero Yuy led La Republica's armored shock troops through park irrigation ditches to detour city patrols. They lay prone under some hedges within sight of the foreign quarter, where ESUN's Elite Teal Berets await to link up. A tense showdown exists in this part.

Comically enough, Bartista's men had blotted the ESUN embassy with massive cardboard panels, besieging them in a cardboard box. The berets poked eyeholes, and carved cutouts for their guns to jut out. This is all very odd.

The Republic team size up what needs done, and bury Claymore and SLAM (Selectable Lightweight Attack Munition) demolitions.

The team then crawled away and regrouped further away, in a banking parking lot.

"We need to pop in some smokes and flash-bangs, then stun the security guards, presumably placed on opposite sides. Since I'm in street cloths, and fairly unthreatening, I'll lead in unarmed, and make sure the right guard goes down. Give no more than a second."

Heero rushed through the glass doors, swiveled right, and planted the heel of one hand under the guard's chin, gouging with his fingers. The frightened guard attempted to pedal away, found Heero's foot heel, tumbled to his tailbone. The smoke and flashes followed. The troops turned left, and hosed the left guard with sponge rounds.

"Seal off the exits, and climb to the observation deck!" Heero shouted orders, and left to the parking lot. They'll soon have the height advantage.

He takes the claymore primacord charge, sets it off. Luckily for the druggie army, Heero insisted on not using "true" claymores, but the same M5 Modular Crowd Control Munitions (MCCM) Trowa had in Somalia. He added flashbangs to the mix of rubber balls, just to do things flashier.

From the bank roof, several shock troops dispersed the M1029 Crowd Dispersal Cartridge from the M203 grenade launcher. The M1029 is a 40mm crowd dispersal round containing 48 tiny rubber balls. They reloaded with rarer "malodorant" grenades, and then proceeded to snipe around the subjects until the Teal Berets came out to accept surrenders.

Heero stepped from the bushes with his hands held up.

"I'm Agent Zero, and those guys on the bank roof are shock troops from The Republic of Columbia. I was wondering if we could link up to jointly capture the airport."

Some of the guys wondered if Heero was breaking the Geneva Convention or not, but decided it was just something lawyers hadn't gotten a chance to debate yet, so went along with it. They marched all the captured embassy blockade forces to the airport parameter, and demonstrated them about. Heero spoke up with a bullhorn.

"As you can see, we captured your forces in Foreign Quarter. Your forces didn't rally to block our convoy, either. I'm sending in the most senior officer to talk you into surrendering. I suggest listening to him."

They prodded the general ahead, until he sprinted on his own down no-mans-land.

"Okay, we're letting him in," said an opposing bullhorn.

He made it, which was encouraging.

"Come, white flag. Show yourself," the pilot muttered, watching all motion carefully."

A jeep crawled out, with a decorated general waving the surrender standard. A flood of raised hands followed.

The ESUN and RDC troops rejoiced.

"Noin, Zechs, this is Zero calling. Escort the flights in."

Embedded reporters broadcast images of ESUN and Republica de Columbia soldiers roaming the airport, and the two gundams lazily circled the sky, littering small scraps of paper. After letting the enemy think over the leaflets, which promised everything a republic or democracy can offer, General Caballero drove his machines by, and accepted as many surrenders as the enemy could supply.

Units not left leaderless by Heero's purging slipped away into the jungle, chased and bloodied by air strikes, and resistance didn't exist in town. Scuttlebutt spread that a parade was planned for noon, and once the general gained word, made it so.

Heero, Janice, Dot, Tanya, Noin, and Zechs stayed around just long enough for everyone to know they were still around.

"La Violencia is nearly over," Heero deadpanned, watching the confetti spray.

Zechs hummed an affirmation. They walked on, closer to the airport, where a flight waited.

"The townspeople have won, but the General has some work ahead. Soldiers will continue clashing, and smaller towns will suffer at the hands of looting bands." The boy clinched his hands, gaining sympathy from all the girls.

"We can cut them off by assembling town militias, but unless they're strong enough, that will only lead to massacres."

It weighed on him the whole walk, and so did the girls.  Heero

Author's Note:

The following information comes from John Pike's wonderful site. His site describes what happened pretty well:

"In the last decades of the nineteenth century, the Armenians' tendency toward Europeanization antagonized Turkish officials and encouraged their view that Armenians were a foreign, subversive element in the sultan's realm. In 1895 Ottoman suspicion of the westernized Armenian population led to the massacre of 300,000 Armenians by special order of the Ottoman government.

The Ottoman government ordered large-scale roundups, deportations, and systematic torture and murder of Armenians beginning in the spring of 1915. Estimates vary from 600,000 to 2 million deaths out of the prewar population of about 3 million Armenians. By 1917 fewer than 200,000 Armenians remained in Turkey."

I knew this beforehand, but realized practically no one else had ever heard of these events. So when plotting this story so long ago, I wanted to make everyone wonder what motivates Armenians against the Turks. Well, if you though Job was just another run-of-the-mill evil terrorist, I'm sorry I left the wrong impression. If any ethnic Armenians have read this story, and became incensed at my cold characterization of Job, I had my reasons, and I'm sorry if I left the wrong impression.

I've actually put some effort into getting people to recognize what happened, and one day, having the United States and United Nations to officially classify the genocide.

One other note: if anyone wonders if a group just like Khalid's exists, I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you "Yes." John Pike's site has a page on a group called: Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA)
Orly Group
3rd October Organization. They haven't been very busy in recent years, but every once in a while, things still explode in Turkey.

Berlin

Sung Lo took full advantage of the Disabled Citizens Rights Act, flashing his 'Disabled Status' card at the security gate, thus explaining the three green air tanks and breathing mask attached to his face. He showed his ticket, let the uniformed and mustached German airport screener check his luggage and person, then boarded his flight.

He kept the air closed off. Best to save it for when the contents are really necessary. Dogs sniffed him. Wands passed over him. He walked under an electronic energy field. Everything okayed him. Rumors still circulated that screeners hassled and profiled Arabs, though the Winners, and others, combated such practices tirelessly. Sung Lo didn't care what they tried. An unarmed Chinese passenger with emphysema wouldn't be denied a flight.

He fidgeted impatiently for things to start rolling, but they didn't until the flight attendant made her rounds. She asked if he felt comfortable, and he said no, adding that a pint of wine would help. She arched a smile, and produced a flute from the cart she pushed down the aisle.

The wine came from Concord grapes, grown in the American Napa Valley. He relished the sweet taste, and let it linger until most passengers settled into an in-flight nap. Only then did he turn the first bottle's knob, the one used to sustain oxygen in his system.

Sung Lo quickly became assured the bottle supplied oxygen before turning the dial on the second bottle, the one leaking something else into the pressurized cabin.

The flight was a short one, landing in Warsaw. He boarded another flight their, this one headed for Dresden. Airport screener treatment matched the first flight.

This time, He didn't bother with contents from the second bottle, going for the third instead.

This time, carbon monoxide sedated the cabin's occupants. He waited as long as he dared, then that flight attendant's cart. This should make a fine battering ram.

Southwest of Diego Garcia, Indian Ocean

The McKee operated at a depth of around 150 meters, the better to hide on the crash of a choppy surface. It was late November, a great time to anticipate a tropical storm. They had chased a storm having the weather service, not normally thought of as a bane to humanity, as a guide for finding a storm. The ocean waves swelled enough to chop any chance of finding them to low odds.

It was broad daylight when the attack began, but that made little tactical difference in this sort of warfare.

The submarine housed twelve cruise missiles in the vertical launch tubes, like any sub dating back to the later Los Angles boats. The McKee also had a score of smaller VLTs, occupied by unguided rockets originally meant for area destruction of convoys. These hauled the payload of one tiny torpedo. Kilos had this potential during the Cold War. These left first, arcing over the horizon, engaged by Patriot batteries far from port, and destroyed seconds after launching the piggybacking torpedoes beneath the waves. Second Anti-missile missiles tried vainly to intercept, but couldn't close the distance.

These torpedoes turned screws upon tapping the water, and braved interception from underwater phalanx guns. They showed up too abruptly, however, and the guns didn't have time to calculate a firing solution before these enemy weapons blasted clearing charges into the undersea mesh know as a torpedo net. A torpedo net is a desperate defensive measure for catching an imminent undersea attack, but the net is now gaping open.

Cancer mobile-suits deftly use terrain masking to sneak in on the sentries as they, overwhelmed by the sudden attack, mishandle taking on the airdropped torpedoes. With the doors thrown wide, the McKee navigates its long-range wake-chasing torpedoes at targets anchored in the lagoon.

Hulls crack open, confirmed by sonar operators. A Cancer dedicates its pincers to tugging apart the net, another to swiping down the barrage balloons topside.

Others quickly plant powder kegs on the shore, or surface to quall the air defense batteries.

Minutes later, the Rickover class's surface-to-surface arsenal patters everything. All units turn south, clear baffles, and then regroup for a long trip.

In the engine room, deuterium and tritium fuse, creating enough heat to operate the boilers at hotter temperatures than older reactors. Their destination is in the Antarctic Circle, where the Preventers look for them.

Over Germany, Lo manages to batter the hinges loose enough to fit a shank between the door and wall. He madly tugs at the door molding. It gives. This the Chinese Moslem improvises as a crowbar, using lever-and-fulcrum mechanics to dislodge the door completely from one hinge. The cart then barrels completely over the door. He's in.

Two pilots lay slumped at the controls. Sung unbuckles the pilot, drags him over one hip, and rests the limp body on the fallen door.

This exerted him, caused him to return to the breathing mask. He sits in the pilot chair, eyes closed, expanding his chest as much as the body allowed.

The autopilot had done its job, he noted, as the martyr nudged the plane's attitude toward the ground. Frankfurt's skyline is visible. He flips open his wallet, compares the buildings to the picture of the European Central Bank headquarters.

Sung Lo finds it, and lets it loom larger and larger.

Author's Note: The Eurotower of Frankfurt is Europe's key banking tower, and as such, was targeted by a hijacker in January of 2003. At 486 feet (148 meters) and 39 floors, it isn't all that tall in comparison to WTC or towers in Kuala Lamoure, but it does house the European Union's answer to the American Federal Reserve, adding considerable value.

Well, that's pretty much a wrap for the Thanksgiving Story, and I don't yet have anything for the Christmas sequel ready yet. I hate writing true sequels, anyway, but recognize most readers like finality. Well what can I say? Finality can be found in Heero and the lovebirds taking down a dictatorship in Columbia, and Duo and the G-team taking down all remnants in Somalia. This is an epilogue, something writers use to follow the resolution of one struggle, to point out the conflict to come. Chester and Job are just too cunning for a takedown in the allotted frame of the narrative, and I can't just let them fade away.

They hit back because they're strong, and still have unresolved conflicts to fight against the protagonists, so they hit and run toward safety as things close here.

And another thing! If I have any lurkers out there, tell me what you think! Is this Heero approved?