Okay, standard disclaimers apply – in fact, if I got rich and did happen to own Gundam Wing, would I be writing fanfiction? No. I'd be making another series.
Chapter 4
Two years later...
Lieutenant Colonel Trowa Barton surveyed the scene pensively. The other two members of General Chang's division had pulled out a while ago, taking their patrols with them. Now he remained, looking at the smoking and vanquished rebel base. It had turned out to be a decoy, just an old relic full of outdated machinery, which emitted odd radio waves.
"Lieutenant-Colonel, sir?" Cathy Bloom, Trowa's half-sister and subordinate, requested his attention. "Shouldn't we be heading back now? Generals J and Septem have organised that party tonight, sir, and you are supposed to be present."
"All right, Cathy, we'll go." Trowa tore himself away from the wreckage and the silent, strange shapes of the forest surrounding it. "I'm just unsettled, is all. It's quiet...too quiet."
Unbeknownst to Trowa, he and his division had been observed from the foliage nearby, and their every word listened in on. Une laughed, packed up the camera and radio, and turned to leave.
"Quiet, Mr. Barton?" She smiled. " Well, not for long!"
After returning from the base, and leaving his MS to the hangar attendants, Trowa walked into the officer's bar, and sat down, staring at the chipped table in front of him. The bar was almost empty, except for a group of card players over in the corner. Among these was Lieutenant Colonel Duo Maxwell, evidently winning from the pile of coins in front of his hand. He looked over at Trowa and flashed his mandatory grin, before turning back to the game and raising the stakes. Responding with a small wave, Trowa remained lost in thought. There was a reason this place was so empty...but it couldn't have been that important, as he'd forgotten it. No, what was really disturbing him was the lack of rebel activity. It had died down when he was an officer, under the then Major Chang. Odd things had occurred from time to time, enough to allow Trowa's rapid promotion up to Lieutenant Colonel through his prowess in the MS, but it was somehow not enough. Something had to happen soon...but what it was going to be- Trowa's reverie was suddenly broken by the dissolution of the card game. Duo swept the money into his pocket and laughed off the grudging insults and praise of the other players, before making his way over to Trowa's table.
"Yo."
"Hey."
"So, what's up?" It wasn't just a standard greeting. Both soldiers, they both knew when something was bothering another. Raised under the same regime, it was also highly likely they would be bothered about the same thing.
"That rebel base...the decoy..."
"Yeah, it stank, didn't it?" Duo agreed. "Something wasn't right there."
"Mmmm. It's been far too quiet recently. It doesn't add up, what with Schliebecker..." He noticed Duo's brow furrow further and winced. Officer Hilde Schliebecker has disappeared a month ago, around the location of the decoy base, and had been presumed dead. But now there was no base, her vanishing had a positively strange hint to it. Silence reigned a little longer.
"Well, we gotta go." Duo stood up and stretched.
"Huh?" Trowa looked up, a little confused.
"Yeah, the ball, right? The celebration of the new model Leo?" Trowa groaned.
"I knew I'd forgotten something. Well, duty calls."
Lieutenant Colonel Heero Yuy of the Alliance picked a glass of pink champagne off a waiter's tray. Viewing the scenes of the ball through his wild bangs, he sighed. The Leo MS was the most sophisticated yet, and so Commander J was evidently justified in this huge party to show it off. Couples waltzed on the floor, and the aristocracy kept up appearances, gathered in groups of false laughter. Being an orphan and a man of the colonies, Heero viewed the political processes of the ball with a disinterest that bordered on distaste. He knew, with the arrogance of a soldier, that he could have any woman he wanted in the room, but at the same time, wished for none of them. Relationships were not something that he had the time or care for as a mobile suit company leader beneath General Chang. Indeed, some of the men had very fine mistresses indeed, as did the Commander Septem, General J's second in command. Instead, Heero preferred the company of his fellow pilots, Lieutenant Colonels Maxwell and Barton, or failing that, his Aries. He sighed again, and limited his world to the marble pillar behind his back and the champagne in his hand.
An altogether different pair looked in on the ball from the vantage point of the roof. Both wore night fatigues and bore the emblems of the United Rebel Army.
"So what do you think?" The speaker was a Honey-haired girl of about fifteen.
"Plan A sound good?" the companion was a long-haired youth of nineteen.
"Smash and Grab?" she grinned back. Smiling in reply, he touched his earpiece.
"Ops, do you read? This is Zechs and Relena. Ops, come in."
"This is Dorothy. Got you loud and clear, Zechs. How's it going up there?" A female voice crackled over the radio.
"Plan A. We need secure routes through the compound to the eastern runway, where Une and Noin should be waiting."
"Yep, no probs with that. Anything else?"
"Yeah, are A and M in place?" interjected Relena.
"They are. Ops are a-go when you're ready."
"Then let's go." Relena flipped the anti-flash element of her night vision goggles down.
"Commencing in five, four, three, two, one..."and with sudden, efficient fluency, all the lights in the alliance compound went off.
"GO!" hissed Zechs, and Relena threw herself at the skylight three feet to the left. Just before she hit, Zechs pushed a small remote, and the skylight swung open. An extendible nylon cord caught her before she silently lowered herself to the ground. She flipped on the green night vision element of her goggles, and crept silently around the ranks of startled Ladies, Gentlemen and confused guards. She saw the digital blueprints of the Leo on display at the head of the hall.
As a result of the darkness and the anxious chatter of all the party, no one heard the footsteps of a girl in night fatigues, saw her whip away with the Leo blueprints, or heard her giggle to herself at how easy it had been. In fact, no one knew anything had happened until fifteen minutes later, when light was returned to the compound and the blueprints were found to be missing. The flurry had everyone else rushing to find the dark-shrouded person who had taken them, but no-one knew that the thief and her accomplice had left the compound by means of a stolen jeep driven by a MS pilot and car thief by the name Lucretzia Noin, and her companion, Lady Une. All this happened exactly twelve minutes later. Relena touched her earpiece again.
"Mission accomplished, Dorothy."
"Great! Everyone there?" they could hear Dorothy's pleasure over the radio waves.
"Yes, unless the two stooges were supposed to come with us."
"No, they have a different route out with the more, um, sensitive item." there was a snicker in Dorothy's words.
"Okay, ETA at base thirty minutes, the way Noin drives." In reply, the purple haired-woman in the driving seat put on an extra spurt of speed.
"Mmmm, Mitsubishi Montero. Four wheel drive, 0-60 in ten seconds, and one HELL of a turbo engine. God, I love these cars!"
The chaos in the alliance base began to die down, and as it did, every troop on duty began to realise he was in for the bollocking of his life. It didn't help that the person delivering that bollocking was going to be none other than Colonel Sally Po, the infamous deputy of General Chang.
"FOOLS!" She snarled. "Utter imbeciles! I thought you were men, not worthless pieces of SHIT! You let the enemy get away before your flea-infested heads had worked out that something had gone WRONG!" She paced up and down, her lip curling. "Now I want every man on this base, and I don't care what your other orders were, to track those REBELS! I don't care if you have to sniff the fuckers out yourselves, I want-"
"Colonel." A voice came from the shadows. "That will do." General Chang, a contemptous smile on his face, stepped forward and surveyed the men. "Go back to whatever you were doing." The troops disappeared almost magically, very unwilling to stay another moment in the presence of either officer.
"But Sir, I was-"
"I understand your actions, Sally...but I am far more interested in what these rebels intend to do with those Leo plans." Surveying the night horizon, he snorted. "As if a new MS could make people like them strong." He stared at the shimmering stars a little longer and then turned back towards the building and the ball. "Come, Sally, there is still champagne left. Only tomorrow can we see tonight's consequences."
When they arrived back at the MS hangars of the rebel base, Howard was there to meet them.
"Do you have the disks?" his voice was hopeful, not seeming to want to believe what Dorothy had said for fear of disappointment.
"Why, naturally." Relena held the briefcase of information up, and Howard had to restrain himself from hugging her. However, when they reached the Operations room, Dorothy used no such restraint. The two friends hugged, squealing and betraying their age.
"We did it!" Dorothy crowed finally. "You got the disks and the stooges managed to-" however, Dorothy's report was cut short by the very two she had been talking about. "Speak of the devil." she finished under her breath.
"Rebel Alex reporting for duty." barked the blonde soldier, and Zechs subtly rolled his eyes at the leftover technique of the alliance army. The other soldier saluted also, dropping his heavy sacked load, which emitted a small yelp.
"We successfully captured Lieutenant Colonel Heero Yuy!" barked Rebel Mueller. Then, with a slightly vicious smile, he tipped the contents of the sack onto the floor. Out tumbled a very disheveled, tired and confused....
...Lieutenant Colonel Duo Maxwell.