Lucrezia Noin had never considered herself to be a religious woman, but still she found herself praying as the escape pod rocketed away from the ship. She had been moved from a cell to a cell, tiny and windowless and without even a control console. If DeSchepper had deployed the vessel in the wrong direction…
But Noin was free, and for that she was thankful.
Alone with her thoughts, she was able to contemplate all that had transpired in its full detail. Recollection was not difficult—all the events had unfolded logically and so details were easy to recount with accuracy—but analyzing why was a different story altogether. Too many questions began with why: Why had DeSchepper shot down the mobile suit? Why had she salvaged the pilot? Why did she let Noin go, truly? And the biggest why of all was Duo's subdued reaction to the whole ordeal. His words and actions had been so out of character that Noin could not reconcile them. Even in her wildest attempts at logic she couldn't explain it.
He had been close to death, yes, but Noin had seen hundreds of men in such dire straits. All of them had acted predictably, in one way or another, calling to their mothers, denying their inevitable mortality, cursing whoever or whatever had brought them down. Duo never did any of that. Certainly he had seemed a bit resentful—and who in that situation wouldn't?—but that was the extent of his reaction. No anger, no sadness, no fear. Only resentment found its way into his speech, strongest during his uncanny manipulation of their captor, and when he spoke solely to Noin it was gone altogether.
The thoughts came and went as she rode along, sitting curled opposite the hatch in her mysterious space pod and staring intently at the only readout in the whole capsule: a wavelength output displaying the repetitive automatic mayday signal as it broadcasted over and over again. She cried for a while, and when her energy was spent on that she slept fitfully. She woke and stared at the readout some more, thought some more, regretted her lack of food or water or sustenance of any kind, and contemplated where she would relieve herself if the need arose. But no matter what she did to occupy herself, her thoughts always floated back to Duo, alone and wounded and weak in a virtually unlocatable prison.
She prayed he was all right.
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The better part of a day passed before the passenger craft was deployed from the Peacemillion toward L3. Preparations had taken longer than expected for both man and machine. A preliminary inspection of the small ship had revealed a number of faults, easily fixed with time, and though the ion cannon was mounted on its hull the thing had never been wired in properly. A dozen and more papers had to be filed for the record, stating the rationale and intent of the search mission, certifying that the crew would not open fire with the aim of destruction or murder, and both Relena and the Earth Sphere advisory council had to sign off on them.
By the time Sally and Heero were ready to depart the whole crew of the Peacemillion was at wit's end. Good-byes were hasty, excepting that of Heero and Relena, who talked for many long minutes in what Poe estimated to be an attempt to make amends for their earlier fighting. Then, at last, he kissed her on the forehead and left her behind with Howard, and though he still looked upset Relena seemed placated.
"What was that about?" Sally asked Heero as he buckled himself into the passenger seat.
"It's complicated," he replied flatly.
Poe chose not to press the issue. She had enough to contemplate without considering Heero's perplexing marriage, and it didn't matter anyway as long as she could pursue her manhunt.
Leaving the topic alone, however, did not satisfy Heero. As soon as he was fastened in he began talking again.
"She wants us back in twelve hours," he said.
Sally scoffed, angry. "There's no way. We'll barely have breached colonial boundaries in twelve hours."
"I told her I'd be back then."
Poe felt mutinous. A dozen angry responses flew threw her head, but before she could choose one Heero spoke again.
"It's a good thing I can lie to her so well. And a better thing that she can't tell."
"I could kill you for that joke," Sally replied dryly, and then she fired the engines.
As they flew toward L3 space Sally felt glad that Heero had learned to lighten up since the One-Year-War. She had flown with him before, and on rare occasions had worked cooperatively on covert missions, and during those times there was no mistaking that Heero was a highly trained soldier. Now it felt more like she was traveling with a younger brother: Heero was largely quiet, but when he did speak there was as good a chance that what he said would be a joke or cynical jab at her flying as it would be a serious remark. If anything, his company was making her feel better about the whole debacle.
"You'll hate me for saying, but we should stop at a colony to stock up," he said after a time. "I threw Howard the same twelve hour number that I told Relena, so he only stocked the galley with enough food for one meal. I checked last night."
"What did he give us? Is there any way we can make it last longer?"
"Space junk, and no," Heero replied glumly. "I know we're on a time table here, but I won't eat whatever the hell he put in there."
"Getting clearance into the colony will take a while," Sally replied. She didn't want to waste time. "Docking might take an hour if there's a wait."
Heero gave a clipped laugh, and then shot Sally a smug grin. "No, it won't. I've got the same docking priority and clearance level as the Secretary General of the Union."
Sally had forgotten about that.
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Noin woke to turbulence so severe that she initially believed an asteroid had struck her. Another jolt to the left sent her sprawling, but then the ride settled again. When she righted herself she could hear the quiet whir of the engines, the grinding of metal, the rush of air past the previously silent capsule.
She had been found.
When the capsule opened, bright fluorescent lights blinded her, and the world opened into a clinical, metal-walled hangar.
Her wits returned quickly, and when she exited the pod she did so with poise and as much grace as she could muster. "Where am I?" she asked, assertive yet polite, to a group of uniformed colonial engineers that surrounded her.
"Docking bay two of colony L3 M603. We heard the distress signal and brought you in via tractor," said one of the uniformed men, young with sandy hair, as he surveyed Noin. She was disheveled and had managed to lose her Preventer issue jacket in the ordeal. "We'll need your name and any credentials you have."
"My name is Lucrezia Noin-Peacecraft," she said authoritatively. "I need to contact the Secretary General as soon as possible."
The man that had greeted her so warmly now seemed suddenly confused. There had been a moment of clear recognition, but his face then went blank.
"I'm sorry, miss, but unless you can prove to me your credentials I can't let you do that."
Noin was incredulous.
"Secretary General Peacecraft is on personal leave and requested no contact. You'll have to forgive me, but I'm following my orders."
"Are you going to detain me?"
"No, ma'am, I can't. You've given no grounds for detention," said the man. "But protocol mandates that I gather information from any mayday capsules we find. Will you be willing to provide that information?"
"Yes," Noin said. "But I will need one telephone call first, to Preventer Headquarters. Then I'll need your cooperation as well."
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Heero received clearance to dock at L3 M603 hours before he and Sally were due to arrive. The whole arrangement took minutes once Heero was connected to the right colonial representative, and again he seemed smug when he closed the channel of communication. He remained that way until they were practically on top of their assigned dock, until he noted some significant commotion.
"You don't think Relena made a broadcast against our advice, do you?" Sally asked as she guided the transport inside.
A score of uniformed colonial workmen rushed past the dock, moving with urgency usually reserved for emergency situations. Heero wanted to say that Relena making a broadcast against his wishes was unlikely, but after seeing the activity inside the colony in tandem with Relena's emotional reaction to the failed test flight, he couldn't bring himself to say anything at all. Even so, even if Relena had made the broadcast, it wouldn't make sense for it to cause trouble at colony docking stations.
"We'll see," was all he said.
They docked without incident and disembarked into the colony's spaceport, where a half-dozen guards, uniformed as members of the all-but-useless Colonial Defense Force, waited predictably to give Heero and his guest escort to wherever it is that they needed to go. But the lot of them looked grave, and Heero worried briefly that this whole thing had been a setup by the same rebels who had shot Duo down.
"Welcome to the colony, Mr. Yuy, ma'am," said one of the corpsmen, nodding toward Heero and Sally in turn. "We're happy that you've come for a visit, will the Secretary General be arriving after you?"
Heero felt relief. Because he had kept his head out of the spotlight there was no way he would be known on sight by rebels. "What's going on here?" he asked. "Is there trouble?"
"No trouble that you need to concern yourself with, sir, but all the same I'll need you to come with me for a few moments."
Again, Heero looked to Sally, but he followed his escort without argument.
They wound around the maze-like spaceport, working their way toward the colony's core. They passed through two security checkpoints and a controlled access gateway, entering into a part of the structure that Heero knew only from schematics. Finally, they entered a cozy lobby furnished with chairs and a couch and a table, and the escort stopped.
"Why are we here?" Heero asked, slightly off-put. "This is the diagnostics wing—there's nothing wrong with my ship and I don't have time to be playing mechanic for you."
Then the door opposite where they entered slid open, and in strode a small contingent of guardsmen in formation. For the briefest moment Heero's heart skipped as the fear of sabotage jumped back into his mind, but then he saw whom the crew was escorting.
Noin looked no worse for the wear, considering the circumstances. She looked slightly unkempt, her hair was a mess, and she seemed in need of a long hot shower, but otherwise she seemed the same as when she had left the Peacemillion. She came into the room with confidence, and if she noticed Heero and Sally she did not acknowledge them. Instead she thanked the guardsmen and asked them to excuse themselves.
It was only after the guards had left that she really did anything. Suddenly she seemed weepy eyed and deflated, and after a cursory and apprehensive look to Sally Poe she practically threw herself at Heero. She locked him into a hug so unexpected that he froze, uncertain of how to react.
Dumbly, he asked, "Are you all right?"
At once Noin pulled away, as if she had been plucked back into reality. But she lingered for a moment, looking between Heero and Sally, and then she fidgeted. "I don't think I've ever been so happy to see you in my life," she said, mostly to Heero. "I'm okay; nothing is broken or wounded but my confidence."
"How did you get here?" Sally asked.
"An escape pod," Noin replied.
"What about Maxwell?" asked Heero.
Noin did not want to respond. She did not know how to respond. She did not know what had become of Duo after her exit.
"Is he dead?" Heero pressed.
"No," Noin replied urgently. "He's alive. When I got away he was conscious and lucid."
"Why isn't he here, then?"
"I had to leave him behind; I had no choice in the matter. I promised I would do whatever I could to find him. I've got the colony technicians combing over the escape pod they sent me away in. They're looking for identifying marks and serial numbers. They're also pulling the broadcast information from its distress signal. We're trying to figure out from what sector the pod was shot. Then we can send a search party."
Heero and Sally looked at each other, impressed.
"Don't worry," said Sally. "We'll find him. But first we need to make some calls and let your family know you're alive."
