I think I should be shot for this chapter's title. XD
--Misplaced in Space - Chapter Sixteen; Days Go By...--
She could not help it. No matter how hard she tried to sit and be still, it was an utter impossibility. Her mind kept moving much too fast for immobility, and she was much too antsy for that. The past three days had been utterly hellish, and she felt as though she were going to be crushed under the weight of it all. The information had been running through her head over and over, and still nothing popped out that seemed to be of help. Two of her charges were gone, one was seriously injured, and as of yet they had no leads to go on, though she knew full well whom to blame. She knew the emperor had something to do with this, well, he or that snake in the grass stepchild of his, Hebi.
Whatever the case, trouble was most certainly mounting. Her charges were being injured and disappearing, and in reaction to that Quatre, Duo, and Wufei were being completely rash. She hated to say it, because it sounded so cold and so much like something Heero would say, but they were useless in their present state. And beside that, the Shou clan was prestigious and important. They were not ready members of their alliance, but their peacefulness mattered to the Federation. She had nothing to go on to base her claims, and if she dared say anything the media would not only shun her from hence, but it would instigate quite a bit of mudslinging. What to do?
She had contacted Lady Une and the Preventers after calling the authorities about the events of that night. Naturally, the Federation had been alerted and was on the lookout, and with Milliar-, no, with Zechs on her side now she could pull some strings, but they were not eager to go hunting missing persons, or really to help at all. Besides, Lady Une was not quite so eager to do favors for her dear brother. She had been told missing persons were not their area. They prevented wars. Une did not want to go trying to start one based on the young girl's suspicions.
That did not leave her with many other options. The Preventers were really her best shot at getting anything done at this rate. They could pull a stealth operation and pull up basically any sort of information she would have needed easily. Heero could find it to, but it would take some illegal hacking through Preventer databases, and she had no desire to do anything of the sort. She had specifically gone to him and demanded he not try it...yet. If need be she would tiptoe around the law and confidentiality, but she preferred to do things the straight-arrow method.
However, if she could convince the Preventers that helping her was in their best interest...but how? She would ha-
"Miss Relena?"
Her train of thought reared to a halt. She ceased pacing and looked up from the floor, her hands still clasped behind her back. She smiled wearily as she spied one of her assistants poking their head in the door. "Yes?"
"You should come quickly...I believe we have a problem...There's a transmission coming in from the Beijing..." the blonde flushed somewhat, and her curly-haired head disappeared.
Relena only sighed. She did not need this...
***
When next she awoke, Ashley found her left side numb from her underarm to her hip, and was only dully aware of the fact that she had legs, though she quickly brushed that off as grogginess. How long had she been out anyway? Bah, it did not matter. Her memory was muddled anyway, and all the images she could recall were ones of intense pain, a couple mysterious blurred figures, more pain, followed up by nothing but blackness. Confused further by the holes in her memory, she sat up slowly, finding her abdomen quite unwilling to flex, a dull ache throbbing there.
Once she had achieved a vertical position the girl blinked in surprise. She was most definitely in the medical bay of the Peace Milion, however…it looked as though some wild beast had gone terrorizing the place. Machines and tools littered the floor, some in pieces, and she could only blink in surprise at the array of damage. What the hell happened here?
She tried to vocalize her thought and found her speech somewhat impeded by the oxygen mask set on her face, and as she moved her hands to free her face she found one would not respond and looked down to see a hand tightly clasped about it. Yet again surprised she glared down, utterly tired of these shockers, and the sight made her gaze soften; Wufei, sitting in a chair hunched over uncomfortably with his head lying in the crook of his arms. With a somewhat fond smile she disengaged her hand, causing him to stir ever so slightly. Thankfully he did not awaken, and quickly she removed the restricting mask.
That done the tall girl turned and moved to swing her legs off the medical table and found they would not budge. However, the force she had exerted still acted on her upper body as it went toppling forward despite the stillness of her leaden legs. Promptly the Texan girl went flying from the table and down to the floor, where an unused bedpan greeted her face.
"...Ouch."
***
"YOUR MOTHER WAS A HAMSTER AND YOUR FATHER SMELT OF ELDERBERRIES!" the blonde imp screamed in exasperation and sat back down indignantly on the bench that protruded from the wall in her small prison. Three days. Three days she had been spending in that hellhole. She had been watching the little oriental men go back and forth in front of the cage bars of the little silver box she had been confined to, and she could hear Nicole screaming more non-sense and curses at them from time to time from the cell neighboring her own. However, both captive girls were very disappointed that the men would not even shoot dirty looks. Perhaps they did not speak English, but it was of no consequence.
Probable language barriers did not do anything for her present state. She was very unhappy, still dressed in the black and purple dress she had worn to the ball, and felt quite grimy, as there was no shower. She was also quiet sore on account of violent guards with big sticks, an unexpected turn when the girls had begun wailing upon their captors once they had regain consciousness. The two had earned quite a few nice bruises and cuts, and Nicole could not put much weight on her left ankle, but it had been worth it to see the grumpy China-men parade back and forth in front of their holdings with black eyes, and when they sat to wince visibly with pain.
Besides that, room service was insanely poor. The meals were skimpy, and the only comforts she had been graced with were that of a toilet, a few rolls of toilet paper, and a pillow and blanket to transform the rather large, stiff bench into a bed. Goody. The toilet was not even concealed by a curtain or doors, and the entire world was free to get a peep whenever she could not stand it any longer and would use the facilities.
"I HATE OUTER SPACE!" Kryss heard her friend scream, and she mewed an agreement.
She had just about prepared herself to begin marching about in her little confinement once more when in came the emperor himself with Hebi and the older woman who had been wearing the furs earlier in his wake. Chen held a script and was mumbling something to a guard, and the only word the New Yorker managed to catch was 'transmission.'
***
Anna felt the itching urge to pull her hair out. There she sat yet again in the cafeteria around a table, though it felt somewhat empty without the other girls around. The testosterone filtering in the air was kind of stifling, and probably to blame for the slight increase in barometric pressure aboard the ship. The G-boys minus Wufei plus Nick (that's some equation for you) sat crowded around the table with her, and she could swear concern even flickered around in the eyes of Heero and Trowa. If even the stoic boys were worried...well, damn.
Beside her, Nick was mumbled through strings of German, maybe it was a way of keeping his mind busy amidst all the worry he was probably going through. Opposite him at her left, Duo was drinking probably his fifth cup of coffee. The boy had begun an absolutely insane java addiction since Kryss was gone, and his face plainly displayed signs of sleep deprivation and worry. The poor Shinigami's hand shook ever so slightly, and beside him Quatre was none the better. The blonde boy kept wringing his hands, and fidgeting in his seat. After a bit of wringing he would tire of that and grip the edge of the table so hard his knuckles turned white, or he would put his hands around his warm teacup. Then after a moment the little cup would exult small creaks of pain from the pressure of his hands, and he would reside to wringing once more. His eyes were wide with the same obvious signs of lack of sleep. Even Heero's brow was furrowed more tightly than usual, and Trowa could not sit still.
Up in the corner on a platform the television was on the news channel, and the lone girl sat back in her chair, staring up at the television. She was starting to miss Zechs again; he was gone a lot the last few days, helping Relena or trying to find something he could publicly nail the emperor for. Spoot. She hated this. Moping boys and busy men and missing girls, it was so frustrating, she wanted to-
"Good afternoon, Peace Milion."
She had not even noticed the television change, and she sort of sat there, blinking. "Why is the ship talking to us?!" she squeaked out, then it all clicked as she stared at the screen a moment more.
The boys had all promptly stood up and Heero had gone for his gun, which he now held up, pointed in the direction of the television, where the image of Chen, two guards, and a couple familiar faces graced the screen.
"Hn." Heero put away his piece once he was certain their were no intruders abroad and quietly reclaimed his seat, as did most everyone else in the vicinity with the exception of a pair of very sleepy, very distressed pilots whom had instinctively called out for their very grumpy-looking, rather banged up imps.
However, the two were unresponsive. Obviously the transmission was not on a two-way connection. Heero had begun typing upon his laptop immediately while Chen began his little speech, which broadcasted upon every television across the Peace Milion.
"As you can see, I've two of your little girls. Now, I want something for them. I hate to use the term as it sounds so criminal, but..." he smiled sadistically. "Call it a ransom, if you will. I want the pilot of the gundam." Heero stiffened slightly, but the reaction was barely notable by the untrained eye. "If you give me the pilot, and the gundam, I will return the little girls to you unhar-,"
"LAAAAAA!!" the two began to wail, "He's a LIAR! LIAR, LIAR!"
"Don't listen to ANYTHING he says, Quatre!" Nicole shouted, sending a very rude gesture in the elder man's direction.
"Bakagami if you have ANY sense you will know all he speaks are LIIIEEEES!" Kryss yowled along, glaring back at him as well, trying to shake off the guard.
"LIES, LIES!" they squealed, and quickly the guards rewarded them with stunning blows to the head, causing the on looking pilots to bubble with anger.
"...unharmed," the emperor huffed, annoyed by the little interruption. "Now, in three days travel from your current location there is an abandoned colony floating near an old satellite around a moon in this system. It was formally used as a weapons development area. Until then." An evil smile flickered over his face as the transmission cut.
Heero looked up from his computer after a moment. "I have the coordinates of the colony's position. When we reach it I will go out in the zero and-,"
He was cut off as an angry shout sounded down the hall, causing the group to look up, startled as in came Ashley in a wheelchair. Shortly after her Wufei came bounding in.
The look on her face was disturbing. "And I will come with you."
***
I'm an evil bitch. ^0^ Hehehehe.
--Misplaced in Space - Chapter Sixteen; Days Go By...--
She could not help it. No matter how hard she tried to sit and be still, it was an utter impossibility. Her mind kept moving much too fast for immobility, and she was much too antsy for that. The past three days had been utterly hellish, and she felt as though she were going to be crushed under the weight of it all. The information had been running through her head over and over, and still nothing popped out that seemed to be of help. Two of her charges were gone, one was seriously injured, and as of yet they had no leads to go on, though she knew full well whom to blame. She knew the emperor had something to do with this, well, he or that snake in the grass stepchild of his, Hebi.
Whatever the case, trouble was most certainly mounting. Her charges were being injured and disappearing, and in reaction to that Quatre, Duo, and Wufei were being completely rash. She hated to say it, because it sounded so cold and so much like something Heero would say, but they were useless in their present state. And beside that, the Shou clan was prestigious and important. They were not ready members of their alliance, but their peacefulness mattered to the Federation. She had nothing to go on to base her claims, and if she dared say anything the media would not only shun her from hence, but it would instigate quite a bit of mudslinging. What to do?
She had contacted Lady Une and the Preventers after calling the authorities about the events of that night. Naturally, the Federation had been alerted and was on the lookout, and with Milliar-, no, with Zechs on her side now she could pull some strings, but they were not eager to go hunting missing persons, or really to help at all. Besides, Lady Une was not quite so eager to do favors for her dear brother. She had been told missing persons were not their area. They prevented wars. Une did not want to go trying to start one based on the young girl's suspicions.
That did not leave her with many other options. The Preventers were really her best shot at getting anything done at this rate. They could pull a stealth operation and pull up basically any sort of information she would have needed easily. Heero could find it to, but it would take some illegal hacking through Preventer databases, and she had no desire to do anything of the sort. She had specifically gone to him and demanded he not try it...yet. If need be she would tiptoe around the law and confidentiality, but she preferred to do things the straight-arrow method.
However, if she could convince the Preventers that helping her was in their best interest...but how? She would ha-
"Miss Relena?"
Her train of thought reared to a halt. She ceased pacing and looked up from the floor, her hands still clasped behind her back. She smiled wearily as she spied one of her assistants poking their head in the door. "Yes?"
"You should come quickly...I believe we have a problem...There's a transmission coming in from the Beijing..." the blonde flushed somewhat, and her curly-haired head disappeared.
Relena only sighed. She did not need this...
***
When next she awoke, Ashley found her left side numb from her underarm to her hip, and was only dully aware of the fact that she had legs, though she quickly brushed that off as grogginess. How long had she been out anyway? Bah, it did not matter. Her memory was muddled anyway, and all the images she could recall were ones of intense pain, a couple mysterious blurred figures, more pain, followed up by nothing but blackness. Confused further by the holes in her memory, she sat up slowly, finding her abdomen quite unwilling to flex, a dull ache throbbing there.
Once she had achieved a vertical position the girl blinked in surprise. She was most definitely in the medical bay of the Peace Milion, however…it looked as though some wild beast had gone terrorizing the place. Machines and tools littered the floor, some in pieces, and she could only blink in surprise at the array of damage. What the hell happened here?
She tried to vocalize her thought and found her speech somewhat impeded by the oxygen mask set on her face, and as she moved her hands to free her face she found one would not respond and looked down to see a hand tightly clasped about it. Yet again surprised she glared down, utterly tired of these shockers, and the sight made her gaze soften; Wufei, sitting in a chair hunched over uncomfortably with his head lying in the crook of his arms. With a somewhat fond smile she disengaged her hand, causing him to stir ever so slightly. Thankfully he did not awaken, and quickly she removed the restricting mask.
That done the tall girl turned and moved to swing her legs off the medical table and found they would not budge. However, the force she had exerted still acted on her upper body as it went toppling forward despite the stillness of her leaden legs. Promptly the Texan girl went flying from the table and down to the floor, where an unused bedpan greeted her face.
"...Ouch."
***
"YOUR MOTHER WAS A HAMSTER AND YOUR FATHER SMELT OF ELDERBERRIES!" the blonde imp screamed in exasperation and sat back down indignantly on the bench that protruded from the wall in her small prison. Three days. Three days she had been spending in that hellhole. She had been watching the little oriental men go back and forth in front of the cage bars of the little silver box she had been confined to, and she could hear Nicole screaming more non-sense and curses at them from time to time from the cell neighboring her own. However, both captive girls were very disappointed that the men would not even shoot dirty looks. Perhaps they did not speak English, but it was of no consequence.
Probable language barriers did not do anything for her present state. She was very unhappy, still dressed in the black and purple dress she had worn to the ball, and felt quite grimy, as there was no shower. She was also quiet sore on account of violent guards with big sticks, an unexpected turn when the girls had begun wailing upon their captors once they had regain consciousness. The two had earned quite a few nice bruises and cuts, and Nicole could not put much weight on her left ankle, but it had been worth it to see the grumpy China-men parade back and forth in front of their holdings with black eyes, and when they sat to wince visibly with pain.
Besides that, room service was insanely poor. The meals were skimpy, and the only comforts she had been graced with were that of a toilet, a few rolls of toilet paper, and a pillow and blanket to transform the rather large, stiff bench into a bed. Goody. The toilet was not even concealed by a curtain or doors, and the entire world was free to get a peep whenever she could not stand it any longer and would use the facilities.
"I HATE OUTER SPACE!" Kryss heard her friend scream, and she mewed an agreement.
She had just about prepared herself to begin marching about in her little confinement once more when in came the emperor himself with Hebi and the older woman who had been wearing the furs earlier in his wake. Chen held a script and was mumbling something to a guard, and the only word the New Yorker managed to catch was 'transmission.'
***
Anna felt the itching urge to pull her hair out. There she sat yet again in the cafeteria around a table, though it felt somewhat empty without the other girls around. The testosterone filtering in the air was kind of stifling, and probably to blame for the slight increase in barometric pressure aboard the ship. The G-boys minus Wufei plus Nick (that's some equation for you) sat crowded around the table with her, and she could swear concern even flickered around in the eyes of Heero and Trowa. If even the stoic boys were worried...well, damn.
Beside her, Nick was mumbled through strings of German, maybe it was a way of keeping his mind busy amidst all the worry he was probably going through. Opposite him at her left, Duo was drinking probably his fifth cup of coffee. The boy had begun an absolutely insane java addiction since Kryss was gone, and his face plainly displayed signs of sleep deprivation and worry. The poor Shinigami's hand shook ever so slightly, and beside him Quatre was none the better. The blonde boy kept wringing his hands, and fidgeting in his seat. After a bit of wringing he would tire of that and grip the edge of the table so hard his knuckles turned white, or he would put his hands around his warm teacup. Then after a moment the little cup would exult small creaks of pain from the pressure of his hands, and he would reside to wringing once more. His eyes were wide with the same obvious signs of lack of sleep. Even Heero's brow was furrowed more tightly than usual, and Trowa could not sit still.
Up in the corner on a platform the television was on the news channel, and the lone girl sat back in her chair, staring up at the television. She was starting to miss Zechs again; he was gone a lot the last few days, helping Relena or trying to find something he could publicly nail the emperor for. Spoot. She hated this. Moping boys and busy men and missing girls, it was so frustrating, she wanted to-
"Good afternoon, Peace Milion."
She had not even noticed the television change, and she sort of sat there, blinking. "Why is the ship talking to us?!" she squeaked out, then it all clicked as she stared at the screen a moment more.
The boys had all promptly stood up and Heero had gone for his gun, which he now held up, pointed in the direction of the television, where the image of Chen, two guards, and a couple familiar faces graced the screen.
"Hn." Heero put away his piece once he was certain their were no intruders abroad and quietly reclaimed his seat, as did most everyone else in the vicinity with the exception of a pair of very sleepy, very distressed pilots whom had instinctively called out for their very grumpy-looking, rather banged up imps.
However, the two were unresponsive. Obviously the transmission was not on a two-way connection. Heero had begun typing upon his laptop immediately while Chen began his little speech, which broadcasted upon every television across the Peace Milion.
"As you can see, I've two of your little girls. Now, I want something for them. I hate to use the term as it sounds so criminal, but..." he smiled sadistically. "Call it a ransom, if you will. I want the pilot of the gundam." Heero stiffened slightly, but the reaction was barely notable by the untrained eye. "If you give me the pilot, and the gundam, I will return the little girls to you unhar-,"
"LAAAAAA!!" the two began to wail, "He's a LIAR! LIAR, LIAR!"
"Don't listen to ANYTHING he says, Quatre!" Nicole shouted, sending a very rude gesture in the elder man's direction.
"Bakagami if you have ANY sense you will know all he speaks are LIIIEEEES!" Kryss yowled along, glaring back at him as well, trying to shake off the guard.
"LIES, LIES!" they squealed, and quickly the guards rewarded them with stunning blows to the head, causing the on looking pilots to bubble with anger.
"...unharmed," the emperor huffed, annoyed by the little interruption. "Now, in three days travel from your current location there is an abandoned colony floating near an old satellite around a moon in this system. It was formally used as a weapons development area. Until then." An evil smile flickered over his face as the transmission cut.
Heero looked up from his computer after a moment. "I have the coordinates of the colony's position. When we reach it I will go out in the zero and-,"
He was cut off as an angry shout sounded down the hall, causing the group to look up, startled as in came Ashley in a wheelchair. Shortly after her Wufei came bounding in.
The look on her face was disturbing. "And I will come with you."
***
I'm an evil bitch. ^0^ Hehehehe.