Respect between Enemies – The BetanWerecat
Gundam Seed: "Descending Sword" and after. OCs with appearances by canon characters. The actions of Kira, Athrun, and the others have far reaching effects. Ah, interpersonal relationships! What joys they are. Rated T for language and off screen activity. (Reviews are welcomed but not required. This is written only for my own enjoyment. Flaming me will get you ignored.)
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed.
Captain Thoms knew what he was looking at as he studied the building the cadet's GINN had smashed. He didn't know if this portion of the Project's facilities was in use or not but he knew this was not something he wanted Ito knowing about. Especially if it was the part of the site he rather thought it might be.
So he turned and snapped out an order to his Elite second. "Ito, you lead everyone but Holman up to the loading stage. I'll bring him along in a second. Team! Follow Ito! We can't afford to lose our place in the loading queue."
This time, Holman was smart enough to know he'd overdone it badly without being told. He stood waiting for Lance without having to be ordered to this time. Since he was being the bright boy for once, the Captain let him stew in his own juices for a bit while he checked in with the Cadet Team leader. He was back in less than ten minutes.
"Trace, you are in deep shit." Thoms growled.
"The damn stupid kid slammed into me sir! What was I supposed to do, smile and dust him off?"
"You'd be a lot better off if you had." Lance told him bluntly. "Firstly, the pilot is a girl. Second, her family is very well connected politically. Third, she's badly hurt. I don't think I need to go any further, now do I?"
"No sir." Holman replied in a very small voice.
"You better be one hell of a hero out there today. Because that's just about the only thing that'll save you this time. She's some kind of relation through her maternal line to Chairman Zala's late wife. I've no idea how much that will matter with him at all but it will be a big item for everyone who wants to curry favor with the man. Do not, if you love life itself, put one toe wrong again. Keep your mouth shut, hard as that is for you. And for god's sake, don't even touch anyone outside this Team! You got all that?"
"Yes sir."
"Oh, and never, never, ever get caught being anything but absolutely respectful to anyone who outranks you. You're too well-known for your careless arrogance. You've made a big fat target out of yourself. If you forget that for a single moment, your military career is over."
"I . . . . ." He stopped himself, rather to Thoms' surprise. "Yes sir."
Well, well. Apparently his oft stated intentions of ending up a senior ZAFT general were serious. Lance Thoms had sincere doubts that he'd ever make Colonel, let alone General, but if hope of keeping that dream alive could force him to behave like a civilized person for a change instead of a backbiting two year old, he'd take it.
"All right. And do not forget that every Elite in the ZAFT ranks you, including Ito. I fully expect your rumor mill to stop from this moment forward. You might as well get used to the idea that everyone knows where the stories come from. You do a piss poor job of hiding it. I don't care what you think of him as long as your behavior is proper in public. Do you understand?"
"He's stuck on a filthy Natural!"
"That's none of your business. You never discuss that again. With anyone. That is your one way ticket straight out of the ZAFT and never forget it. You have enemies, Holman. Focus on survival for a while. If what he's doing is displeasing to the powers that be, they'll deal with Ito on their own. They don't need help from you. Especially not after this. Now follow me. We're running late."
This was not good. Trace had been jealous of Adrian for many reasons, that beautiful Natural girl was only the latest of them. It helped nothing that the kid was one of those with dreams of grandeur and no skills to make them real. Standing him next to Ito, who could make what he did look so effortless, had done nothing but pour corrosives on the less competent boy's soul. Holman outright hated Ito for making Elite while he was still wearing standard greens.
Now he was going to be forced to be civil to him at all times and to live the role of junior officer in public. This would be something close to the ultimate humiliation for Trace. He needed to find someone who was willing to accept Holman and reassign him out of his Team before the man lost his control and did something that got someone, or himself, badly injured or killed. Problem was, Trace was very unpopular with most Team leaders. Lance couldn't think of anyone who'd take him. He was still mulling the problem right through the entire loading process and into launch.
Kayla strode through the wrecked garden plants, trying to keep a step that held at least some semblance to a military one despite the entangling greenery around her feet. She hadn't been noticed yet but she would be soon and for this to work, first impressions were going to be vital. They had to see a ZAFT pilot, nothing more and absolutely nothing less, when they finally became aware of her arrival.
She pieced together an outline for a cover story from what little she could gather from the evidence around the situation and knew she was going to have to be winging too much of it as they fed her more data. This was one insane long shot of an escape attempt all right. Yet, if she pulled it off, it would be one for the history books! That thought almost made her giggle.
The near giggle grabbed her attention, forcing her to recognize how much the tension was affecting her. She had no time and no place to step aside and do anything like take some deep breaths to steady herself. So she made herself breathe very deeply for the next five steps as a substitute. It helped. More by focusing her mind on something other than what might happen if this flopped than anything else she suspected but, hey, help was help and she needed any she could get.
Then she was up to the two officers. Training, and secret practice in the bathroom, took over as Kayla managed to come to a neat halt at an attitude very close to ZAFT's standard for presentation in the field, and saluted the senior Commander and his aide correctly. The Commander, a neatly turned out man with dark hair with green highlights and some gray running through it, had the look of an administrative officer. He returned her salute and eyed her somewhat doubtfully.
"I wasn't told the replacement was a woman."
"Sir, I have no knowledge of that. I was told to suit up and get over here as quickly as I could. They said there had been an accident and a mobile suit was down. That's all I was told." Kayla replied promptly, with the mix of efficiency and uncertainty she would have expected someone like the senior cadet the badges on the suit said she was to show.
"But, a girl?"
"Sir," the Commander's aide interrupted quietly, "the pilot who was injured here was also a girl. Considering how many trainees they are sending out, she may be the best available."
The Commander chewed his lower lip for several nervous seconds. Kayla wasn't sure if he was worried about her being a girl or if there was more than that to it. This news about sending trainees out said this was the major battle shaping up; one ZAFT was going to meet with everything they had. Literally, everything. And that said one and only one thing to the Earth Alliance pilot. The old goat had been honest with her.
"Cadet, what is your name?"
She made a snap decision and gave him the one she knew she would answer to under any and all circumstances. "Grayhawk sir, Kayla Grayhawk."
"Very well, Cadet Grayhawk, why did they send you?"
"I was told I was selected because I have the best combat simulator scores in my category sir." A barefaced lie in one way and true in another. She might be in the last quarter of the simulator class but as the only Natural, she was top-gun in her category all right.
"Simulator scores? They chose you based on simulator scores?"
"That's what I was told sir." It was too late to back out of the story now despite how shocked the Commander sounded.
"Sir, they can't have many left who have any kind of qualifications at all at this point." The aide interjected calmly. "Those who are actually qualified will already have been assigned to units going out. She is simply the best of what there is for cadet reserves. The Admiral did warn you that the next pilot he would be able to find would not be of the caliber of the one who was hurt."
"Yes, yes, I remember." The man had a terribly harried look now. He hissed in frustration. "Well, if you are what's available, you are what I'll have to go with. Cadet, I want you to get into that cockpit, power up this GINN, and get it back on its feet. Can you do that?"
She'd been looking over the downed GINN trying to decide that very question. Truth was, she didn't know if she could or not. But that wasn't the answer she was going to give the Commander.
"I believe so, sir. That is, unless it's caught on anything."
"No, it pretty well flattened the structure here and there are no protruding members or heavy wiring to entangle it. As far as our troops have been able to survey it, the GINN is unencumbered." The aide replied briskly.
"Then I should be able to get it up." Kayla said confidently. "I will be able to maneuver here in the garden as I need to, won't I? I mean, the place is pretty much destroyed already and I'm going to have to do some more damage if I'm going to get the suit turned over and upright."
"As long as there is no more significant damage to the buildings, you may move the suit as required." The Commander growled.
"Thank you sir!" She saluted him and headed for the cockpit.
He'd bought it! She was a ZAFT cadet pilot as far as this Commander was concerned at this moment. Now, to get this GINN up and out before the real replacement pilot showed up!
The GINN was down on its right side, leaving the cockpit sitting at right angles to the Plant's directional gravity. One of the troopers apparently attached to the Commander's group gave her a hand up to the side of the hatch. She was careful not to grip too tightly and not to throw all her weight on his arm. She was supposed to be another Coordinator after all; she should be strong enough herself to not need a lot of help here. Fortunately, there were good places for her feet and her free hand to go so she could use his help mostly for balance.
Once up, it was a matter of stepping carefully into the cockpit itself. Here the difference between Natural and Coordinator wasn't so obvious. It was a small, cramped space filled with surprisingly delicate machinery. Anyone would have to be very careful where they put their hands and feet trying to climb into it sideways. Tipping herself onto the seat was a very awkward affair but she managed to hold herself in place long enough to get the safety harness engaged. Once she got that tightened securely, things got much easier.
The layout was identical to the simulators. This simplified her life immeasurably. A quick check located the mission disc still in the data port. That made all things possible. A tap on the units input board told her nothing had actually been shut down. So all the passwords and keys were probably still operational.
She glanced up at the trooper standing in the hatch and gave him a thumbs up. He returned it and scrambled down off the GINN. She barely paid him any mind as he and the rest of the soldiers, along with the Commander and his aide, pulled out of the garden and clear of the area where she was going to be rolling about eighty tons of mobile suit in very shortly. More careful work brought the stations and screens of the unit live. She studied each with attention, making sure it was working before she powered on the next. It might be slow, but there were times when no matter how desperate things were, you didn't rush if you wanted to survive. This was one of them. Especially since she wasn't going to be able to run with any of them dark this time. That would be noticed by the other mobile suits around her.
"Cadet Grayhawk, is there a problem?" The voice on the comm belonged to the Commander. Oh great, a micro-manager. She hated ranking officers like him.
"Not that I've found yet sir." She replied briskly. "I'll have the last few systems on line here in a moment. This unit took a bad jarring going down like this, I wouldn't want to rush and overlook a trouble indicator."
"Well be quick about it. The entire cadet mother ship is waiting for you and this GINN."
"Yes sir." The what was doing what! Holy f'ing H! They wanted her to not only get this thing up, they wanted her to load onto a transport and go out to fight the EA? What the hell had she gotten herself into?
First things first. She wasn't loading this GINN on anything unless she could get it back on its feet. Boards hot, cockpit closed, all systems reporting operational, it was time to see if the real thing worked like the simulator.
Kayla extended both the left arm and leg, putting both on the ground as far out as she could reach. She began to extend the right arm and draw up the right leg. As the suit rose slightly, she began to allow the left side to bend slightly, turning the entire suit. In less than two minutes, she had the GINN up on all fours. Extending the arms while letting the body settle back over the lower legs got her further upright. Lifting with both legs slightly let her set up a tripod balance until she could pull the right one forward. Only then did she really try to stand. She put some power into the movement, using the momentum to swing the body upright and to bring the feet together under it. She had the mobile suit up.
Without waiting for the obvious orders, Kayla turned it around and headed for the break in the wall. Within two steps she knew she didn't have the skill to walk it over the broken stonework. But, unless reality differed vastly from simulation, she could fly it over. A powerful kickoff on the left leg and a hard hit on the thrusters sent her about thirty feet into the air and carried the mobile suit about fifty feet forward. She punched the thrusters again before momentum could be lost and succeeded in clearing the wall. She carefully settled the GINN upright on the pavement beyond the wall.
She was in a whole new world. There were neatly laid out lines of massive hangers stringing out nearly as far as she could see. All kinds of ZAFT space going mobile suits were moving in steady lines from her left to her right. Looking right, she could see at least a dozen huge docking bays in the distance.
Yeah, they were stripping the place bare all right. And here she sat, Lieutenant Kayla Grayhawk, 421st Air Wing, 3d Mobile Squadron, North Atlantic Federation, in an enemy mobile suit about to be sent out on the battle lines of the wrong side! Life was just chock full of interesting little ironies these days.
"Cadet Grayhawk?"
She looked up at the comm screen to see a face in a ZAFT helmet addressing her. The markings indicated he was a Master Chief. Who, she abruptly remembered, outranked a mere cadet.
"Yes Chief, I'm Grayhawk. What are your orders?"
"Follow me. I'll get you to the mother ship. You will be taking Cadet Ansel's place in the Gold Squad. Word is the Natural bastards are going to be moving up again soon; we need to get you cadets into position as quickly as we can."
"Yes sir. I'll follow you. Taking Cadet Ansel's spot in Gold Squad. Is there anything else I should know at this time, sir?"
"No, you'll hear more as the information becomes available."
"Yes sir!"
So they were coming again very soon now. Yeah, given Blue Cosmos, they would come and come until they were beaten beyond any question or the Plants were all destroyed. With Boaz gone there was nothing but the ships and mobile suits of ZAFT between those nukes and the fragile glass houses of the Plants. No wonder ZAFT was pulling out anyone and everyone who could manage a mobile suit and throwing them on the lines. She fell in behind the Chief's GINN very thoughtfully.
"She isn't here."
Roland Ito looked up at his daughter-in-law wearily, not sure just what she was trying to tell him. "I fail to understand you. What do you mean 'she isn't here'? Where is she?"
"That's a very good question." Serin Ito replied as she sat tiredly and reached for the hot tea and the sugar jar. "I can tell you with assurance now that Grayhawk is not in the building or the garden. She was not crushed under the damned mobile suit like Anya and Lissa were. She has managed to vanish. With all the recorders and security cameras knocked out by that wretched machine, we have no way of knowing how she left. What we can know for sure is that if she got out of the Project, she did it through the break in the wall."
"I thought you just assured me she is not in the building."
Serin just looked at him. "Roland, she is not in the Project's containment facility. However, there are some two dozen buildings that are part of this site that we haven't finished searching and sealing yet. It will take hours, perhaps a full day, to complete that part of the hunt. When that GINN came down, it took out the security locks to a lot of places for far too long. Worse, we did not react appropriately anything like quickly enough. I understand needing to secure the clinic and the genetic storage banks but some thought could have been given to securing our only prisoner as well. Leaving a girl that sharp and that determined to her own devices for nearly an hour before even beginning to look for her was a grave mistake."
"Yes, yes, I admit that it was!" Dr. Ito growled. "But this is a Plant. Where could a Natural girl dressed as a prisoner-of-war hope to go in a Plant?"
She sighed. "You still do not see do you? You are determined to keep thinking she is a normal Natural girl who is afraid of us and who is not able to hide from us. You are being just what she calls you, a stubborn old goat! Kayla Grayhawk fears very little and Coordinators are not on her short list! She does not see us as un-natural space monsters, Roland. No woman who is as eager in a man's bed as she is with Adrian harbors any hidden thoughts of his being some kind of evil science horror! Think for once, Father Ito! She wants his children! She is happy to be pregnant by him! She has none of the emotional baggage you are used to in Earth Forces soldiers. She thinks of us as the great triumph of Natural science! She is actually proud of the skills that created us and the Natural scientists that did the work! Kayla is that rare and very dangerous Natural who can walk in a crowd in a Plant and not betray herself because she is not cringing away from everyone around her even by the slightest bit."
The tea went down smoothly and, with the extra heavy load of sugar she stirred into it, laden with a hefty energy boost as well. "It is foolish to assume she is still wearing the green dress too. Once out of the containment area, there are several places inside the Project where she could have picked up either civilian clothing or a ZAFT uniform. Despite the dangers of wearing either, I would assume she's changed and base my search on that."
An irritated scowl marred the old man's still hansom face. "What makes you so sure of all this twaddle?"
"I ran her psych tests." Dr. Serin Ito replied flatly.
He ran an angry hand through his hair, spiking it up in all directions. "Very well, my all-knowing son's wife, then where is the damned girl?"
"No idea." She told him calmly. "I understand the basis of her decision-making process. That does not mean I know what the decisions are going to be. I can give you probabilities though. For example, I would set odds of better than eighty percent that she has escaped the Project site altogether. She knows something of the workings of the ZAFT, it is possible she would try to slip in there and look for a way off the Plant. But that is a terribly bad risk and she is not prone to truly long-odds chances. It would be more like her, odds wise that is, to have found civilian clothing and slipped off the base and into the general population of Aprilius. However, she has no money and no knowledge of how the Plant is laid out or where to find food or shelter. Thus while I am confident she has gone, I do remain stumped as to where she went."
He snorted. "Oh, how useful! Might just as well claim she's off with that GINN!"
Serin Ito stopped, hand half way to the teapot. "Well, that's actually a possibility. She spent an inordinate amount of time in the simulator. Adrian did tell me she was good enough with it to likely be able to operate an actual GINN. Not that she'd be an ace with it or anything so silly, but she could get it to move, to fly, and could handle simple combat. If she'd had half a chance at a flight suit, yes, I could definitely see her trying to steal a GINN."
He stared at her for a second, then threw his head back and laughed. "Eh, that was funny! The girl's a Natural! She can't pilot a GINN, idea's completely absurd!"
But he got no laugh back. "Adrian swears she's that good."
Roland started at her. "She's a Natural! She can't possibly handle software meant for one of us!"
"Of course she could!" Serin snapped. "She just couldn't do it as well as we can. You know what kind of intelligence she has, you've seen the test results yourself! How can you ever imagine a girl like that couldn't learn? Especially since you've made the instruction both handy and unrestricted? Really, did you hear nothing Adrian was trying to tell you about the dangers of letting her have that access? Roland, she is a combat officer! Adrian risked his life in a deadly battle to capture her! This girl has spent a full year as a mobile armor pilot and lived to talk about it! She is fully familiar with the realities of kill or be killed! STOP SELLING HER SHORT!"
"I, . . . . . . no, she can't, . . . . . .Serin she's pregnant with my only chance for a great-grandson! She can't possibly be out in some GINN!"
There was a very long silence, then she set the teacup down carefully. "I see. You let yourself get so wrapped up in the hope of renewing the family that you refused to honestly look at the woman you were using to do it. You really don't have any idea what Kayla Grayhawk is capable of do you? Well, you'd better go back up to your office and take those damned blinders off and STUDY the girl! Because your great-grandchildren have probably just gone out to meet the EA in a stolen GINN!"
He rose. "I'll have to call Base Command and . . ."
"You'll do no such stupid thing!" Serin snapped. "They've got a major battle on their hands and everyone is on a hair trigger! You tell them that one of their mobile suits is being stolen by an enemy officer and they'll just kill her! Think before you open your big mouth Roland! The EA is coming with nukes for god's sake! They'll all shoot before they think right now!"
The old man slowly sank back into his seat. "Oh, Serin, what do I do?"
"Nothing." She said quietly. "It's out of our hands now. We will search and hunt here and make sure I'm not guessing wrong. But if I'm right and she is out there, then only God can help her now. So perhaps, . . . . . . . . . . perhaps 'nothing' is the wrong answer. Perhaps I should suggest prayer."
"Yes." He agreed softly. "I remember how to do that."
