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.)

On time, this time. Not as much or as well laid out as I'd hoped though. Still, it covers the needed ground.

Disclaimer: I do not own Gundam Seed.


There was a military maxim about dividing and conquering, a scheme for breaking down an enemy force into manageable packets. Serin wondered if Roland's idea about applying this to an attempt to rapidly digest the new Mendel data was brilliant or just plain nuts. Or perhaps it was simply that the quantity of data was making the concept 'manageable packets' a bit ridiculous. Whichever it was, it was giving her a major headache.

She pushed back from the computer where she'd just spent the last four hours and closed her eyes. She was finally getting to a point where she could begin to sort this stuff quickly into a series of files she'd created. No cross-indexing was happening yet, she hadn't had the time to generate that complex little protocol, but she could now get the new materials into their major headings swiftly. But her head was pounding from the strain of trying to get this set up so fast and now that she was ready on the system, her body wasn't going to tolerate it. A break was being demanded. Not a fool, Serin let her throbbing head dictate the situation. After all, how good would the job be if she was too distracted to keep an eye on the process?

There were tablets for this head in Roland's desk. She helped herself to a couple, raided his tea, and confiscated several snacks off his tray to go with them. Low blood sugar wasn't helping anything either, she realized as she discovered just how ravenous she was.

About twenty minutes later, time spent eating slowly, letting her eyes close whenever they felt like it, and relaxing in the very comfortable guest chair, Serin began to think she was going to be human again. The headache was rapidly receding, her eyes were beginning to feel less and less like they'd been rolled on a particularly gritty beach, and her stomach was much happier with her. Her brain was also coming fully back on line as well.

That last was what sent her reluctantly up out of the cozy chair to check on her father-in-law. Roland had been working at least as long as she had. Moreover, he was in the tiny clean lab in the back of the office. He wouldn't have had anything to eat or drink in the last four hours either. And while he liked to boast about his endurance, it didn't change the simple fact that the man was on the far side of seventy and really couldn't put in the kind of hours he had a few decades ago without getting himself into trouble. Not but what he wasn't mule-headed enough to try though.

She found him where she'd expected him to be, at his computer. She hadn't anticipated seeing a pair of no-g sealed drink bottles beside him. Serin gave them a very dirty look. One held something clear but the other had a murky blue fluid in it that was probably ZAFT's experimental liquid rations. The flavor of that experiment was pretty bad but the nutrient value was outstanding. Roland had planned better than she had anticipated.

Five different DNA spirals floated over the projector plate in his desktop. She glanced at them briefly, then paused. Serin was not the expert Roland was but she wasn't a novice with these either. And this set struck her as somehow different from any she'd ever seen.

"What are these?" She asked curiously, peering closely at them.

"These are five of the absolutely fascinating fifteen samples your friend Skip brought us from Mendel." He replied, eyes never leaving the screen of his computer where another DNA spiral was turning under much higher magnification.

Her jaw dropped in shock. "They found WHAT? But you and Adrian both told me the place was ruined! That none of the genetic materials had survived! Adrian assured me that all of the cryo facilities were smashed beyond recovery!"

He turned and looked at her with a very odd smile. "Oh they smashed whatever they could find all right. But we already knew they hadn't found everything. Gilbert has that second Da Flaga clone after all and that one had to have been stored there when Blue Cosmos struck the place; not even Hibiki would have let any of them be placed somewhere he didn't have total control over. They didn't find him. Why are you so surprised they missed a few other things? The damn place was a regular rabbit warren after all and had secret rooms in plenty on top of that!"

Serin pulled up the padded lab stool and settled into it, eyes glued to the five slowly turning spirals. "What are they then?"

"Now that is a very good question. Unfortunately, I don't have the answer yet. I can tell you some things though. For one, all of these are prototypes. They are far too simple to be anything like the final design. Moreover, they are all set up with different enhancement packages. It looks like Hibiki came up with several different designs for the same general kinds of enhancements and was testing them in different combinations. He's got three different approaches to enhancing physical strength for example, and six for boosting mental acuity. There are multiple approaches to enhancing vision, agility, disease resistance, boosting skeletal strength, and so on. It's pretty clear not all of these designs were compatible either. So he could only use an upgrade, lets call it x1, with upgrades a1, b3, c8, or d4 for example. I have to wonder how many of these combinations Yuuren worked up. I very much doubt that there were only fifteen."

"What could he do with them? He wasn't raising any children. How could he even evaluate his results?"

Roland shrugged. "Oh, it's possible to do evaluations on this level with reasonable accuracy. But as to what they're really for, I suspect he was using these as base stocks for his more advanced work. These are fairly basic as I said before. They're also damn stable. They are just about perfect as experimental root stocks."

Serin eyed him unhappily. "How closely are these 'root stocks' related to young Yamato?"

"Too closely. They aren't from the exact source he was built from but they are his brothers. They all came from one sperm cell, cloned many times and modified individually. He came from a different base sperm cell but both cells were Hibiki's."

"That's just revolting!"

He shrugged again. "Probably. It hardly matters now. The work is done and the man himself is long dead. There really isn't anyone left to hang this on."

She shook her head grimly. "Oh no, this is far from over. We have these now and we are going to be the ones deciding what to do with them. No, Roland, the responsibility has passed to us now. I hope you aren't thinking about developing any of them."

"Oh yes I am." He replied flatly. "They are in perfect condition and they are stable Serin. Do you understand what that means? They will produce very competent Coordinators who are also stable. Such individuals will be naturally reproductive! We have the keys to saving us all right here, in this lab! Don't for one second think I'll toss them aside just because I despise the way they were made!"

"Have you lost your mind?"

"Not at all. You're letting your prejudices get in the way here. Besides, I only have the fifteen variations and less than a hundred of each too. It isn't like they're going to be dominating our entire genetic code all by themselves you know. I'm not sure every cell I have will even develop any longer either. I could get started and find most of them aren't viable any more."

He settled back in his chair. "I understand your aversion, believe me I do. And yes, I will admit that with these for blueprints, I could build similar lines from other sources. But that work will take a couple years. I have these to hand right now. We can begin to get started on a genuinely stable, reproductive Coordinator model this afternoon if we want to rush things. I don't by the way. Picking the other half for each of these cells is going to be important. With the supply so very limited, we want the best crosses we can produce."

"The other half?" Serin eyed him in some confusion. "I thought you said these were viable by themselves."

He blinked. "Well, no, no more than any sperm cell is viable all by itself. What, did you think these were fertilized ova?"

"Yes, I did. That was what it sounded like you were saying after all!"

"No, no! These are just sperm cells! They are a base stock for making Hibiki's crossings! We'll still need to match them with the right egg cells to get the most out of them."

She began to nod slowly as comprehension filtered in. So none of them were actually ready to incubate at all. That was good, very good. It would force Roland to take some time and maybe rethink this whole mad idea. Then something else he'd said earlier suddenly triggered another thought.

"You call these Kira's brothers. How do you know that?"

"Eh? What do you mean, how do I know what? That they're related to Yamato?"

"Well, yes that too but most specifically how do you know they are from a different sperm cell? I thought you didn't have a good genetic chart for the boy."

His eyebrows rose in comprehension. "Oh, yes, that. Well, Kira Yamato may be something amazing as a mobile suit pilot but he's completely ignorant of the concept of bio-security. I spent well over a week on the Kusanagi with him on that Mendel trip. I got hold of his hairbrush on the second day out. Had all the samples I needed from that in ten seconds."

"So you do have a complete gene chart for him, don't you?

"Yes I do. And in many, many ways he's so normal it's almost frightening. But at the same time, he's very, very different. He's been refined to an amazing degree. Each alteration in him is the product of exceptionally high caliber work. Almost nothing is either over or under done. While he's very normal in the majority of his alterations, those items are themselves probably close to the best you'll ever get using a human base. Given what I've learned, I could produce others very like him in six months. The question is, should I?"

"Now that's one very interesting question coming from you Roland."

He eyed her thoughtfully. "Is it? Well, if it is, then consider it the product of age and experience. One Ultimate Coordinator could have been one too many. All of humanity owes a profound debt to the way the Yamato's raised that boy. If he'd grown up angry, jealous, over-proud or any of an array of other emotional extremes we'd have all been in deadly danger. Instead, they raised a normal teen with an unusual sense of responsibility. Kira has no interest in running any life but his own. Give yourself ten seconds to consider what could have happened if he was interested in a wider level of control and I think you'll understand why I'm not sure I should even consider making any more that approach his level."

"Ah! Yes, I do understand now." Serin nodded. "But you still want to use these cells?"

"They aren't anything like Kira. Oh, they're refined to a level close to his all right but they aren't part of a package with anything like his full range of gifts. As I said, in many ways, they're pretty basic. Kira Yamato is not even remotely basic."

"So, let me see if I understand what we have then. There are fifteen cell lines, each different and each in very limited supply. The lines are for making Coordinators. Each line is relatively simple in its enhancement packages but the packages themselves are very, very high quality. Am I completely correct here?"

"Yes, that's about it." Roland agreed calmly. "Think of these as something very like a Morrison Plan Natural. Just about the best one can be and still honestly be human. And like the Morrison lines, these should cross with most existing Coordinator lines to give us an exceptionally healthy child who can marry as they please."

Serin eyed the old man. She'd known Roland Ito too long for him to put much past her and every bit of that experience was warning her he was trying to distract her from something. She wondered just what it was when a thought occurred to her.

"Roland, how would these cross with a Morrison line?"

The fleeting flash of irritation told her she'd found the item he'd wanted her to miss on the first try. She almost laughed at him. She hadn't even been going for that really. It was simply a natural extension of the thought he'd brought up himself regarding crossing Morrison and Coordinator lines.

"We'll know in nine months." He growled.

All amusement fled. "What have you done!"

"Nothing yet. But as soon as I have all fifteen completely recorded I'll be running match programs to find them the best opportunities I have." His eyes were the hard, metallic gold they only got when his mind was made up past changing. "I'll be checking every single line I have on hand for matches but I already know at least two of these will give us outstanding children if I use the eggs I took from Kayla."

"If you do WHAT?" Serin nearly screamed. "ROLAND ITO! HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?"

"Hardly." He replied coldly. "If I don't use them to the best advantage, the children will demand them back. I wouldn't be surprised if they get around to remembering them the day after the wedding! Serin, they don't need them and our people do! Adrian and Kayla can make all the kids they can handle without those eggs. We on the other hand, have a decided lack of Morrison Plan genetics. Those eggs represent almost twenty percent of our total supply. Gilbert sent samples all right but they were tiny in quantity and some are too old to be safe to use. Moreover, the scanning I've done of the records for the materials Captain Martin and his people bought for us isn't showing any Morrison lines in the boxes yet. This time you're bucking my obsession. They have the power to go a good way toward making us a viable people. I am not handing that back to the kids to waste! I'll use these and let them make more stable kids with Adrian as the sole source for the male genetics. I'll have a broader base for the project and more great-grandchildren doing it that way. So that's how its going to be."

"Perhaps your ethics are poisoned." Serin told him flatly.

"Maybe they are." He allowed. "But I'm not about to let that consideration get in the way of making us viable. I will tell them about the children after they're born and the two of them can decide if they want to raise them as part of the family or not. But I'll not give them any chance to tell me I can't do it. And I won't hear you if you try it either."

He stared blindly at the far wall. "We will be fully human, Serin, we will! No one will ever be able to hold control of our medical facilities over our heads as a means of enslaving us ever again! We will be whole, and we will be free!"

She stared at her hands. She had no answer to that. She wasn't even sure there was one.


"What problem?" Janet Grayhawk asked quietly.

Both Medicine Women turned, startled. Then they looked hard at each other. No one should have been able to slip up on them like that. Someone, it seemed, wanted Janet in the loop.

That was probably wise, Maria decided. Janet was going to be a major factor here. First Kay might not think so but she knew her own daughter very well. Janet wasn't going to let Adrian and Kayla leave until they were legally married under Colorado law. She had picked up this burr-under-her-saddle idea that the Plants would throw Kayla out the instant the children were born if the two of them didn't have a lawful Earthside marriage to stop them.

"Blue Cosmos has finally sent a lawyer 'round to represent Larry and the others." She told her daughter before First Kay could come up with some distraction of a story. "I didn't take the call, but apparently Kirby thinks he can hold off the woman for another three days. But that's all the time we have to get these boys and Kayla out of here before the law comes down on Larry's side."

"But," Janet faltered, then rallied. "We need to do something about that. First though, we must get those two married."

"How?" First Kay asked bluntly. "A license takes a week and involves blood tests. Any half-assed test at all is going to turn up the fact that a Coordinator boy is looking to marry a Natural girl. That'll set off fireworks all on its own."

"Not if it's done under a special license." Janet replied grimly. "A special license doesn't require any tests, just the consent of the two involved."

"Small problem here." Maria pointed out. "We don't have such a license and while First Kay and I can do a lot, we can't make one of those pop out of thin air."

Janet Spotted Horse Grayhawk turned icy emerald eyes on her mother. "Call Uncle Jerome."

"Excuse me?" Maria stared at her. "Aren't you the one who told him to leave this house and never set foot inside again? Just how do you think you're going to manage this?"

The frozen gem eyes didn't even flinch. "You will call him and you will tell him I will tell everyone in the North Atlantic Federation about Hasslehoff if he doesn't issue the license and perform the ceremony. And you will tell him if he does, I'll give him the data and never mention it again."

"Hasslehoff?" First Kay asked with interest.

"Never you mind what it's about." Janet snapped. "It'll cause Uncle Jerome a scandal of epic proportions if the story got out. That's all anyone else needs to know. And it'll bend him to my will this one time. It isn't something that could ever be used more than once anyhow."

"I think I have a . . . . . ." First Kay began huffily.

"No, don't pry." Maria cut her off. "I think I know what this is about. I'll tell you later. For the moment lets just say it should work as Janet expects."

She turned to her daughter. "You do understand that if this is what you've been using to keep Jerome off the ranch, he'll take it as his God-given right to come back once you hand over whatever it is you have for him."

"I know." Janet agreed. "But the power of a loaded shotgun isn't something that damned fraud is going to challenge either. He's a coward, Mother. I find myself wondering if his weakness isn't what Larry inherited; that terrible need for power that has made such a ruin of my son. Such things will run in family lines you know. And for all our genetic work, we still aren't perfect creatures and likely never will be. Nor has anyone ever identified a 'cowardice' gene or a 'megalomania' gene. We could chop both out of the family if we only knew where to cut."

"You know," First Kay suddenly put in. "We could also tell the bastard that we'll curse him if he attempts to force his way back into this house. He tells everyone he doesn't believe in the Spirits or in our powers but you know damn good and well that he does. He'll have to find some excuse to stomp out but if we carry through, he'll run."

"Do you really want to have to put up with his ravings about how his God is more powerful than our Spirits again? I nearly puked the last time we went through that."

First Kay turned a very unamused glare on her sister-in-law. "I don't plan to put up with anything. I plan to pretend to understand the general outline of this Hasslehoff business and use that to shut him down before he can get started. Janet says it'll be a major scandal. Well, given this is Jerome we're talking about there are only a few general headings that could possibly fall under. We're most likely talking about abuse of trust, theft, false witness, or sex. My bet would be a combination of two or more since Janet has been able to use it to keep him out."

"Try a mix of all of those with a healthy dose of racism tossed in." Janet said wearily. "It was a very, very ugly incident and it's been hushed up a long time now. When you consider his position in the Church today, well, this isn't something he can afford to have come out. I wouldn't even think of doing this if there was anyone else we could get. But it has to be someone who is both a cleric and a Justice of the Peace. Only someone with both qualifications can issue a special license and perform the required religious ceremony to make the law happy. Neither of the two local county men would accept marrying a Natural to a Coordinator so it has to be Jerome and the only way he'll do it is if he's staring social, political, and religious doom in the face."

"You got that right!" Maria said feelingly.

"All right." First Kay nodded firmly. "We do it that way then. But I suggest we think about getting both Matthew and Elena to come as well. He just might think he could bully two women. He isn't gonna try that with his older brother and both older sisters staring him down even if he does manage to ignore me. Besides, they're both fine shaman in their own rights. If there's gonna be a hasty wedding, lets get all the blessings for it we can!"

"Then you wanna call Charlie and let him know this is happening? Because if you don't invite him to Kayla's wedding, he'll likely do something very unfriendly to us both."

"Eh, well, yes, you have a point. All right, I'll call Charlie. That leaves you stuck with getting hold of your baby brother."

Maria turned faintly green but nodded. Dealing with Jerome had become impossible when he'd turned nineteen and caught a next-to-terminal case of religion. His version of the Baptist faith made most honest Baptists barf. It was so far beyond merely conservative that she sometimes wondered if he'd approved of using fire to heat his cave yet. And his views on the role of women were something right out of the dawn of the Middle Ages. She sincerely hated having to talk to him.

"Good, this is settled then. I'll tell the children." Janet strode off.

"Kayla, this isn't going to be as easy as Janet wants to believe." Maria noted unhappily. "Jerome will be furious and we both know what he thinks of Coordinators."

"He can be as mad as he wants to be but if this Hasslehoff business is as serious as Janet thinks it is, he'll do it. He was just elected Deputy Director for the North American church three months ago. He won't jeopardize that standing, the goal of his whole life now. He'll hold his nose, be very rude, and do it. We will have to prepare the ZAFT boys for his attitude and mouth though. We really, really do not need one of them to lose it and slap him brainless."

"That brings up another point. How are we going to get the four of them out of here? I've been seeing the odd truck or car parked in unusual places ever since the day of the fight. The ranch is under watch by those who don't trust the Coordinators. How do we get them past those eyes?"

"Well, for one, Kirby will run a sweep of the area tonight and will run off anyone he finds. He's actually done a couple earlier but he didn't go all out to make absolutely sure he had all the vigilantes scared off. He will this time. And he's got some drug-running incident that happened two counties over in New Mexico last night that he's going to use for an excuse to be cracking down on all 'suspicious' activity. Apparently whatever happened has got the law enforcement community real pissed. Even the deputies he can't depend on to help us will be working with a real will to find these drug people. He'll just aim them where he needs them."

"So far, so good. At least we'll be free of eyes for a bit. How do we get them out though? If Larry talks, and we both know he will, that lawyer will have material witness warrants out for all three boys in a heartbeat."

First Kay just shook her head. "I've no idea. I was planning to do a bit of 'looking' in the smoke tonight."

"Then I'll try the water." Maria agreed. "Adrian Ito has Coyote's blessing, there will be a way."

"Oh, I think I can be of some help there, Gran."

They turned to find the Bronze Spider leaning against the wall, burger in one hand and drink in the other.

"How long were you listening?" Maria asked calmly.

"Long enough to know we're gonna be graced with another visit from Great Uncle Jerome."

"Don't sound so enthusiastic or anything." First Kay muttered sarcastically.

"Hey, that blind and rabid wolverine could drop dead in the morning and the whole world would be cleaner for it. But under the circumstances, I can see why Mom is sending for him. I'll leave him to her and to you. But the issue of how to get Coordinators out of a tight spot, that I can do something about for you."

"How?" Maria asked baldly.

"I know how to reach the network that rescues Coordinators targeted by Blue Cosmos." The General replied simply. "How did you think Rebecca and the kids managed to vanish? I put her in touch with them. They got her out. She's probably up in a Plant by now with the kids, safe from Larry for good."

"You know this and you've never told anyone in Headquarters?" First Kay asked.

Maria the younger turned grim eyes on her grandmothers. "I stumbled across the data by accident. Fortunately for a lot of people, I didn't do it until I'd had far too good a chance to see where senior command was drifting. That incident with the team experimenting with animal tranquilizers to catch Coordinators wasn't the first time I'd had unwelcome dealings with the power Blue Cosmos has in the military. I'm not going to discuss any of those incidents either. Just understand that I've never hated those people for just being what they are. It isn't like they get a choice in the matter after all. The alterations are done on embryos. I've never heard of any embryo that could petition to avoid being altered. So when it became obvious that this war was really about genocide, I decided I wasn't going to play along. I've sent quite a few into that network. I've never heard of any of them being caught. This will be the first time though that I've ever sent them combat aged boys to rescue."

Maria eyed her grand-daughter. "Well then, we have both major problems solved. Lets get to work. It seems three of us have some calls to make."

"Right!" The Spider and First Kay agreed in chorus.