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Chapter Four

Stranger Things


Life is infinitely stranger than anything the mind could invent…

Arthur Conan Doyle


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Odin continues seeing where the wind takes him - much to the frustration and amusement of others. Everyone else meets new people and plans for the next big events - both in Europe and Africa.

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Edits:

Mostly just grammar, though Heero/Odin's last scene is mildly expanded and clarified.


Notes:

This... is my favorite chapter. I hope you enjoy it half as much as I did.


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May 20th 198 – Tuesday – Swiss Alps

"What is this again?" Noin asked as she slid her gloves on, checking to make sure she had everything she wanted before they got out of the cab of the truck. The details hadn't concerned her too much before, as everything was in line and they'd had a long drive ahead of them. Ahmad had pulled out his knapsack as soon as he'd turned off the engine, however, and was opening the file.

It was late at night in some out of the way area starting to return to wilderness, as uninhabitable as it was. Grimacing, she rubbed her leather-clad hands back over her face; already she was missing the heat that had been pouring through the vents while the engine was still on. They weren't exceedingly far off from anything – at least not enough that trucks driving through would seem odd – but there was no one within a hundred miles either, making it an ideal Sweeper drop spot.

Three years ago, this had been a countryside resort sort of destination; the kind of place where you'd bring the whole family for a ski resort in the alps, to have fun in the snow before curling up inside with a cup of hot chocolate and good company, because you were all on vacation and doing nothing of import was the entire point. It was human nature to enjoy groups and trust like that… the kind of thing her family had done before her mother had gotten sick; before she had talked her father into letting her go to the Academy, because joining OZ wasn't the same thing, really, as signing up for the Alliance. It was supposed to have been safer, more exclusive… And even after she had gone to Africa, snow lodges were the kind of place all the Noins would have family reunions – where they went when she took a vacation back to Europe. She had reveled in the cold as much as the love of her family, then, enjoying the escape from Tanzania's heat.

She still hadn't decided what she thought of the fact that her father's favorite resort, before it had shut down with Libra's Fall, was only twenty miles from here. There were so many emotions mixed up in the idea that she wasn't sure how to even begin unraveling them – or if she wanted to in the first place. She hadn't been able to speak to her father for years now, and probably wouldn't for months more yet.

She was in the process of winding her scarf higher around her face when she noticed her Maguanac friend was frowning. "Ahmad?"

"The details are wrong," he muttered after another long moment. "It says the drop was done by the Raka, but she hasn't been in the right sectors for this in over a week, I'm nearly positive. The container size is also not their usual, though not an uncommon type." He looked up at her seriously, brow furrowed. "I would not have signed off on this without greater explanation, Lucrezia, but it's already approved."

Her thoughts swirled violently as she tried to consider what this might mean. "There are far easier methods to hurt us by." If this had gotten through security as much as Ahmad was suggesting, then it had taken an intricate amount of both knowledge and footwork.

If this is an ambush us like this, then it's possibly the most inconvenient and contrived trap I've seen since I turned seven.

"I agree." His look was curious, yet understated.

Lucrezia understood the unspoken question, and fingered the fringe on her scarf, considering. She did have at least one friend that might go through that kind of backwards effort… but she was fairly sure that if he had found her, Jake would have tried something more personal and direct than this. She didn't have any enemies this convoluted, however… not unless it was somehow Treize, but, like Jake, this wasn't his style. Une's, maybe, but the insensitive bitch had been decapitated in front of a live crowd in January of 196; it wasn't like a firing squad, where something could have been faked.

If Treize did figure out where I disappeared to, he'd offer an olive branch of some sort – not slip a space capsule through surveillance to one of our less common drop points and rig it to explode on being opened. She was against contacting her one-time instructor not not due to a perceived possible violence, but because she was unsure if he would allow them anything even approaching equal footing – not if he thought he could suck the advantage out of them at a lower cost to himself.

Maybe Jake's worried about where we stand? But really, she couldn't talk to Jake any more than she could talk to her father – there were too many factors to consider, and those were only the ones she was catching. Knowing her old friend, he was probably neck-deep in intrigue without letting anyone know he was playing puppet master. There were days when he was frighteningly like Treize, only lacking in anything even approaching etiquette.

"Not to suggest anything rude," she returned after a moment. "But are there any chances that this is just a mistake of our own? On either, or both ends?"

"A chance, yes, of course," he agreed easily enough. "But it's a chance with the kind of odds that I would not hesitate to bet my firstborn on. This would have to have been a mistake between more than three people, all of whom know their jobs well." He pursed his lips. "But I see that you're not appropriately dismayed enough for this to be taken as a dangerous threat we ought to simply drive away from." Tilting his head slightly, looking at her oddly, he asked, "General?"

She let out a sigh. "It's either neutral or friendly, I'm nearly positive. I can think of allies who might do something like this as an oblique favor, but we should triple check everyone once we have it open… and open it remotely." Sighing, she opened the door of the semi, picking up her duffel as she slid down to the ground. "I'll set up the relay – you tell the guys what's going on."

Ahmad's tone was jovial. "Yes, ma'am."

It was a few minutes later, when she'd made her way to the top of the massive thing and she could hear her men laughing and joking with each other as they came close, that she saw the inscription roughly hewn into the surface near the release – probably with a high grade blowtorch – that her heart skipped a beat and she realized she could do away with a lot of extra work.

239s138.

"Change of plan," she called down to the others as they drew close enough to hear. "We can do this fast after all. The sender left a note by the catch."

"A note?" Kyle called back, incredulous.

"A message that only two young men and I would know the meaning of," she clarified, feeling a grin spread across her face. 239s138 had been the code to get down to the MS she'd stashed away in Sanc without Relena's knowledge, and she'd only ever shared it with Heero and Quatre. She'd cleared the access for Relena when they realized there was no real hope left for the survival of the little kingdom, then ripped the manual decoders she'd installed off the walls and took them with her to burn them personally so that the knowledge of the code was kept sacrosanct… pointedly to maintain this kind of veracity.

The fact that it had taken extra punching of keys to make the s lowercase also indicated that it wasn't someone else. Though looking at the handwriting, she almost pitied him for trying to scrawl out a proper s crudely enough that it almost looked like the 6 that you had to add in the right timed sequence to get the lowercase. Whatever he used to etch the capsule deep enough to survive a fall through the atmo must have been rather unwieldy. Then even with that consideration, she was fairly sure that Quatre's writing would likely still have been elegant. Her money was on Heero.

"I'm opening it," she yelled. "Everyone clear?"

"Wait," Ahmad called back. A minute later, from a greater distance, he assured, "Clear!"

She punched the universal release and balanced on the skeleton cap as the shell cracked and flowered open into a collapse on all sides. Directing her flashlight down, she could make out at least twelve massive crates, industrial grade, but not much beyond that. Her men were running back her way, curious to see what this mystery shipment was, as she gripped the base of her flashlight between her teeth and began to carefully maneuver down the central pole she was standing on. This was one of the more nicely designed capsules, from what she could tell… and far from the idiot-proof kind. That meant high grade – better than the usual supplier sort that was designed to maintain a seal against hard vacuum and be ready to almost crumble apart by the time it hit dirt, as they weren't really designed for atmospheric fall. The fact that they could had only made them more useful than anticipated after their original uses were over with.

The crate she landed on had a Barton Foundation insignia boldly stamped into the metal.

Lucrezia considered that for a moment, guessing as to the contents, before shrugging and tumbling the rest of the way down to the ground. The boys had just gotten the first crate open one of them gasped. "General?"

She was already sprinting and was directing her light on the object almost before he'd finished calling for her… and resisted the urge to gape disbelievingly. "Get it out," she urged, backing up to allow them more room. "Let's make sure before we get too far ahead of ourselves – the cases might just be reused." But as they moved to obey her she was thinking how it was the right size, that there were no shifting sounds as they levered the casing out, the case itself was stamped just as clearly with the Barton Foundation insignia and sealed against vacuum… that there were seven more identical cases still in the crate…

Neil let out a sigh of reverence, obviously resisting the urge to run his hands over the components. "This is legit," he breathed. "Never used, never opened…" He looked up at her with wide eyes as she knelt down next to him to stare herself… then jump back to her feet and spin on heel when she heard a commotion from the next crate over.

Apparently they'd started on opening the next one while she was busy gawping. "What is it?"

Geoff laughed a little incredulously. "Well, I'm not perfectly sure yet… But this might make more sense to you than me. Catch." Reflexively, she caught the object he threw at her… then blinked at the… toy.

…A little pink plastic toy pony with a lavender mane and tail and some sort of raincloud design printed on its ass.

She managed to keep a straight face for all of three seconds before she started to laugh herself hoarse. Oh hell… And I told him to, didn't I?

"Um… General?"

She held up a hand for him to wait – incidentally, the hand holding the damn pink pony – trying to collect herself… and ultimately failing.

"Lucrezia?"

She managed to meet Ahmad's eyes about the same time they started to tear and had to wipe at them, but managed to get her voice back somewhat. Clearing her throat, she admitted, "When I told Yuy I wanted artillery shells and a damn pony, I didn't think he'd take me seriously."

"Yuy?" someone asked in surprise.

Geoff started snickering himself. "Yuy?"

"Apparently he managed to find himself a sense of humor over the past two years," she agreed. "Shit…" She started laughing again, though not quite so hard. "I asked him if he knew where to find any damn fuel cells for Heavyarms and he just said something about security on them being hell, I didn't think he'd just…" But really, Heero had always delivered, hadn't he? Covering her face with one hand for a moment, Lucrezia took a deep breath and shook her head. "I think he took my sentiments a little too literally."

"I think I might be inclined to agree," Ahmad noted, amusement creeping into his own voice. "Though next time you might tell him in advance how to properly go through our channels. He might find the security less… rigorous, than with his own version."

…He had just dropped a capsule all by himself, somehow. How do you drop one of these at the right angle for a perfect trajectory entirely on your own? Not even going into how he got the fuel cells in the first place, but-

"General?" Geoff called, sounding even more deeply amused. "Looks like this crate's all artillery shells specially designed for the original Heavyarms model."

…And there just wasn't much to say to that either. After a moment she pulled out her phone, then made a disgusted noise as she tucked it back into her pocket. "Load it all up; we'll take a closer look once we've got it home. As soon as I've got a signal I'm calling the jackass and demanding to know how the hell he pulled this off."

"Don't forget this!" Ahmad reminded her brightly, handing her back the little pony doll she'd thoughtlessly passed him to pull out her cell.

"Oh yeah," she snorted as she snatched it out of his grip. "Can't forget that, he probably bought it special for me and everything. I'm pretty sure he only stole the rest of it from God knows where… Knowing Heero, the going to the store probably took more effort."

"Likely enough."

She snorted again. "I'll remember to ask for something cooler next time."

"A sound idea."

Lucrezia growled and halfheartedly threw the doll back at her friend in place of a retort, to which he caught it and maintained his broad smile… and she decided to just give up. Walking back over to him, she snatched her damn pony back and went to tuck it into her duffel so she could help her men load everything.

She'd finish working out how to react after the work was done with.

oOo


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May 23rd 198 – Friday – Hortobágy, Hungary

"The inn's got their reservations correctly; after the last place I walked through and checked myself," Sergeant Recine told her as soon as she opened her phone. "They offered to include breakfast while the techs are here at a flat rate discount to you, but I wasn't sure if that was a good idea."

"Ask if they'll keep the offer in mind for another three days; that's the next time I'm scheduled to talk with the program director," Relena returned quickly, long used to the question after the last week. "I'm not sure how wide their palates are, and if they're going to look at us like we're crazy for wanting to eat something other than rice for breakfast, I don't want to put money down on it." Tilting her head to one side to hold the phone against her shoulder, she jotted down the note that the question had been asked again. "They have an indoor pool, right?"

"And both hot and dry saunas," he affirmed. "I'm told this is a major tourist thoroughfare."

"It used to be," she agreed. "I don't know about lately, but they're more than welcome to try for it. See if it's anything extra for them to have access to those. These people are going to be working long hours on their feet or with their backs bent and necks craned; I'm sure they'd appreciate a few luxuries." She focused on the approaching officials she needed to talk to and added, "Text me the number, I think I might be in the middle of something in a moment… I can type a yes or no one-handed."

From the tone of his voice, her new bodyguard was smiling. "Yes ma'am."

"I appreciate cheekiness," she noted in amusement as she hung up. Focusing on the people now in front of her she smiled, even while in the back of her head she was noting that Jake was only three paces away, on the phone himself… but his body language was such that he could move at a moment's notice.

She hadn't decided yet if she appreciated how contagious his paranoia was. She liked being sure of everything around her, enjoyed the easy confidence she had earned in respect to how fast she could and would respond to a threat, but some days it seemed terribly ridiculous. "What can I do for you, gentlemen?"

"Er…"

"We didn't hit our quota outlined last fall," the second man announced without preamble, in sharp contrast to his partner. "The winter wheat crop didn't turn out well, whether because of the amplifiers, the soil, or our people being unfamiliar with the plant, we're unsure."

Relena nodded curtly. "That's actually been true of most areas, and it's one of the things the technicians are going to be looking into – trying to see what the underlying problem has been. Winter use was never fully approved, we just thought it would be best to try anyhow." She glanced over at Jake and the leather bag full of all the official files for this town he had slung over one shoulder. He caught her eyes and nodded slightly, even as his lips started to move in response to whoever he was on the phone with; likely trying to wrap it up. "Do you have the numbers with you, or would we need to go to your office?"

The more nervous of the two blinked in seeming surprise. "Oh, in the car…"

Jake snapped his phone shut and took the few brisk steps towards them. "You're not scheduled to check out the school for another hour; if you keep Recine playing errand boy and send him to check on the roads, we can have Lin work out the other hospitality requests, so you're clear to do this now."

She frowned. Lincoln she knew could handle the more delicate or opinion-based work without her input and get it done in more or less the manner she would prefer, but she barely knew Vaughn Recine at this point. "If you think Recine can get it done."

"It's actually more of his kind of thing than anything else we've had him do so far," her bodyguard returned with a shrug. "Honestly, if he can't, I'm letting him go and finding someone else – his experience with cars and working with the Department of Transportation was the deciding factor for taking him."

"Oh, he's the one you were reading those reports about," Relena exclaimed, the pieces clicking together. Turning to smile apologetically at the two men, she explained, "Nearly half my staff is new right now, I'm afraid. I lost them to recruitment for the Anti-Anarchy and Terrorist Strike Force, and I'm still filling in the gaps." The nervous man looked a bit more nervous – probably at the implied skill level required of her staff in that statement – but she was flicking her phone back open in response to a text, and hitting the call button a moment later. As soon as Vaughn said hello, she ordered, "Go ahead and do it. When you're done, I need you to check for transportation for the technicians, make sure everything's in line there, and check out road conditions. If there's any work that needs to be done to make them perfectly safe, we've only got three days to fix it. If you're not sure about how urgent something is, rank it so we can decide on priorities when we've got everything laid out in front of me."

"Got it," the sergeant agreed quickly, followed by his muffled voice telling someone to go ahead and add that to the final papers. "Anything else?"

"If you need any more detail or instructions, call Colonel Miller's cell. Go ahead and text him once you have an idea of how long this might take you to get done so we can keep a running timetable estimate between everyone." She checked her watch. "Go ahead and find yourself lunch before you get out in the middle of nowhere; we'll probably eat while you're gone."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Take care of yourself," she reminded. "There's a reason we're checking the roads, and I've read your record, I just found out."

He laughed. "I was wondering if you'd connected that… And I'll be careful, thank-you, Miss Peacecraft."

"Darlian-Peacecraft," she corrected. "If that's too much of a mouthful, just use my first name."

"Yes, Ma'am, sorry about that." He seemed to consider something for a moment. "I'll tell the colonel if it's otherwise, but I probably won't be done until after four."

"Thank-you. I'll see you sometime after four then. Bye." She hung up and looked back to… the one man standing in front of her. The calmer of the two offered her a smile, and gestured back towards the entrance to the building. "He's getting the papers. Sorry for the gawking… If it wasn't terribly obvious, I feel the need to note that he's new."

Relena laughed at that, reaching out a hand to shake. "I thought I remembered your face from the last time I came through here, but I'm afraid I don't remember your name at the moment. And it's fine." She winked. "I get that kind of reaction quite often."

He chuckled as he took her hand. "I imagine you do. Ted Carson, Miss Darlian-Peacecraft."

"Oh, you're either observant or have a good memory," she returned cheerfully. "I like that."

oOo


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May 24th 198 – Saturday – Sahara Desert – Eastern Libya, northern Expanded Rabyanah

"Yeah… I really wouldn't recommend it as a winter vacation home."

Colonel David Mitchell turned to give the other man a disbelieving sort of smile, honestly more grateful than anything that the… prisoner had managed to maintain his sense of humor somehow. "Are you sure?" he asked in a low tone, so as not to have the words spread far if it was somehow a joke in bad taste. A lot of the time, what was funny from someone five steps beyond jaded was utterly unacceptable coming from someone who hadn't lived through the same misfortune.

To his relief, the man snorted. "Well, only if you installed a swamp cooler." He chuckled a little disbelievingly himself. "I can't even remember what air conditioning feels like anymore…" His brown eyes turned more serious. "With this… we could go home?"

Straight to the heart of it. And really, that was what David preferred. "Yes, as the area is neutralized."

"You're leaving things out just to lead me into asking more questions," Charel – the man's first name was something with an r that Mitchell couldn't remember – returned quickly. "None of us want to be here; none of us ever did. I was vacationing with my girlfriend in Cairo, where it was still warm, when our hotel was gassed. Cambyses rarely take women to quarantine; I can only hope she died quickly, but to be honest, I doubt it." His voice gained steel as he finished speaking, his eyes narrowing. "They starve the ones who refuse to fight, monsieur – and that rule only applies as long as you survive your cellmates long enough to catch notice. There was never any choice."

David closed his eyes briefly as he felt his chest constrict. He'd more or less known that, but it was something else to hear it stated so simply, point blank. This was what made this area so hard to even begin cleaning up, but the fact was, it couldn't all be ignored. "I won't pretend to understand, but it's also obvious that the brainwashing has worked on a great number of men," he muttered in return, focusing on meeting those burning brown eyes. "I've confirmed that I can offer amnesty to those who help us fight Cambyses down, but anything else is in flux right now."

Someone standing several yards away, near the small bonfire that had been set up before he and his men arrived, caught his attention. Tall, probably over six foot, the man was staring at them now… The relief cast by the firelight gave his eyes and fair hair an eerie sort of glow. There was something almost dissecting about that stare...

But then, everyone looked creepy by candlelight.

"Only if we fight?" the squad leader protested, drawing his attention back. "That is vague. How much fighting? For how long? We have been under suspicion for nearly a year now! Roshan is only looking for a reason to have us killed. Even this far east, it could take over a month to leave Africa, hiding from raids the entire way. That's what we have been trying to gain the resources to do!"

It was a relief when a shorter man came up then, giving Mitchell a moment to regather himself after that dark sneer. "We're still good," he muttered quietly. "Perimeter's empty as can be… they probably didn't think it was out of character for us to draw this far out after we had people come though here last week."

The leader rolled his eyes, gripping at his blonde ponytail in a stressed sort of gesture. "Good… at least the territorial part of the reputation still runs that far."

The younger shrugged. "Reputation's never been an issue." He focused on Mitchell warily, but still with curiosity. "Are we…"

Again, that stressed sort of body gesture, tugging hard on his hair. "I'm working on it."

Mitchell's heart skipped a beat as he really looked at the newcomer, saw him clear in the face. "How old are you?" he demanded in a whisper, wanting to be wrong more than he could even imagine thinking…

The blonde over by the fire shifted a little abruptly, but it wasn't him that the colonel was paying attention to.

The teenager blinked. "What day is it?"

Mitchell licked his lips, trying to keep his belief suspended… "May twenty-fourth." After a moment, he added, "198."

Another slow blink, then a shrug. "Thirteen, then."

Oh God.

Charel shifted to ruffle the boy's hair. "You needed the date?" he mumbled worriedly.

Another blink and shrug. "Last week, I guess… May nineteenth. I didn't think about it."

The man hummed deep in his throat, a sort of understanding, before gesturing towards the man by the fire. "Go make sure he didn't just hear something."

"I saw too," the boy agreed, trotting off.

Silence hung between them for a long moment afterwards, before Charel offered, "Cory's been here longer than I have. I'm not sure how he made it before us, but… if he's right about his age…" He sighed. "I don't think he's been here for a full two years, but it's been at least fifteen months. He doesn't like to think about it, though, so I haven't asked." The one by the fire gestured at him and Charel nodded, relaxing slightly… before focusing back on Mitchell, eyes tired but hard. "Does he have to fight for your Regime to be free too?"

David's heart just sunk deep into his stomach again as the negotiations actually started.

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May 26th 198 – Monday – Near L3

"Hey, Mom. You got my email, right? Yeah, sorry about that, it was totally my fault… Well, no. Okay, it was mostly my fault, Odin was the one who decided that not letting me have a phone until I worked out the kinks was good motivation." A pause. "Um, no, not really… But… Well, I did work it out better than I'd been thinking…"

Odin shook his head slightly as he slid the faceplate of the phone open and started punching in the preliminary codes for Earth. If he'd had any idea how long it would take Marlé to work out her little program and device, he would have gotten at least one new phone for stand-by purposes, but by the time he'd realized that the situation might become nearly as obnoxious to him as her, he'd gone too far with it to turn back. He thought he had done rather well, giving into his frustration in a sort of objective lesson for his… his sister that she would learn well from without actually suffering anything, but…

He hadn't expected her to take another five days to make something functional.

In retrospect, he could admit that allowing her to conveniently destroy their second phone in retaliation may have been childish. But then, she had to learn a few principles somehow, and the best way was to let her make the mistakes – provided they were sufficiently low risk.

Frowning as he dialed Noin's number, he paused before hitting send. It had been five days since the drop… And while he had never perceived Noin as anything approaching temperamental, that was still rather… brusque of him.

…Leia was invading his vocabulary more and more as time went on. Pressing send, he glanced back over to the twelve-year-old, still talking to her mother in a wheedling tone. Did I pick up any of Duo or Quatre's speech patterns while we were together? Probably…

If he had, it hadn't bothered him.

"Who is this?" Noin demanded as she picked up.

"Heero." The name – if not the spelling – was common enough that that shouldn't suggest anything if the line was randomly scanned.

"Oh good, it took you long enough," her tone relaxed, though it turned sarcastic. "Did you forget you switched phones?"

"No. You got-" he scanned his mind for a good word, quickly, "-your present, right?"

"Oh, I did… you had us worried until I saw your scribbling. That was a nice job, by the way; for a hacksaw."

"I didn't have a hacksaw," he returned mildly.

She made an amused sort of noise. "In any case, yes, I did appreciate it… though if the same idea crosses your mind again, some warning would be nice. I'm not a fan of surprises."

"Noted."

"Where did you find all that, anyway?"

"I raided an old friend's stash spot," Odin explained. "I honestly doubt he even still remembers it was there, but he seems to like you well enough." He felt his lips twitch. "He gave you his boat, after all."

Noin chuckled. "I'll admit that that was bad phrasing on my part, but I was half asleep." She paused for a moment before adding, "I wasn't exactly serious about the horse, by the way."

He smiled outright, glancing back in Marlé's direction. "I didn't think you were." But he'd been at a total loss for what it did mean and had had to ask Marlé to explain it, at which point she had insisted that it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. "I apologize for the phone trouble, however." Normally he thought he would have left it at that, but after a moment of silence on the other end, he felt the urge to add, "It caught fire."

She made a noise that he suspected was a smothered chuckle. "It caught fire?"

"Yes."

"How, exactly, did it manage to catch fire?"

He met Marlé's eyes when he glanced her way this time, and rolled his own. "It might have been thrown at my not-hacksaw."

"I did not throw it!" Marlé protested immediately, and rather loudly.

"Hence the word 'might'," he retorted, sure that Noin had heard the girl clearly. "I still found myself dodging a projectile while holding an instrument that could etch neo-titanium."

"It was an accident!"

"Which is a far more frightening concept altogether." Considering the soft laughter coming through the phone, he debated for a moment before deciding it couldn't hurt to ask the more experienced. "Is there anything worth teaching beyond practice for zero-g?"

"They work out most of the kinks after the first few incidents," she noted in an amused tone. "I never had more than a handful of injuries in a group. It sounds as though she's already discovered the most dangerous aspect, in any case." He made a noise of understanding, and he supposed he heard half a hesitation before she asked, "How did you learn?"

He shrugged, shifting his weight and pushing off against the wall slightly to put himself into a slow spin. Marlé had asked him the same question. "I don't recall it ever being a new concept." The instincts for working in zero gravity environments were as deeply ingrained as those for walking.

"Mm." She sighed out another chuckle. "Is this the person who texted you before?"

"Marlé, yes."

"So doesn't she have a phone?"

"I might have neglected to point out that she left it on top of the capsule after the fire."

"He was being impossible," Marlé protested, tucking her new phone into her pocket as she gently pushed off to come closer to him. "He's good at that – in just about any context."

Odin blinked, considering… remembered Sally specifically asking him to turn off the New Edwards self-destruct simply because she had said it was impossible. "Agreed."

"See?"

Noin laughed outright. "I've noticed."

oOo


oOo

May 28th 198 – Wednesday – Cremona, Italy

"Mailin Marrakech," the Asian woman – well, mostly Asian, probably – greeted easily. Her accent was odd, though familiar enough that Relena knew she ought to know it. "It's a pleasure to know I'll be working with you, ma'am."

"Just Relena, please," the princess returned, taking her hand to shake. "And I'm looking forward to it. It will be nice to have another woman to talk to."

In all honesty, she was reeling in that she now had a female bodyguard – then recoiling at the fact that she was reeling for that exact reason. She just hadn't thought about it… but she'd never questioned that Jake was only staffing men.

At least until now, of course. And she knew it was a matter of him picking the people he thought were best suited, and that until now it just happened out that all of them had been men… But wow, it was so beyond terrible of her to be thrown by him hiring a woman. With Jake, it just meant that he'd finally found a woman who met his standard… and statistically speaking, far fewer women were going to make it onto his radar, that was all.

Hopefully she wasn't blushing from the sheer level of embarrassment she was keeping carefully inside her own head.

Mailin was smiling conspiratorially. "That so? Tired of all the eye candy about?" She gestured negligently in the direction of the table, where Lin and Jake were debating the best way to do something or other.

Relena snorted. "Most certainly not, but it's been a while since I've had genuine, trustworthy women nearby." She sighed a little nostalgically. "The boys are great, but I do miss Noin. She was all power, poise, and grace."

The woman pursed her lips. "The Colonel said Dorothy Catalonia was often about?"

Relena snorted. "You can figure that one out when you meet her."

"Oh… dear." Mailin's lips were twitching slightly. "That sounds terribly interesting."

"That's one way of putting it." Tucking her hair behind one ear, the princess considered the little kitchen they currently found themselves in. "Did he say whether he was putting you on day or night shift to start with? He's passed me so many folders at this point that I honestly can't remember what details belonged to who anymore." That, and people in full military uniform, staring at the camera with stoic expressions usually didn't look much like themselves. On top of that, Miss Marakesh had arrived at today's cubbyhole – excuse me, safehouse – in casual dress to make her introductions. Jake had already mentioned that she wouldn't be starting formally until next week, but she had arrived earlier so as to get a scope of things before fitting in.

…Which most likely meant she was day crew, come to think of it.

"Ah, I might have been a bit abrupt, then," Mailin returned with a smile. The accent of the word 'bit' was odd. "I'll try again, ah? I'm Major Mailin Marakesh, and I specialize in languages, among other things; your colonel's made it rather clear that he has no desire to try to learn Mandarin in two weeks."

Relena grinned at that. "I remember now." There had only been three original candidates out of thirty-five or so above the rank of lieutenant, all three majors… and only one of them with an emphasis on languages. And that would explain the hints of an accent. "Australian, right?"

The higher rank would make sense too, the candid voice in the back of her head muttered. In terms of Jake hiring a woman.

She was never going to live this down, even though no one else was ever going to find out. All that matters is that she is capable, and has proven herself through experience and rank.

"Give or take," she returned with a shrug. "I managed to live just about everywhere, growing up; immersion's a great teacher, really." She shifted her weight, eyes focusing on her with a sort of intent curiosity. "Chance had it that I went into the reserves shortly before the World Nation was declared, and only just came back in. Nothing against you or anything, but I'm glad, despite the circumstances, that Milliardo Peacecraft dissolved it with the rise of the Regime."

"The World Nation was a madhouse idea of Duke Dermail's that I was manipulated into conceding to," Relena explained firmly. "The leadership of it was pushed on me as part of the conditions of my country's surrender, and wrestling back out of the role Dermail was trying to puppet me into took quite some doing. I'm not sure I agree with all my brother's solutions, but I believe it's an improvement to trying to oversimplify all peoples for the sake of an aristocracy's convenience."

Mailin was smirking a little now, arms casually crossed over her chest. "Bravo," she drawled happily. "I'd more or less figured, but it's nice to hear from the source, as be." She tilted her head slightly. "You're not getting on as well with your brother now?"

Relena raised her brows; that was a nice, cut to the point question. "No, I'm moving to Munich because I want to devote all my free time to sitting at his feet, looking pretty."

The major laughed delightedly, her eyes sparkling. "Right then, I deserved that." After a moment, she looked around the kitchen too, almost as if trying to see what about it had caught Relena's attention before. "When are you planning on doing the move itself?" She frowned as she focused on the sink. "Tell me that's not your set of pots and pans."

"I think those are too corroded to be safe," Relena returned dryly. "Jake got frustrated with Sergeant Krititz earlier and told him to go clean something."

Mailin looked back to poor things skeptically. "Well they're obviously not clean… so where's…" She looked up, thinking for a moment. "Carlisle? Where's Carlisle now that he ditched?"

"Possibly hiding from Jake." She hadn't gotten even a vague sort of impression of him yet, beyond the fact that her colonel had looked like he wanted to rip the poor man's hair out earlier.

"Consensus is, the damn pots are a lost cause," Jake noted in an amused tone. "He's cleaning the bathroom."

"What did he do?"

"He didn't listen to what I was saying because obviously he's known me for a day and can read my thoughts," the colonel explained dryly. "Assumed interpretation gets people killed, so he can do menial shit until he remembers he got promoted three weeks ago because I thought he had potential, not because he's hot shit."

"Ah." Turning back to Relena, the Australian woman shrugged. "Makes sense to me."

"That's comforting," Jake noted with a smirk. "I'd hate to toss you back for lacking common sense."

She chuckled. "Common sense is malleable. I've spent the last three years retired, managing a precocious pair of toddlers; I think, after that level of mischievous creativity, I can handle anything on the more sensible end."

"Oh, 'sensible' might not be the most applicable word," Relena found herself muttering before she thought.

The major barked out a laugh. "If any of us were entirely sensible, Ma'am, we'd all be running like ninnies for the colonies."

"They're too overpopulated by now," Lincoln added cheerfully as he came up to the kitchen's island, rolling up something that was probably either a map or a blueprint.

"You checked?" Her tone was innocently affronted.

"I have some sensibility left," he agreed, eyes sparkling. "Enough at least to never work under Colonel David Mitchell." Jake started to outright cackle, and Lin moved around him to offer his hand. "I was busy before, so hi, I'm Lieutenant Lincoln Sobrie. Pleased to meet you, Major Marakesh."

The brunette woman smiled easily and took his hand. "Sure. And if we're going to be informal at some point, I prefer Mai."

"Wonderful, we're fast becoming the band of lazy nicknames to the point that we could possibly move as a group and already be disguised!" Lincoln went on rather exuberantly. He was in an odd mood, at any rate. "Lena, Thea, Spiderman-"

"What?"

Relena started giggling hard as her lieutenant went on to 'explain'. "No, no sir, you've already been dubbed by the princess, it stands-"

"How did you get Spiderman out of-"

"Lin!" Relena protested around her own laughter. "I didn't mean for you to-"

"In any case," Lin continued on as though none of the protests had begun, "Kansas left, but there's still me as Lin, and Rome, Mars, now Mai, and I've a few creative ones in mind for the newer ones… Vaughn's can't have anything to do with his real name, it's already only one syllable."

Relena pressed one hand to her forehead, giggling helplessly. Lin probably had a point, but… Wow.

"So… welcome to the madhouse," Jake noted dryly after a moment. "We'll see if you can earn yourself a name as dashing as Spiderman."

Relena just found herself laughing harder.

"I do want to know what I did to deserve that one, at some point."

The princess nodded, still trying to get herself otherwise under control.

"…Yeah, I think we'll get on just fine," Mai decided after a long moment. "I actually had my nephew convinced I was a superhero for almost a year. He was three, but it was still seriously almost a full year."

"That has to count for something," Lin agreed happily. "Right, Jake?"

"I did not start this one, Sobrie, it's all yours…"

Still not able to work up enough air to speak, Relena walked around the counter to wrap her arms around Lin, giggling into his chest.

oOo


oOo

May 29th 198 – Thursday – L3

"Well, this has certainly been a lovely afternoon, Madam Victroff," Dorothy announced with a smile, gently patting at her lips with her napkin. "Much better than I had prepared for."

The older woman smiled as well, but while still polite, it was… amused on a more visceral level, and the light in her eyes exposed the danger missing from her tone quite clearly. "It was a pleasure to meet with you, dear. I wasn't expecting the company, but I could hardly leave you on the doorstep."

Dorothy found herself briefly considering whether or not she might be able to safely leave the neighborhood at this point, let alone the colony; it warred with her growing genuine like of this woman the more time she spent with her. She was fairly sure, but… it had taken such effort to find even a glimmer of a trace of her, and not all family was alike… though in some ways, they truly could be.

Her stomach dropped at the implications of that.

After another moment, she carefully announced, "My initial comments were not actually meant as blackmail, Madam."

"Oh good." Theratrice Victroff flicked her hair slightly, smiling even more charmingly as something about her made the Romefeller heiress' sense of danger skyrocket. "That could have led to a poor evening."

Dorothy decided, as electricity seemed to run up and down her spine a few times, that she really did like this woman; she was all steel wrapped coyly in velvet. "I merely had to be sure I caught your attention enough to speak with me at all, I'm afraid," she went on to explain. "What I actually had in mind is a prospect that would hopefully be quite mutually beneficial. I simply came with no predisposed way to gauge your reactions."

The smile widened slightly as the woman glanced towards a clock, then immediately back. "So I'd surmised, over the past hour. I'm willing to satisfy my curiosity… so long as you manage to make a point before my husband returns with our daughters. By then, I suspect we'll have to settle at some stopping point or other." She took another sip of her tea before setting the cup aside entirely. "Exactly what would depend on the situation as it stands by then, of course."

Another invigorating shrill ran through all her nerves as Dorothy smiled back and leaned forward in her chair. "Of course. Allow me to start concisely instead of simply at the beginning, then…"

oOo


oOo

May 31st 198 – Saturday – L4

It was coded.

Normally, that kind of thing didn't bother him. Codes were meant to be broken, and he honestly couldn't remember when Odin had first started to teach him the ins and outs of computer systems and their securities. But this wasn't encrypted, it was coded, which meant it wasn't an encryption or anything he could mathematically break down. It was a riddle in more ways than he knew he was currently even perceiving, and it had nothing whatsoever to do with electronics beyond the fact that the scripts were on hard drives.

When Quatre had cheerfully informed him it was secure – after explaining that he wanted Heero to take all the original information on the Zero System and hide it where he couldn't find it on his own – it hadn't occurred to him that the other pilot might have taken the extra step to also be sure that no one could understand what they were looking at; if they even knew what they held in the first place.

…At least, he was fairly sure it had to have been Quatre. He wouldn't have put it beyond Dr. J or the rest of the Mad Five, but he was fairly sure that the bits of language he could make out looked like a long-extinct dialect of Arabic. That struck him as very Quatre… especially considering he was mostly sure that he had seen lines of the same script in Wing Zero's startup sequences – but not in Wing's. The same mix of symbols and scrawl had also formed up all of the really deep-level coding of the machine itself… and considering the nasty shocks he'd gotten when he tried to alter any of that, he was relatively sure that the design both had traps built into it and had been made to be utterly incomprehensible to anyone but Quatre.

The Winner heir hadn't exactly factored in that anyone else use might use the suit when he'd been building the gundam. Everyone who flew it afterwards had to learn to deal with its quirks… and they had all learned early on that trying to dive into Wing Zero's base program protocol was either suicide or homicide, depending on which trap you triggered. You had to take it as a whole or stay away from it entirely, and the only one who probably could understand it, Odin was now realizing, had been Quatre – who had refused to go near the machine again.

No one had exactly argued with him over that decision, either; and there was a very deep wisdom in coding the only remaining knowledge in such a way so that only Heero and Quatre working together could bring the system back to life.

Odin frowned. That's not technically accurate either, though. Epyon was equipped with the Zero System, which meant that Treize had had access to it at least at some point. He probably still did, as he couldn't see the general willingly throwing away knowledge… But Treize also denounced mobile dolls and threw out everything to do with them, and Zero doesn't exactly have the best track record.

He said he couldn't master the system, he recalled, considering. That he made it for himself, but he couldn't run it, so it was worthless to him. Unlike Wing Zero, Epyon woke up Zero during the boot sequence – he'd tried to fiddle with the BIOS a few times, but coding structure was… unusual. Overly complex where he would expect utility, and simple with a reroute back through other blocks when it ought to be a complex, unique process. It made certain functions flow impeccably, almost outpacing his own reflexes, even, but… Epyon had been built differently from the others. At first glance, large segments of code should have been entirely unusable… but it obviously did work just fine.

That, more than anything, had been what made him believe Treize when he said he created the gundam independently. The programming was intelligent, but very much amateur work too – altering any function between users on Epyon would have been a nightmare.

So if Treize still has a working copy of Zero, he's being careful to not share. So long as that didn't change, it wasn't something he had to worry about.

Heero had started hiding the pieces of Zero that Quatre entrusted him with as soon as they had escaped to Earth and split up, and he'd been sure to be both random and widespread about it… thirty small drives in all. He hadn't done it very quickly either – he'd still working on it by the time he joined Noin, Howard, and Sally on the Peacemillion. He hadn't picked them all up yet, but he was reasonably sure he'd hidden them well enough to successfully avoid any casual perusing.

He wondered if half of Quatre's shock over being told he'd had Howard add Zero to Sandrock was over the idea that maybe he hadn't hidden the knowledge away as he'd promised. After all, most of the panic had faded out once he explained it was a literal copy from Wing Zero – which was located right next to the first catalyst for the suit's self-destruct mechanism. Even if the mechanism failed – like it had with Deathscythe – the initial sparks would still obliterate the drive carrying Zero's code.

Quatre had programmed the self-destruct to literally go off in someone's face if they tampered with Zero… But after finding three separate lines of code connecting the drive and the self-destruct, Heero'd decided it was worth the risk – Quatre wasn't anywhere near his own level of programming.

When he'd asked Howard to install Zero in Sandrock, he'd insisted on the same location – and given how Sandrock was Quatre's baseline for how he believed MS should be set up, it hadn't been a difficult request. So after Libra fell and they both crashed, they'd set the self-destructs on both gundams with a timer – no more Zero there. So Epyon is the only source now… But…

If he had experienced electrical fires in Wing Zero, then it was very likely that Zechs had suffered the same in Epyon. Depending on how far the damage spread, it was possible that Epyon's copy was gone as well… though there may have been copies. Treize probably wouldn't have justified the idea of booby-trapping an MS he was literally giving away, and White Fang had to have gotten the version they used to run the Virgo doll army from somewhere. As far as he understood, only the five scientists that built the gundams and maybe Howard had the knowledge and ability to craft another version of Zero from nothing… and while he wasn't sure who built Libra in the first place, that beam cannon was too inefficient to be Dr. J's work. The constant breakdown and need for repairs after each shot had been incredibly helpful, but there was no reason for it to be happening when it was essentially just a bigger version of Wing Zero's twin buster rifle.

In any case, Libra's edition of Zero was incinerated along with the rest of the ship, so it didn't really matter where it came from. Epyon had still been clear at least for salvage after Libra, which meant Treize's version of Zero was likely still intact.

The question is: was Treize's version already corrupt when he implemented it?

Treize could only have gotten Zero from either the faction who was experimenting on Wing Zero after it was taken from Quatre, or from the Mad Five when they were hidden on the Lunar base – involuntarily creating the Vayeate and Mercurius, while secretly rebuilding Deathscythe and Shenlong. In either scenario, it was highly likely that the information was corrupt from the beginning.

Personally, he thought there had been something… maddening about Epyon when he flew it. Almost like… curdled bloodlust? He rolled his eyes, admitting that maybe his word choices were getting more eccentric. Vocabulary aside, though… adding in unfortunate side effects to discourage use was exactly the kind of tactic he would expect from the Mad Five.

…was Libra's absurdly breakable canon purposefully made poorly? To the best of his knowledge, the gundam engineers had never been released from OZ custody even after the Lunar base fell, but… That sounded like something they'd do, keeping up the charade of playing ball while sabotaging the entire system.

I guess I'll never know for sure. If they'd been on Libra when it fell, then that was that. If they were somewhere else, then they were smart enough to know better than to make problems for him, so he couldn't really care less.

Turning his attention back to the compilation of data he'd found on a few of the drives Quatre had given him so long ago, he had to admit defeat. Despite trying for a handful of weeks now, he couldn't make it make anything approaching sense; he only had about half of the drives so far, but if they were all like this? Having them all wasn't going to help – he needed Quatre in order to decipher it. There was a chance that the Maguanacs would know, but the longer he thought about it, the more he worried about those tricks that had been in the working version on Wing Zero. It wouldn't be out of character for Quatre to have trapped his own failsafe any more than it would for Dr. J. His old friend had designed this so that only both of them together, live and fully willing, could revive the thing that had led him on a mass-murdering spree.

Despite this being an excellent plan, it was incredibly frustrating when one considered how long the other pilot had been missing, and how he was possibly dead.

Closing his laptop and leaning back in his chair, he turned to see Marlé entirely focused on the book she was reading. Leia had been pestering them about when they might be back next, and he supposed they might as well go back and visit for a while, before heading back to Earth to give Sally the bad news. Once back in Africa, he could try enlisting the Maguanacs' help with Quatre's cipher. After that… Well, he wanted to push how fluently Marlé could manage her German… and there was always something else to do as soon as they finished one thing.

It would be easier to just go now, but… Leia and Mariemaia had been apart from each other almost their entirely lives, when neither of them had wanted to be. Despite the mutters in the back of his head about wasting time and decreased efficiency, of how superfluous he'd allowed himself to become… he respected that. The mother and daughter were innocent in all this, and protecting that innocence was why he had agreed to abandon the original Operation Meteor when Dr. J suggested it. The innocence of that girl and her puppy that he still felt guilty for killing in collateral, of the pacifists he had unknowingly slaughtered at New Edwards, that Relena seemed to exude no matter how dark the hour… That was the point of all this. He hadn't exactly been innocent when Odin died but even then, that… that purity was still there…

He liked to think he might have followed a better path, if his father hadn't died. If he hadn't found himself blindly going wherever his feet led him – if he'd thought about it at all, instead of falling right into the Barton Foundation's hands.

Odin said he wanted a better life for me. And for all that he didn't and never had wanted 'normal' the way his father had pushed him towards, it… it could have gone a lot better than what Dr. J and Dekim had put him through. He couldn't really regret it, it had been so long, but… He thought he understood now, at least a little better, what Odin had meant that day.

Life was too cheap – the same with time. If he could keep Mariemaia safe and give her more time with her mother, he would – he wished he'd had more time with his father. You never know what's going to happen tomorrow… the only thing you know for sure is that everything will change, whether it's all at once, or in pieces so small you didn't notice for months.

She has her mom now… she shouldn't waste it.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket with the intention of calling Leia to say she could expect them in a day or so, only to see "Lu" at the top of his recently called list. She'd programmed it into his first phone that way, so he had recopied it that way himself… though he wondered if it was to help mask her identity should the phone fall into the wrong hands, or if that was what she used now. After all, Sally had never gone by "Po", but he'd never been curious enough to ask why everyone used Noin instead of Lucrezia. He was hardly one to fuss with what name someone was using at any particular time – he was known to respond to numbers, after all, and he'd gotten the impression that most people considered that to be fairly demeaning.

I should ask if there's anything else she needed from space. Or if she wanted whatever else he could find in Trowa's other various stash spots that was related to Heavyarms. He'd only visited the ones he'd been closest to at the time, and they'd had a lot more than he thought she might expect, so he'd left it at that… but it might be worth sorting through the others he knew of in space before returning to Earth, even if he didn't take anything. For all that he lived a pretty Spartan lifestyle, Trowa had always had something of a packrat tendency; if he found something that he thought might be useful at some point later, he pocketed it, then tucked it away somewhere so he could find it again. It was actually watching Trowa successfully hide away and retrieve a number of things – which had inevitably been more or less perfect for what they needed at the time – that had inspired the way he hid things later in the war, then the Zero system drives.

He hadn't been joking when he told Noin that Trowa probably had no idea he even had the power cores and shells. Zero had given him something back when he flew with it, but the Trowa he'd met on Peacemillion hadn't been the Trowa who had patiently nursed him back to health then followed him around the globe. Duo didn't seem to notice that the post-amnesia version wouldn't have even considered punching him in the solar plexus to pass off information, and Quatre had been so relieved to have him alive and back that he hadn't delved into it.

He considered his phone for another moment before selecting 'Lu' and flipping the cover up so he could access the keyboard. If Trowa showed up and called the debt at some point, it wasn't like he wouldn't go out of his way to make up the difference somehow – and Noin's needs were likely more immediate by both his and Trowa's standards.

Besides, by giving her Heavyarms… Smirking, he glanced briefly back to Marlé. He didn't appreciate all of Leia's colloquialisms, but her daughter's were usually entertaining on some level. He started it.

oOo


oOo

June 2nd 198 – Monday – Skopje, Macedonia – The Skyview – Early Morning Hours

"Jake?"

Relena woke up to the quiet call, but didn't move more than to open her eyes. After a moment she registered that it was David's voice… And she pushed herself up on one elbow. "Dave?" He wasn't supposed to be in the same town as them, she was positive. Jake was sitting up too from his bed, a few feet closer to the door… David was coming through the connecting room with the rest of her guards.

"Sorry, Lena," the colonel muttered, sounding half-asleep. "I didn't mean to wake you up too…"

"What's wrong?" Jake asked as he flicked on the lamp and scrubbed a hand over his eyes. "I thought you were in, like… Giza."

"I will be tomorrow," his friend returned, and he sounded not so much tired, Relena realized, as… hollow. Like he'd gone through so much emotion that he'd just poured it all out until there wasn't anything left to be upset over. He was still fully dressed and didn't look rumpled physically, but you could see the exhaustion in his stance. "I decided on a later flight time… Can I talk to you?"

Jake's mouth firmed as he nodded, reaching for his shoes. "Sure, just let me get dressed, and we can-"

"I'll just go in the other room," Relena argued, standing up and absently brushing her hair out of her face. "You can talk in here; I'm awake anyhow."

David Mitchell sighed and sat down on the bed next to his best friend. "Thanks, Lena."

"It's not a problem," Relena assured him, walking through the connecting door and closing it behind her… and smiling at Cassidy. "Hey, you."

Her ex-bodyguard smiled wanly back at her. "Hey, Lena."

She frowned slightly, then covered it with the same sort of tired smile. "It's that bad, huh?" Whatever was bringing David down had Cassidy too… Which probably meant it was work-related.

He sighed. "Pretty much. Mitchell's taking the emotional brunt of it the worst, though… I think he needs Jake to reassure him that he's not Satan incarnate for having to hold his ground on this one."

She sighed. "He'll set him right, I'm sure." From what she knew about the Cambyses situation, it was far more than simply 'complicated' both on a logistical and a moral level. Cassidy probably didn't want to talk about it though, and she didn't particularly need the nightmares unless he did need someone to talk to himself… and if that was the case, he'd redirect the conversation back to it. Instead, she pulled him into a hug and sat down on one of the couches of the suite the night guards were sprawled around. "How's your hand?"

He smiled as he leaned back into the cushions himself, holding up the scarred appendage for her to see, flexing it. "Still weak, but good… definitely no permanent damage, beyond the scars. The docs said that so long as I keep up with the physical therapy, those shouldn't become a problem either, but there's still a chance I'll have to let them work on it again eventually. Shouldn't be for a few more years, though."

"That's good." Considering how horrible it had looked that day in Amsterdam, she had worried it would always be debilitating, or that he might lose it entirely… but despite Doctor J's Captain Hook routine, medicine had come a long way. Taking his hand in hers and running her fingers gently over the lines, she looked up and winked at him. "You impress anyone with how wicked this looks yet?"

He grinned back at her. "All the time. No girls yet, though."

She snickered. "Well, I get to be the first, then." Carefully blanking her face, she smiled her politician's smile and in her most proper tone informed him, "This looks totally badass."

He managed a straight face for about five seconds before they both started snickering.

oOo


oOo

June 3rd 198 – Tuesday – Sahara Desert – Eastern Libya, northern Expanded Rabyanah

"That's… not so bad," Nick muttered after a moment. "I mean, it's not great, but…"

"But it's better than anything else we're going to get," Razo finished for him with a sigh. "Honestly, it's better than I expected."

"Cory makes an effective guilt trip," Robby tossed out carelessly, not looking up. "The colonel let you push the envelope that much harder because he saw how young he is."

"He's genuine, though?" Razo reaffirmed, frowning. He was more or less positive that Colonel Mitchell was being honest, but Robby's opinions of people were always flawless.

And… something felt… wrong, about how Robby was handling all this.

"He is."

"…Free," Sagan muttered after another long silence. "We're… we're really going to be free again. Just a few more weeks…"

"It's surreal," Vaska agreed quietly, his eyes far away. "I'm putting off telling the others until I can believe it's really true myself. This is… a dream, right now."

Razo licked his lips, looking to Robby, wondering why he wasn't-

"We'll need to organize this," Robby announced at last. "Make sure everyone gets their moment of shine for the official affirmation, with minimal risks. I'll draw it up once we have everyone's confirmation."

And that was when everyone else realized Robby was being wrong. "Confirmation?" Nick dared first. "Who wouldn't?"

"Who can't," the blonde returned bluntly, looking off into the distance, not meeting anyone's eyes. "This is a good opportunity, but there are exceptions to every rule." He finally did look back to them, and while they all expected his eyes to be smoldering, they were really just… resigned. "Don't assume that just because you've found a solution for yourself that it will work for everyone, Nick. I know you know better than that."

Another long silence spread between them as the others tried to digest that and Razo tried to fit the pieces together again. Finally, Razo decided he might as well step up to the plate. "You'd lose the amnesty; they could legally hold you accountable for your time here."

Robby laughed that little dark chuckle of his that tended to make a chill run up your spine, though this time, it seemed more… hopeless. "Not if they don't catch me."

He didn't want to come near that colonel or his men. He wanted to be there and to watch, but he didn't want them to see him…

Another pause… then out of nowhere, Cory announced, "I'm going with Robby."

"No," Robby snapped, though his voice was dry. "They'll take you home, it's best."

"You can take me home too," the boy argued immediately. "What if no one's there anymore? They won't care."

Razo could feel the palpable disbelief of the others at Cory's attitude… or hell, over the fact that the kid was stringing together more than three words at a time. That Cory dared to talk back…

But then, Robby isn't keeping up his mask either. Everyone knew he favored the boy, but they also knew Robby should have smacked Nick for questioning him – instead it was perfectly clear that their blonde leader was past caring.

He'd kept them all alive and as whole as he could… but he'd kept himself at a distance with a persona to do it. And if they were going to be safe after all… then maybe the man was just done.

"Robby?" Vaska asked after a minute, when it was clear the man wasn't going to answer Cory in any way. The blonde shifted slightly so they knew he heard, but it was another long pause before he spoke.

"We're going to be free again. We're going to be our own again. I got us here to start with, but follow your own paths… I've got to follow mine."

That said, he stood and just… walked away.

Nick trembled slightly, staring after him even after the man had ducked into his tent. "Did that just happen?" he asked, sounding a bit incredulous.

Cory frowned. "He's scared."

"Scared?" Sagan demanded, sounding outright disbelieving.

"It surprised him too," the boy admitted. "I think he'd forgotten how."

"It's in his head then!" Nick hissed. "It's time to celebrate, not freak out!"

He was so wary of the military men… Razo had taken it as the usual caution, Robby's usual paranoia before, but… "He doesn't think he'll get the amnesty," Razo realized, looking to Cory for confirmation. "He wanted me to negotiate it because he didn't want the soldiers to know him."

"You said the amnesty was conditional only by whether we helped fight Cambyses," Vaska returned solidly, meeting his eyes. "Is there a loophole?"

"No… No, Robby and I both were sure, made them add in extra clauses…"

"It won't matter," Cory added after a moment. "They're not going to care."

"You picked a fine time to remember you had a mouth, why the pessimism?" Sagan asked, tone sarcastic.

The boy shrugged, seemingly unaffected by everyone's attention. "He didn't learn everything he knows here."

Razo closed his eyes as the significance of that one sunk home. It wasn't like he hadn't known it, but when you spent long enough actively trying to not think about things, it caught up with you. "He was on bad terms with the military before Cambyses took him. The amnesty won't apply to anything from before here." He looked to Nick, who was starting to look guilty. "You feel like an ass yet?"

"Fuck off."

"He's probably not the only one here on not so hot terms with them either," Razo continued, turning to stare at each of them in turn. "And he's right; the lack of amnesty doesn't matter if they have no way of telling someone was here in the first place."

Vaska licked his lips. "We can showcase and run," he announced, meeting Razo's eyes. "Do some good, get our amnesty, and make ourselves scarce."

"Why?" Nick asked, confused.

"Because I'm grateful, but I don't have any faith in the Regime."

"And the alternative?" the younger man snapped.

"I trust him!" Vaska snapped back, gesturing back towards Robby's tent. "He gave a damn, and looked after total strangers with his own life! I don't know how many times I'd be dead by now otherwise!"

"The soldiers weren't so bad," Razo muttered after a moment.

"No, but they still get their hands tied," Vaska snapped. "They have orders to follow, whatever they're like."

Nick honestly just looked exhausted. "And what do you think those things he tells you to do are?"

"Didn't you just listen to him a minute ago?"

"Stop!" Razo snarled, holding his posture and gesturing just so, so the motion mimicked Robby enough that they all stepped back before they thought about it… then glared to follow it up. "We're all fucking tired, alright? Just… We have over two weeks before the strike starts. Just keep it to yourselves for a few more hours and we can talk when we're not all at the end of our damn rope. The important thing to remember is that we have options now… and that we're not all on our own just yet. We still have to finish actually getting there."

Sagan rubbed his face with one hand. "Well, finally there's something I don't have to think about to agree with."

oOo


oOo

Munich, Germany

Hayden rocked back on his heels and cracked his back, looking the room over with satisfaction. It was largely bare, or at least seemed like it with everything pulled away from the walls, and there were holes and bare fixtures here and there, but he couldn't help but be proud. Finally done.

Well, he still needed to patch the holes and nail the baseboards back into place, then paint, but the hard part was done with, and Colonel Miller had only asked that he place all the security hardware and patch holes before letting others help him.

The fact that he'd also requested that he also break the drywall in alternate believable positions before patching hadn't been lost on him at all… and if getting a little creative with a sledgehammer meant he had to spend more time working on his own, he had an audio book to listen to. He liked his new superior's thought processing; he liked to be thorough, and while more than a few people had said he was overeager or prone to overkill, Hayden still thought it paid to be thorough. Colonel Miller was definitely paranoid, and while Hayden wouldn't claim the same of himself, there was something in him that was thrilled to be working under someone who appreciated his ability to map labyrinths of contingency plans. The fact that in the end it meant he was doing everything even slightly within his power to protect the princess made him practically want to float.

Even he was willing to admit he'd probably gone a few steps past overkill in a few areas of the mansion and its grounds, but the colonel had justified the plans when he laid them out for him and even added a few things, so it was all good. Nothing like what had happened at Brussels would ever be able to happen here… and he could personally assure himself of that. And he got to do something other than just stare at screens all the time… and the colonel had said he'd start training him in other stuff once everyone was in residence. He was still mostly going to be doing surveillance stuff, but it was of a much smaller area that was much more tightly controlled and he was going to be the head of all of it.

Which was why the colonel had left it up to him to design and construct and program this downright masterpiece of safety independently, only reviewing what he had planned or tweaking or suggesting things here or there. The man had happily told him that he was teaching him by teaching him to teach himself… which made sense in terms of what he'd meant even if he was pretty sure it was actually gibberish.

The colonel was actually really good at doing that pretty much all the time.

He hadn't worked out if he should call him Miller or Jake yet; he'd seen the others call him Jake without him minding, but… The colonel was arguably the best and worst thing that had happened to his career so far. He'd gotten into so much trouble he was worried he was going to get discharged after he let the princess and her retinue out of the base lockdown, after news of the riot came back, but the colonel had immediately taken him under wing as someone he wanted to train personally. That had effectively cut off the fires of hell before they could finish materializing, though his technical position had been on shaky grounds for a while…

But working directly with the princess, running all her home security and surveillance on a custom system mostly created by him was a bit more than a promotion. He hadn't asked yet and wasn't going to for a while – unless the colonel brought it up – but he was hardly a private anymore, with this level of trust. He'd never really thought he might be recognized and selected like he had. He'd known going into the military that he was probably just going to be one in the faceless masses, nothing special, but… When he'd pointed that out in a… well, kinda panicked ramble, if he was going to be honest, the colonel had said he was probably one of the most attentive to detail enlisted he'd ever met.

That had been embarrassing in a proud kind of way that he'd still tried to protest before the colonel had brought up his effectiveness otherwise – in sounding the alarm during the Brussels attack once he'd woken up from his concussion, taking down the insurgent guard who had taken his position. Something about having had the piece of mind to keep him alive and thoroughly bound – though he was given a firm look and told to never use duct tape to bandage an ally unless it was an absolute emergency – and then still man his post. He'd gone on for a while about doing what was right instead of just mindlessly following orders, and how he thought that level of judgment was vital in his line of work – though Hayden wasn't sure if that was referencing to the colonel, himself, or both of them.

He was eager to find out, though.

Nodding to himself, he stood up and went to get the drywall. The sooner the patches dried, the sooner he could paint, and if he had enough time, he could paint more on his own before recruiting Catalonia's guys to help, and increase possible levels of subterfuge; paint over both some true and some false patches so if one of them tried to give up the information later, the locations would be half wrong. The colonel had said that he wasn't suspicious of them, really, but also that if you thought of a layer of simple, untraceable deception that didn't need maintenance, that the best policy was probably to just go with it.

…He really liked working under Colonel Miller. This was downright brilliant.

oOo


oOo

June 5th 198 – Thursday – Near Tivoli, Italy

Relena frowned, rubbing at her arm absently. "Mu Ackroyd?"

Jake buried the frown that wanted to come up; she didn't seem to notice, but she fussed with the scar from the now old bullet wound when she was unsure of something. It wasn't as though it was an unusual habit to develop, but… he'd rather fucked up that night. It wasn't as though he thought he could have done any different or known better, or that it hadn't taught them both a few valuable lessons too, but it had still been his fuck-up, all the same.

All the same, this was frustrating, and Relena was right to be suspicious – Mu had never been on any of the personnel files he sorted through. When Dave's feeling better, I'm going to tear him a new one for this.

"Lieutenant Mu Ackroyd," he agreed, feeling resigned over the subject at this point. His friend had mentioned it practically in passing when he'd come to talk the other night, and it had already been irrevocably done anyway. And David had meant well, even if he was trying to drive him mad anymore.

"Dave had her transferred to us for a Mandarin translator for us almost two weeks ago and thought I'd already seen her paperwork," he explained. "She was on leave and the redundant notices got rerouted somewhere with how much we were moving about." And Dave probably made sure that they would have been too late for me to negate it even if the system had been working properly.

Relena's eyes sharpened as she looked up from the file she was reading to look at him. "You don't approve of her?"

He sighed. "I considered her at some point, and she's a friend of Dave's that he trusts implicitly. She's capable on all counts, but I didn't select her, and only found out I had an extra on my team three days ago."

"So he's stomping on your playground," she reiterated, a smile touching her lips as her blue eyes darkened by a shade or two of grey.

He laughed out a sigh. "Yes." He'd admitted to having territorial issues when he was nine; it wasn't exactly worth denying over a decade later.

She grinned broadly back at him and flicked her eyes back to the paper in front of her, taking it in with a glance before moving to set it back down and consider her planner. "If they're friends, he probably pushed it because he trusts her enough to feel less guilty about not working with us anymore."

"Which is understandable," Jake allowed, "but I'm still allowed to be irritated as hell with him."

"Mm." The mumble was amused and affirmative as she glanced back over his way. "You'll have to give some of that up if you like her, though."

"That would be the downside of not being able to yell at him before I properly meet her," he agreed wryly. David did know how he worked and flowed with the people around him, and wouldn't have made an addition that would upset that.

In theory, that was a good thing. In reality, that just made it all the more aggravating.

And it filled their day from comfortable to nearly stifling, with another new face to learn and watch…

He had been hoping to get up the nerve to finally visit Des today, but hadn't been willing to mention as much when David had given him the official transfer papers. He probably would have put it off again in favor of some simple distraction, but… the possibility being removed made him want to rage about it.

We'll come back through Tivoli soon enough, he reminded the less rational part of his mind. There wasn't really enough actual time today anyway; I was just giving myself an illusion to cop out of.

I should probably tell Relena to remind me come back to visit off the clock. She'll hold me to it.

As it was, he'd been avoiding direct contact with Des for the better part of three years already; another few weeks wouldn't hurt anything after this long.

And Lena was moving towards him, coffee cup in hand. Her smile was quietly smug. "You didn't sleep well, did you? Drink."

If his sleep deprivation was that easy to recognize, Lena probably deserved to keep her habit of fingering her scar. "Thank-you."

oOo


oOo

June 10th 198 – Tuesday – China

"I should get to bed," Wufei muttered, standing up.

Kailì grinned at him, standing as well. "Too true. I need to go rip out half of what my wife packed for me out of the suitcase and replace it with identical clothes just to irritate her."

Yu Zi rolled her eyes, not bothering to look up from her book. "Mom made me pack three days ago."

"She didn't pack it for you?" Kailì demanded of his daughter in mock disbelief. "Horrible woman."

"She said I was capable, and that if she didn't give you a template to work off of, you'd never work out what identical clothing to switch out what she selected for."

Yu Zi's tone was a sarcastic drawl, delivered with a completely straight face, making Wufei grin. The Lao family was always… interesting. Once he'd learned to stop taking any insult at face value, they were very pleasant, and he enjoyed spending most of his evenings there.

He was going to miss them. "I'll show myself out." Kailì and Yu Zi needed what time they had for last minute packing – identical contents or not, Wufei had no idea and didn't actually care – and sleeping if they could manage it, to start shifting time zones.

I should check that Shui hasn't passed out on his desk again. Just watching his graceless roommate move the next day when he'd let him sleep all night like that was painful. Shui wasn't the type to complain, but he wasn't subtle or in great control of his body either. But then, Wufei was willing to admit that very few individuals fit into his definition of having 'great control' over their bodies, and most of them were well versed in some type of martial art.

If he was going to be spending most of his time with Shui in their tiny bachelor's flat, eating out of the cafeteria like he had before Kailì had attacked him and somehow turned it into a dinner invitation, he might as well make sure it started off well.

"Wufei!"

He stopped at the front door as Xiu Juan darted down the hall, long hair looking a little haphazard, a slip of paper in hand. She had been laying down with Lien, he'd thought. "Is something wrong?"

She held out the piece of paper in her usual imperious way, along with an envelope. "You need to get these things from the store for dinner on Thursday; I need to start the sauce tomorrow."

Wufei frowned. Dinner? "You need me to go to the store?"

Her eyes narrowed slightly, though she seemed amused. "I have three children, Wufei; I'm not going to stop making dinner because I'll only have the little ones for a few weeks. I suppose you can bring that sloth of a hermit you live with, if it'll make you feel better about yourself."

…That was surprisingly nice and considerate, for Xiu Juan. He pulled up the flap and glanced into the envelope; money. Still a little surprised, he decided to take the bait and ask. "Why don't you go to the store?" Does Kailì usually do this?

The woman flicked her hair, looking annoyed. "I have no license to drive, and I have a four-year-old and no car seat even if I could. You would have a mother carry a toddler and enough food to feed a large family for a week at the same time?" She scowled. "What use are you anyway?"

At least she hasn't lost her charm, Wufei thought to himself wryly. Kailì would be devastated if she had. "Is there anything else you need me to do while they're gone?" he asked instead.

She smiled brilliantly at him, and actually reached out to pat his hand. "Good boy. Jia Li has kenpo lessons on Wednesday afternoons."

And now he knew why his coworker left early on Wednesdays. "I don't have a car."

She gave him a look like he was stupid.

…And he probably deserved it, knowing them as well as he did. "Right." Stepping around her, he strode quickly down the hall and into the doorway of the master bedroom where Kailì had what indeed looked like utterly identical sets of clothing piled all over the bed. Giving him a resigned look, he admitted, "I need your car keys."

The older man cackled and grabbed them off the dresser before throwing them at him. "You're a good kid, Chang."

You're a lousy mentor, Lao. Aloud, he muttered, "Thank-you, I think."

Kailì laughed again. "Was there anything you wanted me to do or get for you in Europe?"

That… probably deserved some consideration. "Mm."

oOo


oOo


Stranger Things


oOo


Holy shit, Lieutenant Lincoln "Lin" Sobrie is a real, fully-formed character… Believe it or not, it was only partway through this chapter that it occurred to me that he's the only minor bodyguard that I've ever used the POV of. And who has been in every stupidass situation they've managed to get into, and I have a ton of detail on him and next to nothing on the others… How did I miss that? He was the first frickin' bodyguard beyond Jake or Mitchell that was named too… every minor bodyguard point of view is from him, from minor shit to being freaked about Mitchell when Brussels was attacked, to seeing Relena coated in Jake's blood… and he and Relena are totally rather good friends at this point.

…I need to go tackle my subconscious and tell it to tell me when it's doing shit I'm apparently too busy to notice… I'm still not too clear with how I manage to build, back up, and foreshadow stuff like that without even noticing until afterwards, when I realize it's all perfectly lined up – beyond the fact that my subconscious still has better footwork than me, and catching up is often interesting, at least…

Thoughts? You guys totally hate me, I think, the only person who reviewed the last chapter was new to the series… I kinda deserve it, considering the long update times, but yeah. Hope you enjoyed it, at any rate.