"What do you mean, "it doesn't have MANUAL MODE"!?" The heavily bandaged man half shouted, drawing stares from all over the transportation hub. The equally heavily bandaged woman standing nearby just rolled her eyes and crossed her arms across her chest in an unconscious motion that almost doubled her up with pain when she jostled the large bandage just under her breasts. She slowly lowered her arms to her sides, glad that the bandaged man hadn't seen the momentary lapse. He had more than enough on his plate as it was, just trying to find a car. And there was no arguing with him either, despite the painful facts. Plainly put, the PLANTS didn't allow manually operated vehicles, the same as most space colonies. It was a common safety measure. Space was a dangerous enough place as it was, without adding drunk drivers and vehicle pile-ups.

"Sir, please calm down." The harried looking rental clerk, who looked to be in his mid eighties, said with exasperation in his voice. He was the only human clerk, since most transport rentals were handled by computers. And he was only there because sometimes the computers had problems, he wasn't an actual service clerk by inclination or training. "It's illegal to rent manually operated cars. We don't HAVE any to rent anyway. The only place you can get a manual car is from the government, and only then if your job warrents it. Please, sir, there are other people waiting to use the machines. Could you please make a selection, or I'll call the MP's and have you removed."

"FINE! Fuck it!" Alkire grunted, punching in a request for a car. This was total bullshit, but apparently this TRAVESTY was normal in space! THIS was motivation to win the war right here... if he had to forgo driving a car for the rest of his life he was just going to go skydiving naked instead! For a race of people with superior reflexes, mental cognition and eyesight to intentionally LIMIT themselves from the pleasures of driving... Coordinators were FUCKING IDIOTS! "Can you BELIEVE this shit?" He asked Raine, shaking his head furiously, his chest feeling like it was on fire because of his agitated breathing. "Bunch of automotive eunuchs! I offered to pay two hundred GRAND and they STILL didn't have anything for me!"

"That's because they actually don't have anything, dear. Like he said... it's illegal to rent or sell or own a manual car without a special license from the government." Raine replied patiently. "I hear it reduces the teen mortality rate by ninety percent."

"Good for the fucking teens." Alkire grumped, still ruffled as they made their way out to the curb, where their car was already waiting for them. Like most PLANT cars, it was a convertible with an optional soft top. At least he'd managed to find a blue one, so it "sort of" looked like his ferrari. Assuming you were stoned, and didn't know what a fucking ferrari looked like. "Do you know HOW LONG it has been since I actually obeyed a posted speed limit?"

"Get it out of your system now, Robert." Raine sighed. "You're in no fit condition to be operating a motor vehicle anyway, and you know it. You should be in a hospital bed."

"So should you." Alkire grumbled, but he had to admit she had a point. Just taking the elevator down from the spaceport had been hard on him, and he really couldn't afford the energy to be carrying on like he was. Four gunshot wounds in the chest wasn't something you just walked away from, no matter the quality of modern medicine. Most of his insides were being held together with spit, glue, surgical tape and prayers. But it wasn't in his constitution to just lie down and whimper until the pain went away. Especially not after he'd told the kids to have the time of their goddamn lives. How could he pass up the chance to do the same? He wasn't going to let a mere four close range hollow point bullets to the upper chest... "Urg!" He gasped, from the effort of heaving his and Raine's duffel bags into the back seat. Okay, so maybe he'd give it a day or so.

The sedate pace of the car as it slipped away from the transport hub and into Aprilius One traffic was a constant wound to his adventurous soul, but the pure, undeniable beauty of the PLANT was a pretty damn good salve and distraction. "Remind me to clock Ysak one too, later. Katie was right, he did neglect to mention anything about paradise when he talked about home."

"It is breathtaking." Raine agreed, reclining her seat and slipping on a pair of sun shades. "For the moment."

"Wouldn't have expected YOU to be a downer." Alkire commented, doing likewise, belaying his outward attitude of distrust of automated vehicles. He just didn't LIKE them... he didn't deny that they worked very well. He typed in a request for the car to take them to the highest quality hotel it could find and then let himself relax. "Something wrong?"

"Despite the fact that we both almost died, Victor is dead and we're officially trapped in a space colony that's going to experience massive social chaos and starvation riots in a month or two?"

"We've been through worse. Except for Victor." Alkire replied, with a wince. "He got Asmodeus though."

"Asmodeus let himself be got, and we both know it." Raine closed her eyes. She'd take in the sights later, when she was feeling better. "He wanted to die... but I don't think he really, deep down, wanted to take us all with him. He could have done that if he'd wanted to. He wanted to die... but he also wanted us to stop him. He'd made his point."

"His point?"

"That what chance did we have of stopping the Isolation, who'd beaten HIM, if we couldn't do the same? That, and to bear in mind that people are never truly defeated, until they let themselves be defeated. He was giving us some advice. And a warning. Well, and trying to kill us all, but he stacked the deck in our favor. He screwed the Archangel over good and proper... but he sacrificed himself to do it. And, if it hadn't been for the unexpected presence of that ZAFT Gundam we salvaged, the Isolationists would never have attacked us. Hell, they'd probably have HELPED us kill Frost. He was giving us all a last lesson in what to do when you have no other options. When all you can see around you is death... it becomes a matter of choosing How you're going to die, to what purpose you're going to spend your life."

"That's a pretty heavy point. Do you really think we're at that stage?"

"I don't know. He seemed to think we were, obviously. I'll admit to a bit of crisis of faith at the moment."

"It's gonna sound strange coming from me... but I got faith in the pink princess and that thick headed bastard Kira." Alkire said after a few moments. "And the rest of their hopeless bunch of libertines, idealists and patriots. We ain't got no ships, no guns, no knives, no transport, no backup, no support... NOTHING to our names... and they STILL ain't giving up."

"Because you gave a pep talk. They were down in the dumps and ready to roll over until you shamed them into feeling better."

"Yeah. About that. Don't tell anyone this... but I was SO TOTALLY being sarcastic. We got OWNED, plain and simple. We simply DON'T have the forces to make a difference! But before I could get to the punchline, everyone got cheery. What the FUCK was I supposed to do, dash their hopes?"

"Reverse psychology at its best, eh?" Raine cracked an eye and smirked slightly. "You missed the turn."

"What!?" Alkire grabbed the wheel and stamped his foot down on a brake pedal that wasn't there. "Oh. Oh, funny. That's fucking real funny, Raine. You're a real card. Why the FUCK they put a steering wheel on these things when it doesn't DO anything... its torture. This is a fucking police state. Big brother is already fucking with my head! And you're HELPING! What am I going to do with you?"

"I'm sure you'll figure out something appropriate once we recover enough to share a bed again." Raine smiled. "Until then, you get to live in fear."

"I shoulda gone with Kisaka."

--

"All right! Take thirty two. Get those fucking dancers in place! And do this lively this time, you overpaid unionized bastards!" The music video director shouted from his crane operated observation chair. He really wasn't choleric with anger, but music video directors were EXPECTED to be foul mouthed, pushy bastards, and he was dedicated to upholding the proud tradition. Thirty two takes to get a major hit single turned into a viable music video would be something of a record actually. He was privately expecting something in the lower triple digits, speaking from long experience. Another four or five days at least, then a few weeks more for the digital additions to be worked in and the product to be finalized. There was a lot more to the music video industry than just grabbing a band, some cameras, and a suitable location... it was like shooting a small movie really. With all the hardships that implied. Though he was fortunate this time. Despite their wild cult popularity, the ladies of Avaunte Noctem, the new "IN" band on the goth-industrial music scene of the Eurasian and Atlantic Federations, weren't anywhere near as "prima donna" as most of the pop and straight rock bands he'd worked with in the past. The reviewers raved that their "off stage" personalities as "everyday girls" was a major reason for their success, but the director didn't really see much difference between off and on stage. They were just nice, courteous girls who really loved their music.

He was just about to cue the band to start when a completely unexpected wrench dropped into the works. As a matter of course, all cell phones and other personal communication devices were supposed to be turned off during film shooting. Enforcing that rule was one of his chief headaches, and one of the few problems he had with this band. They were all in their young to mid twenties, and they had reacted with real horror to the thought of being cut off from their cell phones. He'd managed to eventually compromise with them to let them keep the phones on, but on silent mode. He checked each phone at the start of each day to ensure it actually WAS set on silent, just as a precautionary thing of course. After the first two days, they'd actually realized he was serious, and from then on they'd followed the rule, though somewhat unhappily. Like he'd said... they were nice and courteous girls at heart. Thus, when he first heard the rather bloodchilling rising howl of some sort of predatory beast rising from directly beneath him, he turned to chew out some hapless staff member.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT NOISE!?" The director demanded. "WAS I UNCLEAR ABOUT THE CELL PHONES!? SOMEONE IS GETTING REAM..." he died off in mid tirade as none other than Wrenn Nostaliviche, the leader singer and star of the band, raced off stage to grab her cell phone, which was shaking and howling like it was possessed by some sort of hellish animal. The director was stumped as to what to do now. He couldn't chew out Wrenn, since she was the one who'd HIRED him and his company. But he'd made himself VERY clear about the phones. He frowned... he'd inspected that phone earlier, and it had been on silent. And Wrenn hadn't touched it since then. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "Ms. Nostaliviche..."

"SHHHH!" She hushed him imperiously, holding the phone to her ear with an expression of surprised delight on her face. "I wasn't expecting you to call anytime soon. I'm in the middle of a shoot right now you know? Well, yeah, you did know. You would. I'm going to get in trouble you know. What? WHAT!? REALLY!? But you said... REALLY!? Um... but I'm in the middle of a shoot right now. Oh. Oh. Yeah, you have a point. I guess that would work, if it was a direct order. You're sure? Okay... just a moment."

The director had been getting a progressively worse feeling as he listened to the phone call. He had the suspicion that... "Mr. Director, I'm really sorry, but something unexpected has come up. I need to leave. Right now."

"A family emergency, Ms. Nostaliviche?" The director prayed it was something like that. The contract had provisions for such things.

"Well... not really. But I NEED to go. I don't get chances like this much."

"Ms. Nostaliviche, not to be blunt, but you don't get chances to do music video's much either." The director retorted, as gently as he could.

"Yeah I know. But this is WAY more important, I'm sorry."

"Can you tell me what it is?" The director groaned. This was a fifty million dollar contract. He really couldn't afford to delay this.

"Um. No. That would be bad. But you should be getting a call soon that will make everything better."

"Ms. Nostaliviche, if you walk out now, our contract will be voided. Neither of us can afford that." The director pleaded.

"Oh, I'm not quitting the video. I'm just... putting it on hold for a bit. Like, a week or so."

"It's costing my company two million dollars a day to hold this shoot, Ms. Nostaliviche. We have at most two days of squirm time." The director explained, slowly and heavily. His career was toast if this contract went down the drain.

"Oh. Hold on a sec." She put the phone up to her ear again, and the director started to sigh in relief. Averted disaster by a whisker. He was getting too old for this shit. "There's a financial problem at this end. Two mil... oh. Oh. Of course you considered that. Okay, no problem then. See you soon." The director caught his sigh before he could hex himself. Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!

"It's being taken care of, Mr. Director. Executively, or so I'm told." Wrenn turned towards her band and waved goodbye. They were all staring at her somewhat enviously, but they wouldn't talk. They all knew very well what that ring tone signified. Only one person on Wrenn's phone had that tone, and he didn't officially exist. Wrenn didn't have a boyfriend. She had a Hellhound, and he was a very scary individual. And very sweet too, once you got to know him. Assuming you didn't pry into his life, or otherwise cross him. They all wished THEY had boyfriends like him, even if he only came around every couple months for a day or two. Or, extremely rarely, called out of the blue and could pull enough strings to yank Wrenn out of the middle of a major music video contract with no damage to her... and their... careers. "I'll be back in a week or so. Don't have too much fun without me!"

"Where are you going, Ms. Nostaliviche? Can you at least tell me that?" The director begged. "Or who it is that is calling?"

"Oh, Mr. Director, I wish I could. But I don't want you to die." And with those somewhat troubling words, Wrenn Nostaliviche, goth-industrial superstar, was haring off out of the building, cell phone pressed to her ear, the expression of an excited schoolgirl going on her first date with the hottest guy in school all over her face.

"Oh fuck me." The director put his face in his hands. He felt like he was going to cry.

"Director! Director! You have a call on your office line! It... it's the President!"

"What the hell does John want? How the hell does he know to call NOW? Motherfu..."

"No, the OTHER President. World President Argyle is on your office line! He says he wants to talk to you about... finances?"

"What... the... fuck...?"

--

"This is the place? Doesn't look like the kind of ranges I'm used to." Alkire complained, as the car pulled into a semi-crowded parking lot on Maius Eight. Unlike most of the other couples or groups, they weren't staying in any one place for long, but were rather hopping through as many of the cities of the PLANTS as they could, spending a day or two in each seeing the sights before moving on to the next city. It certainly made the time fly by, though they had spent four full days at the beginning pretty much stuck in a room on Aprilius, sedated and mostly confined to beds while they did their best to heal. They still weren't anywhere particularly near to fully well, but both of them were feeling antsy after almost a week of enforced sloth. "It's just a bigass old hanger bay."

"Think urban combat, dopehead." Raine replied. "We're lucky they even HAVE a range... most places in the PLANTS use laser lights and electronic harnesses."

Alkire shuddered as if in pain. "Please, don't even talk about such horrid places. Lasertag is for toddlers and cripples. It just AIN'T REAL."

"And paintball is? Last time I checked, you didn't bleed blue, even if you ARE obscenely rich."

"Of course paintball is real. Getting a hardened waxy ball to the gnads at eleven hundred feet per second is about as REAL as it gets. At least, without serious hospital time thrown in." Alkire replied with a cheery grin.

"Speaking of hospital time, don't we still need some?"

"You can cut the act, dear. I know you're hankering to pretend to waste a whole bunch of arrogant Coordinator wankers as much as I am." Alkire managed not to stumble as a twinge of pain rebounded around his chest. Pain was weakness leaving the body, right? Well, he hadn't realized there was still so much weakness in him, given all that had happened to him. He wondered when he'd finally get it all out. "Let's go in. I'll buy you a swanky new sniper rifle?"

"You sure know how to talk to girls." Raine rolled her eyes, but let him lead her by the hand into the shop under the sign stating that this was "Hideki's Mega Paintball Emporium" in proud ten foot neon green letters. Maybe she was twisted, but she was kind of looking forward to having some fun obliterating a bunch of "oh so good" teenagers. Coordinator teenagers was just icing on the cake. The shop was decently big, but not particularly busy. The medium height, rather plump Coordinator of asian descent with a wild chin beard standing behind the check out counter barely even glanced their way. That would probably be Hideki then. They wandered up and down the aisles of gear, pointing at various pieces and either nodded in agreement or shaking their heads to indicate a veto by one or the other.

Yang Hideki watched the middle aged couple browse through his inventory and he sighed. Look, look, look. That's what usually happened. Most serious paintballers bought their stuff online these days, or made it themselves. He had a whole bunch of rental guns, but they rarely saw any use. The couple seemed to complete their inspection of his goods, and he didn't see a single item in their hands. He needed to post a sign that said "minimum purchase of thirty dollars required to browse" or something. Seriously, maintenance and cleaning charges on the range were eating him alive, and the only thing keeping him afloat was occasional training contracts from the ZAFT Scouts junior infantry groups. Hideki was so caught up in his morose thoughts that he was slightly startled to see the couple standing in front of him, with slightly predatory grins on their faces.

"Uh. Can I help you?" Yang asked, recovering himself. How the hell had they gotten all the way from the back corner to the desk without him seeing them? Well, now that he looked closer they did sorta give off that "military" aura.

"Oh, I hope so." The man, with his hazel eyes and brown-blonde hair said cheerfully. His date, or girlfriend or lover or wife or whatever, with the short black hair and blue eyes, just nodded. "But before we go any further, I need to ask some questions. Like, what are the rules of the range?"

"Er..." Yang found himself unnerved by the woman's thousand yard stare. Military all right. Maybe SERIOUS military, not the usual desk jockey's that sometimes stopped by. "Standard one hit to the torso, head or limbs to knock out, judges discretion. If out, you're out till end of game or ten minutes pass. Shoot a judge or judge-camera, which are bright orange, you can't miss them and you're out for a game. We play three team free for all mostly, red, green and blue teams. Paint from your own color doesn't count as a knock out. If you're out, you have to walk with your hands up to a clearly marked waiting area. Excessive shooting of people who are out will get you ejected from the game."

"How big is the range?" The woman asked.

"We have two. Both are triple fortress style square courses about fifty meters on a side, with open ground, multi-level outbuildings, fortresses and low ground trenches. Lots of obstacles and barriers. Lots of close range stuff, but there's definitely room for a sniper duel if that's your thing. We discourage climbing on the course obstacles, but it's not illegal."

"Gun rules?" The man asked, after trading a wide and decidedly malicious smile with his wife.

"Full auto is fine. No frozen or dried paint allowed, use of such will get you ejected from the course with no refund. Maximum velocity of twelve hundred FPS at ten meters, we have calibration cubbies just inside the main building door. Wearing face shields or eye protection is mandatory, but other protective gear is optional. Your body after all. Do you have gear or do you need to rent it?"

"Rent? No, no... I don't like renting. I'd hate to have something I borrowed get broken. We're buying." The man replied amiably. He plunked down a hand written list in front of Yang. "We'll start with these, and we might come back for more depending on how it works out."

Yang studied the list and his jaw dropped. "Um, sir... you realize this is several thousand dollars worth of gear, right?"

"You take paper, right?" Alkire's grin was tremendous as he plopped a three inch neatly bound stack of paper money onto the counter.

After collecting their purchases from the shocked almost speechless propetier, Alkire and Raine lugged their cache outside to help each other put it on, with the assistance of a roll of duct tape, some bungie cords and a few other odds and ends from one of Alkire's "emergency provisions" bags that he'd managed to smuggle onto the PLANTS. Nothing in the bag was a "weapon" per se... but it wouldn't take him long to make a surprising number of makeshift weapons with the material at hand if he had to. Something Vlad had taught them all, from his vast experience in terrorist ops, where he would frequently arrive with nothing but the clothes on his back and maybe a single small pack, thoroughly inspected, of personal belongings. No high tech measures could get through PLANT transportation security, at least not with total certainty, so being able to work low tech, with everyday items, was essential.

At length they finished helping each other dress and adjust their weapons and stepped back a bit to admire their handiwork. It really wasn't all that much different from how they helped each other dress for going into real combat, except that the guns were toyish looking, since making paintball weapons in the shape of real military gear was something only the government could do legally. Raine had a "sniper" type gun, though in paintball that just meant it could launch a ball about as far as you could throw a baseball, just faster and in a mostly straight line. It was a semi-auto burst weapon, firing three balls every time you clenched the trigger. Raine also had two pistols and several paint grenades, plus several hundred rounds of ammo and the armor, which consisted of torso and back plates, arm and shin guards, gloves and a full face helmet. Alkire wore identical armor, but had only one pistol and a more "normal" paintball gun that fired either semi-auto or fully automatic, though his "tweaks" had adjusted that to three round burst as well. He also carried several paint grenades, and a massive amount of ammo. The other contestants waiting for a game to open up were looking at them askance, obviously wondering who these "hardcore" old geezers were. Nobody else there was over twenty.

"Care to make a wager?" Alkire asked, as they pulled on faded and worn green numbered jersy's. Alkire was number twenty two, Raine was thirteen. "I bet I waste more teens than you."

"Don't set yourself up for failure, love. If you can kill a third as many of them as me, you should count yourself lucky." Raine replied with a gentle smile. "I bet I get shot less than you do."

"Um... no brainer, miss SNIPER." Alkire retorted. He thought for a moment. "No, wait, we'll do that. Loser buys dinner?"

"It's your money anyway."

"It's the principle of the thing. Namely, you lose, I win." Alkire smiled wolfishly, which Raine returned. After about ten minutes of trash talk and dangerous looks that had everyone around them fearing that they were about to start shooting each other right then and there in the waiting area, they joined the rest of their twelve person team, who looked disgusted at having not only the "old" people but the "girl" on their team. Not that girls were necessarily BAD at paintball... but there was a strong stereotype. Shortly afterwards they were admitted onto the course, each team entering from a different point right behind their fortress. They were given a minute to spread out before the game started, during which time Alkire made good progress towards the blue base, while Raine found a comfortable spot on the roof of their own. The buzzer sounded... and the thirty four Coordinators playing were treated to a small slice of real warfare over the next nine minutes and thirty seven seconds.

Alkire was crouched behind a "V" shaped hip high obstacle in near the middle of the field when the game started. He paused, counted to ten and then popped out, gun out at tactical present. Three precise bursts later and he ducked back down again, as a horizontal rain of red and blue paint blasted into the other side of his barricades. Still, there was less blue fire than red fire, since he'd taken out three of them with bursts to the neck and facial areas as they tried to bum rush to the middle of the battle zone. They obviously hadn't seen him arrive at their intended target area, because they'd been running full tilt while shooting at the red base, and his shots had caught them from the blind side, so much so that the closest, who couldn't have been more than fourteen, actually tripped and fell over backwards in surprise.

"Blue 12, 82, 64 you are OUT!" The judicial announcement systems blared. "Green 6 and 19, you are OUT!" Alkire frowned... looks like he had some reckless dopes on his side too. It was just a game, but in his mindset, those were still friendly casualties that could possibly have been avoided. "Red... Red... holy shit... Red 10, 57, 73, 28, 31, 11, 99 and 7, you are ALL OUT!"

"Showoff." Alkire mumbled into the cell phone he'd rigged under his helmet so he and Raine could maintain voicecomms during the fight. Maybe not strictly legal... but there was no rule forbiding it either.

"They aren't making it very hard." Raine replied. He heard the faint "chuff-chuff-chuff" of her gun firing.

"Blue 45, you are OUT!"

"No concept of how to use cover to advance. It's like shooting religious terrorists." Raine added, smoothly tracking her gun around as the other teams seemed to get the hint and hunkered down from their wild initial charges. "Spray, pray and scream your head off till I blow it off." Raine lofted a few bursts through the second floor windows of the Red fortress, hoping for a lucky strike. There was ALWAYS some bastard who thought they were clever holing up in the base. Always. "By the way, you're about to be flanked."

"I'm on it, I'm on it, geez." Alkire groused, shoulder rolling out of cover, on the Red side, since that was the side now missing two thirds of its players. He left behind two paint grenades, which detonated just as the three Blue players leaned over their barricade and sprayed the area he'd just been heavily... and incidentally being taken out by the multiple ball flinging grenades.

"Blue 42, 15, 20, you are OUT!"

Alkire was just about to peek up and see if Blue team still had anyone gung ho left when a red ball slapped into the barricade only a few inches from his head. "HELLO!? You asleep at the switch? I just almost got my HEAD blown off!?"

"Long as it isn't some vital part." Raine retorted, her eyes calaculating the angle of the shot even as she pivoted around to face the Red fortress again. "Aha. Just don't move. I need some bait."

"Use one of the fucking teens! I'm outta..." Alkire barely managed to throw himself forward as a line of red paint plish-plopped along the ground towards him, tracking up into and through where he'd just been crouching. He hit the ground and the breath "whuffed" out of him in a single gasp... his chest was still mighty sore, even if most of the damage was internal. "I'm gonna feel that in the morning..."

"Not nearly as much as that poor thirteen year old will." Raine answered, a twinge of guilt in her voice. "It'll teach him to flip up his face shield to get a better view though."

"R-red 8... you are OUT... and do you need medical assistance?" The judge's voice rang out uncertainly. Alkire could hear the high pitched, tinny sound of a youngish kid wailing about his eyes and face being ruined.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, CRYBABY! I didn't hit your fucking eyes, you just got paint in them!" Raine shouted indignantly. "Shouldn't have taken off your fucking mask, newbie!"

"Your parents were big fans of tough love when they raised you, weren't they?" Alkire commented, shaking his head in bemusement. "I am so not letting you be in charge of disciplining the kids ever again."

"I have no intention of letting you spoil them to death either. Sometimes you have to be harsh to get the best results."

"You can cut the hardass sniper act... I know you got a soft, chewy center just like those candy ba... holy fuck! Ack!" Alkire ducked as far down behind the cover of a barrel as he could, as green paint blazons erupted all around him. "Cease fire! CEASE FIRE! This is a friendly! I'm on your side!"

"Oh. I'm sorry. My fingers must have slipped. It happens when I let my "soft, chewy center" come to the fore sometimes."

"Yeesh... temper, temper. But at least you acknowledge you have..." Alkire edged out of cover, headed back towards the green base. He chanced to look up to where Raine was concealed on top of the base, and he had a sudden awful premonition, which was proven justified less than a second later when the green paintball blasted under his face shield and chin strap and struck him squarely in his adam's apple. "Ow...!" Alkire croaked, which was about as loudly as he could manage, falling backwards, hands clasped to his bruised neck.

"Oops. I guess you got shot. Looks like dinner is on you tonight, dear."

"Wasn't it... always going to be..." Alkire hacked and coughed a bit as he dragged himself back into cover again. Damn, he was going to be hoarse for hours.

"Like you said... it's the principle of the thing. Namely, you lose, I win."

--

"You know, I don't mean to sound ungrateful or anything, Cy, but when you called out of the blue and said your boss had ordered you to take a vacation, and you pulled me out of my first major hit single music video production with your phone call, I was kinda expecting to go a little farther away than the nearest mall. Like uh, Hawaii or Japan or something." Wrenn pointed out, toying with her belt buckle almost shyly. Not that she was particularly shy, in fact usually quite the opposite. But Cy wasn't someone you criticized lightly. Not because he'd blow up and get angry or get in your face about it. She'd never seen him even raise his voice, much less freak out like that, even when directly and repeatedly insulted. But because, if you were going to criticize him, you usually ended up with the situation turned around on you, because of aspects of the situation you didn't know about yet. Like when she'd brought up the production costs her director was worried about, only to find out he'd already taken care of those details. Sometimes it was really intimidating having a boyfriend who was so far ahead of the game than everyone else that she could never really be sure if anything was really happening naturally, or because he'd planned things that way.

"Yes, well, I wasn't expecting to take a vacation, so you'll have to excuse the improvised nature of this excursion." Cyprus replied, his attention nominally wandering through the display windows of the mall, while his real attention was focused upon the girl... young woman... next to him. It was amazing how just a few changes of makeup and a different set of clothes could make for a wonderful disguise. Normally, if Wrenn Nostaliviche were to walk around in public, she'd rapidly be mobbed by dozens, if not hordes of adoring fans and eventually media. But change her clothing style from goth to semi-casual and change her makeup a little and no one had even glanced at her twice yet. Of course, it helped that she was clinging doggedly to his arm, since it was still a well known fact that Wrenn Nostaliviche had no romantic entanglements, and was even rumored to hate men in general. "I'm in the process of working some things out, but for the meanwhile, the mall will have to suffice. Besides, from what I hear from a friend at work, malls are wonderful places for the socially maladapted to ease back into society."

"Ooh... friend at work eh... what's her name then?" Wrenn nudged him playfully. Not that she expected Cy to have any other female friends. Well, maybe he had female friends, but not like her. For some reason, which she was unable to fathom but was disinclined to worry about too much, Cy apparently only had eyes for her, relationship wise. Of course, that might have something to do with the relative length of their relationship... going on five years now, she probably knew as much or more about him than anyone else besides he himself... and some of those things she knew weren't things you could just talk about with anyone. Cy was the strongest person she could imagine, intellectually, spiritually and most certainly emotionally... but that didn't mean she couldn't see how vulnerable he was at times too. Maybe that was why he liked her so much... since she could see his vulnerabilities without being scared of him. She'd never worked up the gumption to actually ask though. Sometimes, the real reason might not be something you wanted to know. With Cy, that was often the case.

"His name is Markov Ashino." Cyprus replied shortly, as they wandered, mostly aimlessly, through the mall concourses. It was the middle of the day, and the mall wasn't very busy... mostly shoppers out during their lunch break or teens either out to lunch or skipping classes for the day.

"Oo, full name... he must be a special friend then." Wrenn only half mocked. Cy didn't talk about his work life, or his work friends with her very much. She understood why... his work was not like most people's work, and he didn't have many happy stories or memories concerning it to share with her. Those he had, usually after much cajoling and pleading on her end, usually left her feeling bittersweet, so she'd learned not to pry so much. "I don't suppose I'm ever going to actually get to meet any of your other friends, am I? I know you don't want to "put me in danger", like you say, but really, how bad could it be just to have Thomas and Richard over for dinner sometime? I don't have to exaggerate when I say that some of the other girls in the band wouldn't mind snagging a boyfriend like you too."

"The only other boyfriend who'd be anything at all like me would be Markov, and he's already taken." Cyprus told her, his lips twitching in a brief almost smile. "Though Thomas and Richard would be very pleased if I were to extend your invitation to them. You'd be surprised how many fans you have in my unit."

"So it's decided then? Wedensday maybe?"

"No."

"No? But didn't you just say that they'd be happy to..."

"We all still have jobs to do. If President Argyle hadn't specifically and personally ordered me to take a vacation, I wouldn't even be here... there is no way I could justify taking Thomas and Richard away from their duties for an unrelated social event. Maybe once the war is officially over."

"You know, if I didn't know you like I do, I'd be really pissed at you." Wrenn elbowed him sharpely again. "You almost sound like you aren't happy to be here, y'know!"

"Markov recently asked for advice from me regarding his relationship with his certain young lady. Imagine, if you will, someone who has had a life so utterly abnormal that even things like wearing clothes properly and obeying traffic signals is foreign. Romance has him entirely confused, of course. He wasn't even aware of the concept until recently."

"So what did you tell him then?" Wrenn asked. Used to be, she'd have been wrongfooted by this apparent sudden change of topic, but she was used to the way Cy talked and reasoned now. Well, sometimes. He was building up to a point, something he didn't want to just blurt out and say. Guy's always complained about how girls never just told them what was wrong or what was bothering them directly, that they always had to deny something was wrong at all, or else approach the problem sideways, which inevitably led to more conflict or worse conflict. Just her luck that she, a direct girl, had managed to land one of the most frustratingly indirect men alive. At least romantically speaking anyway... from his stories, she knew that he was entirely the opposite when it came to work.

"I told him that there was nothing wrong with a soldier pursuing romance during a time of war. That the seeking out of pleasant company in order to maintain your emotional equilibrium is both understandable and acceptable. However, I also made sure to warn him that, if his feelings for this girl are as deep as I suspect them to be, that he should be very cautious in just how deeply he lets himself become involved. Soldiers like him are always deployed on the very front lines of combat, where death can be both random and sometimes unavoidable. I told him that he should be careful of going too far too fast, lest he chance making his girl suffer from the heartbreak of attending his funeral." Cyprus stared at a nonpoint about a half foot above Wrenn's head.

"Cy, if you're trying to tell me that you want to put some space in our relationship... even though we only see each other in person about two weeks total out of the year... could you just come out and say it?" Wrenn asked. "You've never hesitated to tell me what you wanted from our relationship before, why start now?"

"Because, sound as my advice to Markov was, after quite a bit of consideration, I find it doesn't ring true in my own heart." Cyprus told her. "If I were to practice what I'd preached to him, I should not be here right now. Yet, I find myself entirely unable to NOT be here right now. When Sai ordered me to take a vacation, my thoughts instantly went to you, and could not be shifted. Thus, I'm forced to conclude that you have become quite a bit more to me than just the mutual destressor I placated myself into thinking this relationship was."

"And frankly, that scares you, doesn't it, Cy?" Wrenn interrupted. She noted the faint expression of surprise, which most people wouldn't have even begun to notice on his usually implacable face. "That you, despite your walls of remorseless logic... or perhaps because of them... have managed to actually fall in love with someone. And not just a little either. That you value them so much that, when given any choice at all, you go to spend time with them, rather than any of the hundreds if not thousands of other ways you could be spending your precious free time." She grinned at him happily and hugged him. "Thank you, Cy. I feel much better now, even if you're being a dope about saying it. I love you too."

"It does bother me, yes." Cyprus allowed. "I hadn't thought you had so much influence over me. There's only ever been one other person to have so much influence over me, that they could affect my thinking and my desires so much that I didn't even realize I was being affected until afterwards. After I realized what had occured, I burned that influence away remorselessly... only to find that, in the process of so doing, I allowed someone else to take his place at my controls."

"Um, Cy, you're getting a little hard to understand, even for me. And when your voice gets cold like that, you start to... uh, uhm... well... you don't need to remind me what a dangerous person you are, okay? I get it, I really do. I got it since the first day I met you, when you dug that ricochet out of my upper groin and saved my life, and then I saved yours by stopping you from bleeding out from that stomach wound. And lets not even go into all the other stuff you've told me... and not told me... about yourself since then." Wrenn said, burrowing even closer to him.

"Wrenn, I am potentially one of the most dangerous weapons on this planet. With my training and my motivation, among other things, there are few people I could not eventually kill, few governments I could not eventually topple, and few ways anyone could stop me without massive collateral damage. In my way, this person that Cyprus Finch has forced himself to become is far more dangerous than a mere nuclear weapon or bio-engineered plague. I am not unstoppable... nobody is unstoppable... it's merely a matter of what amount of resources must be given up in order to stop them... and that amount is very, very high when it comes to me."

"Cy, could you just get to the point?" Wrenn mumbled, suddenly not feeling so good after all. "Are you trying to tell me that you want to break up or something? If so, could you say it in plain terms, at least?"

"No, I don't want to break up." Cyprus retorted harshly. He dropped his arms around her and hugged her back. "And that's what scares me. If anything were ever to happen to you, I don't know what I would do. Well... men sometimes say things like that because they really have no idea what they would do. I, however, know exactly what I would do. I just don't want to do it. Because if I did, I'd be just like that man who once had so much control over me. Thankfully, he is now dead, which I have confirmed with my own eyes. There is yet one more person like him on the loose, and until that person is destroyed, there will be no peace, no matter what happens between us and the PLANTS. But if I were to lose you, there then would be two such men on the loose, and I'm not sure the world could take that. Forgive me for my oscillation, but I really don't know what to do or how to say it."

"How about we get some ice cream?" Wrenn opined. She could easily imagine the look on his face... he wasn't the only person who could confuse people with a sudden topic change. "I find it helps, whenever I'm confused by something. Plus, ice cream is good."

"Ice cream is good for clearing up confusion. That's your solution?" Cyprus sounded faintly disbelieving. "You're holding the reins of a Hellhound in your hands, and all you can talk about is ice cream?"

"What's wrong with ice cream?"

"... Nothing. Nothing is wrong with it at all. In fact, I think it's a good idea. The kind of idea I never would have had. The right kind of idea, for someone who holds the reins of a Hellhound, I think." Cyprus kissed the top of her head lightly. "Thank you, Wrenn."

"Ummm... sure. Glad to do... whatever it was I did. But... where's the ice cream?"

--

"Looks like this is the place. Huh, not even a sign out front. These people are still very new to the whole concept of recruiting, aren't they?" Alkire commented, looking at the nondescript office built into the stripmall like complex. He was still shaking his head somewhat, given what he and Raine were planning to do, mostly on a lark. But then again, he was kinda curious... and this wasn't the sort of opportunity that presented itself more than once in a lifetime, most likely.

"Given that their military is almost entirely made up of volunteers, most of whom signed up during times of emergency and crises, I'm not that surprised that they haven't refined their recruiting techniques very much. All they've had to do was put out internet adds and maybe a few TV commercials, and those only to tell people where to go to sign up." Raine replied. She eyed him with a hint of suspicion. "You're not getting cold feet are you? This was YOUR idea after all."

"I dunno. Enlisting in ZAFT for kicks sounded so good last night... especially after the four vodka martinis. Standing here now though... I feel kinda like a civvy again, for some reason."

"Humph. I never would have figured you for the kinda guy who suffers from stage fright. It's not like we're actually joining up or anything you know. I doubt we'll make it much past the physical exam, with these wounds. I'm personally looking forward to hearing how you're going to try and explain away four gunshot wounds to the upper torso. A deep stab wound like mine... theres lots of ways to impale yourself upon some sort of object. It's less easy to accidentally acquire four bullet holes."

"Well, if you're looking forward to it, I can hardly deny you that pleasure, can I?" Alkire mustered his fragmented nerve and led the way into the building. The inside didn't look much like a recruiting office either, at least not like the ones he was used to seeing down on Earth, all hung with posters and banners and bumper stickers proudly proclaiming this or that about the various branches of service and the opportunities awaiting those who dared sign away their free will for the privilege of serving their country for four to six years. No, this place reminded him of a tax office for some reason. It wasn't very busy, he and Raine looked to be the only potential new recruits on the premesis. They didn't have to stand there long before a smartly dressed recruiter in the standard off green and tan ZAFT ground forces uniform bustled up to them and ushered them over to a desk.

Alkire eyed the man, who was well built, a real physical poster child sort of person, with tanned skin, shocking blue hair and yellow eyes. He had to blink glare out of his eyes when the young man... and he was a young man, certainly not much older than twenty one... smiled at them in a friendly fashion. If there was one thing he hadn't yet gotten used to on the PLANTS, it was encountering people with hair, skin and eye colorations that were entirely unnatural in positions of authority. Like this recruiter for instance. Yes, his hair was cut in a military fashion, if a bit longer and wilder than Alkire was personally used to seeing... but come on... blue hair, yellow eyes? What sort of image of professionalism did that send? Well, unless the majority of your people had white hair and blue eyes at age seventeen, or green hair and green eyes, or purple hair and green eyes or purple eyes and brown hair or... maybe blue hair and yellow eyes wasn't so strange after all, considering the people Alkire already knew.

"I'm Sergeant Gideon Wayne, of ZAFT's fourth Homeland Defense Security Force. I assume you're here to find out about why it's a good idea to enlist in ZAFT? Well, either that or our free donuts, but since people don't usually find out about those until later, I'll assume the former, okay?" The recruiter said cheerfully. It took Alkire a moment to realize that it wasn't an act... this guy was just a cheery bastard. A natural for recruiting work. Most people who went into recruiting secretly hated the job, or else at least had to force themselves to be pleasant to the civvies, whom most veteran military people regarded with a sort of envious diffidence, especially during wars. Plainly, even after just a few seconds with this guy, Alkire knew that this wasn't going to be at all like the time he'd joined the AFAF, or especially like the time he'd joined EFSOU.

Noticing that Alkire was a bit wrongfooted by the cheerfulness of the recruiter, Raine stepped into the conversational gap. "You'd assume right. We've only come to the PLANTS recently due to... well, I'm sure you know why. We've dithered around for a bit, enjoying the sights, wondering why we never moved here before... but we can't exactly forget about what's happening down on Earth either. And it's not in either of our natures to just stand back and let things happen if we can do something to help."

"Yes, thats the same attitude we've gotten from a lot of the new arrivals, if you don't mind me saying so." Sergeant Wayne replied. "I personally would have thought the Earthlings would have realized what was going to happen when they uprooted all those people and forced them to move up here, paid compensation or not. Our recruitment numbers have been higher since the start of the Isolation than any time except right after the Bloody Valentine. Of course, numbers don't make up for experience, but our training programs are top notch and as long as we continue to acquire motivated and passionate recruits it won't be long before we can get this war back on the right course."

"Well, I won't argue with you there." Alkire spoke up. "Although, and I hate to be blunt, but at least from what I've been picking up in the news recently... both here and on Earth... it seems like we're kind of on the back foot right now, you know?"

"We've had some fairly major setbacks recently, there's no point in denying that." Wayne answered, modifying his speech patterns and train of conversation slightly. These weren't fresh out of college kids after all... appealling to national pride, righteous indignation and personal losses worked well enough to clinch most people of his age group, but both of these people seemed to fit more into the "well informed adult" category, which took a bit more of a serious conversation to entice. "But the Alliance hasn't exactly gotten away scot free either. And we still do have the technological edge."

"Some edge, if you don't mind my bluntness either." Raine retorted. "The Alliance attacked Carpentaria three times. The first two times they tried swarm and overwhelm tactics, or else tried to use WMD's. Both of those attempts failed, due to the technological edge you speak of. The third time they sent a force of roughly equal numbers and they crushed our forces in a matter of hours, without using any WMD's or having a numeric advantage. To me, that suggests not only an incredible narrowing of the technology gap, but some serious tactical and strategic changes to their operations schemes."

"You're both very well informed." Wayne commented, reassessing the two potentials again. There didn't look to be much special about them phsyically... late twenties to mid thirties he guessed, physically fit from some sort of occupational exercise, well tanned from a lot of time outside in the sun, with loads of self confidence and obviously keen minds. Prime recruits, really, even if they were a good decade or so older than the usual recruit. ZAFT could use some more older, more mature and experienced people, that was for sure. Wayne decided to skip the initial talking up... these people were here for a reason, they didn't need to be convinced or cajoled into signing up. "Well, I have this whole spiel in my mind to go through, but I think it'll largely be wasted on you two. Why don't you let me grab some forms for you to fill out and we'll go on from there?" Wayne was already digging through his files for the prior skills and aptitudes forms. He handed the documents across to them, and was about to hand them pens when he saw that they already had their own. Bonus points for being prepared. These people were getting donuts, he was going to make sure of it.

Wayne patiently waited while the couple... he assumed they were a couple anyway or at least intimate friends... filled out the forms. He used the time to fetch a big box of powdered and glazed donuts from the back room...usually they were reserved for the staff of the office, or for people who'd already completed the process of signing up, but he'd already had to discard many of the standard incentive packages just from looking at the two of them, and so he felt donuts might help keep them friendly and open. They were good donuts after all. He passed the box of pastries across to them in exchange for their completed documents and commenced a brief speed read thru of the contents. It was something he was good at, browsing through the crap and extraneous information to pick out the real gems that mattered, that he could work with. After a few seconds his mind caught up to what his eyes were reading, and he had to start over again, reading much more slowly and cautiously. Finally, after about fifteen minutes of wide eyed perusal, he looked up at the couple again, as they somewhat smugly munched on the free donuts.

"These are some impressive resumes, I must say. What exactly do you do for a living again, Mr... Majesty?" Wayne asked, slightly numbly.

"Construction Engineering and Law Enforcement. I was also in the local milita and war re-enactment group. I'm afraid my personal philosophy runs somewhat to the tune of militant survivalism. I hope that's not going to be a problem, is it? And it's Alkire. You can call me Al if you want, Sergeant."

"Um, right. And you, Ms... Belaruse?"

"National Park Ranger, Fish and Game Department. I was in the same groups as Alkire, and I'm also a semi-professional target shooter and practising black belt in four different martial art styles. My name is Raine. Just like the stuff that comes from the clouds."

"So I'd not be going to far out on a limb if I said you both already know your way around a gun pretty well, correct?"

"Guns... explosives... man portable artillery... various sorts of nonlethal weaponry... a little bit of hand to hand combat..."

"... Knives... hatchets... bows... pretty much every type of sport rifle you can name... pistols... most martial artsy weapons... yeah..."

"And you say you've taken some courses in evasive and stunt driving, Al? You ever driven anything besides a squad car or ATV?"

"Sergeant Wayne, I don't mean to brag, but probably the only thing I've never driven or piloted is a mobile suit. I have my private piloting license and I'm currently qualified on basically every form of smaller than commercial airline atmospheric craft on the market, including most VTOL's. I can do tracks, tires, ground effect hover, even most forms of boats, though I'm still working on sailing." Alkire had a cocky grin plastered on a face smeared with white frosting.

"I'm pretty good with most ATV's and the more rugged kind of jeeps and trucks. Not much for airplanes or anything like that though... I can ride in them just fine, but fly them... no thanks." Raine had a smug look of her own. "I've also got a lot of backpacking experience... I'm used to being able to survive by myself out in the woods for a few weeks at a time, covering twenty to thirty miles per day on foot, hunting for food on the way."

"Well, color me impressed then." Wayne could barely believe his good luck. He'd make recruiter of the month if he could sign these two, no doubt about it. It was almost like they were built for joining the military. And they weren't just dumb grunts either, no siree... he could offer these two beasts anything from special operations to basic infantry to combat construction to maybe even the Mobile Suit core and they'd eat it for breakfast. "You have any particular preference for where you'd want to serve, when you join?"

"Oh, I'm pretty sure we're both interested in the Special Operations side of things. I worked Homicide and SWAT, so the nitty-gritty stuff isn't new to me." Alkire replied confidently.

"Definitely. Nothing like shooting, skinning and eating all sorts of animals for sustenance on a daily basis to get you over the sight of blood and guts. Well, that and the occasional search and rescue for lost hikers or children attacked by wild animals. It can be a hostile world out there if you're not ready to defend yourself."

"And you'd like to stay together, I'd assume?" Wayne asked, checking off a box on their sheets. Spec Ops wasn't the easiest speciality to get into... those people trained with the Redcoats after all... but even if they ended up washing out, they'd still be good for pretty much everything else... and there was just something about this pair that made him think that maybe Spec Ops would be just right for them.

"Is that going to be a problem?" Alkire asked, actually curious to see how ZAFT handled this sort of thing. In the Alliance, it would be a major problem, a major no-no, having two intimate people in the same command, maybe in the same chain of command. All sorts of bad juju with regards to favoritism, or perceived favoritism.

"Probably not. ZAFT has a much more fluid command system than the Police or Federal institutions you're used to working for... and given the relatively youthful ages of our senior staff, at least compared to those of the Earth militaries, I think you'll find we're much less anal about intimate partners being in the same command. As long as it doesn't affect your performance, most Team Commanders don't give a rats ass who you sleep with or why. Obviously, there are some limits... but those limits are often decided by individual Area Commanders, so it all depends on where you eventually get assigned. From what I hear, if you can make it through the Spec Ops pipeline, given that we have so few people in that speciality, they don't care if you sleep naked on park benches, alone or with company, as long as you keep doing your job satisfactorily."

"That sounds refreshing." Raine commented, which it did. She'd never understood why so called "professional" militaries were so stuck up on not keeping intimate partners in the same unit. Yeah, sure, some people couldn't hack it when their wife or husband or lover or whatever was in danger and they broke down... but if people could demonstrate that they COULD handle it, what was the point in degrading unit efficiency by keeping those people apart? She much preferred this system of trust until proven untrustworthy, rather than assumed untrustworthiness from the start.

"Yes, I hear that a lot. And if you end up making it into the Redcoats... yes, they do recruit from Spec Ops sometimes... you can pretty much kiss the rule book goodbye. Well, maybe not goodbye, but we have so few Redcoats left we really can't afford to just get rid of them over stupid things like underage drinking or wild parties... especially given the kinds of stresses we usually put them under. I'd probably want to get hammered most nights too, if I had their level of responsibility. Though with you two I don't see that being too much of a likelihood... I actually prefer attached recruits... they usually get in less trouble than singles." Wayne ticked off a few more boxes. "All right, let's just do a quick physical exam and then I think we might be ready to start signing some more serious paperwork. Is there anything you'd like to declare before we get started? Prior medical problems I mean? Even if its drugs, remember, we can get waivers for things like that. I don't need to remind you that ZAFT is desperate for people right now, especially highly qualified people like yourselves."

"I knew this was going to be the sticky part." Raine said in an aside to Alkire. "Do you want to go first or shall I?"

"Why don't you show me how it's done, sweetheart."

"Okay. Well, first off, don't worry, Sergeant, I'm not a drug addict, current or former. Not to say I haven't tried a few, now and again, but never more than once or twice, and not within the past fifteen years. I do drink though, sometimes heavily, depending on how bad the situation is, but I've never had any alcohol related incidents either."

"Well, that sounds pretty standard actually, Ms. Belaruse. We might have to go over the specifics on those drugs in a little more detail, but I really don't see it becoming a problem, especially since it happened over a decade and a half ago. Are you otherwise physically fit?"

"Well, there's the sticking point." Raine, showing no concern for modesty, quickly unbuttoned her shirt and shrugged it off, revealing the thick bandages around her ribs and chest, and the other bandages around her collarbone area. "You look like you've been around a little bit, Sergeant. Do I really need to explain what kind of wounds these are? I also have a similar wound to the collarbone injury on my upper thigh."

Wayne had a sudden bad premonition steal over him. He'd not been on the front lines for quite some time, but he'd seen the pictures and read the writeups for some of the training accidents from the Maius bases. Unless he totally missed his guess, he was looking at a deep stab wound, of the sort usually only inflicted by a bladed weapon, and a pair of gunshot wounds. Minor gunshot wounds perhaps, but gunshot wounds were gunshot wounds, unfortunately. They didn't look terribly recent... but considering she was still heavily bandaged up, they couldn't have been suffered that long ago either. "I don't suppose you tripped and fell down some stairs while holding a knife and a gun, did you?" He asked, somewhat weakly.

"You should see the other guy." Raine said, sweetly enough. "Don't shit yourself though... it happened down on Earth, not up here."

"You're not really a park ranger are you?"

"I'd like to be, someday."

"Well, I suppose the cat's out of the bag then." Alkire stood up and shrugged off his own outer shirt. He chuckled grimly when he saw Sergeant Wayne's saucer wide eyes. "Yep. That's four... count em... four gunshot wounds to the torso and upper chest. Teach me to leave my kevlar vest on the rack, eh? JHP's too. I really should be dead, come to think of it. And you probably DON'T want to see the other guy, trust me. And I got mine in the same place she got hers, just a few minutes afterwards."

"So pretty much everything you two just told me was a lie then?" Wayne asked heavily, his hopes for recruiter of the month now suddenly as empty as the box of donuts.

"No, not at all. Just the bits about our former occupations. Everything else was either an under or overstatement. Much more of the under type." Raine replied. "Don't look so sad, Sergeant. Its not your fault we're a pair of cruel tricksters. I'd actually say that I wouldn't mind joining ZAFT... I like your system much better than I like the Alliance's. I just don't think you guys would let me, is all. Well, that and we're both kind of already under contract to someone else."

"You're mercs? I didn't think there were any real mercs left in the world." Wayne shook his head in disbelief.

"Well, mercs would be putting it a little strongly. We're Irregulars, you could say. Clyne Faction Irregulars, to be precise. And Naturals, in case you were wondering." Alkire corrected, putting his shirt back on. "Pardon our joke at your expense, Sarge. I'm agreeing with Raine though... I think ZAFT's got its head in the right place, from what you told us. Who knows, maybe after the war is over, if you guys still need people, I'll come around again."

"I could have you dragged to the brig for falsifying official documents." Wayne pointed out, having totally failed to see the humor in their so called "joke".

"You could try, Sarge, you could try. You're talking to a pair of people who didn't get invited to be part of the Hellhounds only because our political ideologies didn't match up with Asmodeus's though, bear in mind. Yeah, we might both be hurt, and hurt kinda bad... but do you really think we'd have walked in here if we didn't think we could walk out again without too much trouble?"

"Maybe so, Mr. Majesty, but all I have to do is wait for you to leave to call the MP's. Maybe you could take me out pretty easily... I'm just a logistics sergeant after all... but in your condition, you won't fare so well against a reaction team from the base."

"Ah now, lets not try and get ugly okay? Sure, we had a chuckle at your expense, but its no reason to get all pushy. We didn't sign anything binding, didn't swear any oaths. You're out a box of rather nice donuts and about forty minutes of your time, thats all. And you didn't look all that busy to me when we walked in. If nothing else, you're going to have a pretty crazy story to tell your buddies tonight, right? And if you wanna get right down to the quick of it, Sarge, I got bigger, nastier friends than you do to call on."

"Like who?"

"Uhm... Athrun Zala?" Alkire just tossed a name out at random from the repetoire. Wayne snorted and shook his head.

"Whatever. Even if you DO know Athrun Zala, which I doubt highly, I don't give a bent penny anyway. For one, he's something of a traitor to ZAFT. For two, I'm not female, and thusly I don't have an irrational love for him that overrides all other concerns."

"Ouch, that's pretty harsh. I can't wait to tell him about that." Raine chuckled gleefully.

"Okay, okay... how about Ysak Joule then?" Alkire offered.

"Traitor and war criminal you mean?"

"Dearka Elsman!?"

"Double traitor. Really not making me feel good about letting you walk away, you know, Mr. Majesty. If that really is your name."

"It is for the moment. Uhm... let's see... Andrew Waltfeld?"

"Commander Waltfeld's status is currently in limbo, pending investigation into his actions as commander of the Eternal. He doesn't currently have a single iota of authority. I think I might need to make some calls. For public security's sake, you know."

"Lacus Clyne! I'm playing the Lacus Clyne card! There's no WAY you can tell me THAT doesn't mean something to you!" Alkire cried, somewhat desperately.

"I respect Miss Clyne very highly. But she's a civilian and also has no authority over me. Besides, Miss Lacus wouldn't condone this joke in poor taste of yours, I don't think. Even if you could call her, and convince me that it was the REAL Lacus Clyne... given the number of die hard impersonators out there you'd be surprised how hard it is to tell... she'd probabaly be more on my side than yours, Mr. Majesty."

"I'm trying to give you an out here, Sarge, that doesn't involve me knocking you over the head and binding you up with duct tape! Why the hell do you keep shooting me down!?"

"You ate my donuts, Mr. Majesty. Those are very expensive and precious donuts. I can't let you get away scot free now that you've tricked me out of them."

"He's fucking with us. Goddamn, you got some balls, Sergeant." Raine commented with a smile. "Buy the man a fucking box of donuts and lets get out of here, Robert. I can't believe we just got the run around from a fucking recruiter. We need to go back to basic and get our asses whupped again."

Wayne waited for the two mercs-irregulars-scary people to leave before collapsing into his chair with an attack of the shivers. He couldn't even reach over to pick up the thick stack of bills the man... Alkire... Robert... whatever his name really was... had placed on his desk to pay for new donuts. He really had thought for a moment there that they were going to just shoot him and dump him when he got in their face about their joke. They could have, and probably gotten away with it too, if they were half as skilled as he hoped they weren't. He debated picking up the phone to actually call the MP's... those were some dangerous people walking around right there. In the end he decided against it. Maybe they really did have all those friends they said they did. And besides... he needed to go buy some more donuts, in case more potential recruits walked in. It wasn't like this was the strangest thing to ever happen to him during his time as a recruiter.

--

"Um, okay, Cy... I remember complaining about how going to the mall wasn't very exciting or... uh, well... romantic, I guess... but I really, really don't see why we're showing up to the airport at ten pm. Especially the military airport." Wrenn pointed out, as she got out of the taxi. Showing up to pick her up in a taxi wasn't really the most romantic of ways to start a night off either, in her opinion, but that was how Cy was. Not necessarily cheap... it was more a small limo than just a taxi... but she'd only ever gotten picked up by him in his car like once or twice. It wasn't like he had a crappy car either... she wasn't much of a car person, but even she knew a Rolls Royce Sport Deluxe wasn't something the average guy on the street kept in his garage. It was just that Cy really didn't like driving. Or so he insisted, though he was as good at driving as he was at pretty much everything else he did, or so it seemed to her.

"You'll understand eventually. You'll also want to put this on." Cyprus replied, with a slight enigmatic grin, handing her a heavy winter jacket, complete with gloves, hood and a face warmer flap.

"You know Cy, that while a mysterious man is sometimes very sexy, you're ALWAYS mysterious, so it loses some of its charm over time. It's almost seventy degrees out... a perfect night for maybe a windbreaker or a long sleeved shirt... I think this coat might be overdoing things a little bit, don't you?"

"Trust me. I've been making preparations for this all week."

"All week? When? I don't recall anything of the sort."

"Some people don't sleep more than three hours a night."

"Some people need to learn how to RELAX..."

"I am relaxed. You should see me when I'm being serious."

"I HAVE!"

"Well then you should know better."

"Oooooh... you'd better hope I like whatever this surprise of yours is. Or else I'll... I'll... I can't threaten you."

"You be surprised what I can consider threatening, when it comes from your side of the bed. Cold feet for instance. I really don't like cold feet. I'd almost perfer to be stabbed with a knife, rather than brushed with a cold foot at four thirty in the morning."

"I'm going to be giving you a cold shoulder if you keep making fun of me. It's not my fault I have poor circulation when I'm sleeping."

"It's not my fault either. I do whatever I can to keep your circulatory system working in high gear, I think you'll recall." Cyprus checked his watch and then nodded slightly to himself as the small plane taxied into view, engines already warmed up. "Put the coat on, please, Wrenn. It is seventy two degrees right here... but where we're going, its considerably cooler."

"We're going flying. At ten pm at night." Wrenn commented, somewhat flatly. "Sometimes, you know, I really do wish, despite everything, that I had a boyfriend who took me out to eat at moderately priced resteraunts in the middle of the downtown city. Just like most girls. But no. I had to get the guy who charters airplanes from military airports at ten pm at night, and wants me to wear winter clothing without telling me why."

"Anyone can eat at a resteraunt. Besides, they aren't safe. I can't even tell you how many people I've gunned down, poisoned, run over, strangled, stabbed or otherwise killed while they were out eating at mid priced, downtown resteraunts. If you want good food, I'll cook it for you. Just ask."

"Oh yeah... maybe I should have also asked for a boyfriend who WASN'T a paranoid super elite soldier-assassin." Wrenn shook her head, but followed him up into the passenger compartment of the plane.

"Compared to some people, like Major Jones, I'm actually a very trusting individual. I use my real name all the time, for instance. And I prefer the term "justifiable pragmatism". As I said... I, personally, have killed many people at such places. I could never feel comfortable eating in one myself, much less with you along."

"Most girlfriends would be really creeped out if their boyfriend casually talked about how many people he's killed, at resteraunts or not." Wrenn pointed out as she sat in the mostly bare passenger compartment next to him, after putting on the coat. She twined her hand in his and leaned against him as the plane taxied onto the runway and immediately started accelerating towards takeoff.

"Fortunately for me, my girlfriend seems remarkably tolerant in regards to that subject. Most of them deserved it, of course."

"Cy, all joking aside, please never tell me who deserved it and who didn't, okay? I'm interested in what you do... to a degree... but there's some things I really never did want to know. Like the time you lost your virginity. I could happily have gone my whole life without that story. It still makes me queasy, you know."

"You pried it out of me with alcohol and sexual favors, yet you complain now? I did warn you."

"And I didn't believe you, and I was WRONG, okay? Happy?"

"No, I'm not. It was a mistake on my part, and I loathe making mistakes like that. Please bear in mind that things really don't get much happier than that the farther back into my past you pry, all right? Really, it is for your own good that we not talk about it."

"This is really not helping the mood, you know." Wrenn pointed out. "Maybe we should talk about the future instead?"

"The future?"

"Don't arch your eyebrow at me like that and play stupid! You know exactly what I'm talking about! How long are we going to keep things... like this, Cy? Don't get me wrong, this is all like a dream to me... the best kind of dream. It always is, when we're together. But we're not together very much. A couple days every few months. I mean, I know you're busy and so am I... the band's getting really popular recently... but, I really, really would like to start seeing more of you in my life, ya know? Take this beyond a casual fling every couple months? I know I got a rep for not having a boyfriend... but that doesn't mean I can't lose that rep like an old coat with no regrets."

"It wouldn't be prudent."

"Prudent be damned! This is love isn't it!? What does prudence have to do with it!?"

"Do you have selective hearing? Or just selective memory?" Cyprus asked, calmly enough. "I'm a soldier and an assassin, Wrenn. I kill people for my job. Mostly people that deserve it, for one reason or another, often ones the public doesn't get to know, but it's not always like that. I live my life in constant danger of reprisal attacks and counter assassinations, not to mention any of the actual on the job hazards. My future life expectency is measured in years, not decades, by any informed observer. Anyone who is intimately associated with me also invites any and all forms of retaliation against me against themselves."

"Well I didn't expect it to be problem free! I have a few problems with stalkers myself, being famous and all that!"

"It's not YOU that is the problem, Wrenn. I can protect you, Wrenn Nostaliviche, to a degree I find adequate. But I can't protect Wrenn Nostaliviche, international media star, to any meaningful degree. Not without abandoning everything else in my life that gives it meaning. But by the same token, I realize how important your band and your friends are to you, and I cannot find it in me to ask that you give them all up just for me and my admittedly overprotective fears."

"So you have thought about it though..." Wrenn trailed off speculatively. As usual, he was ahead of her, and she was only now catching up to worries or problems he'd been considering for days if not weeks and months. "That's all I was hoping for. That you'd consider it."

"When I can think of an answer that is satisfactory for both of us, rest assured, I will not delay in telling you about it. Until then, I'm going to have to ask you to bear with me."

"Well, okay. But I'm going to be thinking too, you know. And you'd better not just shoot my ideas down out of hand either. You aren't the only smart one here."

"I have never shot an idea down out of hand in my entire life. It is truly amazing just what sort of crazy plan can end up working when you don't expect it to. Thomas is especially good at plans like that."

Before Wrenn could reply the intercomm crackled to life. "We're almost to the target zone now, Sir. You'll probably want to get ready, if you aren't already."

"Thank you Corporal, I will." Cyprus stood up and put on his own heavy coat and gloves, over which he then put a bulky looking harness.

"Um, okay Cy... spill it. What's that? And what the heck is a target zone? Where are we?" Wrenn demanded.

"We..." Cyprus finished buckling the harness on, and began buckling a second, smaller restraining harness to his chest and stomach area. "... are currently about twelve thousand feet above sea level and about fifty miles out to sea. It is currently cloudless, calm and quiet, with visibilty of roughly horizen length, unimpeded. This harness I am wearing is a modifed paragliding harness. And the target zone is the ambiguously assigned point in the sky where you and I will leave the plane behind. It's about time this finch taught his wren how to fly, I think."

"WE'RE GOING SKYDIVING!?"

"Paragliding is a bit different, but insofar as the fact that we will be jumping from this aircraft with only a few dozen square yards of specially constructed fabric to slow our fall to a survivable extent, yes, we're going skydiving."

"But we're fifty miles out at sea! There's no LAND to LAND ON!"

"Thusly the yacht."

"The yacht?"

"The yacht."

"You HAVE A YACHT!?"

"Me, personally? No. The President, yes. And he isn't using it."

"W-why?! SKYDIVING!?"

"There's a meteor shower predicted in this area tonight. It won't be visible in the city, with all the reflected light. From what I hear, its going to be quite a spectacular display. It should be starting roughly thirty seconds after we exit the airplane."

"You arranged a meteor shower?! For ME!?"

"Er... sure. I guess you can think of it that way. If by arranged you mean found out about it and took the time to make sure we could see it..." Cyprus's explanation was lost in the powerful hug she crushed him into. It didn't take too long to secure her into the frontal carry harness, and even less to explain what she had to do... namely, don't undo any straps, don't wiggle or kick too much and basically just sit there and enjoy the view. He stepped to the doorway, somewhat awkwardly, since Wrenn wasn't being very cooperative... she seemed more interested in snuggling up against him than helping him move... and opened the door, letting blasts of freezing wind gust into the passenger compartment. He stared down at the dark ocean below, and glanced up at the brilliantly starry night above, considered the warm weight of the woman strapped securely to his front and smiled. This was the sort of love he understood. He pushed off from the doorway without a single moment more of hesitation, even as the first meteor cut its flaming way through the upper atmosphere, a streak of sparks scattered across a world of potential.

--

"Okay... so are you going to tell me what the hell is the deal with this sudden excursion, Robert? We've only got a day or so before we have to meet up with all the kids again at Lacus's place. Why the sudden interest in going out exploring?" Raine asked, her head craned over awkwardly as she endeavored to fix Alkire with a steely glare in his pilot's seat of the two man survey shuttle he'd rented. It was hard, because she was strapped securely into the front copilot's seat, so much so that even turning her head took effort and skill. And she wasn't feeling much inclined to loosening her restraints either... Alkire was just the sort of guy who'd wait for her to get almost turned around before pulling a barrel roll or loop-de-loop for kicks.

"C'mon... it's SPACE for crying out loud! Its not like we get to come up or out here that often you know. Maybe it's just backdrop to the kids, but to me this really is a special place. Final frontier and all that. And this shuttle is a joy to fly." Alkire replied with a grin.

"I could have sworn I told you I never wanted to go along on one of your joy rides ever again. Bad enough how you pilot or drive in serious situations, I prefer not to have the contents of my stomach painting the interior of EVERY vehicle I ride in with you at the controls."

"That's not very fair. Where's your spirit of adventure, Ms. Park Ranger? I thought you were supposed to be some sort of hardcore sniper, right? Little bit of turbulence gets to you, does it? Turbulence like this?" Alkire began weaving the shuttle back and forth, up and down in harsh, jerky motions. "Uh oh, looks like we hit some space rapids... we might be stuck like this for a while. I hope you didn't eat anything that'll taste bad coming back up."

"Robert, you're moving up several places on my hit list for every second you continue to harass me like this. Don't think I won't shoot you someplace nonvital for revenge if you prov... provoke me enough." Raine swallowed heavily as Alkire spun the shuttle into a three hundred and sixty degree axial roll while also veering sharply "up" and "to the left" of her current "down". That was one of the real reasons Raine didn't like space... she dealt with things in a solid, tangible universe, where location was fixed, not relative. You were either above or below your target, to the right or the left, behind or in front. Such things weren't subject to change on a moment's notice, except in the rarest of cases. They most certainly weren't subject to change depending on something as simple as your own perceptions... no matter how much you wanted to disbelieve it, you couldn't do anything BUT fall down out of a tree... the ground couldn't fall UP to you. In space, something like that could happen. She really didn't like space.

"Oh really? What exactly is a nonvital location anyway?"

"Anything I don't need for my own pleasure, currently. You'd be shocked how many different places on the human body can be shot away without actually causing immediately life threatening damage. Well, beyond shock and blood loss that is."

"Yeesh, I should file for spousal abuse." Alkire brought the shuttle back under normal flying patterns. Fun was fun, but once Raine started making threats it was a good time to stop. Because after she started making threats, and then STOPPED making threats, THAT was when shit was going to go down for real later on. Not that he expected her to ACTUALLY shoot him, nonvital place or otherwise... well, not with real bullets anyway... but there was also the teensy fact that she was a master of hand to hand combat as well, and could probably turn him into a pretzel in under a minute if she was ticked off enough. Besides, he'd actually wanted to come out here for more than just getting his hand back in with regards to zero-G piloting, something he had a sneaking suspicion he might want to be brushed up on in case the kids needed to travel somewhere in a hurry. Like back down to Earth, to magically kick Sai and the Isolationists back into the stone age. Well, not saying it COULDN'T happen... he just didn't see how. "Can't you just enjoy the view a little bit? The stars are so close and bright, you can even see some of the planets way more clearly than you can on Earth. Landscapes don't get too much more spectacular than this, you know!"

"I suppose, if you're a fan of bleak emptiness, a toxic environment that is almost instantly fatal to humans, and hard radiation exposure." Raine turned her head forward again and looked out at the stars. That was another disconcerting thing to her. There was no end, no horizon point. She was just looking out, and out, and out... forever. Forever, in any and every direction. Bad enough feeling small when you looked at a mountain, or sailed on the ocean or walked across a desert... those were big places that made you realize just how small and relatively inconsequential you were... but at least you could quantify those. Measure them. Bound them, limit them. Space wasn't like that. You just kept getting smaller and more insignificant the longer you looked at it. She had enough morale problems without being forced to confront just how small she was compared to the universe at large.

"You don't have a very romantic soul, you know that?" Alkire commented after several moments of thought. He eased up on the controls, slowing the shuttle into a drift. "This is a beautiful, scary, frightening, belittling but ultimately refreshing environment to me, Raine. It's the ultimate study in contrasts... peaceful to a safe observer, totally deadly if you're actually out in it unprotected, absolutely cold and plasmatically hot at the same time, sometimes within millimeters of each other. It's a limitless environment that we are very much limited too. It's everything and nothing. I can't help but feel tiny and ultimately inconsequential when I look out into the depths of space... but whenever I come back, it helps me realize just what a huge impact on the lives of all the other small, ultimately inconsequential people I can have. We're all small and inconsequential together... and that means my actions do have consequences for my peers, which is to say, everyone who is also small and ultimately inconsequential."

"Never would have figured you for a poetic type, Robert." Raine commented. "And there's more romantic places to bring a girl, don't you think?"

"Space affects me oddly, I'll admit. And I disagree... I can't think of any place more romantic than the middle of space, you and I, in a small pocket of existence, surrounded by the bane of our existence, with just ourselves and a little bit of technology to rely on for our safe return. No one to disturb us, no neighbors coming to knock on the door, no other couples nearby, no tourists with cameras, no police or authority types to charge us with indecent conduct in public. Comm system is off for the moment. It's just you, me and the whole fucking universe watching babe."

"You're a twisted man, Robert." Raine retorted fondly. "But our standards of romance are wildly different. You seek your romance in times of peace, looking for locations and activities that are deeply meaningful to you. It's very... normal, I guess. Given how abnormal you can be, it makes a nice contrast. But for me, romance isn't something that is planned, doesn't have to be in any meaningful location and often occurs during moments or activities that most people would consider highly unromantic. Romance to me is when one person shows their love for another in an exceptional, perhaps unintentional manner during a time of stress or crises. It's going to sound odd, but I think one of the most romantic moments you and I have ever had together was when we were fighting on board the Archangel to stop the Tiamat terrorists from blowing up the bridge. I don't like pain, Robert, but to me, the single most romantic moment came when I was fading out and you jabbed your thumb into my shoulder wound to wake me back up so you could get the information you needed to give me the first aid that saved my life. It couldn't have been easy for you to do that, but you did it anyway. Because you love me."

"Well..."

"I'm a hardcase, hardass sniper bitch, Robert. I'm just a quiet one, most of the time. Moonlight dinners, panoramic views, deeply philosophic discussions... they have their places and times... but you're much more likely to touch the depths of my heart if we're both in some sort of life or death situation, where only our skills, luck and stubborn refusal to give in keeps us going. Maybe there's something wrong with me, that only during times when all seems lost I can open up my heart in full enjoyment, but that's how I am. I never have as much fun as when all the chips are down and all that's remaining to do is shoot, and shoot and keep shooting until I either die or there's nothing left to shoot. Send me a fucking clip full of SLAP (Saboted Light Armor Penetration) rounds with a heart drawn on it for Valentines Day, not some sappy card or candy, capische? Paint a fucking pineapple grenade in pink and white and yellow for Easter, and you'd better believe Christmas dinner won't be storebought, but fresh from the fucking fields and glens. That's the sort of woman I am."

"Christ, Raine, can't make it easy on a guy, could you?"

"Where's your spirit of adventure, Mr. Majesty?"

"Well, I suppose you do have me there, Ms. Belaruse. Though I don't understand one thing..."

"If its only one thing you don't understand about me, I haven't been doing my job right."

"If you'll just let me finish..."

"No, I don't think I will." Raine unbuckled her restraints and slowly removed her flight helmet. "Better lock down the fucking cockpit, Mr. The Universe is Watching, cause it would really suck to have hard vacuum interrupt us during a heated moment."

"Heated moment? In here? This place is the size of a fucking bathroom stall!"

"If Dearka and Miriallia can manage in their Mobile Suit, there is utterly no reason we cannot emulate them in a two man shuttle."

"Yeah... but he's limber, and eighteen, and a Coordinator and all that good stuff."

"Improvise. You're good at that."

--

Author Notes: Well yes, I have indeed returned, alive and... alive. Lots of personal problems on my end making writing consistently hard. Medical stuff I won't trouble you all with. Still, I am continuing to plug away at the story. I'm glad so many people liked the Dearka and Miriallia chapter. It was hard for me to write that one, actually. It really didn't turn out too much like I was planning it, probabaly because my outline did have enough stuff in it for a good sized mini-story, rather than just a "slice of life/romance chapter". Still, obviously, its generating good reactions, so thats pleasing. And yes, it is a little bittersweet, but I think thats appropriate. What real romance doesn't have a bittersweet moment every now and again? Besides, they are seventeen and eighteen, and despite my admitted liberal views on age appropriateness for sex and potentially families, thats still a bit too young in my eyes for a serious family, so it'll be some years yet before this problem rears its ugly head again in a real fashion. As for making its own ministory... well, I wish I could do that, but if I ever want to finish this story, much less get started on the others, that's not going to happen from me soon. Feel free to write one of your own, I don't mind.

As for there being more to the Dearka and Miriallia story, of course there will be. There won't probabaly be a chapter dedicated to them and them alone for a while, but I fully intended to extend their private little subplot in parallel with the main storyline, just as I will for all my pairings. Same thing for his family, and Ysak's mom, probabaly bits and pieces of Athrun's family and maybe even some OC's from Lacus's family (Canon never says whether she has any cousins or whatnot, don't see why she wouldn't/couldn't). They probably won't appear THAT often, at least directly, but you'll be hearing about them, certainly. They aren't throwaways, like poor, confused Sergeant Wayne in this chapter. As for whether the other couples will suffer the 20 percent problem... well, I haven't made up my mind. And that's all there is to it so far.

Yes, now I'm doing my two OC chapters. This one with the "military types" of Alkire/Raine and the more recent couple of Cyprus/Wrenn, who I am, if you haven't noticed, trying to draw parallels between, or at least likenesses. And then the next one, with the rest of my "bad" OC's, being Sai/Vanai, Ashino/Jean and of course, good old Zacharis Frost, who doesn't get to have a girlfriend for obvious reasons. That one will serve as a sort of wrapping up/stage setting for the climatic arc, along with the chapter afterwards, which features all the good guys together at Lacus's house. And after that, we're down into the time when you can start playing those wonderful Gundam "Final episode" music scores, because Chaotic Cosmos is going to go out with a bang and light show.

Finally, I'd like to thank you all for bearing with me during my longish absence, and thank you for your continued reviews, which I find both heartening and frequently inspiring. Please continue making suggestions and observations, by all means.