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.)
Back-up and other decisions.
Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed.
"He can't go alone!"
"He already has Yuri. There's nothing we can do about it."
"Lance!" Yuri turned away from his Commander's piercing amethyst eyes. "Then we have to follow him. He's out of his head half the time now. I don't care if the stories are exaggerated, North America is not a safe place for any Coordinator and rather less so for one as mono-focused as Adrian!"
"I know that!" Commander Thoms snapped. "He'd have gone with or without my leave so I gave it to keep him out of at least some trouble. And yes, I know he's half crazy right now, all right? I honestly didn't think Mother would pull the paperwork together that fast. I thought we'd have a day or two to calm him down and get him to agree to take someone along to watch his back."
"Get me permission to land!" The former pilot demanded. "I may only have one eye but I see better right now than he does! Let me go, Lance. We've been partners too long! I can't just sit up here while he gets himself killed down there!"
"I can't." Lance replied quietly. "I already tried. Mother hit a brick wall trying for a second set of papers. Someone is very angry that a ZAFT Elite is going to Earth to bring back a Natural to marry. She's trying to find out who's blocking things but it looks like it goes into the Supreme Council itself and her reach there is very limited."
"That's not good enough!" Yuri shouted.
"That's the way it is, Lieutenant Lubbek! Do I look like a minor god to you? In case I do, one clue, I'm not!" Lance was getting angry. "Mother's still trying. It's the best we can do. Get that through that block of rock you've got for a head! We are doing all we can!"
"It isn't good enough." Yuri repeated, calmer but just as insistent. "Lance, let me try. I'll come up with something!"
"They'd have your head on a plate." Thoms told him bluntly. "You have no idea what kind of trouble you'd be in doing something that stupid. Worse, it would reflect back on Adrian. Don't even think about it, you hear me?"
Yuri waved his arms helplessly. "And if I don't, they'll both die down there!"
"Not if you go with me."
Yuri turned sharply and Lance raised both eyebrows. At some point in their rather heated discussion, Voril Joule had slipped into the office. He was standing rigidly by the closed door, eyes going back and forth between them.
"If he goes with you? I'd appreciate an explanation, Mr. Joule." Lance said with a dangerous softness that warned the experienced he was very, very angry.
Joule's gray eyes locked onto his. "Do you have any idea what it is like living in the shadow of someone like my cousin? Yzak is such a dominating personality, no one ever forgets him. And I happen to look a lot like him. It creates expectations, Commander. No one bothers to find out who I am. They know Yzak, so they assume they know me."
The eyes fell to the floor. "Captain Ito is the first officer in the whole ZAFT who looked past Yzak to see me. He didn't assume I was a clone of my cousin. He asked me what I could do, not what Yzak could do. And he listened to me when I answered. He probably didn't want me here, no ones wanted me because they don't want Commander Joule telling them how to run their company just because I'm part of it. I know why I was always being transferred, I'm not blind or deaf. But I never saw any of that from him. He never once suggested there was anything wrong with me!"
The eyes came back up, on fire now. "He gave me a chance sir! No one else would! And when things didn't work out with either Druse or Yablonic, he took me on as his own wing! And he made that work! I earned this red jacket! Not Yzak, me! Captain Ito's given me the chance to prove that! I owe him!"
Now the burning eyes flicked over to include Yuri. "You've given me the same chance. He was your lead before you got hurt. You can still fly mobile suits, I know you can. But you've let me come in and take your place anyway. So I owe you too."
The fire died back. "And I owe you sir. I was in eight other teams briefly. None of their Commanders would let me even try to prove I was worth having. You have. Captain Ito's your friend as well as your Second; everyone's seen that. I, well I was in a position to help so I have."
"You resent your cousin that much?" Lance asked neutrally.
"Is that how it sounds? I suppose it does, doesn't it?" He shook his head. "No, actually I rather like Yzak the person. It's Yzak the image that's been killing me. He's really a very considerate and generous guy, as long as no one can see him behaving that way. His side of the family is really messed up you know. The price they've paid for being so politically prominent is outright terrifying. Sometimes, this always sounds so strange, but honestly, I sometimes feel sorry for him. He's locked into this image, this way of being that cuts him off from most everyone who doesn't have a hide thick as Dearka's. He can't let himself be less than perfect. He isn't allowed to be human. The only people he can be just himself around are Dearka and Shiho. And even then, it has to be in private."
"Voril, what did you do?" Yuri asked worriedly.
"I went to see my Aunt Ezaria. I may not be from the political side of the family but that doesn't mean I don't know anything about it. I traded her some data she didn't have, and didn't know about, for two sets of travel documents. One's set up for me. The other is still open although I was pretty sure you would be using it. We are legal for the shuttle that leaves tonight or the one for tomorrow. Any later and we'll need to get them reworked."
Lance blinked. The boy had done this on his own? And what did he know that had pried two complete sets of Earth travel permits out of Councilor Joule's hands that fast? It was one hell of a thank you to Adrian that he'd done it but still, he really couldn't know how dangerous this was.
"I can't let you go, Joule." Thoms said regretfully. "You have no experience . . . . . . "
"Yes I do!" Voril interrupted. "That's the point, sir! We used to visit Earth all the time! Dad's a historian; we were always going someplace down there for his research. Commander, I've been to the immediate area by the Grayhawk ranch! We were there less than four years ago. It's by a silly little town, Oro Mentiroso, that Dad was interested in. We were there over three weeks! I spent most of it playing in the river, I grant you, but I was there!"
Lance Thoms sat back slowly, considering this startling information.
"I looked her up after I heard the Captain was really going after her. That's how I found out where she's from. That's why I knew I could really be useful."
"Why did your father want to spend three weeks in this Oro place? Is it significant somehow? I've never heard of it." Yuri asked.
Joule leaned back against the door. "Well, you see, Dad has this idea that the reason people move is economic. If there wasn't more wealth attached, he claims we wouldn't do it, that we'd all just stay where it's familiar and comfortable. Personally, I think humans move for more reasons than just money. But this town, it really supported Dad's ideas you see, because it was settled by a rather clever money swindle. Dad wanted to have the time to really look into the story, so we stayed much longer than usual."
He grinned. "Dad went through their archives with a fine-toothed comb and talked to everyone he could who had family that went back that far. Mom shopped for the best of the local crafts for her sister's store up here. Me, I mostly played in the river like I said. One of the local girls, they called her Al, she was a little younger than me but she'd dare anything, she showed me how to use a gold pan. I spent most of the time out on one gravel bar or other pretending to be an old west miner."
"It was a lot of fun." He added wistfully. "More than most of Dad's stops were for sure. I still have that little bottle with the tiny amount of real gold dust I actually did find out there."
"Someone swindled a town into existence?" Yuri couldn't believe it. "How do you do that?"
Voril smiled. "You sell town lots as part of shares in a gold mine that doesn't exist! Really, the people who bought into that one were serious idiots. But that's why the town got its name, Pueblo del Oro del Mentiroso, Liar's Gold Town. They've cut it down to just Oro Mentiroso over time. The river is Rio del Oro del Mentiroso, Liar's Gold River. People locally just call it the Oro now.
Lance Thoms let out a sharp bark of laughter. "Oh, good one!"
Yuri on the other hand just stared at him. "That's insane. Who'd buy shares in a gold mine they hadn't verified was there?"
Voril shrugged. "Remember, this trick was pulled in the 1850's by the old calendar. People had a harder time verifying things when you had to ride a horse three months one way to find out the truth of a story and three more months back to report it. As to who bought the shares though, they were dreamers, the gullible, and a few who just wanted an excuse to leave other problems behind and start over. Dad's research turned up a pretty varied lot of real oddball types. They were survivors though. They built a town and livelihoods out of their disappointment that have lasted up to the present."
"The important thing here, interesting history of this place aside, is that you were there and not just overnight." Commander Thoms noted, focusing back on the issue at hand. "Tell me, do you remember any of the local road net or the countryside beyond the river?"
"Yes sir, I do. One of the standard things Dad had me do was memorize the local roadmaps for whatever area he was researching at the time. He was wary of asking the locals for directions if he could avoid it. I can still draw the county road maps for all four counties in that area. I know because I tried last night and compared my work to what we have on record. The only thing is, there are a lot of local, unofficial roads that cross the ranches and I don't know many of those." He replied quickly. "Oh and the stock trails go everywhere. You'd need a horse for most of those though and I don't see where we would need to be riding horses if we have a reliable truck. We should be able to stay on the established roads."
"Horses," Yuri said thoughtfully. "I wonder . . . . ."
"Yes?" Lance prodded when there was nothing more forthcoming from the mentally occupied Lubbek.
"Oh, just an idea on how we can pass ourselves off as having a legitimate business reason for being in the area. But horses won't do. I'll have to ask my father if he'll authorize me to do some wool buying. That would be very justifiable in that area." He turned to Voril. "Do you know anything about sheep?"
The young Elite replied instantly, ticking the items off on his fingers. "They aren't good for riding. Rams don't like people in their pastures. You really don't want one of them to catch up and hit you while they're running you off! Ewes will chase you out too if there are lambs present. God help you if they're using llamas as guard animals! Those things will knock you over and kneel on you! You're much safer being chased by a dog! Oh, and if you pick one up, a lamb will piss on you. Washing up after any of these things in cold creeks or slippery stock tanks is no fun. What else is there one needs to know?"
Yuri blinked. "Ah, so you did get out of the river a time or two I see. No, that tells me all I need to know about what you don't know. How about wool or the different breeds? Do you know anything about either of those topics?"
"Wool itches but makes wonderful blankets and they come in a lot of breeds."
"Riiiiight." Yuri drawled. "Scratch that idea."
"Do you know enough to pass as a wool buyer, Yuri?" Lance was curious.
"Yes I can. Lubbek Imports was a major dealer in raw wools for all sorts of industrial uses before the blockades and the war. We bought a wide variety of wools, including merino like the Grayhawks are supposed to have. I've been down to Earth a number of times myself with my father on his buying trips. Dad bought mostly in Australia and New Zeeland but there were a couple of trips to North America. If he agrees, we can go representing the company. That way, I can make real offers and nothing will fall apart on us."
"Besides," he added, "Dad wouldn't object to getting a jump on reopening his markets."
"That leaves us the question of how to account for Mr. Joule here since he clearly isn't qualified to buy wool." Thoms drummed his fingers thoughtfully on his desk.
"Actually, I have an idea there too. And it would cover Adrian as well." Yuri nodded at Voril. "He can be hired protection. I'm too obviously a Coordinator and couldn't really pretend to be anything else. So it would be logical for me to arrange for security traveling in North America. If we got them papers from one of the general commercial contracting companies in Aube, it wouldn't even seem unusual that they were Coordinators too. Protective services companies are one of the biggest open employers of Coordinators in most Earth nations."
Voril brightened. "I have the unarmed combat training to support that kind of role! My instructor was a great believer in the concept that anyone who actually needed their martial arts skills wasn't going to be fighting in a tournament either. He saw to it that I learned a lot of not so nice street fighting bits too."
Lubbek's smile was outright vicious. "And Adrian never was a gentleman in a hand to hand fight either. Yes sir, I think we've got this worked out."
"Better call your father and secure his permission and a line of credit so you can do your wool buying then." Commander Thoms knew when a situation was running away from him and this one was heading out of any control he could exert very quickly now.
"Thank you sir!" Both of them chorused and hurried out the door, planning as they went.
Lance shook his head slowly. He was now risking three good people on this insanity. But there wasn't much he could do to stop it really. Adrian was too far out of his head to slow down. He'd have found a way out of the brig to go after that girl if he'd had to. The other boys were simply too loyal for their own good. Well, that and too interested in what would beyond doubt be a real adventure. He wondered if they'd ever heard of the old idea that adventure was someone else having a hideous time a thousand kilometers away.
He didn't tell them that one; not then or when they parted at the shuttle station where they boarded for Earth. It would only have looked like sour grapes to the excited youngsters if he had. Yuri had his father's blessing to go wool buying so they had a solid cover story at least. Commander Thoms could only hope the whole thing would work out as well as the boys expected it to.
Of course, their first hurdle was going to be getting Adrian to take them along. Somehow, he had confidence in their ability to manage that one. They wouldn't be going into that one alone after all. Lance was quite sure, for starters, that Yamato and Zala would support them. If Kisaka was in on this, he would too. Poor Ito was likely to find any objections simply washed over like a low mudflat by a tidal wave.
He just hoped the message Mother promised she'd send got to Earth before the shuttle did. And that it reached Zala in time. It would really not be a good start if they were stranded at the Aube station on arrival after all.
Serin Ito studied the letter on her desk with much the interest she would have given a venomous spider. Considering who'd sent it, the comparison was actually rather apt. He really was quite good. He'd managed several layers of innuendo and threat in one simple page. He'd even tossed in a genuine compliment or two.
It was the old book that he'd sent along with the letter though that told her just how much the man knew. And by the depth of that knowledge, just how genuinely dangerous he was. She shook her head slowly. Admire or hate him, you had to recognize just how thoroughly this man had planned for the future. No matter what Roland thought, they were not going to be fighting with him. They were in no way prepared to match the strength of his preparations.
She looked at the book again. "Genomic Health" had been written before her father-in-law was born. The author, Dr. Phillip Morrison, was one of the team that had worked on the creation of George Glenn. But Dr. Morrison apparently came out of that program unconvinced humanity really needed to go so far as to change into Coordinators. Instead, he advocated the path people like Kayla Grayhawk's family had been following; clean the living daylights out of your own genome and pass on nothing but genetic soundness and outstanding health to the next generation.
The volume she had here was an eleventh printing. By that time the ideas in the book were apparently being called the Morrison Plan and there were some unknown but, judging from the notes at the end of the dedication, not insignificant number of families involved. Clearly the Grayhawks had joined the program in its early stages or Kayla wouldn't be so very genetically clean.
He knew all about these people. He claimed, and she did not doubt him at all, to have a listing of the majority of the so-called Morrison Plan families. He also asserted that he could arrange for a limited selection genetic samples from these lines to be provided to the Project whenever they were requested. She had to wonder if he really could deliver on that promise. It would be damned useful if he could. On the other hand, Roland would have numerous kittens at the very mention of the idea. Serin frowned severely, he hadn't known about the Grayhawks until Roland had been required to validate Kayla as a good match for Adrian.
It was damned unfortunate that he'd learned but then, neither of them had realized he was Patrick's unofficial geneticist for the Supreme Council. Even with Zala gone, no one had replaced him yet. She doubted Eileen was even going to try. The pool of qualified people was small and the clever man had never been implicated in any of Patrick's genocidal plans. Serin quite frankly doubted he'd had any real idea. He wanted to control the human race, not eliminate it. Besides, too many of the current Council thought well of the man, they lacked any reason to remove him.
She picked up the letter again and reread the paragraph where he congratulated Roland in securing a girl from that Plan for his grandson. Oh my yes, he understood just what Kayla would do for their children. And his careful wording made it just as clear what he could do to Kayla and the children with only the slightest tampering with the records. This was going to cut Roland off before any battle began.
There was an olive branch in here as well. It did seem that his memory was every bit as sharp as Roland thought it would be. But the man did not want a war with Dr. Ito. Rather, he saw the Ito Project as a solid contribution to his own views. It seemed that while he still firmly believed in genetic predestination, he had no objections to anyone who tried to improve the place of the next generation using intelligently chosen genetic selection. Moreover, he definitely did want to see Coordinators freed from the necessity of using a med-lab for each and every child produced.
It was quite clear to her where things would go when he took power. The Ito Project would actually expand as he sought out more of these 'Morrison Plan' families and obtained significant quantities of genetic material from them. The current project using the best obtainable Natural genetics would not be curbed either. Eventually, there would be two tracks going at once. Both would be working with the same goal, make the Coordinator population genuinely self-sustaining.
After all, in his mind Coordinators were destined to become a sound and capable human sub-species that would be dominate over the much larger but lesser talented Natural population in a perpetually peaceful, warless society. What was it about some kinds of genius that blinded them to how people really worked? Considering what she knew of the human mind and it's powerful emotional drives, Serin could only wonder what this idiot-genius was smoking.
She sighed quietly. He was a very powerful idiot-genius and growing more so by the day. Miranda was quite correct when she said he would take control of the Council before long. She had to wonder if he didn't almost have it already. They were just now negotiating the end of one war; couldn't he see that his plans would create a new one?
Her eyes narrowed. Perhaps he did see that, or at least some of it. He couldn't be blind to the simple fact that killing Muruta Azriel had not done anything to seriously damage Blue Cosmos. That fanatical weasel was replaceable as long as the organization itself was intact. And while she would like to think the war had done them irreparable harm, she was not such a fool as to cherish that naive a hope.
So, Serin sat back very thoughtfully, she must assume he wasn't naïve either. That meant he was planning a new battle of some kind. His plans couldn't move forward with Blue Cosmos standing in the way. She wondered how many other individuals and groups he saw as obstacles that would have to be removed on the road to building his dream world. If there were enough of them, he would undoubtedly resort to just the kind of brutal warfare they'd just ended. Only that would give him death on the scale he would need to clear the 'detritus' of people and ideas that would oppose him out of his path.
Damn it! It didn't matter how many he killed! The imbecile just couldn't let himself see his dream was doomed from the outset. Too many of the survivors were not going to meekly accept being shunted into his convenient pigeonholes. Parents would resent the absolute limits placed on their children at birth. The children, especially those with serious levels of ambition, would do more than just resent it.
Humans dreamed. It was one of their outstanding characteristics. His society had no place for dreams. Yet it offered no substitute for them either. He failed to see that it didn't matter where your pigeonhole was; if it didn't match your personal dreams you weren't going to be happy there. And unhappy people would rip his imagined arcadian society to bloody shreds.
But before all else, the Ito family had to survive to have any place in tearing his fool's paradise apart. That was going to mean getting Roland to cooperate with the man well enough to convince him that he'd won their personal war before any shot was fired. Roland wasn't going to like that.
She was going to have to keep Adrian and Kayla out of this if she possibly could as well. He had the ZAFT, he could be distracted there. She was going to be a new mother. Hopefully between those, they could be left blind to the politics swirling around them. Neither of them had the skills to survive in a political battle with that man but that wouldn't keep either from trying if they were given reason to think they had to fight him.
Serin snorted quietly. She wondered if she was the blind one now. Those two were frighteningly bright when they bothered to use their minds. Could the real political situation be kept from them? She didn't know. She only knew it would be vital to try.
First things first. The children were down on Earth right now. She would worry about managing them when they got back. Roland on the other hand was right down the hall. He was going to have to be attended to immediately.
Serin picked up the letter and the book. This time the old man was going to hear her, really hear her. Gilbert Dullindal could cherish his illusions if he pleased but the Ito family couldn't afford such any longer. No, Roland was going to have to deal with this future without those rosy glasses of his. Adrian's children wouldn't survive if he didn't. She marched out of her office. She had an old lion to beard in his own den.
