It don't think they ever say what city Libra targeted. So I'm nominating Cannes. I guess the film festival had to move after AC 195...
Any Landing You Walk Away From
Dyer caught up with her as she grabbed the wall. He'd guessed, somehow, that she'd go back to her mobile suit. Or maybe he'd just noticed her change direction at the ceiling. "Did you two just break up?"
"Maybe." Noin replied.
"You going to make it to the ground, Noin?" Not Commander, not Skipper, just Noin. Like they were friends. They weren't, technically, but Noin wasn't in the mood to quibble over that. She needed a friend at this moment, and Dyer wasn't going away.
"I don't know." It wasn't easy to shake off the habits of the officer, though. She tried to hide her frustration and pain by reflex; tried to keep it out of her tone, speak evenly. "I think I can." Deep breath. Composure. Her hand brushed her chest, about where the medallion of Saint Joseph and Saint Joan d'Arc was under the vacsuit. It wasn't a conscious gesture. She shuffled in place a moment. Gravity still existed, though it was very weak here. Newton's laws still worked. The universe had not upended. It still had the same superficial shape as before.
The sensation of freefall and disorientation was only in her head. Of course, it would be. Natural freefall, microgravity, was an old and trusted friend to Noin. "Not going to say you're proud of me?"
"One of these days, Noin, you're going to realize I don't bait." That statement made her wince; he'd noticed her previous mistakes in talking to him. She had hoped his lack of previous reactions was because he hadn't. It had been a faint hope, but a comforting one. "I don't like Merquise, but you've never struck me as particularly delusional either. If you saw something in him, I'm guessing it was real. Was it still there? Did it outweigh the rest? I don't know the man well enough to answer that."
"But given Libra, you would be hard to convince." Noin sighed after she said it and then tried to straighten up. Control.
"Your ability to obey the teachings of the religion we both believe in awes and shames me, Noin. But I am a flawed human in a flawed world, dependent on the grace and forbearance of the Lord for salvation. Not judging his fitness as your romantic partner is the best I can do. For my own failure to forgive, I can only beg forgiveness in turn, and trust you are a better person than I." Dyer's tone was softer for a few moments there. "Focht's gotten rid of him by now. Gently, mind."
They were protecting her. Well, she'd protected them against the bruised ego of Intrepid's CAG several times on the trip out. Squadron loyalty... Noin grabbed the first rung on the ladder down from the embarkation gantry again. In the end, is that not what everyone wants? To belong. She shook her head. These were dangerous thoughts to be having right now.
"Boss-" Duo began.
"For future reference, if my honor needs defending, I will do it myself or ask. The city of Cannes thanks you, though." Noin gave him a weak smile. "The thought was appreciated, Maxwell, but never again, understood?" The still-new lieutenant nodded, aware he'd dodged a bullet.
No one asked if she was okay. They couldn't. They wanted to know but it was not proper to openly ask a more senior officer that, especially their commanding officer. Dyer could get away with it because of the wing pair relationship. Focht, maybe, because he was XO. Not the rest.
Dyer stayed close. He'd been doing a lot of that. Of course, it had started before arrival at Mars, and it wasn't different from Forsythe's behavior. It felt different now though. The protective nature of the fact that her wing stayed close outside of the cockpit was more obvious to Noin since the blowup in the hanger. The fact Dyer was a good six or eight centimeters taller than Noin, and had not yet removed his holster and gun since landing, made it harder to ignore. It made him harder to ignore. The MCM people around, and the occasional civilian who was moving through this part of Stickley Spaceport, certainly thought so.
The other thing she'd discovered was that people would stop and look at her. Though the presence of an apparent bodyguard who was obviously armed kept the civilians at a distance, the MCM weren't that easily intimidated. Some of them just said a few words. Two had asked her for an autograph. One of those had her autograph their vacsuit glove, discovering they had no paper on them.
Noin was apparently a celebrity now. That did not bother her as much as it would have thirty minutes ago. She stepped into the room they were supposed to be meeting Ami in and surveyed it. Ami looked almost exactly the same as Noin remembered, though she wore a wedding band now. She must have married that geologist she'd been involved with. Lingshen, the only person of Chinese descent in sight almost had to be Lingshen based on name alone, looked younger than she sounded. It was probably due to the way she wore her hair, back in two short braids, being too complex for most adults to tolerate over the long term; looking more seriously Noin would have placed her at something closer to twenty rather than the sixteen she'd first thought.
"Missing gravity already?" Ami asked, amused as she came over; she'd been talking to a couple of people in civilian-like vacsuits, but the shoulder patches suggested they were just noncombat MCM. Combat pilots wore the OZ-style astrosuit, with its high-impact portions.
"It's been a long trip and I'm pretty sure you have better beds." Noin tried to keep it casual.
"For various reasons." Ami peered at Noin. "I heard Zechs was here. Either he dodged seeing you or something happened." Ami knew her too well to be fooled, though Lingshen started and looked closer, confused.
"Something happened. I'll let you know what when I do."
"Fair enough. We can have you at a Syria Planum annex in an hour and a half. We built it just in case the Preventers, or somebody else, decided to deploy a large force out to Mars and we wanted to take good care of them. It'll be plenty roomy for you. Bit isolated." Ami gestured. "Fewer sightseers. Not none, mind, I have a small stack of requests from people who want to see you, and there will be a formal reception in a couple of days."
"I'll take one day, if you can give it to me." Noin made the request more calmly than she felt.
Ami smiled. "Quite doable. It will take that long to interface and make security arrangements."
She didn't cry herself to sleep. Noin had heard nothing from Zechs, and she didn't believe no news was good news here. But she was a big girl, and she had her pride.
More now than before. It was darkly amusing to Noin that, six weeks ago, when she'd just taken command, Zechs probably could have browbeaten her. He was Zechs Merquise after all. But now...they weren't equals, but Noin felt that on some level her deeds merited respect, even in comparison to his. Zechs had always loomed over her in everything she did, but the gap was less tall. It felt less ridiculous to be asserting herself.
And maybe it was the light gravity, or the familiarity, but it was pleasant on Mars. The MCM appreciated its people more, or it wasn't competing for space. Roomy quarters with a bed that could have fit two people, quarters suited in OZ or the Preventers to a married senior officer. Here on Mars, standard for the Bachelor's Officer's Quarters. A normal toilet, something only a person too long aboard a spacecraft could appreciate. Small shower, though.
The bed was nice enough she didn't feel like getting back up to change before she slept.
While Noin had one day, it turned out her wing did not; someone wanted to see him earlier, and it was common knowledge now where the various bits of gun camera footage had come from. He had at least screened his visitors, though. A newsie, two people Noin recognized as Martian government, and...one small group she didn't recognize. Some kind of charity from the name? She would have to sit in on that.
She entered the cavernous underground hanger, intended to house several more squadrons than were actually present, and noticed Chief Ropke talking with Yin in a somewhat animated manner. "Christ, do these Martian crew even know what end of a Taurus goes up?"
Ropke made a placating gesture and nodded to Noin before she went back to work. Noin nodded back. "Yin, what exactly is your complaint against our hosts?"
"They damaged my suit racking it. Okay, it's not serious, but misalignment of the thrusters like that happens because you carelessly slammed the suit into a hard surface several times. Doesn't happen when it's powered either." Yin threw her hands up. "That's not even rookie shit, Skipper. Anyone who's gotten through a training course should know better!"
"You'll be racking it from now on, and our people will handle the maintenance." Noin soothed. "I'll bring the issue up with our hosts."
Yin looked somewhat mollified. Noin turned and started towards her suit, intended to just get in and run some systems checks. Dyer entered behind her, and paused, turning to follow Ropke. "Chief! We take on anybody new from Intrepid?"
He didn't like the answer he got, because as Noin was just starting her checks, Dyer yelled to her. "Skipper, SEAL UP!" She didn't get it, but she hit the switch to close her hatch. Before it was closed, there was the sound of a gunshot, a ricochet, and the monitor to her left shattering. That got her to power up the suit fully.
Dyer had his pistol out, pointed down at the hangar floor near her suit. Noin could see the more brave support crew poking their heads out from behind cover. Near her own suit's feet, another person in the coveralls of the ground crew was clutching their shoulder, with a gun in their free hand. Noin hit another switch. Her gantry folded up and she unshipped the suit's rifle. The man below her looked up, and put up his hands before she could say a word.
"I want to know who he is, where his weapon came from, where his clothes came from, how he got past our security, how he got past their security, his family down to his father's mother's maiden name, his friends, his acquaintances, everyone he came in contact with. I want his every second on Mars accounted for. If he had to use the bathroom I want to know how many milliliters he urinated and how many milligrams he excreted. Right now." Noin had seen Ami Nagano this furious exactly once before, when one of her subordinates had been accused of rape. Ami had been talking about having the man executed; the law on Mars regarding premeditated rape was harsh. Then she waved the man, an officer whose shoulder patch pronounced him part of the MPs, off to do his job.
And turned to Noin. "You were lucky, Noin." Ami shook her head. "Your man Dyer, how did he know?"
"He makes a point to get to know the techies. Talks for them to the pilots." She'd asked the same. "Making friends with the people who keep you flying is self-defense, in his words."
Ami managed a grin. "He's right about that." Her expression went back to anger. "Aside from the obvious upsetting of people's schemes regarding Epyon and mobs of Gundams, have you offended anyone?"
"I didn't have time to offend anyone." Noin protested. "All my time in the Earth Sphere was spent either assembling my unit, training it, in combat, or in transit. I had a single thirty minute trip to the Officer's Club to call a social life. I don't think any of my people have a desire to kill me, much less the resources to make this work. Intrepid's CAG was pissed off about us being beyond his authority during the trip here, but I don't think that's worth killing over either."
"As your friend, I'm not happy to hear that and will be working to change it. As the person in charge of this investigation, I'm still not happy to hear that." Ami replied, with a critical eye. "I'll need your permission to have your people interviewed."
Noin nodded slowly. "It's given, but I want to be kept in the loop on that. They are my people."
"You should have stayed with OZ, Noin." Ami said softly. "Might not have been such a mess."
"That boat sailed with Zechs Merquise, in more than one sense." Noin replied, a touch of dark amusement entering her tone. "Trieze was many things, but I don't think I could have kept his desire for grand gesture in check any better than others."
Ami grimaced, or half-smiled; it was hard to say. "What about tomorrow? The formal reception is still on, though the guest list has been reduced. You can let your people know they won't need to shine their shoes. We're beefing up security, of course."
"I know. I have to get my clothes while I'm in Hellas." Noin was grinning, just a little bit, as she said it.
"Skipper." Dyer acknowledged her with a nod. "You really didn't get issued a dress uniform?"
"They...probably didn't think my old measurements were sufficient. I gather they're rather tightly fit."
Dyer grimaced with his next line. "They're this close," he held his right thumb and forefinger about a millimeter apart, "to a bodyglove, Commander. I'm pretty sure the politicians did it so they could stare at the eye candy rather than listen to us."
"That's cynical of you, Lieutenant." Noin's reply was amused rather than disapproving. "It would certainly catch the eye, with the average pilot's physique." Pilots, from having to pull gees, tended towards the very fit, with defined but slim rather than bulky musculature. "It bothers you, being on display?"
"I am aware that the Puritans mangled American attitudes towards body modesty in comparison with continental Europe, and I have spent my share of time cursing them for it." Dyer replied, not as amused as Noin was at all. "Before you break out a comment about that."
"Perceptive, too." Noin smiled. "Really, though, are you that bothered? Because I need a date for tomorrow. Not for romantic reasons, it would simply be expected."
"And it would also help to hold people at bay, since arriving without one is announcing that you are looking for company, arriving with one that's obviously not romantic is announcing you're not looking for company. And the celebrity gossip sites are already talking about you maybe being back on the market." Dyer smiled faintly. "Keeping people off your six is my job in life. I would be a terrible wing to leave you uncovered."
"Still perceptive," this time a bit more hissed in annoyance, "and how do they know about that? How do you know they know?"
"My sister." Dyer replied, vaguely amused. "She likes the pretty people pictures and usually doesn't read the words. As to how they know, not sure, Skipper. The conversation's details haven't turned up but the fact Maxwell tried to put his lights out over them has."
"I am reasonably sure," Noin said, getting her emotions under control, "that he would have punched Zechs in the face regardless. For trying to end humanity and all that."
"I suspect you have a point, but not one that will get pageviews and sell ads." Dyer gestured towards the door. "You would know your way around Hellas better than I, and I need to get back to Syria Planum for my appointment. I'm sure I can trust the Martian Secret Service with you."
"What is your appointment?" Noin asked, curious what could overcome his obvious loyalty to his job description.
"Make-A-Wish." Not seeing recognition, he explained further. "It's a thing for terminally ill kids. Make one dream come true. I have an appointment with a thirteen year old girl with terminal cancer, who wanted to be a pilot like her brother."
"Don't be late to that." Noin said it softly. "And bend whatever rules you like." There were sides to her wing she didn't know yet.
Noin had felt uncomfortable and a bit self-conscious in the tighter-fitting Preventer working uniform. It was a struggle not to blush in the tighter-yet dress uniform. The addition of the very short shoulders-only cloak that OZ had used to use seemed to be designed to stop right before it could possibly obscure anything the wearer would want concealed. Despite that conversation with Dyer, she wasn't completely prepared. And it was easy to see why the American would be uncomfortable.
She sighed and changed out of it again. Noin would have to fake comfort, a vital skill for an officer. She could do it, she knew that. Not concerned, really, just wishing it wasn't necessary. She lay down for her second night back on Mars. And this time, though she slept through, it was not dreamless.
"Ready?" Noin asked softly.
"I don't think I would be ready for that crowd with the cameras unless I was suited up and weapons free." Dyer replied. "Should I hold the door or shadow?"
"I'm a big girl now, shadow." Noin replied, sounding more confident than she felt. Someone had leaked her complete gun camera of the fight on X18722 about three hours ago. Noin hoped that someday she'd get the chance to hit that person in the face.
"As ordered." Dyer agreed. The cameras whirred and clicked as the steped out of both sides of the black MCM vehicle that had picked them up. They actually managed a decent motion in unison there, and Noin was glad none of the photographers were using a flash. She didn't feel like being half-blind. They were at the door when the camera crowd rotated to look at someone behind her.
Of course. You too Zechs. Noin thought. "Lieutenant, I don't feel like talking to Merquise right now." The "keep him away" was implicit.
"Understood, Commander." Dyer replied. Hard green eyes hardened further and stayed that way. "You are sure about the way you want to be announced?"
"They want a show. I can give them that." Noin replied, stepping past the door and moving to keep ahead of Zechs.
"Her Grace, the Duchess of Apulia, Commander Lucrezia Noin." Heads turned. Her family was not really a secret, but it had not been advertised before now. Noin was quite sure that only three people in this room knew whose daughter she was until a moment ago. OZ had placed a great deal of emphasis on the old European traditions of nobility, and knowing from childhood how to act the part had given Noin a leg up. Now, that sort of breeding was of more direct use.
No one could complain that she'd enlisted underage now, after all. And all the old OZ soldiers in the room, with all their love of European nobility and its traditions and bloodlines, were standing a little straighter. Watching her closer and looking a little bit awed. Ignoring their conversation partners to try and stare without being impolite. They were in the presence of royalty; the third in line to a throne might be relatively far distant, but the blood in their veins could not be denied.
And Zechs? Everyone knew he was a prince now, but familiarity, his rejection of the title, and his past misdeeds reduced his stature. Noin was novel to their experience and they had known her as a baronet because of her OZ patent of nobility, so by making them readjust their understanding she occupied more of their thoughts. Not that Noin was upstaging Zechs for a purpose. She simply wasn't feeling the usual urge to hold back on his account.
Ami smiled. "An excellent entrance, Commander." She gestured to her side. "You of course know President Ronson." A tall man in his early fifties, Theodore Ronson had commanded a mobile suit battalion, then a regiment, and eventually all of OZ's European operations before defecting to become de facto head of the European Trieze Faction. He was Organization of Zodiac old school, a man who had been a disciple of General Catalonia and the mobile suit troops when both were new. "And you've already met my wife, though not in that capacity. This is the famed Lieutenant Richard Dyer?"
"It is," Dyer responded. He offered a minimalist bow to Ronson. "It has been some time, sir. You gave a lecture series to my graduating class at Mountain Home in One-Eight-Eight."
Ronson smiled. "Third row, second from the left. I thought you were too good for the Alliance and we should have stolen you away, from the questions you asked. But nothing ever came of it."
Dyer offered a shrug. "Given the way things worked out, it was for the best sir."
"You're probably correct there. Commander, am I to take your visit as a more permanent interest in our planet by the Earth Sphere?" Ronson had switched to addressing Noin, giving her an assessing look.
"It's very likely, on the military side. As the Lady slowly beats funding for more units out of the Senate, then we can post units to places we previously thought would be useful, but were well-ordered enough that it was not a necessity." Noin smiled. Offering a compliment didn't hurt. "In the short term, I am here because it is the most convenient place to put a force during the Rock Movers strike, since Ceres and the other outposts can't support another one-fifty to a hundred people. Mars can, and has made great strides in the time I was away."
"Your influence was missed," Ami said softly. She and Ronson shared a glance as Zechs approached, worried about a public spat.
But Dyer intercepted Zechs, efficiently detaching himself from the group and blocking the other man's path. "Unless you intend apology this is not a wise course, Merquise."
"There are things that must be discussed." Zechs replied, startled.
"Then say them to me, or prepare your apology as a precondition. The Commander is not happy with you at the moment." Dyer would not be moved so easily.
Zechs made a show of peering at the medals and proficiency ribbons on Dyer's chest. "And what would an Alliance pilot pretend to know of His Excellency's vision?" A tiny voice in the back of Noin's head noted Zechs had just escalated to no holds barred.
"I was a willing part of it, at the end. When Trieze Kushrenada called for people to defend the mother world, Alliance Space Forces willingly answered that call. I willingly answered that call." The calm, dispassionate tone Dyer used was his in combat voice. The tone lended itself to being emotionally brutal, to the perception that he regarded another person as neither interesting nor intelligent enough to have understood if he bothered showing contempt. "Kushrenada had a nobility of spirit and a regard for the common soldier sadly lacking in many of those in leadership at the time. His politics killed much of my family, and I hated him for that, but never doubt that we in the Alliance did not respect him for his personal qualities and as an extremely capable and dangerous foe."
"And it is right to be taught by an enemy. His Excellency's words, after the defeat of two of our squadrons by Twenty-Two." Ami rallied to the defense of Noin's wing, or maybe against Zechs. She had been very close to Trieze in life as one of his aides, and while opposing him was forgivable, betraying him was not. "You commanded then, Lieutenant."
Dyer offered her a small bow. "The respect of one's enemies is the most gratifying kind." The moment had passed; Zechs' attempt to marginalize Dyer had failed this time. If the words of the sainted Kushrenada had been favorable, arguing with this audience had to be done carefully and in consideration of risk versus reward.
Noin wondered if she had just been grossly cynical and disrespectful towards the memory of a man who had, after all, taken a bullet for her. "The sainted" was not a phrase usually invoked in seriousness. But her mood was dark with Zechs here, and she could either surrender to despair or channel it into a generalized contempt and anger. Ami Nagano raised an eyebrow at her, and Noin waved Ami off, starting to make the rounds of the room. Dyer did not follow, but maintained an indiscreet direct line between Noin and Zechs, holding him away with the cold green eyes.
"You see how it is." As the meeting broke up, Ami had taken Noin aside. Zechs had already left, making a point to accompany another woman. The rituals of the bad breakup, Noin thought, and tried to fight down the despair that accompanied it. "Merquise has some kind of agenda."
"I noticed. He was pushing the concept of Trieze's vision very heavily." What are you doing, Zechs? "Anti-ESUN innuendo too. Dyer shouldn't have picked that second fight."
Ami shrugged. "Maybe the two Assembly members didn't like his points, but the President and the Chief of the Hellas Police did. His point would play well to civilians and to those who knew His Excellency personally...And Dyer could read your annoyance about the claim being made. He knows he's allowed to say and do things you aren't in this setting."
"That's just it though. Zechs did know Trieze Kushrenada personally. He knows better than to describe the man as directly pro-war. Pro-soldier, yes. Pro-veteran, yes. Pro-war, not so much. War was a means to an end at most. Not about the fight but about the fighter, not about the struggle but about having people who can face it." Noin shook her head. "If Zechs is trying to absolve himself of his sins even this indirectly, then he's changed a great deal in a very short time."
"I can't exactly confront him." Ami said softly. "And now, neither can you. Almost like he set it up."
Noin shook her head. Being Duchess Noin for the evening had been tiring, she wasn't used to doing it, and Zechs' presence had only blackened her mood the whole evening. She made her excuses and left.
And back in Syria Planum, on her third night back on Mars, in her quarters, she did not change from her dress uniform before going to sleep. Resting her head on her pillow, Lucrezia Noin allowed herself to cry. The tears continued long after she had actually fallen asleep.
Noin had passed a listless day. She did her job, of course, and did it well. She was a professional and she was maintaining in the way hurt professionals usually did; competence but without satisfaction or joy. Even flight was providing no refuge at that moment, as her Taurus executed a lazy turn over the edge of Syria Planum, a hundred meters AGL exactly. Dyer's was shadowing her.
"You're not a driver, One. You have wings on your insignia because you fly." Dyer's voice was gently chiding. His Taurus climbed and cut over top hers before settling into a right wing position from the left wing slot it had previously occupied. "Let's get some altitude."
Noin didn't have the heart to resist, and pitched up. As they climbed Dyer's Taurus cut under her, switching wing positions again. The pass was close enough that there was interference; his suit's turbulence tickling the airflow that was providing hers lift and causing her Taurus to rock a bit as the computers compensated. "What the hell, Two?" Even demanding, Noin sounded half-hearted.
"We're out here on a beautiful Martian day, flying purely for the sake of flying, and you're half-asleep Lucrezia." The oddly childish behavior and the gentle tone were at odds. There were very few people who Noin would allow to refer to her by her first name, and she wasn't sure that this was one of them.
The other Taurus drifted in close enough to cause interference again, her own suit wanting to turn into the slipstream, and Noin applied a slight bit of stick pressure to prevent it. "I don't particularly like being teased, Two."
"Then make me stop." The schoolyard tone now matched the action. His Taurus rolled onto its port wingtip and shot overtop of hers in the middle of rolling to inverted, clearing her own by only a couple of meters, rocking her suit violently. The blue flares of his drives burned brighter as he accelerated away.
Noin sputtered a couple of moments before spitting a curse at him in Italian. "Cazzo!" She turned in his wake and accelerated after him. She wasn't entirely sure what she meant to do after, but she was going to catch him.
Dyer had fought mobile dolls and their near-perfect gunnery for so long he had developed an almost supernatural gift for evasive flight. Snap rolls and sharp turns, climbs and dives, maneuvers with control surfaces and maneuvers with the vectored thrusters at the same time. Noin had been a test pilot for the suit and she was struggling to follow some of them.
Then he disappeared into some kind of tumble-corkscrew-drop maneuver Noin wasn't sure she understood even while watching it, something involving pretty much every maneuvering thruster and vectoring the main drive and using the airfoils, all at once. The one thing she was sure of was that his Taurus probably didn't have the thrust to actually do what it had done. "How the hell did you do that?"
"Burning fifty hours of engine life. Some tweaks, some nonstandard computer work, and throttling up to one-twenty-five percent of rated thrust for five seconds." Dyer replied. "It's not quite the same as going War Short, but it's a fine line." War Short was the reactor setting above maximum safe rated power. It didn't run a risk of blowing up or anything so dramatic, but it did run the risk of burning out the drives and thrusters by either the higher-energy plasma they were expelling or running too much power through the circuitry that kept it magnetically bottled. Add to that the possibility of a power surge frying the electronics, and a mobile suit at War Short settings would perform far above rated spec, but would probably also turn itself into a brick on a ballistic trajectory within ten minutes.
"That was stupid." Noin observed. One did not play with safe engine and reactor settings without urgent need.
"It's been done before. A lot. I went to actual War Short probably a dozen times in a Space Leo and nearly as many in a Taurus. Even pushing just a bit beyond the normal specs messed with the mobile dolls, they expected your suit to perform to the normal parameters." Dyer replied, forming on her wing again. "Your turn, Skipper. Show me something special."
"Is that a challenge?" Noin asked.
The grin was audible in his tone. "It is." Dyer's Taurus flicked from wing to close tailing.
"Well then." A power climb, outer loop, downwards half-loop and half-roll, a series of uncoordinated jink-and-half-rolls. Dyer stayed with her, though he drifted out from his close tail to nearly two kilometers, mainly from the uncoordinated manuevers. She hadn't drifted as far as he had, though she couldn't quite manage to shake him. Probably due to not having something technically not possible up her sleeve.
"Good enough?" Noin asked as Dyer formed on her wing again, panting a little from the gees she had pulled, trying to catch her breath. No, she thought. She, they, could do better. "Double helix demonstration maneuver?"
Dyer moved to the proper start position. "On your order."
And impossibly, the five-kilometer long maneuver worked. Never practiced, only ten days flown together, executing a demonstration maneuver rarely attempted outside of long-standing teams; a weaving double-helix around each other with a hundred meters clearance. And it worked. It worked perfectly.
"Lightning Flight, what the hell? Acknowledge."
"I think we just upset the Syria Planum tower." Dyer observed, neutral as he could manage. But there was a giddy undertone, and Noin understood it. Because they were flying. Not in any crude, simple sense of merely being airborne. What they had just done was denied to most by lack of skill and the majority of the rest by the knowledge it would probably end in failure. They were at the bleeding edge, where doubt and hesitation became lethal dangers and you had to believe, to have faith, to have any chance of success.
"Lightning Flight acknowledges, Tower. Just practicing some." Noin replied.
"Like hell. You realize no one's ever completed that maneuver beyond the first couple of rotations in a Taurus? You're crazy."
"Copy Tower. Are you asking for a repeat performance where you can watch?" Noin was smirking under her helmet, and she heard Dyer start to laugh. The truth was that she had not known that. Tower's incredulous reply got Dyer laughing harder. And taking station for doing it again in a not so subtle hint.
"Twenty minutes fuel, Skipper, time to go home." Dyer came around lazily behind her, and her own fuel gauges said she had only a little more than he did. Noin assumed a shallow dive that would end about where there were going and throttled back some, to save on fuel.
"You dragged me up on purpose," she observed softly.
"Some kinds of therapy can only be done with high-performance spacecraft," Dyer responded, his voice soft. "You have wings because you need to fly, Noin. Someone had to remind you, as someone had to remind me once."
"When?" Noin asked, curious. Dyer was better-adjusted than he looked, and she knew that now.
"A couple of weeks after Operation Daybreak. I was in command because everyone senior to me was dead and I was making a hash of it because I was a zombie. No emotion left to give. I wasn't alone in that, lot of people died because they simply couldn't give a damn to save themselves. But a good wing looks after their lead, and mine saved my life by reminding me of my love of flight."
That was Forsythe. The phrasing, "a good wing looks after their lead" was a dead giveaway. He'd probably meant it to be one, at that. "And you thought it would work with me."
"I didn't think, Skipper." Dyer replied. "That first check hop. You were covered in sweat, your hair was a mess, and you were smiling. Your eyes were shining. One addict to another, I know the signs. And I wasn't keen to watch you keep sliding down any further before I tried."
"You were right," Noin agreed, softly. "We're going to be late to the mess, with the need to shower."
"You have commanding officer privileges. Nobody's allowed to complain if you smell." Dyer's amusement was obvious.
"I'd like to continue our conversation, but I'd like to feel human while I do it," Noin replied. "Shower. Change."
"As opposed to better than human, Skipper?" Dyer asked, amused.
"Don't make me laugh right now or I won't take back my earlier comment about you. I know I've got bruising on my chest and it will hurt." Noin's threat was made an exasperated tone.
"About me being a prick?" That made her eyes widen a little. He understands Italian? Her frustrated utterances would have to be more carefully controlled, now. "No, you were right. I was being a prick. But it was for a good cause."
"You two are both crazy, even by the standards of a guy who staged an escape from the one hundred and eightith floor by parachute for a guy who got shot," put in a different voice as a black Taurus with blue trim formed on them.
"Duo doesn't appreciate a good first dance." Hilde added, amused. She had started to adopt a custom paint job of her own for her Taurus now, painting out the grey portions of her standard Preventer white and grey with black.
That comment got Noin to glance with slight discomfort right and back to Dyer's Taurus. It made sense to her to describe what they had spent the evening doing as dancing, and that made it...awkward in the context of their work relationship.
"You look better, Skipper." Dyer, as her wing, was allowed to say things that other members of the squadron would hesitate about. "Not as good as when we landed, but definitely better." He glanced to the corner. "Newsie at nine o'clock."
"The Lady warned me I'd have to give an interview soon." Noin replied. "Well, we should be polite. Come on; I'm guessing most of it will be about my gun camera footage."
"The audio from the flight recorder got leaked too." Dyer warned.
Noin managed not to react. "Well, this will be...interesting I guess." What are you doing, Une? At this point she was quite convinced Lady Une was deliberately allowing the leaks, to build Noin up for some reason.
It took a moment to set up the camera and get the place lighted to their satisfaction; apparently they'd be live, at least to Mars. "Duchess-"
"Please, if you must use a title, Commander will do." Noin said. "I am a Duchess without a holding; it only marks me as the third backup to the King."
"Commander Noin, then. There have been rumors that your relationship with Zechs Merquise is not going well, and given that last night you were accompanied by..." The reporter had obviously forgotten Dyer's name, to Dyer's visible amusement.
Like most soldiers, he had little use for the press, and happily took the chance to show the reporter up. "Richard Dyer."
The most annoying thing you could to a reporter, Noin recalled her father saying, was be unfailingly polite. "We had an argument. I'm told that's quite normal for couples," she added a smile there, "and we're still cooling off. The Lieutenant was kind enough to accompany me so I wouldn't have to waste time fending off any potential suitors. If you're asking about the engagement, nothing has changed officially." She gestured to her bare fingers, and then to her still-damp hair. "You caught me fresh out of the shower without my ring."
"And the recent assassination attempt, do you think that's related to your rise in the last few weeks to prominence?"
"It's possible," Noin allowed. "Or it could be someone who was reminded I exist by the last few weeks and decided that was intolerable. I may have made a few new enemies, but not nearly so many as I imagine I made during the run up to the Eve Wars."
A half-second too late, she realized that left an opening when combined with the Alliance Space Forces insignia on Dyer's shoulder, beneath the Preventer "P" and starfield of the Space Navy. The reporter wasn't far behind her, rotating to address Dyer. "Lieutenant, since you were Alliance-"
Dyer made a "stop" gesture, left palm out. "Space Forces. I would have never had the displeasure of fighting the Commander, for which I am grateful on a personal and a professional level. More than any other OZ officer I know of, she tried to do the right thing. We respected her for that. There are few former enemies that most ex-Alliance officers would be happier to call friend."
The reporter was visibly annoyed for a moment to be shut down, until the camera moved towards them again. "And, Commander, your recent rise has been due to a large amount of unusual unrest. What are your thoughts about it?"
"Unfortunate." Noin shrugged to express some helplessness. "It is perhaps not a good thing for someone in my position to have a busy schedule, but the alternatives were worse. Force must be available to counter force, if only to make using it unattractive." Relena wouldn't like hearing that, but Noin had never been a fool about that sort of thing. For the state to preserve a monopoly on the use of force, it must have force to use against those who would infringe it. And it would play well to the domestic Martian audience.
"Do you have an opinion on the upcoming vote in the Assembly regarding severing ties with the Earth Sphere?"
To Noin's credit, she did not react as though surprised, though it was certainly news to her. Dyer's eyes flicked to her briefly, but he kept his expression impassive well otherwise. "I think that would be a terrible idea," Noin replied. "Mars is only just self-sustaining, and more importantly, cutting ties would cut most of Mars' trade options." She gestured in the rough direction of the west. "Syria Planum Munitions has contracts with all the Colonial Militias in the Earth Sphere, and research and development work with the Preventers on various munitions types. They're hardly alone in that."
Because Mars had never embraced the Total Pacifism party line, it was the Solar System's main builder of weapons and ammunition. The primary factory for Super Leos was here, Martian Dynamics, and employed nearly four thousand people in production of both parts and full suits. Syria Planum Munitions had inked contracts for a new Super Leo rifle that would be effective against Gundam-grade armor with at least three of the Colonial Militias in the last week and was scheduled to start shipping weapons in just a few days, based on the Mars Colonial Militia's own 120mm shell-firing design. They were also the primary producer of parts and weapons for the standard Super Leo beam rifle. The Martian arms industry employed about seventeen thousand people all told, fifteen thousand of them working on export projects. "If the Assembly truly intends to put at least ten percent of the Martian population out of work at a stroke," Noin observed with what she thought was surprising calm, "with all that would result from that, then they do not have the best interests of the Martian people in mind."
"Well, thank you Commander. That was Commander Lucrezia Noin," the newsie chattered for a bit longer, with the camera on the reporter. Noin and Dyer, off-camera, withdrew to the privacy of the hall outside the mess, with its big windows and vistas of the Martian landscape.
Noin glanced to Dyer. "Do you have any idea what they were talking about?"
Dyer was thumbing through the newsfeeds on his personal comm. "Nothing about it-wait. Two and a half lines. Vote took place...literally one minute before you were asked. Voice vote, unscheduled, proposed by speaker and seconded by ten members from the floor. No debate. Vote being tallied." He looked up. "It might pass."
"They can't be serious," Noin whispered. "It'd be economic suicide." Then her eyes widened. "Find Ropke. Get a guard out. If this is a quiet coup-"
"We're next." Dyer finished. "On it." He sprinted down the hall.
"Hellas is waking up to it." Dyer reported an hour later. "There are reports of demonstrations outside the Assembly building." The motion had passed, and unfortunately passed comfortably.
"All right. MCM has voluntarily withdrawn from our complex. They recognize how awkward this is. Intrepid moved to the other side of the planet from Phobos for the same reason. The President has already announced he will veto the decision the moment it comes before him. Public reaction has been very bad." Noin shook her head. "Eighty-two people do not commit professional suicide for no reason. There's something going on here that we don't understand."
"Boss, something's happening space-side." Duo cut in, rushing into the room from outside and straight to the lectern, where he switched the big briefing-room screen to a newsfeed.
"Europan ships, this is Phobos Control. Return to your holding orbits at once." Two long-range MS carrier designs were burning hard, from the shaky camera view. The audio was the open frequency used by Phobos Control to talk to all ships.
"Unable to comply, Phobos Control. We are acting on behalf of the Ceres government. Bonde is a known criminal."
"Then they should have made the request to Mars. Return to your orbits and deactivate your jamming gear now. Minerva, Fire Teams Charlie and Delta, vector to intercept. All civilian ships, we have a possible combat situation developing, clear the transmitted areas if able."
Noin messed with the controls for the big screen a bit more and pulled civilian space traffic control. Bonde was a long-haul cargo freighter registered to L3, last reported contract a week ago making a run to the Asteroid Belt, moving supplies and food to a Preventer weapons test range near Ceres. Several other contacts separated from the Bonde.
"Those are mobile suits." Duo observed. "Size and performance; they couldn't be anything else."
"They're jamming Bonde so it can't talk." Focht was incredulous. "Couldn't look more suspicious if you tried."
"Europan ships, if you launch mobile suits that will be considered a hostile act." Phobos Control said. Nevertheless mobile suits started popping up on the visual feed as the Europans launched their twenty-four to the Bonde's eighteen.
Eighteen. Preventer squadron size. Noin turned to Focht. "Asteroid Belt. Squadron postings."
"Facilities for a squadron at the Two-Two-One-" Focht swore aloud in German, making the connection. "I don't know if someone's posted there now."
"The ones from Bonde, they're Serpents." Dyer said softly. "Delta-vee is max rated power for a Serpent, but they don't have the thrust to keep up with Bonde's orbital insertion retro burn."
"Europan ships." Minerva came on the comm now; Noin recognized the voice. "You are about to cross the flight paths of a half-dozen orbital shuttles. Burn retros or be fired on. This is your last warning."
Thirty seconds later, Minerva fired, a single heavy beam taking the engines off one of the Europan MS carriers, followed five seconds later by the other one also having its engines forcibly removed. At the same time, the Europan mobile suits were engaging the Bonde's defenders.
"This is the merchant vessel Bonde to any receiving ship, we are under contract to the ESUN government-" there was a screech over the line. Noin knew that sound; it was the sound of a beam cannon's high-energy particles passing near an active transmitter, inducing distortion. "Our engines are down! We can't stabilize orbit!"
"Oh you sons of bitches," Dyer said softly. "You sick sons of bitches. Watching this was bad enough when I saw Sea of Stars go down in One-Nine-Three." Noin's mind supplied the details; heavy passenger shuttle. Had been bombed by Colonial terrorist group, knocking out its engines. Alliance rescue forces had been unable to reach the ship before it hit Earth's atmosphere at far too steep an angle to survive reentry.
"Bonde, this is Minerva. Can you abandon ship?"
"Affirmative. We're abandoning ship now. Be advised, Minerva, we don't have enough escape craft for all crew and passengers. Some of us are going to be riding her down."
"Where did those two escape pods go?" Duo asked. "They just blinked off."
"Their transponders aren't working." Dyer replied, his tone having clamped down to the calm one Noin had been used to hearing until very recently. "And I'm guessing it's because the Europans shot them." The visual feed showed only Minerva and Bonde at high zoom, but they were too far away to see mobile suits save for pinpoint flashes of blue from their drives sometimes, and the explosions of units dying. Duo's expression at that revelation was halfway between about to be violently ill and already utterly enraged.
Two more of the twenty active escape craft winked out before the two eight-suit MCM fire teams joined the fight, forcing the Europans back. Minerva followed up by physically interposing itself between the escape craft and the Europan mobile suits.
In another thirty seconds the fighting was over, but it took three more minutes before Bonde hit the atmosphere, with twenty of her crew still aboard.
"You haven't eaten yet. Sit." Noin commanded.
Dyer gave her a look to assess her seriousness and sat. The world was going crazy over their heads. That, Noin knew, was bad, but it also meant she had to focus on keeping her people ready. Enforcing adequate sleep, making sure they were eating. Tired and hungry pilots and ground crew were considerably less useful. Dyer knew it too, and had been doing his part to keep the non-flight personnel on schedule in coordination with Larishminova and Ropke, but Noin had to make sure he remembered himself too.
"Rioting in Hellas," Dyer said. "Started thirty minutes ago."
"As you sow, so shall you reap," Noin replied, pushing a plate to him. "Spaghetti. Actually good."
"From a native Italian, that is likely high praise." Dyer observed, digging in. "Your...whatever he is, has backed the Assembly."
"Much as I expected." Noin was angry now. "Lieutenant, may I burden you with a confession?"
"If you are willing to risk a possible counterconfession on my part." Dyer allowed, pausing in his eating.
Noin managed a wan smile. "Trying to be fair, but I don't think you can. During the Eve Wars, I should have killed Zechs."
Dyer stopped, his fork resting on his plate, carefully, quietly, so it didn't make a noise. "There are a lot of people who will say that. Most of them didn't get a shot at actually doing it. Myself, for example."
"I did." Noin sighed. "Zero Nine Twenty Three, where were you?"
"Five minutes to contact, launching from my carrier." Dyer answered immediately. "Where were you?"
"My Taurus was standing on Libra's surface, forty meters behind Epyon. It was facing away from me. I had a heavy beam rifle and Zechs was ignoring me. I told him...I told him I wanted to be by his side to the end." Noin looked at her hands. They unhelpfully twitched. "I could have shot him in the back and killed him. He was trying to kill my family, trying to kill the entire planet. I didn't think to act in their defense. That, Lieutenant, is my greatest shame and worst moral failing."
"May I speak with some familiarity?" Noin nodded but didn't dare look up.
"Lucrezia, yes, you should have objectively taken that shot. But you can't say with truthfulness that it would have mattered. Libra was already death diving. Yuy would have to take the big shot either way. And Merquise was high as a kite on the Zero System. If you raised a weapon, there's no guarantee you'd connect. It's not like now where we can construct simulator models of what the system does and train against it, learn how to get inside the pilot's head and disrupt his cycle." Dyer took a deep breath. "Counterconfession time. Do you know why Forsythe and I broke up?"
"No," Noin didn't see how this could possibly be related to what she'd said.
"I was dating a girl from the Specials Space Battalion before the balloon went up in One Nine Five, name of Marie." Dyer replied. "Little before Christmas Eve, I found out Marie was dead. We actually fought during one of the attacks on the Lunar convoys where Alliance Space Forces looted its Taurus supply from. Lucille and I were a wing pair. We'd been a bit into each other, but...there was one moment, I've got a Taurus on my tail, I yell for help, there's Lucille like my guardian angel. That was where Lucille and I really got started."
He lifted his fork again, turning it over in his hand a couple of times. "That Taurus was Marie. Lucille Forsythe did what I asked of her, and she saved my life. But that whole setup...my girlfriend literally changing by the new one killing the old at my request. There was too much guilt in me for that relationship to last much beyond finding out what happened to Marie."
Noin stared at him. "You know, I used to think Maxwell had issues."
Dyer smiled. "He does. We all do. That's not the point. I'm still friends with Lucille because I'm not guilty about finding her intelligent, talented, and sociable. You should have taken that shot, but that doesn't make you responsible for Merquise behaving badly, then or now. He's not some robot, devoid of choice. He's a human, he makes his own decisions, and his sins are his cross to bear. The first step to being forgiven them is acceptance of personal responsibility. You aren't helping him by trying to carry his weight."
"When a good man suffers-" Noin began.
"All who would be called good must suffer with him. I can quote Euripides too." Dyer shook his head. "Merquise is not being a good man. I am not being a good man by hating him. What suffering we bear for these acts is ours alone."
Noin regarded him silently for several long seconds. "That really does bother you, that you can't forgive him."
"I forgave you. I visited the grave of the woman who killed my mother and didn't have the slightest urge to urinate on it, but I couldn't say the words, and that bothered me. I would try, at least, to forgive the man who killed my father if he can find him, though I'm not sure I'd succeed. Yes, it bothers me a great deal that I can't forgive Merquise." Dyer replied. "Not least because the way things are going on Mars, we might end up fighting him, and that would be tough enough for you already without me acting like a fool."
Noin bit her lip before she caught herself, and gestured for Dyer to keep eating. Be confident in front of your subordinates. "It won't come to that. Besides, it'll be as hard for him as for me. We proved that last time." The only thing I really feel right now for Zechs Merquise is anger. It wouldn't be hard to fight him at all. Or am I just saying that to myself?
