Last Resistance to Peace
Chapter 27
by Scarlet Eve
A.C.205
Early May
Queen Relena and Sally Po stood at the head of the conference room, both with their arms folded over their chests. It wasn't the first time Noin had been stared down by the two of them. Though no matter how many times it happened, she still flinched.
"Where has my brother disappeared to?" Queen Relena asked. Noin looked at the ground, not wanting to give him away so quickly. She'd managed to hide his disappearance for several days, but the scheme caught up to her.
"I think it would be better if you did not know," Noin said.
"Do not presume to know what would be best for her highness," Sally Po snapped. Noin tried to hold her shoulders up in the face of the double glare. Noin sighed and spoke.
"He's left the country, and taken Epyon with him. He's fighting under the guise of the Lighting Count," Noin said. "He said he cannot stay here with the Gundams. He needs to fight OZ, and this is the only way he can."
To Noin's surprise, Queen Relena burst into tears, while Sally Po shook her head. The Queen excused herself from the room, leaving just the two of them.
"Please do not keep any more secrets," Sally said, her voice softer. "She's at her breaking point, and she cannot take much more of Milliardo's nonsense. I understand his motives, but it weights heavily on Relena." Noin nodded.
"Understood."
Outside the room, a shadow slipped away.
A.C. 205
Early May
Quatre Winner's shuttle hovered outside of colony cluster L4 while he assessed his options. Technically the colony was under Colony Alliance rule, so he couldn't just barge into the colony and demand a place to store his Gundam. Right?
As Quatre stared out at the colony, a brief memory flashed before his eyes. He was a small child, watching the colony grow bigger and bigger from the passenger seat on a shuttle, his small hand held in the hand of an adult.
Quatre blinked away the memory, unsure of from where it came. He watched the colony drift in the nothingness of space a little while longer, and made up his mind. He was going to board the colony in the way that OZ would approve.
He left the cockpit seat and traveled through the shuttle to the mobile suit cargo hold, where his gundam, Sandrock, was lying, waiting to be used. Quatre climbed up the Gundam and entered the cockpit, letting the door close behind him, sealing him inside. At his touch, the Gundam came to life, eager for battle.
Sandrock sat up, retrieved his scimitars, and sliced open the belly of the shuttle, freeing the Gundam from confinement. Now floating in space, he waited a moment, watching the colony cluster. In the immediate, nothing happened. After a few minutes, alarms on the exterior of the colony began to go off, the lights flashing. Quatre smiled. They knew he was here.
A hatch on the side of the colony opened, and ten Aries mobile suits flew out into space. They sped towards him, firing their blaster guns in his direction. Sandrock raised his scimitars and flew forward to meet the Aries. When he reached the first one, he sliced the suit in half and moved aside to avoid the explosion.
The Aries shifted their movement to close the gap caused by the down mobile suit and continued to fire to Sandrock. A few alarms chimed in the cockpit, alerting Quatre to damage on the exterior armor plating. He flew up, away from the Aries, and fired at them from the blasters mounted on the head of the Gundam. As he flew back down, he sliced two more Aries in half, spun, and sliced a third. The three mobile suits exploded. In quick succession, he destroyed three more mobile suits, leaving their wreckage to float along in space.
The last three joined together to form a short wall, still blasting away at his mobile suit. More chimes sounded as his armor weakened. Quatre threw the thrusters forward and sped towards the suits. He crashed into one, sliced it, spun, and sliced the last two.
Quatre's breath moved heavy through his lungs. He felt a pang in his heart for the soldiers who just died in battle. He recalled Une's annoyance when she found out about his intense sympathetic reactions to death. She'd claimed it was unappealing for a Gundam pilot. But Quatre could do nothing about it.
No more mobile suits appeared, so Quatre flew his Gundam towards the colony. He was admitted into the shuttle hangar with his Gundam, and when he dismounted the cockpit, he was met by Colony Alliance leaders.
AC 205
Early May
"Are you sure they won't notice that you're gone?" Duo asked when Hilde appeared in the doorway of his room.
Hilde shook her head. "I told them I was running to check on you guys, since you're my charges," she explained. Duo grinned and waved her into the room. She stepped through the doorway, and the automatic door slid closed. Duo rose from the chair he'd been sitting in and reached his arms out towards her, expecting her to fall into him. But she hesitated.
"I wanted to ask you something first…" Hilde said. Duo tried not to roll his eyes, but smiled and nodded.
"Anything."
"Why did you tell me about the attack on Queen Relena's party?" Duo sighed and leaned back in his chair. He ran a hand through his hair, catching his fingers at his braid. "You're with the enemy."
"Let me tell you something that no one else really knows," Duo said, leaning in close. "When I was offered this job, as a Gundam pilot, I really only did it to save my colony and for the money they were offering. I don't keep any of it - I send it all back to the orphanage that raised me."
"Duo…"
"That's why I was willing. Some of those other guys, they weren't willing."
"What are you saying?"
"Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei - they don't remember their pasts. Une has them under some kind of mind-control," he said. It felt strange, divulging these secrets to her. He wasn't even supposed to know about it. But he noticed the cracks, the times when the guys would remember something they weren't supposed to, and Une would whisk them away to some room, deep in the OZ headquarters.
"So why tell me about the attacks?"
"I'm not really on anyone's side," he said, admitting the thing he'd been feeling for months. "I would… I would abandon OZ in a second and fight for Queen Relena."
An excited expression passed over Hilde's face. She rushed up to him and grabbed his hands.
"The Queen would be better off with a Gundam on her side! Please Duo! Join us!"
"It's not that simple," Duo said. He gestured to the adjoining room. "Heero works for OZ, and if he found out I betrayed them, he'd kill me. Literally." Hilde looked sad for a moment, then a devious expression came over her face.
"Then let's get rid of him," she said. Duo blinked.
"How?"
"I know a secret, too," she said, and leaned forward, her lips brushing his ear before she began to whisper about the true identity of Epyon.
AC 205
Early May
Trowa Barton's transport shuttle landed on the Moon, his Gundam hidden away in the cargo hold. He declared nothing to the Colony Alliance landing officer who spoke to him as he landed. For now, his Gundam would need to remain hidden. There was no sense starting trouble before he found the information he needed: the whereabouts of the Colony Alliance leaders. Quatre and Wufei were on their own, searching on other colonies, but Trowa had a feeling he was closer by going to the Lunar Base.
Trowa docked his shuttle in an empty docking bay and transferred the funds needed to cover the space for a few days. Trowa grabbed a duffel bag, slung it over his shoulder and disembarked from the shuttle.
He stepped out into a busy spaceport. Tourists, Alliance soldiers, and Lunar base citizens passed back and forth in front of him as they headed towards waiting shuttles, docking bays, and small shops that lined the walkways of the spaceport. Trowa followed the signs towards the main sector of the Lunar base, where the hotels and tourist attractions were located.
Trowa thought it was clever, to hide a base underneath a tourist trap. The Colony Alliance frequently denied having an active base on the moon, but OZ had gathered intel that told a different story, that beneath the lunar base ran a network of tunnels and mobile suit hangers. The intel also included the location of a potential meeting place for the heads of the Colony Alliance. That's where Trowa was headed.
At least, that was his plan.
As he entered the central hub of the lunar base, he stopped. In the middle of the space, a giant red and white striped tent had been erected, filling almost the entire space. Tourists and shoppers had to travel along the edges of the central hub, giving the tent a wide berth. Trowa blinked at the tent, wondering why it seemed so familiar.
I've seen hundreds of tents in my life. This is no different than any other, he told himself.
Was it?
-SE