30 Ways to Conquer Mars
#029 波音
A.C. 197, September 19:「Aphrodite, Borne High On the Tide」
Gundam Wing © SOTSU AGENCY - SUNRISE - ANB
This is a work of derivative Fanfiction. No claims are made towards the ownership of intellectual rights pertaining to the metaseries.
...
Terren Miller, it turns out, was a man of his word, if not of honour. He kept their secret Preventer identities secret— even going so far as to be co-operative— though he could not pass up on any opportunity to snipe at Noin about his price. On her part, the young woman kept her thoughts and misgivings to herself. Easier to feign disinterest in her partner's social dealings than to get caught up in the tumult that characterised them again, especially without a romantic commitment, as much as Donn could have been called that, to keep things in perspective. And finally, the day their mission would come to an end began to dawn.
They had been in the field for nearly seventy-eight hours, camping three to a single occupancy tent in a frozen valley that looked deceptively hot, snoozing, working, living in their spacesuits, and being bossed around by pasty-faced xenogeologists who argued constantly about blast ratios and convections. The exact trajectory of a weapon had never been so anally debated. She was just relieved to see them go off.
Noin laid awake listening to the sound of Zechs breathing next to her, in and out, ebb and swell, like the wash of waves kissing the shore, wearing down on her. Terren had used her recent accreditation from the Space Guild as an excuse not to assign a replacement for their fallen mechanic, which certainly made sneaking around secretly being Preventers easier, though at the moment she rather wished he hadn't. Anything would have been welcomed at this point, even one of Zechs' imaginary masked Martians, if they could fill the space between them.
It was not Donn, because Donn had only been her excuse and excuses rarely continue being reasons once their illusion has been broken. She sighed, and fought the urge to run her fingers through his hair, the colour of genuine Earth sunshine.
What she realised, watching him then, with definitive clarity, was that it wasn't failing at their jobs that got them into trouble, it was forgetting who she really was and attempting to go back to lives that she and Zechs thought they could have. Zechs was wrong, they could not co-exist in a world where her life and service was not forfeit to him. They would tear the world asunder finding their feet, and then inevitably destroy each other making sense of it.
They barely speak about the things that had happened. They hadn't actually spoken about anything since he'd sent her away in that stroke of despair on Christmas, 195, over surviving the Libra crash; and Noin was unsure if Zechs was being kind by waiting for her to be ready, or if he had already moved on and put it all out of mind.
It felt, sometimes, as though she was merely riding a current, letting things carry her forward blindly, not wanting to care where she was headed or what the consequences might be, pretending that everything was just the way she liked it when in fact, she had just been too weary and frightened to do anything about it.
That itself was out of character, if Lucrezia Noin could be considered to have her own character. Noin was a lie. She did not have a mechanic father who'd gotten her into the Lake Victoria Academy through some vague dealings with a minor nobleman. She was not a native of the Bavarian countryside. She had not lost her childhood home to anti-Alliance terrorists. She was not the Earth-exiled ex-OZ lieutenant, accused of conspiring against national security with the Lightning Count. She was not Lucrezia Noin, Zechs Merquise's long-suffering rival and confidante. She did not want to stop being that girl.
But then again, growing up is never a choice.
.
A new age begins, and Zechs— Milliardo Peacecraft— is surprised to discover that he is enamoured with the Martian landscape, sweaty, grimy, unwashed-ness and all. He had made himself a promise months ago to enjoy Mars, not expecting there to be anything likable about the dead red planet, and here he was, gawking like a school boy, touched like the first time he had ever seen the Sun, or the Earth.
Zechs had become a soldier out of necessity rather than interest, and bore the burden by never allowing his mind to wonder what else he could have made of himself. Now that all was past and he is, against all expectations, still alive, it was high time to set about exploring this. And if travelling to a whole other planet sphere in order to meet himself seemed somewhat unconventional, Zechs was learning that the description appealed to him like no other.
Donn had been right. Even though Zechs had now learnt to be a little bit leery of the outright sympathisers, who evidently tended to be zealots, every now and then he would run into people who were sensibly, if cautiously, accepting instead of the blatant aggression he had been prepared to suffer.
"Mostly we just don't know what to expect of you," Doctor Clyne, a double PhD in microbiology and biochemistry smiled over mugs of hot chocolate. "There's been so many stories that nobody knows quite what to think. Will you be the charismatic hero we were led to idolise and believe in under the old regime, or the madman we were told almost crashed a nuclear warship into Earth? Do you expect to be treated like the noble that you are, or as the equal you pretend? Are you, as the rumours have it, able to survive in pure vacuum, or do you need a spacesuit like everyone else? Nobody knows this about you except Miss Noin. You can't blame them for being apprehensive. There are some who do not even believe you exist, that the figure of Zechs Merquise, or Milliardo Peacecraft, was a crafty invention of OZ's to lobby for Colony support."
"Perhaps I should hold a press conference," he joked, to mixed reception. It could have been worse, he could have suggested holding one up. Zechs told himself that Treize would have found it funny, and he was probably right.
Trailing behind the scientists helped him give Noin space. He did not know how much Donn had meant to her or how badly shaken up she had been by the poor excuse of an operation they had pulled together to stop his psychotic rampage, and thought that badgering her about it was not what she would most like him to do.
In fact, Zechs had been afraid of clinging to Noin for almost half his life. Man has the tendency to hold on to things that were familiar to him during times of great personal upheaval, much like Zechs did to ideas of vengeance and restoration while growing up. He could not allow himself to do the same to her. Noin was his rock and shadow. He valued her for herself and the part she plays in his current life, not because she was all that was left to him after that fateful day Sanq fell, and he meant to keep it that way.
So he had been understandably confused when, instead of answering his musings, she turned off communications and walked her Suit away.
.
He wanted to know her plans for afterwards, when their dues to The Preventer have been paid and they were Freeman again, remarking with a little laugh that they had certainly put it off long enough. It was a perfectly legitimate question, but it was not the one Noin waited so desperately for him to ask. Needed him to, so that he could force her confession.
Why did you come to Mars?
He wanted to stay with the expedition, she could see that without trying. He had started to make himself at home with objects scattered haphazardly in odd corners of his room and little attempts at inconsequential socialising. He told jokes and asked after people, and took a genuine interest in the jobs and lives of those people. He was once again the young OZ Colonel whom everyone had adored, taking the world around him in confident strides, turning her head in hallways all over again.
And maybe that is the problem, because she was no longer twelve, enamoured with the dying splendours of honour and chivalry, or fifteen, infatuated with a rising star, or even eighteen, terrified of being alone in the world. She was Twenty-One years and twenty-nine days old, and all the dreams of her childhood exhausted. She was angry, because for all of his ability to anticipate his opponent's moves on the battlefield and all of the rumours calling them the perfect partnership, he could not seem to understand her enough to create the right opportunity, for her sake, for the right answer.
She completed her last task with clockwork precision and managed to continue avoiding him until they got back on the Marsprojekt, peeling themselves out of their space suits back to back in a narrow locker.
"I didn't hear what you thought about my earlier plan," Zechs picked up the conversation easily, as though they had set it aside through mutual agreement.
"Sounds nice. I've been thinking about going home, myself," Noin shrugged, nonchalant. "Maybe change my name, I haven't really planned it out.
If Noin had been honest, she would admit that she thought he had said he wanted to stake out some land on Mars and raise Space Chickens and dismissed it out of hand. A part of her was still curious as to what he had actually said, and would have been devastated to hear that she had not heard wrong at all. It really was a plan involving raising space chickens on Mars, and knowing Zechs, one should also note that while it was mostly a joke, there was a part of him who thought it might be nice.
"I'm sure Lady Une can make some sort of arrangement for us," Zechs answered thoughtfully.
The mention of Lady Une was like a basin of water in Noin's face, reminding her of harsh realities she had promised herself to face.
Why did you come to Mars?
"You don't have to come, it's just things I'd always promised myself I'd do on my own, like exploring the fringe colonies and all that."
"Why didn't you?" He asked pleasantly, oblivious to her despondent undertones. "You don't think enough about yourself, Noin, sometimes you need to forget about everything else and go for what you…"
"I was waiting for you!" Noin snapped, whirling around on her heels. "I stayed on Earth because I thought if I'd gone anywhere else, you wouldn't be able to find me!"
Zechs gaped, momentarily stunned by her temper, and reverentially touched cold fingers to her flushed cheeks. "Lucrezia," he smiled endearingly, daring to gather her into his arms, "Svala, I would have found you anywhere."
His fingers found her chin and tilted her face back so he could look into her eyes, deep purple, like the fringes of space and the colour of his dreams. He kissed her, wishing there were more effective ways of sharing with her the depth of his emotions.
"No," she whispered hoarsely, and repeated the syllable again, to break his spell. "No.
"I should have been the one looking. You are the Master, not I," she held up her hands against his protests. "But that doesn't matter, Peacecraft, because in the end, you came back for Miss Relena and the World, not me."
His perfect brow creased. "Noin, I…"
"Don't apologise, that's exactly how it should be. You have always belonged to them. You are not alone, Zechs, I am not the only person capable of liking you. Give the world another chance. Otherwise what's the point of us saving it?" She brought up the brightest smile she could manage and gracefully detangled from his embrace.
I'm running away from the future.
"I think I've earned a vacation from the World and its crises, though," Noin laughed softly, only a touch of hysteria showing.
"… …" Somewhere, someone had evidently decided to mark the occasion by broadcasting the Earth Sphere's supply of large-scale weaponry detonating in a sensitive chain laid out across a barren planet on all available audio and visual channels. The thunder drowned out her last words. They waited, studying the ashen anxiety mirrored in each other's faces. Some things they will never shake, like the way their ears prickled and their spines froze and their hands go numb at the sound of explosive weaponsfire.
Noin coughed and broke away first, in the brief lull after the first sequence. It will be exactly five minutes before the next series of charges went off, time enough for her to make an escape from the cramped room.
"I was saying, I won't be staying."
There was no uncomfortable shuffling, no emotional surge. Apparently, having said it once made saying it again easier. She shrugged, shut the metal door swinging behind her, and quietly left.
...
A/N:
Sept 19 is Independence Day in St. Kitts and Nevis, the first British and French colonies in the West Indies.