04: into the black.
"Do you know what it's like to reach the edge?"
Three platoons stood in rapt attention, not one soldier daring to flinch as the Colonel deigned to grace them with an impromtu speech before their second mobile-suit piloting exercise of the day. "At the edge," Zechs continued, his voice soft enough that the soldiers strained to listen, his helmet glistening as he spun and began pacing back down the length of the formation front, "there is no such thing as reason. There is no such thing as you. There is only blackness, and the machine keeping it at bay."
This small company was composed of serious men and women who wanted to become serious pilots and took their rank and occupation very seriously. If their formation had permitted it, most of them would have been taking very serious notes.
"At the edge, you cease to exist. You have no memories, no hopes or dreams, no ambitions. All you have is your training, and whether or not it's been ingrained enough to still exist without you, like the auxilliary program left to run your brain. At the edge," Zechs repeated a third time, as studies had shown that information in sequences of three was absorbed more efficiently in auditory learning, "There is only the machine, the program, and the abyss." He halted in his stride and returned to the centre front of the company, hands clasped behind his back, posture naturally regal. "And that abyss, ladies and gentlemen, is trying to swallow you whole." His brief lecture concluded, Zechs spun on the toe of his glistening military boot and strode away, past the company Captain who saluted and opened his mouth to shout his units towards their next training facility, but:
"Colonel Zechs! Colonel Zechs, sir!"
The Captain froze, not daring to interrupt the Colonel's lesson, should he choose to answer; unsure whether the screaming fit this unruly soldier deserved would irritate the Colonel.
Zechs paused mid-stride, one powerful leg slowly returning to the floor as he regarded the voice casually over his shoulder. "Yes?"
"Why did you tell us this, Colonel sir? I'm so glad you came to talk with us personally, but I don't understand what your point was. I mean, we've had all the classes about space, we've been through all the physical testing, and we've been in the simulators." The Captain's eyes widened; in fury or fright, Zechs didn't bother to discern, but no one said a word.
He allowed the smallest of smiles to crease his lips as he turned, fully addressing the vocal soldier; a young woman with unusually inquisitive eyes. "Have you ever experienced claustrophobia?" he spoke quietly, his intonation almost serene, fond as he was of soldiers who questioned, soldiers who intended to understand.
"No, sir."
"Have you ever been in a very small, enclosed compartment against your will?"
"In training, Sir-"
"Were you forced to join the Specials, soldier?" Zechs interrupted.
"Sir? Of course not."
"And you knew, then, that harsh training would be in your future. You knew, during the training exercise, that you would be confined in order to simulate war-time experiences, did you not?"
"Yes, Sir." A slow wisdom began to blossom in her expression.
"Even if you were unhappy with the exercise, you chose to endure it. Perhaps you even willed yourself into enduring it for the sake of your military career." Zechs raised his voice to address the entire company, "Your training, your simulations, all of your experiences here are designed to prepare your body and your abilities for battle, and one of those abilities is self-control to the point of an all-powerful, executable will. You have not been trained for, and indeed may never truly know, the experience of having that will compromised. Your mobile suits, your guns, even your hands are all lethal, superhuman extensions of that will- and you may lose these extensions, all of them," Zechs' teeth gleamed, "but you only lose the will itself when you lose yourself. In most battles, that is simply the end of your career."
A subdued chuckle ran through the platoons; Zechs did not mind. His inquisitive soldier gazed at him as though he were a messiah.
"But you are Specials. You do not fight most battles. You fight at the edge; you extend your wills into the abyss." His tone deepened here, intensifying, "And the abyss, vacuum that it is, will suck them dry. Which do you think ends first, an infinite oblivion or your wills?"
Thunderous silence.
"Men and women, highly-trained Special Forces all, have gone into that abyss and never come back. Even if they won the battle. Even if their mobile suits were intact, their guns undischarged, their hands still attached. At the edge, you are not fighting mere extensions. You are fighting an eternal will- so vast, so incompromisible, that all you will ever be able to know of it... is the edge of it."
Heads began to nod, most of the company having forgotten attention posture in the wake of their Colonel's dissertation.
"No," Zechs snapped, "you still don't know, and I could never enlighten you. If you want to do your comrades a favour, kidnap them in their sleep and lock them in a tiny room. When they awake screaming, they will not even have begun to know. The edge is the opposite of claustrophobia, but it isn't agoraphobia, either, because what you will feel will be entirely rational. And then the rational will cease to exist." He returned his attention to the young woman who prompted this unexpected delve into human-space theory, voice lowering again, gentle, "I am telling you this because when you reach the edge, I don't want you to go over it. Know your limits, Private, and then know how space will conquer them all. Space is limitless. Do not, under any circumstances, join it."
Zechs left, then, and even the heavy-handed Captain with the loud mouth was speechless.
"Hmm," Zechs muttered, coming across an update on the top platoons in the Specials as of training exercises that day, "I should philosophise new companies more often."
"Oh yes, Major Thurnett reported that your little speech today had them all chasing ghosts. Apparently some best times were massively exceeded."
Zechs inspected the readout. "Six best laps with live rounds, yes."
"Of course, none will ever begin to touch your Academy records," Treize's teasing grin gleamed across the vidphone screen, his split eyebrows raised.
"Of course not," Zechs agreed matter-o-factly, displaying not an ounce of modesty.
Treize chuckled. "A lesser General would be intimidated."
"If by 'lesser,' you mean 'idiot,' quite. I've never once demonstrated intentions to succeed you."
"Idiot appropriately describes someone lesser than me, yes. Have you finished editing the manual?"
"Yes, sir. I've already dispatched my updates."
"Mmm," Treize purred his approval of his efficient Colonel. "My appearances on L4 are less than appreciated, it would seem."
"More rioting, sir?"
"But of course," Treize half-groaned, massaging the bridge of his nose between an elegant thumb and forefinger, "The day they don't riot in my honour is the day I officially resign my position and retire to the countryside with a plump wife and several fine steeds."
Zechs quirked an eyebrow, hidden by silver. "I imagine the steeds would see a fair amount more riding-"
"Finish that sentence, Colonel, and I'll have you court-martialed," Treize rebuked dryly, the humour still glittering in his sapphire gaze, intense even through wires and pixels.
"Would this process involve whips, sir?"
"Goodnight, Zechs." The General closed their transmission, but not before Zechs caught his minute wince of unsatisfied desire. The ginger-haired man would not wish him luck, would not even mention the fact that he was embarking on a mission that would keep him away for days, would outright refuse to consider the possibility that he might not return. Zechs understood that his lover felt himself beyond these petty sentiments and prophecies of emotional disarray.
Sighing, Zechs stood, stretched, and began to prepare for his next jaunte through outerspace.
Treize remained staring at the blackened monitor minutes after he'd ended the feed to his Colonel, still entombed in L3, managing green troops and the wake of their attacks to the homesteads of popular Rebel leaders. Treize remained staring despite the piles of paperwork on his desk, this time a futuristic sandallwood, despite the beginnings of a serious headache and a cramp in his lower back. Treize fantasised briefly that he could will the cherubic face of his lover through that screen.
Treize had been drinking too much.
He was ever-so-tired of following the rules of these weak, pathetic creatures he longed to bury in the bitter parade of human history, and even the enjoyment that maintained his ambition towards his ideals, the pleasure he took in aligning those within his power like squirming chesspieces, was beginning to wane. What he needed was a meeting with his pawns in Romefellar, a good verbal sparring and his inevitable conquering of another dissenter, then a fencing match, and then perhaps a long bath.
Instead, he memorised the gaunt outlines of his face in the darkness of the screen, imagining his eyes to be nebulae, his pupils the fabled wormholes, the glittering of his military decorations as the stars he knew Zechs would be watching, way out in the black.
The prince of his stars would come back.