Next morning the mobile suit hangar was full of activity. Technicians wandered all about the elevated rigging in full space gear, checking and double-checking, fine-tuning and making last-minute changes to the program. Among them were both Heero and Duo, who strode beside each other engrossed in conversation. Heero carried a tablet of his own, occasionally tipping it in Duo's direction so that the pilot could see the screen.

"Per the usual, you'll have a direct audio and video link to my station on the bridge," Heero said.

"Standard monitor config?"

"Standard," Heero confirmed. "Eight screens, one for each of your cockpit monitors and another couple for vital readings on you and your machine."

Duo nodded. "I guess we'd better get the ball rolling, then. Get everyone to the bridge and contact me as soon as the air lock is clear."

"Roger that," Heero replied, and the two pilots went their separate ways.

Duo watched Heero make his way back toward the air lock, motioning the nearby mechanics to follow and amassing quite an exodus. He noted with passing interest that Sally Poe, Howard, and Noin were watching him intently from the other side of the mirrored air lock holding room, and wondered whether or not Noin had disclosed his lack of confidence in the mission. All the same he saluted them, and then went about his final checks.

He jumped from the topmost engineering deck toward the suit's cockpit door, sailing over a wide expanse of empty space, propelled in zero gravity by a push off the railing. He surveyed the hangar for stragglers, then, after contact with the mobile suit's door, he signaled to Howard the all clear and entered the cockpit.

The suit's cockpit was cozy, a fair reminder of the gundam Deathscythe minus the few personal modifications he had made over years of use. The seat was plush enough to absorb impact but stiff enough to keep a pilot alert, and the four-point safety harness hugged him tightly but comfortably. Six monitors greeted him when he settled in, arranged in two rows and three columns, and once they were online they would afford him a panoramic view of all space 180 degrees around. Joysticks, throttle controls, and pedals were all in the usual place, modeled similarly to the gundams, and two long panels of sixty-seven separate colored and backlit keys rested on the far sides of each throttle.

Monitor three, above and to the right of Duo's head, flared to life and Heero's image appeared in a small box in the bottom left corner along with an incoming communication dialog. Duo tapped the screen, Heero's image came to life, and Yuy looked impatient.

"Taking your time, I see."

Duo was not amused.

"Let's get this started, then," Heero continued, unfazed by Duo's sour look.

"Activating monitors one through six," Duo said flatly, and as he spoke he ran his hand expertly along the left keyboard, entering a separate command for each screen. One by one they lit, and except for Heero's videoconference Duo had an unobstructed view of the whole hangar.

"Monitors one to six are live," Heero echoed, as much for Maxwell's benefit as for the benefit of the poor developers tasked with recording each detail of the flight.

"Pressurizing and oxygenating cockpit," Duo reported, and entered another series of commands.

"Bring up your stat overlay on monitor six," Heero instructed.

Another command and the bottom monitor on Duo's right displayed a dozen dynamic bars and meters that monitored everything from oxygen saturation to power output to speed.

"Cockpit is at 100% pressure, and oxygen levels are stable. You're clear to remove your helmet," Heero said.

Duo unfastened the helmet and breathed deeply before placing the thing in the small storage space between the back of his chair and the cockpit wall.

"You okay, Maxwell?" Heero asked. "Your APM is low."

Duo could hear Noin ask over Heero's shoulder what that meant.

"Actions per minute," Duo replied automatically as he pounded in another command. "How fast I enter commands into the system. Good morning, Noin, there should be a headset floating around somewhere that you can use."

There was a pause, a rustling over the communicator, and then a muted 'thank you' from Noin as she situated her own device.

"How low is low?" Duo asked.

"Significantly below average. I've got you clocked in at 150 for your last three strings."

Duo grimaced and cracked his knuckles, slightly embarrassed. "It's early. I'm just warming up," he lied, but secretly worried that his nerves were getting the better of him. He shook off the doubt and breathed deeply again. "Open the hangar, let's get this done with."

ф

Noin watched Heero's monitors with no small degree of fascination as Duo put the mobile suit through its paces. His blank expression was displayed on the bridge's enormous main screen along with an overlay of vital signs and mobile suit statistics, the same that displayed on Heero's. She remained silent, feeling useless and lost as the test flight progressed. Heero and Duo exchanged concise commands and echoed reports and feedback to each other with extreme precision, and except for the typing of the technicians on the bridge and a slight bit of feedback from Duo's mobile suit, the whole place was silent.

"The left engine throttle is a bit sticky," Duo said, and Heero jotted down the note. "Right side is fine."

"You're entering L4 colony airspace," Heero replied. "Exercise caution."

"Roger that."

Silence fell again, and Noin looked back to Heero's monitors. Everything seemed to have regulated since the outset of the flight: Heero had made a point to illustrate to Noin how Duo's vitals were high at the outset, but had since leveled out, and his APM had jumped thirty strokes in the last half hour. All was as well as could have been expected.

"He gets the jitters sometimes," Heero explained over a muted microphone. "Especially on big projects. It makes no sense, really, because he knows that nothing will go wrong. He and I are both pretty neurotic about the flight checks. Odd that he came to you about it."

Noin shrugged and watched as Duo struggled with the left throttle. The thing had apparently jammed, which Maxwell reported with some degree of irritation, and in order to get it loose again he was forced to hit it, open palmed and with some sizeable force, and knock it out of position.

"We'll need to get that fixed," Heero quipped, and it was the most lighthearted thing Noin had ever heard out of him. Then he unmuted the microphone and said: "Don't break that machine, Maxwell. Sticky throttle or not that's worth more money than you'll see in a lifetime."

"Roger that."

Another long stretch of silence as Duo completed range-of-motion testing, and then he reported in again.

"Range-of-motion tests are complete with 87% success and a damned sticky throttle. Am I clear to begin speed and G-force testing?"

"All clear. Air-space around the L4 colony should be clear of civilian craft, but keep an eye open."

"Both eyes, always," Duo replied. "Commence speed testing."

Graphs dipped and spiked as Maxwell ran the suit along, and then died altogether when the suit stalled. Duo replaced his helmet and gave a brief report on the matter, re-pressurized and oxygenated the cockpit, and went off again. One hundred, two hundred, three hundred kilometers per hour he traveled, switching directions frequently but making steady progress away from the safety of Peacemillion, toward L4 where terrestrial motion tests were scheduled for 1200 hours.

Then suddenly he stopped.

"Did it stall again?" Heero asked impatiently, and when Duo did not immediately respond he seemed irate. "Maxwell, why did you stop? You haven't even reached half of the projected—"

"You're absolutely sure that L4 airspace is clear?" Duo interrupted suddenly, and on the monitor his expression was some combination of confusion and worry.

"I checked this morning before you were even awake," Heero replied, and he shot an uncertain glance Noin's direction. "No vessels have come or gone since yesterday."

"Were all the colonies aware of our testing?"
"Of course."

Then Duo leaned forward, straining his eyes as he peered off into the distance. "Then what the hell is that?" he whispered, then paused. "I'm placing this test on temporary hold."

The bridge's main screen went suddenly blank as Duo disconnected the feed, and Heero and Noin exchanged meaningful looks. The bridge erupted with worried sounding talk as technicians and mechanics wondered what the issue had been. Then came a dialog on Heero's central monitor calling for a private conference. Heero answered immediately and was greeted by a thoroughly unnerved looking Duo.

"Clear the bridge," Duo ordered, his voice unwavering. "No questions. Tell them the suit stalled and I'm working out the kinks. I can't get the engine to fire. I don't care; just get the crew out of there. We need some words."

Heero looked to Noin, and the woman took his silent command. She stood and proclaimed with authority that there had been a minor malfunction, to take a break until it had been worked out but remain on standby. Within a minute, half the bridge was cleared under false pretense.

"Do you see it?" Duo said after a long while. "Monitor two—it's small."

Heero leaned closer to his monitor and nodded. Indeed, a tiny black spot was blocking out the starlight in the distance. His stomach sank. "I see it."

"What should we do about it? If you're right about L4 airspace then it's not a civilian craft—they're all painted regulation white anyway, we'd be able to get a clearer visual on it."

Heero contemplated this for a long moment, trying to predict what Relena would recommend in this situation. Total pacifism, he thought, is fine as long as everyone else agrees with it. But if this was an enemy…someone who didn't agree with Relena's ideals…

"Proceed with extreme caution," Heero said. "Get close enough to identify it and then we can figure things out."

"Roger."

Tentatively, Duo eased the suit toward the dark spot, squinting into the blackness and trying to make out the source. It was of similar size to a transport vessel, not much larger than Duo's own suit, but was obviously equipped with a high functioning cloaking device.

Duo stopped perhaps a hundred yards away and drew a deep, nervous breath. Heero watched on the monitor as Duo's blood pressure spiked, his heartbeat quickened.

"Can you see it?" Heero asked.

"Shit!"

A searing light brightened the monitor like a flash bang, and the shredding of metal sounded so severely through Heero's headset that he threw them instinctively away from his ears. He reeled for a moment through the pain and tinnitus, clutching absently at his ears, and when next he looked at the monitor he was rightly worried.

Duo was still there, wide eyed and frantically fastening the helmet to his space suit as the pressure and oxygen levels in the cockpit plummeted. The pilot was clearly shaken by the chaos. His hands shook so violently that it was a wonder he ever attached the helmet, and not once did he even glance toward Heero. Instead he began attempting to re-oxygenate again.

Heero retrieved his headset in a panic. "What was that?" he cried.

Duo calmed eerily at the sound of Heero's voice. "I think it just opened fire on me," he replied, a quiver in his voice. "The cockpit's been compromised—was it a suit malfunction?" He looked around the cockpit, though at what Heero could not be certain.

"Get out of there, idiot!"

"What is that thing? Is it a mobile suit? An MD?"

"Maxwell, get back to the ship!"

Duo was silent, and when Heero glanced at the vital readout his panic was multiplied. His blood pressure had tanked and was falling fast, his pulse remained high, oxygen levels remained low. He looked back to the video readout and caught his breath. Many tiny crimson droplets floated like tiny beads in front of the camera lens, obscuring Duo's image.

It seemed that Maxwell had also taken note of the blood, as he was suddenly very intently focused on something well beneath the field of vision of the camera. Heero remained silent, watching as Duo's expression shifted from a complete blank to confusion to sudden realization and utter panic as he raised his hand before his face.

"I've been shot," he said dumbly.

Heero realized at once that Duo's apparent stupidity was not stupidity at all, but instead must have been shock. He was bleeding out, and even through the semi-opaque safety shielding of his space suit's helmet Heero could see that Duo was growing paler by the moment.

"Noin!" Heero roared, and the woman rushed in, closely followed by Howard and Sally Poe. Heero stood, panicked himself, and pointed speechlessly at his monitors. Suddenly he was surrounded, the others peering intently over his shoulder.

Duo was completely silent, continued staring ahead, confused. But then it seemed he was struck by immediate understanding, and he surged into motion. Three hundred APM had his mobile suit turned one hundred and eighty degrees, full throttle back toward Peacemillion.

"Shit!" He cried. "Shit!"

"How bad is it?" Heero replied. "How badly were you hit?"

"Shit!"

Heero felt himself being shoved aside, the headset ripped from his head as Sally Poe took his place by force. Caught clumsily in mid-fall by Noin and Howard, he watched the medic take control.

"Where?" she said forcefully.

"Gut."

"Blood?"

Duo nodded, and then there came another flash, the sound of gunfire, and Duo ducked. The left two monitors flickered and died. Sally Poe muted the microphone and began issuing orders.

"He's under fire, Noin you get to your transporter and get out there! Heero, get Relena on the line, we need permission to return fire immediately. Howard, I'll need backup video for everything transpiring from the beginning of the test flight."

The three of them stood, bewildered and afraid.

"Get going!" Poe yelled, and then she unmuted the microphone. "You need to stay calm, Duo. Breathe and slow down. You can't afford any mistakes made in haste."

More gunfire and Sally cast one more angry glance at her three onlookers before they darted from the room, each to his own task.

"I need you to tell me what you saw. What was it? What did it look like?"

"Are you seriously debriefing me at a time like this?" Duo yelled, his panic replaced by sudden anger. "Why? Do you think I'm—"

His sentence was interrupted by what Sally Poe could only describe as an animalistic cry. She watched as he doubled over, held in place solely by the harness. He gasped and retched and trembled, unable to restrict his cries. The mobile suit stopped dead.

"You've got to keep moving," Sally said when he eventually righted himself. "Can you pan your camera downward, I need to see the wound."

Duo did as he was told, and Sally held her breath. The wound was worse than she thought, the blood loss only suppressed by the zero gravity. A sizeable piece of his suit had been ripped away, and a hole gaped in his right side two fingers wide and so deep that Poe could not see the end.

"You've got to get back here," she said quietly.

Duo eased the mobile suit forward, and Sally watched, terrified, as more blood flowed freely from the wound, accelerated by the movement of the suit.

"Oh, God! Stop moving!"

He stopped.

"Are you going to watch me die?"

Sally could not find the words to respond, because she could not refute his question. With gunfire blazing in the distance, metallic ricochets bouncing against the exterior of the suit, Duo bent double and grimacing, she could say nothing to comfort him. All she could do was watch and wait and hope that no more bullets pierced the hull.

ф

The cockpit shuddered as bullets connected, and it was everything that Duo Maxwell could do to maintain his composure while Sally Poe was watching. If he was honest with himself he was terrified and utterly bewildered, and yet a desire remained somewhere in him to fight back. Better to die fighting than an embarrassed wreck, he thought.

With renewed determination, Duo fired the engines and pressed forward, watching his monitors intently as the black spot followed. The faster he went the faster he bled, and each time he glanced at Sally over the communicator she seemed more and more distressed. She was calling at him frantically to stop moving, to slow the mobile suit down, but still he pressed on until he noticed, rather stunned, that he could scarcely hear her.

With grim determination, he looked once more at the monitor. "Sally, I'm going. Have someone retrieve the suit as soon as possible."

He watched Sally's eyes grow wide, her mouth gaped wide in protest, but before she could argue he bashed his fist against the keys, and the screen went black.

"No more running," he said to himself, and whirled the suit back around. "I don't know who you are, but you're mistaken if you think I'm going down without a fight."

Duo cut the power to the engines, using the suit's momentum in zero-gravity to propel it backward, and unleashed everything the machine had. He fired two dozen flares dead into the center of the black spot and tossed two industrial grade thermal axes, pointed end first, knocking the craft out of cloak and unveiling its true nature.

The thing was a civilian-looking craft, black and vaguely rocket-shaped, but larger and apparently better equipped. On each of its wings was mounted a large turret from which equally large rounds were being fired. On either side of its rounded nose were beam cannons similar to those of the gundams that appeared primed and ready for immediate fire.

The only weapon that Duo had was a thermal borer, designed for drilling holes in deep space asteroids and small comfort when faced with a genuine arsenal. All the same Maxwell drew the poorly balanced weapon and held it awkwardly in the mobile suit's hand, and he readied himself for impact.

ф

As Lucrezia Noin piloted her Preventer spacecraft toward Duo's last reported location her mind swam with questions. It had been several years since any report of violent activity had even been rumored, let alone substantiated by shots fired. The action had been deliberate, well-planned and executed so flawlessly that no one—not even the former gundam pilots themselves—had realized their peril until it was right on top of them. Whoever had devised the attack was no one Noin wanted to tangle with.

Minutes after departing from the Peacemillion's hangar a video call flashed onto her control deck. She flipped the transmission channels to their open position, and Heero appeared, more irate than she had ever seen him before.

"Relena won't allow us to return fire," he said, and Noin could tell that he was holding back a fair bit of rage.

"What? Why?"

"She said that we couldn't determine motive—we don't know if the shots were accidental or—" Heero stopped and rubbed his forehead with the back of his wrist, flustered. "Just get out there and get him back."

Heero disconnected the call before Noin could respond, and before she had the chance to reflect on the news Sally was contacting her from the bridge. Again she hit the switch, and Sally was wearing the same expression that Heero had been.

"No return fire," Noin said blankly as she pushed the throttle of her tiny craft.

"Then we're going to have a dead man on our hands," replied Sally. "More shots were fired after you left. We've got zero identification on the enemy and Duo completely disconnected himself from the A/V feed."

Noin was silent.

"He's going to bleed out!"

"I'll do what I can."

Which was not much, Noin thought, except hope like hell that whatever had opened fire had got what they wanted and left.