Chapter 18

Anxiously, the two boys watched as the shuttle with Reena and Giselle was allowed entry into
the port. "Do you think everything will go well?" Jerry murmured, suddenly uneasy. "Hey,
is it just me or does something not feel quite right right now?"

"I don't know..."

inside...

Reena and Giselle, both having changed into standard cargo shipper clothes, were waved
past security without a second glance. The two girls stealthily exchanged glances and
nodded. Floating into a corridor, they quickly checked around for security equipment.
There was none, just as Duo had promised. Giselle breathed a sigh of relief. "Phew, one
less thing to worry about. Now, what about the clothes..."

Reena stiffened. It hadn't occured to her that they would need to steal the clothes off of
two professionally trained soldiers. Oh no! she thought frantically. I can hardly kill
a bug, how am I going to do this?!

Fortunately, Giselle had already taken care of that. Unaware of Reena's thoughts, she
pulled two syringes from her belt. Smiling, she said, "Gifts from my mother. When the
two soldiers come here, I'll jab these in. Ah, here they are now!"

Sure enough, just as predicted, two bored soldiers started down the corridor according to
their schedule. Neither noticed the slender girl in the shadows until it was too late.

"There!" Giselle said, dusting off her hands before promptly starting to strip off
the clothes. Then she glanced up. "Hey Aelis, what's wrong?"

Reena had been fighting the vomit rising in her throat. "They...they..." she stuttered.

Giselle frowned, then realized what she was saying. "They aren't DEAD you know," she
said somewhat defensively.

Reena breathed a sigh of relief. "Oh...okay then," she said, then joined her friend.

A few minutes later, two soldiers walked out into view again, right on schedule. As soon
as they were out of ear shot, Giselle muttered, "Okay, I'll go here, you go there. Meet
in fifteen minutes back at that other hallway," and she quickly ran off, Reena staring
helplessly after her.

"Stupid Reena!" she berated herself. "You have no experience in hacking, so now
what are you going to do?! Aelis will kill you, Tousan and Kaasan will hate me, everyone
will just call me a spoiled brat..." she wailed silently, fighting back her tears. Then
her rational side took over. "Okay," she told herself. "The papers said that the
security here was very high. Aelis couldn't have possibly learned enough in that short
of a time to hack in here. Which means..." and she quickly started searching her pockets.
She turned up with several electronic devices. After staring some more, she took
another deep breath. "I guess...I'll just wing it," she sighed, before running off.

elsewhere...

Giselle quickly typed into the keyboard. "Denied, huh?" she muttered, then sighed. "Oh
well, it was worth a shot," and she attached the devices Heero had given her. "Well, I
was hoping I could have done it WITHOUT your help..." she muttered good-naturedly, then
began copying the information. Finally, she was done. "Alright," she said, glancing at
her watch, "right on time." and she hurried out of the room.

Back outside, she met up again with Reena, who was looking rather smug. After five
minutes of helpless staring, she had finally managed to figure everything out and had
managed to find out a good deal of information. She quickly nodded to Giselle and the
two girls began to walk back to the dock. That's when the alarms went off.

outside...

"FUCK!"

Jerry Maxwell had definitely had better days. Everything had gone according to plan.
The two girls had gotten in; no one had noticed them; in fact, both Jerry and Geoffry had
been feeling pretty good about themselves. Then some odd looking mobile suit found them.

Next thing he knew, he was surrounded. Near him, Geoffry wasn't having much better luck.
As he fired away with his gatling guns, Geoffry's mind was racing furiously. How, how,
how?! How had they been discovered? And, he thought, studying the different suit in
front of him, what the heck was THAT?! Certainly nothing he had ever seen or heard of
before.

Though the two were being assaulted by several squads of mobile dolls, the suit that had
actually found them was not something they had seen before. It was small for a mobile
suit, only slightly larger than a Taurus, and definitely not as large as a Gundam. Jerry
and Geoffry had to admit that it was very well made and sleek in design. Clearly, it had
been built for stealth, and it had done its job well. Somehow, it had perceived their
hiding spot, even with their sophisticated cloaking systems. And now they were screwed.

Back in the station, Reena and Giselle were in equal amounts of trouble. Both had managed
to strip their stolen clothes and don space suits, but the presence of two suited figures
had been obvious enough to show that they were intruders. But it was a risk they had to
take. As Giselle had pointed out, they would probably have to fling themselves out the
nearest airlock and be flown back home in the hand of a Gundam. Unfortunately, as they
neared the exit with an ever-growing mob behind them, it was clear the boys had their own
problems.

The girls skidded to a halt when they saw the battle outside. Both Deathscythe and
Heavyarms were surrounded by mobile dolls, and more troops were on the way, these armed
with Serpents. Giselle swore eloquently in English, Spanish, and Chinese before turning to
figure out another exit. "There!" she gasped, pointing. "Duo-sama said that there was
an empty hangar over there with an unguarded shuttle-"

"-Which would be perfect if they weren't closing the entrance!" Reena screamed. To
the girls' horror, the door was indeed closing. "Hurry!" Reena cried as the girls raced
towards the narrowing entrance.

outside...

"Geoffry!"

"Huh?! Aelis?!"

"What the HELL is going on out there?!"

"We got discovered!" he snarled, knifing a doll and letting the explosion take
out another Serpent. "Where are you guys?"

"Running to a spare shuttle-AAH!"

"Aelis!"

Over on his side of the battlefield, Jerry paused long enough to tilt his head. "That
scream...didn't sound like Aelis..." he said slowly.

Back inside, both girls shrieked and jumped backwards. They had almost been at the
entrance and the desperate soldiers began to fire at the entrance, preventing them from
getting any closer. With the entrance just ten feet away and closing, they wanted to
scream and cry with frustration. The situation was hopeless.

Suddenly, Reena had an idea. Grimly, she turned around to face the soldiers. "Aelis,
what are you DOING?!" Giselle cried.

"GO!" Reena cried, and rammed into the nearest soldier. "And take this with you!"
she added, flinging her her disk.

"AELIS!"

"GO! Didn't you hear me?! NOW!" Reena shouted again. She was no match for the
soldiers, having had no training, and she was being overwhelmed. "Get out of here!"

"I...I...Aelis, I'll come back!" Giselle cried, tears streaming down her cheeks.
And with that, she turned around and dove through the crack just before the doors closed.

Reena smiled grimly. Even though she had about twenty guns trained at her head, she
trusted her friends enough that they would come back. As a blunt object smashed her in the
head, she muttered, "Jerry...I'm...sorry...". Then she passed out.

Outside, Jerry suddenly jerked. "NO!!!" he cried. He had just realized whose voice it
had truly been. "REENA! What...what...why?! REENA!!!" and he started hacking towards the
station with a vengeance.

"Jerry! JERRY!"

Jerry ignored the voice. Blinded with terror and rage, he slashed and hacked
indiscriminately.

"JERICHO MAXWELL!"

Suddenly, Jerry found that he couldn't move. In his rage, he had cleared out the remaining
forces. However, he had almost decimated a small shuttle that had just flown out.
Geoffry had stopped him just in time. "Jerry! That's Giselle and Aelis in there!"

When he heard that, Jerry started to laugh hysterically. "Aelis? AELIS?! Ha...hahahaha!
Aelis! In there! That's a good one Geoffry. You actually think Aelis is in that
shuttle?"

Geoffry slowly felt the air rush out of him. Quickly, he paged the shuttle. "Giselle?
Where's Aelis?!"

Giselle didn't know what to say. "Geoffry...she..."

"WHERE IS SHE?!" he shouted into the screen. "Giselle, where the hell is my
sister?! TELL ME!"

"She's still in there!" Giselle cried, starting to sob. "She...she couldn't
make it out. She covered for me, but got caught in the process!"

"No..."

"And that's not all!" Jerry said, still laughing uncontrollably. "That wasn't
Aelis! Nope nope nope! That was Reena! My Reena! And now she's their prisoner!"

"WHAT?!"

"Yeah, that's right! Reena is...Reena is...REENA!!!" he screamed in agony, his
pain-filled cry echoing throughout space.