The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.
-G.K. Chesterton
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"My grandfather upheld the ideal of a Unified World Nation, and he sought to use Miss Relena as the banner of that ideal," Dorothy mused over the data tablet balanced on her crossed legs, she sat on the silky duvet of her bed while Mariemaia occupied the desk in the suite, "Ironically, Relena continued to be his pawn even after his death, and helped conquer the world under one government."
"We all followed what we saw as the best path to peace," Une's muffled voice buzzed over the comm. at Mariemaia, "Ok, I've reactivated OZ's universal broadcasting system, the Lunar Base is in position to transmit."
"Good, the people are grieving the premature end of Miss Relena's tragic love story," Dorothy slid a finger across her touchscreen, "They're practically begging for a sign that their beloved Queen Relena is still alive."
Mariemaia made a face from behind the screen of her laptop, the quick staccato of her typing ended with a decisive click, "Does Relena still have that same sway with the public?"
"Oh, she has sway alright, but is she willing to undo her own life's work?" Une sighed through the static, "See you back at MO-VI."
"Miss Relena won't disappoint," Dorothy flicked her pale locks and smiled with glee, "The text alone made the audience swoon, imagine the effect of a live update from the Princess herself."
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"I'm staying," Simeon stood between Relena and the squad leaders assembled in the chapel, "We've appeased and surrendered all my life, but I won't be chased out of my own country again."
A few men around him voiced their agreement.
"But surely we should evacuate your families, at the very least!" Relena spoke from in front of the dais, Heero watched from the side, leaning on his crutch.
"My wife refused to flee even when the Alliance came in their Leo's, what power do I have to get her to budge now?" One of the men roused a few others to laughter.
"It's better than losing your lives for a parcel of land."
"This is more than land, it's our home, it's who we are," Simeon turned somber and clenched his fists, "And how can we bury the Commander if we abandon this place?"
"Milliardo is gone," Relena turned to the old priest, "Isn't it wiser to preserve the living?"
The old man blinked slowly, and for a long moment it seemed he wasn't going to speak. Finally Father Stephen lifted his eyes and said in a clear, faraway voice, "A landless people is a disembodied ghost, cursed to wander until it forgets its own name," he stared through her, "And the sons of martyrs return as vengeful spirits."
Relena had no answer, the soldiers shifted uncertainly, waiting.
"If we're staying, I have preparations to make," Heero breached the silence, he looked to Relena for confirmation.
"They will catch up to us," Relena yielded, "What then?"
"Every ESUN issued firearm is controlled by biometrics, not to mention the electronics in their vehicles," Heero said, "Disable their electronics, force the ESUN to fight man-to-man."
Relena took a moment to consider the proposal, "What are our chances of holding them off? And for how long?"
"Scouts reported about two hundred on foot, twenty-five on mechs," Simeon recounted, "But we have the advantage of terrain, especially if their weapons are compromised."
"What about artillery?" Relena asked.
"Their heavy artillery can only be fired by the armoured mechs, I can disable them before they advance." Heero answered.
"Say we fight and win. then what? It is but one battle."
Heero rose to his full height and looked her in the eye, "That's how wars are won Relena, one battle at a time."
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"The Sanc Region has returned to normalcy thanks to the ESUN Peacekeepers, who bravely faced the illegal tactics of the violent separatists. President Davos is paying New Port City a personal visit today to celebrate the peaceful victory."
"The ESUN has officially confirmed the death of the former Vice Foreign Minister, Relena Darlian. DNA results from human remains show Darlian perished under the rubble along with roughly fifty extremists who held her hostage, one of whom was the former Gundam pilot known as Heero Yuy."
Duo sucked on his teeth and almost kicked the telescreen, "Wow, just wow."
"C'mon Duo," Quatre hauled him away by the elbow, "You know the official story is never the truth."
"They didn't even try to make it coherent!"
"That's why our story is going to win, right Trowa?" Quatre tapped the workshop comm. unit,
"The Gundams are still largely revered by the public and feared by the military," Came Trowa's calm reply, "Heero exhausted the ESUN weapons reserves thus demoralizing both the soldiers and high command."
Quatre nodded with a confident smile, "The satellites are mounted and operational."
"Roger that."
A slender silhouette stood at the entrance to the shop, Duo looked up, smirked and made himself scarce.
"Dorothy," Quatre breathed, tossed his work gloves on the work bench and came to her in a few quick steps, "Are you still angry at me?"
"I wasn't angry," Dorothy regarded his grimy appearance, "I was patiently waiting for you to finish moping."
Quatre grinned like a boy and, despite her feigned protests, took her manicured hands in his dirty ones, "I could've sworn you slapped me out of anger."
"That was a therapeutic slap," Dorothy pulled a hand free and poked him in his chest, a spot of sweat seeped through his coveralls, "Purely for your benefit."
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"When you defy the peaceful union of all peoples, you bring total destruction upon yourself," President Davos stood on a makeshift platform in front of the ruins of the Sanc Kingdom Institute, "But even our enemies must be made into believers of our unified future."
The crowd clapped on cue, consisting mostly of soldiers and construction workers on break from excavation of the demolition site. Helmets blue and white surrounded the President in security formation.
"Yet the isolated negative actions of a few bad actors can undermine our peaceful mission. The rot of rebellion must be cut out for the healing of all humanity!" Davos said passionately, waited for the applause to die down, and put on a white helmet as he stepped down from the podium. Reporters flocked to him with outstretched microphones and cameras flashing, stopped only by his stern security team.
"Will the Colonies be held accountable for their support of the terrorists President Davos?"
"Mr. President! Do you suspect Ms. Darlian had betrayed the ESUN?"
"It's a sad business with Miss Relena, when I worked with her I never imagined she harboured such dangerous ambitions," Davos shook his head with regret and spoke clearly into the mic, "There was no evidence of her separatist leanings, though it's clear now that anyone can be swept away by nationalistic fervor, that path led to her tragic death."
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Relena found Heero in the far corner of the sanctuary amidst a mess of gutted electronics, assembling his strange contraption. She set a ration pack and a steaming mug of powdered tea down and sat by him. Behind them, a group of soldiers ate with their families in the middle of the chapel, sitting on blankets set on the stone floor. Father Stephen had the children in a half circle and entertained them with some story about a whale. It was a surreal scene of an absurdly sparse picnic.
"It's not a safe haven you know, to escape through the tunnel," Heero uncharacteristically broke the silence, "They'll be on the run, moving from place to place, it's a pitiful way to live."
"But they will live," Relena chewed on her ration block, a salty thick paste of blended fats and proteins and sugars, the dryness made it hard to swallow, but she was almost used to it, "I don't understand their attachment to this land."
Heero took the wire held between his teeth and twisted it together with another, "We were raised as wanderers, you and I, we don't belong anywhere."
"We're out of place here," Relena mulled.
"They'll need you when the battles end."
"But what they need now is a leader to get them through the battles."
Heero hefted his contraption to test its balance, "Perhaps all you can be is a symbol, but that may be enough for these people."
Relena regarded Heero over the dying steam of her mug. The last time they were besieged in Sanc, she surrendered to Romefeller. Did her people feel betrayed by that decision? "All this violence and destruction over the possession of land..."
Heero shook his head, "It's not the land that belongs to you, but you who belong to the land."
Placing a hand over her heart, Relena stared at Heero with a new sense of awareness.
A wave of hesitant giggles approached the corner where they sat. Five girls no older than twelve tugged at Relena's arms, who obligingly stood and followed them. One girl presented a crudely stitched flag of the Sanc Kingdom and draped it over Relena's shoulders like a white shawl, the girls backed up in unison and curtsied. Relena smiled and play-bowed in response.
Heero slipped on his parka and limped out into the cold with a rifle slung on his back, crutch under one arm and the EMP device in the other hand. The mid-morning sun hung low, and cast most of the graveyard in shadow, temperatures must've risen to just above freezing, judging by the half melted slush under his boots.
Past the thick oak hedge, Heero selected a boulder by the edge of the south-facing cliff, and climbed onto its smooth flat top. From here he could see every possible route up from the foot of the mountain. Heero brushed clear the snow and set up the rifle on its bipod, mounted the device on the barrel and checked the sighting.
"That's quite the gadget," Father Stephen remarked behind him, his crunching steps long since alerted Heero of his presence.
"It'll do the job well enough," Heero offered, feeling generous.
"You're enjoying yourself," Father Stephen said, "From what I gather, you are very good at winning battles."
Heero turned away from the charging EMP to look at the priest with narrowed eyes, "I'm a soldier, if you object to fighting..."
"Blessed be the LORD my strength, which teaches my hands to war," Father Stephen gestured toward the graveyard, "Look behind me young man, every stone in there marks a fighter."
Heero returned his attention to the crosshairs, sighting two heavy armored trucks approaching the narrow of a wood bridge, followed by lighter vehicles carrying personnel, "It's not my intention to die here."
"Pity the man with no roots in life, and no grave in death," Father Stephen said with a tsk.
Heero took aim at the pair of trucks that approached the bridge at the base of the mountain, it was the only drivable path up to their location. He waited until the trucks were in the middle of the bridge, and squeezed the trigger, an electronic hum signalled the pulse discharge. The trucks stalled, then the headlights blinked off. "I was taught the whole world's a tomb and I'm already dead."
"You must be a great man indeed to have such a grand burial."
Heero sighed and took his finger off the trigger, "Shouldn't you be comforting the widows or something?"
The old priest pursed his lips in a nonchalant fashion, "They have one another, you are alone."
"I fight alone," Heero spoke back with a little irritation, "This is the fate allotted me by your cruel god."
"Ha! You think a cruel god would bring the Princess into your life?"
The question hung in the damp air between them, a cold breeze whistled through the trees, the leaves shook with the sound of paper waves.
"Yeah, I do," Heero cracked a reluctant smile behind the scope, "Relena was a pain from day one."
Father Stephen laughed with a long wheeze, and for the first time in a long time, Heero's chest rumbled with laughter, too.
A distant familiar vibration caught Heero's ear, a moment later the boom and crackle of twin engines roared overhead.
His Gundam, or what remained of it, landed in the direct path of the ESUN convoy, crushing the narrow bridge under its weight. Men deserted like panicked rats before the trucks were cut clean in half by the Gundam's beam sabre.
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Noin ground her teeth as the control panels burnt against her skin, warning lights flashed red in her face. The air was hot and dry against her nostrils as she breathed in the smell of overheated plastic, she couldn't stay in the cockpit for much longer.
"Useless machine!" She hit the decoupling switch, the vernier thruster fell away from under the left wing and plunged into the icy river below, glowing red-hot as the water exploded into thick white vapor.
The Gundam lurched before its auto-lev system kicked in. Noin righted herself in the pilot seat, head dizzy from the whiplash. Through the cracked anterior monitor, she spotted the ESUN encampment in the distance, and coaxed the one remaining thruster to make the Gundam airborne.
"Abandon your suits!" Noin broadcasted on the universal frequency, "These suits will be destroyed!"
She landed the Gundam in the midst of the formation of armoured construction mechs, sabre flashing a warning to the more stubborn pilots. With her last remaining power cell, Noin demolished the armoured mechs. The Gundam ground to a halt, through the thick steam that poured out from its vents, its eyes dimmed from a green glow to black.
Bewildered ESUN soldiers surrounded the dead giant, hesitantly inching closer with their guns raised, still fearful.
The cockpit decompressed with a hiss, slowly, the hatch opened to reveal a half conscious pilot, sweaty dark hair draped over her face in disarray.
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Sally held the camera steady and felt Wufei flinch beside her, she squeezed his arm with her free hand, "They won't harm prisoners, I've dealt with this commander in his Alliance days, he's a moral man."
Wufei watched two ESUN soldiers drag Noin into the camp's infirmary and whispered angrily, "Put her on a stretcher you pigs."
"We have a mission," Sally reminded him firmly.
Wufei swallowed his complaints and checked their equipment, "All drones operational, broadcast signals confirmed."
"Alright, they'll take the southern path up the mountain, we'll intercept by a different route." Sally shouldered her pack and crawled away from their hiding spot, making sure she was out of sight of the soldiers before straightening.
Wufei followed suit, casting one last glance at the encampment where Noin was held, "The man's leading the offensive to hunt down your friends, I wouldn't count on his moral fortitude."
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Tbc...