After Colony: Revelation

Verse XIV

The island they finally touched down upon did not look particularly healthy from above. Cement structures stood out in the tree lines, with metal rods and pole jutting out as they pleased. It seemed to the gundam pilot that there had once been a large structure on the island, one that may have burned down during the fall of the original Sanc. Wildlife had taken over, though it was clearly still recovering.

Their gundams worked their way into the healthier foliage on the south end of the island, sitting themselves down and using some of the now down trees to hide their gleaming colors. While they both had shields to help divert any mechanical radars, they could not stop any prying eyes. Nataku was much easier to cover, her green and blue melting into the cool colors of the forest. Red Horse, on the other hand, had a much hard time; it was red. Wufei worked to help cover its arms before settling his own suit until their pick up.

"We should move away from the suits so that they do not show a thermal signature," Wufei said, reopening their com line. He opened his cockpit and waited for Edan to exit, but she did not. "We do not have time to waste."

"If I leave, I won't be able to speak with you," Red horse replied after another brief pause.

He was surprised to feel a sudden pit in his stomach. Even with a monotonous, computerized voice, she seemed to display a clear sadness. Wufei clenched his haw and stepped back inside his suit. He allowed their com link to remain open, but only the audio. "How did you know to avoid the canon blast?"

"Pale Horse requested a communication line with me. CSO was specifically targeting my suit. Adelphie is set on destroying me."

"Why would he admit such things to you?" Wufei pulled up a large map of the area, trying to survey their best position. It was almost one o'clock in the morning. They still had a great deal of night to survive through.

"I don't know," Red Horse replied, "but Adelphie is hoping I miscalculate and get myself killed."

"Miscalculate?"

"I was trained to always be two steps ahead of my enemy. It is hard for me to follow my training in self preservation when I must think of more than just myself… Having Pale Horse flee is an example of that. I suspect that they knew I would not follow him on my own, but if one of my comrades did, then I would follow."

Wufei thought back to Heero's massacre some years before—when he was tricked into destroying an entire shuttle filled with the only members of Romefeller seeing peace. Then his thoughts moved towards his defeat of Treize. How easily the gundam pilots were manipulated, time and time again.

His fingers wrapped around the edge of his arms rests. If they hadn't been made of pure metal, he likely would have ground a way to crush the ends.

"Don't be angry. You couldn't have known. I simply know how they think. After all, CSO is, quite literally, part of me."

He released his grip and took a deep breath. She may not have been able to see him, but she was still able to read him. "How is your arm?"

"About how you would suspect, I suppose."

Wufei sighed and rolled his eyes, "are you still bleeding?"

"I am fine," said the robotic voice through this cockpit. If there was one thing he had learned, it was that when women or gundam pilots said they were 'fine,' it usually meant that there was some sort of impending trouble. He wiped his right hand down his face, rubbing his temple.

He sat forward again and opened the latch to Altron's storage compartment. There was a six pack of purified water, emergency flares and rations, a small wilderness survival kit, and a first aid box. Throwing a few of the necessities into a draw strong knapsack, Wufei shut the compartment again. "Open up, I am coming over."

"I am fine," she repeated.

Still, he walked out into the night air, and hopped onto his lift cable, riding it down to the ground. He had to give his eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness, since the brightness of his monitors had not helped. The moon was high in the sky, but the foliage was thick enough that he had to tread carefully.

When he reached Red Horse, its cockpit was still not open. It seemed Edan was not willing to exit on her own. He climbed on top of the mecha, balancing on the sleek metal, and worked his way up the side. It was tough getting towards the torso, but he was nimble enough to do so.

Unfortunately for Edan, Wufei still had the access code to Red Horse. He pressed open the small panel, revealing the key pad. He entered the same code as he did when they were in space, and the cockpit hissed. It opened, despite its pilot's wishes.

"You are making this difficult, and I am not thrilled," he said sternly, Edan simply looked off to the side, her eyes slightly downcast. "Turn a light on in here."

A light flickered on, without her having to move to do so. Once it did, he saw that she was, of course, plugged into the system. He didn't think he would ever get used to seeing that.

The next thing he noticed, which he should have really noticed first, was that her arm looked like something out of a horror movie. The wound had continued to bleed out, even though she had tried to temporarily stop it. It was likely that extra stress on her arm from maneuvering the gundam's weapon had taken its toll. "I told you to hold back. For someone who is supposed to be one of the perfect soldiers, you're terribly stubborn."

Wufei looked over the injury as much as he could, but he knew he would not be able to clean it up in the cockpit. He needed to dump one of the water bottles over the area, which he couldn't do with the electrical equipment. "Stand on the edge. I will have to wipe you down."

Edan looked at him, but did not move.

"Now," Wufei commanded. On his word, she stood and stepped out onto the open platform.

He rolled back his sleeves, more so to keep them out of the way rather than out of concern for dirtying them, and raised her wrist. He made a point to use just his thumb and forefinger, since he didn't want to get her blood all over his hands. Once he was sure she would hold it there, he twisted opened the first bottle of water and slowly poured it over the bullet wound.

It took two full bottles to get most of the blood to wash away and drip to the forest ground below. He used some of the gauze to dry her skin, though the wound was still oozing, and used the rest to securely bind her arm. Wufei stepped back on the small platform to assess his work, and was satisfied enough with what he could see from the moonlight and the cockpit's emergency lights.

Edan just stared at him, making Wufei feel rather uncomfortable. "Stop that," he said, annoyance in his voice, "don't get the wrong impression. I simply can't have you bleeding out on me. That would complicate things quite a bit when we line up our transport… And what happened to your shoes, hm? How to you expect to walk along the forest floor now?"

She shrugged, but nothing more.

Wufei wiped his dry, unsullied hand down his face and shook his head. "Sometimes, I think you're more trouble than you're worth. Take the cord down, then I will close up here and follow." Edan did as she was told and waited patiently for him on the sand below.

With just a double check to make sure that Nataku was also secure, he dropped down after her and discarded all of their empty bottles and bloody gauze. Wufei pulled off his brocade jacket and helped Edan put her arms through to keep her from moving her binding too much. She looked up at him and tilted her head to the side.

"It's cold out, even if you can't tell. I still have another layer. Now, get on," he said and turned around to kneel down. He motioned with his hands for her to climb onto his back. She was barefoot, and the sand would likely turn to dirt the farther inland they went. Besides that, if there were damaged facilities nearby, there could end up being glass or metal.

She was heavier than he had expected. The only other time he had to carry her on his own was when they were in space, and the gravity was different. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised, since the woman had quite a bit of muscle to her, despite her appearance. While he didn't think that he would have a problem carrying her the entire way to the abandoned cement building, he did have to constantly readjust his grasp on her legs, with her skirt continuously riding up with each bump they hit.

Wufei was quite happy he had decided to give her his jacket to cover up further. It was more for his own comfort than for hers.

After a few minutes of walking, Edan let out a semi audible exhale and he felt her head drop down onto her good arm and against his neck. He thought about making some sort of snide remark but decided he would rather continue their comfortable silence.

It certainly got darker as they went on. The trees became so thick that he was carefully placing each step. Luckily, it wasn't long before they found the building, which was clearly illuminated by the bright moon. It looked like it could have been a maintenance facility with maybe some offices. The front door was off its hinges, laying dented on the side. Something had happened there to destroy most of the building some decade or two ago.

As he entered into the facility, the brief threat of wild animals crossed his mind. What would he do if there some something dangerous inside and he was stuck with the woman on his back? He couldn't very well just throw her to the side. "Let's hope for the best," he muttered and crossed the threshold.

Luckily, there was no immediate threat lurking on the inside. It appeared that they were in some sort of large garage, though the once mechanical doors were permanently shut. There were windows high on the wall and most of the glass was shattered. Curiously, there were not shards on the inside, which led him to believe that there was likely some sort of blast that had simply blown the windows apart from within.

The ground was covered in sand that had been swept inside by storms over the years, which made for good padding when he set Edan down. Though she was awake and attempted to stand on her own, she stumbled and caught herself on the cement wall. He hadn't noticed before how pale she had looked. He supposed the blood loss during their mobile suit battle had caused it.

"I brought a communicator. I'm sure they won't be able to send out anything but encrypted transmissions until CSO has cleared the area, so when I receive something, we will know to head back to the gundams. Until then… we wait," Wufei stated and started to walk around, exploring the room.

There was nothing that could have identified which business or organization had owned the building. "You will have to tell me how you knew of this place once we return to the suits."

When he turned around again, to head back to the wall with the door opening, Edan was already on the ground, her head back and arm limply hanging at her side. He panicked for a moment, but even though the oversized jacket, he could see that her chest was rising and falling. Still breathing. Did she even hear what he said?

With nothing further to do, he sat down next to her and sat staring, trying to stay up and keep watch, just in case.

He nodded off before dawn. Edan woke first to the faint beeping of the communicator to find that they had huddled up against the cold. Though, she supposed, it was more Wufei who had done that, since she didn't feel any temperature difference.

Four hours. They would have four hours until their transport would be in the vicinity. She didn't feel the need to wake the man so early. Instead, she let him snooze against her shoulder.

"What's the status?" Quatre's gundam was the first to dock after Swift Trillion set out to sea. Even with Isabella lying immobile, they were able to figure out her Empty Space program to throw off any of the CSO dolls and their radars. It was such a beautiful flaw in technology.

Guests were crowded into the few sitting spaces available on the ship. The hulls were packed to the brink with gundams and mobile suits. Make shift operation rooms had been put together to help the injured, though that mostly consisted of Zechs and a few guests who fell during the chaos. Dorothy, of all people, was the one taking charge with Lady Une to organize and do a headcount. Quatre was pleased o see the order that had been brought about by the time he had arrived.

"We should be clear of danger in about thirty minutes," Une replied. He hair was pulled back tightly in a bun, and she was using her 'soldier tone.' "We are not allowing any guests to make outside contact, just to minimize the chance of being tracked. The governors are already pooling together and discussing their next moves. CSO has clearly flipped the chessboard they were using to play with the rebels, so they aren't likely to sit quiet for much longer."

Quatre nodded, staring off at no one in particular. "Good," he said quietly, "CSO is planning something big. I can feel it. If we don't act fast, they will have already won. How is Zechs?"

Une was silent for a moment, which only caused him further uneasiness. "Not well. We don't have the equipment necessary for a full surgical procedure. There is still at least one bullet fragment floating inside of him somewhere. They had to stop trying to remove it because of the bleeding. We're lucky some of the guests have full medical backgrounds but… if only Sally…" Une didn't finish. She shook her head and pursed her lips. She may have only been in her early 30s, but she looked so much older at that moment.

Every war that they fought had bloodshed and loss, Quatre knew that. This seemed just so much worse. This was hardly a war at all; it was more of a massacre. CSO held almost all of the power. Since Mariemaia's brief regime, all of the extra armaments had been destroyed. Except for certain sub-military powers like the Maganac, the country-states under CSO simply had no way to retaliate. The Governors throwing their chips in with the pilots were certainly taking a risk.

Of course, Quatre cared for every one of his men. Even though he had already lost at least two tonight, it was hard knowing that the indestructible Lightning Count was possibly dying a few decks below him. "After Howard gets us to safety, make sure he lines up another ship to pick up the others. Wufei should be with Edan, so we will have his communicator to track. Heero is wounded from his fight with Edan. If he is alone, we should aim for his pick up first. CSO will likely demolish Sanc with their beam cannon, and send in crews to find any survivors. Hopefully any of the staff left behind managed to get far enough away. I'm going to meet with the governors for press conference prep. Can you handle everything else for now?"

Une nodded curtly. "Of course. I will have everything organized by the time you're done rallying the political troops."

The two rebels split and went back to work. The gundam pilot was forced to step into his leadership role and lead the governors to an agreement. It was hard to keep emotion out of it, but they all knew that calm professionalism was what they needed to lead their people through a rebellion.

Though they didn't exactly have a high tech set up, they had enough equipment to film short speeches made by the governors to be broadcast to their countries. Some of the Swift Trillion crew members offered to edit the videos and splice in some of the patient footage that had been retrieved from the Isle of Man facility. Though it wasn't the quickest of processes to do, what with each governor filming in their own language instead of one governor doing one universal video, the videos still were quiet dramatic.

They planned to release the footage later that day, but would never get the chance.

000

"We had them!" Adelphie shouted out in ager, throwing his coffee much against the wall. It narrowly missed a soldier's head, and shattered to the ground. The men and women in the control room on the Lunar Base sat silently while their commander had his melt down. "We had them!" Who gave the order to stand down? Why did Pale Horse retreat?"

"It seems, Sir, that he was receiving order from… Someone called "Hades."" One of the brave system control analysts pulled up the communication lines. They couldn't see much since it was encrypted, but the sender was clearly labeled as Hades. "Whoever it was, they were using master control codes to bypass the system. They were using your codes."

Before Adelphie had enough time to question further, the door slid open to allow another soldier to enter. "Sir!" The young man quickly saluted before continuing on, "the generals are waiting for you in the conference room. Shall I tell them you are on your way?"

Adelphie, in all of his anger, turned to the other soldier with furrowed brows. "I haven't called a meeting. Why are they waiting for me?"

The poor soldier at the door remained standing at attention, gulping down his nervousness. "I do not know, sir. They said they are waiting on you."

The Prime Minister chewed his lip, looking at the ceiling. As he started to 'calm down,' the tension in the room rose. It was when he was calm that he was the most terrifying. Calm usually meant that someone was more likely to die.

"I will be there in a moment," he said evenly and reached up to unroll his white sleeves. "Everyone else, find me those rebels."

Dorian Adelphie was not a soldier. He was a businessman, and a dictator. At this moment, it showed best his lack of experience on the battlefield. Had Adelphie been versed in tactical operations, he may have noticed that besides the one soldier nervously leading him down the hallway, there were no others to be found.

At the doorway of the private corridor reserved for Adelphie's use, another soldier stood at attention. He immediately saluted them and stepped aside, allowing the Prime Minister to use his swipe card and enter his code on a keypad.

Adelphie paid no mind to the subtle nod the soldiers gave one another. When he saw that only the emergency lights were on in the narrow hallway, he glanced back at the soldier who had been waiting for him. All of the private corridors—whether a clearly marked one such as this, or a hidden, emergency path like in some of the Earth bases—were set to have the lights turn on automatically upon entrance.

"I will get right on fixing this, sir," the soldier said quickly, bending down to the panel against the lower wall. "Would you like to wait until I have the lights on?"

"No, no," Adelphie snapped, "I don't have time to waste. I will only be a little while. I simply must find those wayward projects of mine…"

The Prime Minister continued down the hallway on his own, his eyes adjusting to the pulsing, dull lights. He thought about the suspicious environment only after he twisted the unlocked door handle and started to push the door open.

It was too late, by that point. The soldier had already crept up behind him and placed the barrel of his standard issued firearm against his head. Adelphie barely had time to process the red scene before him—seeing pools and spatters of blood on the usually white walls and floors—before the trigger was pulled. In moments, the Prime Minister was on the ground, joining the other splayed limbs on the floor and meeting tables.

These casualties were not CSO soldiers or rebels, but other naive businesspeople and engineers. These were the men and women who had made the Horsemen Projects a reality—investors and CEOs, scientists and psychologists. All of the people who had benefited from Adelphie's reign, those lying dead in the room had gained the most.

"I have eliminated the traitor Dorian Adelphie." The soldier holstered his gun and spoke into an ear piece. Moments later, the clicking of heels could be heard from behind him, at the entrance of the private corridor.

Moira walked into the entrance of the room, nudging her father's corpse with her shoe. "Bring in a cleaning crew after everyone is definitely dead. I see one still trying to move over there. Thank you, Major Wilhelm, you will be rewarded for your excellent service."

She took one last look around the destroyed meeting room and inwardly smiled. Soon, there would be a prerecorded announcement broadcasted all throughout the colonies and Earth. The footage of the Isle of Man research facility would be leaked by the rebels, and that same footage would be aired by Moira. She would announce that her father had gone mad at the news and proceeded to massacre his cohorts. Seeing no other route to stop his murderous rampage, she took it upon herself to order his execution.

Moira would announce her ascension to Prime Minister, and insist that the governors of the Earth help her in tracking down any other secret facilities that may be on their soil so that she can properly shut down any human experimentation and help anyone who has been victimized by her father.

If the governors refuse her, then a few of the sleeper soldiers may accidentally be activated, just to prove she was needed to remedy the situation.

000

"You have got to be kidding me!" Duo said, his voice raspy. He held his hand to his neck as he leaned against the door frame, watching the monitor in Howard's steering/command room. Everyone had stopped what they were doing to watch the emergency broadcast issued by CSO.

They had barely started releasing their own leaked videos when CSO took over all available channels.

"My name is Moira Adelphie. You may not know me, as I have not played a large role in the Caligo Sese Organization's political activities, but I am the daughter of the late Dorian Adelphie."

Below deck, the governors watched with dropped jaws and confusion as the woman spoke on. She sat behind what appeared to be a simple conference table, in a grey suit with her hair pulled up high. She looked every bit the part of a professional.

"Just a short time ago, a few Human Rights groups started sending out videos of what has been confirmed to be a research facility on the shores of the Isle of Man. I have had a team working nonstop to confirm any information we have on this incident. What we know at the moment is this: Dorian Adelphie, as well as many political and business figure heads, has been working in private to create a next-generation soldier. We do not yet know the extent of those involved, but we do know that there were a few Earth Governors involved with these endeavors.

I am launching a full scale investigation into these matters to find all parties involved, as well as the depth of their involvement. We believe that those who had the most direct hands in the matter have, unfortunately, already died and cannot be held accountable for their crime."

Quatra gripped the tabletop he was leaning on firmly as he watched the woman speak. She had beaten them to the matter. She had timed everything perfectly. How could she have known? How could she have known?! Someone had to be relaying information to her. She had been aware of their plans to break out the POWs at the lunar base months ago, and now she knew of their plans to leak the patient experiment footage. She had probably known about their attack on the Isle of Man, and planned for the activation and destruction of the patients.

Moria Adelphie.

"After the initial footage had been leaked, we can only assume that Dorian Adelphie, who had clearly been operating with a mentally unstable mindset for some time, could not handle the pressures and impending consequences for his actions. He called a meeting of the men and women involved with his super soldier program, and proceeded on a murderous rampage. We can only assume that he had hoped to eliminate any proof of his unthinkable actions. As he turned on his soldiers, I had no choice but to issue an order of deadly force to subdue him. There is footage to prove this event, however, it is too graphic to release on broadcasted air.

We are trying our best to determine if there are, in fact, other experimental soldiers amongst the civilian population. At the moment, it appears that Dorian Adelphie was the only person to have the ability to activate such soldiers, if they do exist. While we believe that the general public is now safe from such threats, we wish to determine exact persons involved so that we might be able to assess their damage and help them return to a normal life style. Until we can rest assured that none of Dorian Adelphie's actions will have other consequences, I will be acting as Prime Minister in his stead to complete the investigations. I ask that all countries lend me their support so that we can help those who need helping."

Heero and Trowa were crammed into the cockpit of Wing Zero. The two of them had landed about thirty five miles down the coast line to wait for their transport to Swift Trillion or a companion ship. They didn't know how long they would have to camp out, but the area had thorough coverage for their suits, and an unused hunting cabin for them to rest.

At about eight o'clock in the morning, while they were waiting on their retrieval, Quatre sent Heero a message. Of course, for him to send it and risk any tracking, the pilot figured it was important. He watched through it once before having Trowa join him.

"As far as I can tell, the footage appears to be legit," Wing Zero's pilot said as they watched over the images of Dorian Adelphie massacring a room full of people. They had already watched it twice.

"Yeah, but I have a feeling, if we look into it enough, we're going to find that it's been altered." Trowa shook his head, "Adelphie may be a monster, but I can't imagine a businessman who has haired assassins and a troop of hidden super soldiers would do his own dirty work."

Heero replayed the video one last time. "Agreed. Someone has worked very hard to deceive the public. More than likely, it's going to be Moira."

Trowa opted to leave the cockpit and sit on the edge of the opening to make room. While Wing Zero has a slightly large cockpit than the other of the core gundams, it was still not comfortable. The CSO gundams were more spacious, their interiors taking less equipment because of the way they were operated.

"I can't imagine Quatre is taking this very well," he said and breathed in deeply. The scent of the salt air blowing in from the ocean was rather pleasant, especially mixed with the morning sunlight.

"Why do you say that?"

Though Heero couldn't see since he was typing away on his keypad, Trowa looked as though he were trying to choose his words carefully. "You have to have been wondering how it is that CSO has seemed to know all of our plans."

Heero stopped typing and slid his monitor away from the cockpit opening. "I've been wondering since our POW rescue. Roberts, the guy who was essentially Sally's second in command, said that she had suspected there was a rat, but I don't think it was in her group."

"Moira Adelphie knew our plan almost down to the 'T.' We intentionally didn't tell Sally of our involvement, in case there was someone untrustworthy working with her," Trowa replied, confirming everything Yuy had left unsaid.

The two of them were silent for a good while. Almost fifteen minutes passed before Wing Zero's sensor system started to alert them of a nearing ship. It was the smaller companion ship of the Swift Trillion, the one that had stored Tallgeese and Spartan before their return to the Sanc Kingdom.

"We'll need to question her. We can't do that if she's knocked out," Trowa said as he took the lift cable to the base of Wing Zero.

"Hn."

000

Author's note: I was motivated to get another chapter out before my busy few weeks because of the Endless Reflection Challenge. I've posted my little snippet, "His Daughter Is Not Weak." Of course, as a Wufei fan girl, I had to write about him.

In some cases, it could eventually take place in this story's universe. Is it likely? Probably not. I have essentially two final endings for the story, and it depends on the general opinion of the readers which way I go.

At this point, we are about halfway through the story. We now enter the next large "arch." With the death of Dorian Adelphie, the feel of the story changes because the enemy's tactics start to change drastically. (Hint/Spoiler: if you keep up with the show 'Arrow' at all, I basically threw my hands up in the air in defeat because of some of the plot similarities to his next half of the story.)

As always, I enjoy feedback, especially when it comes to the honest opinions on the characters and the plot. A reviewer some chapters ago mentioned all of the strong women in the canon world, and a disappointment that they weren't used. Not everyone cares of OCs, especially females, and I can understand that. Hopefully now readers can see the other ladies' involvements and why they were not necessarily actively on the battlefield.

As always, thank you to my lovely reader guest reader 'Pat' (or my preferred Anonymous Pat), who always reviews and makes me smile. I owe a delayed thank you to Kayko as well for taking a moment to send me a review! So sorry I forgot to thank you in the last one!

ShinyWurmple: thank you for your review on His Daughter! It makes me so happy to know I have a reader who has read both and thinks similarly to how I do! Sometimes, characters are simply deeper than how they appear on the outside, right?

Thank you to everyone! Hopefully I will be back in just a few weeks (and not haunted by anything I happen to bring back from the Trans Allegheny Lunatic Asylum!)

Ever your servant,

A.F