Thanks again for the feedback, everyone. Here's another chapter. We're about to enter the final battle against Waltfeld but there's a couple more incidents to get out of the way first.
Chapter Thirty-Five: Lost in the Echo
Waltfeld and his forces did not strike the next morning when the ceasefire expired, and as it became clear that enemy attack was not imminent, the Archangel and Desert Dawn slowly began to calm down visibly, but everyone was still on edge. It was all too obvious, in the way everyone was walking stiffly and seeming to keep everyone at arm's length.
I was not allowed to go in and talk to Flay again. Not after what had happened the previous day.
It didn't surprise me. Even though I could not just sit there and watch Flay cry, Badgiruel had been right. I had violated some serious protocol. I was sure Murrue had given me some leniency because in spite of my rank I had been a civilian up until a few weeks ago and had zero military training or any sense of military discipline. In general, the worst they had done to any of the Orb civilians were a few days in the brig or putting us on cleaning duty. No court-martials. And, thank God, no executions. Not that Murrue would ever execute anyone, but I had read Earth Alliance protocol and it did allow for it in "extreme" situations, and the captain did have the authority to carry it out.
Badgiruel, if she were captain, however . . . not that she'd abuse the privilege, but I think she definitely would consider harsher punishments for people being out of line, Orb civilian or not.
However, what had happened to Flay made it feel if there was this vise-like grip around my whole body, squeezing it tightly and making it feel like I could barely breathe. You could dress it up any way you want to, but in the end, despite everything Badgiruel said, I could not escape the feeling that it was my fault. All of it.
I was fearful of meeting Sai again, because I knew he had to blame me. I began thinking that was the source of this invisible pressure I had to be feeling. That I was putting off something inevitable, something I absolutely had to do. It was either that or Ahmed blabbing about my genetic identity to the wrong people in Desert Dawn. It made me not want to leave the ship for any reason. Desert Dawn people could not come and go on the Archangel as they pleased, so as long as I stayed onboard, nothing would happen to me even if Dawn as a whole found out. That was my thought process.
Of course, Desert Dawn outnumbered us and we had very few people trained specifically for infantry combat. Not to mention that Dawn had enough firepower to severely damage the Archangel. So if they wanted to, they could assault us just to get me, if they really felt like it.
With those lovely thoughts swirling throughout my head, I managed to focus with enough clarity to go see Sai in the medical bay.
The bay didn't have many people in it this time. It had already been a few days since Hilda's rampage, and she had killed more people than wounded, so the bay was almost completely devoid of patients when I went to Sai's room. When I peeked inside, I saw that he was covered in white, wraparound bandages, mainly around his face. Flay had done a number on him.
I wondered momentarily if Flay had ripped Sai's wrench or whatever he had been hitting the machine with from his hands and smacked him with it. There's no way Flay's fists could've done this alone, could there?
If this had all been done by Flay, without any instruments or tools . . .
I slowly opened the door, hoping to not startle Sai so he wouldn't make his injuries more severe. I was careful with my voice too, keeping it even and gentle. "Sai, it's Cagalli."
Sai did not react violently, but he did make a growling noise as he turned his head towards me. "What do you want?"
"I wanted to see you, that's why."
"What, you're going to say you're sorry for turning my ex-girlfriend into a psycho?"
"Flay is not psychotic. I hope not, anyway," I said.
"But you're still going to say you're sorry."
"That's right, I am. What, you're not gonna accept it?"
"No, I'm not."
"Then get a frickin' life, Sai. It's my fault and I'm sorry this happened to you and I'm going to do what I can to get Flay back to normal as possible."
"Whatever. I don't even care."
He wasn't even looking at me anymore, he had turned his head so he was looking at the blank wall. And that was pissing me off.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you. At least give me eye contact."
"I don't even want to hear you right now."
"Sai, don't pull this crap on me."
"Go away!"
Okay. He was beyond pissing me off now. I marched right towards the bed and walked around so I was between him and the blank wall. Sai responded by turning his head back towards the door, and I immediately marched back to where I had been standing.
"I'll do this all day, Sai! I will! At least let me talk to you so I can tell you how I'm going to make this better!" I said.
"You've already done enough," Sai said, and his voice suggested that he was starting to choke up, he was struggling not to cry. "I don't want to know what brilliant ideas you're coming up with, okay?"
"I was trying to protect Elle from Flay, and now I have to protect Flay from herself. I'm trying to tell you that so you know that Flay isn't going to go back on that simulator anymore. I don't care if I have to be her therapist as long as we're on this ship. I'll do what it takes for your girlfriend to come back, Sai!"
"How many times do I have to tell you that it doesn't matter!" Sai screamed at me.
That was not the reaction I wanted. I looked out the door, wondering if any doctors or nurses were going to come charging in here. It didn't sound like it. The place had been somewhat deserted when I had come here . . . it was lunch hour.
"It does matter! She's your-"
"She is not my girlfriend! Not anymore! This stupid war took her away and then you finished her off! That bitch who attacked me and beat me half to death is not Flay. Not the one I knew. She's someone else."
"Sai, please, I can-"
"And I don't want to see your stupid face, Cagalli, okay? No offense. You made this worse by sticking her in the stupid simulator. You want to go all half-cocked as a therapist or whatever to her, I don't care. It's over. It doesn't matter to me. Just go out and blow crap up. That's what you're good at."
I briefly entertained the thought of adding a few extra injuries on top of what Flay had done, but I suppressed those urges. "Sai, you're my friend, and I screwed up. I'm taking responsibility and I'm going to-"
"We're not friends, Cagalli. You're just some girl who fixed Professor Kato's papers. That's all you were," Sai interrupted.
"Dammit, Sai, don't lie to yourself! We saw each other almost every single damn day on Heliopolis! I consider you a friend and I'm going to make it up to you because this shouldn't have happened to you!"
"So you treat your friends like garbage and you kill your enemies. I hate to see what you'll do to Tolle," Sai snapped.
I knew he had said that just to rile me up so I'd have to leave or risk completely losing it. And, to make matters worse, it worked. I could not stand there anymore. "Screw you, Sai. I love Tolle. He's the only guy who has ever unconditionally accepted me as who I am. He means the world to me."
"Do you really believe that? I could've sworn you had something for that guy in ZAFT instead. Though, knowing you, I bet you'll find some way to get them both killed and then it won't matter," Sai replied.
That did it. Last straw. I stomped right out of the room after screaming "Go to hell!"
Jerk.
I didn't know where I was going on the Archangel and I didn't much care. I needed to blow off some serious steam after that little argument in the medical bay, and to make matters worse, I wanted to hurt something. I was, for a moment, glad Tori was nowhere near around. Nor that Haro that Lacus Clyne had. I would have strongly considered smashing them.
I knew Sai was angry for good reason. But he didn't need to be that cruel, did he? Maybe he was so busy rolling around full of self-pity and self-loathing that he had yelled at me just so he could feel worse. I don't know how that works, wanting to be depressed. That just does not make a lick of sense to me.
After pacing all around the Archangel, I realized I was extremely thirsty for some reason. I had passed by the kitchen, and I turned around and peeked inside, and there was Miriallia and Elle. I was kind of surprised, then I realized that Miriallia kind of was taking care of Elle when I wasn't around. I had originally given that duty to Prince Kira, but Elle wasn't exactly supposed to hang around the hangar bay, and Miriallia was my roommate, so it made sense that backup caregiver had to be her.
I wondered how the investigation into the murder of Elle's mother was going. Was Miriallia still a suspect? Did I really want Dorothy Eliarez's possible murderer hanging around her child?
I forced myself to think that Miriallia wasn't capable of that. She couldn't be. She didn't have it in her. Not only that, she was my best friend. Other than Tolle, I could trust her with anything. That's how it should work, anyway.
When I peeked inside, Elle saw me right away. She smiled at me brightly. "Cagalli!"
I walked inside the kitchen, smiled, and bent down at Elle's level. "Hi there!"
She ran towards me and hugged me. "How are you?"
"Miriallia's showing me stuff! Where you've been?"
"Just walking around the ship, looking for something to do."
"That's weird."
"You'll understand someday."
Miriallia walked over to us, but remained standing. "I'm not showing her anything dangerous, Cagalli, I promise. I was just letting her have a quick look at how the kitchen works. We have some new food that's gotta be prepared differently, you know?"
"Oh really?" I asked.
"It seems the cuisine has been 'localized' to a degree," Miriallia replied. "It's better than the junk we've been swallowing."
"It's spicy, even with yogurt sauce," Elle chimed in.
That immediately made me think of Waltfeld, with his own obsession with yogurt sauce on the local cuisine. I was going to have to kill that man soon, and that uncomfortable reminder made me drift off for just a second.
But I forced myself to return to Earth. I was getting sick and tired of confusing Elle with all of my drifting. "I like chili sauce on the food, personally."
"That makes it even hotter!" Elle exclaimed, looking shocked.
"What can I say? I like hot and spicy food. Nothing's too hot for me. I'll even have habanero peppers on my food if I can have them. Hottest peppers humans can eat raw."
"Oh wow," Elle said softly, her eyes looking shocked.
Miriallia just sighed. "Seriously? I can't even stomach jalepenos much less those."
I chuckled. "What I can say? I'm hot stuff."
Miriallia just gave me a look. "I'm gonna pretend you didn't say that."
I laughed. "What, that remind you of Tolle?"
"Remind me of Tolle? Cagalli, that basically was Tolle."
"I guess I have a terminal case of Tolle-ness going on right now."
"Among other things."
It was a simple moment, a funny moment, something I badly needed, especially after what had happened with Sai. I felt like my old self in that instance, despite the military uniform I had on and the metallic, drab surroundings on the kitchen. It reminded me of the life I once had, a life that was so far away but seemed so tantalizingly close now that I was reminded of it.
It was just like that little discussion with Waltfeld the previous day. A reminder of a simpler, friendlier time.
And moments like those were rapidly becoming all that I wanted.
"No way," Miriallia replied, when I pressed a certain point. "No. Flay is not moving in next to us or with us, no matter for any reason. I know you're in bleeding-heart mode, Cagalli, but I saw her go psycho on Sai too. I don't want her near me."
"I don't want her near me either," Elle said, confirming that I had managed to accomplish my goal of Elle not wanting anything to do with Flay. Unfortunately, it was something I had accomplished too well.
"I don't know what else I can do to keep Flay from going off the deep end. You have any better ideas?" I asked.
"Yeah. Keep her locked up so it won't matter if she goes 'off the deep end'," Miriallia replied.
It took me a moment to remember that Miriallia didn't like Flay either on Heliopolis, though Miriallia did have a tendency to get dragged into Flay's gossip. Appearances were deceiving, especially on Heliopolis. Tolle was the only person who hadn't revealed something odd since Heliopolis by that point. I'm a Coordinator, Miriallia may or may not be a murderer, Flay's potentially psychotic, Sai's emo, and Kuzzey . . . huh, I guess Kuzzey could be grouped with Tolle.
I pick my peers well. Yessiree.
"I want to take responsibility," I said. "I think that as long Flay has people around her, and she stays away from the simulator, she can be brought back to her old self . . . well, somewhat."
Miriallia raised an eyebrow. "I don't know about this, Cagalli. Seriously. You did not see her lose it when Sai decided to beat on the simulator."
"I got a pretty good idea when I saw her in the brig," I replied.
There was a brief pause, Miriallia seemed to be waiting for me to continue. "I just don't know," I finally added. "Everyone tells me to leave her alone, but I can tell she needs someone to help her. She's practically crying for help, Miri."
I looked at Elle. I smiled at her and rubbed her head a little. "I can't help but want to be there for people, Miri. Especially for Elle here."
Miriallia sighed. "I get it."
It reminded me, though, that there was something else I needed to do. "I haven't talked with Tolle since the brig incident. I'm going to go find him. Can you keep an eye on Elle for a while longer?"
"Yeah, I got another hour or so to kill before my shift on the bridge starts."
"Thank you," I said. "I'll be right back, Elle, okay?"
"Okay, Cagalli."
The way Melanie looked at me reminded me of the way she looked at her mother, a little. Somehow, I had proven myself to be the only person she could trust. That wasn't good. She needed other people. I was hoping Miriallia could be that person, but she was still a suspect in murdering Elle's mother in the first place. I just kept telling myself that it couldn't be Miriallia. It couldn't be.
Of course, those thoughts soon left my mind.
The moment I rounded the corner, just thirty or so seconds after I left my sleeping quarters, I bumped into a muscular man. He towered over me, and when I looked up, I saw a triumphant smile on his face.
Then it hit me. Oh crap-
Instantly, I felt the blow to the back of my head. Oddly, I couldn't think of anything other than Ahmed as darkness overcame me.
It was Badgiruel's warning come true . . . Desert Dawn had come for me. And they were ready for me.
When I woke up, I was in a dark cave with a few scattered wooden boxes strewn everywhere, some intact, some with pieces missing, and others smashed outright. It smelled terrible in here too. Smelled almost like death itself.
Then I realized I was smelling blood. And that there was a great big ache in the back of my head.
I panicked for a moment, looking frantically around both myself and around me, for any sign of where I was, and whether Iwas the one who was bleeding. As I looked left, I saw a young man, his face looking like it had slammed headfirst into brick, with bruises, cuts, and wlets all over his face.
Ahmed.
"Ahmed, Ahmed, are you okay? What happened?" I hissed to him.
But someone was here in this cave, and he overheard me, and understood my language. I heard his footsteps approach, in this cave, with its echoes, it sounded louder, gigantic, intimidating, that made me shiver just a little bit.
"He thought he could keep a secret from us, that's what happened," said a man in a fairly strong accent, though he was understandable.
I realized what it was in an instant. Ahmed had told Sahib Ashman. But, clearly, the talk hadn't been private. Not at all.
"Little Ahmed here forgot how far sound travels in caves," the man said, nudging Ahmed with his foot. Much to my horror, Ahmed's body fell over immediately, and the man sighed in dismay.
"He still hasn't regained consciousness? I wonder what Sahib has so much faith in this child. He clearly doesn't have the strength to weather much of anything. He obviously doesn't have the guts to help create a pure, blue world."
I recognized those buzzwords in an instant. The Earth Alliance liked to pretend that it didn't exist, but every Coordinator, whether through experience or hearsay, knew all about that organization.
"You're from Blue Cosmos, huh?" I asked.
The man chuckled. "Yes, Coordinator infidel. I am. So are others in Desert Dawn."
"Why?" I asked.
"Because Blue Cosmos is the only organization still fighting for the world when it was pure!" the man shouted. I flinched for a second, thinking he was going to hit me, but he refrained. "You are an impurity worse than the Zionists! You are a result of humans thinking they should do Allah's work! All of you should be exterminated and the world returned to what it should be!"
I heard him yank his gun from his holster, and while his visage wasn't clear in the darkness, I knew he had to be pointing it at me. "I am not alone in my thoughts. Sahib Ashman likes to pretend that we don't feel this way, but we do. Many of us would rather die than be protected by a Coordinator."
I could not stop myself from snapping back. Maybe it was adrenaline, or maybe I just wanted to get the whole "dying" thing over with. "I betcha you won't feel that way when the Tiger comes along and has one his BuCUEs stomp you flat. You'll just realize that maybe, just maybe, you don't want to die."
"Silence!" No gunshot, just a whack to the face. A whack that hurt. Badly. I immediately knew I was going to get a welt on my face over that one, that is, if I didn't die here.
"How can you know what we feel?" the man shouted. "That this whole time, we were being deceived by the Atlantic Federation over you! The entire ship will be destroyed for this, for bringing an impurity down to Earth!"
"The Archangel is what keeps you people alive too," I replied. "Killing them will just mean you'll die faster. That's why Sahib formed an alliance with us."
"Again, I'd rather die than be 'saved' by you," the man said.
"I'm sure Blue Cosmos would like you to die too," I replied. "Saves less clean-up work for them."
Before the man could respond, I heard shouts of surprise, and then a metallic clink as something rolled around the floor in front of me. A couple of gunshots went off in the distance as I stared at the canister as it stopped a few feet in front of me.
Wait a minute, is that a flashbang-
A loud noise, my vision being lost in white, and an incessant ringing confirmed my analysis.
It felt like forever before the white faded from my eyes, and the ringing began to fade like white noise being overtaken by life. As it did, I realized I was actually moving, that I was being supported by someone. I looked to my right, and I saw a familiar face.
"Badgiruel?" I asked.
"Took you long enough," Badgiruel said coolly.
"I can stand, you can let me go," I said.
"Just stop shouting in my ear," Badgiruel replied.
There was still a ringing in my ears as I separated from her. I was barely able to keep from falling down but I caught myself. It took me a moment to realize that we were at the entrance to the cave, that the desert was in front of us. It was gleaming brightly, and it looked like the most beautiful thing in the world to me at that instant.
"You saved me, huh?" I asked.
"I didn't work alone, I had a couple of those special-ops types who survived Tassil come and help," Badgiruel said. She sighed. "But you shouldn't be talking to me, I should be talking to you."
Uh oh.
"Remember how I told you that you're overexposed, Ensign?" she asked me.
"Yes," I said. "I wasn't going to leave the ship, but I was abducted while onboard. I have no idea how they snuck me out here to be honest."
"They stuffed you into a crate and got you out that way," Badgiruel replied. "And that's not my point."
"Yes, I know. I'm the most valuable soldier onboard and I should conduct myself that way," I said.
"If that man had been more willing to get to the point instead of rant his creed at you, you would have been dead long before we could've saved you. You could've been killed on the ship even," Badgiruel replied. "As it is, did he violate you?"
That sickening thought charged through my mind for about five seconds before I realized the truth.
"No, no one did. I'd know," I replied.
Badgiruel sighed with relief. "Well, that is good news. Though I suppose they didn't want to prostrate themselves on an 'impurity' like you."
"Yeah, lucky me," I replied sarcastically. "They only wanted to kill me."
"The man was hypocritical," Badgiruel said. "If he didn't truly care about his life, he would have killed you on the ship where you were and been gunned down. You read people surprisingly well, Ensign."
"I ama political science major," I replied. "Reading people is part of it."
Badgiruel sighed. "You keep reminding us of this and you keep . . . never mind. I'll chew you out tomorrow over this. Get back to the ship, back to your room, and stay there. That's an order, Ensign."
I realized that there was no arguing with Badgiruel here. "Yes, ma'am. I'm leaving."
"And don't listen to anything loud either," Badgiruel added as I began walking away. "I don't want you to have any permanent hearing damage. And I'm going to get you some ice packs for those blows to the head you took."
If the situation wasn't so serious I would have laughed at Badgiruel seeming to care for my well-being. But I knew why she did. She was a pragmatic person, always looking to use me because she knew I was her outlet for survival. If it wasn't for that I'd just be another soldier for her to chew out.
But, as I stopped briefly at the cave entrance and turned around to see Badgiruel vanish back into the cave's darkness, I wondered if her special-ops "connections", part of the reason why I remained alive, had been formed through networking . . . or through the field?
Yet another mysterious aspect of a person I was only just starting to know, lost in the echoes of everyone else's little skeletons and mysteries they never want people to see.
I was looking forward to be back on the Archangel and deal with those secrets. Compared to the secrets of those Desert Dawn soldiers who were followers of Blue Cosmos; Flay going crazy, Sai going emo, and Miriallia possibly being a murderer seemed like bliss.
I was almost looking forward to dealing with all of that again.
Almost.
