The Raven 3
Missing
by Spencer
x x x
' To save the day, or maybe melt away. '
"Everyone back to the ship! I've got Trowa and the place is about to blow!" Duo's voice rang clearly through the cockpit, yet Heero hesitated. 'He's got Trowa, but where's Quatre?'
Heero made another sweeping arc toward the factory, searching for a second escape pod. Each member of their team was always equipped with a small homing beacon for just such situations, but sometimes enough interference could block the signal. Quatre's bombs certainly constituted 'enough interference'. More than just explosives, the massive detonations wiped out electronic signals, radio frequencies, and radar. The equipment on Heero's fighter was designed specifically to withstand the devices, yet he still experienced a small fluctuation in readings and a few minor malfunctions. It couldn't hurt to check again.
"Heero, what are you doing? Get out of there now!" Duo's voice held no room for argument, but Heero had never been one to blindly accept orders. He held his position, waiting for their last member.
"Heero," Trowa's quiet voice broke over Duo's frequency. "He stayed to find another way out; there weren't enough life pods. He said to get away and come back to look for him after the blast. He said . . ." In five years Heero had never heard this kind of emotion in the quiet man's voice. "He asked us not to leave him, Heero."
Silence engulfed the com channels.
'Damn him.' Heero had known he would try something like that. It had happened too many times in the past for him not to expect it, yet every time it clawed out a new pit of dread in the Japanese pilot's stomach. It was just too risky. Not even Quatre could keep coming back from that type of danger forever.
"Damn him." With a few more muttered curses, Heero turned his fighter back for the ship. The factory really was about to go, and he knew his little craft would never withstand the blast.
'If he gets out of this alive, I'll kill him.'
x x x
Quatre woke on the hanger floor, shooting pains running all through his body.
'Well, I haven't blown up yet. I wonder how much time that just cost me.' He sat up, ignoring the stabbing sensation in his lower back, and pulled his twisted left leg out from under him. He certainly hadn't landed prettily, but he didn't have the time to sit and heal. Even if he'd woken immediately, he still only had a moment or two before the whole place blew up around him.
Another explosion answered his thought and he knew he'd run out of time. The next one would be the last, and the guys wouldn't have much of him left to look for . . . until it was far too late and they were long gone.
As much as death appealed to him, the thought of floating through space, suffocating every few minutes for eternity, was terrifying, and something he was willing to avoid at all cost. He now faced just that if he couldn't figure out how to get out of here in one piece.
'Here goes nothing.' He hoisted himself to his feet, hoping that his twisted leg would support him. It burned like fire and trembled horribly, but carried him faithfully across the hanger to the flight suits. After slipping awkwardly into one he limped to the door console. 'I hope this works.'
Alarms blared as the huge docking bay doors slid open and all the compressed air was sucked out into the void. Quatre let himself go, hurtling through the doors and out into space. If he were extremely lucky his momentum would carry him to the outer edge of the initial blast, and he could ride the shockwave further out of range.
'Right, and Heero will sprout wings and fly.'
The abrupt loss of gravity gave him the sensation of falling, and he closed his eyes, relinquishing his fate to whatever gods found him interesting. The blast lit behind him as a roaring wall of pure thundering force slammed into him, knocking him further from the growing fireball. The entire asteroid and all the man made creations on it had disappeared now, consumed in flame. He felt the heat rushing towards him, licking, swallowing, he felt burned through, nothing but ash, and the welcome oblivion rushed in again.
x x x
This time he woke to numbing cold, icy needles digging their way into his flesh. He was alive, and he was whole, one good, one bad, but how much time had passed? Had his friends already come and gone? How long had it taken him to wake? Would they have left him here to suffer in the darkness? There was no light to judge by, only the multitude of spinning stars. Would this be his existence until the universe collapsed, spinning in nothingness, the chill eating its way continuously into his bones?
' I guess it's all the same. '
The mantra stopped his panicked mind's chattering and allowed him a slow deep breath.
'Deep breath?' His space suit was still intact! It was singed badly, but in one piece, which meant he'd endured the blast far better than he'd hoped! It also meant his beacon had most likely survived, and it had likely only been a short while since he'd lost consciousness. His friends were still out there, they were still coming for him. A giddy smile spread across his face as his vision wavered.
'Must be running out of oxygen, but as long as Heero's out there I know he'll come for me. I'm not alone.'
x x x
The debris field was enormous. All the metal and stone that hadn't completely disintegrated was floating around in huge gnarled chunks, constantly changing direction as they crashed into one another. It was not the safest place for any ship to be, let alone one the size of the Windstar, but her crew were not about to let a little space flotsam stand between them and their teammate.
They had all gotten safely out of range by the time the final blast hit, but as soon as the last of the fire had been smothered by the void they had headed straight back for the epicenter. Neither Duo nor Wufei held much hope for their comrade's survival, but that did not stop them from searching. They kept their fears to themselves as Heero and Trowa manned the pilot's chair and communications panel, hoping for any sign.
Chunks of frozen stone smacked against the hull as Heero steered around the largest fragments. If Quatre had gone toward the last explosion, and somehow managed to escape the blast, the force would have pushed him in this direction. Maybe. Heero knew it was a long shot, but it was still the best they had to go on, and given his past record, he was not about to doubt Quatre's skill in escaping certain death. The man had a truly unnatural ability to come out of the worst situations completely unscathed. He had returned from missions with his clothes sliced, torn, riddled with bullet holes, and burned to ash, but his pale skin never had a mark. He insisted on taking every one of the most dangerous missions by himself, his only requirement being a solid supply of black clothes to replace those he lost. Another oddity, Heero had never seen the blonde dress in any color. He always wore the shade of midnight, lending him the nickname, Raven.
His arrival had turned the group's fortunes around. Four boys, each born on a different orbital colony, had begun fighting for the freedom of their people against OZ's tyranny, and had grown into a vicious thorn in the organization's side. They were fast and deadly, attacking OZ at its weakest points, taking out factories, satellites, and shuttles. General Kushrenada had personally asked for each of their heads on a platter, yet OZ was a massive threat, controlling the entire Earthsphere, and they were only four men. Backed by Howard, a rebellious ship and weapons manufacturer sympathetic to their cause, they had all the equipment they needed. Still, they were a scruffy lot, fighting by the seat of their trousers, with no greater plan than to cause as much difficulty to OZ as possible.
The blonde came to them, sneaking past Duo's top notch security system, through radar nets, surveillance cameras, motion sensors, and more, walking straight onto the bridge and right up to Heero. The Japanese boy threw the first punch and within seconds the duel had ended, each boy with his own gun poised at the other's head. Through the tense silence the blonde had smiled, uncocked his pistol and said, "I win." From that moment on he was part of the team, and their luck had never been better.
With Quatre's help they could accomplish so much more, tackling bigger targets and tighter security. There was no defense he couldn't evade nor weapon he couldn't master, and all those ideas formerly disregarded as too risky or dangerous, now fell to Quatre, who always managed to succeed . . . and come back. Heero knew this should have aroused suspicion, but at the time they had been so desperate and so grateful that all questions were forgotten, and Quatre had become the backbone of the operation.
Since then there had been countless suicide missions, times when Heero had 'known' beyond doubt that Quatre was dead, yet the blonde always returned, singed and bloody, but miraculously intact. Time after time, just when all hope was lost, Quatre would appear, flash a toothy grin, then vanish into his quarters. The next morning would pass as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, and the battle would continue.
Heero had come to trust this pattern, and to rely on it even when the others had lost all hope. Now it drove him onward, refusing to let him accept the certain knowledge that Quatre was dead, that he must have been incinerated in the blast, that no human could possibly survive such an explosion, and that even had he managed to outlast the fire, the cold vacuum of space would still have claimed him by now. He refused to believe it, wouldn't believe it, not until . . .
x x x
' . . . I look into it and it's black. . . I want the fire back. . . '
Silence. . .
x x x
' . . . To save the day, or maybe melt away, I guess it's all the same. . . '
Quatre groaned silently, frozen vocal cords grating against the vacuum of space. Without air he was drifting, even while living, in and out of consciousness. Everything hurt, twisting his mind in a haze of splintering pain.
' So I will walk through the fire,
'cause where else can I turn? '
Every agonized cell screamed, and the desperate longing for death was interrupted by a single thought:
' I will walk through the fire and let it . . . '
'Heero, please find me.'
x x x