Minutes blurred into hours, and hours into days as Duo worked to disassemble the machines. The job had taken a tone of comfortable monotony, and without clocks to remind him of the time, Duo often toiled through the night, heedless to fatigue of mind or body.

He found comfort in working with his hands, in being elbow deep in oil and grease. He found focus in the repetitive nature of the task. With each crank of the wrench he thought of Hilde and Helen, of the colony. Each pound of the hammer drove home thoughts of the sweet revenge he would reap against his enemies once the job was complete. Vengeance was all that occupied his mind in his waking hours, the purest motivation he could imagine, and it sustained him more fully than any food or sleep ever could.

When the need for sleep did overcome him, Duo most often sat against the workshop wall for an hour, maybe two if the fatigue became too severe. Rarer still did he feel the need to lie down, and for these occasions he had dragged a bare-bones cot into the hangar with no pillow or blanket for his comfort. His purpose did not call for much comfort.

Yet rest came only in fitful bursts filled with nightmares and panic attacks such that Duo continued to force the exhausting cycle of nonstop labor. Gears and motors, springs and servos cluttered around the cot where he'd taken them to bed in an effort to stall the onset of dreams.

In the days following his return to the Peacemillion, Duo's anger had boiled to the point of self-isolation. He could not stand the sight of anyone else, not Heero or Quatre or Sally, not Trowa or Wufei, Noin, Relena, or Milliardo. He knew, somehow, that any words he would exchange with them would be too crass, too vulgar and unrestrained. Something in the way he looked at them in those days had caused them to look away. Something in the way he carried himself had caused them to avoid him. Something deep in the recesses of his soul had changed. Tenseness had overcome his body, as though his muscles had wound themselves too tightly, and Duo knew that the tiniest misstep would let forth the whole of it like a dam fit to burst.

Seeing Hilde in the stasis chamber had not helped. The brusque, monosyllabic conversation he'd had with Quatre had been Duo's last interaction prior to exiling himself to the hangar. He could scarcely recall that conversation now. He only knew that when it had been time to say something to Hilde no words would come out. There hadn't even been thoughts. Duo felt only the desire for payback. And when the opaque glass lid was lowered over her deathlike visage, that burning need intensified.

Every moment since then, Duo had spent disassembling the mobile suits he and Quatre had stolen from the McCarthy base. He removed couplings and paneling with expert precision, detached limbs and disarmed weapons with finesse. The first suit had been rendered a skeleton alone by the fifth day, and Duo had entertained no thoughts of slowing down. The hate he felt toward the military rebels manifested with every move he made, in the too-tight grip he kept on his tools, and each blister that rose on his palms served as a trophy of his progress, a reminder to continue forward. Only through his suffering could justice be served.

He did not expect visitors and received none. Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei had come by once and attempted to exchange words, but Duo kept on with his work, too focused to break for them. Howard had entered several times, and once the old man seemed to realize that Duo was not fit for conversation he resigned himself to simply sitting on the cot, undeterred, watching Duo pay his penance. Nothing needed to be said. Duo knew that Howard understood: The mission had been made clear, and Duo Maxwell would fulfill it with the same well-practiced expertise he'd employed during the One Year War and beyond.

It wasn't until Heero entered the hangar that Duo ever slowed his manic pace, and even still it was only to glance down from his perch atop the mobile suit's shoulder box to see who had entered. He didn't consider for a moment that it might be strange for Heero to be out of bed and walking around: He didn't know that Heero had been ordered to keep off his feet in the wake of his injury. So Duo went back to working, loosening the bolts that held on the titanium paneling of the second mobile suit's head.

"Come down here," Heero called. His voice sounded quieter than usual, airy and without strength.

Duo did not come down. He kept working the bolt, pushing at the wrench shaft with his painfully blistered hand. Heero could talk if he wanted to talk. Duo would make no guarantee of listening.

"Fine," Heero grunted. "Be an idiot." He paused, and Duo wondered if it was because he thought the insult would garner some kind of reaction. All truth told, Duo knew he was an idiot. He didn't need to be told, and hearing the word from someone else would serve only to reinforce the opinion. "I've called a meeting in the conference room in half an hour and I'd like you to be there. I hacked the military's communication servers and got some information you'd probably find valuable."

At this, Duo did look down. Heero had said some magic words.

"I thought you'd be interested. I'll save you a seat in the back."

And then Heero left, his gait a mite slower and more stilted than usual.

Duo contemplated for a while, staring at his work. He examined his hands and noted with a degree of regret that one of the blisters had burst. A trickle of clear warm fluid oozed down his wrist and drew a wet, flesh colored line through the grime. He decided that at the very least a shower might do some good-it would serve to keep him awake for another few hours in the very least-and Heero's conference might provide some additional motivation. Perhaps he'd discovered a vulnerability that could be exploited.

So Duo made his way down from the mobile suit's shoulder box, through the empty halls of the great ship, and to his own bunk where he retired to the shower with a pleasantly thoughtless mind. The warm water soothed sore muscles and almost offset the pain in his hands, and a lackluster scrubbing removed a thin layer of grease from his arms. He had no effort left for the rest. There could be no way to remove it all, not without a solvent, and putting forth so much effort to personal hygiene early in the build would prove pointless in the end anyway. So Duo emerged from his bath only half clean, but presentable, dressed in blacks, and strode coolly toward the conference room while still wringing his mop of hair.

The conference room transformed since the last time Duo had entered. What once had been a formal area marked by neat rows of symmetrical wooden tables and straight-backed chairs was now a living, breathing work space. The furniture had mostly been removed, except for six remaining tables, presently arranged in a rectangle and fully occupied, and the projection equipment wired through the walls and floor which would prove too much work to dismantle. Papers lay everywhere, atop all surfaces and held by magnets to the walls. Three computers had been arranged in a neat line against the wall opposite the entrance, what once had been the front of the room, in a kind of central hub. It had equipped a high quality camera and microphone. Duo imagined that this would be where all video and audio messages would be recorded, and where Heero would be doing most of his work.

While all eyes turned to look when he entered the room, no one spoke to him, and Duo managed to find an empty seat separate from the rest, against the wall opposite where Heero seemed to be ready to speak. For better or worse, it seemed to Duo that he had become a shadow, something noticed yet disregarded, something ever-present but ignored, and he could not say that it bothered him. Let the lot of them deal with their political nonsense. He had no time for it, not when war was concerned.

Duo began to work his damp hair into its trademark braid while Heero continued shuffling about, preparing his work for presentation. His fingers ached and the blisters burned, and the going was slower than normal. It'd been at least three days since the last time he'd performed this ritual, which since his youth had served as a time of reflection and catharsis. The time he spent braiding was time spent thinking of the church, of the Father, of Helen...

He paused thoughtfully and stared at the ground, flexing his tender digits. He didn't WANT to think about them anymore.

"Are you all ready?" Heero asked from the front in a quiet voice, and it seemed he was addressing all in the room except Duo. His eyes scanned around, but never came Duo's way. "I think I'm good to go."

A chorus of affirmative responses echoed forth from the congregation, and Heero gave a curt nod. He moved to retrieve some papers from the table but gave a slight lurch, and one hand shot to his chest while the other landed palm flat on the table. Heero cursed. No fewer than four people moved to help him, but Heero waved their concern away and stood back straight with a slight grimace and continued on.

"Nothing to worry about," he said flatly, breathlessly. "Just pulled it a little. Sit down." He grabbed the papers from the table and looked at them briefly. He drew a very slow, very deep breath, then said, "So you all know I got access to the databases. Half of you helped me comb through the files. But I'm here to read you the stuff I found, and make sure that everyone is on the same page. We've uncovered a lot, and a lot of really disturbing stuff. I figured I'd start at the same place I started, which was in O'Keefe's personal files. I found a pretty damning letter from the sixth of June-that's three days after the explosion of M-204-which reads as follows:

"Captain Benning; First and foremost, I wanted to extend deepest condolences on behalf of the entire Black Ops for the death of your goddaughter. She will be missed."

Heero paused and looked up and about the room, seeming to survey the faces before continuing on.

"As it stands, the mission cannot continue as planned. However, having thought on the matter for a few days I feel that things may yet work out for the best. We'll need to exercise caution, but if we spin things the right way the colonists will do our work for us. Please let us know at your earliest convenience your wishes for the mission. Cordially, Corporal James O'Keefe.

"So that's the letter," Heero said with a deep breath, "and it's pretty obvious what it's talking about. We can safely assume Elliot DeSchepper was Benning's goddaughter, but there's no paper trail to back it up. Best we can tell, Benning and a guy named Robert DeSchepper served in the same infantry unit prior to the One Year War, but there's no archived communication or anything between the two of them. It's all conjecture, but it's pretty safe."

Duo watched Heero carefully as he tied off the braid, but Heero still seemed to be ignoring him. The others shot furtive glances toward him, but the only one who engaged him in any way was Quatre, who stared at Duo appraisingly. Duo dared not keep eye contact. He didn't want to talk. The information Heero had conveyed made Duo want only to listen and think.

"So anyway," Heero had not stopped speaking in the time Duo had been drifting in thought. "That's our first bit of evidence that things aren't what they seem. We got another bunch of letters between two guys-they seem like privates or something..." Heero did look at Duo now, as if waiting for a word.

"They'd be airmen," Duo muttered. "Lowest rank is airman."

"Okay, airmen," Heero corrected. "So these low rank guys wrote letters to each other, probably about twenty in total, and rather than reading them to you all I figured I'd just summarize here..." He trailed off and fished for another paper, which he drew forth. Then he leaned against the wall, tired, and drew another deep breath. "So the original plan as far as we know was to get..." He paused again and looked at Duo squarely now, then asked gently, "You okay if I talk about this?"

"Don't see much choice," Duo replied, reclining, arms behind his head.

Heero nodded and continued. "The plan as far as we know was to use the suit Duo created to take a colony hostage in an attempt to get the ESUN to mobilize troops. They were going to try and convince the colonists that the ESUN was working against them, cause them to revolt."

"What's the end goal, then?" Sally asked.

Heero shrugged. "The naive part of me wants to think that they were aiming for colonial independence. That's what people have been talking about since I was a kid, but it never seems to get any closer. And if you think about it, every armed conflict for the last hundred years has been about colonial independence. But the practical part of me, the cynic, says that the intentions can't be that pure."

"We think it's a case of war profiteering under the guise of achieving colony independence," Trowa interrupted. "Heero gave me some documents that discussed mobile suit production and profit margins. It was all fairly straightforward, like a couple of investors talking to each other, but when we looked at it in context, things seemed a little weird. Mobile suits, the way that we know mobile suits, have been off the market for years. The only things people have been making are mining suits and machines for terraforming, not necessarily military models. These people were talking base; the bare minimum parts, which could then be built upon to make pretty much anything anyone wanted. Fully customizable, I mean to say."

Heero jumped in at this point, and now Duo looked back at him he seemed marginally pale, his arms crossed over his chest. "It was like these people wanted to ship out suit skeletons only and to many different interested parties, so that the suits could be customized by the end user. That way the mining people could outfit them for mining, the terraformers could outfit them for terraforming."

"The military could outfit them for war," Trowa added.

"But that leaves the question of where the money for our suit came from," Howard said.

Heero nodded and approached the table again, leaned against it with palms flat and looked down at the desk. "Well," he started, "the short answer is we don't know. We've got a lot of theories about it, but there's no proof to back it up, only a few mentions of suits here and there from various people."

"Are you all right?" Howard asked.

Heero dropped into the only empty chair left in the room and rested his head on his hand. "Not used to being on my feet," he said. "Just tired."

"First day off of bed rest and you've been running around like a madman," Sally explained. "Talk from there."

Heero nodded and looked to Wufei now, as if inviting him to speak at will. "So Wufei and I spoke at length about the possibilities here since he's in the administrative side of the Preventers, so he knows more about finances and record keeping than I do. But the short of our conversation was that we know nothing about where our money came from." He motioned for Wufei to take the lead on the conversation, and as Wufei began talking, Duo noted that Heero slipped a hand covertly beneath his shirt, felt for something, then looked at it. Apparently satisfied with whatever he'd seen, Heero watched and listened with the rest.

"Heero was right," Wufei was saying, "about there being nothing. The forms were all in order. There's nothing strange about them at all."

"Except the increases in budgeting," Heero added. "Relena, what'd the cabinet approve of for the military budget increase this year?"

"Three percent. They usually increase one percent for each new colony built."

"Okay, so here are the numbers. On a yearly worldwide budget of about a trillion, which is obscene, an increase of three percent would yield an extra thirty billion, yeah?" Heero paused to let the numbers sink in, and then he looked to Wufei. "How much was the actual number this year?"

"Two hundred fifty million extra," Wufei replied mechanically. "Estimated."

Heero explained. "That's an extra quarter percent and there's no accounting for it. No entity who pays in has contributed extra, which means that the additional money is coming from an outside, untracked source. It's fairly well off the books, and we think your money for research and development came out of that quarter percent."

"We figure it's politicians writing it off as unclaimed taxes from citizens," Wufei said. "Of the sixty cabinet members, forty-seven of them had contributions from mining, terraforming, or colony construction interests, and if those corporations make money, the politicians will be making money as well."

Heero nodded. "Everyone stands to benefit if mobile suit and weapons production is ramped up, especially if manufacturers are going to start pumping out these customizable base models."

The room fell silent for what felt an uncomfortable time. As Duo watched the reactions about the room he could tell that some were convinced while others remained slightly skeptical. Duo wasn't certain what to think. He'd known something strange was going on from the outset, but could never have fathomed something so complicated.

"Can you lay this out for us in the plainest terms you can?" Howard said.

Heero nodded. "People benefit from war, so they want to create war. That's the starting point. In order to create the war, the military powers, who are apparently backed by corrupt politicians, wanted to use Maxwell's mobile suit to seize control of a colony to force armed conflict. They still intend to force the conflict even though their plan went to hell. If things work out, the military will be provided equippable, base model mobile suits which they can outfit in any way they deem necessary. This gives them advanced weapons while covering the manufacturer, who can claim that they have no control over what the consumer does with the product once it's out of their production line. The economy will be strengthened through production in wartime as it always is. Everyone involved in the corrupt side of things wins."

"And the colonists and civilians lose," Trowa added blandly.

Duo looked up then and caught Heero's eye. He'd been in the hangar for too long and hadn't been following the news. He felt he had missed something important. "How're they going to force the conflict?" Duo asked, his voice colder than he'd intended.

"Well, that's easy," Sally interjected before Heero could speak. "The military got on the news and said that Relena was captured by colonists. Didn't say which colonists, but just by saying that some rogue colony-born people kidnapped her they were able to justify sending mobile suits to every colony there is," she paused for a breath. "The colonists don't like the mech, they view it as a direct threat, and so they started staging protests. Military didn't like the protests, so they shut them down, which just made the colonists angrier. The protests turned to riots. Military presence increased. Colonists get angrier, military presence increases again. It's a constant loop until you achieve war. It's just a matter of time until first blood, and then it'll all explode."

"So how does this achieve colony independence?" asked Quatre, who seemed distraught.

"Well, nobody who's instigating the conflict really believes independence to be an end result," Heero said. "None of us who've talked about it think that'll be the result either. Like I said earlier, all these people really want to do is make money on the backs of the suffering of thousands of innocent people. They couldn't give a damn if the colonies were independent as long as they get their paycheck."

Again the room went quiet, and now it seemed that everyone was convinced. Their expressions had gone either blank or cold, and as Duo watched them exchanging dark looks he knew it to be truth himself. There could be no other explanation.

Quatre spoke again, and his voice was quiet enough that it seemed the silence had scarcely been broken at all. "So where do these military guys fit in? The ones who attacked us? And why did they attack Relena?"

"We found correspondence between a number of color-labeled groups, or mention of them: Red, blue, black, and white operatives. They seem to be the men who're in on the plan and who stand to benefit the most," Heero explained. He reached for another paper but stopped short when Quatre mentioned that he didn't need a source. "We don't know the hierarchy, but we suppose that each group is in charge of a different aspect of the operation and that they all work under the Captain, like separate branches of the same tree. We figure they attacked all of us because we're a direct threat. Now, if you want to get specific: Relena's one of the few cabinet members who has never accepted funding from mobile suit manufacture, as she's patently against their use," he looked at her sheepishly and added, "Sorry about all of this." Then he looked up at Duo with the same expression he'd shot to Relena. "They wanted to keep you because you were in with both the military and all of us, and because of your skills as a pilot. You were the strongest connection that would allow them access to us. Once they figured out you weren't going to have it, they attempted to kill you, and that's when you destroyed the colony by accident."

Duo wanted to rebut that it hadn't been an accident, but he kept his mouth firmly shut. His blood had begun to boil again, and he felt it best to remain quiet.

"The rest of us? Well you'd be stupid not to understand why they want us out of the way. Never mind we all piloted gundams in the war, which makes us threat enough, but when we're together we've got expertise in pretty much every field you could imagine. We've got enough engineering and mechanical expertise to build weapons that would directly counter the mobile suits the military is producing, and we've got one of the most prominent political figures in colonial history. Hell, we breached their data files and had this meeting within seventy-two hours of hatching the plan."

"That was you, Heero," said Howard from the side, very quietly. "Don't give us credit for that."

Heero waved the compliment away. "The point is, we've got a target on our back and the only thing keeping us safe is the fact that we're in deep space. If we'd stuck around in colonial boundaries we'd probably be dust by now."

"So what do we do?" asked Relena, and she looked about the room with an expression of utmost concern. "I've got to let people know I'm safe. I don't want my absence to be cause for war."

With a deep, shuddering breath, Duo decided to speak. His mind was made up. "You're going to issue a statement to the colonies letting them know that you're okay and exposing the plans of these corrupt bastards," he said icily. "And then you're going to tell the colonists in very explicit terms to fight back. The military wants war? Let's give it to them. They want to toy with the idea of colonial independence? Well, let's play ball."

He stood before anyone had the chance to rebut and made at once for the door. He didn't even look at them. He couldn't. He kept his eyes on the ground.

"What are you going to do, then, Duo?" Howard asked.

He paused with his hand on the doorknob and averted his gaze even more. "I'm going to lead the charge. Get me my parts."