Bishi Pile Challenge:
Major challenge response: Warriors, Veteran, Pride, Trust
Minor challenge response: Murder, Shadows, Games
Word count: 2,472
Series: Friends 2: Friends and Enemies
Author: Karina
Pairings: Zechs + Duo, Trowa x Quatre
Ratings: M 15+ [In Australia] Rated in the event of bad language and violence.
Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the characters.
Warnings: No apology given for Aussie spelling, but fair warning given.
Many thanks to Katie for her work betaing this fic.
Character Challenge: Heero, Une, Zechs
Chapter 3
//Someone is going to die.//
A moment later Heero admonished himself silently, rephrasing his thought from 'is' to 'might'.
He knew Une could be colder than ice and harder than diamonds, but he now realized he had never been unfortunate enough to stand in her presence when she was 'really' cold. She was the consummate professional, admittedly hard nosed and sometimes she bordered on that earlier warped persona from the war that had threatened to destroy a colony without so much as blinking an eye.
This Une was… different.
This Une was very, very dangerous.
The Antarctic wastes were a tropical paradise in comparison to the chill the Commander was emitting as she stared down the man identified as Bradford. The chill was purely psychological, her countenance was expressionless, neutral, but a cold aura, the certainty of death, hung about her. A promise, not a threat.
Disturbingly the man at the focus of that glacial glare gave every appearance of being impervious, giving her as good as he got in the staring contest.
Herero decided Bradford needed to work on his aura a little more. Une, in his view, won for the sheer frigidness of the chill factor. Perhaps it was the diminutive size of her compared to the bulk of the man she fronted, but whatever it was, Une was an expertly cut and polished diamond to his cloudy uncut base.
The white van was quickly enfolded in the darkness, lost to their sight though not so soon to their hearing, and still Bradford stood and glared at the slender woman standing between him and the helicopter. He would not have been surprised if one of the two should draw a weapon and begin a fire fight. The tension was stretching to the point where something, or someone, would have to break and when that happened someone would, at the least, be injured and at worst killed.
A quick shift of his eyes showed Chang looked to be on a hair trigger, though most people would miss the tell tale signs that marked him at his most dangerous. Those dark, almond shaped eyes were just that little bit too narrow and there was a 'waiting' aura emanating from him.
The professional's calm patience before the inevitable bloodshed.
Barton might have been a statue, poised, hands clear of weapons and within arms reach of Une. His stillness was deceptive. Heero had known him and worked with him long enough to know he was one small stage from grabbing the woman they worked under. In the blink of an eye he could have Une behind him and a knife buried in Bradford's heart.
That cold, impassive look was reminiscent of the big cats he had worked with at the circus, seemingly unconcerned but fully aware of everything in its territory and ready to defend it to the death. Thus far the discipline Barton had leaned at the hands of a mercenary band was holding him in check.
Bradford considered himself good, not in the braggart boasting way so many others did, but in the cold calculation and confidence in his own abilities that required he could remain mute and hold his own with a look. Heero suddenly ached for the chance to try him and determine for himself if Bradford was as good as he thought himself to be.
If they tangled, if one of them so much as twitched now, Heero did not doubt it would result in a death match.
He had always prided himself on keeping things professional. Knowing the limits of his assignment and performing the mission to the best of his ability had been his life for so long it was second nature to him. He had every confidence in his skills and the strength of will to carry the mission out, and he had never come across another person who, on sight, just begged a fight to the death.
Never... before now.
Not even Zechs Marquise of the Oz Specials had provoked this instant hostility in him.
There was something about Bradford that he wanted to challenge.
He had understood Zechs, and Milliardo too, and had no real clash with the man on a personal level. He even understood what it was Zechs had been doing with his seeming insanity on board the Libra. Heero had refused the offer to join him and instead had played the part set out for him, as it seemed to him he must on that long ago day… but he had never hated the man.
Bradford, whom he had never spoken to, who he did not know, was something else.
A small voice deep inside whispered the world would be a nicer place without that one walking around.
He had grown up enough during the war and in the intervening years to know, and acknowledge, that the Gundam Pilots were not the only elite soldiers. Nor were they the only elites struggling to find a niche for themselves in this world that was decidedly unkind to those who had fought to bring about the peace.
He and two others of the five Gundam Pilots had found Preventers best salved their need to face some action and make it count for the peace. He, Chang and Barton were child soldiers, children of war, and this Bradford was no different to them in that respect. He would be a former elite soldier, most likely with the Alliance Special Assault Squadron, or perhaps the Alliance Special Task Force.
One thing Heero was sure of was that Bradford was not Oz Specials. If Bradford had been an officer of the Oz Specials he would not now be standing there openly eyeballing Une as though he wanted to gut her.
How many others like them were out there in the world, looking for something to believe in? Looking for some intangible 'thing' that meant something to them?
How many operatives were standing in the dark around this shadow shrouded tarmac? How many of Bradford's people were veterans, steeped in the blood and guts of the war? How many of them had been elites for years and suddenly found themselves decommissioned? How many of them were cast adrift with little in the way of deprogramming and retraining to assist them in finding a new occupation in life as productive citizens of a civilization at peace?
How many former elites were a part of this operational team? What equipment did they have to draw on? Did they have any artillery hidden in the dark that could wipe out the helo and the four Preventers at a word from Bradford? Did Bradford's controllers feel themselves to be ready to take on Preventers openly? Did they feel confident enough to take out the Commander and three of her top profile agents?
It was not as though the ESUN Council did not consider them all to be a problem. They were classed as walking trouble; he had read enough reports to know that and Une was watched as closely as the Gundam Pilots.
What was the man waiting for?
//What the fuck has Zechs got us all into?//
Unfair.
Marquise had told them to stay out of it. He had made it plain he did not consider their assistance to be required and he would deal with the matter himself. The question was, would they be given the choice of staying out of the loop or were they committed by default?
The night was preternaturally quiet. In the still, cold air sound was oddly amplified and Heero could fancy he could hear a succession of sounds; small sounds that might be some small animal foraging in the snow banks... sounds that might equally be the tell tale movements of an operations team shifting position.
It was sub audio, not really audible except for the unnatural stillness of the night air. His heightened awareness was something he could not control, and in a situation as tense as this he had no wish to dumb it down. To survive one needed all the help one could get and it was not imagination, that low, slow buzz. He felt his ears actually shift in a primordial response, an attempt to trace the almost heard, almost 'felt' sound.
Purely primal instinct enhanced by modern science.
Radio signal.
Bradford's.
Three short, one long.
Recall?
Or the signal to take them down?
Not a word spoken between them, the soldier and the Commander, but it was a challenge laid down and accepted. Une did not so much as bat an eyelash. Chang was statue still, a piece of oriental alabaster, dangerous, understanding of the gauntlet thrown. Barton remained unmoved, close enough to protect Une… close enough to slip a knife between Bradford's ribs if the need was there.
//It might save us all a great deal of trouble if he did.//
But that was not how Preventer worked.
They had chosen to join the organization to keep the peace, not just to salve their personal need to be needed. He wanted a piece of Bradford but this, Heero accepted, was neither the time nor the place for that confrontation to occur.
Not yet, but it very likely would come. He would not go out of his way to avoid it.
But one twitch would be enough to send them at his throat…
A regulation parade ground turn, no word offered, and Bradford strode into the shadows with a confident free swinging stride. It was a clear demonstration he had no concern for them taking action against him.
//Cocky prick.//
—————————————
Une remained unmoved as Bradford disappeared into the night, careful to project an unaffected arrogance of her own. She had the advantage of having a dossier on Bradford from her days working for Treize Khushrenada. He might have changed his hair style and beefed up a bit physically, but he was still the Bradford in the dossier. She had no illusions about the arrogance he was capable of.
He had cause to be arrogant.
He was good. Very good.
She might have succeeded in enlisting three of the Gundam Pilots into Preventer but she was only too aware there were other elite soldiers out there. There was entirely too much arrogance loose in the Earth Sphere. From the surviving elite soldiers to the pacifist faction politicians currently calling the shots and failing their society by their failure to provide adequate debriefing, retraining and repatriation of the soldiers.
There was too much arrogance in the world, and still too much game playing.
They would wreck the peace if she and her Preventers could not contain matters.
All she had worked for, all that He had done, including dying, would be for nothing because of the dumb, pigheaded arrogance of the human species.
This entire mess was, in a way, her fault. She should have ensured Marquise was eliminated, at the least brought firmly back under the badge of the Preventers on his return from Mars. The man was too much the meddler to be permitted loose reign and Noin had made far too many mistakes to keep him contained to tolerable levels.
Marquise had cut the ties loose that bound him to Noin, and to Preventer, and that made him dangerous. There was no steadying influence with him isolated and he tended to take a dim view on assassination.
Of course the political faction now making its move to take over the Organization had made a deadly mistake in not succeeding in murdering the irritating man. They would find that out soon enough and, personally, she did not want to be anywhere nearby when he made his move. He was not the sort of man you tried to kill, and fail in the attempt, and then NOT expect him to demand you pay retribution.
It would be nice if she dared to leave the affair to him, but Marquise had a way of striking hard and in a spectacular fashion. Knowing his past as well as she did, there was no question of her stepping back and leaving him to it. He could, potentially, explode the current peace into millions of fragments worth less than a single grain of space dust.
Peacecrafts never did anything, even die, on a small scale.
One. Two… three engines in the night, the subdued growl of powerful motors slowly fading into silence.
"The area is clear, Commander." The voice was barely audible, so low was the volume and received over the Bluetooth attachment coiled around her right ear, hidden by the fall of her hair.
It was some small relief but she was well aware it was possible the Organization's contingent could pull over and fire a guided missile into the helo. But she knew it would not happen. Not tonight. It appeared they were not, as yet, ready to test Preventer… but it would come.
This fiasco with Marquise had the potential to be birthed from someone's speculation that he might still be working for Preventer.
They had made the first move and it had been brilliantly executed… but it had failed. Had others thought this deep into why the assassination attempt had been made? If no one else saw this deep into the action then at least she had and she would need to be prepared.
Her response to the incident and the involvement of her Preventers would be closely monitored. They were testing the waters and they should have known better than to make the test using Marquise as the target. Someone should have thought he might survive the attempt and considered how large a chunk out of their arse he would bite in retaliation.
He was, if nothing else, inventive. He would retaliate, sooner or later, and while he kept them occupied she would have to prepare for the long term.
Hard eyed she turned to watch as Chang, Yuy and Barton cleared the helo. Young as they were each was steeped in blood. They were professionals and elite in their respective fields. Each one had proven themselves capable of taking orders other agents might find unpalatable and back away from. These young men she could count on to do the job in the name of keeping the peace.
They had made it possible for her to succeed at her work and not have to make use of the Black Ops organization any more than three times over the past six years. The pilots were her ace in the hole, her trump cards, and she needed to be wary of over playing them.
Gundam pilots without Gundams, but still elite. Still capable and willing to fight for the peace.
They were her hope of maintaining the peace through increasingly turbulent times.
The question was, if she needed to give the order, could she trust them to take down Marquise?
End
Karina Robertson 2010